"Sweep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crying, and he did not know what abandonment of grief their tender frames can sustain—grief that seemingly would kill a man if he could feel it. Long, gurgling sobs followed one another as the waves of the sea sweep over the head of a straggling swimmer. Every now and then they were interrupted by sharp cries of exquisite anguish, such as might be wrung out by the sudden twist of a rack, and then would come a low, shrill crooning sound, almost musical, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... noticeable feature of this vast war-ridden region is its mountains. Those same Carpathian Mountains, which form the natural boundary between the land of the Magyars and the Russian plains, take a sudden turn westward at the Rumanian frontier, then sweep around in a great semicircle, forming a shape resembling a scythe, the handle of which reaches up into Poland, the blade curling around within the Balkan Peninsula. Behind the handle, and above the upper part of the blade, stretch the broad plains ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... dream. Below me, a little to the right, Monaco jutted out into the purple sea. I could distinguish carriages and pedestrians coming and going on the chaussee between the promontory and Monte Carlo, but I was far too high for any sound to reach me. Away to the left the coast took a magnificent sweep, past the clustering houses of Roccabruna, past the mountains at whose base Mentone nestled unseen, past the Italian frontier, past the bight of Ventimiglia, to where the Capo di Bordighera stood faintly outlined between sea and sky. There was not a solitary sail on the whole expanse of the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... of the young lady that amazed them so? She was beautiful, certainly. A simple but costly lace mantle floated, wave-like, round her superb figure; the rich tresses of her hair were covered by a slight veil of Brussels lace, which allowed her long curls a l'Anglaise to sweep down on both sides over her marble-smooth shoulders and ravishingly beautiful bosom. And then that face, that complexion like a faintly blushing rose, that look worthy of a goddess, those burning black eyes so full of vivacity and passion, and contrasting so strangely with the childlike lips ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... table-land, it hailed him in the long-drawn sighing of the fir forest. For a wind, suddenly awakened, swept towards him from some far distance, neared, broke overhead, as summer waves upon a shingly beach, died in delicious whispers, only to sweep up and break and die again. Meanwhile the gray pall of cloud parted in the west, disclosing spaces of faint yet clearest blue, and the declining sun, from behind dim islands of shifting vapour, sent forth immense rays of mild ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... as the "troublers of the English Israel," were rewarded respectively with the rich see of Durham and the important and deeply-dyed Puritan diocese of London. Charles was steadily sowing the wind, and destined to reap the whirlwind which was to sweep him from his throne, and involve the monarchy and the Church in the same overthrow. Three months before Bunyan's birth Buckingham, on the eve of his departure for the beleaguered and famine-stricken city ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... fascinated by some others whom I did not know, but had only seen in church, and had longed for the time when I also should no longer trip about in short and simple skirts, and tie up my curls with a ribbon, but should sweep grandly and languidly in to the parade service, bury half a pew under the festoons and furbelows of my silk dress and velvet trimmings, sink into a nest of matchless millinery for the Litany, scent the air with patchouli ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... down behind the sandbags, men," Lieutenant Ferguson shouted; "the captain knows that we have shelter, and will sweep the Malays out of the forest round us. That shot must have done great execution among the Malays on the path ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... sweep across me even at this slight check. Had I dared too much? Had I ventured too far? I knew not, yet spoke my next words boldly, realizing that any retreat now would ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... occupied by the forces of Catholicism and Protestantism, while nominally possessed and administered by the princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg. And so they were destined to remain until that Thirty Years' War, now so near its outbreak, should sweep over the earth, and bring its fiery solution at last to all these ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... back at the road, avoided an oncoming car with a casual sweep of the wheel, and sighed gustily. "Mister," he said, "you don't ask questions, I don't ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... too late to get away with any good grace. Judge Pike had seen them, and, even as Joe turned to go, rushed down to the gate, flung it open, and motioned his daughter to enter. This he did with one wide sweep of his arm, and, with another sweep, forbade Joe to look upon either moon OR sun. It was a magnificent gesture: it excluded the young man from the street, Judge Pike's street, and from the town, Judge ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... taught her with surprising quickness. With a few lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties of Miss Ophelia's chamber in a way with which even that particular lady could find no fault. Mortal hands could not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more accurately, sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose,—but she didn't very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after three or four days of careful patient supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose that Topsy had at last ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "You think that all the college graduates turn out lawyers and doctors and professors? Some of 'em are mighty glad to sweep out banks in hopes of a clerkship; and some take any sort of a place in a mill or a business house, to work up; and some bum round out West 'on cattle ranches; and some, if they're lucky, get newspaper reporters' places at ten dollars ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... it; and so much has been settled through the labors of these eminent men, that intelligent seamen need fear these storms no longer. By the aid of maps and sailing-directions they may either escape them altogether, or boldly take advantage of their outward sweep, and shorten ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... in its logical deductions. Macaulay sneers at the homoousian and the homoiousian; and when viewed in a technical point of view, it may seem to many frivolous and vain. But the distinctions of the Trinity, which Arius sought to sweep away, are essential to the unity and completeness of the whole scheme of salvation, as held by the Church to have been revealed in the Scriptures; for if Christ is a mere creature of God,—a creation, and not one with Him in essence,—then his death would avail ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... old and very poor woman rented a house in the environs of Mexico, as old and wretched as herself, for four reals a week. It had an old broken-up stone patio (inner courtyard), which she used occasionally to sweep with a little old broom. One day she observed two or three stones in this patio larger and more carefully put together than the others, and the little old woman, being a daughter of Eve by some collateral branch, poked down and worked at the stones until she ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... and Nova Scotia. To these were added, or not added, according to the opinion of those who spoke, the smaller outlying colonies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward's Island. If a scheme for such a government were projected in Downing Street, all would no doubt be included, and a clean sweep would be made without difficulty. But the project as made in the colonies appears in different guises, as it comes either from Canada or from one of the other provinces. The Canadian idea would be that the two Canadas should form two States of such a confederation, and the other provinces a third ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... relieve each other; how that blazing, blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering hair carries down the stream of light across the picture! This is the way to work, my boys, and earn a hundred florins a day. See! I am as sure of my line as a skater of making his figure of eight! and down with a sweep goes a brawny arm or a flowing curl of drapery. The figures arrange themselves as if by magic. The paint-pots are exhausted in furnishing brown shadows. The pupils look wondering on, as the master careers over the canvas. Isabel or ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sweep of his arm which took in the whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every inch of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... too, is jewel-like and lovely, but the uncoloured drawing is itself full of charm. The grace of line, which was to distinguish all the works of his mature years, is already manifest in this effort of his boyhood. It seems to foretell the sweep of the Virgin's drapery in the Sistine Madonna, and the delightful maze of curves flowing together and away again and returning upon themselves which outline the face, the arms, hands, and draperies of St. Catherine in ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... the eyes, the mild, blessing eyes, still belong to grandmother. At her side sits a young man, large and powerful: he reaches her the rose, and she smiles—grandmother does not smile so now! oh yes, look now!——But he has vanished: many thoughts, many forms sweep past—the beautiful young man is gone, the rose lies in the hymn book, and grandmother sits there again as an old woman, and looks upon the faded rose which lies in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that of this knowledge men had as yet acquired but the most insignificant part, and that all existing claims to philosophical truth were as idle and precarious as the guesses and traditions of the vulgar; his belief that no greater object could be aimed at than to sweep away once and for ever all this sham knowledge and all that supported it, and to lay an entirely new and clear foundation to build on for the future; his assurance that, as it was easy to point out with fatal and luminous certainty ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... off a false wig, jerked away a false mustache, took a vial from his pocket, turned some of its contents in his hand, and seemed to sweep the make-up from ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... goods imported in American ships. We tried that once many years ago and abandoned it. In its place we have entered into treaties of commerce and navigation with the principal countries of the world, expressly agreeing that no such discrimination shall be made between their vessels and ours. To sweep away all those treaties and enter upon a war of commercial retaliation and reprisal for the sake of accomplishing indirectly what can be done directly should ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... was over, and the children off to school, I drew on a cap, and went down to sweep out and dust the parlors. I had not been at work long, when I heard the bell ring. Presently Mary came tripping down stairs. As she opened the street door, ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... with a sweep of the hand. "The highest priced servant in our employ is to be Melissa Taylor, which is you, my girl. We shall probably keep two or three servants—if we can find anything for them to do—but none of 'em shall receive as ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... wid 'em in the carriage sometimes. De carriage had seats dat folded up. Bob wuz overseer in de field, and Charles wuz carriage driver. All de plantation wuz fenced in, dat is all de fields, wid rails; de rails wuz ten feet long. We drawed water wid a sweep and pail. De well wuz in the yard. De mules for the slaves wuz in town, dere were none on the plantation. Dey had 'em in town; dey waked us time de chicken crowed, and we went to work just as soon as we could see how to make a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... to save your ticket from defeat and that is to indorse the candidate for Mayor presented by the citizens' mass-meeting to-morrow night. That would make success certain. The public would praise your noble fidelity to reform, and you'd sweep the city! Think of it, Mr. O'Meagher! What a ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... in on either side by high banks of red earth, and tall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps, looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeing on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... instituted, and to prevent their inconveniences. If we thought frequent elections attended with no inconvenience, or with but a trifling inconvenience, the strong overruling principle of the Constitution would sweep us like a torrent towards them. But your remedy is to be suited to your disease, your present disease, and to your whole disease. That man thinks much too highly, and therefore he thinks weakly and delusively, of any contrivance ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Everything is marvellous in the scena—the mild glow of orchestral color delineating the bow of promise in the recitative, the heart-searching, transfigurating, prayerful loveliness of the slow melody, the obbligato horn parts, the sweep of the final Allegro, all ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... strike through her at John Engle, the richest man of this section of the State, it was for Jim Galloway alone to know. Certainly not for Florrie, who listened wide-eyed. . . . Once she thought that he was about to sweep her up into his arms; they had lifted suddenly from his sides. She had drawn back, crying sharply: "No, no!" But he had waited, had again grown deeply deferential, swerving immediately to further vividly colored pictures of life as it might be, of power and pomp, of a secure position ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... is its profile, rather carefully drawn at the top, to show the tulip and turkscap lily leaves. Underneath there is a plate of iron beaten into broad thin leaves, which gives the centre of the balcony a gradual sweep outwards, like the side of a ship of war. The central profile is of the greatest importance in ironwork, as the flow of it affects the curves of the whole design, not merely in surface, as in marble carving, but in their intersections, when the side is seen through the front. The ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... Sar, fetch de loggosh. I tell you, better leave it to me, Sar. You see, I get your loggosh. Dat bizley Porter of De Hotel Du Lac, he change de empfangschein; but I sweep it from him, and bring to de 'Bus"—"'Bus" was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... regards the sea. Here animal life is exceedingly abundant as far as man has succeeded in making his way to the farthest north. At nearly every sweep the dredge brings up from the sea-bottom masses of decapods, crustacea, mussels, asterids, echini,[77] &c., in varying forms, and the surface of the sea on a sunny day swarms with pteropods, beroids, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... of English land, and you will sweep away a growth of centuries which would not be where it is if it did not in the main answer to the needs and reflect the character of Englishmen. Reform and develop it if you will; bring in modern ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Pierre's hand; when the wind blew harder in gusts, the swell rose to the gunwale as if it would overflow into the boat. A coal brig from Liverpool was lying at anchor, waiting for the tide; they made a sweep round her stern and went to look at each of the vessels in the roads one after another; then they put further out to look at the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... mountains in scales, and the bills in a balance? And yet it is. Wonderful is the Power that framed all these spheres, and sent them on their great errands; but more wonderful still the Power that gave to finite mind its power, to stand on one little point, and sweep the whole circle of the skies. Almost as marvelous is it that man, being man, can divine the universe, as that God, being God, could devise it. Cycles of years go by. Suns and moons and stars tread their mysterious rounds, but steady eyes are ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a good master; the work is not hard," thought Yvon, when the giant was gone. "I have plenty of time to sweep the stable. What shall I do meanwhile to amuse myself? Shall I look about the house? Since I am forbidden to do so, it must be because there is ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... has attributed to the Quakers under persecution. In vain he haunted the mill-dam, and bribed the boys with traps and pop-guns, and lingered at the well-curb to ask Dorothy for water, which did not reach his thirst. She was there in the flesh, with her arms aloft, balancing the well-sweep, while he stooped with his lips at the bucket; but in spirit she was unapproachable. He felt, with disgust at his own persistence, that she even grudged him the water! He grew savage and restless, and fretted over the subtle ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... twig, observation posts were built with many tons of branches hauled from the rear, and so artfully wired in place that the stricken giants seemed almost ready to live again. This work in itself constituted reason enough for the Allied airmen to sweep the sky of German observers, since only by "putting out the enemy's eye" could such secrets of camouflage be preserved. Wells were being bored by gas engine power and pipes laid, as spider webs, to bring untainted water to man and ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... able to divest herself of the love which she bore him as she had of her good fortune,—she replied, "My lord, I am ready and prepared;" and so entered with her coarse peasant's clothing in the house from which she had shortly before gone in her shirt, and began to sweep and put in order the rooms, the hangings and carpets for the halls, and to put the kitchen in order, and in every respect as if she had been a little servant in the house, did she put her hand. Nor did she pause until she had put everything in order and arranged it as it was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... wheel, Sweep up your orts, and get your Hat; Old joys reviv'd once more I feel, 'Tis Fair-day;—ay, and ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... to close it to-day. Yet I am not going to let you drive westward toward the land and people we both love so much, without letting you carry a word of affection and greeting from me, which you can just throw to the winds when you get there, throw it out of the window to Tamalpais, it will sweep over those eucalyptus trees on the right, throw it up to the Berkeley hills, which now are turning green, I suppose, throw it up the long stretch of Market Street till it reaches Twin Peaks, and let it flow down over "south of the slot" that was, and up over Nob Hill, even to the sacred brownstone ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... stood, at a distance, against the wall (she had given herself no concern as to whether I should sit or stand); and while I placed it near her I began, gaily, "Oh, dear madam, what an imagination you have, what an intellectual sweep! I am a poor devil of a man of letters who lives from day to day. How can I take palaces by the year? My existence is precarious. I don't know whether six months hence I shall have bread to put in my mouth. I have treated myself for once; it has been an ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... man, throw various pieces of money upon certain stakes, which were deposited by the bystanders on different parts of the table; or, which was more often the case, with a silver rake with a long ebony handle, sweep into a large inclosure near him the scattered sums. This inclosure was called the bank, and the mysterious ceremony in which these persons were assisting was the celebrated game of rouge-et-noir. A deep silence was strictly observed by those who immediately ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a fury of resentment against his calm readjustment of the situation. He was the offender; it was for her to dictate the terms of peace, and he had suddenly cut the ground from under her feet. Her pride rose in arms. If he could so contemptuously sweep aside the memory of the last ten minutes, careless whether his plea for forgiveness were granted or no, she would show him that for her, too, the incident was closed. But she would ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Kensington. I think that when the lady learns how useful I could be around a studio—oh, I could learn to wash brushes, sweep out the room, prepare canvases, light the fire; and how nicely I could hand around cups of tea when she had her 'At Homes,' and exhibited her pictures! When she realises this, and sees what a bargain she is getting, I feel almost certain she will ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... deeper in the water, was travelling faster, and the painter tautened as the boat took the tow. Then, with a last giddy look around, wherein he saw the banks tilting and swaying and the sun swinging in pendulum-sweep across the sky, Daylight wrapped himself in his rabbit-skin robe, lay down in the bottom, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... infant, and carry it to its mother whenever it may require nourishment. To these hardly human little beings, I addressed my remonstrances about the filth, cold, and unnecessary wretchedness of their room, bidding the elder boys and girls kindle up the fire, sweep the floor, and expel the poultry. For a long time my very words seemed unintelligible to them, till when I began to sweep and make up the fire, &c., they first fell to laughing, and then imitating me. The encrustations of dirt on their hands, feet, and faces, were my next object ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the valley the wheat grows deep, And the reapers are making the cradles sweep; And this is the song that I hear them sing, While cheery and loud their voices ring: "'Tis the finest wheat that ever did grow, And it is ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Martinville, Breaux Bridge, Grand Coteau, and Opelousas, and down once more across the prairies of Vermilion, the marshes about Cote Blanche Bay, and the islands in the Gulf, it came bounding, screaming, and buffeting. And all the way across that open sweep from Mermentau to Cote Gelee it was tearing the rain to mist and freezing it wherever it fell, only lulling and warming a little about Joseph Jefferson's Island, as if that prank were too mean a trick ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... passes over the Carpathians and raid the Hungarian plain at large? Then he loses a grave proportion of his next year's wheat, much of his dwindling horse supply, his almost strangled sources of petrol. He tempts Roumania to come in (for a great sweep of Eastern Hungary is nationally Roumanian); and he loses the control in men and financial resources of one-half of his Allies if the danger and the distress persuade Hungary to stand out. For the Hungarians have no quarrel except from their desire to dominate the southern Slavs; ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... "Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas." Oh! The white seal's lullaby. That was what she wanted. How good it would feel to be rocked by the restful motion of the waves, to be caught in that long sleepy sweep of the ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment's interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... mistaken, the world has so much to profit and so much to expect. Like me, he is in the enjoyment of affluence; and he enjoys it with a liberal and munificent spirit. Are there any who hate him, because he once was guilty of hateful crimes? I hope not. It is a spirit that would sweep away half the inhabitants of the 'peopled earth.' For my own part, I delight in his conversation, am enlivened by his wit, and prompted to enquiry by the acuteness of his remarks. He is a man whom I am proud ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... bareheaded again, and with her hair loose to the wind, and he knew she was one of his enemies. He thought her the girl people said young Jasper was going to marry, and he had watched her the more closely. From the canoe she seemed never to notice him; but he guessed, from the quickened sweep of her paddle, that she knew he was looking at her, and once, when he halted on his way home up the mountain, she half turned in her saddle and looked across at him. This happened again, and then she waved her ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... and soul lay with the little gray mare, and, turning to the front again, he saw mare and rider swinging out of sight around the end of the grove. Confidently he watched for their appearance beyond. Presently he saw them sweep into view again—moving at a gallop, swinging across a wide plain that held them clear to his straining eyes—saw them grow faint and fainter, small and ever smaller—become a hazy speck on the horizon—finally ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... a sweep of his hand.] Well, well, my dear doctor—don't let us discuss this any further. We had better agree to differ. [Changes to a tone of quiet amusement.] ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... now engaged in the grand sacrifice. It is for this that men are not dying. But when Yama's work in connection with the sacrifice terminates, men will again begin to die as before. Strengthened by your respective energies, Yama will, when that time comes, sweep away by thousands the inhabitants on earth who will scarcely have then any energy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... must be returned to the Syndicate, which is placed in the Large Wheel with other Subscribers' Tickets for the Draw."—Derby Sweep Circular. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... down on the river banks, whence they could see the horse and cart under the arch. A few were bawling out unheeded advice as to what should be done; in fact, a heated altercation had arisen between the two loudest—a chimney-sweep and a medical man—whose theories disagreed; but it was plain to everybody that it would be a risky thing to venture under the bridge into that swirling stream. For ten minutes or more, while the horse remained invisible to us on the ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... and richer life. Many of her people, if I may change the figure, are seeking to put the new wine of Christian civilization into the old bottles of Shinto and Buddhist ritualism. That this must fail is, I think, self-evident. Many others, like the iconoclasts of the French Revolution, would sweep away all religion, but they will find that they are fighting against an ineradicable instinct of human nature, the innate craving of the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... minister. With one sweep of his right hand he tore the hands of the sheriff from the boy's arms; the gesture was bearlike in power. "What's the meaning of all this, Mr. Sawyer?" ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... think (as I have often thought since) of the full meaning of this, though I had marked it for many years. The support given to Wilkinson's plots, to Clark's expedition, was merely the outward and visible sign of the onward sweep of a resistless race. In spite of untold privations and hardships, of cruel warfare and massacre, these people had toiled over the mountains into this land, and impatient of check or hindrance would, even as Clark had predicted, when their numbers were sufficient leap the Mississippi. Night or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this Christianity set forth in the New Testament, and anticipated in the Old, the constellations of doctrine, this Via Lactea of truth in which every statement is a sun of splendor; when I begin to get the sweep of the divine purpose coming up from the opening pages of Genesis and culminating in the book of the Revelation; when I see that Christianity is the presentation to us of the ways and means whereby the original thought of incarnation (and this was the very first thought stamped ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... Webster during the last three days had excited in his breast. There were circumstances in the Professor's behaviour which could not fail to attract the attention of a man, whose business throughout the day was to dust and sweep the College, light the fires and overlook generally the order and cleanliness of ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city and the country around them was unsettled and wild—on one side was the big drainage canal, and on the other a maze of railroad tracks, and so the wind had full sweep. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the chimneys tall, And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap, So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small, And shoved them up in the dark to sweep. ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... f^o 37a. From the account of Thomas de Celano, one does not understand what drew John to St. Francis; in the Speculum everything is explained, but Celano has not dared to depict Francis going about preaching with a broom upon his shoulder to sweep ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... The streets are unpaved, but kept remarkably clean, and not without an especial reason. The great, and almost only, article of commerce is coffee, which is kept in the houses, and dried daily in the streets. As soon as the sun is up, therefore, servants sweep the streets, as carefully as if it were a parlor-floor, and bring out large quantities of coffee, which they spread upon the ground to dry. At night, it is carried in. More than half the street, at the proper season, is covered with coffee yet in the husk. The exports of this article amount annually ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... a moment. "If I remember correctly—I mean unless gossip went very far afield—the place brought exactly seven thousand dollars." His gaze plunged into the moonlight beyond the open window and followed the clear sweep of the distant fields. "Seven thousand dollars," he added softly; "and there's not a ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the luxurious chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week's age, and the drooping boughs of the lines; Farfrae's garden and the green door leading therefrom. In course of time—he could not say how long—that green door opened and Farfrae came ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean sweep all about her. Mr Crathie's horse turned restive from sympathy, and it was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he got Kelpie a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... thwart us; the smiths and the carpenters and masons are ever jealous of us of the markets, but they have no leaders, and hold not together as we do. Besides, they know that we have Burgundy with us, so whatever they think they are not likely to say much, for if it came to a battle we could sweep them out of ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... decked, or even half-decked, the voyage which now began would not have been so desperate an undertaking; but having been only covered in part with a frail tarpaulin, she was not at all fitted to face the terrible storms that sometimes sweep the southern seas. Each man, as he gazed at her, felt that his chance of ultimate escape was very small indeed. Still, the men had now been so long contemplating the voyage and preparing for it, and they had become so accustomed to risk their lives upon the sea, that they set out upon this voyage ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... But the hour of pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the old ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... cry, and the next moment the body of the helmsman dropped on the deck. Jack had literally cut his head off with a sweep of his cutlass. The sight had the effect of making the Spaniards hang back for a moment, when Jack, putting the helm hard down, made the sails all shiver, and finally got her fore-topsail aback. Seeing what had occurred, the crew of the pinnace cheered, and, giving way, were soon clambering over ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... assertion was designed to deny even the right of Congress to make impartial suffrage in the revised constitutions a condition precedent to the re-admission of the rebellious States to representation. But the platform did not stop here. With a bolder sweep it declared "that we regard the Reconstruction Acts of Congress as usurpations, unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." This extreme proposition, deliberately adopted, was calculated to produce a profound public impression. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... established that its temperature is going down one and a half degrees every thousand years. Or its volcanic elevating forces may give out, so that the land will subside and the water wash over it from pole to pole. Or a comet may wipe up its atmosphere, the same as one sponge-sweep wipes up moisture from a slate. Or the sun itself may cool, so that the last of our race will stand huddled together in a solarium somewhere on the Equator. Or as our sun rushes toward Lyra, it may bump into a derelict sun, just as a ship bumps into ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... a clean sweep of all your materials. We must have no more devil's tricks. In with all these leaves! They may have something ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Manning. "With our margin of speed, we should overhaul him in a few more hours. He is still short on power, but he's remedying that rapidly. He's getting nearer to that sun every minute. Running in toward it as he is, he tends to sweep up outpouring radiations. That helps him collect a whole lot more than he ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... to a soul! You've lost me one seat of my borough, with your infernal pride—fifteen hundred a year, by Jove!—and you think you will bully me out of another. No, madam, you SHALL stay, and stay supper too;—and the girls shall dance with every cursed chimney-sweep and butcher in the room: they ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... merchant said. "It was reported here that the Genoese galleys were all laid up, and it was thought that they would be able to sweep the seas without opposition, and to bring home vast spoil and many captives, both from the ships they took and from many of the villages and small towns of the coast. How came such a misfortune to happen ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the foot of a long grass slant within a hundred yards of the trees along one of the small streams. Before us we had the sweep of brown grass rising to a clear cut skyline; and all about us the distant great hills behind which the day dawned and fell. One afternoon a herd of giraffes stood silhouetted on this skyline quite a half hour gazing curiously ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... skin; the way in which the light azured its whiteness and slid upon its child-like surfaces. He saw the long oval of the face, the firm and gentle lips, drawn with a delicate amplitude, the broad hazel eyes set under a level sweep of dark eyebrow and outlined, not shadowed, so clear, so wide they were, by the dark lashes. But all the fresh loveliness of line, surface, color, remained an intellectual appreciation; while what touched, what penetrated, were the analogies she suggested, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the man in whom it sprang, from whom it flowed. She wanted to be sure of that nature; but she acknowledged to herself, as she sat by the fire, that she was perplexed. Perhaps even that perplexity was merciful. Yet she wished to sweep it away. She knit her brows moodily, and longed for a secret divining-rod that would twist to reveal truth in another. For truth, she thought, is better than hidden water-springs, and a sincerity—even of stupidity—more lovely than the fountain that ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... as in the great dramatists contemporary with Shakspeare, to the exterior play of society. Under Charles II. in the hands of Dryden, and under Anne in those of Pope, the larger and more intellectual sweep of satire showed that social activities were now appreaching to their culmination. Now, at length, it became evident that a new mode of pleasure had been ripened, and that a great instinct of the intellect had ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Once more the sweep of the chords was followed by the superb voice while the two wayfarers and all the world around them waited, breathless and enchained. At the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hat to the ground, caught off one wet glove, and with a long back-handed sweep struck the cuff of it full and hard across Sam ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... by a plug hole. The fermenting tuns should be placed in a room where there is a fireplace, so as to raise the temperature in cold weather; each tun should be cribbed on its sides, with a stationary cover on the top. The cribs should be made to answer the sweep of the vessel, and to be put on or off as occasion, or the temperature of the season, may require. In one corner of the working store, I would recommend to have placed a set of drains, two in number, one ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... strange and beautiful thing to see that king of horses—sweep back around the slowest of his mustangs, shake his head at the barking guns, and then circle forward again as though he would show the laggard what running should be. The cowpunchers could have shot him as he veered back; they could have salted him with lead as he flashed broadside, ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... Where in jungles, near and far, Man-devouring tigers are, Lying close and giving ear Lest the hunt be drawing near, Or a comer-by be seen Swinging in a palanquin;— Where among the desert sands Some deserted city stands, All its children, sweep and prince, Grown to manhood ages since, Not a foot in street or house, Nor a stir of child or mouse, And when kindly falls the night, In all the town no spark of light. There I'll come when I'm a man With a camel caravan; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... turned away without answering. As he came out of the lobby into the clear sunset radiance he saw a victoria drive up the long sweep to the Capitol and pause before the central portion. He descended the steps, and Mrs. Mornway leaned from her furs ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... caused by the sweep of the mighty Mississippi which was near at hand. The reason for the first he could not understand, but that of the latter was apparent. He had never looked upon the Father of Waters, but many a time he had rested ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... satisfaction, however, they found the going not so hard as it had looked from below. At the top, the sides of the cleft seemed to pinch together, so that in some places they were obliged to climb as a chimney-sweep does, their legs pressed across the open space; but as they were all out-of-door boys and well used to Alaska mountain work, they went ahead fearlessly and soon found themselves at the summit of the tower-like rock, whence they had a splendid view of the ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... at Poitiers is simply the Promenade de Blossac—a small public garden at one end of the flat top of the hill. It has a happy look of the last century (having been arranged at that period), and a beautiful sweep of view over the surrounding country, and especially of the course of the little river Clain, which winds about a part of the base of the big mound of Poitiers. The limit of this dear little garden is formed, on the side that turns away from the town, by the rampart ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... enumeration of a comparison with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... He had made up his mind deliberately to marry this penniless girl. Looked at from a worldling's point of view, it would seem, at the first glance, an utterly disadvantageous alliance: but Dr. Rylance had an eye that could sweep over horizons other than are revealed to the average gaze, and he told himself that so lovely a woman as Ida Palliser must inevitably become the fashion in that particular society which Dr. Rylance most affected: and a wife famed ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... valley's drooping sweep, Withdrawn to farthest limit of the glade, The forest stands in silence, drinking deep Its purple ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... allied by taste and circumstances. Among the youth of their class they were perhaps the only two who already felt, however obscurely, the stirring of unborn ideals, the pressure of that tide of renovation that was to sweep them, on widely-sundered currents, to the same uncharted deep. Alfieri, at any rate, represented to the younger lad the seer who held in his hands the keys of knowledge and beauty. Odo could never forget the youth who first ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the——crafts in his own waters.' So I put him in charge of the marines, namely, ourselves, and told him to fight the ship for all she was worth. He caught on to the thing at once, and swore he would 'sweep the old black hulk fore and aft, and send every mother's son to the bottom, or make her strike her colors.' The vigor of the gallant old gentleman's language, and the noble manner in which he shook his cane at the old pirate, put us all in good spirits, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Russia, was, after the fashion of his predecessors (and his successors), always waiting for the right moment to sweep down upon Constantinople. England had become only a land of shopkeepers, France was absorbed with her new Empire, and with trying on her fresh imperial trappings. The time seemed favorable for a move. The pious soul of Nicholas was suddenly stirred by certain restrictions ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... (such a fine fellow he looks) came up and rode beside me, and said, 'I know you are a person of kindness; do not tell this story in this country. If Effendina (Ismail Pasha) comes to hear, he may "take a broom and sweep away the village."' I exclaimed in horror, and Mustapha joined at once in the request, and said, 'Do not tell anyone in Egypt. The Sheykh-el-Ababdeh is quite true; it might cost many lives.' The whole thing distressed me horribly. If I had not been there they would have beaten right and left, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... obstacles which he puts in our way need not dismay us; God permits them to delay or deter us for the time, only as a test of our patience and faith, and the satanic hinderer will be met by a divine Helper who will sweep away all his obstacles, as with the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... stood on the threshhold of No. 40. Seated upon the sofa was Madam Conway, her purple satin seeming to have taken a wide sweep, and her face betokening the immense degree of satisfaction she felt in being there with the stylish, elegant-looking stranger who stood at her side, with his deep, expressive eyes fixed upon the door expectantly. Maggie knew him in a moment—knew it was Arthur Carrollton; and, turning pale, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... force. At the same moment shrieks issued from the dormitory, and a wild shout of "Zepps!" Miss Gibbs's presence of mind did not desert her. It took her exactly three seconds to put on her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, two more to sweep her watch, purse, and a little packet of treasures (placed nightly in readiness) into the ample pocket of her wrapper, and the next instant she was flashing her ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... slowly, "that is a good way out of our dilemma. The villains will be carried far away from this vicinity and will without doubt get all that's coming to them. What more can we ask? We've won the game—taken every trick and made a clean sweep of the whole business. Now that I've got Lola home I don't much care about the rest of it. What do you say we let well enough alone ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay. The two famous Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the garden walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them, and they looked down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle, had perched himself four years before. They stood with their heads close together, talking in low, confidential tones. ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Beverly's arrival; and at last, at nearly one o'clock, called Aunty Chloe (who was in waiting on everybody as a superserviceable person, on the pretence that she was needed), bade Aunty pick up the scraps, sweep the floor, and bring the room to rights. And so, having attended to everybody beside herself, to all their wishes and hopes and fears, poor Matty—or shall I say, dear Matty—ran off to her own room, to finish her own presents and ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... last meal I shall have to cook for some time, for right after breakfast Dr. Pipt has promised to bring my new servant to life. I shall let her wash the breakfast dishes and sweep and dust the house. What a ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of the Milford school, stood broom in hand at the back of the schoolroom and listened. Pearlie's face was troubled. She had finished the sweeping of the other three rooms, and then, coming into Miss Morrison's room to sweep it, she found Maudie Ducker rehearsing her "piece" for the Medal Contest. Miss Morrison was instructing Maudie, and Mrs. Ducker would have told you that Maudie ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... There was about it, also, something which escaped from the personal. He began to forget that it was a man who whistled, and such a man! He began to look about to the hills and the sky and the rocks—for these, it might be said, were set to music—they, too, had the sweep of line, and the broken rhythms, the sense of spaciousness, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... had not been gazing so intently into his hat, trying at the same time to look cherubically benign he might have seen a quick and painful scarlet sweep the face of the boy, coupled with a certain tense look of the muscles ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Stay here an hour or two! But I could not hold this position against Miko that long! Sooner or later he would find a place from where he could sweep this bowl beyond possibility of our hiding. I saw him running now, well beyond my range, to ferret out another ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... princes, at this accident, Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered: Care is no cure, but rather corrosive, For things that are not to be remedied. Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail; We 'll pull his plumes and take away his train, If Dauphin and the ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... novelty in the sentiments, a greater sweep of subjects, and a finer sense of moral beauty displayed by Mr. Tupper, than we remember to have seen in any work of its class, excepting of course the 'Proverbs of Solomon.' We also discover in his 'Philosophy' the stores of extensive reading, and the indisputable ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... fork in the left hand it should be lifted to the lips, tines pointing downward. The fork, which should convey but a very moderate amount of food, should always be carried to the mouth in a position as nearly parallel to it as possible. This does away with the thrusting motion and the awkward sweep of the elbow that is so ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... flowing draperies. But these figures have more humanity in them, stand closer to us, because the meaning is no longer petrified in the shape, but speaks to us freely and directly, in a look, a gesture, a sweep of the garment. The Greek said,—"With these superhuman lineaments you are to conceive the presence of Jove; these are the appropriate forms of the immortals." Giotto said,—"See what divine meanings in every-day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Christ, the hiding-place of those Who face the blinding blast, And battle with a myriad woes That sweep in fury past; Be Thou my comfort and defence, While storm fiends wildly cry,— My star of hope when night is dense, And dangers round ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... changeless plain on the other side of the rocks, and the sight of a fresh character of country was sufficient to make the Doctor eagerly take the little telescope he carried in a sling, and begin to sweep the horizon. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... confusion; yet we know this is not so. We know those many lines are mathematically correct. If you want to keep your eye on the main line, you mustn't be misled by the lines which touch and cross it, which seem to belong to it, until they suddenly sweep off in another direction. In this Bridwell affair we have to be careful not to be misled by cross lines, and I grant there are many. You say the woman is an extraneous episode; but is she? She left a bag, which is not to be found. Had Masini known of her existence I do not think ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... shame and the fear of death, the parting from a tender wife, and all the gloomy solemnity of the last morning. But whose heart was to bleed at the thought that Charles Duncombe, who was born to carry parcels and to sweep down a counting-house, was to be punished for his knavery by having his income reduced to eight thousand a year, more than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ruinous sweep, There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans, And blasphemies 'gainst the good Power ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... is something like the "irrepressible conflict" we heard of years ago in national affairs—illustrates another aspect of Edison's character. Broad as the prairies and free in thought as the winds that sweep them, he is idiosyncratically opposed to loose and wasteful methods, to plans of empire that neglect the poor at the gate. Everything he has done has been aimed at the conservation of energy, the contraction of space, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... "It's the 'sweep,'" said Holmes, with kindling interest. "They're going to draw it in the smoke-room. Come along and see it. It'll be something ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... only a mirage. The boat floated close to the perpendicular rocks and reflected itself in the deep waters; far away the farmhouse lay against the green woods; to the north rose the highest point of the bluff, dark with pines; farther on was the sweep of the curved shore, and still farther the red walls of the town. Never boat carried freight so beautiful as this which bore along the island the young mother, the young deacon, and deep-hearted ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... variety of ways. In Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, several derogatory and indeed menial offices were exacted from the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for conferring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep part of the courts in the morning, to carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until that body had dined. His very dress marked the inferiority of the "poor student" ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... one, but many nations with thee weep; Cherish thy martyr on thy wounded breast, And lay him with thy Washington to sleep. Earth holds no fitter sepulcher to keep His royal heart—one of thy kings to be Who reign even from the grave; whose scepters sweep More potent over human destiny Than all ambition's pride ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... processions 'citizens generally.' The hull thing swept up the canyon inside o' thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax called 'the reflex action in the laws o' motion' happened, and darned if the hull blamed procession didn't sweep back again—this time all the heavy artillery, such as camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses, and crockery that was left behind takin' the lead now, and Judge Piper and that ice cream can bringin' up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second time, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... in his poems, on the mountains by night, with his eyes keener with wonder at the skies than ever shepherd's under the Star of Bethlehem; you will see him, the human atom, on the bare Dublin mountains, thrilling as he watches the sweep of world beyond world; and yet, atom that he is, the possessor of it all;—you will think of him as stargazer whose "spirit rolls ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... down into her face there was a look of infinite longing in his eyes, and even she felt a certain touch of genuine emotion sweep over her. It is so very, very delicious to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... house in the bush she had been eagerly watching the sweep of that great movement which culminated in 1900 in the union of the United Presbyterian and Free Churches of Scotland. She loved the blue banner of the United Presbyterian Church, and one of her constant admonitions to the younger ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... longer be counted among them were some who had married into the family, wives and husbands, and there were in particular many children, the tithe that death always exacts, those who are struck down by the storms which sweep over the human crop, all the dear little ones for whom the living weep, and who sanctify the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... opium-eating in which rhyme takes the place of the narcotic. But what are you going to do when you find John Keats an apprentice to a surgeon or apothecary? Is n't it rather better to get another boy to sweep out the shop and shake out the powders and stir up the mixtures, and leave him undisturbed to write his Ode on a Grecian Urn or to a Nightingale? Oh yes, the critic I have referred to would say, if he is John Keats; but not if he is of a much lower grade, even though ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... dirt?" and he pointed to some refuse that had been swept up from the floor of the loft. Ned nodded. "It consists of a lot of shavings, sawdust and, what's more, a lot of soot and lampblack that we used in mixing some paint. We'll sweep the whole pile down on their heads, and make them wish they'd stayed away ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... the swing gate into the park, where the grass was up for hay, with red sorrel and buttercups and tall daisies and feathery flowered grasses, their colours all tangled and blended together like ravelled ends of silk on the wrong side of some great square of tapestry. Here and there in the wide sweep of tall growing things stood a tree—a may-tree shining like silver, a laburnum like fine gold. There were horse-chestnuts whose spires of blossom shewed like fat candles on a Christmas tree for giant children. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... prolific, less shrewd, less aggressive and persistent, less quick-witted and able to read the note of danger or hostility—in short, less sophisticated. Most of our birds are yet essentially wild, that is, little changed by civilization. In winter, especially, they sweep by me and around me in flocks,—the Canada sparrow, the snow-bunting, the shore-lark, the pine grosbeak, the red-poll, the cedar-bird,—feeding upon frozen apples in the orchard, upon cedar-berries, upon maple-buds, and the berries of the mountain ash, and the celtis, and upon the seeds ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... vain, envious and base! O, women, see your danger! See how much you need a great object in all your little actions. You cannot be fair, nor can your homes be fair, unless you are holy and noble. Will you sweep and garnish the house, only that it may be ready for a legion of evil spirits to enter in—for imps and demons of gossip, frivolity, detraction, and a restless fever about small ills? What is the house for, if good spirits ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
