"Swifter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sovereign qualities, from having been the object of so much service and desire. That stream was the only living thing left of the drama that had been played out in the canyon centuries ago. In the rapid, restless heart of it, flowing swifter than the rest, there was a continuity of life that reached back into the old time. The glittering thread of current had a kind of lightly worn, loosely knit personality, graceful and laughing. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... gentlewoman, [5261]a patient of his, whom by this means he found to be much enamoured, and with whom: he named many persons, but at the last when his name came whom he suspected, [5262]"her pulse began to vary and to beat swifter, and so by often feeling her pulse, he perceived what the matter was." Apollonius Argonaut. lib. 4. poetically setting down the meeting of Jason and Medea, makes them both to blush at one another's sight, and at the first they ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, She was last sister of that giant race That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, And swifter far of wing, a monster vast And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise In the report, as many ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nature as did matter itself; and as life is manifested by movement, the sources of life must needs seem to be placed in those luminous and eternal bodies, and above all in the Heaven in which they revolve, and which whirls them along with itself in that rapid course that is swifter than all other movement. And fire and heat have so great an analogy with life, that cold, like absence of movement, seemed the distinctive characteristic of death. Accordingly, the vital fire that blazes in the Sun and produces the heat ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... sides, by far the greater number of captures was made during the earlier period of the war which cleared the seas of the smaller, slower, and unarmed vessels. As the war progressed and the profits flowed in, swifter and larger ships were built for the special business of privateering until the game resembled actual naval warfare. Whereas, at first, craft of ten guns with forty or fifty men had been considered adequate for the service, three or four years later ships ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... of reason and imagination are for the purpose of assigning to each its separate intellectual capacities. From these orderings follows his idea that poetry is of an earlier date than philosophy, the product of an irregular faculty, less governable than the reason and of swifter development. In turn, these assumptions lead into a form of historical primitivism in which the products of the first poets were "extemporary effusions," rudely imitative of pastoral scenes or celebratory of the divine being. Thus the first generic distinction ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great branches, from time to time, which choked up the current and compelled it to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelier passages, there appeared a channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... incurred for his Majesty in opposing them, but all to no purpose. For either the Spaniards did not try to look for them, or did not find them, or indeed, when they met them, the enemy took to their heels; for on the one hand their boats are swifter, and on the other they come more as soldiers than our men, who seem to have inherited the carelessness and phlegm of the country. And truly, I think injustice has been done to the Joloans, and injustice should be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... feeling as they did that they would starve sooner than go back to slavery, those two bent to their oars in the darkness that closed them in, and rowed on with the swift tide. The lights on the shore grew fainter, the tide swifter, and the water became rough; but they rowed on, hungry, exhausted: on and on, ignorant of the set of the tides, of the trend of the coast, and without a drop of fresh water to satisfy their thirst. A mad, mad attempt; but it was for liberty—for ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... long miles from home, and the old hen and her chickens still with their bills in the dough, which Elster threw out to them as we were climbing the fence. And now, Sprigg, don't you see that with these red moccasins on your feet you are as swift as a young wild goose, if not swifter? Better still, you are no more to be seen in them, even when met by your own father, face to face—no more to be seen than the thin air you stand in! Then, what can catch you? What can hurt you? Sprigg, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... swifter and fiercer. I saw the blood dripping from Lawson's body, and his face ghastly white above his scarred breast. And then suddenly the horror left me; my head swam; and for one second—one brief second—I seemed to peer into a new world. A strange passion surged up in my heart. I seemed to see ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... a sufficient distance [and I shall raise my voice urging her swifter flight, that you may guess at that] then open the door with your key: but you must be sure to open it very cautiously, lest we should not be far enough off. I would not have her know you have a hand in this matter, out of my great ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... set off full speed; with the helpless Olivia screaming for aid! The moment Hector left the carriage I saw what was likely to happen, leaped from the cart where I sat, and flew like lightening after the frantic animals. Few men were swifter of foot than I was, but they had the start and were on the full gallop. The danger was imminent. On one side of the road was a gravel pit, on the other the river, and before them was a bridge, the walls of which were not breast high. A cart ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... simpler and swifter mode of writing is felt by all who have much writing to do—by newspaper men, by legal gentlemen, by clergymen, by students in taking class lectures and making notes of many things valuable for future "refreshment," authors and scientific men ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... with occasional heavy dashing showers, just to keep us interested. The country began more to open up. We passed many grass savannahs dotted with palms and a tree something like our locust. Herds of cattle fed there. The river narrowed and became swifter. Often our men had to lay aside their paddles in favour of the pole or tracking line. Once or twice we landed and walked for a short distance along the banks. At one place we saw several wild turkeys. At another something horrifying, rustling, and reptilian made a dash ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... a long time before the sparks came, and they occupied a large area in black space. Then the sparks came slowly flying, and generally, not always, effaced the roses at once, and every effort to retain the roses failed. Since an early age the flight of roses has annually grown smaller, swifter, and farther off, till by the time I was grown up my vision had become a speck, so instantaneous that I had hardly time to realise that it was there before the fading sparks showed that it was past. This is how they ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have; and to make them and multiply them more easily and with small force, by wheels and other means, and to make them stronger and more violent ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... any plan, at the port of the St. Lawrence. Ever a demon of unrest drove Law forward; ever there beckoned to him that irresistible West, of which he was one of the earliest to feel the charm. Farther and farther westward, swift and swifter than ever the boats of the fur traders had made the journey before, he and his party, led by Du Mesne, the ex-galley-slave and wanderer whom Law had by chance met again, and gladly, at Montreal, had made the long and dangerous run up the lakes, past Michilimackinac, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... they have found a way to die," his comrade answered in a whisper. "The Belshazzar feast of those Prussian swine, Monsieur, is the Calvary of every maid who does not find a swifter way to God—but the debauched officers know that, and keep them closely guarded. Oh," he cried, "our hearts give thanks that your country is coming to help us avenge these things! All along we have said that if the American spirit of decency and fairness—so ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be: In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... the torture of its leaden weight to the dying struggles. We are curiously made. In all the throng of gaping and sympathetic onlookers there was not one with common sense enough to perceive that an anvil would have been in better taste there than the Bible, less open to sarcastic criticism, and swifter in its atrocious work. In my nightmares I gasped and struggled for breath under the crush of that vast book for many ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... I will pursue all doomed by this despotic court, and, swifter than the lightning, strike a deadly weapon e'en in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... yellow brown, here in still expanse or slow progress, there sweeping along in fierce current. The quieter parts of it were dotted with trees, divided by hedges, shaded with ears of corn; upon the swifter parts floated ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... as to what lake really was the fountain-head. Some claimed that the stream from Itasca was not itself the main stream, but flowed into the river proper some three miles below the lake. The stream to which it was tributary, though narrower, was, they claimed, deeper and swifter, bringing to the united streams more water than the one from ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... But Nourgehan, at the entreaty of Damake, having commanded them to continue the conference, one of them demanded, "What is heavier than a mountain?" the other, "What is more cutting than a sabre?" and the third, "What is swifter than an arrow?" Damake answered that the first "was the tongue of a man that complains of oppression;" the second, "Calumny," and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Maxwell's, Lewis's, and Macdonald's Egyptian or Khedivial brigades. The nature of the ground forced some of them out of their true relative positions. Macdonald had marched out due west. The dervishes, like wolves upon the scent for prey, suddenly sprang from unexpected lairs. With swifter feet and fiercer courage than ever they dashed for the comparatively isolated brigade of Colonel Macdonald. Although I was far away at the moment with the 1st or Lyttelton's brigade, the shouts, the noise of the descending tornado reached me there. From behind the southern ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... old inventor cried. He turned some wheels and levers and the airship arose faster. Then he switched on the electric machinery. The big propeller began to revolve. Swifter and swifter it went. The Monarch, which had risen several hundred feet, started forward at a swift pace. "We are off for the north pole!" shouted the inventor. "Hurrah! The ship works! ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... its waters was as joyous as ever, but the spirits were quieted that used to answer it with sweeter freshness and lighter joyousness. Its faint echo of the old-time laugh was blended now in Fleda's ear with a gentle wail for the rushing days and swifter fleeing delights of human life;—gentle, faint, but clear,—she could hear it very well. Taking up her walk again with a step yet slower and a brow yet more quiet, she went on till she came in sight of the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... matter changed and turned to fire acquires The movement of a lighter element, Rising aloft unto the highest heaven; Wherefore, ignited by the fire of love, Swifter than wind, dost thou not rise and flash. Into the sun and be incorporate there? Why rather stay a pilgrim here below Than open through the air and us a way? No spark of fire from that heart Goes out through the wide atmosphere. Body of dust and ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Did ever horses gallop so fast? Swifter and yet swifter, till the air sang past them and the ground seemed to fly away beneath. The slope was done. They were on the flat; the flat was past, they were in the fields; the fields were left behind; and, behold! side by side, with hanging ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... of work goes on, hour after hour, with many merry laughs and many good jokes interspersed to make the time fly the swifter, we will wander about the establishment. Here, in the top story of the building, is the room of the type-setters. Every few minutes, from down-stairs in the Counting Room, comes a package of advertisements to be put into type; and from the Editorial ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... clayey, and the rain was unabsorbed. As Bressant entered upon it, he felt the cold moisture of the air meet his warm face refreshingly; he was breathing deep and regularly, and now let himself out to a yet swifter pace than before. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... yet swifter. Did ever horses gallop so fast? Swifter and yet swifter, till the air sang past them and the ground seemed to fly away beneath. The slope was done. They were on the flat; the flat was past, they were in the fields; the fields were ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... through, Have named the stream from its own fair hue. Yet pure its waters—its shallows are bright With colored pebbles and sparkles of light, And clear the depths where its eddies play, And dimples deepen and whirl away, And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot The swifter current that mines its root, Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, The quivering glimmer of sun and rill With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, Like the ray that streams from the diamond-stone. Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, With blossoms, and birds, and ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... could, but the excited horseman did not heed, perhaps not hear me: and away he went, at a tremendous speed, hatless, and his long gray-tinted hair streaming in the wind. It was absolutely necessary to follow. I therefore directed Elsworthy's horse, a much swifter and more peaceful animal than Dutton's, to be brought out; and as soon as I got into the high country road, I too dashed along at a rate much too headlong to be altogether pleasant. The evening was clear and bright, and I now and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... would be on the lines of the Red Cloud but it would be smaller and lighter and would also be capable of swifter motion. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... to Hootalinqua. He is now in the Lewes River which takes him for 25 miles to Big Salmon River and from Big Salmon River 45 miles to Little Salmon River—the current all this time taking him down at the rate of five miles an hour. Of course in the canyons it is very much swifter. ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... is the lonely thought Of a sage, a mountain-dweller, But swifter far was their rush Thro' the awful cold and the hush Of ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... this or that writer, I scarcely know by whom, that, in proportion as we grow old, and our time becomes short, the swifter does it pass, until at last, as we approach the borders of the grave, it assumes all the speed and impetuosity of a river about to precipitate itself into an abyss; this is doubtless the case, provided we can carry to the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... work of cleaning, burnishing, and overhauling engines, Guynemer had always shown a passion for mechanics. Becoming a pilot, and later on a chaser, he exhibited in the study and perfecting of his airplanes the same enthusiasm and perseverance as in his flights. He was everlastingly calling for swifter or more powerful machines, and not only strove to communicate his own fervor to technicians, but went into minute details, suggested improvements, and whenever he had a chance visited the workshops and assisted at trials. Such trials are sometimes dangerous. One of his friends, Edouard ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... "from its lights and position it will be some swifter power-boat and, I should say, not precisely ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... the sword of the spirit; Swifter than arrows The life of the truth is; Greater than anger Is ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... strong," she said. "When you see me pull, you must pull, too, and you must be very quick, for the nearer we get to the cascade the swifter runs the current. On a calm day I could save you, there wouldn't be a bit of fear; but on a rough day, in a storm like this, I mightn't be able to manage it. Now then, a strong pull, and a ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... flings a yell of triumph back, And grimly smiles as on he flies To hear their disappointed cries; Yet lest they may too soon pursue, He urges on the flight anew. He plies the paddle with a will, They skim the waves,—but swifter still A vengeful arrow cleaves the air, To sink between his shoulders bare. The shock is cruel, and the blade Falls from his hand; his powers all fade Like thought, and plunging on his face, Deathlike he lies. Now to his place Wenonah springs; with bloodless lip, With gleaming eye and nervous ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the Mount to swim in the river, and saw you in the distance among your sheep, there was a swifter river running through all my body. When I came every April to ask for your cherry-tree, what did it matter to me that it was not in bloom? for all my heart was wild with ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... was his flight, the working of his brain was even swifter, and very soon, without slackening his speed, he was swerving round again towards the open. He could see the moonlight gleaming through the trees, and he made a dash for it, utterly reckless, since ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... "He was swifter than an eagle; he was stronger than a lion." Over the humble grave in which he sleeps no shaft of granite rises to point to passers-by where this martyr to the cause of freedom lies. But when Justice shall write the names of true heroes upon the immortal scroll, she will write ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... above, Whose hand unweariable and untiring wing Strike music from a world that wailed and strove, Each bright soul born and every glorious thing, From very freedom to man's joy thereof, O time, O change and death, Whose now not hateful breath But gives the music swifter feet to move Through sharp remeasuring tones Of refluent antiphones More tender-tuned than heart or throat of dove, Soul into soul, song into song, Life changing into life, by laws that ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... went on. The men, whitened by the indoor life of the winter, were beginning to take on a bronze tan. Muscles hardened and become more springy. Running legs improved. The pitchers were sending in swifter balls, Joe included. The fungo batters were sending up better flies. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... though it be Feeble and powerless as a creeping babe. Let them break on the conscience of the base, As billows break upon the shifting sands, Crumbling the false foundations of his hope, And sweeping all his theories to naught: Let them rush swifter on him as he flees, Circle him with their terrors everywhere, Snatch from his clutching fingers every prop That guilt or error flings him, till he fall Into the waves of truth a drowning man With not a straw to grasp ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... anticipated by Olbers. The amount of tail-curvature, he pointed out, depends in each case upon the proportion borne by the velocity of the ascending particles to that of the comet in its orbit; the swifter the outrush, the straighter the resulting tail. But the velocity of the ascending particles varies with the energy of their repulsion by the sun, and this again, it may be presumed, with their quality. Thus multiple tails are developed when the same comet throws off, as it approaches perihelion, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... the terror-striking sword, His own fierce heart had tempered like its blade. What slaughter followed! Ah! what conflict wild! What swifter journeys unto darksome death! But blame not him! Ourselves have madly turned On one another's breasts that cunning edge Wherewith he meant mere blood ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... carry one, as fast as one's heels will carry one; as fast as one can lay legs to the ground, at the top of one's speed; by leaps and bounds; with haste &c. 684. Phr. vires acquirit eundo[Lat]; "I'll put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes" [M.N.D.]; "swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow" [M.N.D.]; go like a bat ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... but shaped like darts, and swifter than any plane of Earth. They shot along at 1000 miles an hour readily, as Arcot soon found out. It was not a minute before they had formed a long line that circled the Solarite at minimum speed, then ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... league balls and sewed them on rubber balls of his own making. They could not be distinguished from the regular article, not even by an experienced professional—until they were hit. Then! The fact that after every bounce one of these rubber balls bounded swifter and higher had given it the ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... three ships and the carvel—all four grown more or less foul-bottomed and slow—in the care of Captain Rause, with just sufficient men to work them. With the three dainty pinnaces and the oared shallop that Rause had taken, he hoped to make rather swifter progress than he had been making. He took with him in the four boats fifty-three of his own company and twenty of Captain Rause's men, arranging them in order according to the military text-book: "six Targets, six Firepikes, twelve Pikes, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... state. Dark, heavy clouds, rolling up behind us, swept slowly across the heavens. They gathered at our backs, and the sky there grew dark, while in front of us it still showed clear, except for a few fleecy cloudlets, racing merrily across the open. But the gathering clouds grew darker and swifter. In the distance could be heard the rattle of thunder, and its angry rumbling came every moment nearer. Large drops of rain fell, pattering on the grass, with a sound like the clang of metal. There was no place where we could ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... she reached it she knew that it was not the trout-stream along which she had wandered while her father fished. It was, in fact, not ordinary water at all, but something lighter, more sparkling with color, swifter, and louder. It effervesced, so that a creamy mist lay along its surface—this the smoke of bursting bubbles. It was like the bottled water she drank at ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... that new relations between things may be detected not merely by the staid and ordered process of collating abstractions, which is science, but by swifter and ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... see her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across the deck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still think I can distinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the whole sight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; the very wave that disclosed her fell burying her for ever; the mingled cry of many voices at the point of death rose and was quenched in the roaring of the Merry Men. And with that the tragedy was at an end. The strong ship, with all her gear, and the lamp ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pointing of Richard's finger. If William Durgin had testified falsely on that point, if he had swerved a hair's-breadth from the truth in that matter, then there was but one conclusion to be drawn from his perjury. A flash of lightning is not swifter than was Mr. Taggett's thought in grasping the situation. In an instant he saw all his carefully articulated case fall to pieces in his hands. Richard crossed the narrow room, and stood ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... buy from us to feed back to our stock, and how there's more meat in an elephant than in six steers, and about how the punchers will be riding round in these little cupalos up on top of their big saddle elephants; and they kept getting swifter and more excited in their talk, till at last they just naturally exploded when they made sure Safety got the idea and would know he'd been made a fool of. They had a grand time; threw their hats in the air ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Swifter than the Tartar's arrow, Lighter than the lark in flight, On the left foot now she bounded, Now she stood upon the right. Like a beautiful Bacchante, Here she soars, and there she kneels, While amid her floating tresses Flash ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... and annihilate it. It is a common-sense procedure, for then there is opportunity to gather one's force together again, to take a second breath, and to repeat with the other half of the enemy force the same manoeuvre. The Germans are no wiser, no swifter, no better, indeed, than are our own or the French peoples. If they are superior in any sort of way it is certainly only in their craft and cunning, in their methodical and painstaking attention to detail, and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... madam. By Heaven! but you carry it off easily!" cried the young cavalier, setting off at speed, as if to follow her. "But you must run swifter than a roe if you look to 'scape me;" and with the words, he attempted to rush past Raoul, of whom he affected, although he knew him well, to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... hill, over dale, Through bush, through brier, Over park, over pale, Through flood, through fire, I do wander every where, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green: I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... into the swirling water. Blake was still swifter in his movements. He caught the fugitive by the arm and ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Fame swifter than your winged navy flies Thro' ev'ry land that near the ocean lies, Sounding your name, and telling dreadful News To all ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... fine elegant rascal, that can rise, And stoop, almost together, like an arrow; Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star; Turn short as doth a swallow; and be here, And there, and here, and yonder, all at once; Present to any humour, all occasion; And change a visor, swifter than a thought! This is the creature had the art born with him; Toils not to learn it, but doth practise it Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks Are the true ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... Gammer said—a witch, weaving overnight her spell about poor Margery? He knew how it would have been; he had heard whispers about these things before; the dying embers on the hearth, the little waxen figure laid to melt thereon, the witch-woman weaving the charm about—now swifter, faster circling—with passes of ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... times faster than the corresponding terms of another geometric progression. As any geometric progression (of ratio equal to 2 or more), no matter how slow, outruns every arithmetic progression, no matter how fast, so one geometric progression may be far swifter than another one of the ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... turned into the level county road and then swifter that they might come into Hill's Corners before it was midnight. When at last the twinkling lights of Dead Man's Alley winked at them Comstock struck a match and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... find himself so much regarded by the prince, and resolved to gain yet higher honours. "Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of what the mechanick sciences can perform. I have been long of opinion, that instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots, man might use the swifter migration of wings; that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and idleness need crawl ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... capable. When a man of good position, of whom much is expected, takes to evil courses, his progress is apt to resemble that of a well-bred woman who has started on the downward path,—the pace is all the swifter because of the distance which must be traversed to reach the bottom. Delamere had made rapid headway; having hitherto played with sin, his servant had now become his master, and held him in ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... let me finish," said Oddo. "You may want a messenger,—he or you; and I know every track in the country: and there is no one swifter of foot, or ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... and never thrives til he free himself from them, which is till warm weather comes, and then as he growes stronger, he gets from the dead, still water, into the sharp streames and the gravel, and there rubs off these worms or lice: and then as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter streams, and there lies at the watch for any flie or Minow that comes neer to him; and he especially loves the May flie, which is bred of the Cod-worm or Caddis; and these make the Trout bold and lustie, ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: a' shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... at any rate, though I believe that strict history will not bear it out, that the only bridge ever carried away on the main branch, within the limits of the town, was driven up stream by the wind. But wherever it makes a sudden bend it is shallower and swifter, and asserts its title to be called a river. Compared with the other tributaries of the Merrimack, it appears to have been properly named Musketaquid, or Meadow River, by the Indians. For the most part, it creeps through broad meadows, adorned with scattered oaks, where the cranberry ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... palaces, broad lands, jewels, elephants, villages; the esteem of my people, the love of my father and of my mother, of whom I am the only son. All of which is nothing, nothing compared with my love for thee. A love as virgin as the snow upon the Everlasting Hills, swifter than Mother Ganges, deeper than the Indian Ocean, and higher than the vault of heaven. What matter custom, or law, or regulation, or colour, when such a love as mine is offered? Thou as my wife, thou, and thy children my only ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... come from your king to ask whither are you flying? See you not that the horses of the unbelievers are swifter than yours?' ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... with witches: the white witch rides Swifter than smoke on the starlit wind. In the clear darkness, while the moon hides, They come like dreams, like something remembered . . Let us hurry! beloved; take my hand, Forget these things that trouble your eyes, Forget, forget! ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... applied to the hempen strand sent the ferry many feet from the shore out into the river, where the current was much swifter than usual, owing to the heavy rainfalls. The horses on the great cumbersome craft ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... she said, "or I will lose my own life and the lives of my three sons that are the best fighting men in the whole world." "We will take the beast for you if you have a mind," said Finn. "Do not try to do that," she said, "for I myself am swifter than you are, and I cannot come up with it." "We will not let it go till we know what sort of a beast is it," said Finn. "If you yourself or your share of men go after it, I will bind you hand and foot," said she. "It is too stiff your talk is," said Finn. ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... He who orders and holds together the universe, (24) in which are all things beautiful and good; (25) who fashions and refashions it to never-ending use unworn, keeping it free from sickness or decay, (26) so that swifter than thought it ministers to his will unerringly—this God is seen to perform the mightiest operations, but in the actual administration of the same abides himself invisible to mortal ken. Reflect further, this Sun above our heads, so visible to all—as we suppose—will ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... holding high festival. He emptied and rode off with it in the usual manner. A cry arose behind him: "Three-legs, come out!" and, looking round, he saw a monster pursuing him. Finding this creature unable to come up with him, he heard many voices calling: "Two-legs, come out!" But his horse was swifter than Two-legs. Then One-leg was summoned, as in the story already cited from Mecklenburg, and came after him with gigantic springs, and would have caught him, but the door of his own house luckily stood open. He had scarcely entered, and slammed it ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... often come upon the river, but if it does, the deep channel of the Isisi focuses all the joy of it. Here the river runs as straight as a canal for six miles, the current swifter and stronger between the guiding banks than elsewhere. There are rocks, charted and known, for the bed of the river undergoes no change, the swift waters carry no sands to choke the fairway, navigation is largely a matter ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... windows of heaven to give light unto the earth, and spreads the cloak of the night to cover the rest of labour. He closeth the eye of Nature and waketh the spirit of reason; he travelleth through the mind, and is visible but to the eye of understanding. He is swifter than the wind, and yet is still as a stone; precious in his right use, but perilous in the contrary. He is soon found of the careful soul, and quickly missed in the want of his comfort: he is soon lost in the lack of employment, and not to be recovered without a world of endeavour. He ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... whirlwind of destruction involving them. Battered, torn, rent into groups, the survivors at length began to move off rapidly across our front, to their left. As yet there was no running away, they were but changing direction and massing at another point. With, if possible, swifter, deadlier fire they were followed and driven. Maxims, Lee-Metfords, and Martini-Henrys from Maxwell's brigade shattered the loose and weakened dervish columns. The few rounds fired back at us by the enemy from their Krupp gun and rifled cannon, which were ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One sees occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling Quicksilver, O swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... swallow o'er the heath, Swifter than skims the cloud-rack of the skies; As swiftly flies its shadow underneath, And on his wing the twittering sunbeam lies, As bright as water glitters in the eyes Of those it passes; 'tis a pretty thing, The ornament of meadows and clear skies: With dingy breast ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... than he realized Steve stood gazing down into the burnt-out fireplace, until another thought, swifter even than the impulse that had lifted him across the threshold and thrust him into speech which, already, he would have given much to recall, whirled him around again. There was a light in the near end of the storehouse building just above his own cabin, and as he ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... screeching into thin and acid flame-music, transposed his soul. He saw the battle of the molecules, the partitioning asunder of the elements; saw sound falling far behind its lighter-winged, fleeter-footed brother; saw the inequality of this race, "swifter than the weaver's shuttle," and felt that he was present at the very beginnings of Time and Space. Like unto some majestic comet that in passing had blazed out "Be not light; be sound!" the fire-god mounted to the blue basin of Heaven and left time behind, but not space; for ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... doorways, watching her progress. The next moment she leaned forward to clutch the baluster, and the light of the candle fell full on Emory Keenan, lurking in the open passage. A sudden sharp cry of "Surrender!" The young mountaineer, confused, swiftly drew his pistol. Others were swifter still. A sharp report rang out into the chill crisp air, rousing all the affrighted echoes—a few faltering steps, a heavy fall, and for a long time Emory Keenan's life-blood stained the floor of ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the ground in a safe place? With every ounce of power, his propeller crank revolving like lightning, still he made alarmingly slow progress. Good reason why. Two of his propeller blades were shot off. The other two were revolving swifter than can be imagined. He felt that he was drifting down, down, amid the riff-raff, smoke and confusion of a battlefield over, which the thunders of conflict ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... grieveth more for the other's malice than for his own wrong; when he prayeth heartily for those that despitefully use him, and forgiveth them from his heart; when he is not slow to ask pardon from others; when he is swifter to pity than to anger; when he frequently denieth himself and striveth altogether to subdue the flesh to the spirit. Better is it now to purify the soul from sin, than to cling to sins from which we must be purged hereafter. Truly we deceive ourselves by the inordinate ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... angered Pope is a compound of contrition and firmness. No words could express swifter readiness to accept rebuke or a more passionate humility: none could more vigorously maintain the unwelcome convictions which had given offence. There are various surmises as to the exact occasion of the misunderstanding to which this letter refers: were we ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... often been claimed that the London postal service was swifter than that of New York, and I have always believed that the claim was justified. But a doubt has lately sprung up in my mind. I live eight miles from Printing House Square; the Times leaves that point at 4 o'clock in the morning, by mail, and reaches me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... o'er the fence; The double crack of every lifted gun, The dinting thud of birds whose course is done— These sounds, delightful to his listening ear, He heeds no longer, for he cannot hear. None stauncher, till the drive was done, defied Temptation, rooted to his master's side; None swifter, when his master gave the word, Leapt on his course to track the running bird, And bore it back—ah, many a time and oft— His nose as faultless as his mouth was soft. How consciously, how proudly unconcerned, Straight to his master's side he then returned, Wagged ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... But Tarzan, swifter than his heavy fellows, distanced them all. It was he who was first upon the scene. What he saw sent a cold chill through his giant frame, for the enemy was the most hated and loathed of all the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a century there had been tragic scenes enough in France, but now the only man who could have conducted Philip's schemes to a tragic if not a successful issue was gone. Friendly death had been swifter than Philip, and had removed Alexander from the scene before his master had found fitting opportunity to inflict the disgrace on which he was resolved. Meantime, Charles Mansfeld made a feeble attempt to lead an army from the Netherlands into France, to support the sinking fortunes of the League; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... genial person with a bold and merry eye, laughed again. "Well met, Don Cristoval. Well met, Admiral! I looked to find you presently! You sailed out of port at sunrise and I two hours later with a swifter ship and more canvas—" ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... dashed on with undiminished speed, when we felt the earth trembling behind us, and soon afterwards the distant bellowing mixed up with the roaring and sharper cries of other animals, were borne down unto our ears. The atmosphere grew oppressive and heavy, while the flames, swifter than the wind, appeared raging upon the horizon. The fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with wolves and panthers; droves of elks and antelopes ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... peaceful thought again, or the respect o' men and women. But maybe he didn't even think o' all this, but just did the brave act naturally—instinctively. No, he would not be saved without her. And—the ropes were both out o' reach, now, and the ice cake was floatin' swifter, and swifter, and, dear! dear! breakin' at ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... at a great rate, and although he did not look very graceful he ran in a way to do credit to his Kentucky breeding. But the Sawhorse was swifter than the wind. Its wooden legs moved so fast that their twinkling could scarcely be seen, and although so much smaller than the cab-horse it covered the ground much faster. Before they had reached the trees the Sawhorse was far ahead, and ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... also, for the dear boy lying upstairs had friends everywhere, and older neighbors thought of him even more anxiously and tenderly than his mates. It was not fever, but some swifter trouble, for when Saturday night came, Ed had gone home to a longer and more peaceful Sabbath than any he had ever known in ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... River, rapid River, Swifter now you slip away; Swift and silent as an arrow, Through a channel dark and narrow, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... mark of her guns to be the falcon, and asking whether they had any other ship of that name, they said, No; whereupon, the falcon being Whitelocke's coat of arms and the mark of the ship's guns, and she being built swifter of sail than ordinary, Whitelocke gave her the name of the 'Falcon.' This pleased Wrangel very much, and the seamen and workmen were most pleased with the gratuity which Whitelocke bestowed on them; and this ceremony and compliments ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... And spread themselves through all the space of heaven Upon one instant of the day, and fly O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then Of those which on the outside stand prepared, When they're hurled off with not a thing to check Their going out? Dost thou not see indeed How swifter and how farther must they go And speed through manifold the length of space In time the same that from the sun the rays O'erspread the heaven? This also seems to be Example chief and true with what swift speed The images of things are borne ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... from out of the mists rode the prince, and with him ran a few of his men, swiftly as mountain men will, so that the horse was no swifter up the steep. After them, through the mist, from men I could not see, sped an arrow, badly aimed, which fell short, and told ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... the shaft, come out into that world wherever the shaft ended, then try to fight his way through to the great hall where he hoped to find Phee-e-al. And his haste made him overestimate the passing time; their journey had been swifter than he knew. ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... from the stinging of the sweet wind in his face, that Nagger was being pulled along at a tremendous pace. The faithful black could never have made the wind cut so. Lower the wild stallion stretched and swifter he ran, till it seemed to Slone that death must ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... other way. Fear not that!—Do you attend at all to this new Laudism of ours? It spreads far and wide among our Clergy in these days; a most notable symptom, very cheering to me many ways; whether or not one of the fatalest our poor Church of England has ever exhibited, and betokening swifter ruin to it than any other, I do not inquire. Thank God, men do discover at last that there is still a God present in their affairs, and must be, or their affairs are of the Devil, naught, and worthy of being sent to the Devil! This once given, I find that all is given; daily History, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... thy happy flight, With swifter motion haste to purer light, Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle To hail thy genius, and applaud thy toil; Where intuition breaks through time and space, And mocks experiment's successive race; Sees tardy Science ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... series. The upshot of their discussion was to shift the apex of movement to R.A. 289 deg., Decl. 51 deg.. So far as the difference from the previous pair of results is capable of interpretation, it would seem to imply a predominant set toward the northeast of the twenty-six swifter motions subsequently dismissed as prejudicial, but in truth the data employed were not accurate enough to warrant so definite an inference. The Albany proper motions, as Prof. Boss was careful to explain, depend for the most part ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... the paradoxes that sit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the fact of two things being different implies that they are similar. The hare and the tortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, but they must agree in the quality of motion. The swiftest hare cannot be swifter than an isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. When we say the hare moves faster, we say that the tortoise moves. And when we say of a thing that it moves, we say, without need of other words, that there are things that do not move. And even in the act of saying that things ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton |
