"Swaggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... control and moderation, I found the character and manners of the people gentler and sweeter than I had been led to believe they were. No loudness, brazenness, impertinence; no oaths, no swaggering, no leering at women, no irreverence, no flippancy, no bullying, no insolence of porters or clerks or conductors, no importunity of bootblacks or newsboys, no omnivorousness, of hackmen,—at least, comparatively none,—all ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... table a photograph enclosed in a photograph-case of sky-blue plush, in which Marianne recognized a swaggering fellow with flat face, large hands, fierce, bushy moustache, who leaned on a cane, swelling out his huge chest in outline against a mean, gray-tinted ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Mariner, approving his Albatross, "but I warn you I shall claim half the credit. When you see me swaggering, and hear me boasting of the plans my friend Brederode and I have mapped out, contradict me if you dare. I will defy you in some things, or I shall burst of sheer spite; and we can test it now, if you like, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... it to-night," he said, knocking the dents out of his hat—"sweep all before me." Then he put his hat on, and his hands on his hips, with a swaggering, man-of-society air. "I say," he said, "I'm glad you're going. I should like ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she slept. The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a distant wood across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look around, and found that she was really ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... respective fathers were good customers! The islanders all had the reputation of hard drinkers—and an innkeeper hardly invites occasion to lower his receipts. The inn stood in old Mrs. Faircloth's name, it is true; but the son profited, at all events vicariously, by its prosperity. A swaggering fellow, with an inordinate opinion of his own ability and merits; but in that he shared a family failing. For arrogance and assumption the whole clan was difficult ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... agreed with him, though, as Koos admitted, with the death-rattle shaking him, they were all dreadfully afraid of that big swaggering man. The old man had done a fair share of fighting before, and at Potchefstroom, as he said, he had killed three rooineks, so he was ready enough for ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... from the first step to the last they owed to the sublime magnanimity of their victim—well knowing his own continual danger, but refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust—when they had gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their daggers—cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'—they had come to the end of the play. Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite. Not a step further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they began ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack Palmer. He was a gentleman with a slight infusion of the footman. His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards—was a gentleman with a little stronger infusion of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... sensation she was creating; she arched her back and lifted her head, and walked down the street, swaying her body from side to side, and swaggering along as though the whole place belonged ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... be a joke when the governor and the mater are there on the first night? They'll be frightfully pleased. You must try and prevent the mater swaggering about it too much, you know. She's such a dear, she's sure to be absurdly proud of it. And it'll be a bit of a score off the governor in a way, too. He never would have thought I could do it, would he? And Raggett will be surprised, too. You must have a ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... Only a little fighting sparrow of a royalist!" cried a swaggering colt of a fellow ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... masculine way, but hideously conscious of blushing cheeks and nervous gait. I so far forgot myself that, in my eagerness to display my male superiority, I jostled against a lady, and disgraced myself by swaggering on without even apologising for my rudeness—when, to my consternation, the ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... officers and men in scarlet plumes and full-dress uniforms, was a revelation to the sombre battalions whose officers had not yet even purchased their epaulettes and had seen no occasion to wear them. But when Cram and his lieutenants came swaggering about the garrison croquet-ground in natty shell jackets, Russian shoulder-knots, riding-breeches, boots, and spurs, there were not lacking those among the sturdy foot who looked upon the whole proceeding with great disfavor. Cram had two "rankers" ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... They could give him no assurance of any scheme of growth and unification, and no guarantees against the manifest dangers of economic disturbance and political corruption a tariff involves. Imperialism without noble imaginations, it seemed to him, was simply nationalism with megalomania. It was swaggering, it was greed, it was German; its enthusiasm was forced, its nobility a vulgar lie. No. And when he turned to the opposite party he found little that was more attractive. They were prepared, it seemed, if they came into office, to pull the legislature of the British Isles to ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... philosophy—all are subservient to the purpose of explaining how it was that Remington was driven into the net of sex, and Isabel was enabled to "darn his socks." Parturiunt montes. Is it thus that Remington will make himself immortal in literature, the twentieth-century Benvenuto Cellini, swaggering, in a self-conscious, twentieth-century way, through the tale of his glorious peccadilloes? Or is it to be a Jonathan Wild, memorable as the hero of a hundred magnificent felonies with which a Fielding or a Wells could glorify a sturdy vagabond? But Remington ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... expected to visit the new people in the valley—what say you, Pereo? Who shall we dine to-day?' Or: 'Enquire me of this or that strange caballero—and if we may speak.' Ah, it is but yesterday that Amita would say: 'Lend me thine own horse, Pereo, that I may outstrip this swaggering Americano that clings ever to my side,' ha! ha! Or the grave Dorotea would whisper: 'Convey to this Senor Presumptuous Pomposo that the daughters of Guitierrez do not ride alone with strangers!' Or even the little Liseta would say, he! he! 'Why does the stranger press my ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... it was not uncommon for them, at such times, to leave their ships under a sufficient guard, and to start off in the long-boat, either upon a sporting expedition or, more frequently, upon a visit to some outlying town, where they burned the heads of the women by their swaggering gallantry, or broached pipes of wine in the market square, with a threat to pistol all who would ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... two steps toward De Guiche): My Lord de Guiche, permit that I present— (pointing to the cadets): The bold Cadets of Gascony, Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux! Brawling and swaggering boastfully, The bold Cadets of Gascony! Spouting of Armory, Heraldry, Their veins a-brimming with blood so blue, The bold Cadets of Gascony, Of Carbon ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... with honour?" said Simon Glover. "If thou wouldst remain in my service, thou must think of honesty, and leave honour to the swaggering fools who wear steel at their heels and iron on their shoulders. If you wish to wear and use such garniture, you are welcome, but it shall not be in my house or in ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... valour, nor your love, But there be some that bares a soldier's form, That swears by him they never think upon, Goes swaggering up and down from house to ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... that, in a fond, protecting way; but it sounded most oddly from Jem, he was such a weak, swaggering sparrow of a little chap. He stretched his hands as high as he could reach up to her hips, and smoothed her linsey dress down: if it had been her face, the touch could not have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... whom Theodora kindly introduced me: Georgie and Elsie Wilbur, very pretty girls of about Ellen's age, also their brother Edgar, near my own age, and a large, awkward but smiling youngster, whose name was Henry Sylvester, whom the others called "Bub." An older boy of rather swaggering manners overtook us on our way, and began talking patronizingly to me, without an introduction. His name was Alfred Batchelder. We also overtook a boy named Willis Murch, who had stopped to sit, waiting for us, on a large rock beside the road. The Murch ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... portraits of him. His shoulders were broad, and in walking he pushed them forward alternately in a rather remarkable manner. This peculiarity, arising more from physical necessity than from choice, gave him a sort of slinging gait, which caused a Tory print to call him, derisively, "Swaggering Dan." This nickname of their favourite did not offend the people, they even thought it appropriate, there was such a dashing independence in his whole manner; and Shiel never wrote anything more felicitously true, than ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... it be," answered the youth. "I judge my wines by the taste, not by the name." When the wine was brought, he raised his cup with a swaggering laugh. "To the girls you have loved. To the girls I will love." He emptied the cup at a single draught. "There are two times when a long throat is a good throat; when you're wetting it, and when you're cutting it. I'd have another, but I'm—I'm sleepy, Marmaduke. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... potatoes; and she left us wreathed in smiles, and resolved that Mr. Simpson should buy their son Horace a commission instead of taking him into the business. Mr. Simpson did not share her views, and I believe he said some rather nasty things about swaggering, and not having one sixpence to rub against another. And Mrs. Simpson (who was really devoted to Horace and could hardly bear him out of her sight) reflected that it was possible to get shot as well as to grow a moustache if you went into the army; but she still maintained that she should ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... thou wouldst have thought it time to take strong measures to check the swaggering of our young men and the foolish provocations that cost more than one life. One would stick a peacock's feather in his cap and go strutting along with folded arms and swelling breast, and when the Goths scowled at ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it a fine thing to be a fast, reckless, swaggering, drinking, swearing reprobate: Being ashamed of the imputation of being a well-behaved and (above all) a pious and conscientious young man: Thinking it manly to do wrong, and ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... violent desire to build a home after his own heart and image, like those mollusks that build a shell with the substance of their bodies so that it may serve both as a dwelling and a defense. There awakened in him that longing for show, for pompous, swaggering, amusing originality that lies dormant in the mind of every artist. At first he planned a reproduction of Rubens' palace in Antwerp, open loggie for studios, leafy gardens covered with flowers at all seasons, and in the paths, gazelles, giraffes, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Foret's face grew pale. He knew now for the first time that Angele and her father were in England, and he looked Lempriere suspiciously in the eyes; but the swaggering Seigneur met his look frankly, and bowed with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tropics, and the sumptuous spoils of the Spanish provinces, and disposed of them with the proverbial carelessness of freebooters, they were welcome visitors to the thrifty traders of New-York. Crews of these desperadoes, therefore, the runagates of every country and every clime, might be seen swaggering in open day about the streets, elbowing its quiet inhabitants, trafficking their rich outlandish plunder at half or quarter price to the wary merchant; and then squandering their prize-money in taverns, drinking, gambling, singing, carousing and astounding ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... hall and church of Westminster, where there are brave things to be seen, and braver still to think about. But whenever I wandered in the streets, what with the noise the people made, the number of the coaches, the running of the footmen, the swaggering of great courtiers, and the thrusting aside of everybody, many and many a time I longed to be back among the sheep again, for fear of losing temper. They were welcome to the wall for me, as I took care to tell them, for I could stand without the wall, which ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... his young friend, who had by this time stuck his hands into the pockets of his white cord breeches, and was swaggering along at the barber's side. 'D'ye know a pair of top-boots when ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... distinguished appearance and richly dressed, who appeared to be a prisoner. This discovery redoubled the curiosity of the villagers, who followed the cavalcade as far as the door of the wine-shop. The host came out, cap in hand, and the provost enquired of him with a swaggering air if his pothouse was large enough to accommodate his troop, men and horses. The host replied that he had the best wine in the country to give to the king's servants, and that it would be easy to collect in the neighbourhood litter and forage enough for their horses. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cup; at six months old, a coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was "tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an impudent urchin of ten years old. In a word, George was as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... NYM, PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, and BOY.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no wit ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... folks who could do it creditably? Oh, that is simple enough! She needs it. On the platform of the Reggio station (long before the earthquake) I once counted five station-masters and forty-eight other railway officials, swaggering about with a magnificent air of incapacity. What were they doing? Nothing whatever. They were like this ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... hearth, with her head in the opening of the fireplace. I do not know how I then found the courage to speak, but I did so without much hesitation. I got up, and, walking up and down the room, observed in a careless tone, with that swaggering manner characteristic of cowards, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... while, as was his usual way, he took complete possession of the house: swaggering all over it;—into the stable to look after his horse; into the kitchen to look after his supper. He had something to say or do with every one; smoked with the Dutchmen; drank with the Germans; slapped the men on the shoulders, tickled the women under the ribs:-never since the days ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... be mewed up as she does us," said Angel, swaggering, "and, I don't know what you mean to do, Mary Ellen, but we mean to take a day off, so there!" He nodded his curly ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... places himself, the Gypsies, and other wildish men, and himself again. His outstanding character, his ways and gestures, irresistible even when offensive, hold us while he is in our presence. In these repressed indoor days, we like a swaggering man who does justice to the size of the planet. We run after biographies of extraordinary monarchs, poets, bandits, prostitutes, and see in them magnificent expansions of our fragmentary, undeveloped, or mistaken ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... knaves—the two— Belonging to Terzky's carabineers, Who've lain in these quarters now for years; The worst are they of the worthless crew. Strutting, swaggering, proud and vain, They seem to think they may well disdain With the peasant a glass of his wine to drain But, soft—to the left o' the fire I see Three riflemen, who from the Tyrol should be Emmerick, come, boy, to them will we. Birds of this feather ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... greasy pocket-books. She had never known this aspect of the Horse Show before, and—so much is in the point of view—it seemed to her sordid and detestable. Prize-winners with their coloured rosettes were swaggering about everywhere. Every horse in the show seemed to have got a prize except hers, thought Fanny. And not a man in a straw ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... flushed and peachy-wise At the frank lifting of thy cordial eyes? Ah, me! that night there was one gentle thing, Who, like a dove, with its scarce feathered wing, Fluttered at the approach of thy quaint swaggering! ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... shogun he was created regent. He was a man of great resolution and unscrupulous in the measures by which he attempted to carry out the policy to which he was committed. By his enemies he was called the "swaggering prime minister (bakko genro)." Assured that the foreign treaties could not be abrogated without dangerous collisions with foreign nations, he sought to crush the opposition which assailed them. The daimyo of Mito, who had been the head of ...
— Japan • David Murray
... visitors were left—a French half-breed called Lablache, a swaggering, vicious fellow, and the captain of the steamer Ste. Anne, which was to make its last trip south in the morning—even now it would have to break its way through the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... when the cholera has all but disappeared, he comes down to Penalva, and introduces himself, half swaggering, half servile; begins by a string of apologies for not having called before,—"Mrs. Trebooze so afraid of infection, you see, my lord,"—which is a lie: then blunders out a few fulsome compliments to Scoutbush's courage in staying; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... were wakes, fairs, and rustic meetings innumerable in the vicinity of the Castle. Charles the huntsman might, as usual, be seen at these fetes for nothing, but after his late victory, he carried his head higher, assumed a swaggering gait, and looked his neighbours out of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... humanity, we were struck more forcibly than ever with the picture. At times our passage was blocked by the crowds, and misshapen figures and hideous faces would peer out of doors and shop windows at us, and swaggering Albanians would jostle each other, their belts for the most part empty, though many were armed in spite of the stringent rules to the contrary. Slowly we forged our way through this seething crowd, and emerged on the open road beyond, leading ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... The brigade was to move to an empty cantonment, a hundred miles farther south, there to be expanded into a division. At first the men thought they were departing for the trenches, and all evening little groups jabbered in the company street, shouting to each other in swaggering exclamations: "Su-u-ure we are!" When the truth leaked out, it was rejected indignantly as a blind to conceal their real destination. They revelled in their own importance. That night they told their ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... having no good excuse, and too late now to mend, he being coming home. Thence home, whither, by agreement, by and by comes Mercer and Gayet, and two gentlemen with them, Mr. Monteith and Pelham, the former a swaggering young handsome gentleman, the latter a sober citizen merchant. Both sing, but the latter with great skill-the other, no skill, but a good voice, and a good basse, but used to sing only tavern tunes; and so I spent all this evening till eleven at night singing with them, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... jackal, and he found it very hard to get enough to live upon; however, one day he came upon the tiger's den when the father and mother tiger were out hunting, and there he saw the two tiger cubs with a large piece of venison which their parents had brought them. Then the jackal put on a swaggering air and began to abuse the tiger cubs for having so much venison, saying: "I am the sipahi of the Raja and the Raja has demanded venison and none can be found, while low people like you have a fine piece like this: give it at once or I will take it and report against you to the Raja." Then ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... demanded the young fellow, his temper a little ruffled by what appeared an impertinent obstruction on the part of some swaggering bully. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... did not move when Patsy came toward him and delivered his oration. At its conclusion he turned his livid face toward where, above him, Patsy was swaggering and heaving his shoulders in a consummate display of bravery and readiness. The Cuban, in his clear, tense tones, spoke one word. It was the bitter insult. It seemed fairly to spin from his lips and crackle in the air ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... quarrel if they continued their talk. This they were not particularly inclined to, however, and began a game of cards, leaving him to himself to finish his drink. This he did, quickly tossing down both brandy and coffee the instant they were brought to him, and then striding swaggering from the room and mounting his horse, which waited in the street, and riding clattering off over the stones at ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David asked pointedly, "Were you speaking to ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the instant expectation of insurrection, conflagration and rapine (just as we do to-day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist and gets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted in a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange signs and passes and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... we shall say only that he is overcome. By what? he will reiterate. By the good, we shall have to reply; indeed, we shall. Nay, but our questioner will rejoin with a laugh, if he be one of the swaggering sort, that is too ridiculous, that a man should do what he knows to be evil when he ought not, because he is overcome by good. Is that, he will ask, because the good was worthy or not worthy of conquering ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... with ever more loudly clinking glasses—Der Tag! Such was triumphant Germany, the triumphant Vaterland, in 1913—foretasting a portentous future; pregnant with colossal success; swollen with a hundred years of victories and growth; as sure of its prowess and might as were the swaggering gods of its Valhallas. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the greensward ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at daybreak in the wild hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are looking for deer, the red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon Thorburn, who never overcast the wound that he took from a buck's horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by your side, whilk it becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet with them that have broadsword and lance both—there are enow of rank riders in this land, that neither fear God ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... yellows himself a little among rolls and records, plunders a few libraries, and, lo! we have an entire new work by the learned Mr Dunce, and that after an incubation of only one month. He is, perhaps, a braggadocio of minuteness, a swaggering chronologer, a man bristling up with small facts, prurient with dates, wantoning in obsolete evidence. No matter; there are plenty of newspapers who are constantly lavishing their praises upon small men and bad books. A mendacious press will puff the book through a brief season, and then ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... With a swaggering sea roll he came striding across the wide arid space between the wharf side and the buildings, puffing at a big black cigar as he walked, and glancing about him curiously, as though he could not quite understand the utter ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... justify an English word.—/American Note/.] great confidence was entertained; which he very soon managed to gain from me also. By way of introduction, I began to speak with him on subjects of jurisprudence; and he wondered not a little at my swaggering: for, during my residence at Leipzig, I had gained more of an insight into the requisites for the law than I have hitherto taken occasion to state in my narrative, though all I had acquired could only ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... over their shoulders, and the ever-present turban on their heads. Reginald, knowing the agitation into which the announcement would throw the rajah, was afraid that he would betray himself, so, swaggering on according to the character he had assumed, he forced the crowd to make way for the caravan; which at length got clear, and was able to proceed onward to the house which the merchant was wont to occupy during his ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... lasts. But now it would seem as if in an august Assembly itself, traitorous Royalism, in its despair, had taken to a new course: that of cutting off Patriotism by systematic duel! Bully-swordsmen, 'Spadassins' of that party, go swaggering; or indeed they can be had for a trifle of money. 'Twelve Spadassins' were seen, by the yellow eye of Journalism, 'arriving recently out of Switzerland;' also 'a considerable number of Assassins, nombre considerable d'assassins, exercising in fencing-schools and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... another boy to sell papers for him likewise. His profits upon daily sales of four hundred journals were about thirty-two dollars. He had five hundred dollars in bank, and was debating with Captain Kingwalt the propriety of founding an army express and general agency. Such a self-reliant, swaggering, far-sighted, and impertinent boy I never knew. He was a favorite with the Captain's black-boy, and upon thorough terms of equality with the Commanding General. His papers cost him in Washington a cent and a half each, and he sold them ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... tears, telling him haughtily that a great cause made one indifferent to discomfort; and he nearly laughed aloud. He looked across the hall at her and just caught her switching her gaze from him to the platform. He felt a curious swaggering triumph at the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... do, old fellow?" he exclaimed, in a rollicking, swaggering tone of voice, speaking French with a villanous ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no whit, a big, swaggering fellow stepped forward, a flashily dressed herculean figure in tops and cords, his high-collared, brass-buttoned coat moulding a mighty chest and spread of shoulder; which formidable person now advanced upon us flourishing a quart pot and with divers of the riotous company at his heels. No honest, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... arriving at the room, a large sala in the neighbourhood of the Plaza, we found it filled with hunters, trappers, traders, and teamsters, all swaggering about in their usual mountain rig. Mixed among them were some two or three score of the natives, with an equal number of senoritas, all of whom, by their style of dress, I recognise as poblanas, or persons of the lower class,—the only class, in fact, to be met ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Watusk, still swaggering, nevertheless visibly weakened. In the end he had to go, just as a child must in the end obey a calm, ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... swaggered after him. She had been swaggering all the evening. She acted like a duchess at a slumming party. The ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... rail sprang a stalwart lad, not out of his teens, with a lovely golden-haired girl in his arms. With strong, swift strokes, he struck out for the beach, notwithstanding his burden. The other passengers, a hazy and quite uninteresting lot, quickly went down; all save one, a coarse, swaggering youth with too much self-possession whom I need not name. He, too, sprang over the rail, but, nearing the beach, a justly enraged providence intervened and he was bitten neatly in two by a famished ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... There was no one to whom he wasn't polite, but there had never been any one of whom he was afraid. "Hello, Mr. Masterman!" "Hello, Dr. Hilary!" "Hello, Father Ryan!" "Hello Dr. Sim!" had been his form of greeting ever since he had begun swaggering around the village, with head up and face alert, at the age of five. No one had ever been found to resent this cheerful ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... than sancti apostoli.... They account it a greater dishonour to be no Ciceronian than no Christian, as if Cicero, if he should now come to life again, would not speak of Christian things in other words than in his time he spoke of his own religion!... What is the sense of this hateful swaggering with the name Ciceronian? I will tell you briefly, in your ear. With that pearl-powder they cover the paganism that is dearer to them than the glory of Christ.' To Erasmus Cicero's style is by no means the ideal one. He prefers something more ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... thing that had been stamped underground had spawned and festered until its vermin brood flooded the streets, and the godly wore themselves driven to shun the light of day. Apollyon had indeed triumphed for a while. A quiet man could not walk the highways without being elbowed into the kennel by swaggering swashbucklers, or accosted by painted hussies. Padders and michers, laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed boots, tall plumes, bullies and pimps, oaths and blasphemies—I promise you hell was waxing fat. Even in the solitude of one's coach one was not ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in their speeches a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative competence; that is, that there is no difference in value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema, by the venerable fathers of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... outward sign of its immense strength. Signorelli caught and revived the very essence of Donatello's spirit—the love of bodily life in its most hopeful and vigorous manifestations. It is significant that the swaggering posture which became such a special feature of his painting, should have originated with Donatello. Donatello was, before all things, a realist, and it was probably the habitual attitude of the cavalry soldier of the day, accustomed to straddle over the broad ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... instruments. Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian, were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, a free, bold, rather swaggering gait, a swarthy complexion, and conformable features and tones of voice: and—excepting his costume—you have before your fancy a complete picture of the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... your very Hun? He is a true reversion to type. Only, whereas among the French he is a thing of the savage past, among the Germans he is a product of the kultured present. And to turn from the field note-book of the German soldier with its swaggering tale of loot, lust, and maudlin cups, its memoranda of stolen toys for Felix and of ravished lingerie for Bertha, all viewed in the rosy light of the writer's egotism as a laudable enterprise, to the plain depositions ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... swaggering out of the aspens. He was the man I met in Payson and who so kindly had made me take his rifle. I had engaged him also for this hunt. A brawny man he was, with powerful shoulders, swarthy-skinned, and dark-eyed, looking indeed the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... of ninety, between his teeth—strolled indolently, nonchalantly down the front steps, along the cement walk to the street and so toward town. The two old people, left alone in the sudden silence of the house, stared after the swaggering figure until the dim twilight blotted it out. And a sinister something seemed to close its icy grip about the heart of one of them. A vague premonition that she could only feel, not express, made her ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... only in such works as The Ten Pleasures and The Woman's Advocate, but in others (entered as published, but in many cases not known to be now extant) like The Wonders of the Female World, The Swaggering Damsel, or Several New Curtain Lectures, and Venus in ye smoake, or, the nunn in her smock, in curious dialogues addressed to the lady abbesse of love's parradice—all produced in that same annus mirabilis of ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... is a man who always amuses me. Ordinarily he is a somewhat grim-looking individual; but when there is any fighting going on his whole manner changes, and he beams and mantles with a sort of suppressed mirth. He comes swaggering up now as the guns are opening, looking like a man who has just been told the best story he ever heard in his life, and is still chuckling over it. "They're on to us again," he bubbles out, knocking his boot with his whip ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... Triboulet, swaggering in his chair, so high his feet could not touch the floor, surveyed the broken glass, the duke and the duke's fool. For some time his vigilant eyes had been covertly studying the unconscious foreign ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... permitted to proceed to the palace of the king of Ashantee. He received a hearty welcome at the court, and was entertained with the most lavish kindness. After long and painstaking consideration, a treaty was decided upon that was mutually agreeable; but the self-conceited and swaggering insolence of the British authorities on the coast put it into the waste-basket. The commander of the British squadron put himself in harmony with the local authorities, and refused to give Consul Dupuis ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... that the skipper's word was law, that there was no arguing about orders, which must have given a certain polish to their work. Warington, of course, was no petty tyrant, lording it over young brothers, and swaggering in the undisputed character of his sway. Like the rest he is a humourist, and when a gale was not blowing or the yacht was not contesting a race, he was as full of merriment and good spirits as the rest. His opinion of Ste at this time was a ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... Martin it was. The lad only answered by turning his cynical young face, half-arch, half-truculent, towards the paternal chair. "Martin, my lad, thou'rt a swaggering whelp now; thou wilt some day be an outrageous puppy. But stick to those sentiments of thine. See, I'll write down the words now i' my pocket-book." (The senior took out a morocco-covered book, and deliberately wrote therein.) "Ten years hence, Martin, if thou and I be ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... groups on the lawn came a young man grinning all over and positively swaggering. He was received with shrieks of joy. He had six cans of sardines. He brought them to people who would have been insulted at ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... a party of young and dissipated nobles came swaggering along the road, with their ungirded tunics flowing down to their heels, their long sleeves fringed with purple falling as far as to their wrists, and their curled ringlets floating on their shoulders. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... victim to escape further abuse, these follow. Oswald stops short, but says nothing. A powerful bully, posing as leader, steps on Oswald's foot, aiming a blow at his drooping headgear. A terrific left-hander shoots out, encountering the jaw of our swaggering tough, who strikes the resounding planks with little ceremony. Two more rush at Oswald, when, dropping his satchel, both stretch their lengths on the wharf from right and left hand blows dealt almost together. Just then the bell sounds for departure, when a big officer ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... time came that he must give his evidence, the villain stepped forward with a swaggering impudence that ill-concealed his secret shame, and swore not only that Elizabeth Gaunt had given him shelter, but moreover that she had done it knowing who he was and where he came from. And so she was condemned to death, and, in the strange cruelty of the law, because she was a woman ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... the doorway, big, fat, swaggering. In his younger days his deep chest and broad shoulders had accompanied great strength. But fat had accumulated in layers. He was a mountain of sagging flesh. His ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... master, and has perhaps parted with his mantle to him in the cold blast, although he himself walked in cuerpo, as the Don says.—Strange! that courage and fidelity—for I will warrant that the knave is stout—should have no better companion than this swaggering braggadocio humour.—But you mark ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the convention his thoughts reverted. It was yet early; he lighted a cigar, and in full appreciation of his retirement, took out his note-book and plunged into the affairs of state. Now and then he was recalled to the circumstances of his situation by the swaggering tread of unsteady feet about the house, or when the boisterous shouts below raged above the outside storm; but even then he only glanced up from his papers to congratulate himself upon his ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... however—either by word, or the movement of a feature. On the contrary, he appears perfectly indifferent to the character of the reception given him. Not that his manner betrays anything like swagger—for he is evidently not one of the swaggering sort. Rather is his behaviour characterised by a cool, quiet effrontery—a sort of sarcastic assurance—ten times more irritating. This is displayed in the laconic style of his salutation: "Morning girls! father at home?"— in the fact of his dismounting without waiting to be invited—in ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... acquaintances but no friends. He despised the swaggering beachcombers who had flung off the decencies of civilisation along with the habiliments of civilisation and who found a marrowy sweetness in the husks of the prodigal. Even more he despised the hectoring ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... childhood and youth, and that are likewise normal or habitual to the earlier stages of culture. Unless the difference is traceable entirely to a fundamental difference between persistent ethnic types, the traits that distinguish the swaggering delinquent and the punctilious gentleman of leisure from the common crowd are, in some measure, marks of an arrested spiritual development. They mark an immature phase, as compared with the stage of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... Hon. John Collier.] I have worked hard for a dignity which will enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... and I suspect that a genteel villa must formerly have stood near the farm-gate, which we found surmounted by broken statues of Venus and Diana. The poor goddesses were both headless, and some cruel fortune had struck off their hands, and they looked strangely forlorn in the swaggering attitudes of the absurd period of art to which they belonged: they extended their mutilated arms toward the sea for pity, but it regarded them not; and we passed before them scoffing at their bad taste, for we were hungry, and it was yet ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... victuals,—some thrusting their noses deep into the food,—some rubbing their backs against a post,—some huddled together between sleeping and waking, breathing hard,—all wallowing about; a great boar swaggering round, and a big sow waddling along with her huge paunch. Notwithstanding the unspeakable defilement with which these strange sensualists spice all their food, they seem to have a quick and delicate sense of smell. What ridiculous-looking animals! ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... command the emotions aroused by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... were still there, and the quarrel had recommenced. The result was no different. Charley finally issued out of the teepee beaten, and the little carcasses flew out of the door after him, propelled by a vigorous foot. Charley, swaggering abroad as a man does who has just been worsted at home, sought ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... He had never during our acquaintance manifested any sense of the dandified; on our travels he had worn the casual, unnoticeable dress of the peasant, save when he had masqueraded in the pearl-buttoned velveteens; in London a swaggering air of braggadocio had set off his Bohemian garb: but never had the demoralised disreputability of Paragot struck me until I saw him in the ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... of the babble of faces he heard his name called. A rouged young flapper, high heeled, short skirted and a jaunty green hat. One of the impudent little swaggering boulevard promenaders who talk like simpletons and dance like Salomes, who laugh like parrots and ogle like Pierettes. The birdlike strut of her silkened legs, the brazen lure of her stenciled child face, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... sold his last paper when the two approached him. He did not understand their object until Tim, swaggering up to him, said offensively, "You'd better clear out; you aint ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... common teaching now is, that if a man finds, or fancies, that God has forgiven him, he may forgive himself at once; that if he gets assurance that his sins are washed away in Christ's blood, he may go swaggering and boasting about the world (I can call it no less), as if he had never sinned at all; that he may be (as you see in these revivals, from which God defend us!) one moment in the deepest agonies of conscience, and dread of hell-fire, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... not remember all I said to the portly, well-fed, swaggering cockney upstart; but there was so much in it uncomplimentary to himself and his driving, that the crowd already assembled cheered, as all crowds will cheer profane and personal language; and he was glad enough to gather up his reins and touch his horses, and ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... don't care if you laugh at them With their bumpy humps like a capital M, They lurch and sway And seem to say, As they wrinkle their noses, long and gray, "This swaggering stride is quite the plan, It's the way we walked in ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... her brother-in-law, who came swaggering toward them. With the sight of land and safety, Bennie D.'s courage returned; ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was as nothing compared to the blow to the Griffin's feelings when he realised that his ineffably touching picture of the Sleeping Beauty had been spoiled for the evening. A great surge of sudden hatred swept over the Griffin at the swaggering intruder who had dared to strike him, and simultaneously the Griffin remembered something he had once heard said by a man in blue wearing a helmet close to where he always ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... not whether James de la Cloche—rejecting the gaudy lure of three crowns—lived and died a saintly Jesuit; or whether, on the other hand, he married beneath him, was thrown into gaol, was sentenced to a public whipping, was pardoned and released, and died at the age of twenty-three, full of swaggering and impenitent impudence. Was there but one James de la Cloche, a scion of the noblest of European royal lines? Did he, after professions of a holy vocation, suddenly assume the most secular of characters, jilting Poverty and Obedience for an earthly bride? Or was the person ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Inanda's Kraal was a cluster of kyas and rondavels, shaped in a half-moon, with a flat space between the houses, where grew a big merula tree. All around was a medley of little fires, with men squatted beside them. Here and there a party had finished their meal, and were swaggering about with a great shouting. The mob into which I had fallen was of this sort, and I saw others within the confines of the camp. But around the merula tree there was a gathering of chiefs, if I could ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... persecutor sank promptly through the group to the rear. The incident gave the badgered one a breathing-spell, and for a moment even turned the derision in another direction. He took advantage of his interval. "I'll do it if anybody else will," he announced, swaggering to and fro. ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... can do. In the first place, you know I makes it a rule never to darken the door of a place wot calls itself an 'otel, for 'otel prices and inn prices are werry different. You young chaps don't consider these things, and as long as you have got a rap in the world you go swaggering about, ordering claret and waxlights, and everything wot's expensive, as though you must spend money because you are in an inn. Now, that's all gammon. If a man haven't got money he can't spend it; and we all know that many poor folks are obliged at times to go to houses of public entertainment, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... south a good while, then, figuring about in the Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... up the remains of the fishermen's band, he hired them to accompany him through the fair. They were three little musicians, now exceedingly drunk, and their duty was to play "Hail, Isle of Man," as he went swaggering ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... had not been for that swaggering coward, this might not have happened," replied Bramble. "It's somewhat my own fault: I was so anxious to frighten him about nothing, but at last I run us into real danger, and I might have known that he never would have fought, although I certainly ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and Little-Faith would have had their revenge and satisfaction upon Christian and Hopeful had they seen those two so Pharisaical old men taken in the Flatterer's net. For it was nothing else but the swaggering pride of Hopeful over the pitiful case of Little- Faith, taken along with the hard and hasty ways of Christian with that unhappy youth Ignorance, that so soon laid them both down under the small cords of the Shining ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... showed his own steamer ticket in proof of it. That settled Hassan for the time but Georges Coutlass was not so easy. He came swaggering upstairs and thumped on Monty's door with the air of a bearer of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... dirty, and he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He wore a man's coat which reached nearly to his heels, and he had turned the cuffs back half-way up his arm to get his hands out of the sleeves. Altogether he was as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... every day and improving on the patent. If Chicago can't have the newest thing, she won't have anything. 'High hopes that burn like stars sublime,' has Chicago. She won't let Shakespeare or Milton be standards much longer. She won't have it—simply won't have England swaggering over the English language. Oh, she's dizzy, is Chicago—simply dizzy. I was born there. Parents, one Philadelphy, one New York, one Pawtucket—the Pawtucket one was the step-mother. Father liked his wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago. My name ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... could read the French character in the national palace of the Tuileries, so I have pictured to myself some of the traits of John Bull in his royal abode of Windsor Castle. The Tuileries, outwardly a peaceful palace, is in effect a swaggering military hold; while the old castle, on the contrary, in spite of its bullying look, is completely under petticoat government. Every corner and nook is built up into some snug, cozy nestling place, some "procreant cradle," not tenanted by meager expectants or whiskered warriors, but by sleek placemen; ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... bush beyond is heard The swaggering song of the butcher-bird Seeking a joint for his butcher's shop. (Chip! . . Chop! . . Chip! . . Chop!) Deeper and deeper the cut creeps in, While the parrots shriek with a deafening din, And the chips fly out with a flip and a flop. (Chip! Chop! Chip! Chop!) ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... himself as aptly to his folk and region as Puck to the fays and mortals of a wood near Athens. In the days of divine sovereignty, the jester, we see, was by all odds the wise man of the palace; the real fools were those he made his butt—the foppish pages, the obsequious courtiers, the swaggering guardsmen, the insolent nobles, and not seldom majesty itself. And thus it is that painters and romancers have loved to draw him. Who would not rather be Yorick than Osric, or Touchstone than Le Beau, or even poor Bertuccio than one of ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... Captain E—, of the Artillery, a very good-looking man. After dinner, Mrs. Aston took us as far as Tortoni's, on her way to the Opera. On entering the cafe, Captain E— did not touch his hat according to the custom of the country, but behaved himself, a la John Bull, in a noisy and swaggering manner; upon which, General, then Colonel J—, went up to E— and knocked off his hat, telling him that he hoped he would in future behave himself better. Aston, Bathurst, and I, waited for some time, expecting to see E— knock J— down, or, at all ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... out into a fit of laughter, at this remark. It struck me as infinitely droll, and as somewhat silly. I knew my precise position in society, perfectly; had none of the silly swaggering about personal merit, and of "one man's being as good as another," that has since got into such general use among us; and understood perfectly the useful and unavoidable classifications that take place in all civilized communities, and which, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Terry came swaggering up, and Roylance winced, the scissors with which he was cutting the plaister ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a stand that revealed genuine social consciousness was that half-French, half-Italian woman, Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet. She seceded from court because the court was swaggering and hurly-burly, with florid Marie-de-Medicis at its head. And with this recession, she began to express in her conduct, her feeling, her conversation, and, finally, in her house, her awakened consciousness of beauty and reserve, of ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... though I'm not. He is better because he is just what he seems. There is no pretence about him. He doesn't think that plastering his hair with stuff, and wearing ugly, showy clothes, and a hat on the back of his head, or swaggering, or smoking nasty cigarettes, or being insolent to women, are marks of a gentleman. He's the real thing. That's what Hal is, and that's why I'm so proud of him, so—so touchy ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond |
