"Swiftness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... barelegged, bare-headed, all his white hair blowing. But he moved with the swiftness of a young man, and his step was no blind man's step. As soon as he reached the deck he spied and snatched up the rifle that was leaning against the skylight—it was Asoki's rifle, left behind when that worthy went to supervise Carew's departure—and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... and look for him. Perhaps it would not be too late—she had heard of such things. A dynamic force consumed her. She had no consciousness of her body. Her feet and hands did things with incredible swiftness—lighted a lantern, selected a knife, ran to the corral for an old ladder that had been there when they took possession of the deserted house; and through all her frantic haste she could feel this new force, as it were, lick up the red blood in her ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Paracelsus or Cardan; and much of the spirit of the older alchemy still hangs about it, with its confidence in short cuts and odd byways to knowledge. To him philosophy was to be something giving strange swiftness and double sight, divining the sources of springs beneath the earth or of expression beneath the human countenance, clairvoyant of occult gifts in common or uncommon things, in the reed at the brook-side, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... created the acutest public interest, drawn out over long months, up to the day when Sir Charles Russell had before him in the witness-box the original vendor of the letters—one Pigott. Pigott's collapse, confession of forgery, flight and suicide, followed with appalling swiftness: and the result was to generate through England a very strong sympathy for the man against whom, and against whose followers, such desperate calumnies had been uttered and exploited. Parnell's prestige ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... and besides, in most places, the children of men can live and grow if they never eat a fish, while the children of the osprey would die without such food. So we admire Fisherman Osprey for his strength and swiftness and skill, and are glad for him when he flies off with the prize, which is his very own as long as he ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... came with a terrifying swiftness—quite as if the three riders had crossed over a powder-train at the instant of its eruption, to find themselves, in the fraction of a second, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... swept the fog away, General Howe gazed in wonder at the spot where the American forces had been the night before. But they were gone, with the swiftness and silence of magic! The magician was Washington, who had not slept from the hour of defeat until his men were safe again in New York. But they were not to remain there long, as more exciting ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... vividness of the imagery, the swiftness of the movement, the rise to the climax, the change in spirit after the climax, and the note of courage and hope that informs this poem. Compare it with Tennyson's Crossing the Bar. What difference in ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... and sometimes conceiving them to be only phantoms, which played to and fro in the ocean. Such is the account given by the historian, perhaps, with too much prejudice against a negro's understanding, who, though he might well wonder at the bulk and swiftness of the first ship, would scarcely conceive it to be either a bird or a fish, but having seen many bodies floating in the water, would think it, what it really is, a large boat; and, if he had no knowledge of any means by which separate pieces of timber may be joined together, would form very wild ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... seize their tormentors, but not one could they touch; and they outdoubled them in numbers. Between every wild clutch came a peck of beak and a buffet of pinion in the face. Generally the bird would, with sharp-clapping wings, dart its whole body, with the swiftness of an arrow, against its singled mark, yet so as to glance aloft the same instant, and descend skimming; much as the thin stone, shot with horizontal cast of arm, having touched and torn the surface of the lake, ascends ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... of the rapid race, and the march of slow- paced majesty, exhibited by the same poet in the same sequence of syllables, except that the exact prosodist will find the line of SWIFTNESS by one time longer than that of TARDINESS. Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied, and, when real, are technical and nugatory, not to he rejected and not to ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... possibility; it was her duty to that large, vague world that his life touched, a world where her young faiths and vigors would bring a light such as her mother's gay little taper could never spread. These thoughts, and others, flashed through Imogen's mind, with the swiftness and exactitude of a drowning vision. Yet, after the long moment of vivid realization, it was at its height that a qualm, a sinking overtook her. The gift had come; of that she was sure. But its triumphant displayal might be delayed—nay, might ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... extent of his information. In the life of another man, these boyish performances might be set down merely as signs of promise; but Douglas was so soon immersed in real politics, and rose to distinction with such astounding swiftness, that his performances as a schoolboy may well be accounted the actual beginning, and not merely a premonition, of his career. He was only twenty, when, in June, 1833, he set ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... upon us in one of her frantic rages. Her tempers were famous both for their ferocity and the swiftness of their passing. In the course of them she was like some impassioned bird of brilliant plumages, tossing her feathers, fluttering behind the bars of her cage at some impertinent, teasing passer-by. She stood there now in the doorway, gesticulating ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... it first. Arnold Bentham, his own death accepted, and Captain Nicholl, well nigh accepting death, lay rolling like loose-bodied dead men in the boat's bottom, and I was steering when I saw it. The boat, foaming and surging with the swiftness of wind in its sail, was uplifted on a crest, when, close before me, I saw the sea-battered islet of rock. It was not half a mile off. I cried out, so that the other two, kneeling and reeling and clutching for support, were peering and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the two workmen who were in the room,—a creeping, tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilled; the saucer was broken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... mounted that their muzzles could be greatly depressed, and aimed at an object in the water not far from the ship. But these were not discharged, and, indeed, the crabs, which were new ones of unusual swiftness, were alongside the Adamant in an incredibly short time, and out of the range ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... from this influence, I began to think; and, my mind making up for its previous inaction by working with unwonted swiftness, I formed a ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... And as she pressed the frame, she felt to her surprise that it sprang forward. Had she not been very cautious the advancing mirror would have struck her with great force, but she had presence of mind to withdraw her hand very gradually, repressing the swiftness of the spring. The aperture occasioned by the opening of the mirror consisted of a recess, formed by a closed-up window. An old wooden shutter, or blind, in so ruinous a state, that the light freely made its way, was the only barrier against the elements. Iduna, seizing the handle which remained, ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... The royal princesses had not found it convenient to come; and this may have meant nothing, or very much indeed. To Jasmine, however, as she hastily robed herself for dinner, her mind working with lightning swiftness, it did not matter at all; if all the kings and queens of all the world had promised to come and had not come, it would have meant nothing to her this night ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with a merciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men suffered the bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those mountains, freighted as that history ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pressing, and from two to three thousand men were at once set to work on the 1st of May. The Falls are about a mile in length, filled with rugged rocks which, at this low water, were bare or nearly so, the water rushing down around, or over, them with great swiftness. At the point below, where the dam was to be built, the river is 758 feet wide, and the current was then between nine and ten miles an hour. From the north bank was built what was called the "tree dam," formed of large trees laid with ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... struck another match with firm fingers, and bent forward. What he saw upon the ground made him feel a little sick. What he saw racing away down the passage prompted him to swift pursuit. Down the arched court into the open space he ran, himself an athlete, but mocked by the swiftness of the shadowlike form which he pursued. At the end was another street—empty. He looked up and down, seeking in vain for any signs of life. There was nothing to tell him which way to turn. Opposite was a very labyrinth of courts and turnings. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... many of the upper windows of the houses had been blown in by the force of the wind. Tiles flew about like leaves in autumn, and occasionally gutters and sheets of lead, stripped from the roofs, flew along with prodigious swiftness. ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps, in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does nature advance small birds to their elikia (in Greek) or state of perfection; while the progressive growth of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the manner in which the verbal reply was to be sent, and the indorsement on the back of the sheet, were additional corroboration. It was almost unimaginable that the letter should have come again to his hand. He realized the importance and significance of the sheet of paper with the swiftness of a lightning flash; but beyond the intelligence conveyed by the letter itself there was still the darkness to grope in. His wits had never worked so rapidly in his life; he felt his heart beating uncomfortably; the perspiration broke out upon his forehead, and he drew out his handkerchief ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... of every article. A relation continually kept going after her as she danced, to pick up the ornaments, and afterwards delivered them to the owners from whom they were borrowed. As the sun went down she made a start with such swiftness that the fastest runner could not come up with her, and when at the distance of about two hundred yards she dropped on a sudden as if shot. Soon afterwards a young man, on coming up with her, fired a matchlock over her body, ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... on merrily. Far out on to the ice-covered bay the great sled rushed with wonderful swiftness. Then there was the return trip uphill, Decima riding with only Nono beside her, as her humble servitor, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... essential. Dependent clauses disappear; either the sentences are simple, just one sharp statement, or they are made of coordinate clauses with no connectives. Every weight that could clog the story is thrown away, and it runs with the swiftness of the thought. At such a time it would be a waste of good material to introduce beautiful descriptions or profound philosophy. Such things would be skipped by the reader. Everything must clear the way ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... woods and called, but received no answer. Every instant the awful shadow of some dread event solemnized the gathering groups. Every one thought what no one dared whisper, until a low voice suggested "the river". Then, with the swiftness of certainty, all friends, far and near, were roused, and thronged along the banks of the stream. Torches flashed in boats that put off in the terrible search. Hawthorne, then living in the Old Manse, was summoned, and the man whom ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... her to take advantage of every favorable wind, though her chief reliance was on her mechanical power. The engine, which was constructed on a new system, was a high-pressure one, of 160-horse power, and put in motion a double screw. This gave the yacht such swiftness that during her trial trip in the Firth of Clyde, she made seventeen miles an hour, a higher speed than any vessel had yet attained. No alterations were consequently needed in the DUNCAN herself; John Mangles had only to attend to ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... crowd of fugitives, entered the city with them, none daring at first to withstand him. Soon, when the enemy saw how few of the Romans were within the gates, they rallied and attacked them. Marcius, in the confused mass of friends and foes, fought with incredible strength, swiftness, and courage, overthrowing all whom he attacked, driving some to the further parts of the town, and forcing others to lay down their arms, so that Lartius was able to march the rest of the Roman army into the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... she bound a yard, from which hung one of her blankets with a rope tied to each of the lower corners. Afterward she stowed her baggage in the boat. She worked with a determined swiftness that suggested some ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... her? He has reached her; she is clinging to him; but those two frolicsome watery playfellows are tossing them hither and thither as in rude sport. Ben takes it all in with his quick boyish eyes, and rushes away, like a very hare for swiftness, to where his father is chopping in the calm afternoon glory, little dreaming of what is happening not a mile away. How sweetly pitiful is the calm wondering sky, watching overhead, as one may fancy, the struggle for dear life going on in those wild gurgling ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint and take furtive glances on this side and on that, but they must turn the whole head. The manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence exhibited is for personal qualities; courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, swiftness, a loud voice, a broad chest. Luxury and elegance are not known. A sparse population and want make every man his own valet, cook, butcher and soldier, and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful performances. Such are the Agamemnon ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I reward you for your swiftness by proclaiming you Prince of Horses, whether of wood or of flesh; and hereafter all other horses—in the Land of Oz, at least—must be considered imitations, and you the real Champion of ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... ingenious experiments of aeronauts, are deprived of all danger. As they made, as it were a part of the programme of the fete, they had feared being compelled to fulfil their agreements, and had fled at the moment of ascension. Their courage had been in inverse ratio to the square of their swiftness in retreat. ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... answers of no interest till they had walked back through the village to the Falls at the other end of it, where the saw in a mill was whirring through a long pine log, and the water, streaked with sawdust, was spreading over the rocks below and flowing away with a smooth swiftness. The ground near the mill was piled with fresh-sawed, fragrant lumber and ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... of facetious Talents and agreeable Humour, in whose Temperament, Judgment, and Discretion, as before observ'd, are usually found in a disproportionate Measure, are more inclin'd than others to Levity and dissolute Manners: The same swiftness of Thought and sprightliness of Imagination, that qualifies them for ingenious Conversation, Sports of Fancy and Comick Writing, do likewise give them an exquisite Taste of sensual Pleasures, and expose them to the prevailing Power of Tempting, tho forbidden Enjoyments. The Passions and ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... your life, Bransome. It's smashed into small pieces both of you will be," and the eyes of the spectators grew wide as they watched the two running figures, for the rancher also had turned, and the lines of vapor were creeping with ominous swiftness across the face ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... nimble Composure than the fore-mentioned, and fitter for Chase. Yorkshire, Cumberland, Northumberland, and the North parts, breed the Light, Nimble, swift slender Dog. And our open Champaigns train up excellent Grey-Hounds, hugely admired for his Swiftness, Strength, and Sagacity. And lastly, the little Beagle bred in all Countries, is of exceeding Cunning, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... at Babylon in their voyage and have disposed of their cargo, they sell by auction the ribs of the boat and all the straw, but they pack the hides upon their asses and drive them off to Armenia: for up the stream of the river it is not possible by any means to sail, owing to the swiftness of the current; and for this reason they make their boats not of timber but of hides. Then when they have come back to the land of the Armenians, driving their asses with them, they make other boats in ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... lightning he jumped into the car and shut off the switch, but the imprisoned air was already heavy with the deadly fumes and his head swam. Shutting off the switch would not save him; nothing would save him unless his mind and body acted together with lightning swiftness. ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... by the explosion of a bomb. Instead of pursuing a right line the mule turned within a radius of its own length, swinging the victoria round after it as though the victoria had been a kettle attached to it with string. And Countess, Denry, and victoria were rapt with miraculous swiftness away—not at all towards the Policemen's Institute, but down Longshaw Road, which is tolerably steep. They were pursued, but ineffectually. For the mule had bolted and was winged. They fortunately came into contact with nothing except a large barrow of carrots, turnips, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... third (Jupiter) had the whitest light—the fourth (Mars) was red—the sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal ...
— The Republic • Plato
... will often get away; they run with amazing swiftness, and in the heart of the jungle it is almost impossible to make them rise. A couple of sharp terriers, or a good retriever, will sometimes flush them, but the best way is to go along the edge of the jungle in the early morn, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... falling from the sky, went up again with demon-like activity, once more descended—once more hurtled wildly aloft—and repeated this maneuver with a swiftness utterly bewildering. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave. [11] Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: [12] the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... bulls, dogs, and goats were led about by strings, cocks and hens were carried in men's arms, and little page-boys with rope turbans rushed about conveying messages, as if their lives depended on their swiftness, every one holding his skin cloak tightly round him, lest his naked legs should by accident be shown, a crime which in that kingdom, if happening in the presence of the king, meets ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... a tall tree at the bluffs edge, and began to descend through its branches with the swiftness and agility of ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... baptism the Holy Spirit was seen, not brooding, but descending from heaven as a dove. To any one who knows anything of doves, who will merely go out into the field or the farm-yard and look at them, and who will use his own eyes, that figure is striking enough, and grand enough. It is the swiftness of the dove, and not its fancied gentleness that is spoken of. The dove appearing, as you may see it again and again, like a speck in the far off sky, rushing down with a swiftness which outstrips the very eagle; returning surely to the very spot from which it set forth, though ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... in spite of her endeavours to be brave, to face the impending fate heroically, she too had had her doubts throughout the long hours of their imprisonment—doubts as to whether death would indeed come to her with the merciful swiftness of a ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... still in those latter days of the Renaissance, but took the downward road with terrible swiftness, and tumbled down at the bottom of the hill, where as if bewitched it lay long in great content, believing itself to be the art of Michael Angelo, while it was the art of men whom nobody remembers but those who ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... impression is wholly obliterated or lost in the streaming poetry of the translator. Dryden may not, on his own score, have been much of a philosopher; but he handles a philosophical thought in verse with a dexterity that is entirely his own. The sharpness and swiftness of intellectual power concurring in him, join so much ease with so much brevity, that the poetical vein flows on unhindered, even when involved with metaphysical notions and with scholastic recollections. The comparison of the following ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... his uncle's library that were worth reading. The process of absorbing ideas by means of reading had become in him a very strange phenomenon. His eye took in six or seven lines at once, and his mind grasped the sense with a swiftness as remarkable as that of his eye; sometimes even one word in a sentence was enough to enable him to seize the gist ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... gladiator from the deadly snare; he uttered a sharp cry of joy and rage and rushed upon Niger; but Niger had already drawn in his net, thrown it across his shoulders, and now fled around the lists with a swiftness which the secutor[6] in vain endeavored to equal. The people laughed and shouted aloud to see the ineffectual efforts of the broad-shouldered gladiator to overtake the flying giant; when at that moment their attention was turned from these to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... suffering for that end, shows his reverence for their death. We owe that duty in even higher measure to the prophets, who are not passive and unconscious victims, but who set themselves intelligently in opposition to evil. The moral soundness of a nation can be measured by the swiftness and accuracy with which it understands its prophetic voices, or personalities, or events. The next best thing to being a prophet is to interpret a prophet. This is one of the proper functions of trained and idealistic minds, such as college men and women should possess. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... part until thou dost either confess that the maiden exists not in the world, or until we obtain her." Thereupon Kay rose up. And Arthur called Bedwyr, who never shrank from any enterprise upon which Kay was bound. None were equal to him in swiftness throughout this island except Arthur alone; and although he was one handed; three warriors could not shed blood faster than he on the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... of defense are well matched with its teeth and claws. The momentum of its huge body involved a seemingly slow and lumbering action, an inertia of its movements, difficult to start and difficult to shift or to stop. Such movements are widely different from the agile swiftness which we naturally associate with a beast of prey. But an animal which exceeds an average elephant in bulk, no matter what its habits, is compelled by the laws of mechanics to the ponderous movements ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... flame. Afar up the wood-crowned hill, the overtopping trees shot forth pinnacles and walls and streamers of arrowy fire. The entire hill-side was an ocean of glowing and surging fiery billows. Favored by the gale, the conflagration spread with lightning swiftness over an illimitable extent of country, filling the atmosphere with driving clouds of suffocating fume, and leaving a broad and blackened trail of spectral trunks shorn of limbs and foliage, smoking and burning, to mark the ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... personal images, which had so long prevailed, should still retain its influence on the mind, though the use of letters had rendered the practical application of it superfluous. Those who had been accustomed to express strength by the image of an elephant, swiftness by that of a panther, and courage by that of a lion, would make no scruple of substituting, in letters, the symbols for the ideas they had been used ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... the murderous grin of his jaw. I know not if he saw me—thought forsook me. The weapon fell with clatter and clangor from my grasp, and in panic fright I fled with extended arms and the headlong swiftness of a stripling, through the black labyrinths of the caverns, through the vacant corridors of the house, till I reached my chamber, the door of which I had time to fasten on myself before I dropped, gasping, panting for very life, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... and fro like a hammock, with an exhilarating motion. For some while I was so extremely pleased with these particulars that I thought I could never be weary of beholding them: then dropped of a sudden into a causeless sadness; and then, with the same swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at the conclusion that I was drunk and had better get ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... then with greater and ever greater swiftness, the signal star crept nearer; and now even the flames were visible, and now behind them he caught dim sight ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... something in muffled French that strangely reminded him of what Hobbs had said in English. Then she deposited an armful of rugs and magazines at Robin's feet, and clutched wildly at a post actually some ten feet away but which appeared to be coming toward her with obliging swiftness, so nicely was the deck rotating for her. "Mon dieu! ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling swiftness, since within an interval of just three days, the Governor Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed it at two positions on the charts separated by a distance of more than ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... broad day, and Octavio stood before me. 'My brother,' said he,'do not ride to-day 90 The dapple, as you're wont; but mount the horse Which I have chosen for thee. Do it, brother! In love to me. A strong dream warned me so.' It was the swiftness of this horse that snatched me From the hot pursuit of Bannier's dragoons. 95 My cousin rode the dapple on that day. And never more saw I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... became rich and respected, but he never trusted himself far from his stick day or night. One night a hundred robbers came to break into the house, to take all his goods, and kill him, but he said to the stick, "Boombye, boomba!" and with the swiftness of lightning the stick flew around, and all those struck fell dead till there was not one left. Juan was never troubled again by robbers, and in the end married a princess and lived ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... Neville removed coat, shoes and pyjamas and sat poised for a moment on the jutting rock, a slight and naked body, long in the leg, finely and supplely knit, with light, flexible muscles—a body built for swiftness, grace and a certain wiry strength. She sat there while she twisted her black plait round her head, then she slipped into the cold, clear, swirling pool, which in one part was just over her depth, and called to Esau to come in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... of Cortes, assuring him that he would very soon return with an answer from Montezuma. Our presents, and intelligence of all that had passed at this interview, were conveyed with amazing rapidity to Montezuma by this officer, who was as much distinguished for swiftness of foot as for his high rank. Montezuma was particularly struck with the appearance of the helmet, as it impressed him strongly with the opinion that we were destined by heaven to acquire the rule over his empire[5]. On the departure of Teuchtlile, the other chief, Cuitlalpitoc, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... was dark and silent as the three men left the tent. They walked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though at random; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each step brought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movements was as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the night wind through the web of the jungle, and when they were close enough, they ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... Diomedes and Odysseus parted to let him pass between them; then cutting off his retreat they closed on him and captured him. They learned how the Trojan host was quartered; at the extremity of it was Rhesus, the newly arrived Thracian King, whose white horses were a marvel of beauty and swiftness. In return for his information Dolon begged them to spare his life, but Diomedes deemed it safer to slay him. The two Greeks penetrated the Thracian encampment, where they slew many warriors and escaped with the horses back to the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself: we may outrun. By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. King Henry VIII., ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... hand and revolver in the other, was ready, and, firing from the hip, broke the collie's back. With a howl the stricken brute turned, and, dragging his helpless hindquarters along the ground with incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: "Stormy Gorman!" he ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... to throw open the door. PHEDRO swiftly forestalls him with widespread arms and a grim expression; GWYMPLANE turns away bowed from his ferocity of pain and bewilderment, while PHEDRO, with an incredible, greased swiftness, lets himself out the door, and returns almost upon the instant with DEA ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... to resist him. But when the citizens, on looking about, saw that a very small number had entered, they now took courage, and came up and attacked them. A combat ensued of the most extraordinary description, in which Marcius, by strength of hand, and swiftness of foot, and daring of soul, overpowering every one that he assailed, succeeded in driving the enemy to seek refuge, for the most part, in the interior of the town, while the remainder submitted, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... effects that Dryden always took physic when about to write any thing of importance. His caricature, Bayes, is accordingly made to say, "When I have a grand design, I ever take physic and let blood; for, when you would have pure swiftness of thought and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... Has lost her swiftness quite, since here you came:— And yet;... I can't perceive the Girl is lame! The obstacles she meets with still fall thicker: Old as I am I'd turn a corner quicker.'— The Youth blush'd deep; and Phoebe hung ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... secrets. I have now to pay the penalty. None can participate in my destiny but with his own consent. None has consented. It has been reported of me, as you know, that I obtained from the enemy of souls a range of existence beyond the period of mortality—a power to pass over space with the swiftness of thought—to encounter perils unharmed, to penetrate into dungeons, whose bolts were as flax and tow at my touch. It has been said that this power was accorded to me that I might be enabled to tempt wretches at their ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... of the force became detached. Suddenly, unobserved by them, there appeared a dense impi of some twenty thousand Zulus. The savage horde rushed shouting upon the small British detachments, rushed with the swiftness of cavalry, attacked them before they could unite, and swooping down with tremendous velocity, seized the camp and separated the British troops from their reserves of ammunition. In face of this warrior multitude our troops were defenceless. A few moments of wild despairing energy, a hand-to-hand ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... flown on its way with more than ordinary swiftness, as if it had known that a force was seeking to bring it back again. The Y.M.C.A. man was carried at high speed in an automobile to the nearest station to the camp, and arrived in time to catch the Baltimore ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... man who wasted no time in making up his mind. His success as a leader had depended upon his swiftness of action and unscrupulousness, and his latest manoeuvres had turned out an admirable success, upon which ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... there." Fanny had been listening. Immediately she married Ellen to young Lloyd, and the next moment she went to live in a grand new house built in a twinkling in a vacant lot next to Norman Lloyd's residence, which was the wonder of the city. She reared this castle in Spain with inconceivable swiftness, even while she was turning her head towards Eva on the other side, and prodding her with an admonishing elbow as Mrs. Zelotes had prodded Andrew. "That's Norman Lloyd's nephew dancing with her now," she said. Eva looked at her, smiling. Directly ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... swiftness upward and outward an Aladdin edifice of illusion. It was as though indeed this genius who had waved his wand and bidden this fairy palace of chimera to arise, had used for his material the intangible, iridescent film ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... save the parents fond from fell despair! In a deep cave the trusty menials wait, When from their hilly dens, at midnight's hour, Forth rush the airy elves in mimic state, And o'er the moon-light heath with swiftness scour: In glittering arms the little horsemen shine; Last, on a milk-white steed, with targe of gold, A fay of might appears, whose arms entwine The lost, lamented child! the shepherds bold[75] The unconscious infant ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of an invasion, and the defenceless state of the coasts and of the country generally. The coup d'etat in France had also created considerable public uneasiness. The secrecy, sternness of purpose, swiftness of action, boldness, and indifference to bloodshed shown by the president of the French republic, caused most men to reflect upon the possibility of some terrible coup de main being attempted against England; the president, in his writings as Prince Charles Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the girl flew up and struck the fisherman with a swiftness and force that took him from his feet. Tessibel was standing over ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... thus I surely think it was—Bosham bell passed not into the power of the heathen, but destroyed them; and it lies at the bottom of the deepest reach of the haven whence the depth and swiftness of the tide will hardly let men bring it again. So I suppose that, profaned by heathen hands, it may no longer call men from across the water and woodland to the church ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... part was white. Those who had seen the bird stated that it was bigger than the bulk of a couple of elephants, and that hitherto nobody had succeeded in killing one. It rises to the clouds with such extraordinary swiftness that it seems scarcely to stir its wings. In form it is like an eagle. But although its size and swiftness are so extraordinary, it has much trouble in procuring food, on account of the density of the forests ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Gutta Percha Balls with the intent swiftness of trained Bird Dogs, and each talked feverishly of Brassy Lies, and getting past the Bunker, and Lofting to the Green, and Slicing into the Bramble—each telling his own Game to the Ambient Air, and ignoring what the other Fellow ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... others of the early classic authors have commented upon the surprising swiftness with which common rumor travels. If its speed was provocative of comment in those bygone days, which lacked most of the accelerating features now found on every hand, it should certainly fare far faster ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... across a pool and grab a bait before any other denizen of the place can possibly get to it. Their agility is the more surprising when one remembers that the grown hornpout is but a sluggish chap and that they are not built on lines that presage swiftness. You may catch the big horn pouts at any season, but these little chaps are peculiar to the dog days. I have an idea they hibernate in the mud at bottom until warm weather calls them forth, and that by next spring, so voracious is their appetite and such their ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the scenes on the road, rapidly changed by the swiftness of the train, drew me away somewhat ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... NO? For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the question itself is altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask whether man's WILL be free, as to ask whether his sleep be swift, or his virtue square: liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness to virtue. Every one would laugh at the absurdity of such a question as either of these: because it is obvious that the modifications of motion belong not to sleep, nor the difference Of figure to virtue; and when any one well considers ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... in which she uttered the concluding words, as though they were to have plenty of time together; but for the moment he was too fiercely hungry to speak. For a few seconds she stood off, watching him eat, after which she withdrew, with the light swiftness that characterized ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... opened and she stared up into the face of the man who had come to her first at Lac Bain, and who had fought for her there. For a breath or two the wonder of this thing that was happening held her speechless and still lifeless, though her senses were adjusting themselves with lightning swiftness. At first Philip had not seen her open eyes, and he believed that she did not hear the words of love he whispered in her hair. When he raised her face a little from his breast she was looking at him with all the sweet sanity ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... hundred years have passed, and the New World is less a novelty than it was. We have begun to suspect that no given number of square miles of land, no eloquence and sagacity of paper preambles and declarations, no swiftness of travel nor instantaneousness of communication, no invincibility of ironclads nor refinement of society, no logic in religion, no gospel of political economy,—none of these and a hundred other things will read ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... threw in some fighting-work for which the Army Regulations did not call. Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not a golden country, though poets have sung otherwise. There men die with great swiftness, and those who live suffer many and curious things. I do not think that my friends concerned themselves much with the social or political aspects of the East. They attended a not unimportant war on the northern frontier, ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... their edge of the board, Mr. BLADAMS abruptly awoke, and raised his elbows from his edge, to relieve his arms by stretching. Released from his pressure, the table flew up upon two legs with remarkable swiftness, and then turned over upon Mr. DIBBLE and Mr. E. DROOD; bringing the two latter and their chairs to the floor under a shower of plates and crackers, and resting invertedly upon their prostrate forms, like some species of four-pillared ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... Mrs. Noel. But whereas, there the matter was confined to its electioneering aspect, here that aspect was already perceived to be only the fringe of its importance. Those feminine minds, going with intuitive swiftness to the core of anything which affected their own males, had already grasped the fact that the rumour would, as it were, chain a man of Miltoun's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from drift logs. The constant hammering of the boats made them leaky. To calk the seams, the men had to climb thousands of feet to get resin from some stunted pine tree. 20 More than once a boat filled with water in a turbulent passage, but the swiftness of the current carried it to more placid waters below, where it ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... sharply round and beheld Mrs Reichardt, evidently in an agony of terror, running towards me with prodigious swiftness. She had dropped her umbrella and her staff, her cap had fallen from her head, and her long hair, disarranged by her sudden flight, streamed behind ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... funny sailor you'd make,' they said. And indeed it was not easy to imagine her short, compact, roundabout figure climbing up masts and darting about with the monkey-like swiftness of a ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... side. At night the place is lit with two lanterns, one to each table. As the steamer beat on her way among the rough billows, the light passed through violent phases of change, and was thrown to and fro and up and down with startling swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so thin a glimmer could control and disperse such solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we found a little company of our acquaintances seated ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pronounced with a loud voice, 'God preserve this gallant knight in all his honourable achievements; and may he long continue to press the sides of his now adopted steed, which I denominate Bronzomarte, hoping that he will rival in swiftness and spirit, Bayardo, Brigliadoro, or any other steed of past or present chivalry!' After another flourish of the trumpets, all four clapped spurs to their horses, Sir Launcelot couching his lance, and galloped ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the end of the street. It opened upon an immense place, where a thousand scattered lights flickered in the confused mists of night. Gringoire flew thither, hoping to escape, by the swiftness of his legs, from the three infirm spectres ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... concrete. Hence the pair of words illustrate Inclusion by Abstract and Concrete, and is indicated by In. by A. and C., or merely by In. Other examples: "Sour, Vinegar;" "Sweet, Sugar;" "Coward, Fear;" "Swiftness, Express ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... him; the lilac distance, which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards, and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka bent his head and shut his eyes. . ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in the direction she had taken. She saw there was no escape—made a bound, and fell senseless on the threshold of the church: the boar had just reached the spot, and one stroke of his terrible tusk had sufficed to crush the fragile being, who lay extended before him, when a young peasant, with a swiftness almost supernatural, interposed between her and her fate; and, with an axe with which he was armed, discharged so well-directed a blow on the head of the brute, that he extended him ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... farewell to that science. His first sustained efforts as an author were those of an interpreter. His complete mastery of German has been said to have endowed him with "his sword of sharpness and shoes of swiftness"; it may be added, in some instances also, with the "fog-cap." But in his earliest substantial volume, the Life of Schiller, there is nothing either obscure in style or mystic in thought. This work began to appear in the London Magazine in 1823, was finished ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... enclosure was a rustle of many-coloured scarves waving in the air. At the striking of the shields the contending steeds rushed from the post with the swiftness of a swallow's flight. But before the white steed of the plains had gone half-way round, Fergus and the wild horse of the mountains had passed the winning post, greeted by such cheers as had never before been heard on the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... The crowd was unbelieving and cynical, inclined to scoff at the idea that mere smoke would carry so huge a construction up into the sky. But when the signal was given to cast off, the balloon rose with a swiftness and majesty that at first struck the crowd dumb, then moved it to cheers of amazement and admiration. It went up six thousand feet and the Montgolfiers were at once elevated to almost an equal height of fame. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the visitor, repaying that glance with equal swiftness, "to seize upon the American idiom. I mean: How small a contribution would you be willing to receive ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... possession of an absorbing emotion. All hesitation, all uncertainty, all disappointment, had been swept from her consciousness as if by a destroying and purifying flame; and for the past few weeks she had lived with that passionate swiftness of sensation which gives one an ecstatic sense of rushing, like a winged creature, through crawling time. Life, indeed, was winged for her at the moment; her soul flew; and she felt her happiness beating like a caged bird within ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... a head sunk between his shoulders. He was dressed in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked back,—coming into contact with the hand I put out to fend him off from myself. He turned with animal swiftness. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... with a sincerity that held a hint of passion. The grimace flicked out of Saltash's face like a picture from a screen. For a moment he had the blank look of a man who has been hit, he knows not where. Then with lightning swiftness, his eyes went to Maud. "You hear that?" he said, almost on a note of challenge. "Why don't ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... the eddies, shooting along with vigorous strokes, while the English trembled as they saw the frail bark spinning and leaping amid the muzzles of the alligators, and the huge dog-toothed trout: but with the swiftness of an arrow she reached the northern bank, drove her canoe among the bushes, and leaping from it, darted through some narrow opening in the bush, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the fullest extent, the true character of the awful circumstances in which we were placed. Such was the state of things, as Guert's blacks began sensibly to relax in their speed, for want of wind. They still galloped on, but it was no longer with the swiftness of the wind; and their master became sensible of the folly of hoping to reach the town ere the catastrophe should arrive. He reined in his panting horses, therefore, and was just falling into a trot, as a violent ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... "I have still two noble stallions; Ay, a pair of handsome horses; One of these of matchless swiftness, And the other best in harness. If it ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... at Overton glided by with amazing swiftness. There was so much to be done in the way of arranging one's recitations, buying or renting one's books and accustoming one's self to the routine of college life that Grace and her friends could scarcely spare the time to write their home letters. There were twenty-four ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... wrote: "I saw, to my astonishment, a torrent of water descending with an impetuosity such as I have never before witnessed.... It descends as if in steps, and at each descent there is a remarkable boiling, owing to the force and swiftness with which the water traverses the fall, which is about a league in length.... The territory on the side of the fall where we went overland consists, so far as we saw it, of very open wood, where one can go with ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... far below the leader in size and prowess. Several of the band, besides the two leaders, were especially noted. One of those was a beautiful white wolf, that the Mexicans called Blanca; this was supposed to be a female, possibly Lobo's mate. Another was a yellow wolf of remarkable swiftness, which, according to current stories, had, on several occasions, captured ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... Clearly in the stillness of the morning he heard a few soft notes struck on the piano. At that hour the sound was most unusual. He listened. The Flower Music of "Parsifal." With a swiftness that left the astonished butler staring after him, he darted toward a door. In a moment he had torn the portiere aside and had crossed the polished floor of the music room. Miriam was seated at the piano, her fingers resting ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... chair which was Mr. Pett's favourite and which Ogden was accustomed to occupy to that gentleman's displeasure. The swiftness of recent events had left him a little dizzy, and he desired to think matters over and find out exactly what ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the shoulder gently, and soon with stealthy swiftness passed from sight, and seemed to vanish ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... statesmen said of Lord Rhondda that he would have made the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer these islands had ever possessed. I do not think there can be any doubt of this, for his genius lay in figures and he had extraordinary swiftness in seeing his way through expensive chaos to economical order. His mind was constructive, if not positively creative. He was never happier—except when birds'-nesting or romping with young people—than when he was in an arm-chair ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... was stormy; rain was falling in torrents when the modern Charlemagne, unable to move, was borne in a litter by the light of torches across steep mountain paths with a swiftness most surprising; terror adding wings to the footsteps of his bearers, lest they and their gouty burden should fall into the hands of the heretic army, said to be in pursuit. But pursuit was soon given up, for the troops ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... its start, you see, and it is a phenomenally good one. Moreover, it is latterly spreading with a constantly accelerating swiftness. It has a better chance to grow and prosper and achieve permanency than any other existing 'ism;' for it has more to offer than any other. The past teaches us that, in order to succeed, a movement like this must not be a mere philosophy, it must be a religion; also, that it must ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had become almost intolerably exciting, when the players seemed possessed, and noise and swiftness to rush together like foes to the attack, the flute wavered, ran up to a height, cried out like a thing martyred; the violin gave forth a thin scream; on the derbouka the brown fingers of the player pattered with abrupt feebleness; the guitar died away; the little brass discs shivered and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... on in swiftness fleet, The road became a village street; And this, before men were aware, A city's crowded thoroughfare; And soon the central street was this Of a renowned metropolis; And men two centuries and a half Trod in the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... difference in their age and yet Maheegun was much the smaller of the two. Her body was as long, but she was slimmer; she stood on slender legs that were almost like the legs of a fox, and the curve of her back was that of a slightly bent bow, a sign of swiftness almost equal to the wind. She stood poised for flight even as Baree advanced his first step toward her, and then very slowly her body relaxed, and in a direct ratio as he drew nearer her ears lost ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... strident accent of power and command, this voice of Earth rushed upon them over the quiet water—then died away again among the mountains and the night. Its passage through the sky was torrential. The whole pouring flood of it dipped back with abrupt swiftness into silence. The Irishman understood that but an echo of its main ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... side, and looked up to the mountain where the peaks were now wholly veiled in night, now seemed afloat in a sea of flame, and more distinctly visible than by daylight. Again and again a forked flash like a saw-blade of fire cut through the black curtain of cloud with terrific swiftness, again and again the thunder sounded like a blast of trumpets through the silent wilderness, and multiplied itself, clattering, growling, roaring, and echoing from rock to rock. Light and sound at last seemed to be hurled from Heaven ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Greece, nearly three thousand years ago, and he made them all up into a poem, the Odyssey, which I hope you will read some day. Here you will find the witch who turns men into swine, and the man who bores out the big foolish giant's eye, and the cap of darkness, and the shoes of swiftness, that were worn later by Jack the Giant-Killer. These fairy tales are the oldest stories in the world, and as they were first made by men who were childlike for their own amusement, so they amuse children still, and also grown-up ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... these books to be found wanting in swiftness and vigilance; when he cheers his comrades it is no longer in a half-hearted way, but as at the beginning of the eleventh book, with the utmost vigour and confidence, "Arma parate, animis et spe ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler |
