"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... darkly and unintelligibly expressed, I will explain it by the familiar instance of some great king or prince, whom every one shall suppose to swim in a luxury of wealth, and to be a powerful lord and master; when, alas, on the one hand he has poverty of spirit enough to make him a mere beggar, and on the other side he is worse than a galley-slave to his own lusts ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... shall swim, he shall fence, and he shall row," he said. "He shall learn all gallant sports, as becomes an English gentleman. And he shall ride,—not as I ride, God forbid! like a monkey strapped on a dog at a fair, but as a centaur, as a young demigod. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... increasing spiral, surveying the near and minute objects first, then the larger and more distant, till having circled about the spot five or six times and taken all its bearings it darts away for home. It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee till it is fairly off. Sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun. This bee gradually drifts down the hill, then strikes away toward a farm-house half a mile away, where I know bees are kept. Then we try another and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... afternoon the young Davy was in the habit of going off with another boy, of his own age, in his father's boat. When they had rowed a couple of miles from the shore, they lay to, stripped, and went into the water to swim, diving and sporting among the waves, like two sea-gulls taking their pastime in the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... light may steep The still blue air; The rose hath ceased to droop and weep, For lo! her joy is there. He sings to her, and o'er the trees She hears his sweet notes swim, The world may weary—she but hears Her love, and hears ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... the river Osharu, one of the largest of the Yezo streams. It was much swollen by the previous day's rain; and as the ferry-boat was carried away we had to swim it, and the swim seemed very long. Of course, we and the baggage got very wet. The coolness with which the Aino guide took to the water without giving us any notice that its broad, eddying flood was a swim, and not a ford, was ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... There were things there that made his brain swim. Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... You must push through the reed grass to find the sword-flags; the stout willow-herbs will not be trampled down, but resist the foot like underwood. Pink lychnis flowers behind the withy stoles, and little black moorhens swim away, as you gather it, after their mother, who has dived under the water-grass, and broken the smooth surface of the duckweed. Yellow loosestrife is rising, thick comfrey stands at the very edge; the sandpipers run where the shore is free from bushes. Back by the underwood the prickly ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... him stained green with the clay that underlies the glaciers, and swollen by rain and snow. There was a big pool above him, lake-like and still, but it was too wide for any weary and shivering man to swim, and the wild, white rush of a rapid close below. Alton glanced at both of them and a cluster of smaller trees across the river, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... slipping, sliding through The water, that caresses, yields, resists, Wrapping my sight in cooling, gray-green mists. Another moment, my body swirls, I rise, Shaking the water from my blinded eyes, And strike out strong, glad that I am alive, To swim back to the gray old pile from ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... flushed at first, paled as he read on. It was perfect art. Form triumphed over substance, if triumph it could be called where the last conceivable atom of substance had found expression in so perfect construction as to make Martin's head swim with delight, to put passionate tears into his eyes, and to send chills creeping up and down his back. It was a long poem of six or seven hundred lines, and it was a fantastic, amazing, unearthly thing. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... in fact, that during the last two days he had conceived, and begun to put into practice, the never-before-heard-of invention of a machine for enabling a swimmer to swim up-stream at the rate of eight to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Heavens loves not to see things alike. He therefore made the leaf of the oak to differ from that of the hickory, and the pine from both, and also the white race from the red. And, for the same reason, he taught the white man to make big lodges of wood, and brick and stone, and to swim over the waters in large canoes with wings: while to the red man he gave the forests and prairies, with the deer, and bear, and buffalo, and caused him to dwell in very small wigwams made of bark. And so, also, he taught my white brother to weave ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... to sit exactly in the middle of the boat, so that she should not overbalance it. She closed her eyes, sitting very still, and heard the water saying plup-plup-plup all round her, and she was afraid. It meant soft death: she could not forget that. Jenny could not swim. She was stricken between terror and joy that ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... all doubt—and nobody in it! The empty inside of the boat was perfectly visible to me. Even if I had felt inclined to do so, it would have been useless to jump into the water and swim to the boat. There were no oars in it, and therefore no means of taking it back to the mill. The one thing I could do was to run to old Toller and tell him that his ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... my head forward into the smoke, as a green ham is thrust into a chimney. The warm vapour struck against my face like fog, or rather steam, but without causing me to choke or my eyes to smart. I drew it down my throat with a deep inhalation—once, twice, thrice, then as my brain began to swim, threw myself back as I had been instructed to do. A deep and happy drowsiness stole over me, and the last thing I remember was hearing the clock strike the first two strokes of the hour of ten. The third stroke I heard ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... property of our guide, is a huge mass of rock, nearly perpendicular, while at one end is the witch's rock resembling the ship in full sail. Drangey is the home of innumerable eider-ducks, who swim at will in and about the surrounding waters. The drake is a very handsome bird, a large portion of his plumage being white; the hen is smaller, and brown in colour. In disposition the birds are very shy and retiring. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... can testify; but, nine times out of ten, the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance, I never knew a man to be drowned who was ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... halibut] for twenty years, and I can't say I've found it yet. But look here—you seem to have a fondness for talking to your betters—suppose you go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea Vitch. He may know something. Don't flounce off like that. It's a six-mile swim, and if I were you I should haul out and take a nap first, ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... thought. The ship was not dancing about, and there was a bright ray of sunshine cutting the darkness outside the place where he lay, and once or twice he had inhaled a breath of sweet, balmy, summer-like air. Then, too, his head did not swim so much in an erect position, and he let Barney go on talking in his rough, good-humoured fashion, and help him on with some clothes; bring him a bowl of water in which he had a good wash; and when at last ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... but she dared not show her grief before her parents, and the only relief she could find from her sorrow was to swim over by starlight to the island where she had been accustomed to meet her lover, and there, calling upon his name, bewail the loss of him who was dearer to her ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... Bergantin ended with a vexatious accident. Our host had lent us one of his finest saddle-horses. We were warned at the same time not to ford the little river of Narigual. We passed over a sort of bridge, or rather some trunks of trees laid closely together, and we made our horses swim, holding their bridles. The horse I had ridden suddenly disappeared after struggling for some time under water: all our endeavours to discover the cause of this accident were fruitless. Our guides conjectured that the animal's legs had been ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... care, all by instinct; and the kittens instinctively respond to her attentions. She conducts herself during the day with remarkable cleanliness of life, making arrangements which civilized man follows with admiration. She shows just the right abhorrence of water for a creature that is not able to swim. She knows just what enemies to fly from and when to turn and fight, using with inborn dexterity her formidable claws. She prefers nocturnal excursions and sociabilities, having eyes which make it safe to be venturesome in the ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... amusement, and for the amusement of adults, not of children; and if it were the only product of Gascoigne's pen it would justify the remark of an early 17th century critic, who says of this writer that he "brake the ice for our quainter poets who now write, that they may more safely swim through the main ocean of sweet poesy"; for, to quote a modern writer, "with the blood of the New comedy, the Latin comedy, the Renaissance in its veins, it is far ahead of its English contemporaries, if not of its time[110]." The play ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... ungrateful animal as man. The old king was now left with no other companion than the poor fool, who still abided with him, with his merry conceits striving to outjest misfortune, saying it was but a naughty night to swim in, and truly the king had better go in and ask his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... rather surprised to find that the captain and his wife treated him more like a little boy than a "chap of thirteen—in fact, almost fourteen," as he put it to himself. He used to take Jack and Roy out on the river and to the baths, where he taught them both to swim. To use Ted's own expression to a brother-sub, "Dick was making a thorough nursemaid and tutor of himself to those kids of the captain's." He was teaching them certainly, unconsciously, but steadily, a great ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... natural and healthy craving of our spirit; an appetite which we have neither will nor power to destroy, and for which all mankind are busily employed in making provision. This is as natural, as for birds to fly, or fishes to swim. For this the scholar and the philosopher, who think it consists in knowledge, pore over their books and their apparatus, light the midnight lamp, and keep frequent vigils, when the world around them is asleep. For this the warrior, who thinks that happiness is inseparably united ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... filtering through the clear green sea is weak and pale. The water streams through caverns, swaying the exquisite sea-weeds that line the walls; and outside, round about, whales, sea-snakes and all manner of water beasts swim in play or struggle for mastery. In one of the caverns stands a great throne of red gold, ornamented with graceful sea fringe, pearls and amber. From without one may gaze up to the amber-colored ceiling, or down to the pavement of lustrous ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... itself on the solitary scene instantly became an object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of the waterfowl gradually followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer and nearer to the dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised on the water, viewed from a safe ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... this rigmarole I asked for food, since my head was beginning to swim from my long fast. This, to my terror, put him into a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... gently carried along by the stream; to look at the sky with the moon and stars above one, and, on either side, to see the wooded mountain-tops and castle parapets in the moonlight, and to hear nothing but the gentle rippling of one's own motion. I should like a swim like this every evening. Then I drank some very good wine, and sat long talking with Lynar on the balcony, with the Rhine beneath us. My little Testament and the starry heavens brought us on Christian topics, and I long shook at the ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... sudden vision of something black. A moment or two he sat breathlessly gazing; and then—was he asleep, or was he waking, and really saw it?—he saw above the water a black cat's head. Black head, black paws put out to swim, black back, ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... you'll find her quite a different proposition when she wakes up? A plunge like that is a sobering sort of experience, I should say, for a girl who can't swim. She may be the meekest thing on earth after this. If it does her as much good as a lively dressing down did George Jarvis, she's likely ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... Consul reported that he saw helpless people brained with clubs, while children were killed by beating their brains out against the rocks. Other children were thrown into rivers and those who could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water. Crimes that have been, and are being, practiced upon Armenian women are too cruel and horrible for words. The mutilated corpses of hundreds bear testimony to this ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... were encamped by another deep, swift-running stream. After being wearied and overheated by a rabbit chase, Turk attempted to swim across this little river, but was chilled, and would have perished had not Will rushed to the rescue. The ferryman saw the boy struggling with the dog in the water, and started after him with his boat. But Will reached the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... not having committed sin, not merely pure, as not inheriting any derived evil, but was positively holy in his very being." This, we suppose, must mean that he was inclined by nature to do right, rather than wrong. It was as natural for him to love God as for a fish to swim or a bird to fly. Nothing less than this, certainly, would deserve to be ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... out to be alive an' well, thank God. So we can spend the evenin' decidin' jist what to do an' say to-morrow. The first thing in the mornin' Louis Everard will be over to see you. Since he heard of your comin', he's been jist wild, for he was your favorite; you taught him to swim, an' to play ball, an' to skate, an' carried him around with you, though he's six years younger than you. He's goin' to be a priest in time with the blessin' o' God. Then his mother an' sister, perhaps Sister Mary Magdalen, too; an' your uncle Dan Dillon, on your father's side, he's the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... we do?" whispered Elena. "Even if we can swim around their radius of sight we can't land just anywhere. Most of the island is vertical ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... afraid," returned Brother Jacques, a secret happiness possessing him. "Besides, I can swim." He recognized the danger of beauty in close proximity, but he unwisely forgot the dangers of time and place. How much rarer the world becomes to the man who has seen flower gardens and beautiful women moving to and fro among them! Ah, that ragged, rugged ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... household. On Monday morning he got out of bed at half-past five and went down to the sea to bathe. He wore nothing except his pyjamas and an old pair of canvas shoes, and so was obliged to go back to his bedroom again after his swim. As he passed Major Kent's door he hammered vigorously on it with his fist. When he thought he had made noise enough to awaken his friend, he turned the handle of the door, put his head ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came to him—that he might be able to get the shore, as he heard the cries of people on the bank. It was a hope that died at the moment of its birth, however, for he was struck by a falling timber ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... early age into smart society, is whirled perpetually round in a vortex of pleasures and excitements. In the effort to keep her head above water, she is as likely as not to lose it. This condition she naturally describes as "being in the swim." In the unceasing struggle to maintain herself there, she may perhaps shorten her life, but she will apparently find a compensation in the increased length of her dressmaker's bills. She is ordinarily the daughter of aristocratic parents, who carefully allowed her to run wild ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim, And the sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim, And on the very sun's face ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... educated horse-wrangler we had— the college fellow that tangle-foot drove to the range? Whenever Scurry saw that come-meet-your-honey brand on anything from the ranch, he'd wave his hand like that, and say, 'Our friend Lee Andrews will again swim the Hell's point to-night.'" ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... caves and narrow inlets of kelp fields, is a safer kind of hunting. Huge nets now made of twine, formerly of sinew, with wooden floaters above, iron sinkers below, are spread athwart the kelp fields. The tide sweeps in, washing the net flat. And the sea-otter swim in with the tide. The tide sweeps out, washing the net up, but the otter are enmeshed in a tangle that holds neck and feet. This is, perhaps, the {72} best kind of otter hunting, for the females and young can be thrown ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Idotea, half an inch long, prayed upon the Velellae. At another time, among many other pelagic crustacea, we obtained three kinds of Erichthus, a genus remarkable for the glassy transparency of its species, also Hyalaea inflexa and H. tridentata, curious pteropodous molluscs which swim near the surface. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... of course in the swim of those happenings at Joyflelds, could not be got to take the matter very seriously. In fact—beyond what concerned Felix himself and poetry—the matter that she did take seriously had yet to be discovered. Hers was one of those semi-detached natures particularly found in Hampstead. When ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... eye was sure, his hand was steady . . . But dreams had meanings. He walked more slowly, and looked along the roofs, All built by men, and saw the pale blue sky; And suddenly he was dizzy with looking at it, It seemed to whirl and swim, It seemed the color of terror, of speed, of death . . . He lowered his eyes to the stones, he walked more slowly; His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves; He thought of the pail . . . Why, then, was it forgotten? Because he would not ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... Pontifex, however, we do not care to respond to the challenge at all. The experiment is faked and proves nothing. It is mere humbug to declare that a man has been thrown into the waters of life to sink or swim, when there is an anxious but cool-headed friend on the bank with a L70,000 life-belt to throw after him the moment his head goes under. That is neither danger nor experience. Even if Ernest Pontifex knew nothing of the future awaiting him (as we are assured he did not) ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... pitch sooner than he expected. He had often ridden Kelpie into the sea at Portlossie, even in the cold autumn weather when first she came into his charge, and nothing pleased her better or quieted her more. He was a heavy weight to swim with, but she displaced much water. She carried her head bravely, he balanced sideways, and they swam splendidly. To the eyes of Clementina the mare seemed to ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey and a few brace of pigeons, by which time breakfast was ready. Then, to his dismay, the little man insisted on having a bath ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... were an amphibious set, who could live on land truly, but were happiest when in or near the water. To fish and swim, row, trim the sail, and guide the rudder, were accomplishments they all could boast. A bold, hardy, merry set they were; and but for the schoolmaster's rod and the teaching of their pious mothers, might have been as ignorant as oysters and merciless ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... molasses. And they eat it when parched without any other cooking, when they are on a long journey in the woods, or on the lakes. I have often eaten nice puddings made of it with milk. The deer feed upon the green rice. They swim into the water, and eat the green leaves and tops. The Indians go out at night to shoot the deer on the water; they listen for them, and shoot them in the dark. The wild ducks and water-fowls come down in great flocks to fatten on the ripe rice in the fall of the year; also large ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should have been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... of Dolphins raunged in aray Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent: They were all taught by Triton to obay To the long raynes at her commaundement: As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went. * * * * * "Upon great Neptune's necke they softly swim, And to her watry chamber swiftly carry him. Deepe in the bottome of the sea her bowre Is built of hollow ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... said, "and here it is: Men and things are so made that they have different likes. A rabbit likes a vegetarian diet. A lynx likes meat. Ducks swim; chickens are scairt of water. One man collects postage stamps, another man collects butterflies. This man goes in for paintings, that man goes in for yachts, and some other fellow for hunting big game. One man thinks horse-racing is It, with a big I, and another ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the Major, whose black eyes were beginning to swim in moisture; pravisimo his a goot song; put Natty Pumppo has a petter. Letter-Stockint, vilt sing? say, olt poy, vilt sing ter song as apout ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... sole effect of the warm bath moderately taken is, that it throws off the bad humours of the body by opening and clearing the pores. As to summer bathing, a father may soon teach his children to swim, and thus perhaps may be the means of saving their lives some day or other, as well as health. Ladies also, though they cannot bathe in the open air, as they do in some of the West Indian islands and other countries, by means of natural basins among the rocks, might oftener make a substitute ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... unable to swim. He attached one end of the rope round his chest and fastened the other end to the ship. Then he had slipped overboard among the piles of the wharf. By some means the end of the rope in the ship became detached. Duncan struggled to save himself and the rope became entangled ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Greece, only to meet disaster at Thermopylae, and here Alexander of Macedonia crossed over to begin his march of conquest which was to extend his power as far as India. And about this narrow strait is centered the ancient Greek myth about Hero and Leander, which inspired Byron to swim across from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... two hundred years ago, and he was a fighter. I heard the publisher telling a man about him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and seems to me, if I recollect right, I've read about it myself. He was courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights to see her when the old man was asleep. The girl's family were down on him, I reckon. He looks like a man to do that, don't he? He's got it in his eye. If it'd been me I'd gone over on a bridge; but he probably ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... help for it, so he waded in. The water filled his boots there, it gurgled about his hips, and beyond, as he could see, it seemed to grow deeper and deeper. The current was surprisingly strong; he found it difficult to keep his footing in the soft sand. It looked as though he must swim for it, and to swim in that tide would be ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... could not restrain a shout of alarm, for they knew that if the whale were to succeed in struggling again into water where it could swim, it would carry away spears and ropes; or, in the event of these holding on, would infallibly capsize and ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... continues white only so long as the tissue of the leaf remains perfect: when this is by any means destroyed, oxygen is absorbed from the atmosphere, and the principle becomes blue. The best indigo is so light as to swim upon water, but the commercial article seldom contains more than 50 per cent. of blue colouring matter or true indigo, the remainder consisting of ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... Lionel made his way down to the lowest ridge of the rock, so that he found himself just over the black-brown pool. And, indeed, his services were called upon much sooner than he had expected; for the salmon, grown tired of sulking, now began to swim slowly round and round, sometimes coming up so that they could just catch a glimmer of him, and again disappearing. But the fortunate thing for them was that there were no shallows to frighten the fish; he knew nothing of his danger as he happened to come sailing ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... father says!" said a little boy. "He can't swim, for he says it's better for a sailor not to be able to; it only keeps ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... for axin' mother then, but reckoned not for fear as he might be listenin' agin. But I knawed you was up Drift, 'cause I heard mother say that much; an' now I've sot eyes on you agin; an' I knaw you'll tell me what's wrong wi' you; an' if I can do anything for 'e I will, sink or swim." ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... hospitals—you and the fellow miscreants who have been your associates in this conspiracy are responsible. Of you and them it may, with truth be said, that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could be collected in one pool, the whole government of your Confederacy might swim in it. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the army of George III. We have the smartly dressed recruit as a decoy to suggest an easy life in the army. Victory and glory are so certain that a tailor stands with his feet on the neck of the King of France. The decks of captured ships swim with punch and are clotted with gold dust, and happy soldiers play with diamonds as if they were marbles. The senators of England, says Burgoyne, care chiefly to make sure of good game laws for their own pleasure. The worthless son of one of them, ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... now at a waltz—"the Olga,"—which is carried on with spirit, lasting a very long while—young Lark saying he does not waltz, for it makes his head swim; and that he has an objection to stand holding by the shelf, experiencing a sensation delightful as standing upon one's head in a swing, before a lady that ought to have your best attention;—however, for all Lark's protestations, we saw some ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... man for himself!" was now the cry, and the men made a rush to the two boats still hanging to the davits. A groan of despair burst from the poor fellows as, on one of them jumping into each to clear her away for lowering, it was found that neither boat would swim, some of the bottom planking being driven out in ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... and this notable performance, together with the well accredited reports of his almost fabulous wealth, secured for him two social sets,—the one composed of such human sharks as are accustomed to swim round the plutocrat,—the other of the cynical, listless, semi-bored portion of a so-called cultured class who, having grown utterly tired of themselves, presumed that it was clever to be equally tired of God. I was ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... [Sidenote: The swimming in the river Nid] King Olaf was then in the town. He heard of the coming of the ship and that men of great account were on board. It happened one fair-weather day in the autumn that the men went out of the town to swim in the river Nid. Kjartan and his friends saw this. Then Kjartan said to his companions that they should also go and disport themselves that day. They did so. There was one man who was by much the best at this sport. [Sidenote: Kjartan and the townsman] Kjartan asked Bolli if he ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... you couldn't see a bit of the foliage; and 'twas quite amusing to watch some of them lighting on the rice, which wasn't strong enough to support them, and trying to pick out the grains. As they could neither swim nor stand, they must have been thoroughly tantalized. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... him I'll go And race him in the Western train, And wake the hills of long ago And swim the Devon sea again. ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... pleasant visit to Coney Island; but the next time they go, they mean to take their bathing-dresses and have a swim. ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... involved in the same difficulty; would you not be glad to have him for your friend, rather than to stand alone in the dispute? Well, the case is the same. These lawyers, these moneyed men, these men of learning, are all embarked in the same cause with us, and we must all sink or swim together. Shall we throw the Constitution overboard because it does not please us all alike? Suppose two or three of you had been at the pains to break up a piece of rough land and sow it with wheat: would you let it lie waste because you could not agree what ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... considerable damage had been done to the bottom; great part of the sheathing was gone from under the larboard bow; a considerable part of the false keel was also wanting, and these indeed we had seen swim away in fragments from the vessel, while she lay beating against the rock: The remainder of it was in so shattered a condition, that it had better have been gone; and the fore foot and main keel were also damaged, but not so as to produce any immediate danger: What damage she might ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... do more than the smaller folk,' she said proudly, sailing up to Mother. 'We can't be overlooked, for one thing'; and arm-in-arm, like a pair of frigates then, they sailed about the room, magnificent as whales that swim in a phosphorescent sea. The Laugher straightened up to watch them, the Gardener turned his head, and Rogers and the children paused a moment in their artificial ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... we can," Thor's father said, with unperturbed gentleness; "but very often we can't. In a world where every one's swimming for his own dear life, those who can't swim ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... you do—swim?" queried Jack, pointing to the river that was now washing the shore of the strip of soil on which they stood—a river which seemed to stretch the entire breadth of ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... its hoard Would draw them forth for young and old, When the snow fell and winds blew cold. Here you may see where on the tile Stands Bishop Hatto's towered isle, While rats and mice on every side Swim through the Rhine's opposing tide. The armed grooms in vain ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was very sick in bed, that the doctor came and went, and that he grew sicker and sicker. He was going to die. He saw his wife sitting weeping by his pillow—his children standing by with pale and frightened faces; all things in his room began to swim, and waver, and fade, and voices that called his name, and sobs and lamentations that rose around him, seemed far off and distant in his ear. "O eternity, eternity! I am going—I am going," he thought; and in that hour, strange to tell, not one of all his good deeds seemed good enough to lean ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a day and a night to pull myself together after the first shock and surprise and to plunge into the swim to help fetch the waterlogged factions ashore. This was clearly indispensable to forcing the Democratic organization to come to the rescue of what would have been otherwise but a derelict upon a stormy sea. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... feeling is a testimony to their depravity and groveling tendencies. Aeronautics and nautics are an effort toward angelhood. Men can walk water who are willing to take a boat for an overshoe. So we may air when we get the right shoe. Browning gives us a delicious sense of being amphibian as we swim. And the butterfly, that winged rather than rooted flower, looking down upon us as we float, begets in us a great longing to be polyphibian. We have innate tendencies toward a life of finer surroundings, and we shall take to them ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... not now far off, not above fifty yards, among the big trees; but for hours past they had been away out of her sight, racing on their ponies over the great down; then bathing in the sea, Edward teaching his little brother to swim; then he had given him lessons in tree-climbing, and now, tired of all these exertions, and for variety's sake, they were amusing themselves by standing on their heads. Little Ethelred had tried and failed repeatedly, then at last, with hands and head firmly planted on the sward, ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... being delighted by my appearance with the news of our success, he would have given a twenty-franc piece, I dare say, to have been left undisturbed. Ah! he would very willingly have the little fishes in his net, but the big ones frighten him. The big fishes are dangerous, and he prefers to let them swim away." ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... From these, a splendid view of the park and country beyond may be obtained. In the foreground is a piece of water, bathing, with its rapid current, the grassy banks which border the wood, while the low-lying branches of the trees dip into the flood, on which swans, dazzlingly white, swim in stately fashion. Beneath an old willow, whose drooping boughs form quite a vault of pale verdure, a squadron of multicolored boats remain fastened to the balustrade of a landing stage. Through an opening in the trees you see in the distance fields of yellow corn, and ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... across the stream, swollen by excessive rains to a height much above its ordinary level. The confusion now became universal, horse and foot mingling together; each one, heedful only of life, no longer thought of his booty. Many, attempting to swim the stream, were borne down, steed and rider, promiscuously in its waters. Many more, scarcely making show of resistance, were cut down on the banks by the pitiless Spaniards. The young king Abdallah, who had been conspicuous during that ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... impatience grew as I neared St. Louis. A long day's ride brought me toward evening to the banks of the Maramec, full to the brim of its high banks with backwater from the Mississippi. I thought, at first, I would have to swim it, but, fortunately, I spied a horn hanging from the limb of a sycamore above my head, and I knew enough of the ways of this frontier country to know that a horn by a river-bank meant a ferry. So I blew it lustily, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... and washer and funeral-pall Swim under his sight in pale eclipse. The good God send that the shroud be small!— He bites the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... to see how perfectly they had mastered the art of self-concealment even when hardly a year old. Although at Hui-yao almost all were on the east side of the river, they did not seem to be especially averse to water, and several times I watched wounded animals swim across the stream. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... scheme so nearly the same as mine, that I might fairly have claimed it; and, moreover, the approval of several of his fellow-workmen, to whom he had spoken. I was a little "riled," I confess, by his manner, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard to sink or swim. But it seemed childish to relinquish a plan which I had once thought wise and well-laid, just because I myself did not receive all the honour and consequence due to the originator. So I coolly took the part assigned to me, which is something like ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pupil, and had done justice to the pains which his father had bestowed upon him and to the training he had undergone. He could wield the arms of a man, could swim the coldest river, endure hardship and want of food, traverse long distances at the top of his speed, could throw a javelin with unerring aim, and send an arrow to the mark as truly as the best of ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... with the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures, both those that swim, and those that fly; the former in the sea, the latter in the air: he also sorted them as to society and mixture, for procreation, and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the animal to look this way and that, to turn its ears about to determine the direction of a sound, and to perform endless motions in connexion with biting and so forth easily. We may note that in types which swim through the water, the neck dose not appear— in the fish and frog, for instance— and the head simply widens out as one passes back to the body. The high resistance offered by water necessitates this tendency to a cigar or ship outline, just as it has determined the cigar ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... lot of papers. Some of them were maps. I knew it wouldn't be any use to take them to billets, because the wires were all down on account of the rain. So I started through the marshes to get into the road to Rheims. Those marshes are worse than the ones we have here. Sometimes I had to swim. It took me two hours, I guess. Anyway, if you have to do a ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 'Teresa!' How could I go home and look her in the face, did I let thee die, and by the very death thou savedst her from? So in I went; and luckily for us both I swim like a duck. You, seeing me near, and being bent on destruction, tried to grip me, and so end us both. But I swam round thee, and (receive my excuses) so buffeted thee on the nape of the neck with my steel ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... gate, then to the left down a lane near the railroad ordering his men to follow; Finding himself alone he halted for a few moments to wait for his men, and on seeing there was some impediment in the way of the rebels caused by a cattle dyke, which they were compelled to pass over or swim the Licking river, he drew his saber and entered the columns cutting it in two, using his saber right and left as he passed up the track to the dyke, the enemy passing on either side, and thereby he cut off and held all that had yet to cross ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin
... play (more than a child or neighbor) is offered for a sudden judgment—to sink or swim upon a first impression—and its christening is an especial peril. I have fretted for a month to find a title for ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks |
