"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Everything seemed ready at last.... They did not begin! What was happening? He boiled over with impatience. Then the bell rang. His heart thumped away. The orchestra began the overture, and for a few hours Jean-Christophe would swim in happiness, troubled only by the idea that it must soon come to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... me!" called the young man as they came near. "See if you can't save my sister. She doesn't know how to swim." ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... white-painted herring boat, mistaking it for a beluga; and it is stated that occasionally they will boldly lay siege to whales killed by the whalers, almost dragging them perforce under water. Near some of the Pacific sealing grounds they continually swim about, and swoop off the unwary young; even the large male sea-lions hastily retreat ashore and give these monsters a wide berth. The walrus also, with his powerful tusks, cannot keep the killers at bay, especially if young ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Mickleham indicates politely that if she took this one it would have to swim for it. (The Haggerty Woman takes it long afterwards when she thinks, erroneously, that no ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... discover when seeds of any kind are fully ripe and good, throw them into a basin of water. If not sufficiently ripe, they will swim on the surface; but when arrived at full maturity, they will be found uniformly to sink to the bottom; a fact that is said to hold equally true of all seeds, from the cocoa nut to the orchis.—Seeds of plants may be preserved, for many months at least, by causing them to be packed, either ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... slender means to risk money in the great game.—But was there any hint of risk in the present instance? To judge from Ocock's manner, the investment was as safe as a house, and lucrative to a degree that made one's head swim. "Many times their original figure!" An Arabian-nights fashion of growing rich, and no mistake! Very different from the laborious grind of HIS days, in which he had always to reckon with the chance of not ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the girls come, I'm going to swim out among the pretty sharks," said Pete, obviously trying to echo Ralph's light note. "By Jove, hear them chatter up there. They're talking all at once and at the top of their lungs just like your sisters and your cousins ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... said, "but I can't help watching that Chapman boy; he's only got one reef in, and the next time he jibs he'll capsize, and he can't swim, and he'll drown. I told his mother ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... contact of two heterogeneous metals, his contemporaries could never have anticipated that the action of the voltaic pile would discover to us, in the alkalies, metals of a silvery luster, so light as to swim on water, and eminently inflammable; or that it would become a powerful instrument of chemical analysis, and at the same time a thermoscope and a magnet. When Hygens first observed, in 1678, the phenomenon of the polarization of light, exhibited in the difference between the two rays into which ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... to be distinguished except as points of colored light. I was much disappointed: I felt that I had lazily missed an opportunity which might never again return,—for these old Bon-customs are dying rapidly. But in another moment it occurred to me that I could very well venture to swim out to the lights. They were moving slowly. I dropped my robe on the beach, and plunged in. The sea was calm, and beautifully phosphorescent. Every stroke kindled a stream of yellow fire. I swam fast, and overtook the last of the lantern-fleet much sooner than I had hoped. I felt ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the last one, conversation may continue. Sally wants to know more about her trajet from India—to take the testimony of an eyewitness. "Mamma says always I was in a great rage because they wouldn't let me go overboard and swim." ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... called to deep, and thy waves and billows were passing over me; when my soul seemed sinking in the mire where there was no standing, I groped in the dark; my heart panted, my strength failed, and the light of mine eyes seemed gone out. I was weak with my groaning; in the night I made my bed to swim with my tears; yet even then, by that same covenant by which I was suffering, light sprang out of darkness, glimmering hope in the midst of despair. I remembered the years of thy right hand; in the multitude of my thoughts within me—the provision ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... months. But it has been proved, which is very strange, that if, after they have been frozen for twenty-four hours or more, you put these fish into water and gradually thaw them as you do the meat, they will recover and swim about again as well as ever. To proceed however, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... commended her soul to God. The world seemed to reel and swim around her; she felt as if that long lapse through space would never have an end, and then it appeared to her as though she were peacefully musing in her chair, and she saw the castle of Kirchberg and the pleasant fields lying ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... us two, you will have, I would wager, an inclination to lead your musketeers into Holland. Can you swim?" And he laughed like a man in a very ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... it. You see all this with jaundiced eyes. I read somewhere the other day that the great ships have always little worms attached to them, but that the great ships swim on and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... vessel, as she rolled deeply from one side to the other, presenting her gunwales as if courting the admittance of the wave. "Are you, then, tired of your existence, as well as I?" thought I, apostrophising the vessel. "Have you found out at last, that while you swim you've nought to encounter but difficulty and danger? That you enter your haven but to renew your tasks, and again become a beast of burthen; that when empty you must bow to the slightest breeze, and when laden must groan and labour for the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... point by saying that if the captain had been drowned with the boots on, he would certainly have been washed ashore along with them, and that he had no doubt whatever he had kicked them off while in the sea that he might swim more easily. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... To swim with thee far out into the bay, A trembling glitter on the waves, the shore Glowing with noontide fervor, nevermore To fear the treacherous depths, though long the way. Sweet beyond words the sighs that breathe and blow, ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars, Sir, and it's all you'll get—I'll swim in blood before I'll pay ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wave the branch of palm. At first the light was dim because of the closed shutters; but the herbs caught strongly afire, and the flames beat upon Keola, and the room glowed with the burning; and next the smoke rose and made his head swim and his eyes darken, and the sound of Kalamake muttering ran in his ears. And suddenly, to the mat on which they were standing came a snatch or twitch, that seemed to be more swift than lightning. ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beneath. I cannot describe the eager exhilaration which filled me; but I guessed that the impulse which bids men fling themselves from such heights is not a morbid prepossession, not a physical dizziness, but an intemperate and overwhelming joy. It seems at such a moment so easy to float and swim through the viewless air, as if one would be borne up on the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as he had predicted. As the wind surged back after a particularly vicious rush against the great blue cliff, we cut loose and went sailing up into it, rushing past the glittering wall so swiftly that it made our heads swim. In two or three minutes we rounded a corner, and then found ourselves in a kind of atmospheric eddy, where the car simply spun round and round, with the sleds ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... are an effort toward angelhood. Men can walk water who are willing to take a boat for an overshoe. So we may air when we get the right shoe. Browning gives us a delicious sense of being amphibian as we swim. And the butterfly, that winged rather than rooted flower, looking down upon us as we float, begets in us a great longing to be polyphibian. We have innate tendencies toward a life of finer surroundings, and we shall take to them with zest, if ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... places itself at mid-day on the bare beach. It is certainly neither a monitor (the real monitors living only in the old continent,) nor the sauvegarde of Seba (Lacerta teguixin,) which dives and does not swim. It is somewhat remarkable that the lake of Valencia, and the whole system of small rivers flowing into it, have no large alligators, though this dangerous animal abounds a few leagues off in the streams ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Bay of Virgins. Night fishing has its attractions in these tropics, if only for the freedom from severe heat, the glory of the moonlight or starlight, and the waking dreams that come to one upon the sea, when the canoe rests tranquil, the torch blazes, and the fish swim to meet the 10 harpoon. The night was moonless, but the sea was covered with phosphorescence, sometimes a glittering expanse of light, and again black as velvet except where our canoe moved gently through a soft and glamorous surface of sparkling ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... anencephalous monster. I have never had time to give myself much to natural history. I was early bitten with an interest in structure, and it is what lies most directly in my profession. I have no hobby besides. I have the sea to swim in there." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... She was looking so lovely after a wild time in the pool, and a girl who can look well after a swim is surely very pretty. But Jane's hair loved the water, and a flash of sunshine after it just whipped the little ringlets into flossy tangles. Then her eyes always danced from excitement, and her agile form just vibrated energy. Don't blame Jane for this description—it is given through Judy's ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... said the canny Scot. "Muster Girdlestone kens on which side his bread is buttered. He may wish 'em to sink or he may wish 'em to swim. That's no for us to judge. You'll hear him speak o't to-night as like as not, for he's aye on it when he's half over. Here we are, sir. The corner edifice wi' the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fear, No maidens heave their breasts and weep, All wrecks of Flesh lie on the ground, Removed from shoals where Terror moans. On skulls that some in Death hath left, Croak toads to lizards in a well; In cajons that the Ancient's digged, Swim snakes that hiss at burning oils: And bats and owls that offal cleft, Proclaim their burdens to a dell, Whilst crafts that some strange witch hath rigged, Bring slaves unto ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... him before—perfect stranger. I wouldn't have hesitated a minute, but the deck was crowded with a lot of his friends. One chap was his bunkie. So, really, now, it wasn't my place to jump in after him. He could swim a bit, and I yelled to him to hold up and I'd tell the captain. Confounded captain wasn't to be found though. Somebody said he was asleep. In the end I told the mate. By this time we were a mile away from the ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... at the tail of a fox. The night was dark, and a recent fall of rain had so swollen a mountain stream which lay in our road, that when we reached the ford, which was generally passable by foot passengers, Terence was obliged to swim his horse across, and to dismount on the opposite side, in order to assist the animal up a steep clayey bank which had been formed by the torrent undermining and cutting away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... his son, who was leading the advance guard; and when he found that he could not cross immediately by the bridge, he plunged into the river to swim his horse across. Both horse and rider were swept away by the current. Barbarossa's heavy armor made him helpless and he was drowned. His body was recovered and buried ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... white and brown, Where'er I look, there's peeping down A face ... but whose, whose is it? I bore my gaze 'neath cap and brim And see the snowflakes swarm and swim;— Will ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... less swift at this point, did not greatly hinder her, but in the centre of the stream she had to strike out in the boiling water and to swim faster in order to avoid being carried to leeward. Her breath came shorter and quicker, and yet she held it in lest the young Hebrew should hear her. Sometimes a higher wave lapped with its foam her ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... swim; Bradford could; so he dismounted, and plunged into the stream to save his father. He got to him before he sunk, held him up above water, and told him to take hold of his collar, and he would swim ashore with him. Mr. B. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... row upon the belly on the back and between two waters. I am not so dexte rous that you. Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what don't to ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... dangerous mountains, but still there might be a chance even at Easney of doing something remarkable. Dickie might tumble into a pond and he might save her life—only there was no water deep enough to drown her, and if there were he could not swim. Or the house might catch fire. That would do better. It would be in the night, and Ambrose would be the only one awake, and would have to rouse his father, who slept at the other end of the house. He would wrap himself in a blanket, force his way through smothering smoke ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... bayonet, and drove them out of their works. The enemy made an attempt to rally, behind the walls and in the pagodas of the town, but the effort was vain. They were driven out with great slaughter, hundreds were drowned in eudeavouring to swim the river, and the army was finally dispersed ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... to adopt as their own its desires, and to serve them with fidelity, and even, if possible, with impulsiveness. This is the more easy for them, because there are not wanting,—and there never will be wanting,—thinkers like Mr. Baxter, Mr. Charles Buxton, and the Dean of Canterbury, to swim with the stream, but to swim with it philosophically; to call the desires of the ordinary self of any great section of the community edicts of the national mind and laws of human progress, and to give them a general, a philosophic, and an imposing expression. ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... show its workings in so slight an essay; but surely it is a strange thing in civilization, and a stranger when we consider what literature does for us, blessing our world or banning it—it is a wonder and a shame that books of whatever tendency are so cast forth upon the waters to sink or swim at hazard. I acknowledge, friend, your present muttering, Utopian! Arcadian! Formosan! to be not ill-founded: the sketch is a hasty one; but though it may have somewhat in common with the vagaries of Sir Thomas More, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... ever seen before, could fight like a demon in defense of a smaller boy, and did not shrink from pitching into a fellow twice his size. He could tell all about the great base-ball and foot-ball games of New York City, knew the pitchers by name and yet did not boast uncomfortably. He could swim like a duck and dive fearlessly. He could outrun them all, by his lightness of foot, and was an expert in gliding away from any hand that sought to hold him back. They admired him ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... ugly fascination," he said. "You are in the swim, and you must hold your own. You gamble with other men, and when you win you chuckle. All the time you're whittling your conscience away—if ever you had any. You're never quite dishonest, and you're never quite ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have heard that just at full flood tide the whirlpool was not dangerous, and he determined to watch for the subsiding of its fury and then plunge in and take his chance of being able to swim ashore or to fall ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... the left towards that distant bend which the Seine makes round the verge of the Chatou woods. His Majesty, who observes every thing, noticed two bathers in the river, who apparently were trying to teach their much younger companion, a lad of fourteen or fifteen, to swim; doubtless, they had hurt him, for he got away from their grasp, and escaped to the river-bank, to reach his clothes and dress himself. They tried to coax him back into the water, but he did not relish such treatment; by his gestures it was plain that he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... knees and the mare answered in a lope that stretched into a gallop, fast and faster as she reached the levels and sped toward Elk River. Sandy was not going to waste time looking for a ford. The mare could swim. The moon, sloping down toward the west, still above the range, helped by the big white stars, made the valley bright almost as day. He scanned the mountain toward the peaks, passed over the dark impenetrable pines, surveyed the stretch of gently rising ground between the Elk and the trees and shifted ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the wild rended their fellows limb by limb; Where horrid Saurians of the sea in waves of blood were wont to swim: ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... desired his skilful Canadian to secure the prize. The other arose and took deliberate aim. The bird, now not more than ten yards distant, did not offer to fly, and made no attempt to swim away, but kept its paddles well under it, with its head turned from us, while it swung lightly from side to side, glancing backward with its keen, audacious eye, now over this shoulder, now over that. The gun flashed; the shot spattered over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... smallest fragment of language or art, just as surely as the man of science can from some tiny bone, or the mere impress of a foot upon a rock, re-create for us the winged dragon or Titan lizard that once made the earth shake beneath its tread, can call Behemoth out of his cave, and make Leviathan swim once more across the startled sea. Prehistoric history belongs to the philological and archaeological critic. It is to him that the origins of things are revealed. The self-conscious deposits of an age are nearly ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... seal—unless the Lowther Arcade theology has been amended since I had a Noah's ark. As a matter of fact, I don't see what business a seal would have in the ark, where he would find no fish to eat, and would occupy space wanted by a more necessitous animal who couldn't swim. At any rate, there was originally no seal in my Noah's ark, which dissatisfied me, as I remember, at the time; what I wanted not being so much a Biblical illustration as a handy zoological collection. So I appointed the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to fly like a bird, to swim like a fish, to gallop like a horse, to creep like a serpent, but I suspect the good of all these is to be got without doing ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... in me was astir. At this moment," he went on as she remained silent, "I should like to fling myself on horseback, and ride, ride, till I had no breathe left, or fling myself into the Volga and swim to the opposite bank. Do ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... He hung on as well as he could; but the spray from the combings of the seas cut his face and blinded him. Still, he could easily have held on till dawn, because the tide had no further to rise. He, like too many of the fishermen, could not swim. He got hold of the edge of the rock. There was not room for him on the ledge; so presently he said, "I am going." Roughit answered: "No, don't do that; let me give you a haul up here." As Lance went up on ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... insinuating habit and wild will [2]. These are of no advantage to you. This is all which I have to tell you.' On the other hand, Confucius is made to say to his disciples, 'I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the arrow. But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds, and rises to heaven. Today I have seen Lao-tsze, and can only compare ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... more, for she was still in a very depressed state from the effects of the journey, and her head was "all of a swim," as she expressed it. So Susan was left to her own thoughts; and as the cab rattled along the road in front of the sea, she wondered anxiously which of those tall houses with balconies was Mrs Enticknapp's. But presently they turned up a side street, lost sight of the sea altogether, ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... the sunshine of popular favor, and his estimate of the tenor in The Century Magazine for June, 1882, is scarcely flattering either to the singer or the public that liked him. It was Mr. White's observation that Brignoli came into the swim at the time that the young woman of New York became the arbiter of art and ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... every known variety of fish. Near to its surface, so close that the angler may reach out his hand and stroke them, schools of pike, pickerel, mackerel, doggerel, and chickerel jostle one another in the water. They rise instantaneously to the bait and swim gratefully ashore holding it in their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the lake, the sardine, the lobster, the kippered herring, the anchovy and other tinned varieties of fish disport themselves with evident gratification, while even ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... course, Which needed pluck and vim, Might raise his drowning spirit high, And teach it how to swim; ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained brightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark woods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid this universal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... by the sail, and, for a moment, was in great peril; but, disengaging himself from the cordage, he struck out, and swam to a willow whose friendly boughs and top had just formed an asylum for Mr. Bouncer, who in great anxiety was coaxing Huz and Buz to swim to the same ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Society, awarded for saving life in cases of danger from drowning. The wearer was a Professor of Natation, and told me that, among his pupils, he had an old lady sixty-seven years of age, who had just commenced, and was able to swim some twenty yards already. The brave old lady's example may do good; though it is to be hoped that she may not, at her time of life, be compelled to exert her art for her ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... make a short detour around the cove," said Deck. "I will watch from this point, to see that he doesn't enter the water and swim away on the sly. Are you willing to ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... reminiscences of the expansive wife of one of our more patient politicians. The world went on just the same, quarrelling, chattering, lying; sentimental, busy and richly absurd; its denizens tilting against each other's politics, murdering each other, trying and always failing to swim across the channel, and always talking, talking, talking. Marazion and Newlyn, and every other place were the world in little, doing all the same things in their own miniature way. Each human soul was the world in little, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... was strong and great of stature, his hair was yellow as gold, and his grey eyes shone with the light of swords. He was gentle and loving as a woman, and even as a lad his strength was the strength of two men; and there were none in all the quarter who could leap or swim or wrestle against Eric Brighteyes. Men held him in honour and spoke well of him, though as yet he had done no deeds, but lived at home on Coldback, managing the farm, for now Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, his father, was dead. But women loved him much, and that was ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... abundance. The partners now urged to recruit their forces from the natives of this island. They declared they had never seen watermen equal to them, even among the voyageurs of the Northwest; and, indeed, they are remarkable for their skill in managing their light craft, and can swim and dive like waterfowl. The partners were inclined, therefore, to take thirty or forty with them to the Columbia, to be employed in the service of the company. The captain, however, objected that there was not room in his vessel for the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... vigorous. Rising very early, he walked across the Park, and had a swim in the Serpentine. The hours of the solid day he spent, for the most part, in study at the British Museum. Then, if he had no engagement, he generally got by train well out of town, and walked in sweet air until nightfall; or, if weather ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... indiscretion in remaining so long on shore, and in not having seen that the boat was properly secured. He had not forgotten those huge monsters of sharks, which had been prowling about, but there was only one way by which the boat could be regained. Somebody must swim off to her. These thoughts rapidly passed through his mind. The swim itself was nothing; he had often swum ten times further without fatigue. But those sharks! He recollected the shudder which had passed through him as he had seen them approach the boat ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... swim," Hester answered in alarm, and added, as she stepped into the boat, "Nuncey, don't laugh at me, but until to-day I had never seen the sea in ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the sad story of Hero and Leander, who lived on opposite borders of the Hellespont. Hero dwelt at Sestos, where she served as a priestess, in the very temple of Venus; and Leander's home was in Abydos, a town on the opposite shore. But every night this lover would swim across the water to see Hero, guided by the light which she was wont to set in her tower. Even such loyalty could not conquer fate. There came a great storm, one night, that put out the beacon, and washed Leander's body up with the waves to ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... strong ground with only 160 men, defeated the Hollanders and compelled them to return precipitately to their ships, leaving 300 of their men slain, seven only with the colours and one piece of cannon being taken, and they threw away all their arms to enable them to swim off to their ships. In the mean while, the ships continued to batter the fort, but were so effectually answered that some of them were sunk and sixty men slain. After this the enemy abandoned the enterprise, and the citizens of Macao built ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... luckless man! why is Poseidon so angry with thee? Fear nothing, however; he cannot take thy life. Obey me and thou shalt not suffer much longer. Lay aside thy clothes, leave the raft to the mercy of the winds and waves, and swim to the land. Take my veil and wind it about thy breast, and thou shalt not have anything to fear. As soon as thou hast reached the land, take it off and throw it back into the sea. Then hurry ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... And a cheerful company, That learned of him submissive ways; And comforted his private days. To his side the fallow deer Came, and rested without fear; The eagle, lord of land and sea, Stooped down to pay him fealty; And both the undying fish that swim, Through Bowscale-Tarn did wait on him, The pair were servants to his eye In their immortality; They moved about in open sight, To and fro, for his delight. He knew the rocks which angels haunt On the mountains visitant, He hath kenned them taking wing; ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... to swim. I've taught quantities of young ladies, and shall be delighted to launch the 'Dora,' if you'll accept me as a pilot. Stop a bit; I'll get a life-preserver," and leaving Debby to flirt with the waves, the scarlet youth departed like a flame ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... work,—teaching, translating. He was not a good teacher; his translations did not please his employers. Remember, his health was enfeebled, he was disfigured by the loss of an eye; he had spent eight years in the mines at Kara. He began to sink. Let those blame him who know how hard it is to swim. From borrowing, from begging, he sank to I dare not guess what. I am afraid there can be no doubt that for a while he served the Russian secret police as a spy; but he proved an unremunerative spy; they turned him off. He took to drink, he sank lower and lower, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... throw from the land he perceived a white water-lily. All at once he was seized with the desire to see it quite close, so he threw off his clothes and entered the water. It was quite shallow; sharp stones and water plants cut his feet, and yet he could not reach water deep enough for him to swim in. ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... and becoming keener therefor. Faith mocked and drawing its mantel closer. Love thwarted and becoming acid. Hatred mounting too high and thinning into pity. Hunger for life unappeased and becoming a stream under-ground Where only blind things swim. God year by year removing himself to remoter thrones Of inexorable law. God coming closer even while disease And total blindness came between him and God And defeated the mercy of God. And a love and a trust growing deeper ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... employs sweet sounds, But animated Nature sweeter still To soothe and satisfy the human ear. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night: nor these alone whose notes Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime In still repeated circles, screaming loud, The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... of the younger men, "the stranger don't rightly know what he wants. Your horses are grazing half a mile off. You would not have had us make the poor beasts swim through the creek tied to the stern of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Richardson volunteered to swim the hundred and thirty yards of icy water (38 degrees), and carry a line over. He made the attempt, and had almost succeeded when the cold overcame him, and he was dragged back nearly drowned. He ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... famous Mesdames Dodginsky and DeBartley, where they were told their secret ambitions; and by special permission we have been allowed to print them. It appears that Annah Margaret Thresher would like to swim the English Channel. Jean Crocker longs to be a Professor of Music at Oxford, while Florence Roberts would receive all possible degrees at Columbia. Others seem to desire athletic professions. Helen Dietz would ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... driven the rebels out of the Martiniere, could be seen preparing to assault the works at the other side of the river. A discussion ensued as to how this knowledge could be obtained, and a young subaltern of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, named Butler,[10] offered to swim across the Gumti, and, if he found the enemy had retired, to communicate the fact to Hope's men. This feat was successfully accomplished by the plucky young volunteer; he found the enemy had retired, and, on giving the information ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... below, Bursting, bubbling, swelling the flow, Like hill torrents after the snow,— Bubbling, gurgling, in whirling strife, 310 Swaying, sweeping, to and fro,— He must swim for ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... house that I own on Elm Street, and live there, and let John and Lillie keep house by themselves. You see there is no helping the thing. Married people must be left to themselves; nobody can help them. They must make their own discoveries, fight their own battles, sink or swim, together; and I have determined that not by the winking of an eye will I ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... done. We have to learn to go to the root of the matter. We have to teach children to be a law to themselves. We have to give them that knowledge which will enable them to guard their own personalities.[23] There is an authentic story of a lady who had learned to swim, much to the horror of her clergyman, who thought that swimming was unfeminine. "But," she said, "suppose I was drowning." "In that case," he replied, "you ought to wait until a man comes along and saves you." There we have the two methods of salvation which have been ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... rains, widened at their mouths into spacious estuaries. Pizarro, who had some previous knowledge of the country, acted as guide as well as commander of the expedition. He was ever ready to give aid where it was needed, encouraging his followers to ford or swim the torrents as they best could, and cheering the desponding by his own buoyant and courageous spirit. At length they reached a thick-settled hamlet, or rather town, in the province of Coaque. The Spaniards rushed on the place, and the inhabitants, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... savage and its quiet joys. I narrated the lives in it, of fishes, of monsters; its wonders of half human lives, too, the mermaids who lie on the rocks at night to see the twinkling lights on land, the mermen who swim round them, wondering what those lights may mean. I made him walk with me on the land under the sea, where go the divers through the wrecks, and ascend the rocky mountains and penetrate the weedy valleys, and glide across the slippery, oozy plains. In fine, Uniacke, I ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... few seconds he reached the child and caught it by the hair. Then he turned to swim back, but the stream had got hold of him. Bravely he struggled, and lifted the child breast-high out of the water in his powerful efforts to stem the current. In vain. Each moment he was carried inch by inch down until he was on the brink of the fall, which, though not high, was a large ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... the afternoon; and when the river should have been at low tide, the island was still flooded. Gravitation was overmatched for the time being. And where were the rails, I asked myself. They could swim, no doubt, when put to it, but it seemed impossible that they could survive so fierce an inundation. Well, the wind ceased, the tide went out at last; and behold, the rails were in full cry, not a voice missing! How they had managed it ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... the face of the man, to see if he spoke in earnest. They saw directly that he did, for that kind face looked full of care as well as of love: so from him they looked out upon the waves of the sea, and one whispered to another, "Where shall we go? how shall we ever get over that sea? we can never swim across it: had we not better go back, and play and be happy, until the time comes for us ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... may add that there is a tradition, that the islands of San Lorenzo and Fronton were once joined, and that the channel between San Lorenzo and the mainland, now above two miles in width, was so narrow that cattle used to swim over.) I have shown that the island of San Lorenzo has been upraised eighty-five feet since the Peruvians inhabited this country; and whatever may have been the amount of recent subsidence, by so much more must the elevation ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... "Swim this way as hard as you can, Shack!" he had shouted again and again, and the boy in the river was evidently bent on doing what he was told, though hardly able to sustain himself on account of complete exhaustion, added to a ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... heard the latter words, for his head was in a swim. This crafty-looking, overbearing individual his parent? The shock was an awful one. He ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... to think they were not very well behaved and needed a good scolding; so he began to strut about and talk at the top of his voice; but the ducklings had their swim and came out as happy as ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various
... was observed that they came out excessively tired, hungry, sleepy, and swollen. Seven still obstinately remained in the water till about seven in the evening; when Soto, thinking it a pity such resolute men should perish, ordered twelve Spaniards to swim to them, with their swords in their mouths, who dragged them all out half-drowned. Care was taken to recover them; and when asked the reason of their obstinacy, they alleged that as commanders, they were willing to convince ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... The Sovereign shoved through it log-wise under the pull, the swell roaring and gurgling along her sunken channels and through her water ports. She was making not more than a mile an hour, or hardly as fast as a man could swim, yet on she went, and as she did so, she was leaving behind our last hope ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... us," Ralph said, when they finished. "For a really long swim, I daresay they would be very fatiguing; but it is cold, not fatigue, we have to fear, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... our baggage. The gray beach at our feet stretched with irregular outline up the lake, and offered one prominent cape whence the boat started for its trips across the stream. By 10.30 all the luggage was over, and then began the business of forcing reluctant mules and horses to swim two hundred yards of cold, swift stream. The bell-mare promptly declined to lead, and only swam out to return again to the shore. Then one or two soldiers stripped and forced their horses in, but in turn became scared, and gave it up amidst chaff and laughter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... your knife," he said to Jake, as he pulled off his oilskin. "I've got to swim. You must stay with ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... pardon," said Pete, "but I'm scairt of the Perfessor's eye. Anyways, sink or swim, I'll hev no man gittin' his ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... surrounded by some others of her set, was propped up in the centre of it, on a couple of paper volumes. My own head was aching violently now, and after a time the woman's figure on the glossy, sun-flecked surface of the card began to sway and swim before my eyes as ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... her one Sunday afternoon, I noticed among the guests, as I came in, a short, stalwart man with a grey beard. "I particularly," my hostess whispered to me, "want you to know Mr. Robert Browning." Everything in the room seemed to swim round me, and I had the sensation of literally sinking through the carpet when presently I found my hand held for a moment—it was only a moment, but it seemed to me an eternity—by the hand that had written "Paracelsus." ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... to look martyred. "Only because of the buddy system," he said solemnly. "The first rule of underwater safety—or above-water safety, for that matter—is that you have to swim with a buddy. You and Tony swim together, so I had to go along as a buddy for Rick. Somebody has to chase the mermaids away from him, and it might ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... charge. As they started to follow him the prisoner came face to face with Joyce, who was just coming out of the house. She looked at the young miner and at the rifles, and her eyes dilated. Under the lowered lights of evening she seemed to swim in a tide of beauty rich and mellow. The young man caught his breath at the sheer pagan ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... she's abandoned she belongs to us. To 'll with this coolie game. We'll go beach-combin', you and I. We'll board that bark and work her into the nearest port—San Diego, I guess—and get the salvage on her if we have to swim in her. Are you with me?" he held out his hand. The man was positively trembling from head to heel. It was impossible to resist the excitement of the situation, its novelty—the high crow's nest of the schooner, the keen salt air, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... above ten years of age should be taught to swim. The art, once mastered, is never forgotten. It calls into use a wide combination of muscles. This accomplishment, so easily learned, should be a part of our education, as well as baseball or bicycling, as it may chance to any ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... they woke thoroughly refreshed; then, while Luka was lighting a fire, Godfrey went down to the river, stripped, and had a short swim, the water being too cold to permit his stopping more than two or three minutes in it. When they ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Represent to yourself an enormous duck with a neck like a swan, a bill straight, tapering, and longer than the head, webbed feet, and widely spreading and well-feathered wings, and then know the anhinga. It dives and flies with equal facility, can swim under the water and perch upon trees, the highest of which it chooses ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... to look spooky back here. I've just had my ear to the ground and I heard an awful roaring somewhere." Trench, who had been sprawling lazily in the shadows, now declared, "Say, I'd hate to be penned into this place so I couldn't get out. There's no skinning up that rock wall even if a fellow could swim the river, and I can't," and the big guard stretched himself on ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... glass, to serve as a conservatory in winter; and meanwhile we had filled it with splendid plumy ferns, taken up out of the neighbouring wood. In the centre was a fountain surrounded by stones, shells, mosses, and various water-plants. We had bought three little goldfish to swim in our basin; and the spray of it, as it rose in the air and rippled back into the water, was the pleasantest possible sound of a hot day. We used to lie on the sofa in the hall, and look into the court, and fancy we saw some scene of fairy-land, and water-sprites coming up from the fountain. Suddenly ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... lads," Dick said. "I expect he is more injured than we see. The other fellows will be all right; they can all swim like fish." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... Life's goblet to the brim; And though my eyes with tears are dim, I see its sparkling bubbles swim, And chant a melancholy hymn With solemn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all ...
— The Republic • Plato
... intend to swim the creek and try to reach the point at the mouth of the Illinois, from where I can see up and down the Mississippi. I am going to send Sam back through the woods there and have him climb that ridge. From the top he ought to have a good ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... see, a revolver with six barrels. When you see that, your brow droops as much as your eyes sparkled when you saw the chain. It is fancy, on my part, most probably; so, off my horse, and off with my clothes. The sun was scorching, and I took a delicious swim in the sea, and then rode on to Marsa, where is a ruin (everything is in ruins here) of modern date—the late Bey's palace—a most superb edifice. I said a ruin, yet it is scarcely a ruin, though fast becoming so. Marsa is ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... fruit, or berries, that all may have every perfection that belongs to it; provided no violence prevents it. But the force of Nature itself may be more easily discovered in animals, as she has bestowed sense on them. For some animals she has taught to swim, and designed to be inhabitants of the water; others she has enabled to fly, and has willed that they should enjoy the boundless air; some others she has made to creep, others to walk. Again, of these very animals, some are solitary, some gregarious, some ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... The education of the son was perhaps the noblest portion of his varied and variously honourable activity. True to his maxim, that a ruddy-checked boy was worth more than a pale one, the old soldier in person initiated his son into all bodily exercises, and taught him to wrestle, to ride, to swim, to box, and to endure heat and cold. But he felt very justly, that the time had gone by when it sufficed for a Roman to be a good farmer and soldier; and be felt also that it could not but have an injurious ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... when I was seven years old, and my grandmother bred us all up. You should hear her talk of the good old times before the Kings came back and there were no Bishops and no book prayers—but my father says we must swim with the stream, or he would not have got ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that I can easily believe. But he simply cannot do it. His head would swim round, long, long before he got half-way. He would have to crawl down again on his hands ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... there watching with Dian at my side. Then, to my utter amazement, I saw Juag rise to the surface and swim strongly toward the boat. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sadly and distractedly, and otherwise put the ship into the likeness of a forlorn wreck, clapping the men, save one or two, under hatches. This I did to prevent the shedding of precious blood, knowing full well that the ignorant savages, believing the ship in sore distress, would swim off to her with provisions and fruit, bearing no arms. Which they did, while we, as fast as they clomb the sides, despatched them at leisure, without unseemly outcry or alarms. Having thus disposed of the most adventurous, we landed and took possession of the island, finding thereon ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... red one there, He never lets go far; And some he has sent to the roof of the tent To swim ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... we had gone beyond the island, the storm attacked us with such fury that I thought myself lost, for, although a good swimmer, I was not sure I had strength enough to resist the violence of the waves and swim to the shore. I ordered the men to go back to the island, but they answered that I had not to deal with a couple of cowards, and that I had no occasion to be afraid. I knew the disposition of our gondoliers, and I made up my mind to say ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... at the bulky, powerful frame of the unknown to make it appear certain that the latter could swim two rods to the young ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... cornered there, we can swim the river," he explained as they ran. "The fire isn't likely ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... characteristically canny. Never tell anyone you can swim, he advises, because in case of shipwreck "others trusting therein take hold of you, and make you perish with them."[189] Upon duels and resentment of injury in strange lands he throws cold common sense. "I advise young men to moderate their ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... the going good. This discovery caused the day to dawn with brighter prospects, and as soon as the sodden column, free of its transport, felt the sounder bottom, it shook itself as would a retriever after a swim, and settled down to a swinging drying-trot. The brigadier had theories on the methods to be employed in the kind of war-game with which he was confronted; and he determined, if possible, to be in front of the Boer pickets and observation-posts, realising that two ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... the smaller folk,' she said proudly, sailing up to Mother. 'We can't be overlooked, for one thing'; and arm-in-arm, like a pair of frigates then, they sailed about the room, magnificent as whales that swim in a phosphorescent sea. The Laugher straightened up to watch them, the Gardener turned his head, and Rogers and the children paused a moment in their artificial mixing, to stare ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the dippers at Brighthelmstone, seeing Mr. Johnson swim in the year 1766, said:—"Why, Sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years ago."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 113. Johnson, in his verses entitled, In Rivum a Mola Stoana Lichfeldiae ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... intersections of nature's highways, and so it comes that to so many of these towns there is the great blue water front intersected at its middle by a river. There is a bridge in the town's main street, and the smell of water is ever in the air. Boys learn to swim like otters and skate like Hollanders, and their sisters emulate them in the skating, though not so much in the swimming as they should. There is a life full of great swing. The touch between the town and country is exceedingly close, and the country family which comes to the community blends ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... once, and the bare thought of being carried over those tremendous precipices made my very blood run cold. Yet being devoured by a lion would hardly be much of an improvement; and as I hadn't the ghost of a chance of being able to swim ashore, there really seemed to be no ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shoot them. Carepira was foremost, having borrowed a small and very unsteady boat, of Cardozo, and embarked in it with his little son. After bagging a couple of turtles, and while hauling in a third, he overbalanced himself; the canoe went over, and he with his child had to swim for their lives in the midst of numerous alligators, about a mile from the land. The old man had to sustain a heavy fire of jokes from his companions for several days after this mishap. Such accidents are only laughed at ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Lionel made his way down to the lowest ridge of the rock, so that he found himself just over the black-brown pool. And, indeed, his services were called upon much sooner than he had expected; for the salmon, grown tired of sulking, now began to swim slowly round and round, sometimes coming up so that they could just catch a glimmer of him, and again disappearing. But the fortunate thing for them was that there were no shallows to frighten the fish; he knew nothing of his danger as he happened to come sailing ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... crimson and I covered my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred—I can call them nothing else—the strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in making and that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... in her trembling fingers, and looked into her own pictured eyes. Then everything seemed to swim before her for a moment. She pressed her hand against her throat and set her white lips firmly, looking up at the stranger with a sudden terror ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... turned over restlessly, and Frillikin woke up. He had a very keen nose, and when he scented the soles and the cod-fish so near at hand he began yapping. He barked so loudly that he woke up all the other fish, and they began to swim round and about. Some of the big fish bumped their heads against the bed, and there being nothing to steady the latter it spun round ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... ferryman got afraid the sheep were too far forward and would tip the boat, so he attempted to push them back, and pushed some of the sheep off in the river. All the sheep then made a rush to follow the unfortunate ones. Barney Hill, who was on the back end of the boat, got knocked off and could not swim and the boys had a good laugh at him climbing over the sheep, looking like a drowned rat trying to get out of a molasses barrel. Dick Stewart was a good swimmer and so he ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus |
