"Brandish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a fresh effort, and the boat bounds on, the oars almost lifting her out of the water. The canoes abeam begin to fall astern, but those on the bows are forging dangerously near, while the savages in them, now on their feet, brandish spears and wind their slings above their heads. Their fiendish cries and furious gestures, with their ghastly chalked faces, give them an appearance more demoniac ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... invaluable! One noble man, at once of natural wisdom and practical experience; one Intellect still really human, and not red-tapish, owlish and pedantical, appearing there in that dim chaos, with word of command; to brandish Hercules-like the divine broom and shovel, and turn running water in upon the place, and say as with a fiat, "Here shall be truth, and real work, and talent to do it henceforth; I will seek for able men to work here, as for ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... may be," said Don Quixote, "I will not suffer them to touch a thread of thy garment: for if they sported with thee before, it was because I could not get over the wall; but we are now upon even ground, where I can brandish my ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... reputed to be the author; then retired quietly to the country, and was heard of no more, excepting that a few years afterwards old Aubrey states that 'Shakspeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry-meeting, and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakspeare died of a fever there contracted.' Brandish not thy dagger, Melpomene, at this profanation! The scandal is not ours, but Aubrey's, Shakspeare's earliest biographer, but who did not write till forty-six years after his death. His name and signature ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... with a weapon in his hand, it is an Agerepta. If he brandish it, it is an Avaoirista. If he actually smite a man with malicious aforethought, it is an Aredus. Upon the fifth ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... where men think, feel, as men can, "Bon voyage through the dark, good man!" They call and take up his pen-lance And brandish it again 'gainst Ignorance In power fortified with a myriad lies And every great-heart, fine-soul cries As pledge of ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... unless you are strong enough to fight your way out." I want to have the armed heel of the country crush the serpent head of secession, now and forever, so that it shall never again glare with its baleful eyes, or brandish its venomous tongue. Let not the fate and fortunes of this glorious country be committed to the keeping of a clumsy, misshapen raft, compacted of twenty-four or thirty-four logs, good enough to float down a river, but sure to go to pieces when it gets into deep water; Let let them be embarked ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... young; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices. Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for remonstrances do not suit with your age. In French companies in general you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish yours in their faces. People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority. Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the company of les Gens d'Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them rather ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... noble young Prefect!" began the shepherd, protestingly. But when, at a word from Marcus, the three lads drew back their arms as if to brandish their weapons, and shouted their cry of attack, the mouth of Lydus stood wide open in amazement, his cropped head fairly bristled with fright, and, with a hasty exclamation, he turned on his heel, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... was full of the elitty of New York. Several opery glasses was leveld at me by Gothum's farest darters, but I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby I did take out my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it round more than was necessary. But the best of us has our weaknesses & if a man has gewelry let him show it. As I was peroosin the bill a grave young man who sot near me axed me if I'd ever seen Forrest dance the Essence of Old Virginny? "He's immense ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... frenzy rushed towards Cornelius, who had barely time to retreat behind his table to avoid the first thrust; but as Gryphus continued, with horrid threats, to brandish his huge knife, and as, although out of the reach of his weapon, yet, as long as it remained in the madman's hand, the ruffian might fling it at him, Cornelius lost no time, and availing himself of the stick, which he held tight under his arm, dealt the jailer a vigorous blow on the ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... before the frightened mass of human souls. The Holy Mother crouches beside Him, turning her face away so as not to see the wrath to come. Even the saints look with dread towards the great Judge, fearing lest they too should be condemned. Martyrs brandish the emblems of their martyrdom before His eyes to plead for them, and, as some have said, claim vengeance for their pains. Michael Angelo would have us realise that no human soul is innocent beside the Holiness of Heaven. The ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... Calvinistic pulpit, is new and wonderful. The Fancy have lately lost something of their gloss in public estimation, and after the last fight, few would go far to see a Neat or a Spring set-to;—but to see a man who is able to enter the ring with either of them, or brandish a quarter-staff with Friar Tuck, or a broad-sword with Shaw the Lifeguards' man, stand up in a strait-laced old-fashioned pulpit, and bandy dialectics with modern philosophers or give a cross-buttock to a cabinet minister, there is something in a sight ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... as the whole seven were going out for a long expedition, they said to their aunt, 'Dear aunt, if a baby sister comes into the world to-day, wave a white handkerchief, and we will return immediately; but if it is only a boy, just brandish a sickle, and we will go on with ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... the memory of her Will as a sacred thing, and through all her returning plumpness and rosiness—for she was still a young woman—never forgot the honour she had borne in being a great painter's wife and companion for half-a-dozen years. Perhaps, good as she was, she grew rather to brandish this credit in the faces of the cloth-workers and their wives; to speak a little bigly of the galleries and the Academy, of chiaroscuro and perspective, of which the poor ignoramuses knew nothing: to be obstinate on her ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... good faith, they offered to build the road for $3,000,000 and 3,000,000 acres less, to pay duty on all supplies imported, and to abandon the monopoly clause, the exemptions from taxation, and the exemption from rate regulation. With this weapon to brandish Blake gave the government proposal no respite, but on a straight party vote the contract was ratified by parliament and received the formal ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... the captain knows it too well. A choice of deaths is before him; excitement decides—he mounts the breach. The "Screecher" shoots through the waters, quivering from head to stern. The Kentucky boys yell with delight and defiance. Again the "Burster" closes on her rival. Kentuckians brandish their knives, and call to the negroes, who are already half-roasted, "Pile on the wood; pile like agony; I'll ram a nigger into the fire for every foot the 'Burster' gains." Soon a cry of exultation is heard on board the "Burster," as she shoots ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in a cork helmet. But that is in virtue of an equitable and logical principle, derived by them from the high places of the new administration—namely, that the Egypt of to-day belongs far less to the Egyptians than to the noble foreigners who have come to brandish there the torch ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... had only met with failure; so he was tempted to brandish his successes. He gave a humorous description of his friends—how he had picked them up; how they had supplied him with horses to ride and guns to ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Dragon what had become of her gold keys?—and, last of all, how the ferryman had begged him to ask the Dragon, how long he was to stop there and carry folk over?? When he had done his story, and took hold of the sword, he could lift it; and when he had taken another drink, he could brandish it. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... lieutenant, is leading a little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard, little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again. Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes of brightness. The young commander rises to the emergency. His white-coats are rapidly placed in position behind trees, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... vain, Was flourishing in air his father's cane, And, as the fumes of valour swell'd his pate, Now thought himself this Hero, and now that: "And now," he cried, "I will Achilles be; My sword I brandish; see, the Trojans flee. Now I'll be Hector, when his angry blade A lane through heaps of slaughter'd Grecians made! And now by deeds still braver I'll evince, I am no less than Edward the Black Prince.— Give way, ye coward French:—" as thus he ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from every ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... lying crushed under the ruins of the works which they had so gallantly defended; and hardly enough artillerymen were left to have pulled back, with their united efforts, the spring of one of the pea cannons. The leaders on both sides remained unscathed, and continued to brandish bent lead swords at each other ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... its tail as a sword may be conceived to be held out at arm's-length, and then waved round the head, from one side to the opposite. But a sword with a blade one hundred and fifty millions of miles long must be a somewhat awkward weapon to brandish round after this fashion. Its point would have to sweep through a curve stretching out more than six hundred millions of miles; and, even with an allowance of two hours for the accomplishment of the movement, the flash of the weapon would be of such terrific ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... his Jacobite Journal." "The Whirling Coxcomb," cries Lady Fanny enraged, "what had he to do with ridiculing any Party, who had travell'd round the whole Circle of Parties and Ministers, ever since he could brandish a Pen." [3] Her Ladyship adds some further sneers on writers pensioned to amuse people with their nonsense. The other counter pamphlet consists of conversations overheard, all over the town, on the subject of Winnington and his Apology. ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... cursed Aegysthus the detested deed By fraud fulfilled, and his great brother bled. Seven years, the traitor rich Mycenae sway'd, And his stern rule the groaning land obey'd; The eighth, from Athens to his realm restored, Orestes brandish'd the avenging sword, Slew the dire pair, and gave to funeral flame The vile assassin and adulterous dame. That day, ere yet the bloody triumphs cease, Return'd Atrides to the coast of Greece, And safe to Argos port his navy brought, With gifts of price and ponderous treasure ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: "Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "Sir King, I ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... Brackish saleta. Bray fanfaroni. Braggart fanfaronulo. Brain cerbo. Brake (fern) filiko. Brake (for wheels) haltigilo. Bran brano. Branch (of tree) brancxo. Branch (of roads, etc.) disvojo. Brand (fire) brulajxo. Brandish svingi. Brandy brando. Brasier fajrujo. Brass flava kupro. Brave brava. Brave bravulo. Brave kontrauxstari al. Bravery braveco. Bravo! brave! Brawl malpacego. Brawny muskola. Bray (ass) bleki. Bray (to pound) pisti. Brazen bronza. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... this case, if you would prevent a crime you must strike a blow. You have begun by negotiating, you must end by mounting your horse, sabre in hand, like a Parisian gendarme. You must make your horse prance, you must brandish your sabre, you must shout strenuously, and you must endeavor to calm the revolt without ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... our ice-cold shanks would not shrink from the application of the red-hot poker. Peter has a notion that but for that red-hot poker the fire would go out; so to humour him we let it remain in the ribs, and occasionally brandish it round our head in moments of enthusiasm when the Crutch looks tame, and the Knout a silken leash for ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... fathers face Liues in his issue, euen so, the race Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines In his well torned, and true-filed lines: In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance, As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance. Sweet Swan of Auon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appeare, And make those flights vpon the bankes of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our Iames! But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... animosity by predatory excursions. These are very common, particularly about the beginning of the dry season, when the labour of the harvest is over, and provisions are plentiful. Schemes of vengeance are then meditated. The chief man surveys the number and activity of his vassals, as they brandish their spears at festivals; and elated with his own importance, turns his whole thoughts towards revenging some depredation or insult, which either he or his ancestors may have ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... heart did glowing transport feel, To see a race[20] heroic wheel, And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel In sturdy blows; While back-recoiling seem'd to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the Greek a blow heavier than Sebastes had ever learned at the Pancration, which left him scarce the power to cry help to his comrades on the battlements. They saw what had happened, however, and beheld the barbarian set his foot on their companion, and brandish high his formidable weapon, the whistling sound of which made the old arch ring ominously, while he paused an instant, with his weapon upheaved, ere he gave the finishing blow to his enemy. The warders made a bustle, as if some of them would descend to the assistance ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to be placed round the midsummer bonfire, that the souls of the dead might sit on them and warm themselves at the blaze.[457] At Brest on this day thousands of people used to assemble on the ramparts towards evening and brandish lighted torches, which they swung in circles or flung by hundreds into the air. The closing of the town gates put an end to the spectacle, and the lights might be seen dispersing in all directions like wandering will-o'-the-wisps.[458] In Upper Brittany ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... next essayed. Did he unscabbard the avenging blade, The long spear brandish and porrect the shield, Havoc the town and devastate the field? His sacred thirst for blood did he allay By halving the unfortunate Mackay? Small were the profit and the joy to him To hew a base-born person, limb from limb. Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline, That of diviner ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... would be responded in mock approval of the speech, but more frequently a laugh, on the part of the more youthful of his red auditors, was the only notice taken. His lecture concluded, Sampson would again brandish his cudgel, and vociferate another shout; then betaking himself to the nearest store, he would urge Silvertail upon the footway, and with a tap of his rude cudgel against the door, summon whoever was within, to appear with a glass of his favorite beverage. And ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the clangor of the trumpet; for of him might truly be said, what was recorded of the renowned St. George of England, "there was nothing in all the world that more rejoiced his heart than to hear the pleasant sound of war, and see the soldiers brandish forth their steeled weapons." Casting his eye more kindly, therefore, upon the sturdy Van Corlear, and finding him to be a jovial varlet, shrewd in his discourse, yet of great discretion and immeasurable wind, he straightway conceived a vast kindness ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... fifty dollars—two hundred dollars—three hundred dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in the air, before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish, and then, flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up and down ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... any of the incidents of life that appeal to patriotism or humanity. Wherever its authority has been acknowledged, it has assailed men who stood by their country when she needed strong arms and bold hearts, and has assailed them when, maimed and disabled in her service, they could no longer brandish a weapon in her defence. It has afflicted the feeble and dependent wife for the imaginary faults of the husband. It has stricken down Innocence in its beauty, Youth in its freshness, Manhood in its vigor, and Age in its feebleness and decrepitude. Whatever ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... now take and brandish Has long lain useless in my standish. Know, every maid, from her on patten, To her who shines in glossy satin, That could they now prepare an oglio >From best receipt of book in folio, Ever so fine, for all their puffing, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Maurice and the Count started forward, and the peasant menaced them with the scythe resting on the seat beside him. In a flash Albert leapt from his horse, threw the reins to Maurice, and went straight to the drunkard. The fellow tried to brandish his scythe, but already Albert had wrenched it from him and threw it aside. Then seizing the man, he pulled him down on his knees and held him there until he begged for pardon. The rustic, suddenly sobered, and raging with ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... Annals, paper scum-bewrayed! Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made; Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son, Cupid, should I return to her anon And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst, 5 The writ selected erst of bards the worst She to the limping Godhead would devote With slowly-burning wood of illest note. This was the vilest which my girl could find With vow facetious to the Gods assigned. 10 Now, O Creation of the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... appear in the theatrical pieces above-mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary tragedians; and if they have to denounce a villain, to declare a passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists, and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines' parts liking to strike her audiences quickly, and also to change them often. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... become? The present coronation will be the representation of a coronation. It will not be one; we shall see the Marshal Moncey, an actor at that of Napoleon, the Marshal who formerly celebrated the death of the tyrant Louis XVI. in his army, brandish the royal sword at Rheims in his rank as Count of Flanders or Duke of Aquitaine. To whom can this parade really convey any illusion? I should have wished no pomp to-day; the King on horseback, the church bare, adorned only with its ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the men in their pieces, The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side, Then ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... think! if thou hast ta'en, for life, A partner to thy bed, for worse or better, Think what Sir Thomas felt, when his chaste wife Brandish'd, before ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... the dear, beautiful things, I love them!" And she buries her face among them. "'Twas kind of you to bring them for me, Martin!" says she, her face hidden in the flowers, "Indeed you are very good to me! After all, you are that same dear Martin I knew long ago, that boy who used to brandish his rusty sword and vow he'd suffer no evil to come near me, and yearned for ogres and dragons to fight and slay on my behalf. And one day you caught ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol |
