"Swimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for the prosecution and defense had been allowed fifteen minutes each to argue the case. The attorney for the defense had commenced his argument with an allusion to the old swimming-hole of his boyhood days. He told in flowery oratory of the balmy air, the singing birds, the joy of youth, the delights of the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the sight of an owl, in the dark. Minks, and weasels, are his aversion, as much as other vermin. He will follow the first into the water, till he exhausts him with diving, and overtakes him in swimming. He is a hunter, too. He will tree a squirrel, or a raccoon, as readily as the best of sporting dogs. He will catch, and hold a pig, or anything not too large or heavy for him. He will lie down on your garment, and watch it for hours; or by anything ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... Saluria slowly swung into the harbor and dropped anchor, the promenade-deck was full of lively, chattering people, all arrayed in white, and all eager for the first glimpse of the strange land. Dozens of naked native boys were swimming about the steamer, causing general merriment by their dexterity in diving for coins. One saucy brown imp who had just come up with a silver piece in his mouth, caught sight of the Englishman in the crowd above, and with a shrewdness born of experience ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... Poplar Point they spent a few hours and had a good sleep. Then next morning, bright and early, they were off again. At Beren's River they stopped for dinner, then on they sped. At the Narrows they saw a great black bear swimming across the channel. Poor bruin got into a tight place. Some of the boats headed him off, and when he attempted to return he found that others were between him and the shore. His perplexity was very great and his temper much ruffled. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a protection. When Tom had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in Chamber's shirt, dip the knots in the water and make them hard to undo, then dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged at the stubborn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... moving from one flower to another in search of food, which doubtless is as sweet to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of favoured Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and tender young, the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the guardship of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of sea birds in search of places wherein to repose or to feed—how ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... Lome must here be specially mentioned. The former had elaborated an invention which received much assistance, and was subsequently exhibited at the Crystal Palace. The latter received a grant of L1,600 to perfect a complex machine, having within its gas envelope an air chamber, suggested by the swimming bladder of a fish, having also a sail helm and a propelling screw, to be operated ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... just as you develop correct habits in playing ball, or in swimming,—you discover the rules; then you practise, practise, practise. A good general rule is, Do what ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... all this several streams must be crossed, and these were held in great dread, for if swimming became necessary, the plight of the little company, with the thermometer striking steadily below freezing point, would be pitiful indeed. The ranchman was resolved to save his wife and child from such an affliction, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... the one side it was turbid and gray, and perfectly opaque. You could not have seen the pollywogs in the shallowest places along the margin. On the other side it was so clear and transparent that you could have seen fishes swimming where it was ten feet deep. It was of such a rich and beautiful blue color, too, as if it had been tinted with a dye, and the color was of so rich and brilliant a hue, that Mrs. Holiday was ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... scarce see fairer of face and body, were doughty in arms, all good shooters in the bow; and the swains were eager and light-foot, cragsmen of the best, wont to scaling the cliffs of the Vale in search of the nests of gerfalcons and such-like fowl, and swimming the strong streams of the Shivering Flood; tough bodies and wiry, stronger than most grown men, and as fearless ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... dusky fragrance brings back the old room on a summer afternoon, so sombre that the mahogany sideboard had its own reddish light, so quiet that the clock could be heard ticking in the next room; time, you could hear, going leisurely. There would be a long lath of sunlight, numberless atoms swimming in it, slanting from a corner of the window to brighten a patch of carpet. Two flies would be hovering under the ceiling. Sometimes they would dart at a tangent to hover in another place. I used to wonder what they ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... a time one desires to swim over to the other side—over to where the green flags grow, their yellow and white stalks shimmering in the sun. A green, fresh fern looks up at you, and you go after it, plash-plash into the water, hands down, and feet up, so that people might think you were swimming. I ask you again, what pleasure is it to sit in a little room on a summer's evening, when the great dome of the sky is dropping over the other side of the town, lighting up the spire of the church, the shingle roofs of the ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... said Guthrie Carey. "You could hold regattas on it." "We do, now and then, with our little boats. We have three over there"—pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore. "And swimming matches. We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come down on hot nights and be mermaids. Once we moored ourselves out in the middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the boat, under ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... amongst the small caricatures. The children here are generally beautiful, their features only too perfect and regular for the face "to fulfil the promise of its spring." They have little colour, with swimming black or hazel eyes, and long lashes resting on the clear pale cheek, and a perfect mass of fine dark hair of the straight Spanish or Indian kind plaited down behind. [Footnote 1: A drink made of the seed of the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... follow her like slaves," added Tantillion, in an ecstacy, "and stand about with their mouths open to stare at her swimming though her minuets with bowing worshippers, and oh! Roxholm—nay, I should say Osmonde; but how can a man remember you are Duke instead of Marquis?—'tis told that in the field in her woman's hat and hunting-coat she is handsomer than ever. Even my Lord ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hulls were off, and, swimming in a saucer of cream, they were added to the dainty little lunch that Mrs. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... music will allow. A beautiful terzetto describes with inimitable grace the gently sloping hills covered with their verdure, the leaping of the fountain into the light, and the flights of birds, and a bass solo in sonorous manner takes up the swimming fish, closing with "the upheaval of Leviathan from the deep," who disports himself among the double-basses. This leads to a powerful chorus, "The Lord is great." The next number describes the creation of various animals; and perhaps nothing that art contains can vie with it in varied and ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... to the east, we met with the largest seal I had ever seen. It was swimming on the surface of the water, and suffered us to come near enough to fire at it; but without effect; for, after a chase of near an hour, we were obliged to leave it. By the size of this animal, it probably ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... be dark soon; it can't be more than a half mile to yonder rock—I'm for swimming to it! Once on land we can move about, get our blood going, and perhaps ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... taking the habit, stunned by the blow with which the priest had assailed him as they left the church, he now felt an anguish almost physical, in which everything ended in confusion. He did not know to what reflections he should give himself, and only saw, swimming on this whirlpool of troubled ideas, one clear thought, that the moment had come so dreaded by him in which he ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... The full moon was swimming in the east, bathing the countryside in a light which caused trees and hills, fences and bowlders to stand out in soft distinctness. Armitage raised the window curtain and lying with face pressed almost ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... in the rivers where there are crocodiles, although they see them swimming about; for they say the same as do the Moros [i.e., Mahometans], that if it is from on high it must happen, even though they avoid it. And thus, as says father Fray Gabriel Gomez (History of Argel, book 2, chapter 19), they say in the lengua ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... into a duck, and lay swimming on a pond that was close to the palace. But the lad only ran down to the stable, and asked Dapplegrim what ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... delightful were his Prothalamion and Epithalamion. The first was a "spousal verse," made for the double wedding of the Ladies Catherine and {74} Elizabeth Somerset, whom the poet figures as two white swans that come swimming down the Thames, whose surface the nymphs strew with lilies, till it appears "like a ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... and nerved by the peril of the stranger in the water, I felt able to do anything. I let myself down into the river, and struck out with all my strength towards the sufferer. The current of the Mississippi is swift and treacherous. It was the hardest swimming I had ever known; and, dragging the rope after me, I had a fierce struggle to make any progress. In going those fifty feet, it seemed to me that I worked hard enough to accomplish ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... the power of movement, swimming or creeping slowly over the slide as we examine them, but the mechanism of these movements is ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... exclaimed the Venusian. "We left the professor at the office. We did not see him again after that. He did not go swimming with us." ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... struggle sideways, with all his legs, and Campbell got free of him as quick as he could. Now, you know, in some of those Darling River reaches the current will seem to run steadily far a while, and then come with a rush. (I was caught in one of those rushes once, when I was in swimming, and would have been drowned if I hadn't been born to be hanged.) Well, a rush came along just as Campbell got free from his horse, and he went down-stream one side of a snag and his horse the other. Campbell's pretty stout, you ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... must have been about ten o'clock of that morning they reached the mouth of a river, something like half a mile wide where it joined the sea. By following this up a mile or so they reached a narrow point; but even here, burdened as they were, swimming was out ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... any good," said a heavy voice behind him, and there was Keedah's father himself swimming along. "I saw what you did to Umboo," went on the old gentleman elephant, "and Mrs. Stumptail did just right to tap you with her trunk. Now be a good boy, and don't shower any more water on ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... fencing-masters, swimming-masters; much less of dancing-masters, music-masters (celebrated Graun, "on the organ," with Psalm-tunes), we cannot speak; but the reader may be satisfied they were all there, good of their kind, and pushing on at a fair rate. Nor ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... enough of him in order to hold an inquest. Of course ACTON'S conduct cannot be defended, but then his punishment was altogether too severe. There is every reason to suppose that DIANA wanted some one to accidentally notice her proficiency in swimming, else why should she have chosen a place of popular resort for her bath? And then the simple nudity in which she was surprised was not nearly as suggestive as the peculiar costumes in which our fashionable ladies now-a-days enter the surf in the presence of ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... hush'd, the charm is all complete, And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake: But scarce their tender bills have time to meet, When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake— His steely scales a fearful rustling make, Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell The sable storm;—the plumy lovers quake— And feel the troubled waters ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the Squire. "The little beast filled one of my overshoes once, to make a swimming-tank ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... tossed and dashed about by the waves—so many fellow-beings threatened with eternity. At one moment they were close to the beach, forced on to it by some tremendous wave; at the next, the receding water and the undertow swept them all back; and of the many who had been swimming one half had disappeared to rise no more. Francisco watched with agony as he perceived that the number decreased, and that none had yet gained the shore. At last he snatched up the haulyards of his boat's sail which were near him, and hastened ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the rocks by which he might enter to explore, that in a sort of desperation, and seeing nothing else to be done, Erica agreed. She wished it had been summer, when either of them might have learned what they wanted by swimming. This was now out of the question; and stealthily therefore she pulled her little craft into the deepest shadow, and ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... to Goa, Camoens was shipwrecked, and of all his little property, he succeeded only in saving the manuscript of the Lusiad, which he bore in one hand above the water, while swimming to the shore. Soon after reaching Goa, he was thrown into prison upon some unjust accusation, and suffered for a long time to linger there. At length released, he took passage for his native country, which he reached after an absence of sixteen years. Portugal ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... fair ones, by the prayers of a saint; and the spirit of prophecy was needed, to predict that a whale would be met between Iona and Tiree, who appeared accordingly, to the extreme terror of St. Berach's crew, swimming with open jaws, and (intent on eating, not monks, but herrings) nearly upsetting them by the swell which he raised. And when St. Baithenius met the same whale on the same day, it was necessary for him to rise, and bless, with outspread hands, the sea and the whale, in ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... arm of the Seine just between Briche and the Ile Saint Denis. The girl and the young man who were conversing were in the water. They had been swimming until they were tired, and now, carried along by the current, they had caught hold of a rope which was fastened to one of the large boats stationed along the banks of the island. The force of the water rocked them both gently at the end of the tight, quivering ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... cafes, and I, at least, who wished to see as much as I could of France, was not displeased at the necessity of satisfying the cravings of appetite with bread and melon. There were numerous dishes, all very untempting, swimming in grease, and brought in a slovenly manner to the table; a roast fowl formed no exception, for it was sodden, half-raw, and saturated with oil. It was only at the very best hotels in France that we ever found fowls tolerably well roasted; generally speaking, they are never more ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... trying by sheer will-power to prevent the blood from bursting his veins. He realized before long that he was parched with thirst, and reached out for the water-jar that stood beside the lamp; but as he started to drink he realized that a crawling evil was swimming round and round in rings in the water. In a fit of horror he threw the thing away and smashed it into a dozen fragments in a corner. He saw a dozen rats, at least, scamper to drink before the water could evaporate or filter through the floor; and when they were gone there ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... and surrounded by the forces of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Derby, and being hard pressed, he plunged into the icy river (it was on the 20th day of December, 1387) with his armour on, and swimming down-stream with difficulty saved his life. Of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... we hurried. There in the water was Del Mar swimming rapidly. Almost before we knew it, we saw him raise his hand ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... blankets and all, and threw her into the sea, without even waking her. Now, luckily, the Princess's bed was entirely stuffed with phoenix feathers, which are very rare, and have the property of always floating upon water, so Rosette went on swimming about as if she had been in a boat. After a little while she began to feel very cold, and turned round so often that she woke Frisk, who started up, and, having a very good nose, smelt the soles and herrings so close to him that he began to bark. He barked so long and so loud that he ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the stream over which the new Catalco bridge was being constructed there was a favorite swimming place used by the civil engineers and their assistants, the men and boys of the construction gang using another spot farther ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... once, when walking by the side of a lake near their cottage, the thought suggested itself that the fish, being creatures of God, must be obedient to Him, and ready to do Him service. Therefore she stood by the water-side, and called them to come and help her whilst she sang His praises; and the fish, swimming to the shore, did so after their kind, leaping and jumping about out of the water; while she sat on the grass, and sang a little song which she had learnt, and was fond of repeating to herself over her ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... sand, and no signs of life appear; but being put into water, in the space of half an hour a languid motion begins, the globule turns itself about, lengthens itself by slow degrees, assumes the form of a lively maggot, and most commonly in a few minutes afterwards puts out its wheels, swimming vigorously through the water as if in search of food; or else, fixing itself by the tail, works the wheels in such a manner as to bring its food to its ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... being so. The moon has sunk to the level of the tree-tops, and the bosom of the river is in dark shadow; darker by the bank where the boat is now drifting. But little chance to distinguish an object in the water—less for one swimming upon its surface. And the river is deep, its current rapid, the "reach" they are in, full of dangerous eddies. In addition, it is a spot infested, as all know—the favourite haunt of that hideous reptile the alligator, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... have gone further without a good stock of medicines. We have no right to plunge ourselves into the flood of the Niger, and then accuse the hand of Providence for not saving us from a watery grave. One might have escaped the fever, as one might have been picked up by the swimming of a black man; but such a "might" belongs to accident, not the planning and arranging ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... of her. Upon her husband's return from Naples he was immediately arrested, and a few days later hung. Too late the hapless Bianca sought to make her escape; she was caught and taken prisoner while swimming across the Grand Canal with her clothes and a few personal effects in a bundle in her mouth. She was carried shrieking to Milan, where she endured a mockery of a trial; on political grounds she was sentenced to being torn to pieces by she-goats at ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... Wisting and Lindstrom, who were then in charge of the dogs, put off in a boat, and finally succeeded in overtaking him, but they had a hard tussle before they managed to get him on board. Afterwards Wisting had a swimming-race with the Colonel, but I don't remember what was the result. We can expect a great deal of these dogs. There's Johansen's tent over in the corner; there is not much to be said about his dogs. The most remarkable of them is Camilla. She is an excellent mother, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... also large stages with buildings on them for swimming baths. On one we saw "Swimming School," written in German. A foot regiment passed us with black-and-brass helmets, dark-drab long coats, black belts and scabbards. They had a very sombre appearance, but were fine-looking fellows, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... companies of the Forty-second New York landed on the Virginia shore. These Colonel Cogswell ordered up the bluff and deployed as skirmishers to cover the Federal retreat, while he advanced to the left with a small party, and was almost immediately captured. Colonel Devens escaped by swimming ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... with a mighty crash right in the midst of our luckless vessel, smashing it into a thousand fragments, and crushing, or hurling into the sea, passengers and crew. I myself went down with the rest, but had the good fortune to rise unhurt, and by holding on to a piece of driftwood with one hand and swimming with the other I kept myself afloat and was presently washed up by the tide on to an island. Its shores were steep and rocky, but I scrambled up safely and threw myself down to rest upon the ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... which was so quickly burned that the sail fell, on the yard, into the waist of the ship. The ship continued to burn so fiercely that it could not be quenched. All the men took to the sea, some in lanchas and others swimming, most of the latter being drowned. This burning ship drifted to where our galleon "Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe" was stationed. Near it was the captured galleon, and the burning vessel coming down upon the latter, set fire to it; and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... were dug out of the trunk of a single tree, and some of which were large enough to contain forty or forty-five men: They came paddling out to the ship, sometimes, in the case of the smaller canoes which only held one man, being upset by the surf, and swimming gaily round and righting their canoes again and bailing them out with gourds. They brought balls of spun cotton, and parrots and spears. All their possessions, indeed, were represented in the offerings they made to the strangers. Columbus, whose eye was now very ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... as he rose to the surface again, as if he were swimming between two sides. As he moved softly out across the middle, and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible. There was only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked with stars. As he turned his head this way and that the great trees, high overhead, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... these remote and lonely forests rather overwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality of the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and terrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon, and revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his own utter helplessness. Only Defago, as a symbol of a distant civilization where man was master, stood between him and a pitiless death ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... he had endeavored in old days to bind the spotted panther of sensual temptation—and to fling it into the void profound. He does so, and the monster, type of the brutal and the human in our nature when both are false, comes swimming and circling up from below. "The outward form"—symbolized by the cord—"when associated with unreality, only attracts the worst symbol of unreality." Once more, ere he begins to climb the steep terraces of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... name she turned her swimming eyes to him, and a strange birth had come into her face. Her eyes said so openly they were his, and her mouth said it was his, her whole being went out to him; in the radiance of her face could be read immortal designs: the maid kissing her farewell to innocence was there, and the ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... breed Brought to the coast his flocks to feed; The beauty of a summer sea, A merchant tempted him to be. He sold his sheep, and with the sale Purchas'd of dates an ample bale. He sail'd; a furious tempest rose; Into the sea his dates he throws; And swimming from the bark to land, Arrives half dead upon the strand. To one, soon afterwards who stood Pleas'd with the calmness of the flood, "Aye, aye," the simple shepherd said "With dates again it would ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... taken alive. The English, in their own defence, fired, when four out of the seven people in the canoe were killed. The other three were lads—the eldest of whom, about nineteen years old, leaped into the sea, swimming vigorously, and resisting every effort made to capture him. At last he was seized and taken into the boat, as were the two younger lads, without further attempt to escape. As soon as they were in the boat, the lads squatted down, evidently expecting instant death. Every effort was made to win ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... rod which I wished to try, and proposed to warm myself with a little casting. The second cast rose a fish close to the bank, and, after allowing the usual time for restoration to confidence, out went the Nicholson, and very bravely did that noble fly work round, swimming, I could swear, on an even keel, and shaking its finery all around in the water. The fly did not reach the fish which had risen, because another was before him, and I knew that the hook had gone home. We thought this was a good fish, and fresh run, albeit he ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... and interesting picture, from his own recollections and from what his mother told him, of the childhood which was to develop into such rich maturity. The boy was rather delicate in organization, and not much given to outdoor amusements, except skating and swimming, of which last exercise he was very fond in his young days, and in which he excelled. He was a great reader, never idle, but always had a book in his hand,—a volume of poetry or one of the novels of Scott or Cooper. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... dear!" And the sweet eyes were turned, all swimming in water upon Henry, with a look ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... probably dispirited and nervous but outwardly unruffled, for he always presented a well-starched front to the watching-world. Honest Dick Steele looked on, and in that frank, ingenuous way he told his friends, with perhaps a suspicious flush on his winsome face and a swimming gleam in his eyes, that he was preparing to pack the theatre on the opening night in the interests of worried Joe. Poor, good-hearted Dick! Then there was Parson Swift, who sat behind the scenes with mild interest on his face and a sneer in that ugly, gnarled heart of his. "We stood on the stage," ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... make Murray rise softly, and reach down one of the guns from the slings, and slip a couple of ball-cartridges into the barrels, and thus prepared he sat waiting, both having the consolation of knowing that if the animal attacked them, it could only be by taking to the water first and swimming to ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... He had seen it in newspapers, and he thought he had heard it execrated by Baumgartner himself in one of his little digs at England. Pocket was not sure about this, but he mentioned his impression, and Phillida nodded with swimming eyes. ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... had quitted his forge for the night and, seated at his domestic board, was, with a dismal presentiment of future indigestion, voraciously absorbing his favorite meal of hot saleratus biscuits swimming in butter, he had apparently forgotten his curiosity concerning Mainwaring and settled himself to a complaining chronicle of the day's mishaps. "Nat'rally, havin' an extra lot o' work on hand and no time for foolin', what does that ornery ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... I traced the course that I had laid out in my mind, going over the hunts of the old days, when I rode beside my father and since, I bethought me of one day when the stag, a great one of twelve points, took to the sea just this side of Watchet town, swimming out bravely into Severn tide, so that we might hardly see him from the strand. There went out three men in a little skiff to take him, having with them the young son of the owner of the boat. And in some way the boat was ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... they had been to her. He could look back over the four or five years that separated her from the ordeal, and still see her in "the dump"—tall, timid, furtively watching the young men with those swimming brown orbs of hers, wondering whether or not she should have a partner; heartsore under her finery, often driving homeward in the weary early hours with tears streaming down her cheeks. He knew as much about it as if he had been with ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... only one to whom the art of exciting an interest or inspiring a sympathy could be in any degree imputed. I take this to have meant that he would have adorned a higher sphere—and it may have been, to explain his so soon swimming out of our ken, that into a higher sphere he rapidly moved; I can account at least for our falling away from him the very next year and declining again upon baser things and a lower civilisation but by some probability of his flight, just thereafter effected, to ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... riches, birth, family, my sole good; I know no other. We have had but one roof, one cradle, and we will have but one grave. If she goes, I will follow her. The governor will prevent me! Will he prevent me from flinging myself into the sea? Will he prevent me from following her by swimming? The sea cannot be more fatal to me than the land. Since I cannot live with her, at least I will die before her eyes; far from you, inhuman mother! woman without compassion! May the ocean, to which you trust her, restore her to you no more! May the waves, rolling back our corpses ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... tree. Two tail feathers alone remained to show an awed game-keeper that Red Head had passed that way. A woodcock floated silently on the bosom of the tiny lake. He did not note the ripple which showed that a powerful animal was swimming towards him. A scream, and the woodcock, trumpeting shrilly, is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... to the steep bank of a considerable stream, found the water of sufficient depth to compel swimming, and crept up the opposite shore dripping and miserable, yet with ammunition dry. Murphy stood swearing disjointedly, wiping the blood from a wound in his forehead where the jagged edge of a rock had broken the skin, but suddenly stopped with a quick intake of breath that left him panting. The ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... be out of place here to recall Ampere's ingenious rule for remembering the direction in which a current urges the pole of a magnetic needle. "Suppose a man swimming in the wire with the current, and that he turns so as to face the needle, then the north pole of the needle will be deflected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... the ferry On the broad, clay-laden. Lone Chorasmian stream deg.;—thereon, deg.183 With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow 185 The ferry-boat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern 190 The cowering merchants, in long robes, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... at night the lieutenant of the watch descried a man in the waves swimming to the vessel. As soon as he was within hearing the lieutenant hailed him. The swimmer immediately made himself known: it was Luidgi. They put out the boat, and he came on board. Then he told them that Ottoviani had ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she said this, and appeared to busy herself with watering the flowers arranged on stands round the awning. But she kept her swimming, lustrous eyes wistfully ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... regents, long felt as inevitable and often announced as near, was now assuming such a shape that it could not be arrested. Like the boat of the ancient Greek mariners' tale, the vessel of the Roman community now found itself as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other; expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom it was bearing, tortured by nameless anguish, into the eddying surge that rose higher and higher were benumbed; and, while every slightest movement there attracted a thousand, eyes, no one ventured to give ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the princess was standing on a balcony, she saw the most extraordinary figure rise out of the sea. She quickly called Bonnetta to ask her what it could be. It looked like some kind of man, with a bluish face and long sea-green hair. He was swimming towards the tower, but the sharks took no ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... table and sat sidewise on one corner of it. "You know how I feel about your pressing the election statutes to the extent you have. But we've got the old nag right in the middle of the river, and we've got to attend to swimming instead of swapping. I think, in spite of all their howling, the other crowd will take their medicine, as the courts hand it to them, when the election cases go up for adjudication. But there's a gang in every community that always takes advantage ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... however, make it properly; as a rule too many eggs are used, to which the milk is added cold, and the pudding is baked in a quick oven. The consequence is that the pudding curdles and comes to table swimming in whey; or, even if this does not happen, the custard is full of holes and ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... kind stuck in their heads, and a great many shells tied about their legs to rattle while dancing. Their manner of dancing is taking hold of each others hands and forming a ring around the large fire in the centre, and go stomping around it until they would get drunk or their heads would get to swimming, and then they would go off and drink, and another set come on. Such were some of the practises indulged in ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... position of the place, knowing now that one side was protected by a swiftly flowing river. It was only about a hundred and fifty feet across, but deep, and its waters looked suggestive of crocodiles, so that one thought of attempting to cross by swimming with ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the men waded through mud to the canal, fighting as they went, and again plunged into the water, swimming the canal, at the far side of which they were compelled to use grappling hooks and scaling irons to mount the perpendicular banks of the canal, along which were the resisting Germans. And finally, when the German Empire fell, famed ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... "I should like to deal with such an audacious man as you, and make bold to bet with you that I will, in a shorter space of time, finish the digging of a canal from Treves to Cologne, fill it with water, and have merry ducks swimming on it, than you will ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... and in a few minutes those who could manage to extricate themselves from the struggling mass rode off in various directions. These, however, were few in number, for ninety were killed and seventy taken prisoners. St. John himself succeeded in cutting his way through the spearmen, and, swimming the river below the ford, rejoined his followers, who had in vain endeavoured to force the passage of the ford. With these ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... after a hearty draught. "That's like new life. I had half-forgotten. Everything's been swimming round me. Now tell me, some one—you, Sergeant—did not Mr Maine come suddenly upon us, as if from the dead, to help us at ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... signal was the revenge taken on his assailants. Previous to this he had almost exterminated one neighbour-tribe whose villages were built on small half-artificial islets in a forest-girt lake. In canoes and by swimming his warriors reached the islets, and not many of the lake people ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the atrophy of the most important of all the voluntary muscles for the most important crisis of a woman's life. "Some of the slower Spanish dances" are commended for the development of the abdominal muscles, but one would rather recommend swimming, the abandonment of the corset, and, if the gymnasium is to be used, some of the various exercises which serve these muscles, however little they may serve to exploit the apparatus of the gymnasium when ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to unhappiness that I opened them again next morning, to a confused sense of some calamity still inarticulate, and to the consciousness of jaded limbs and of a swimming head. I must have lain for some time inert and stupidly miserable before I became aware of a reiterated knocking at the door; with which discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed channels, and I remembered the sale and the wreck, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... replied, but at the same time her eyes were swimming in tears, "spare me this; do not overload my heart with such an excess of sorrow; have compassion on me, for I am already too sensible of my own misery—too sensible of the happiness I have lost. I am here isolated and alone, with no kind voice to whisper one word of consolation to my unhappy heart, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... ferry on the Snake River, we saw some Indians swimming their horses across. They were a bunting-party of Spokanes and Nez Perces. Strapped on to one of the horses, with a roll of blankets, was a Nez Perces baby. This infant, though apparently not over a year and a half old, sat erect, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... esplanade that Neshevna and Lenyard stood. The young man, weary with vigils, his face furrowed by curiosity, regarded the city below them as it lay swimming in the waves of a sinking sun. He saw the crosses of La Trinite as molten copper, then dusk and dwindle in the shadows. The twilight seemed to prefigure the fading of the human race. Neshevna walked with this dreamer to the rear of the theatre—the theatre of the Tarnhelm, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... pour down his arm from his elbow to his hand. He called this "playing at gutters." Then a little later, when his mother came up and caught him, she found him with two other young scamps watching a couple of little fishes swimming about in his velvet cap, which he had filled ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... fishes, with the tails of peacocks); they swam round and round the room just under the cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immensely interested in these decorative hallucinations. His brain seemed to be lifted up, to be iridescent also, to swim round and round with the swimming fishes. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming eyes—"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure aspirations ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... beating with her little fists upon Leroux's broad back, but he did not even feel the blows. I heard old Charles Duchaine's piping cries of fear, and then somebody held me by the throat, and I was swimming in black water. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... their united strength struck into the sea; and next moment our canoe was flying like a sea-gull on the crest of the wave towards the shore. Another instant, and the wave had broken on the reef with a mighty roar, and rushed passed us hissing in clouds of foam. My company were next seen swimming wildly about in the sea, Manuman the one-eyed Sacred Man alone holding on by the canoe, nearly full of water, with me still clinging to the seat of it, and the very next wave likely to devour us. In desperation, I sprang for the reef, and ran for a man half-wading, half-swimming ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... were the magic virtues that were in Cuchulain [11]that were in no one else in his day.[11] Excellence of form, excellence of shape, excellence of build, excellence [W.661.] in swimming, excellence in horsemanship, excellence in chess and in draughts, excellence in battle, excellence in contest, excellence in single combat, excellence in reckoning, excellence in speech, excellence in counsel, excellence in bearing, excellence in laying waste and in plundering ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... some coloured caps and some strings of glass beads for their necks, and many other things of little value, with which they were delighted, and were so entirely ours that it was a marvel to see. The same afterwards came swimming to the ship's boats where we were, and brought us parrots, cotton threads in balls, darts and many other things, and bartered them with us for things which we gave them, such as bells and small glass beads. In fine, they took ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... not been a heavy one, but the lad was weak from swimming with his clothes on, and he lay like a log on the flooring of the dock. This alarmed the men from the lighter, and they hastily carried him to a nearby drug store and summoned a doctor. From the drug store he was removed to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand answered the pressure of hers. It appeared to be a tremendous effort for him to open his eyes and look up at her. When, however, he had satisfied his swimming senses that she was really there in ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... performed any considerable economic service. It is thought by some that primitive man conceived the idea of the use of water for transportation through his experience of floating logs, or drifts, or his own process of swimming and floating. Jack London pictures two primitives playing on the logs near the shore of a stream. Subsequently the logs cast loose, and the primitives were floated away from the shore. They learned by putting their hands in the water and paddling ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... volume and force kept him at work all day; but towards dusk the wind dropped a little, the clouds split and drifted in black shreds over a clear sky full of the yellow evening light. Just at the twilight he came to a shallow mere edged with reeds, with wild fowl swimming upon it, and others flying swiftly over on their way to the nest. At the far end of the lake, but yet in the water, was a dim castle settling down into the murk. A gaunt shell it was, rather than a habitable place; its windows were sightless black; only in the towers you could see through ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... sand?" He told me and I made for it to once. I hain't got a jealous hair in my head, but I thought I'd go. Well, it wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted with men, wimmen, and children. And beyond, the melancholy ocean, also dotted with swimming heads, with bodies attached, so I spozed. Well might Atlantic be melancholy to see such sights, hundreds of folks comin' out of the water, hundreds goin' in, and other hundreds walkin' or rollin' in the sand or throwin' it at each other or half ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... in Virgil's mind. The movement round an object for lustral purposes is seen in Aen. vi. 229, "idem ter socios pura circumtulit unda," where Servius explains circumtulit by purgavit. As early as Livius Andronicus (second century B.C.) we find "classem lustratur" of fishes swimming round a fleet (Ribb. Trag. Fragmenta, ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... that we had directed our steps. As I need not remind Bostonians, this is one of the older baths, and considered quite inferior to the modern structures. To me, however, it was a vastly impressive spectacle. The lofty interior glowing with light, the immense swimming tank, the four great fountains filling the air with diamond-dazzle and the noise of falling water, together with the throng of gayly dressed and laughing bathers, made an exhilarating and magnificent scene, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... whoever he was, unless a good swimmer, would be drowned before a boat could be lowered, seized a grating, and hove it overboard, then throwing off his jacket, plunged after it. He, though little accustomed to salt water had been from his earliest days in the habit of swimming in a large pond not far from Fenside, and his pride had been to swim round it several times without resting. He now brought his experience into practice; pushing the grating before him, he made towards the drowning person, who, from the wild way in which he threw ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... empire. In the outskirts of Aix-la-Chapelle "he gave full scope," says Eginhard, "to his delight in riding and hunting. Baths of naturally tepid water gave him great pleasure. Being passionately fond of swimming, he became so dexterous that none could be compared with him. He invited not only his sons, but also his friends, the grandees of his court, and sometimes even the soldiers of his guard, to bathe with him, insomuch that there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... that up to the top of the Hawksnest Rock an' out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a sick man to go? When you got tired of ridin' you could stop the carriage an' cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or find us pfingster apples (the seed-balls of the wild azalea), or even send us in swimming in a brook somewhere if you ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... a vale in Ida, lovelier [1] Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... well how to take the conceit or vanity out of their comrades. In the summer days all the boys of the village used to gather at a place on the river, known as Thayer's swimming-place, about half a mile from the town pump, which was the centre from which all distances were measured in those days. There was a little gravel beach where you could wade out a rod or two, and then for a rod or two the water was over ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... no, the town rose to the occasion. The High Street was swimming in flags and bunting; even in Seatown most of the grimy windows showed those little cheap flags that during the past week hawkers had been so industriously selling. From quite early in the morning the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... a lady equally shrewd, who lives neighbor to me in Connecticut, after regarding for a few minutes the "Golden Angel Fish" swimming in one of the Aquaria, abruptly ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... spake, And, rushing at me, closed: I thrilled throughout And seemed to lessen and shrink up with cold. Again with violent impulse gushed my blood, And hearing nought external, thus absorbed, I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein, Shake my unsteady swimming sight in air. Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms I clung around her neck; the vest beneath Rustled against our slippery limbs entwined: Often mine springing with eluded force Started aside, and trembled till ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... of frequent bathing to maintain personal cleanliness; the popularity, with both old and young, of our fine hot and cold, plunge, swimming and shower baths, free to all, which are kept open in connection with the laundry; proves conclusively, that the habit of cleanliness, like all other habits, is the result of environment; or in other words, of opportunity and the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... 13 to 24. The four first cases (13-16) are covered with Crabs of various kinds, including the long-legged spider-crabs, common crabs with oysters growing upon their backs, and fin-footed swimming crabs. The next case (17) contains in addition to the long-eyed or telescope crab, varieties of the land-crab, which is found in various parts of India; one kind, that swarms in the Deccan, commits great ravages ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... had wings!" she suddenly said. "To swim through that glorious ether right above the mountain-tops as one swims through the sea! Don't you think flying must be very like swimming?" ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Service," and found to my joy that this needed very little alteration. The hero chanced to be in Germany at the outset of the war. He was imprisoned at Ruhleben, Potsdam, Dantzic, Frankfort and Wilhelmshaven. He escaped from these places by swimming the Rhine (thrice), the Danube, the Meuse, the Elbe, the Vistula, the Bug, the Volga, the Kiel Canal and Lake Geneva. He chloroformed, sandbagged, choked and gagged sentinels throughout the length and breadth of Germany. From under ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... animal, when her litter of pups were taken away the year before, seized two chicks, which she brought up with the same care she now bestowed upon the ducks. When the young cocks began to try their voices, their foster-mother was as much annoyed as she now was by the swimming of the duckings—and never failed to repress ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... bank seemed a mighty distance as he soared high—the water rushed broad and swift beneath him, no swimming if he struck that bubbling current—and then, a last pitch forwards in mid-air; a forefoot struck ground, the bank crushed in beneath his weight, and then he was scrambling to the safety beyond and reeling into a ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... women were tried and hanged, Matthew Hopkins first displayed his peculiar talent. Associated with him in his recognised legal profession was one John Sterne. They proceeded regularly on their circuit, making a fixed charge for their services upon each town or village. Swimming and searching for secret marks were the infallible methods of discovery. Hopkins, encouraged by an unexpected success, arrogantly assumed the title of 'Witchfinder-General.' His modest charges (as he has told us) were twenty shillings ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... gelatin or glue, prepared from the swimming-bladders of fishes, used as a cement, and also as an ingredient in food and medicine. The name is sometimes applied to a ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... features of the Derby are getting there and getting away again. Getting there is harder work than bricklaying or journalism. You may ride in a motor-car, but your motor will be as useless to you as a submarine in a swimming bath. From Sutton to Epsom and from Epsom to the Downs a long procession of motor-cars, buses, waggonettes, greengrocers' carts, lorries, school carts, drays, and human beings stretches like a serpent of infinite length—a serpent that is ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd |
