"Swagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anxiously what was amiss. I hastened to reassure her, but begged her to close the door into the inn place which her husband had left open. She wonderingly complied, but was enlightened a moment afterwards, when she saw Dick Cludde swagger in, followed by the two naval captains whom his lady mother had ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... a man, he's comin' with it, an' he's goin' ter stay a little, jest ter—ter make sure everything's all right. After he goes I'll come. An' ye want ter be ready—I'll show ye a thing or two!" he finished with a swagger that was meant to hide the shake in ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... accent on the first to the accent on the second ma. Years later one of the inarticulate brats had come home as a collegian in a funny hat, and Mama had become Mater. This had lasted until one of the brattines came home as a collegienne with a swagger and a funny sweater. And then her Latin title was Frenchified to Mere—which always gave father a shock; for father had been raised on a farm, where only horses' wives were called by ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the great iron gates are thrown open to receive him, looks neither like a king or a gentleman. A thin, worn face, in which weakness and passion are at once pictured; a form buttoned and padded up to the chin; high Hessian boots without a wrinkle; a sword and a swagger, no more constituting him the military character than the 'your majesty' from every lip can make a poor thing of clay a king. Such was George II.: brutal, even to his submissive wife. Stunted by nature, he was insignificant in form, as he was petty in character; not a trace of royalty could ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the man; "if it comes to that, I've business enough. Perhaps you'll just pay me this debt," he continued, changing his fawning manner into a bullying swagger. "I've ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... he'd been shot, and the other two men came jumping up to the door with their guns, but when they saw how many men we had they looked awful scairt. We all had our guns out, too!—Jap Kemp gave me one to carry—" Bud tried not to swagger as he told this, but it was almost too much for him. "Two of our men held the horses, and all the rest of us got down and went into the cabin. Jap Kemp, sounded his whistle and all our men done the same ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... My dear estate, how well I love it, My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it, They swear I am so kind and good, I hug them till I squeeze their blood. Libertas bears a large import: First, how to swagger in a court; And, secondly, to show my fury Against an uncomplying jury; And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention, To favour Wood, and keep my pension; And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick, Get the great seal and turn out Broderick;[3] And, fifthly, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... character ready to his hand that would have added one of the most amusing and interesting portraits to his gallery. He faintly suggests a moral Falstaff, if we can imagine a Falstaff without vices. As a narrator he has the swagger of a Captain Dalghetty, but his actions are marked by honesty and sincerity. He appears to have had none of the small vices of the gallants of his time. His chivalric attitude toward certain ladies who appear in his adventures, must have been sufficiently ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... which warlike enterprise is set afoot, and so leave them also perforce in a pacific frame of mind. In time, in the absence of their dearly beloved leavings of feudalism, an enforced reliance on their own discretion and initiative, and an enforced respite from the rant and prance of warlike swagger, would reasonably be expected to grow into a popular habit. The German people are by no means less capable of tolerance and neighbourly decorum than their British or Scandinavian neighbours of the same blood,—if they can only be left to their own devices, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... say in it?" persisted George. "She is vulgar from her red pompon to her boots. She has the swagger of a soubrette and she has left a trail of perfume behind her—pah! I confess I am surprised at you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Jack, with his cavalry swagger and a white weal all round his sunburned face to show where his chin-strap hung, looked the ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Didn't you know? Oh, there's an awfully swagger party on downstairs. They were all trooping in ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... in an instant, and was quickly at the post-office, which stood, at that time, near the centre of the town. He dropped the letter in, and having thus fulfilled his mission, relapsed into that easy swagger or roll that seems to be the natural and characteristic gait of Jack when ashore. He had not proceeded far when the sound of voices in dispute attracted his ear. The gale was still at its height, and the noise occasioned by its whistling among the ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dalgetty and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... and, for that, the stronger. "Never show your feelings—to do so is not manly and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about your companions, and no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at." (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in his press, habitually understates everything.) "Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games hard, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... within a dozen paces of the gate he dropped, as one drops a cloak, all signs of gloom or discomposure, and approached the entrance with the easy swagger of the gay young gallant who had lived there. As if returning from a morning stroll he called to ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Mechanicsburg band is a boy about fourteen years old, a muscular, sturdy chunk of a lad. He walks with his heels down, his calves bulged out behind, his head up, and the regular, proper swagger of a bandsman. He hasn't any uniform, but he's all right. He plays a solo B part, and he and the other solo cornet spell each other. On the repeat of every strain my boy rests, and rubs his lips with his forefinger, while he looks at the populace with bright, expectant eyes. When he blows, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... agitation, or a softer kind of lateral motion; as sway, swag, to sway, swagger, swerve, sweat, sweep, swill, swim, swing, swift, sweet, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... nowadays, so what more could the dear man want? As he sat tip-tapping, he took himself in fancy to that day ahead when Heaven would unfold another blessing for Peg—for him. He put down his hammer and glanced out of the window, and suddenly Maudlin Bates loomed up, with all his hulking swagger obliterating the shoemaker's ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... down. Whether they would have done so had they known the weakness of Diebitch may be questioned; but again it may be questioned whether, that weakness unknown, he could not have occupied Constantinople on the swagger. His master was prepared promptly to reinforce him; Constantinople was perhaps nearer its fall in 1828 than in 1878, and certainly Diebitch was much smarter than were the Grand Duke Nicholas, his fossil Nepokoitschitsky, and his ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... bill for my little entertainment as quickly as possible. Then I dismounted from my chair and beckoned to the dwarf, still sitting white and piteous, to join me. He obeyed like a frightened child who had been naughty. All his swagger and braggadocio were gone. His bosom heaved with suppressed sobs. He sat down on the chair I had vacated and buried his face on the ecarte table. We remained thus aloof from the crowd who were intent on the calculation at the baccarat table. At last the raven in ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... study popularity. Attend only to those cases which are entrusted to your care, and work them thoroughly. No greater disgrace can attach to an officer of Court than that a Judge's sentence should be left unexecuted[806]. Do not swagger through the streets exulting in the fact that nobody dares meet you. Brave men are ever gentle in time of peace, and there is no greater lover of justice than he who has seen many battles. When you return to your parents and friends let it not be brawls that you have to boast ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, he rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to horrible ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... face vanished. Dick Gale heard footsteps and the tinkle of spurs. He strode to the window, and was in time to see a Mexican swagger into the front door of the saloon. Dick had only a glimpse; but in that he saw a huge black sombrero with a gaudy band, the back of a short, tight-fitting jacket, a heavy pearl-handled gun swinging with a fringe of sash, and close-fitting ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... stood in his neat, serviceable undress uniform, with a cigar between his lips. He had abandoned the swagger frogged coat and silk sash for the unpretending patrol jacket of his brethren in the Line. He had been hard at work all day in barracks, inspecting meals, visiting the hospital, attending parades. He had paid his company personally, had seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... and whose habit it was to spend an occasional evening at the Plough Horse for the pleasure of having even an audience of yokels; liking it the better since, being yokels, they would listen open-mouthed and staring by the hour to his swagger and stories of Whitehall and Hampton Court, and the many beauties who surrounded the sacred person of his most gracious Majesty, King Charles the Second. Every yokel in the country had heard rumours of these ladies, but Mr. Mount gave those at Camylott village ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a gendarme or military policeman. Cloak and uniform were dark blue and fine. He bore himself with the swagger of a personage of no inconsiderable rank, and also of some degree in the nobility. Tall, burly, overbearing, the stranger took a dislike to him from this one glance, and would have hesitated to appeal to him for assistance had he felt ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of drought ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... pocket), and the mater could not quite determine whether it was a trait of madness or of nobility. I could have told her with absolute confidence that it was neither the one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that the thirty ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... Look! That is a Damascus sword-maker. Look! That is a Syrian merchant. The jingling of the chains, and the lashing of the headbands, and the exhibitions of universal swagger attract the attention of the Prophet Isaiah, and he brings his camera to bear upon the scene, and takes a picture for all the ages. But where is that scene? Vanished. Where are those gay streets? Vermin-covered population pass through them. Where are the hands, and ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... form its very construction. Style does not exist in modern arrayings, for all their prettiness and precision, and for all the successes—which are not to be denied—of their outer part; the happy little swagger that simulates style is but another sign of its absence, being prepared by mere dodges and dexterities beneath, and the triumph and success of the present art of raiment—"fit" itself—is but the result of a masked and ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... to regret it thereafter, for throughout that tedious march he found his roystering companion singularly meek and kindly. Indeed he seemed a different man. His old swagger and roaring bluster disappeared; he drank less, diced less, blasphemed less, and stormed less than in the old days before the halt at Penrith; but rode, a silent, thoughtful figure, so self-contained and of so godly a mien as would have rejoiced the heart of the ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... luxuries for masculine adornment, she found a further retort in suggesting that he ought to have a certain giddy fancy waistcoat. He complimented her on her taste, bought the waistcoat and, going to the rear of the shop, returned wearing it with a momentarily appreciated show of jaunty swagger. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... that communicated itself to all with whom they came in contact. The cowboys, Beulah soon discovered, were as unlike the cowboys of fiction and of her imagination as a Manitoba steer is unlike his Alberta brother; they did not carry revolvers, nor swagger in high boots, nor rip the air with their profanity; and their table manners reminded her of George and Harry Grant, and the Grants were outstanding examples of right living in the Plainville district. And Mrs. Arthurs, gentle and kind in all her doings, and yet firm and strong and calm, she was—such ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... disgraceful that in one of your decrees there should be inscribed such a statement respecting a man that is a Caesarian." It was not the only instance of such an attitude, but he also refused to allow all the other imperial freedmen either to be insolent or to swagger; for this he was commended. The senate once, while chanting his praises, uttered without reserve no less a sentiment than this: "All do all things well since you ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... cap over his eyes and a little to one side, and strolled on, humming an old Mexican air. His walk was the swagger of a young Mexican gallant, and in the dimness they would not notice his Northern fairness. Several pairs of eyes observed him, but not with disapproval. They considered him a trim Mexican lad. Some of the men in the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hats, on this and the other side of the Channel, all with a very light and engaging pen, and then spreads himself on any old far-off thing that interests him, such as the theatre, perhaps a little self-consciously and with a pleasant air of swagger most forgivable and, indeed, enjoyable. His chief preoccupation is with art and letters, it is clear; but, turning from them to the handling of urgent things and difficult men, he faces the business manfully. Of the men in particular ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... of mutual compliment; That thought the other Gracchus, this supposed His brother Mucius; so they praised and prosed. Our tuneful race the selfsame madness goads: My friend writes elegies, and I write odes: O how we puff each other! "'Tis divine; The Muses had a hand in every line." Remark our swagger as we pass the dome Built to receive the future bards of Rome; Then follow us and listen what we say, How each by turns awards and takes the bay. Like Samnite fencers, with elaborate art We hit in tierce to be hit back in ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... pendulous proportions. It is plain to be seen that the fluffy ruche at the throat-band, and the ruffle at the shoulder, and the spreading bow at the waist, and the trimmed sleeves, add bulkiness to a form already too generously endowed with flabby rotundity. Corpulent women must forego the swagger little basques or any sort of short, flounced ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... They had been very swagger little shoes in the beginning—Ikey had made rather a specialty of footgear—but they were her "escape" shoes; and their looks told the tale of their wanderings. Also, she had had ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; and was until latter days very contemptuous in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has a natural antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce demeanor. But now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies of "The Rag"—dandies no more—are battling like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann* by the side of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to hearty respect and enthusiasm. ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... instead of moping and feeling sorry and waiting for something to happen, Jay looked about for some way of amusing himself. He was something of a bully,—a great deal of a bully, in fact,—this dashing rascal in a gay blue coat; and the more he could swagger, the ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... first sight it seemed that he must be even richer than they had dreamed, so elegant did he appear in his checked trousers and starched shirt. His mustache was waxed, and he walked with a swagger as ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... the candelabra on the billiard-table, made Semyon Matveitch a low bow, and with a slight swagger and a malignant smile, moved towards me. A cat, I imagine, approaches a mouse who has no chance of escape in that way. All my daring left me in an instant. I knew the man was capable of... beating me. I began to tremble; yes; oh, shame! oh ignominy! ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... file, Captain Tony advanced through the clearing, and what with his flowing black beard, his portly form, and a certain dramatic swagger which he possessed, he looked so entirely Italian and operatic that you expected to hear him at any moment burst out in a sonorous basso. With a sweeping gesture he flung down upon the table two brown canvas bags, which opened and discharged from gaping mouths ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... have spoken too much of that acquaintance? Perhaps a closer look at the loose lips, the high cheeks, the narrow, close-set eyes of young Woodhull, his rather assertive air, his slight, indefinable swagger, his slouch in standing, might have confirmed some skeptic disposed to analysis who would have guessed him less than strong of soul and character. For the most ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... had probably spared the rod, in the boy's youth, as he certainly spared the sword when Absalom had murdered his brother. His own immorality had loosened the bonds of family purity, and made him ashamed to punish his children. He had let Absalom flaunt and swagger and live in luxury, and put no curb on him; and here was the end of his foolish softness. How many fathers and mothers are the destroyers of their children to-day in the very same fashion! That grave in the wood might teach parents how their fatal fondness may end. Children, too, may learn from ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Lecture Bureau may be found in a swagger Club any evening with a Bourbon H. B. at his Right, a stack of Student Lamps at his Left and Two Small Pair pressed ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... a chin-tuft. Altogether, he was as pretty a model of a light cavalryman as I remember to have seen: square in the shoulder, slender in the hip, well limbed, lithe and muscular. His carriage was soldierly, without the exaggerated stiffness and swagger commonly found amongst non-commissioned officers of dragoons; and altogether he had a gentlemanly air which, I doubt not, would have made itself as visible under the coarse drugget of a private soldier, as beneath the garb of finer materials and more careful cut, which, in his capacity of marechal ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... for the ball-ground, but at this taunt he turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and stammered: "No, I'm not afraid ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... other with a swagger. "That's how yer paw used ter put it. Your maw warn't much good no how, with her finicky notions 'bout eddicati'n an' sech. A little pone and baken with plenty good ol' red eye's good 'nough fer us. ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... home were scanty and irregular, he never could bring himself into habits of prudence and economy; often he was stripped of all his present finances at play; often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded charity or generosity. Sometimes among his boon companions he assumed a ludicrous swagger in money matters, which no one afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. At a convivial meeting with a number of his fellow-students, he suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which of the two should treat the whole party to the play. The moment the proposition ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... was an officer who had served on two campaigns. He knew what makes a soldier, and judging by the appearance and the talk of those persons, by the swagger with which they had recourse to the bottle on the journey, he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a district town, and he was longing to tell how one soldier had volunteered from his town, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would employ as a laborer. But knowing by ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... romance, Missy regretted that even Arthur had seen her in such a sorry plight. She wished he might see her at a better advantage. For instance, galloping up on a spirited mount, in a modish riding-habit—a checked one with flaring-skirted coat and shining boots and daring but swagger breeches, perhaps!—galloping insouciantly up ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... good red Pommard round. Stories and laughter interspersed, We drowned a long La Bassee thirst— Trenches in June make throats damned dry. Then through the window suddenly, Badge, stripes and medals all complete, We saw him swagger up the street, Just like a live man—Corporal Stare! Stare! Killed last May at Festubert. Caught on patrol near the Boche wire, Tom horribly by machine-gun fire! He paused, saluted smartly, grinned, Then passed away like a puff of wind, Leaving us blank ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... droop apologetic heads, because we know that some women are sentimental, that they don't all "look at things in the large," as men invariably do. In view, however, of the record of this youthful movement of ours, we have a right rather to swagger than to apologize. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost his swagger in a moment. ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... of robbery and cold-blooded murder, his was a welcome figure in Timber Town. Men turned to look at him as he tramped past in his heavy, mud-stained blucher boots. One man, standing outside The Lucky Digger, asked him if he had "struck it rich." But the "swagger" looked at the man, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... reached the poorer parts of the city, I observed that the free-and-easy swagger, and the jaunty hopping of each hind-leg alternately, gave place to a sedate walk and a wary turn of the head, which suggested keen suspicious glances of the ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... then pass. It was necessary, perhaps, to strike the Parisians with awe, and therefore the crew was armed in this fierce fashion; but why should the captain begin to swagger as well as his men? and why did the Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early? or why, if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official journals brag of them afterwards as proofs ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... accomplish. Not that I have any purpose of imitating Johnson, whose general learning and power of expression I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are little better than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious maxims are made to swagger in lofty and mystic language, and get some credit only because they are not easily understood. There are some of the great moralist's papers which I cannot peruse without thinking on a second-rate masquerade, where the best-known and least-esteemed characters in town march in as heroes, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... England from the indelible disgrace of a second Crimea. But it was not only in Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part. In Africa, and India, and wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he dealt his resounding blows at that odious system of bluster and swagger and might against right, on which the Prime Minister and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism. In his own phrase he devoted himself to "counterworking the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield," and all that was ardent ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... conveyance at closing time and drive Richard, speechless, motionless, to Vine-Pits Farm. He never went to the Gauntlet, but always to the Roebuck—beginning the evening in the hotel billiard-room, trying to swagger it out at pool with the solicitor and the doctor, then drifting to the stable bar, and finishing the evening there, or outside in the open yard. One could imagine the feelings of the old father, waiting up all alone, knowing from experience what the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... fundamental understandings. The eighteenth-century belief in a liberal civilisation was still a dogma; for dogma is the only thing that makes argument or reasoning possible. America, under all its swagger, did still really believe that Europe was its fountain and its mother, because Europe was more fully civilised. Dickens, under all his disgust, did still believe that America was in advance of Europe, because it was ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... all great nations to hate meanness, and nothing under God's heaven ever was so mean as American slavery. Think of it. Men who swagger around with pistols and bowie-knifes to avenge their insulted honor, if any one should question it,—imagine one turning up his sleeves to horsewhip an old woman for burning his steak, or pocketing her wages, ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... side, out of which the humorists of the period made a market, the Napoleonic scare was no laughing matter for the poor people, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, by even the possibility of the thing. We, who, in these peaceful times, are apt to swagger about Britannia ruling the waves, cannot perhaps realize what it meant to have this great military genius sitting down with his legions of three hundred thousand opposite our shores, keenly watching for and calculating ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... which would greet him on his return; of the poverty in which she and her father existed, and the joy which would be his when he took them from their squalid surroundings. They would all go to Pfahlert's Hotel—that was the swagger hotel in Sydney—and whilst he and old Mr. Maynard "trotted around" and enjoyed themselves, Rose, sweet Rose, and Mrs. Tracey would fuss about over the coming wedding and buy the trousseau and all that sort of thing. Of course Mrs. Tracey would ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... ability of the Spaniard to adapt himself to the customs of all foreign countries he imitated the manner of the English inhabitants of Gibraltar. He had bought himself a pipe, wore a traveling cap, turned up trousers and a swagger stick. The day on which he arrived, even before night-fall, they already knew throughout Gibraltar who he was and whither he was bound. Two days later the shopkeepers greeted him from the doors of their shops, ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Ireland—simply because they are unimaginative and ungenerous; they can't sympathize with what seems a hopeless cause, and Ireland to them only suggests the dirty Irish of Polterham back streets. As for European war, the idiots are fond of drums and fifes and military swagger; they haven't brains enough ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... presence. At the moment, I felt firmly persuaded that the three of them were engrossed solely with the question of whether I should merely PASS the examination or whether I should pass it WELL, and that it was only swagger which made them pretend that they did not care either way, and behave as though they ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... waylaid Acton in his den. I'm pretty sure there wasn't another room like his in the whole school. No end of swell pictures—foreign mostly; lovely little books, which, I believe, were foreign also; an etching of his own place up in Yorkshire; carpets, and rugs, and little statuettes—swagger through and through; a little too much so, I believe, for the rules, but Biffen evidently had not put his foot down. Acton was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and on seeing us he politely offered us chairs with the air ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and down went the first spirituous liquor the boy had ever tasted; and in a few moments, he felt a wonderful change. He was no longer a timid, cold, disheartened, heart-sick boy, but felt somehow so brave, so full of hope and courage, that he began to swagger, to laugh very loud, and to boast in such high terms of the money in his pocket, and of his future intentions and prospects, that the two boys winked significantly at each other. They proposed, after sitting a while, to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... trumpet-blasts and the angry murmurs of the defeated heathen. Threatening fists were shaken in the air, while behind the carceres the drivers and owners of the red party scolded, squabbled and stormed; and Hippias, who by his audacious swagger had given away the race to their hated foe—to the Blues, the Christians—narrowly escaped being ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... schapska-shaped head-gear of Polish officers, the beret of Czecho-Slovaks. And everywhere, too, the gay and well-known red pom-pon bobbed on the caps of French blue-jackets, and British marines stalked in pairs, looking every inch the soldier with their swagger sticks and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... richest capitalists in Paris one day met an extremely pretty little working-girl. Her mother was with her, but the girl had taken the arm of a young fellow in very doubtful finery, with a very smart swagger. The millionaire fell in love with the girl at first sight; he followed her home, he went in; he heard all her story, a record of alternations of dancing at Mabille and days of starvation, of play-going and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... enjoyed the praise bestowed upon him and gave his shoulders a swagger. "Speakin' of that, boss," he said, "reminds me of a chap who rode into Cabin Gulch a few weeks ago. Braced right into Beard's place, where we was all playin' faro, an' he asks for Jack Kells. Right off we ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... at breakfast the next morning, my scout came in with a face of the most ludicrous importance, and quite a deferential manner. I declare I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger. He laid a card on my table, paused a moment, and then said, 'His ludship ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... in khaki struts the limelit boards: With false moustache, set smirk and ogling eyes And straddling legs and swinging hips she tries To swagger it like a soldier, while the chords Of rampant ragtime jangle, clash, and clatter; And over the brassy blare and drumming din She strains to squirt her squeaky notes and thin Spirtle ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... Rue de la Paix—well, alongside of him the most rapacious restaurant proprietor on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul who is in business for his health—and not feeling very healthy at that. When you dine at one of the swagger boulevard places the head waiter always comes, just before you have finished, and places a display of fresh fruit before you, with a winning smile and a bow and a gesture, which, taken together, would seem to indicate that he is extending ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... wants his tea and the officers like to carry their canes and swagger sticks with them "over the top" into battle. A brave, unpretending man, who likes his own ways and wishes to be allowed to follow them and who is willing to fight and die that others also may be free—such is the English Tommy. With him it is all a part ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... faithful to their post, Mr. George strides through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave- enough face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and the feats of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... appearance in print—for his own sake no less than for yours. He is conceited enough as it is, but if once he got to know that people are always writing about him in the papers his swagger would be unbearable. However, I have said good-bye to him now; I have no longer any rights in him. Yesterday I saw him off to his new home, and when we meet again it will be on a different footing. "Is that your ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... braying began. "If you love Swagger Literature, put your telephone on to Bruggles, the Greatest Author of all Time. The Greatest Thinker of all Time. Teaches you Morals up to your Scalp! The very image of Socrates, except the back of his head, which is like Shakspeare. He has six toes, dresses in red, and never cleans ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... swagger a bit, Harriet, but 'tis not an offensive swagger. As to his hat: 'tis a standing joke of the army as to how he keeps it on in battle. The hotter the fight the further on the side it gets. I saw a letter that General Greene ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... as a balloon, I suppose, and we are at home in them," said the Englishman, with just the hint of a swagger ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... out a genuine Arab who happens to be passing; he has come down from the hills and is leading a camel loaded with halfa; he is gaunt and ill-clad, but walks with a fine swagger, and is evidently a valuable young person, to judge ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... ten almost to insignificance), six foot two, perhaps, and—not stout yet, but showing signs that one day he might become so. I noticed that he held himself magnificently, his broad shoulders thrown back, his head up; and that he walked with a slight swagger, more like a cavalryman than an officer in the artillery. Perhaps it was the electric light which made his skin look as white as Diana's, without a touch of the tan that darkened Eagle March's fairer complexion; but the white was of a different quality, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... into each other's arms, with a cry of "Camille!" "Armand!" Or if a man enters the greenroom with his hat on, and a half-dozen people call, "Do you take this for an ale-house, that you can enter with such a swagger?" and the hat comes off with a laughing apology. Or if the man with the cane is everlastingly practising "carte and tierce" on somebody, or doing a broadsword fight with any one who has an umbrella. If a woman passes with her ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... self-controlled, had that same strange suggestion of sudden age in it which Paul had before noticed. Whether Don Caesar detected it, or whether he had some other instinctive appreciation of greater security, Paul could not tell. He seemed to recover his swagger again, as he said,— ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... near evening when this conversation took place; soon after, when the dark cloak of night had enveloped the bright radiance of day, Merdek entered the chamber of his spouse, with something of a martial swagger, armed with a scimitar. The unsuspecting cat came forward as usual, to welcome the husband of her mistress, but in an instant her head was divided from her body by a blow from the hand which had so often caressed her. Merdek, having proceeded so far courageously, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the less important distinctive peculiarities of the gentleman of fashion, we may dismiss this portion of our subject. A gentleman never affects military air or costume if he is not a military man, and even then avoids professional rigidity and swagger as much as possible; he never sports spurs or a riding-whip, except when he is upon horseback, contrary to the rule observed by his antagonist the snob, who always sports spurs and riding-whip, but who never mounts higher than a threepenny stride on a Hampstead ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... of wax shall lodge each member Close by the hinges of a block of timber. We then no more shall Master, master, whoot, The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out; Could one seize on the dagger which he bears, Heads would be free from tingling in the ears, To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses. The thus farewell ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... some merit in putting a handsome face upon indigent circumstances. To bully and swagger away the sense of them, before strangers, may be not always discommendable. Tibbs, and Bobadil, even when detected, have more of our admiration than contempt. But for a man to put the cheat upon himself; to play the Bobadil ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... over the sideboard, at the feast which his successors were giving. A dreamy old ghost of a picture. Have you ever looked at those round George IV.'s banqueting-hall at Windsor? Their frames still hold them, but they smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets which are quite faint and faded: their crimson coats have a twilight tinge: the lustre of their stars has twinkled out: they look as if they were about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the corner of which there now comes the tail of Louka's double apron. His eye gleams at once. He takes a stealthy look at her, and begins to twirl his moustache nervously, with his left hand akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his heels in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the left of the table, opposite her, and says) Louka: do you know ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... wasn't afraid you'd think I swagger, I should say—than anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... growing low on his forehead, and long blackish-gray eyes, there was something Latin in the grace of his movements and in his glance. Life ran strong in Shade Buckheath. He stepped with an independent stride that was almost a swagger, and already felt himself a successful man; but that one of the tribe of borrowing Passmores should presume to such opulence of charm struck him as well-nigh impudent. The pure outlines of Johnnie's ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... vapour, and swagger as thou dost? but why offended at this? Oh but he has been a naughty man! and I have been righteous, sayest thou. Well, Pharisee, well, his naughtiness shall not be laid to thy charge, if thou ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Elmer nonchalantly. He was a thin, anaemic-looking young fellow a couple of years younger than Virginia who affected a swagger and gloves and who had a cough which was insistent, but which he strove to disguise. And yet Florrie's hyperbole had not been entirely without warrant. He had something of Virginia's fine profile, a look of her in his eyes, the stamp of good blood upon him. He suffered his sister to kiss him, ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud voice, popped her head ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk; wood-peckers fly volatu undoso, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which incline downward, as a support while they run up trees. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... the brace of baboons answer'd, Yes; and said thou wert a pitiful poor fellow, and didst live upon posts: and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that lords gave thee to fool to them, and swagger. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... lift of the latch, and turned with a smile. But the smile faded almost at once as she recognised her visitor. It was Tom Trevarthen, and he entered with a grin and a defiant, jaunty swagger which did not at ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... altar-piece) is perhaps, besides the Orvieto Resurrection, his most superb and poetical work. The figures, only three inches high, have his highest quality of powerful grandeur, solemnly rustic in the kneeling shepherds—solemn in the very swagger, hand on hip, of the parti-coloured bravoes of the Magi; the landscape, only a few centimetres across, is one of the amplest and most austere that ever has been painted: a valley, bounded by blue hills and ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... absolutely fearless and self-reliant in regard to material conditions, but singularly unobservant and stupid when it was a question of psychology. He had been a sawyer in his early experience, but later became a bartender in Muskegon. He was in general a good-humoured animal enough, but fond of a swagger, given to showing off, and exceedingly ugly when his passions ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... don't you get out of a fellow's way?" snapped Herbert, supporting the machine and glaring round at Phil. He bore little resemblance to the usual dapper, immaculate, self-possessed young fellow from the city whose tailored clothes and swagger manners had aroused the envy and admiration of a number of country ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... under the shade of a neighbouring tree smoking a pipe of that excessive shortness and blackness that seems to be peculiarly beloved by Irishmen in the humbler ranks of life. The man was very, tall and broad-shouldered, and carried himself with a free-and-easy swagger, as he rose and approached ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... declared, I found that I had risen to the dignity of Sergeant, and carried my Halberd with an assured strut and swagger, nobody dreaming that I was a wild Irish girl from the Wicklow Mountains. I might have risen, in time, to a commission and the Cross of St. Louis; but the piping times of peace turned all such brave grapes sour. I was glad enough, when the alternative was given me, of accompanying ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... muscular strength of his stalwart frame, all his physical powers were shown only to his fellow-men; a form of flattery which women appreciate, nay, which so intoxicates them, that every man with his mistress on his arm assumes a matador swagger that provokes a smile. Very well set up, in a closely fitting blue coat with solid gold buttons, in black trousers, spotless patent evening boots, and gloves of a fashionable hue, the only Brazilian touch in the Baron's costume ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of mighty power. What wonder if he spent much of his day in eating-houses and drinking-houses, obscurely hinting to admiring boon companions of the thing he could do an he would? Then, having drunk his fill, he would swagger, sometimes not over-steadily, out to the Park, and amuse himself by scowling at the Premier, or smiling a smile of hidden meaning at Daisy Medland, as they drove by. Also, he occasionally got into trouble: one zealous partisan ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... nom de plume ("Charles Ludhurst") for the occasion, Needless to say that I was delighted when I saw the article in print, and yet more so when I received for it a couple of guineas, which I speedily expended on gloves, neckties, and a walking-stick. Here let me say that we were rather swagger young fellows at Bonaparte. We did not have to wear hideous ill-fitting uniforms like other Lyceens, but endeavoured to present a very smart appearance. Thus we made it a practice to wear gloves and to carry walking-sticks or canes on our way ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... for to say as I'm disturbing on ye, Passon," he remonstrated, mildly; "I ain't said a mortal wurrd! I was onny jes' keepin' my eye on the clap gate yonder, in case the party in the churchyard might walk through, thinkin' it a right-o'-way. Them swagger folk ain't got no sort of idee ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... sympathy of one artist for another and offered her services. Bruant led her to the piano, she accompanied him as best she could, the music being new to her, he sang us his St. Lazare and La Soularde, all the while striding up and down with magnificent swagger, and was about to begin a third of his most famous songs when the pianist arrived, his unmistakable fright quickly lost in his bewilderment at being received with an amiability he had not any right to expect, and ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... bootblack or newsboy, he is an adept in all the tricks of the trade; and as a fast young man about town among his kind, he is worthy his white prototype: the swagger, the impertinent look, the coarse remark, the loud laugh, are all in the best style. As a lounger and starer also, on the street corners of a Sunday afternoon, he has ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... when the black man begins to dispute the white man's title to certain alleged bequests of the Fathers in wage and position, authority and training; and when his attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,—then the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that Japan ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... very gay life in Melbourne. His good looks and clever tongue had made him a lot of friends, and he was very popular both in drawing-room and club. The men voted him a jolly sort of fellow and a regular swagger man, while the ladies said that he was heavenly; for, true to his former tactics, Vandeloup always made particular friends of women, selecting, of course, those whom he thought would be likely to be of use to him. Being such a favourite entailed ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... wheat-field we pass through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Haer, wearing a colonel's uniform and flicking his swagger stick along his booted leg, stood in the doorway. His voice was lazily arrogant. "And Mr. Holland, I must say, the Middle caste seems to have taken over the house. Well, Major Mauser? I assume you do not labor under the illusion that you are welcome ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... for the arrival of Blossett's train in London they had reached Victoria. It was an easy matter to store the car in a neighboring hotel, and presently they had the satisfaction of seeing Blossett swagger from a first-class carriage with a heavy Gladstone bag in his hand. He called a cab and was rapidly driven off in the direction of the city. Egan in his turn called another cab, giving the driver strict injunctions to ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... crotchety, and has given herself up to 'religious thought and work,' as she calls it, from which I surmise that her's is a reign of terror at Marumbah Downs. She has built a little tin-pot chapel in which there is not enough room to swing a cat by the tail, and had it opened a few months ago by some swagger curate from Melbourne—poor old Preston, the Scotch parson at Marumbah township not being considered good enough, and having incurred her wrath by openly stating that when he had a cold he took whisky toddy ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... PRINCE, his brothers, and a large proportion of the other Pavilion guests, swagger out in the direction of the Castle assembly-rooms adjoining, and the deserted banqueting-hall grows dark. In a few moments the back of the scene ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... down the blinds for one day; his habit when you are out, of sitting up on his back legs and begging you with his front paws to come and do something—a trick entirely of his own invention, for no one would think of teaching him anything; his funny nautical roll when he walks, which is nearly a swagger, and gives him always the air of having just come back from some rather dashing adventure; beyond all this there is still something. And whatever it is, it is something, which every now and then compels you to bend down and catch hold of his ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... guess I got some brains around me," he added, inspired by Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get up pretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got my hands ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various |
