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More "Swan" Quotes from Famous Books



... passing of the gentle soul of Virginia, Poe returned to Richmond. He went first to the United States Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Main Streets, in the "Bird in Hand" neighborhood where he had looked for the last time on the face of his young mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies, where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long, two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... coffee-stalls was white with egg-shells! What I needed then was an operation for cataract. I also remember taking a man to the opera who had never seen an opera. The work was Lohengrin. When we came out he said: "That swan's neck was rather stiff." And it was all he did say. We went and had a drink. He was not mistaken. His observation was most just; but his perspective was that of those literary critics who give ten lines to pointing out three slips of syntax, and three lines to an ungrammatical admission ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... the plumed steerage, and the slender mechanism of the wings, wide unfurled, gave forth a murmuring noise, soothing to the sense. Plain and hill, stream and corn-field, were discernible below, while we unimpeded sped on swift and secure, as a wild swan in his spring-tide flight. The machine obeyed the slightest motion of the helm; and, the wind blowing steadily, there was no let or obstacle to our course. Such was the power of man over the elements; a power long sought, and lately won; yet foretold in by-gone time by the prince of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... that genius has yet idealized; that where Hawthorne's "David Swan" slept, or that which Thoreau found upon the banks of Walden Pond, or where Whittier parted with his childhood's playmate on Ramoth Hill. It is not heights, or depths, or spaces that make the world worth living in; ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... N. End of Luconia. St. John's Isle, and other of the Philippines. They stop at the two Isles near Mindanao; where they re-fit their Ship, and make a Pump after the Spanish fashion. By the young Prince of the Spice Island they have News of Captain Swan, and his Men, left at Mindanao: The Author proposes to the Crew to return to him; but in vain; The Story of his Murder at Mindanao. The Clove-Islands. Ternate. Tidore, &c. The Island Celebes, and Dutch Town of Macasser. They coast along the East side of Celebes, and between it and other Islands ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... in the valley, a vast cloud came down with swan-shot of hail, black as blackest smoke, overwhelming house and wood, all gone and mixed with the sky; and behind the mass there followed a white cloud, sunlit, dragging along the ground like a cumulus fallen to the earth. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... many people! All the members of the church, of course; and then a good many more that aren't. Esther Trembleton rose, and Ailie Swan, and Mattie Van Dyke, and Frances Barth, and Mrs. Rice. And little Mary Edwards, she was there, and she rose, and Willie Edwards; and Mr. Bates got up and said he was happy to see this day. I think he was ready to cry, he was ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... "I swan!" exclaimed the woodsman with fervour. "If that ain't the slickest bit o' work I ever seen! Let's go over and kind of inspect the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Gilmore received that piece of astounding intelligence, the mental shock seemed to produce paralysis, for the garment she was about to put on remained suspended in the air as she exclaimed: "Well, I swan! I thought he was married to his hired pets. How did ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... chiefly taken from a foreign publication; as, indeed, he could not himself know much about Burman; 'Additions to his Life of Baretier;'[*] 'The Life of Sydenham,'[*] afterwards prefixed to Dr. Swan's edition of his works; 'Proposals for Printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue of the Library of the Earl of Oxford[445].'[*] His account of that celebrated collection of books, in which he displays the importance to literature ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... tree were covered with a feathered company, and in the open space between it and Dot's nook, was a constantly increasing crowd of larger birds, such as cranes, plover, duck, turkey-buzzards, black swan, and amongst them a great grave Pelican. The animals were few, and apparently came late. There was a little timid Wallaby, a Bandicoot, some Kangaroo Rats, a shy Wombat who grumbled about the daylight, as also did a Native Bear and an Opossum, who were ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... The theme has received important development at the hands of Professor E. B. Poulton, in his "The Colours of Animals," International Scientific Series, 1890: and in F. E. Beddard's "Animal Colouration"; London, Swan Sonnenschein; N. Y., ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... called out, as he drew rein alongside the two lads. "What's this here yer lookin' at? Another dead calf? No, I swan if it ain't a yearling as has been pulled down now. Things seem t' be gittin' t' a warm pass when sech doin' air allowed. Huh! an' it looks like Sallie's work, too! That sly ole critter is goin' t' git t' the end of her rope ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... general The Guinea Fowl The Spanish Fowl The Speckled Dorkings The Cochin-China Fowl The Malay Fowl The Pheasant Malay Fowl The Game Fowl The Mute Swan The Canada Goose The Egyptian or Cape Goose The Musk Duck The Grey China Goose The White Fronted or Laughing Goose The Wigeon The Teal, and its congeners The White China Goose The Tame Duck The Domestic Goose The Bernicle Goose The Brent Goose ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various

... Burton played like that before, for as the music swelled and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song. In a moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that were hungry for her—and he now knew, too late, that there was no one else who counted. But the organ was not so repressive, and as she listened she knew that the tragedy was not ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. You 5 were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose!—A fault done first in the form of a beast;—O Jove, a beastly fault! And then another fault in the semblance of a fowl;—think on't, ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... was situated, had objectionable features. Nothing grave could be alleged against Mrs. Turpin, who regularly attended the Sunday evening service; but her husband, a carpenter, spent far too much time at 'The Swan With Two Necks'; and then there was a lodger, young Mr. Rawcliffe, concerning whom Wattleborough had for some time been too well informed. Of such comments upon her proceeding Miss Rodney made light; in the aspect of the rooms she found ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... for the classics began to be cultivated, we had "Leda and the Swan," "Psyche," "Phryne Before the Judges," "Aphrodite Rising From the Sea," and, later, England experienced quite an artistic eruption of Lady Godivas. Literature is filled with many such naive little disguises as "Sonnets From the Portuguese," and Robert Browning himself ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... again, at all hazards. His wild design, however, was fortunately prevented. As he passed the end of the court leading to the ancient inn (for it was ancient even at the time of this history), the Swan-with-two-Necks, in Lad-lane, a young man, as richly attired as himself, and about his own age, who had seen him approaching, suddenly darted from it, and grasping his ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... putting out his trunk to caress his new master, and passing on to rest under the shadow of some stately tree; the horse, with his arching neck and prancing movements; the fond dog; the gentle sheep; the peacock, with its plumes of blue, and green, and gold; the majestic snow-white swan; the little linnet; the robin-redbreast; and that most beautiful, tiny creature, the humming-bird; the gay butterfly; the bee. It is impossible to go over the names of even what we know by sight, of the good creatures of God, who on that sixth day of the creation came about ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth

... satin curtains, for some reason, were still looped back, and she could see the trim little maid arranging her long dark hair; she wore a silver-white dressing-robe, bordered around with soft white swan's-down and her dainty white satin-slippered feet rested on ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... knotting her long hair. It was Angela. For one moment the fierce light shone upon the stately form that gleamed whiter than ivory—white as snow against the dense background of the brushwood, and, as it passed, they heard her sink into the water softly as a swan, and strike out with steady strokes towards the centre of ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... thee the Gods that bow Take life at thine hands and death. For these are as ghosts that wane, That are gone in an age or twain; Harsh, merciful, passionate, pure, They perish, but thou shalt endure; Be their flight with the swan or the swallow, They pass as the flight of a year. O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo, Destroyer and ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the Cathedral," she told them, and the children were awed and left her, and went away to play blindman's buff by themselves on the grass by the swan's water. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... effigies upon their tombs. Thus Mary, Queen of Scots, has the lion lying at her feet, and in St. Mary's, at Warwick, I learned that the Muzzled Bear is the Earl of Warwick's crest, while the Marquis of Northampton has the Black Swan, and Richard Beauchamp the Bear and Griffin. Even literary characters were not without them, Shakespeare for example, had adopted the Falcon rising argent, supporting a ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... Mendip Hills. So, fearing lest I might be followed, I went "all out" through Axbridge and Cheddar, until at last I came to the fine old cathedral at Wells, which I knew quite familiarly. Near it was the Swan Hotel, at which, after some difficulty, I aroused the "boots," secured a room, and placed the car ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... have hardly a right to, for my Rosa might be in her grave now but for you; and, another thing, when I interfered between you two I had no proof you were a man of ability; I had only your sweetheart's word for that; and I never knew a case before where a young lady's swan did not turn out a goose. Your rare ability gives you another chance in the professional battle that is before you; indeed, it puts a different face on the whole matter. I still think it premature. Come now, would ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... thought the paternity of none of his daughters worth claiming, save that of Helen only." In Homer, then, Helen is the daughter of Zeus, but Homer says nothing of the famous legend which makes Zeus assume the form of a swan to woo the mother of Helen. Unhomeric as this myth is, we may regard it as extremely ancient. Very similar tales of pursuit and metamorphosis, for amatory or other purposes, among the old legends of Wales, and in the "Arabian Nights," ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... appearance of these strange birds. They seemed to be of different species: for some had crests on their heads, while others had none; and while some were about the size of a goose, others appeared nearly as large as a swan. We also saw a huge albatross soaring above the heads of the penguins. It was followed and surrounded by numerous flocks of sea-gulls. Having approached to within a few yards of the island, which ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... unhinged and, after escaping from Holland, he found his way to the house where she was employed, learnt that she had been arrested (you see, the red stitches on her handkerchief, which everyone had supposed were laundry marks, turned out to be plans of Hampton Court Maze and the most direct route to Swan and Selfinsons), and, seizing the rifle, he rushed from the house (it was the night the Russians passed through Aberdeen and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various

... Millionaire! Hear a lover's genuine prayer: Let the world adore your charms, Swan-like neck, or snowy arms, Rosy smile, or dazzling glance, Making all our bosoms dance; For your purse alone I care, Exquisite Miss Millionaire! Ringlets blackest of the black, Ivory shoulders, Grecian back, Tresses so divinely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... this. He just toed the ground with his toe, and finally said, "We'd rather stand on the barl, Mr. Rutledge." I knew what he meant. It wouldn't be like Tom Sawyer to go inside. And the sheriff laughed and said, "Well, I'll swan, have it your way. But mind you, I'm going to hide and hear what is said, for I want to hear what he says about all this devilish work. But if you tease him or say anything out of the way, I'll stop it and ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... their affair will not work smoothly, And torment, not business, will be the outcome. Once on a time, the Swan, the Crab, and the Pike, Did undertake to haul a loaded cart, And all three hitched themselves thereto; They strained their every nerve, but still the cart budged not. And yet, the load seemed very light for ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... sacrificed all to his principles. Yet there can be no question that his ideals will hold good 'till the swan turns black and the crow turns white, till the hills rise up and travel and the deeps rush into the rivers.' That's how Weigall ends up the life he has written of the great reformer. How can you say that we ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... by the neighing of the elk, the hoarse lowing of the buffalo, the hooting of large owls, and the screeching of the small ones, now and then the splash of a beaver, or the gonglike sound of the swan. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... As the skin from the head of these animals often formed part of the cap, the ears being left on, it made a very odd-looking head-dress. Sometimes a cap was made of the skin of some large bird, such as the sage-hen, duck, owl, or swan. ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... harp. At the first ringing note of the music they felt the vessel stir. Orpheus thrummed away briskly and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figurehead drank the wave with its marvelous lips, and rising again as buoyant as a swan. The rowers plied their fifty oars, the white foam boiled up before the prow, the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake, while Orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... indeed a beautiful island for them. It bore grapes and nuts, and they called it their garden. In a cave there, a kind spirit dwelt, who blessed the land of the Indians. The spirit had white wings, like a swan. But in 1816 the United States built Fort Armstrong right on top of the cave, and the good spirit flew away, never to come back. The guns of the ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... her angry breath; My hopes still hoping hopeless now repine, For living she doth add to me but death. Thy Phinis, dying, loved thee full dear; My Chloris, living, hates poor Corin's love, Thus doth my woe as great as thine appear, Though sundry accents both our sorrows move. Thy swan-like songs did show thy dying anguish; These weeping truce-men show ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... simplicity, indifference and daring, gentleness, hardness and pride, all wonderfully amalgamated under a perfectly self-possessed manner, and pervaded by the most undeniable charm. It was no wonder that the poor Baroness was as puzzled as a hen that has hatched a swan. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... about a foot high from the surface of the ground, on the exterior side, and three feet or so in diameter; while the interior was constructed of grass and pieces of stick woven together with clay. There was one large egg in the centre of this nest, a little bigger than that of a swan and quite white, with the exception of a band of small bright red spots ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and clumsy designs made with the cubes. The fourth gift forms cover more space, approach nearer the surface, and the bricks slide gracefully from one position to another, and slip in and out of the different figures with a movement which seems like a swan's, compared with the goose-step of ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... tightened over the prominent white teeth. "Well, I swan, Lovey Mary, where'd you come from?" Not waiting for an answer, she continued querulously: "Say, can't you get me out of this hole someway? But even if I had the strength to crawl, I wouldn't have no place to go. Can't you take me away? ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice

... which relates that next morning, when Mark Twain arrived in the Express office (it was then at 14 Swan Street), there happened to be no one present who knew him. A young man rose very bruskly and asked if there was any one he would like to see. It is reported that he replied, with ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... was during those weeks that he wrote the second Finale to the B. flat major Quartet, Op. 130, little anticipating that this was to be his "Swan song."] ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... and then the Laird Fisher was old and poor. His wife died broken-hearted. After that the laird never rallied. The breezy irony of the dalesfolk did not spare the old man's bent head. "He's brankan" (holding up his head) "like a steg swan," they would say as he went past. The shaft was left unworked, and the holding lay fallow. Laird Fisher took wage from the lord of the manor to burn ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... in the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 74 of the text translated by Swan) which seems to have been suggested by the Hebrew parable of the Desolate Island, and which has passed into general currency throughout Europe: A dying king bequeaths to his son a golden apple, which he is to give to the greatest fool ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... bowed down to the swans, whom she enticed once more with caresses to the borders of the lake. Suddenly she uttered a loud cry, and called to the two gentlemen for help. The great white swan had torn the camelias from the bosom of the princess, and sailed off proudly upon the clear ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... survived it all? By dogged perseverance. I lay so many eggs that one at least must survive. Thus is the balance of the race preserved. I myself was one of five hundred, the only one that reached maturity. Yet all were in the same long ribbon coil. The swan that gulped the coil, gulped all but me. I dropped into the brook alone, and there I quietly passed through my novitiate, egg to tadpole, tadpole to toadling, toadling to toad. When my tail was absorbed into my body, I sought a land-retreat. There I have spent my time for twenty years. None ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... for the purpose of planting, or weeding, or watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and trackless step, like a swan through the wafer; and we, its two-footed denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go out for a walk towards sun-set, just as if we had not been sitting in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... was from 5 to 6 kilogrammes. The results were: intensity, 1 ampere; electro-motive power, 25 volts, corresponding to an energy of 25 volt-amperes, or about 2.5 kilogrammeters per second. The pile was covered with a copper jacket whose upper parts supported two Swan lamps. Upon putting on the cover a contact was formed with the electrodes, and it was possible by means of a commutator key with three eccentrics to light or extinguish one of the lamps or both at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... afterwards the hungry party killed some buffalo, and feasted on the lean meat, and the next day they shot a swan "which was very delicious," as Donelson recorded. Their meal was exhausted and they could make no more bread; but buffalo were plenty, and they hunted them steadily for their meat; and they also made what some of them called "Shawnee salad" ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Christian Brothers came, a few years afterwards, that this was changed. I shall always be grateful to that noble body of men, not only for the religious but for the national training they gave. We had Brothers Thornton and Swan—the latter since the Superior ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... the Thorndale swan very—very much better than a tame goose,' said Charles, 'but the coalition is not so monstrous in his case, since Philip was a friend of his own picking and choosing, and so his father's adoption ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... church was not to be pardoned upon such easy terms. Bunyan and his friends were too simple, honest, and virtuous, to understand why such a distinction should be made. The assizes being held in August, he determined to seek his liberty by a petition to the judges. The court sat at the Swan Inn, and as every incident in the life of this extraordinary man excites our interest, we are gratified to have it in our power to exhibit the state of this celebrated ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... have served under me, friends who have fought with me, and you, people, whom I have striven to succour, listen to my amazing swan song. You know me a little as Count of Montcorbier, Grand Constable of France. I know myself indifferently well as Franois Villon, Master of Arts, broker of ballads and somewhile bibber and brawler. It is now my task as Grand Constable of France to declare that the life of Master Franois ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... found the swan's track on the lake, On the lake, on the lake; I found the swan's track on the lake, But ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright

... and mother, father sat in the middle and took the oars, while gardener put the baskets into the stern, and then, untying the rope which kept the boat tied into the boathouse, he gave it a good push with one hand and off she went out into the blue lake, rising up and down on the water like a swan. ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the floor. The carving of the rosewood furniture caught and imprisoned the light that rippled over its surface. Priceless trifles gleamed from the white marble chimney-piece. The rug beside the bed was of swan's skins bordered with sable. A pair of little, black velvet slippers lined with purple silk told of happiness awaiting the poet of The Marguerites. A dainty lamp hung from the ceiling draped with silk. The room was full of flowering plants, delicate white heaths and scentless camellias, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Mighty war; such war as e'en For Helen's sake is waged, I ween. Purple is the groundwork: good! All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan From the garment's purple fold Where Troy's tale is twined and told. Well may Helen, as with tender Touch of rosy fingers slender She doth knit the story in Of Troy's ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... as it does to the strongest of human instincts, is the theme of many popular fictions from India to Iceland. With a malignant mother-in-law in place of the two sisters, it is the basis of a mediaeval European romance entitled "The Knight of the Swan," and of a similar tale which occurs in "Dolopathus," the oldest version of the "Seven Wise Masters," written in Latin prose about the year 1180: A king while hunting loses his way in a forest and coming to a fountain perceives a beautiful lady, whom he carries home and duly espouses much against ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... breeze of a lovely autumnal morning scarcely sufficed to fill the sails, and the vessel made but little progress till outside the Lizard, when a freer wind struck it, and it swept oceanward with a gallant pace, dashing aside the waters, and careering gracefully as a swan upon the wave. Its armament was of little weight, and it seemed evident that its voyage, as far as any design of the owners was concerned, was to be a peaceful one. England at that time had become the undisputed mistress of the ocean; and even the few splendid ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... and there they made a halt and the horses were outspanned. Aoife bade the children bathe and swim in the lake, and they did so. Then Aoife by Druid spells and witchcraft put upon each of the children the form of a pure white swan, and she cried ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... the cultivation of the classics. First we have a grand musical soiree at the house of General Filipeus, [F-ootnote: Or Philippeus] the intendant of the Court of the Grand Duke Constantine. There the Swan of Pesaro was evidently in the ascendant, at any rate, a duet from "Semiramide" and a buffo duet from "Il Turco in Italia" (in this Soliva took a part and Chopin accompanied) were the only items of the musical ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of night, her ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... the store," he said and Denver followed in a daze. She was not like any woman he had ever dreamed of, nor was she the woman he had thought. In the night, when she was singing, she had seemed slender and ethereal with her swan's neck and piled up hair; but now she was different, a glorious human animal, strong and supple yet with the lines of a girl. And her eyes were still the eyes of a child, big and ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... though it was in behalf of a charity, the performances were suppressed. Paradise Row opens into Dilke Street, behind the pseudo-ancient block of houses on the Embankment. Some of these are extremely fine. Shelley House is said to have been designed by Lady Shelley. Wentworth House is the last before Swan Walk, in which the name of the Swan Tavern is kept alive. This tavern was well known as a resort by all the gay and thoughtless men who visited Chelsea in the seventeenth century. It is mentioned by Pepys and Dibdin, and is described as standing close to the water's ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... night slips, The white swan's long neck drips, I pray thee kiss my lips, Gold wings across ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... have excelled. I cared not much about the piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy, or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords, the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the divine ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... The two Americans, who had spent a whole year in Mexico and become accustomed to the climate, attempted to make themselves comfortable. Pilchard sank to a dilapidated bench and lighted a cigarette; and Swan, not having even sufficient spirit to smoke, stretched himself bodily on the flat stones which paved the plaza, and placed his old ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... things to eat, and talk about the vagaries of the present cook who, under the best of circumstances, was bound to be the past cook within a week or so. Scott could ask Kathryn if she had seen the morning paper; Kathryn could ask Scott if he knew old Mrs. Swan was likely to die, before the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... two swans of goodly hue Come softly swimming down along the lee; Two fairer birds I yet did never see; The snow which doth the top of Pindus strow, Did never whiter show, Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appear; Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near; So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... the country round owns that castle, one Giffroun," she said. "He that will fight with him, be it day or night, is bowed down and laid low. For love of his lady, who is wondrous fair, he has proclaimed that he will bestow a gerfalcon, white as a swan, on him who brings a fairer lady. But if she be not so bright and fair as his lady, he must fight this knight Giffroun, who is a mighty warrior. Giffroun slays him, and sets his head on a spear, that it may be seen afar abroad; and you may see on the castle walls ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song; and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... upon it with outspread wings. "Kill me!" said the poor creature, and bent its head down upon the water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image—and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but —a swan. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... now that you are away from me, give you a glimpse of that side of my soul which a girl is taught to hide? This was the 'swan's nest among the reeds' which Little Ellie meant to show to that lover who, maybe, never came. Ah, Mrs. Browning was a woman, and knew! (Mind, dear, it's Mrs. ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... lying almost across it was a lake, with a narrow opening to the sea. Houarn paid the boatman and sent him away, and then proceeded to walk round the lake. At one end he perceived a small skiff, painted blue and shaped like a swan, lying under a clump of yellow broom. As far as he could see, the swan's head was tucked under its wing, and Houarn, who had never beheld a boat of the sort, went quickly towards it and stepped in, so as to examine it the better. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... Swan-maiden proper is effected by theft of her robe: in other types either by main force, or more frequently with her consent, more or less willingly given, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... intellectual face beneath it, and the sensuous curves of the compact little form. For my own part, my vote was for Antonia, for the belle of the gathering; but she sailed through the evening, "like some full-breasted swan," accepting no homage except the slavish devotion of Cecil, whose constant offering of his neck to her tread gave him recognition as entitled to the reward of those who are permitted only ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... arrival of the mail there was so important an event that a gun was fired to announce its coming in. Sheffield set up a "flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760: it "slept" the first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s., and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But the principal part of the expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not to mention the fees to ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... chairs of fine Spanish mahogany. There these good men were quietly enjoying their tete-a-tete, when they were startled by a thundering knock at the door; and in came Mr Ryland of Northampton, abruptly exclaiming, 'If you wish to see Mr Toplady, you must go immediately with me to the "Swan." He is on his way to London, and will not live long.' They all proceeded to the inn, and there found the good man, emaciated with disease, and evidently fast hastening to the grave. As they were talking ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... as he was advised, and rejoiced to see the water return. He gave Plavacek twelve swan-white horses, and as much gold and silver as ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... was talking to the sacristan. "I hear many objections to that bird, sir," he remarked to me, "from fastidious tourists: one thinks that a peacock, spreading its jewels by mechanism, would have a richer effect. Another says that a swan, perpetually wrestling with its dying song, would be more poetical. Others, in the light of late events, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... and pray mark the swan-like movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear, and you know how highly I prize ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... man bought in the market a Goose and a Swan. He fed the one for his table, and kept the other for the sake of its song. When the time came for killing the Goose, the cook went to take him at night, when it was dark, and he was not able to distinguish one bird from the other, and he caught ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... the best imitation it could of an offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying that there was only ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that I know of for man and beast is the 'Swan with Three Necks,' in Holborn. It is not over-frequented by roisterers, and you will there be quiet, and, if your ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... their own kind. So they refused to have old King Bear as their king and went to Old Mother Nature to ask her to appoint a king of the air. Now Mr. Eagle was one of the biggest and strongest and most respected of all the birds of the air. There were some, like Mr. Goose and Mr. Swan, who were bigger, but they spent most of their time on the water or the earth, and they had no great claws or hooked beak to command respect as did Mr. Eagle. So Old Mother Nature made Mr. Eagle king of the air, and as was quite ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... belonging to a Drakos, who had given him leave to enter forty only, a magic horse, and before the door of the room he finds a pool of gold in which he becomes gilded. In another (Hahn, No. 15) a prince finds in the forbidden fortieth a lake in which fairies of the swan-maiden species are bathing. In a third (No. 45) the fortieth room contains a golden horse and a golden dog which assist their bold releaser. In a fourth (No. 68) it imprisons "a fair maiden, shining like the sun," whom the demon proprietor ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... looking river-canes, dumb-canes, and balisiers that voluptuously bend their heads to the drizzly shower which plays incessantly on their glistening leaves, off which the globules roll in a thousand pearls, as from the glossy plumage of a stately swan. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... of fun, never having succeeded in making himself the standardized type who escapes the shafts of ridicule. It was kindly fun, which, while viewing him as a white swan in a flock of black ones, recognized him as a swan, and this was as much as he could expect. To pass in the crowd was all he asked for, even when he only passed on bluff. If he couldn't wholly hide the bluff he could keep it from being flagrantly obtrusive; and toward that end an ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... this found in the continental "Gesta Romanorum" (ch. cxviii. of Swan's translation), in which a knight deposits ten talents with a respectable old man, who when called upon to refund the money denies all knowledge of it. By the advice of an old woman the knight has ten chests ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... distance of a few of them has been determined. The nearest one is the brightest star in the Centaur, never visible in our northern latitudes, which has a parallax of about one second. The next nearest is No. 61 in the Swan, or 61 Cygni, having a parallax of 0".34. Approximate measurements have been made on Sirius, Capella, the Pole Star, etc., about eighteen in all. The distances are immense: only the swiftest agents can traverse them. If our earth were ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... George Sand! whose soul amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses moans defiance, And answers roar for roar, as spirits can,— I would some wild, miraculous thunder ran Above the applauding circus, in appliance Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science, Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, From the strong shoulders, to amaze the place With holier light! That thou, to woman's claim, And man's, might join, beside, the angel's grace Of a pure genius, sanctified from blame, Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace, To kiss upon ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... on the Grand Duchess's next birthday, April 8th. Gotze is coming this time from Leipzig, and sings the part of the Knight of the Swan. I hope that in May Tichatschek will undertake the role; he has already been studying the complete work for a long time past, and has had a splendid costume made for it. Perhaps you will be inclined to hear this glorious work here either in April or May. That would be very delightful of you, and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... continued to write poetry until almost the time of his death; but with the exception of his short swan song, Crossing the Bar, he did not surpass his earlier efforts. His Locksley Hall Sixty Year After (1886) voices the disappointments of the Victorian age and presents vigorous social philosophy. Some of his later verse, like The Northern Farmer ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... face, as it had been anoint. He was a lord full fat and in good point His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed, That stemed as a forneis of led. His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. He was not pale as a forpined gost. A fat swan loved he best of any rost. His palfrey was as broune as ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... year; but for this there must be a proper boat. Any person going there at present ought not to land if the surf is high, without Captain Davies' large sail-boat, which is as safe as a tug, and rides the sea like a swan. Send him word to send his largest boat at the best hour for landing. The Captain is a native merchant, and ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... fish, with feet below like those of a man, with a fish's tail". This description recalls the familiar figures of Egyptian gods and priests attired in the skins of the sacred animals from whom their powers were derived, and the fairy lore about swan maids and men, and the seals and other animals who could divest themselves of their "skin coverings" and appear in human shape. Originally Ea may have been a sacred fish. The Indian creative gods Brahma and Vishnu had fish forms. In Sanskrit literature ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... what you're missing," declared the Captain, smacking his lips to make the waffles appear more appetizing. "Have just one. Maybe your appetite is one of them coming kind, and I'll swan if 'tis that one taste of these would bring it ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... nest-places on Himala's breast. Calling in love-notes down their snowy line The bright birds flew, by fond love piloted; And Devadatta, cousin of the Prince, Pointed his bow, and loosed a wilful shaft Which found the wide wing of the foremost swan Broad-spread to glide upon the free blue road, So that it fell, the bitter arrow fixed, Bright scarlet blood-gouts staining the pure plumes. Which seeing, Prince Siddartha took the bird Tenderly up, rested ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower. There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, and preserved ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... standing out boldly into the water. I walked over to the most conspicuous wharf and had the pleasure of hearing the starting bell ring behind me, and seeing the Derry boat glide from behind the sheltering houses and sail peacefully away up the Foyle like a black swan. Why do they paint all the steamers black in this green Erin of ours? Well, as my belongings were on board, there was no help for it but to take a special car and go after my luggage, a long, cold drive to Derry. So much for ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... to Whalley from Wiswall, Cold Coates, and Clithero, from Ribchester and Blackburn, from Padiham and Pendle, and even from places more remote. Not only was John Lawe's of the Dragon full, but the Chequers, and the Swan also, and the roadside alehouse to boot. Sir Ralph Assheton had several guests at the abbey, and others were expected in the course of the day, while Doctor Ormerod had friends staying with ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... always, yielded to the spell of her song. To him it was an incantation. Her own strains varied to express the changing sentiment, and at last, as the song ended, it seemed to die away in melodious melancholy, like the dying strain of the fabled swan. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... they heading? Toward some destination in the general direction of the constellation Cygnus. The transformation equations work fine on an interstellar ship. Would they work on a man? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to transform yourself into a swan? Cygnus the Swan. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... of the obligation will be felt an increasing sense of our failure to fulfil it. Character is built up, for good or for evil, by slow degrees. Conscience is quickened by being listened to, and stifled by being neglected. A little speck of mud on a vestal virgin's robe, or on a swan's plumage, will be conspicuous, while a splash twenty times the size will pass unnoticed on the rags of some travel-stained wayfarer. The purer we become, the more we shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... until it seemed to her that she would lose her reason. The wild geese screaming to one another overhead, the bald eagles building in the solitary elm that grew by the river, the flocks of great white pelicans that were fishing on the beach of Swan Lake, three miles away, were all objects of envy to the lonesome heart of the girl; for they had companions of their kind—they were husbands and wives, and parents and children, while she—here she checked her thoughts, lest she should be disloyal to her father. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... in the general motif is the stealing of the fairy-woman's clothes. The idea is the same as that found in stories where the fisherman steals the sea-woman's skin canoe as a prelude to making her his wife, or the feather cloak of the swan-maiden is seized by the hunter when he finds her asleep, thus placing the supernatural maiden in his power. Among savages it is quite a common and usual circumstance for the spouses not to mention each other's names for months after marriage, nor even to see one another's ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... the kingdom. But the counterplot anticipated the plot. Lord Edward, betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, was taken on the 19th of May, after a desperate struggle with Majors Swan and Sirr, and Captain Ryan, in his hiding-place in Thomas Street; the brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless escaped from the city, and finally from the country, to France. Thus, for the second ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... original canvassers dropped out of the field till almost the only one left besides E. A. Partridge was this hard-talking enthusiast up in the Swan River country who wound himself up for the night and tired them ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... ethereal being," he is by no means a deity. According to their philosophy of metempsychosis, however, each successive Buddha, in passing through a series of transmigrations, must necessarily have occupied in turn the forms of white animals of a certain class,—particularly the swan, the stork, the white sparrow, the dove, the monkey, and the elephant. But there is much obscurity and diversity in the views of their ancient writers on this subject. Only one thing is certain, that the forms of these nobler and purer creatures are reserved for the souls of the good and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... that, in the countries that are called Hyperborean, the harpers harping before, the swans' birds fly out of their nests and sing full merrily. Shipmen trow that it tokeneth good if they meet swans in peril of shipwreck. Always the swan is the most merriest bird in divinations. Shipmen desire this bird for he dippeth not down in the waves. When the swan is in love he seeketh the female, and pleaseth her with beclipping of the neck, and draweth her to him- ward; and he joineth his neck to the female's ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... Question Why not do it, Sir, To-day To a Redbreast Phoebe To the Stork The Storks of Delft The Pheasant The Herons of Elmwood Walter von der Vogelweid The Legend of the Cross-Bill Pretty Birds The Little Bird sits The Living Swan The Stormy Petrel To the Cuckoo Birds at Dawn Evening Songs Little Brown Bird Life's Sign A Bird's Ministry Of Birds Birds in Spring The Canary in his Cage Who stole the Bird's-Nest Who stole the Eggs What the Birds say The Wren's Nest On Another's ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... continually beaming with the witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline, a mouth so ruby red and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower opens but to let its perfume escape, so it could not open but to give passage to gentle words, with a neck white and graceful as a swan's, hands of alabaster, with a form like a goddess's and a foot like a child's, Mary was a harmony in which the most ardent enthusiast for sculptured form could have found nothing ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... heard a sound that strange, sweet, pleasing was; There rolled a crystal brook with gentle roar, There sighed the winds as through the leaves they pass, There did the nightingale her wrongs deplore, There sung the swan, and singing died, alas! There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard, And all these sounds ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... London had, from a very early time, their two ports of Billingsgate and Queenhithe, both of them still ports. They had also their communication with the south by means of a ferry, which ran from the place now called the Old Swan Stairs to a port or dock on the Surrey side, still existing, afterwards called St. Mary of the Ferry, or St. Mary Overies. The City became rapidly populous and full of trade and wealth. Vast numbers of ships came yearly, bringing merchandise, and taking away what the country ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... favorite, revelled in French bonbons; hampers of wine, of choice game, or fruit from Covent Garden, filled the tiny larder to overflowing. Silks and ribbons, and odds and ends of female finery, were sent down from Marshall & Snelgrove's, or Swan & Edgar's. In vain Mrs. Challoner implored him not to spoil the girls, who had never had so many pretty things in their lives, and hardly knew what to do with them. Sir Harry would not deny himself this pleasure; and he came up evening after evening, overflowing with health and spirits, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the tortoise, and couldst also give, were it needed, to silent fishes the song of the swan."] ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cheek the crimson ray By changes comes and goes, As rosy-hued Aurora's play Along the polar snows; Gay as the insect-bird that sips From scented flowers the dew— Pure as the snowy swan that dips Its wings in waters blue; Sweet thoughts are mirrored on her face, Like clouds on the calm sea, And every motion is a grace, Each ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... the white swan with her long arched neck, "winning her easy way" through the waters, is beautiful; so is that of the nightingale singing upon her lone bush by moon-light. Poetic descriptions of real objects, are well suited to children; apostrophe and personification they understand; ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... the about-to-be Lieutenant Tufton in particular, was advanced by the opportune demise of an unfortunately balanced lady. From her point—or rather her circular area of vision—perhaps my dear Betty was right in declaring me odious. She hated to be reminded of the intolerable goosiness of her swan. She longed for comforting, corroborative evidence of essential swaniness for her own justification. In a word, the poor dear girl was sore all over with mortification, and wherever one touched her, no matter with how gentle a ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... once capable of reading the past, and laying bare the future of all who consulted him; also of healing diseases of and preventing mishaps to such as visited him. Accordingly, having taken lodgings in Tower Street, at a goldsmith's house, situated next the Black Swan, he prepared himself for practice, adopted the title of doctor, the name of Alexander Bendo, and issued bills headed by the royal arms, containing the most remarkable and impudent manifesto perhaps ever set forth ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... church was somewhat poorly attended on this fine autumn evening, when the hunter's moon hung like a big golden shield above the river, glorifying the dipping willows, the narrow eyots, haunts of swan and cygnet, and the distant woodlands of Surrey. It was a night which tempted the free to wander in the cool shadowy river-side paths, rather than to worship in the warm ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... and produced a little gold swan-shot scarce distinguishable from the Chinese. He put this on the table, and took up ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... tale in the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 74 of the text translated by Swan) which seems to have been suggested by the Hebrew parable of the Desolate Island, and which has passed into general currency throughout Europe: A dying king bequeaths to his son a golden apple, which he is to give ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... stumbled through my story; told him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio, where I tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which had never (up to that day) been honoured ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and gaps; and upon the white satin lining of his "pink" there was a tiny button-hole bouquet, such as Mab might have held with her fairy fingers at the time of her coronation; and in collar, if in nothing else, he resembled the immortal Shakespeare; and his bosom was broad and snowy as the swan's; and his pumps were glossy as the raven's wing; and he was going dinnerward, with a winsome damsel on his arm and a complacent smile of self-conceit upon his countenance, when the smooth soles of these new ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... during the greatest part of our way favourable and gentle, the sea being quite as smooth as a mill pond, so that the paddles of our noble steamer, the Nikolai, were not at all impeded in their working by any rolling or pitching of the vessel. Immediately on my arrival I sought out Mr. Swan, one of the most amiable and interesting characters I have ever met with, and delivered to him your letter, the contents of which were very agreeable to him; for from applying himself too un-interruptedly ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... time, he ventured down to Monte Video, where he found the English brig Swan, bound round Cape Horn. Her crew, deluded by the false and extravagant promises of privateering captains and owners, had all deserted. In this dilemma the captain was compelled to supply their places with such materials as could be picked up in the streets ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... over the edge of the rock at his reflection in the water, and ventured, "Wouldn't I need a shave? and oughtn't I to have a string of beads around my swan-like neck, with a few spangles on it to glitter and sparkle? I'd have to hold my right hand over this old gun scar in my left shoulder, so as not to mar the beauty of the picture. Remind me of it, John, and I'll have some taken, and you ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... touched the water. At length his head lay back between his wings, and silently he lay there, like a white lotus flower upon the quiet lake. And a gentle wind arose, and crisped the quiet surface, which gleamed like the clouds that poured along in great broad waves; and the swan raised his head, and the glowing water splashed like blue fire over his breast and back. The morning dawn illuminated the red clouds, the swan rose strengthened, and flew towards the rising sun, towards the bluish coast whither the caravan ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... when this pile of Fiddles was to be dispersed. It fell to my lot to classify them, and never shall I forget the scene I witnessed. Here, amid the din of countless machines busy shaping magnum-bonums, swan-bills, and divers other writing implements, I was about to feast my eyes on some of the choicest works of the old Italian Fiddle-makers. Passing through offices, warehouses, and workshops, I found myself at a door which my conductor set himself ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... creatures. The koala poses as a small bear; the cuscus answers to the racoons of America. The pouched badgers explain themselves at once by their very name, like the Plyants, the Pinchwifes, the Brainsicks, and the Carelesses of the Restoration comedy. The 'native rabbit' of Swan River is a rabbit-like bandicoot; the pouched ant-eater similarly takes the place of the true ant-eaters of other continents. By way of carnivores, the Tasmanian devil is a fierce and savage marsupial analogue of the American ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... Edith, Harold's betrothed bride, fair and graceful as a lily: Edith of the Swan's Neck, as people called her. Her face was pale and sorrowful, but she had resolved ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae

... the Dublin post-office, to every quarter of the kingdom. But the counterplot anticipated the plot. Lord Edward, betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, was taken on the 19th of May, after a desperate struggle with Majors Swan and Sirr, and Captain Ryan, in his hiding-place in Thomas Street; the brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless escaped from the city, and finally from the country, to France. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... appear, but deeply impressed with the belief, he naturally called together Joshua and the Levites and gave his final charge. Whether fact or fiction this farewell is deeply interesting. The closing chapters, containing the "song of blessing," comes to all lovers of religious poetry as the swan song of Moses. Though doubting its authorship, one may enjoy its beauty and grandeur. Chapter xxxiv narrates ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the often-quoted instance of the Dahlia.[626] After several years' culture the Zinnia has only lately (1860) begun to vary in any great degree. "In the first seven or eight years of high cultivation the Swan River daisy (Brachycome iberidifolia) kept to its original colour; it then varied into lilac and purple and other minor shades."[627] Analogous facts have been recorded with the Scotch rose. In discussing the variability of plants several experienced horticulturists have spoken to the {262} ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... toppled the three topmasts of the corvette. The falling of those masts was a beautiful sight. They did not rush down impetuously, but stooped themselves gradually and gracefully, with all their clouds of canvas. A swan in mid air, with her drooping wings broken by a shot, slowly descending, might give you some idea of the view. But after the descent of the multitudinous sails, the beauty was wholly destroyed. Where before there careered gallantly and triumphantly ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... perseverance, the most famous scenes in the Doctor's life—drawn him sliding on Christ Church meadows, sliding in these worn and clouted shoes of his, and with that figure which even the exercise of skating could not have made "swan-like," to quote the young lady in "Pickwick"? Johnson was "sconced" in the sum of twopence for cutting lecture; and it is rather curious that the amount of the fine was the same four hundred years earlier, when Master Stoke, of Catte Hall (whose career we touched on in the second of these sketches), ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... ceased. I heard the swan-like sough of her wings, and saw the rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... essays, for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of commercialism and imperialism. For that ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... kingdom, all are well. The eagle builds his nest in a high tree; at times he grows careless in the fancied security of his high-perched home; then even a small bird will sometimes come and plunder it and eat the eggs and young brood: so it is with the swan whose nest is in the sedges on the lake. It, too, trusts too confidently in the dark thickets of reeds, yet prowling water falcons will sometimes come and rob it of eggs and young. This might happen to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... dap! Git dap! Limpin', creepin', crawlin', hoppin', jumpin'.... Starboard! starboard, you son of a Chinee! Need a tug to haul this critter into the channel, I swan you do! Git dap! All shipshape aft there, Cap'n Sears? ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... previous summer holidays, Dr. May had been called one morning to attend a gentleman who had been taken very ill, at the Swan Inn. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... any glas, And eke his face, as it had been anoint. He was a lord full fat and in good point His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed, That stemed as a forneis of led. His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. He was not pale as a forpined gost. A fat swan loved he best of any rost. His palfrey was as ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... burial. Yet he could not rest satisfied that he had won all that remained of his friend from the river's bed, and so he continued to haunt the stream, ever diving, ever searching, until the gods grew weary of his restless sorrow and changed him into a swan. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... them where the offices of religion are performed. The countenance which admirals and captains, prelates and lords of the Admiralty, have given to them, are the best warrant for their necessity and usefulness. A short notice of 'The Swan' and its Tender, will not be thought out of place ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... claps her hands] Are you here, my darling? My beauty! And was I blind as a bat, and didn't see you? Darling child! [She kisses her and sits down beside her] How happy this makes me! Let me feast my eyes on you, my milk-white swan! Oh, oh, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... any. In the evening I bought a very fat one for two hands of seewan. The chief cooked it for us, and the grease he mixed with our beans and maize. This chief showed me his idol; it was a male cat's head, with the teeth sticking out; it was dressed in duffel cloth. Others have a snake, a turtle, a swan, a crane, a pigeon, or the like for their idols, to tell the fortune; they think they will always have good luck in doing so. From here two savages went with ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various

... to the swans, whom she enticed once more with caresses to the borders of the lake. Suddenly she uttered a loud cry, and called to the two gentlemen for help. The great white swan had torn the camelias from the bosom of the princess, and sailed off proudly upon the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's wife her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible; for, when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded upon her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... but their heads are those of the animals in which their respective husbands became incarnate, such as the lion, the elephant, &c., or those of the 'vahans', or animals on which they rode, such as the bull, the swan, the eagle, &c. But these, I presume, are mere capricios of the founder of the temple. The figures are sixty-four in number, all mounted upon their respective 'vahans', but have been sadly mutilated by the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... a Swan:—Bone and skin your swan, and beat the flesh in a mortar, taking out the strings as you beat it; then take some clear fat bacon, and beat with the swan, and when 'tis of a light flesh colour, there is bacon enough in it; and when 'tis beaten till 'tis like dough, 'tis enough; then season it ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... Richmond. He went first to the United States Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Main Streets, in the "Bird in Hand" neighborhood where he had looked for the last time on the face of his young mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies, where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long, two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, and a front piazza with ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... crystalline day began to be softly shadowed by twilight. Behind them lay the town, its roofs and spires robed in swan's-down, while on all sides the fallen logs and deep underbrush, the level stubbles and broad irregular hollows, and all the vast sweep of dark evergreen forest, melting away in immeasurable distance, was a dazzling white waste of snow. In the bright moonshine ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... swan with her long arched neck, "winning her easy way" through the waters, is beautiful; so is that of the nightingale singing upon her lone bush by moon-light. Poetic descriptions of real objects, are well suited to children; apostrophe and personification they understand; but all allegoric poetry is ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... Marche and Molly, a struggling bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally reconciled, they began to souse themselves with great content, and either mounted their stools or ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers

... he called out, as he drew rein alongside the two lads. "What's this here yer lookin' at? Another dead calf? No, I swan if it ain't a yearling as has been pulled down now. Things seem t' be gittin' t' a warm pass when sech doin' air allowed. Huh! an' it looks like Sallie's work, too! That sly ole critter is goin' t' git t' the end of ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... These ideas of substances, though they are commonly simple apprehensions, and the names of them simple terms, yet in effect are complex and compounded. Thus the idea which an Englishman signifies by the name swan, is white colour, long neck, red beak, black legs, and whole feet, and all these of a certain size, with a power of swimming in the water, and making a certain kind of noise, and perhaps, to a man who has ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... is treated with a mixture of two parts of sulphuric acid and one part of water perfectly cold, it becomes like parchment. It should at once be washed with water, and then with ammonia and water. The Swan incandescent light fibres are made of parchmentized cotton ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... the poet is more at home than in his own degenerate age.(18) To him too his own song "gracefully welling up out of rich feeling" sounds, as compared with the common poems, "like the brief song of the swan compared with the cry of the crane";—with him too the heart swells, listening to the melodies of its own invention, with the hope of illustrious honours—just as Ennius forbids the men to whom he "gave from the depth of the heart a ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... at other times he commended the symmetry and proportion of the rooms. He walked about the gardens; he bathed himself in the canal, swimming, diving, and beating the liquid element like a milk-white swan. The hall resounded with the sprightly violin and the martial hautbois. The family tripped it about, and capered like hailstones bounding from a marble floor. Wine, ale, and October flew about as plentifully as kennel-water. Then a frolic took John in the head to call up some of Nic. Frog's pensioners ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... feet in height, are covered with snow even in the middle of summer. Whilst the elevation of the principal peaks, Mount Exmouth, Mount Cunningham, and others was being taken, it was discovered that so far from Australia possessing only one large watercourse, the Swan River, it had several, the chief being Hawkesbury River, formed by the confluence of the Nepean, the Grose, and the Brisbane; the river Murray not being yet known. At the period under notice a commencement had been made in the working of coal-mines, slate quarries, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that for ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... individuality, idiosyncrasy, originality, mannerism. aberration; irregularity; variety; singularity; exemption; salvo &c. (qualification) 469. nonconformist; nondescript, character, original, nonesuch, nonsuch[obs3], monster, prodigy, wonder, miracle, curiosity, flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae[Lat], rara avis[Lat], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis[Lat], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid[Lat], hermaphrodite. [mythical animal] phoenix, chimera, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... steer clear, if possible, of the political imbroglio, they eventually joined hands with the Reformers. How the egg of the Jameson conspiracy came to be laid no one exactly knew. Certain it was that those who looked for the hatching of a swan, were confronted with a very ugly duckling indeed! Arms and ammunition were purchased, and these, concealed as gold-mining impedimenta, were smuggled into the country. Messrs. Leonard and Phillips, two prominent Reformers, consulted Mr. Rhodes as to future ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... landing that Dick Lever made at the aviation camp, his great machine sailing down like a swan and landing so lightly that it would scarcely have broken a ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine, Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs: ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... question. Field-flower. The cloud's swan-song. To the sinking sun. Grief's harmonics. Memorat memoria. July fugitive. To a snow-flake. Nocturn. A May burden. A dead astronomer. 'Chose vue.' 'Whereto art thou come.' Heaven and hell. To a child. Hermes. House of bondage. The heart. A ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... or the young Swan, was formerly much esteemed; but it has "fallen from its high estate," and is now rarely seen upon the table. We are not sure that it is not still fattened in Norwich for the corporation of that place. Persons ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... forty only, a magic horse, and before the door of the room he finds a pool of gold in which he becomes gilded. In another (Hahn, No. 15) a prince finds in the forbidden fortieth a lake in which fairies of the swan-maiden species are bathing. In a third (No. 45) the fortieth room contains a golden horse and a golden dog which assist their bold releaser. In a fourth (No. 68) it imprisons "a fair maiden, shining like the sun," ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... and after the drawing-master had endowed the work with artistic merit by the application of white chalk to the high lights, the pearls, the canary's eyes, and the pathetic tear-drops upon the damsels' faces, the immortal productions were ready for framing. The giraffe or swan-necked angel was the keynote for all ideal work, and even the recognised artists of those days, with one or two brilliant exceptions, followed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... him," for another wail reached them from the disconsolate warship. "He's fixed there as though, he was glued to it. He'll have to jettison all his bunker an' a gun or two afore he gets off. They tell me Cigno means 'swan.' I wonder wot's the I-talian for 'goose.' Go an' tell Tagg. Tell him to tumble up quick, if on'y for ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... though it was in a meagre sphere enough; and her mother was still not quite resigned: surely Florence might at least spend the summer in the country. At times, indeed, among her intimates, Mrs. Nightingale almost wept. 'We are ducks,' she said with tears in her eyes, 'who have hatched a wild swan.' But the poor lady was wrong; it was not a swan that they had hatched, it ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... pale-faced school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her mother for the belief but did not share it ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in the field of battle, or in the mock combat of the tournament: the knight was known and named from the device used as his crest. Thus the heralds, in introducing him to the judges of the field, or to the lady that bestowed the prizes, called him the Knight of the Swan, the Knight of the Lion, &c., without mentioning any other title. And knights whose fame for gallantry and prowess was firmly established, had their crests painted over their coats of arms. In two ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous

... passed, mid in the grove before He heard a sound that strange, sweet, pleasing was; There rolled a crystal brook with gentle roar, There sighed the winds as through the leaves they pass, There did the nightingale her wrongs deplore, There sung the swan, and singing died, alas! There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard, And all these sounds ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... Here I stand hungering. Give me the little hill above the sea, The palm of Delos fringed delicately, The young sweet laurel and the olive-tree Grey-leaved and glimmering; O Isle of Leto, Isle of pain and love; The Orbed Water and the spell thereof; Where still the Swan, minstrel of things to be, Doth ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... fatigued tradesman, the weary labourer, may at any time saunter round and walk to the brink of the giddy heights facing Levi; feast their eyes on the striking panorama unrolled at their feet; watch the white winged argosies of commerce float swan-like on the bosom of the mighty flood, whilst the wealthy citizen, in his panelled carriage, would take his afternoon drive round the Park en payant. The student, the scholar, the traveller might each in turn find here amusement, and fresh air and shade, and with sketch ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... in sight, and riding proudly at anchor, the beautiful curves of her swan-like prows made cannon proof with plates of shining steel,—and below, in lieu of figurehead to promise victory, those letters of dread omen, C.D.X.,—with thirty oars-men from the arsenal of Venice, to ensure her speed, each ready at his oar-lock to wield his ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... clump of bushy oaks. The moon shone dimly, shrouded in mist, and over the earth there was, as it were spread out, a delicate smoke. The eye could not decide what it was, whether moonlight or fog. On one of the lakes a swan was asleep; its long back was white as the snow of the frost-bound steppes, while glow-worms gleamed like diamonds in the bluish shadow at the ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... soft and flowing in your verses; them I understand altogether. But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of IPHIGENIE; I had the French Copy in my hand, and could not understand a word of him [a Swan of Saxony, laboring in vain that day]! They recommended me another Poet, one Peitsch [Herr Peitsch of Konigsberg, Hofrath, Doctor and Professor there, Gottsched's Master in Art; edited by Gottsched thirty years ago; now become a dumb idol, though at one time a god confessed]; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... in that direction, knowing that although the lieutenant was not at home, his telescope would be pointed seaward, and that even then Mary might be looking at the graceful ship which floated like a swan over the calm water. The Lizard was the last point of land seen, and the "Ione" stood out into ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... you'd buy her cow, an' when we come to do the tradin' part, why, con-found it! she wa'n't no more fit to buy an' sell a critter than my three-year-old Hepsy. I said a piece back I ha'n't got much natur', an' a man that trades dumb beasts the biggest part o' the time hedn't oughter hev; but I swan to man! natur' was too much for me this time; I couldn't no more ha' bought that cow cheap than I could ha' sold my old gran'ther to a tin-peddler. Somehow, she was so innocent, an' she felt so to part with the critter, an' then she let me know 't George was in the army; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the higher and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... of this Instant SEPTEMBER, from his Master John Johnson, of Boston, Jack-maker, a Negro Man Servant, named Joe, about 23 Years of Age, a likely Fellow, who had on when he went away a dark colored Fly Coat, with flat white Metal Buttons, a Swan Skin double breasted Jacket, Leather Deer Skin Breeches, a pair of high heel'd thick soled Shoes. He can play on the Flute, has a Scar on his upper Lip and SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH. Whoever shall take him up and deliver him to his said Master, shall have Ten Pounds Reward, Old Tenor, and all reasonable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... breasts, Eilidh; Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan, Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft, Or the wave on the sea that ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... hint at the geese whose sound saved Rome. The great goose question of the Reformation was the burning of one Huss, whose name in English signifyeth Goose, for which reason he is said to have exclaimed to his tormentors 'Now ye indeed roast a goose, but, lo! after me there will come a swan whom ye can not roast;' which was strangely fulfilled in LUTHER, whose name—slightly varied—signifies in Bohemian a swan. But, reader, 'an it please you,' here is the original and 'Simon Pure' explanation, as furnished ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... apparitions having been seen here; but it turned out at last that a gang of smugglers had taken up their residence in it." It was once used as a school, and later on as a reformatory. It is now in the possession of the Swan Laundry Company. ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... not have wings; and he went straight to the shore of the vik, climbed up into one of the longships, made his way to the lofty prow and sat down to think it over. That prow curved upward and over like a great swan's neck, with a dragon's head carved on the end, and he noted with curious eyes how here and there could be seen a splintered scar and in it perhaps still the arrow-head that made it. He dug one out and looked at it, with a sniff of contempt. He knew he could make a better one himself. ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... was a beautiful yawl, and sat like a swan upon the water, was manned by four oarsmen, with a man at the helm. Considerable attention and respect was shown the visitors, the ship's side being manned when they showed their intention of coming on board, and the usual naval courtesies ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower. There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... a beautiful island for them. It bore grapes and nuts, and they called it their garden. In a cave there, a kind spirit dwelt, who blessed the land of the Indians. The spirit had white wings, like a swan. But in 1816 the United States built Fort Armstrong right on top of the cave, and the good spirit flew away, never to come back. The guns of ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... slavery or the stage-coach. He would be a bold man who should undertake to say what the national type is now; but it is safe to say that it is not a long, thin, cute Yankee, dressed in a swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, whittling a stick, and interlarding his conversation with "I swan!" and "I calc'late." If Mr. Lowell were writing the "Biglow Papers" now, would "Uncle S." serve his purpose as he did during the war? By a merciful dispensation of Providence, however, Brother Jonathan and Uncle Sam still live on in the imaginations of large ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... announcing the government grant, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, and another from that of Paris, have further rewarded Dr Leichhardt's meritorious labours. Unflinching in pursuit of science, he again set forth, in December 1845, on an overland journey to Swan River, expected to occupy two years and a half. This time he is better provided. His party consists of only eight persons, but he has mules for the stores, fourteen horses, forty oxen, and two hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... among animals which is very beautiful to see. They will come together for defence and to get food, and sometimes help each other in sickness and trouble. A blind swan was fed with fish brought twice a day by other swans from a lake thirty miles away. An English sparrow pluckily rescued his mate from a big snowdrift at the risk of his life. Livingstone tells of a wounded buffalo who was caught ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouthed Boeotian "Savage Landor"[591] Has taken for a swan ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... was wonder to wee Shane, there was so much of it that it flicked through his head like a dream: the hazy September afternoon; the long, lean vessel like a greyhound; the sails white as a swan's wing; the cordage that rattled like wood; the bare-footed, bearded sailors; the town of Carrickfergus in the offing; the lap-lap-lap of water; the silent man at the wheel; the sudden transition of the friendly Raghery ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... lessened, as he tried to speak, And issued through a long extended neck; 10 His hair transforms to down, his fingers mee In skinny films, and shape his oary feet; From both his sides the wings and feathers break; And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak: All Cycnus now into a swan was turned, Who, still remembering how his kinsman burned, To solitary pools and lakes retires, And loves the waters as opposed to fires. Meanwhile Apollo, in a gloomy shade (The native lustre of his brows decayed) ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... ever after Let your tears be tears of laughter - Every sigh that finds a vent Be a sigh of sweet content! When you marry merry maiden, Then the air with love is laden; Every flower is a rose, Every goose becomes a swan, Every kind of trouble goes Where the last year's snows have gone; Sunlight takes the place of shade When you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... was kind enough to accompany me to the coach, and on the 12th day of October, 1793,—oh! happy day, at least I thought so—we repaired to the sign of that nondescript bird, the "Swan with Two Necks" in Lad Lane, Cheapside. After taking an affectionate farewell of those who came with me, I stepped into the vehicle of transport with a light foot, a light heart, and, I fear, a light head, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... Earle I am, and Suffolke am I call'd. Be not offended Natures myracle, Thou art alotted to be tane by me: So doth the Swan her downie Signets saue, Keeping them prisoner vnderneath his wings: Yet if this seruile vsage once offend, Go, and be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... was proved that Perrault had in the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan—if he followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be sure to bring something down. He did not know that the Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old gun ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... full height and flung out his long arms, his face turned to the southern skies. The movement shot panic into the heart of a swan that had drawn nearer with amiably predatory designs. Its consequent abrupt retreat collided it with a stout old lady, who squealed and dropped her bag of peanuts. Jones ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... every variety of metre in common use, and appropriate to every occasion where God is worshipped and men are blessed. From the compositions of Billings, Holden, Maxim, Edson, Holyoke, Read, Kimball, Morgan, Wood, Swan, &c. &c., and eminent American authors now living, as well as from distinguished European composers. Embracing a greater variety of Music for Congregations, Societies, Singing Schools, and Choirs, than ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott

... entirely off. They all peered into the box. There lay an old clay pipe and a roll of faded calico. Mr. Fairbanks took up the roll and shook it out. "It's an apron," said he. "It's his father's pipe, and his mother's apron—I—swan!" ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... touch each other. And your intelligence is great, and your navel deep, and your words solemn. And your great toes, and bust and hips, and back and sides, and toe-nails, and palms are all well-developed. And your palms, soles, and face are ruddy. And your speech is sweet even as the voice of the swan. And your hair is beautiful, and your bust shapely, and you are possessed of the highest grace. And your hips and bust are plump. And like a Kashmerean mare you are furnished with every auspicious mark. And your eye-lashes are (beautiful) bent, and your nether-lip is like ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... firm, and promised nothing more than that she would not marry the Bear, or any one else; and they returned to her father's teepee, little thinking that any one had overheard their conversation. But the "Swan" had heard ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... the "mot d'auteur" and the "mot de situation." The terms practically explain themselves; but a third class ought to be added—the "mot de caractere." The "mot d'auteur" is the distinguishing mark of the Congreve-Sheridan convention. It survives in full vigour—or, shall one say, it sings its swan-song?—in the works of Oscar Wilde. For instance, the scene of the five men in the third act of Lady Windermere's Fan is a veritable running-fire of epigrams wholly unconnected with the situation, and very ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room—but no tablecloth—at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky—faced savage, dressed in a shabby great—coat of the hodden grey worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and well—patched shoes; he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky steam ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... be seen in the passages; terrified faces peep out from half-opened doors. Dora Talbot, coming into the corridor in a pale pink cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan's-down, in which she looks the very personification of innocence and youth, screams loudly, and demands hysterically to be informed as to the cause of the ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... shagginess—indeed, her whole figure struck Felix as almost frighteningly vital; and she walked as if she despised the ground she covered. The boy was even more arresting. What a strange, pale-dark face, with its black, uncovered hair, its straight black brows; what a proud, swan's-eyed, thin-lipped, straight-nosed young devil, marching like a very Highlander; though still rather run-up, from sheer youthfulness! They had come abreast of the car by now, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... hovering over him closely, M'sieu sitting back in the shadows. She was like some wonderful wildflower, French, a little Indian. He told us how her long black hair would stream in a shining cascade, soft as the breast of a swan, to her knees and below; how it would hang again in two great, lustrous braids, and how her eyes were limpid pools that set his soul afire, and how her slim, beautiful body filled him with a monstrous desire. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Winnipeg Lake into a stream leading to the Ball Club Lake (missing the great tributary Leech Lake River); third, at White Oak Point, below the Eagle's Nest Savannah; fourth, Pokegama Falls, a carry of two hundred yards on the left bank (a necessity); and fifth, a cut-off above Swan River, saving six miles. This last was the only portage (except the falls) made by my party, and was availed of to reach good camping-ground before dark. Indeed, as to portaging I must yield the palm to my vainglorious successor. Behold his record! He jumped twenty-six ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... idea without believing it practicable, but such is the power of imagination among florists, that although considering the undertaking as certain to fail, all their thoughts were engrossed by that great black tulip, which was looked upon to be as chimerical as the black swan of Horace or the white ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... geese (a glutton race) by thee deplored, Portend the suitors fated to my sword.' This said, the pleasing feather'd omen ceased. When from the downy bands of sleep released, Fast by the limpid lake my swan-like train I found, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... since her father often left her by herself, all day long, yet strange to say! the rudeness of her wild condition ran over her, leaving her soul untouched, like the water running in crystal drops that beautify but do not wet the neck of a royal swan. And one day she was discovered like a treasure in the wood by a band of hermits' daughters, that were roaming at a distance from the hermitage, away in the forest's heart. And those daughters of the sages all fell suddenly in love with her at once, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... her pocket on to the floor, and sifting them. There were two pocket-handkerchiefs of fine texture, and exceedingly dirty, as if they had been there for months (the one she used she carried in the bosom of her dress or up her sleeve), a ball of string, a catapult and some swan shot, a silver pen, a pencil holder, part of an old song book, a pocket book, some tin tacks, a knife with several blades and scissors, etc.; also a silver fruit knife, two coloured pencils, indiarubber, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too, comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the ages, been singing itself in jubilee ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... never heard before seemed to come from his throat, which had suddenly become narrow and slender. Already the water had risen to his waist, and he found himself sitting easily upon it, while its surface reflected back the image of a black swan, one ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... talking to the sacristan. "I hear many objections to that bird, sir," he remarked to me, "from fastidious tourists: one thinks that a peacock, spreading its jewels by mechanism, would have a richer effect. Another says that a swan, perpetually wrestling with its dying song, would be more poetical. Others, in the light of late events, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... wolfskin sleeping-sack, about seven feet in length and wide enough to hold our two bodies; covered that with two pairs of blankets; and finally lined the whole back part of the sleigh with large, soft, swan's-down pillows. At the foot of the sleeping-sack, under the driver's seat, we stowed away a bag of dried rye-bread, another bag filled with cakes of frozen soup, two or three pounds of tea, a conical loaf of white sugar, half a dozen dried and smoked salmon, and a padded box ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... this native of Arabia; but as, from their manner of using him after they had caught him, he does not by any means appear to have been a native of Arabia Felix, the Editor has left the proprietors to treat with Mr. Polito, and refused to receive this rara avis, or black swan, into the present collection. One exception occurs, in which the admirable treatment of this feathered incombustible entitles the author to great praise: that Address has been preserved, and in the ensuing pages takes the lead, to ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... safety at any season of the year; but for this there must be a proper boat. Any person going there at present ought not to land if the surf is high, without Captain Davies' large sail-boat, which is as safe as a tug, and rides the sea like a swan. Send him word to send his largest boat at the best hour for landing. The Captain is a native ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... This day I hear that G[od] has shot an arrow into the midst of this Town. The small pox is in an ordinary ye sign of the Swan, the ordinary Keepers name is Windsor. His daughter is sick of the disease. It is observable that this disease begins at an alehouse, to testify God's displeasure agt the sin of drunkenness & yt of multiplying alehouses!" [Footnote: The Heart of the Puritan, p. 177, edited ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... waters calm, the sands bare and glistening in the early sunbeams; no vestige of the storm or of the bloody outrage of the night remained—all was peace and beauty. In the distance was a single snow-white sail, floating swan-like on the bosom of the blue waters. All around was beauty and peace, yet from the young man's tortured bosom peace had fled, and remorse, vulture-like, had struck its talons deep into his heart. He called himself a murderer, the destroyer of Marian; he said it was ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... upon his shoulders through water five fathoms deep, to apprentice him to the cunning dwarfs, from whom he learned his trade. And if this story is true, he could not have been Veliant. He was wedded to a beautiful lady, who sometimes took the form of a swan, and flew away to a pleasant lake near by, where, with other swan-maidens, she spent the warm summer days among the reeds and the water-lilies. And many other strange tales were told of Welland the smith: how he had once made a boat from the single trunk of a tree, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... consists of a block of richly carved limestone. Its sculptures are now much worn, but their motives and firm execution may still be admired. Two winged dragons, with long necks folded like that of a swan, face each other, the narrow space between them being occupied by a large two-handled vase. Above these there is a band of carved foliage, the details of which are lost in the shadow cast by a projecting cornice along the top of the lintel.[296] The necklace ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... flesh, and roast the head. With OO [One] Saracen I may well feed Well a nine or a ten Of my good Christian men. King Richard shall warrant, There is no flesh so nourissant Unto an English man, Partridge, plover, heron, ne swan, Cow ne ox, sheep ne swine, As the head of a Sarazyn. There he is fat, and thereto tender, And my men be lean and slender. While any Saracen quick be, Livand now in this Syrie, For meat will we nothing ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... daily texts, is alone responsible for a vicious national habit which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the swan. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... it was no wonder that she did not perceive the entrance of her two visitors. Her fair cheek rested on her white arm, and her white arm on the cushion of a great chair in which she sat, pleasantly supported by sweet thoughts and swan's down; a lute was at her side, and a book of prayers lay under the table (for piety is always modest). Like the amorous Alexander, she sighed and looked (at the clock)—and sighed for ten minutes or more, when she softly breathed ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... claimed for their church the remains of their benefactor; and William, indifferent as he had been to a mother's grief, would not displease an abbey. But when the monks set about finding the body of Harold, there was none to recognize it, and they had recourse to a young girl, Edith, Swan's-neck, whom Harold had loved. She discovered amongst the corpses her lover's mutilated body; and the monks bore it away to the church at Waltham, where it was buried. Some time later a rumor was spread abroad that Harold was wounded, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... rococo, peeped out behind a clump of bushy oaks. The moon shone dimly, shrouded in mist, and over the earth there was, as it were spread out, a delicate smoke. The eye could not decide what it was, whether moonlight or fog. On one of the lakes a swan was asleep; its long back was white as the snow of the frost-bound steppes, while glow-worms gleamed like diamonds in the bluish shadow at the base of ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... his breathing. ''Tis a point of honour,' said he; And blew on still. Then were silenced All the trumpeters from Frickthal, Those from Solothurn and Aarau, By the trumpeter great Rassmann. Once again we met, 'twas evening. In the 'Golden Swan' he sat then; Like a giant 'mid the pigmies Looked he in this crowd of players. Many were the goblets emptied By the trumpeters from Frickthal, And from Solothurn and Aarau, But the most capacious goblet Was drank out by my brave Rassmann. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... answered Dick, and then he shut off the engine, and silently and with the grace of a big, white swan, the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, To work his amorous will in secret hour; Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... startled! The plate before him showed the Princess's face in all its beautiful contour, but only dimly veiling a ghastly death's-head below. There was the whole bony structure of the head and the eyeless sockets; even the graceful, swan-like neck showed the articulated vertebral column that supported it in all its hideous reality. The beautiful shoulders were there, dimly as in a dream—but beneath was the empty clavicle, the knotty joint, the hollow sternum, and the ribs of a ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... meant to pass the night there. But when the sun was just going to set, she heard a rustling, and saw six swans come flying in at the window. They sat down on the floor, and blew at one another, and blew all their feathers off, and took off their swan's-skins like shirts. Then the little girl saw them and recognised her brothers, and was very glad, and crept out from under ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... mutual helpfulness among animals which is very beautiful to see. They will come together for defence and to get food, and sometimes help each other in sickness and trouble. A blind swan was fed with fish brought twice a day by other swans from a lake thirty miles away. An English sparrow pluckily rescued his mate from a big snowdrift at the risk of his life. Livingstone tells of a wounded buffalo ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... is silent as to the voyage of the Swan, it is recorded by the Spaniards that an English ship did, in 1517 or 1518, appear off the port of San Domingo, and was fired at by them, and chased from the islands; but it was not until some twenty or thirty years later that the English buccaneers ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... treasure passionately to her heart and stifled her sobs in it, while Abner exclaimed: "I swan to man, if that hain't a flag! Well, in that case you're good n' welcome to it! Land! I seen that bundle lyin' in the middle o' the road and I says to myself, that's somebody's washin' and I'd better pick it up and leave it at the post-office to ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... replied the Tartar; "what does the swan gain by fainting?—he only suffers himself, and does no good to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... came at last: the sun set, the last gleam of his "golden path of rays" faded from the waters, the sea assumed the hue of ink; the breeze sprung up, and our little vessel, with all its white sails spread, glanced like a white swan over the waves, leaving behind "a moon-illumined wake." Two hours after dark we reached Sestri, where we found miserable accommodations; and after foraging in vain for something to eat, after our day's fast, we crept to bed, all sick, sleepy, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears unwittingly trickled down ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... skirt the lawn the swan to whip the hay to suck I spend my days in reading if I could have gone to go ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... next season we took the trail en route to Cheyenne, Wyoming, with two thousand head of fine Texas steers for the Swan Brothers, 20 miles northwest of Cheyenne. Nothing of unusual importance happened on this trip aside from the regular incidents pertaining to driving such a large herd of cattle on the trail. We had a few stampedes and lost ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... in her light eyes, which she used to make small, as one does who looks at the sunshine. A remarkable point about her was that long, flexile neck, arching and undulating in strange sinuous movements, which one who loved her would compare to those of a swan, and one who loved her not to those of the ophidian who tempted our common mother. Her talk was affluent, magisterial, de haut en bas, some would say euphuistic, but surpassing the talk of women in breadth and audacity. Her face kindled and reddened and dilated in every feature as she spoke, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... stake, wood and straw were piled around him neck-high. They say as an old woman brought her few fagots to the funeral pile, Hus cried out: "O sancta simplicitas!"—O holy simplicity. Another story goes Hus said: "Today you are burning a goose (hus in Bohemian); in a hundred years will come a swan you will not burn." ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann

... the moment that Pique-Vinaigre left it was a man of about thirty years of age, with red hair, and a jovial, fat, and rubicund face; his middling stature rendered still more remarkable by his enormous corpulency. This prisoner, so rosy and stout, was wrapped up in a long, warm coat of gray swan's-down, with gaiter trousers of the same material. A kind of hooded cap of red velvet completed the costume of this personage, who wore excellent furred slippers. Although the fashion of wearing trinkets was over, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... which Clemence shortened her preparations for the night, one would have said that she must have been blessed with an unusually sleepy sensation. But when she lay in bed, with her head under her arm, like a swan with his neck under his wing, and almost in the attitude of Correggio's Magdalen, her eyes, which sparkled with a feverish light, betrayed the fact that she had sought the solitude of her bed in order to indulge more freely in ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... any very melancholy trials!" replied he: "hitherto your young life has glided along as peacefully as a swan ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... pour her heart out to her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's wife her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible; for, when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded upon her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... any arrive until after dark, when, on the beating of drums and firing of guns, some fifty large ones appeared. They were all painted with red clay, and averaged from ten to thirty paddles, with long prows standing out like the neck of a syphon or swan, decorated on the head with the horns of the Nsunnu (lencotis) antelope, between which was stuck upright a tuft of feathers exactly like a grenadier's plume. These arrived to convey us across the mouth of a deep rushy swamp ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... downstairs, and there was nobody on the first floor. The saloon of Jupiter, where the tradesmen used to meet, was papered in blue, and embellished with a large drawing representing Leda stretched out under the swan. That room was reached by a winding staircase, which ended at a narrow door opening onto the street, and above it, all night long a little lamp burned, behind wire bars, such as one still sees in some towns, at the foot of some shrine of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... that when I came near my brother's door, which was in a place they called Swan Alley, I met three or four women with high-crowned hats on their heads; and, as I remembered afterwards, one, if not more, had some hats likewise in their hands; but as I did not see them come out at my brother's door, and not knowing that my brother ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... he saw in the clear water? It was his own image, and lo! he was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, but a—swan, a beautiful white swan. It matters not if one was born in a duck yard, if one has only lain in a swan's egg. The other swans swam around him ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... breech-loading guns, twelve in number, mounted on carriages and placed in position; and, generally, the ship made to look as much like a man-of-war as possible, though she as much resembled the old-fashioned sailing sloop which then still performed duty on our more distant stations as a swan does a goose, her sailing powers far exceeding those of the fastest of them, whilst Williams' metamorphosis of her only had the effect of imparting to her an extremely rakish ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... frequent visits from vessels, those islands have been at intervals colonised during the entire period. Even formerly, when all the birds were so tame, it was impossible by Pernety's account to kill the black-necked swan—a bird of passage, which probably brought with it the wisdom learnt ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear, and you know how highly ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... many forms and with great modifications. See, for instance, the Gesta Romanorum "Of the miraculous recall of sinners and of the consolation which piety offers to the distressed," the adventures of the knight Placidus, vol. ii. 99. Charles Swan, London. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... of each other's bodies in a forest of the lower cretaceous period. So far as he could learn, that sort of thing went on unchecked for hundreds of thousands of years, and was typical of the intercourse of the races of man till a comparatively recent period. There was also that gigantic swan, the Plesiosaurus; in fact, all the early brutes were disgusting. He delighted to think that even the lower animals had improved, both in appearance ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... with excitement, for, truth to tell, mother and daughter made a charming picture as they came up the little path. Mrs Wallace looked almost like a girl herself in her becoming hat and veil, while the golden-haired child wore a white coat and cap edged with fluffy swan's-down. Sylvia ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... heading? Toward some destination in the general direction of the constellation Cygnus. The transformation equations work fine on an interstellar ship. Would they work on a man? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to transform yourself into a swan? Cygnus the Swan. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... on the ancient stronghold at Cleve is a swan, and in olden times the dynasty that ruled over the lovely country round Cleve had also a swan in their crest. A legend, tragic and beautiful, preserved to posterity forever in Richard Wagner's lovely opera, is connected with it,—the legend ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... the valleys one and all? What is cloth'd best in the monarch's hall? What cries more loud than cranes can cry? And what can in whiteness the swan outvie? Look out, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... Browning's graceful treatment of a young girl's imaginings, in her well-known poem, "The Romance of a Swan's Nest." ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... higher than the average of his misses in such things. The title, An Adventurer of the North, is to my mind cumbrous and rough, and difficult in the mouth. Compare it with some of the stories within the volume itself: for instance, The Going of the White Swan, A Lovely Bully, At Bamber's Boom, At Point o' Bugles, The Pilot of Belle Amour, The Spoil of the Puma, A Romany of the Snows, and The Finding of Fingall. There it was, however; I made the mistake and it sticks; but the book now will be published ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... tell you a story," continued the Indian, "and it is true. It did not come into my head. I did not dream it. There was a man-of-the-woods, and he had a squaw and one child, a girl. The parents were very fond of this girl. She was graceful like the swan. Her eyes were large, brown, and beautiful like the eyes of a young deer. She was active and playful like the young rabbit. When she was at home the wigwam was full of light. When she was absent it was dark. The girl loved her father and mother, and never disobeyed them or ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... where the Swan River makes into the Peace, we came one glorious afternoon upon a camp of Crees, the family of the Se-weep-i-gons. They had just killed two bears. We bought the skins and a large portion of meat from them, and Mrs. Se-weep-i-gon very kindly added to the feast ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... all the sun that shines? Day, night, Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it; In a great pool, a swan's nest; pr'ythee, think There's livers ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... detachment, separating from the main body, was to go northward to Edmonton, by way of forts Ellice and Carlton, while a third, under the charge of the Commissioner, was to return to the proposed headquarters at Fort Pelly or Swan River, on the north-west boundary of Manitoba. These objectives were all reached after many serious hardships, the only modification in the places being in regard to the Swan River. On returning to that point in the beginning of winter, Colonel ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of which sortes appear as Alna, Cessna, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry said, "Drat these losers of caps! will they NEVER be done with disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in a summer. And first there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next there's one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled into ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... that a gun was fired to announce its coming in. Sheffield set up a "flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760: it "slept" the first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s., and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But the principal part of the expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not to mention the fees to ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... The wild swan floats upon my breast; The sea-gulls to my waters sink; And stealing to my low green shores, The timid deer oft stoops to drink. The yellow jessamine's golden bells Ring on my banks their fairy chime; And tall flag lilies bow and bend, To the low ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... (it was November), in the sight of all the citizens, who were forbidden to show her any respect, but, at the same time, were ordered not to molest her.(836) The latter they were little likely to do. Nay! on each day as she landed at the Temple, at the Swan or at Oueenhithe, the mayor and sheriffs went forth to attend her, accompanied by members of the livery companies.(837) Yet, not a finger did her husband raise in her defence! He either could not or ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... your victim—and yet God has given Sirona to no man as he has given her wholly to me, for to no man can she be what she is to me, and no man can love her as I do! She has the nature of an angel, and the heart of a child; she is without spot, and as pure as the diamond, or the swan's breast, or the morning-dew in the bosom of a rose. And though she had let you into her house a thousand times, and though my father even, and my own mother, and every one, every one pointed at her and condemned her, I would never cease to believe in her purity. It is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... insects, and animals, there are many groups that have special attraction for children. For instance, among the "Birds we read about" are the flamingo, cassowary, condor, and quetzal; the eagle owl is contrasted with the pygmy owl, and the peacock, lyre bird, albatross, swan, and ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... any swimming birds, such as the swan and the goose, whose legs are short, nevertheless have a very long neck, it is because these birds in swimming on the surface of the water have the habit of plunging their head down as far as they can, to catch aquatic larvae and different animalcules ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... hair, the pale and intellectual face beneath it, and the sensuous curves of the compact little form. For my own part, my vote was for Antonia, for the belle of the gathering; but she sailed through the evening, "like some full-breasted swan," accepting no homage except the slavish devotion of Cecil, whose constant offering of his neck to her tread gave him recognition as entitled to the reward of those who are permitted only to ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... confining himself to the processional pageantry of bas-relief. Yet, were this comparison to be instituted, we could hardly refrain from carrying it much further. Each great master of the Renaissance had his own relation to classical mythology. The mystic sympathies of "Leda and the Swan," as imaged severally by Lionardo and Michael Angelo; Correggio's romantic handling of the myths of "Danae" and "Io;" Titian's and Tintoretto's rival pictures of "Bacchus and Ariadne;" Raphael's "Galatea;" Pollajuolo's "Hercules;" ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... very comfortably looking at a line of extraordinarily scarlet poppies that glowed against a glowing sky. It was the sky of a magnificent sunrise, and an archipelago of gold-beached purple islands floated in a sea of golden green. The poppies too, swan-necked buds, blazing corollas, translucent stout seed-vessels, stoutly upheld, had a luminous quality, seemed wrought only from some more ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... of Cottesmore; and overhead rushed and whirled the skeins of terrified wildfowl, screaming, piping, clacking, croaking, filling the air with the hoarse rattle of their wings; while, clear above all, sounded the wild whistle of the curlew, and the trumpet note of the wild swan.” “Prose Idylls,” ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... millimeters, and whose weight was from 5 to 6 kilogrammes. The results were: intensity, 1 ampere; electro-motive power, 25 volts, corresponding to an energy of 25 volt-amperes, or about 2.5 kilogrammeters per second. The pile was covered with a copper jacket whose upper parts supported two Swan lamps. Upon putting on the cover a contact was formed with the electrodes, and it was possible by means of a commutator key with three eccentrics to light or extinguish one of the lamps or both at once. A single element ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... This heart with Passion soft to glow: Within your soul a voice there lives! It bids you hear the tale of Woe. When sinking low the sufferer wan Beholds no hand outstretch'd to save, 10 Fair, as the bosom of the Swan That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen your breast with pity heave, And therefore love I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of commercialism and imperialism. ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... I guess it's better I don't say anythin'. It's a pity, though, onless you love this Buster Jack. An' you never used to do that, I'll swan." ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... than usual in her and modestly attributed Tom's devotion, Sydney's interest, and Frank's undisguised admiration, to the new bonnet or, more likely, to that delightful combination of cashmere, silk, and swan's-down, which, like Charity's mantle, seemed to cover a multitude of sins in other people's eyes and exalt the little music teacher to the rank of a ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... day there were again requests from the House to Fairfax for their release. It could not be granted; but they were marched through the streets to better accommodation in two inns in the Strand, called the Swan and the King's Head. Meanwhile Pride's watch at the doors of the House had been effectively continued. There were several new arrests on the 7th; many members, not arrested, were forcibly turned back; and many more, among whom was Denzil Holies, kept prudently ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... from afar. To him greatest of comforts It became in the world at the wished-for tidings,— His heart delighted,—which army-leaders 995 Over the east-ways, messengers, brought him, How happy a journey over the swan-road The men with the queen successfully made To the land of the Greeks. The Caesar bade them With greatest haste again prepare 1000 Themselves for the way. The men delayed not As soon as they had the answer heard, The words ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous

... millionnaire to amuse people who do not possess a cent! He did not get off again until they reached Dantzic; he did not even put his nose to the window; he sucked solitary consolation from his porcelain pipe, on which Leda caressed her swan ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... "Waal, I swan!" cried Hiram, "that would be the biggest thing ever happened in Mason's Corner. Well, I rather think I shall be able to tend to that matter now, at once. One, two, three," said Hiram, "just think of it; well, that's the ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... and Cedarbrush Islands moved the Deerfoot like a swan skimming over the placid waters. Then came Hendrick Light, Dog Fish Head, Green Islands and Boston Island. Powderhorn was passed, and then they glided by Isle of Springs, which brought them in sight of Sawyer. A little beyond was the inlet where ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... felt the bracelet on her wrist glow with a strange, unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red blood and tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the water,—bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first time found her destiny. It was to please, and so to command, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... carack's head was laid so as to cut the path of the San Antonio circling round them slowly like a wounded swan, and the boarders made ready their swords and knives, for here archery would not avail them, Castell gave some orders to the captain. He bade him, if they were cut down or taken, to put about and run for Seville, and there ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... was deserted. Worn out with fatigue and hunger, he sat down on a rock in the hollow of which there lay some yellow eggs, marked with black spots, and about as large as those of a swan. But he did not touch ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne along on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so crystalline that he could see through ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... have such a swan-like death than to live on as a butcher's daughter," said Sophia, and sarcasm was only a small ingredient in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... have hung On which melodiously they sung; That have the hard fate to write best 625 Of those still that deserve it least; It matters not how false, or forc'd: So the best things be said o' th' worst: It goes for nothing when 'tis said; Only the arrow's drawn to th' bead, 630 Whether it be a swan or goose They level at: So shepherds use To set the same mark on the hip Both of their sound and rotten sheep: For wits, that carry low or wide, 635 Must be aim'd higher, or beside The mark, which else they ne'er ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... years ago, and the foundations were then laid of the settlement of New South Wales, or Sydney. It was at first a penal colony, and its Botany Bay was a name of terror to offenders. Western Australia, or Swan River, was first settled as a free colony in 1829, but afterwards used also as a penal settlement; South Australia, which has Adelaide for its capital, was first established in 1834, and colonised in 1836; Victoria, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... had taken a place in the 'bei-wagon'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had, however, only read Werter, and that in the French translation. He walked ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... numerous;—many of them hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids; some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep, and the winds come so finely sifted that they are as soft as swan's down. Rocks scattered about,—Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh- water lakes; one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing pickerel lying under the lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... crows here, exactly the same with those in England. About the head of the harbour, where there are large flats of sand and mud, there is great plenty of water-fowl, most of which were altogether unknown to us: One of the most remarkable was black and white, much larger than a swan, and in shape somewhat resembling a pelican. On these banks of sand and mud there are great quantities of oysters, mussels, cockles, and other shell-fish, which seem to be the principal subsistence of the inhabitants, who go into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... and the mind must be calm when it would control the humour. Calm was my mind, sweet Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my knee, and wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains for thy neck like the swan's down, I said, 'The flowers fade, but the chain lasts ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... grief and care? Why does no canopy, like foam For its white beauty, shade thee home, Its hundred ribs spread wide to throw Splendour on thy fair head below? Where are the royal fans, to grace The lotus beauty of thy face, Fair as the moon or wild-swan's wing, And waving round the new-made king? Why do no sweet-toned bards rejoice To hail thee with triumphant voice? No tuneful heralds love to raise Loud music in their monarch's praise? Why do no ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... wit like a razor's edge, with teeth like pearls, with majesty of bearing like to that of the king himself, with fingers like rosebuds set in pink seashells, with motion like that of an antelope, with grace like that of a swan floating upon water, and—I don't remember the ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... Procopius, who described those of the Emperor Justinian. He had already delighted the royal ear in a beautiful effusion of fancy and antiquarianism, in his Cygnea Cantio, the Song of the Swans. The swan of Leland, melodiously floating down the Thames, from Oxford to Greenwich, chants, as she passes along, the ancient names and honours of the towns, the castles, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... away?" Having perambulated the streets, the sound of music attracted Jemmy Green's attention, and our party turned into a long, crowded and brilliantly lighted bazaar, just as the last notes of a barrel-organ at the far end faded away, and a young woman in a hat and feathers, with a swan's-down muff and tippet, was handed by a very smart young man in dirty white Berlin gloves, and an equally soiled white waistcoat, into a sort of orchestra above where, after the plaudits of the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... the power of this agent of communication, even in the savage breast. After, in the greatest good humour, and with an evident desire to make themselves agreeable, going through various feats of their wonderful dexterity, they proceeded on board the Swan River packet, until the Tamar is ready to proceed with them to Great Island. The women were frightfully ornamented with human bones hung round them in various fantastic forms, even to the rows of teeth and skulls. Some of these were the remains of enemies, and white ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various

... where a luncheon was prepared. At one o'clock the Lord Mayor in his half-state carriage with four horses and outriders, the Sheriffs in their state carriages, and some of the Aldermen in theirs, set out in procession for the Swan Tavern, Stratford. They held there a Court of Conservancy for the county of Essex, after which they proceeded to Blackwall, and crossed the water in the city state barge, which was decorated in grand style with banners and flags. At four they held a Court for the county ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... showed me a tiny atze that very rich ladies in China wear because their feet never grow large. Amah means a nurse. We came home in horse cars because it was Sunday and steam cars do not go often on Sunday. Conductors and engineers do get very tired and go home to rest. I saw little Willie Swan in the car and he gave me a juicy pear. He was six years old. What did I do when I was six years old? Will you please ask my father to come to train to meet teacher and me? I am very sorry that Eva and Bessie are sick. I hope I can have a nice party my birthday, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... as he drew rein alongside the two lads. "What's this here yer lookin' at? Another dead calf? No, I swan if it ain't a yearling as has been pulled down now. Things seem t' be gittin' t' a warm pass when sech doin' air allowed. Huh! an' it looks like Sallie's work, too! That sly ole critter is goin' t' git t' the end of her rope some ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady—no, a gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Andersen's tale had strayed on a wintry day to her door, she would have taken it in, and nourished, and cherished it all through the cold, dark weather; but when the summer was come, and the duckling grown into a swan, spread its broad white wings against the blue sky, she would have watched it fly away without word or sign to detain it; she would have had nothing in common ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... Ditton, and his capitol the Swan Inn. Ditton is, like many other pretty English villages, little and old. It is mentioned in Domesday Boke as belonging to the bishop of Bayeux in Normandy, famous for the historic piece of tapestry. Wadard, a gentleman with a Saxon name, held it of him, probably ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... falls. He will wish to learn how you know that it falls, and, if acquainted with the notions of the middle ages, he may refer to the opinion of Father Laurus, that a goose egg filled in the morning with dew and exposed to the sun, will rise like a balloon—a swan's egg being better for the experiment than a goose egg. It is impossible to give the boy a clear notion of the beautiful phenomenon to which his question refers, without first making him acquainted with the radiation and conduction of heat. Take, for example, a ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... did not like his black coat had the wish to grow as white as a Swan. So he left his old friends and haunts, and went to the streams and lakes, where he spent all his time washing and dressing his clothes; but all was of no use, he was just as black as ever; and as he had not had food that was good for him, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmaena; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... MISSION, which had been carried on by our honoured brethren, Messrs. Swan and Stallybrass, near the Siberian edge of the Tartar deserts and among the Buriat Mongols, was broken up by the Russian Government, and our brethren were withdrawn. The Directors have not forgotten that mission, nor lost their interest in the Mongol tribes. Recent enquiries have shown that ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... confided to the crowd. "They told me to look out fer them scalawags when I come to town, but I swan I didn't expect to see a gal like that tryin' to lift my wallet. No, sir! But they got to get up pretty early in the mornin' to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart

... that Perrault had in the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan—if he followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be sure to bring something down. He did not know that the Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... served seven elaborate courses, each course requiring one hundred and forty plates of silver. There were seven sorts of soup, then patties of capon, and the ham of the wild boar; then partridge, pheasant, peacock, bittern, heron, bustard, gosling, woodcock and swan. This was the third course, concluding with antelope and wild horse. An entremet or spectacle followed, and then a course of small birds and game, this served on gold instead of silver. Next appeared tarts and cakes and intricate pastries, and later, after another spectacle, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... coeval with the continent. The brigantine was aweigh; and, under a light show of canvas, she was making easy stretches in the little basin, resembling, by the ease and grace of her movements, some beautiful swan sailing up and down in the enjoyment of its instinct. A boat had just touched the shore, and the 'Skimmer of the Seas' stood near, stretching out a hand to aid the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the swan singing its own funeral hymn!' said the patrician Placidus, looking in maudlin pity from the corpse of the boy to the face of Vetranio, which presented for the moment an involuntary ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... overcame his own shyness, and tucked her beside him. They drove into Nottingham and put up at the "Black Swan". So far all right. Then he wanted to leave her at the inn. But he saw her face, and knew it was impossible. So he mustered his courage, and set off with her, holding her hand, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... his time. My brother Alfgar will be outlawed before he dies, if he has the spirit of a man in him. It is the fashion, my uncle, and I must follow it. So hey for the merry greenwood, and the long ships, and the swan's bath, and all the rest of it. Uncle, you will lend me fifty ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... of John Keats were Thomas Keats, and Frances, daughter of Mr. Jennings, who kept a large livery-stable, the Swan and Hoop, in the Pavement, Moorfields, London. Thomas Keats was the principal stableman or assistant in the same business. John, a seven months' child, was born at the Swan and Hoop on 31 October, 1795. Three other children grew up—George, Thomas, and Fanny, John ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... Authoress, eagerly sought; And still of each female they met, as they flew, Impatiently ask'd, "is it you ma'am? or you?" But vain was the question; so both hasten'd on, [p 25] To the banks of a lake, where resided the SWAN; But she was in majesty sailing away On her silver domain, and gone out for the day. They, therefore, proceeded to Turkey-Cock Farm, And caus'd in the family there, some alarm: But the PEACOCK his Cousin most kindly embrac'd, And the fright of the Youngsters was shortly effac'd: So the ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown

... mode of conveyance, and nothing can be more picturesque. The sledge of the Duc de Guiche, in which reclined the Duchesse, the Duc seated behind her and holding, at each side of her, the reins of the horse, presented the form of a swan, the feathers beautifully sculptured. The back of this colossal swan being hollowed out, admitted a seat, which, with the whole of the interior, was covered with fine fur. The harness and trappings of the superb horse that drew it were richly decorated, and innumerable ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... a similar, but less perfect, "coal-sack'' in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation of "The Swan,'' which, strange to say, also contains a well-marked figure of a cross outlined by stars. This gap lies near the top of the cross-shaped figure. It is best seen by averted vision, which brings out the contrast with the Milky Way, which is quite brilliant around ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... to the store," he said and Denver followed in a daze. She was not like any woman he had ever dreamed of, nor was she the woman he had thought. In the night, when she was singing, she had seemed slender and ethereal with her swan's neck and piled up hair; but now she was different, a glorious human animal, strong and supple yet with the lines of a girl. And her eyes were still the eyes of a child, big and ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... family of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, in the county of Dumfries was about to die—either by accident or disease—a swan that was never seen but on such occasions, was sure to make its appearance upon the lake which surrounded Closeburn Castle, coming no one knew whence, and passing away as mysteriously when the predicted death had taken place, in connection with which the following ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... Mr. Caleb Swan, who visited the Creek Indians of Georgia in 1790, found the people living in small houses or cabins, but in clusters, each cluster being occupied by a part of a gens or clan. He remarks that "the smallest of their towns have from ten to forty houses, and some of the largest from fifty ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... Blenheim, or Eaton Hall, he must have resolved that he too would build a stately house on the banks of the James. If he had never been to England, he might take down an English book of architecture—Batty Langley's Treasury of Designs, or Abraham Swan's The British Architect, or James Gibb's A Book of Architecture—pick out a suitable design and model his house on it. He might even send to England for an architect, as did George Mason, when he engaged William Buckland to design beautiful Gunston Hall. Westover, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the moment had come for his carefully rehearsed speech, but, unhappily, he could not remember how the swan-song started. He racked his brain for the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... Knight Grand Cross of the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived in the second floor of a house in the Schwapsgasse; where, with his private income ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the ships Swan and Mercury, had entered the passage which they called the Straits of Nassau, but which are now known to all the world as the Waigats. They were informed by the Samoyedes of the coast that, after penetrating the narrow channel, they would find themselves in a broad and open sea. Subsequent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... John Arnold, the bookbinder, who displayed a Saracen's head upon his signboard; then came in regular order Julian Walton, the mercer, with a wheelbarrow; Stephen Fronsard, the girdler, with a cardinal's hat; John Silverton, the pelter or furrier, with a star; Peter Swan, the Court broiderer, with cross-keys; John Morstowe, the luminer, or illuminator of books, with a rose; Lionel de Ferre, the French baker, with a vine; Herman Goldsmith, the Court goldsmith, who bore a dolphin; William Alberton, the forcermonger, who kept what we should call a fancy shop for little ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... no end of things to see down there—water-rats and frogs; and there's a swan's nest, with the old bird sitting; and don't the old cock come after you savage if you go near! Oh, we do have rare games there on ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his chef-d'oeuvre, the chef-d'oeuvre of his whole life, as his swan-song. He died, it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain he had into that speech. And poor Ippolit Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed that ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... seems as if she lorded it over him pretty effectually," broke in the adjutant. "Day before yesterday Stark had had his fill at the White Swan, and when he became a trifle noisy and quarrelsome his wife arrived on the scene and behaved simply disgracefully. Finally she tucked him under her arm and took him home amidst the shouts and laughter of the other guests. I don't think their meeting at home can have ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... George Washington broke it with his little hatchet; but I can have a legend about you connected with it, and tell it to your grandchildren when I show it to them fifty years hence. Unto them I will discover—not a swan's nest among the reeds, as Mrs. Browning has it, but an old yellow pitcher that their lovely grandmother was in trouble ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... Bathilde closed her window. Nevertheless, even in this short time the chevalier had finished the young girl's head, and the likeness was perfect. There was her waving hair, her fine transparent skin, the graceful curve of her swan-like neck; in fact, all to which art can attain with one of those inimitable models which are ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... its head down upon the water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image; and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but a—swan! ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... Sowed the swan-bright woman, Rings of red gold She gave to the house-carls; Fate let she wax, Let the bright gold flow forth, In naught spared that woman ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... slim-necked swan; And, sign of exiled souls, the bay divine; Ruddy as seraph's heel its fleckless sheen, Blushing the ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray

... point His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed, That stemed as a forneis of led. His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. He was not pale as a forpined gost. A fat swan loved he best of any rost. His palfrey was as ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... eyes by the azure tint it imparts." ... Part of the echo may be "the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by the wood nymph." It is darker, the poet's flute is heard out over the pond and Walden hears the swan song of that "Day" and faintly echoes... Is it a transcendental tune of Concord? 'Tis an evening when the "whole body is one sense," ... and before ending his day he looks out over the clear, crystalline water of the ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... eleven winters, between the years 1824 and 1835, in the state of North Carolina, mostly in the vicinity of Wilmington; and four out of the eleven on the estate of Mr. John Swan, five or six miles from that place. There were on his plantation about seventy slaves, male and female: some were married, and others lived together as man and wife, without even a mock ceremony. With their owners generally, it is a matter of indifference; ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... with modern buildings are generally dirty, for want of these natural helps; as Digbeth, St. Martin's-lane, Swan-alley, Carr's-lane, &c. The narrower the street, the less it can be influenced by the sun and the wind, consequently, the more the dirt will abound; and by experimental observations upon stagnate water in the street, it ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... that you will perhaps not recognize at once how every line reveals character, how every situation springs from the foibles of human nature. Indeed in this one-act farce Feydeau, with about as much trouble as Zeus took in transforming his godship into the semblance of a swan, has given you a well-rounded picture of middle-class life in France with its external and internal implications.... And how he understands the buoyant French grue, unselfconscious and undismayed in any situation. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... was employed, learnt that she had been arrested (you see, the red stitches on her handkerchief, which everyone had supposed were laundry marks, turned out to be plans of Hampton Court Maze and the most direct route to Swan and Selfinsons), and, seizing the rifle, he rushed from the house (it was the night the Russians passed through Aberdeen and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various

... was filled with envy on seeing the beautiful white plumage of a Swan, and thought it was due to the water in which the Swan constantly bathed and swam. So he left the neighbourhood of the altars, where he got his living by picking up bits of the meat offered in sacrifice, and went and lived among the pools and streams. But though he bathed and washed his ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... recesses; nor did ever adventurous aeronaut look down from his dizzy elevation of miles on its tub-like proportions, or its gay flag of motley. And yet we question whether even Mr. Wakley himself, with all his advantages, would venture to do more than assert his equality with the Swan of Avon. Homer, too, wrote in a very remote period,—so very remote and so very uncertain, that the critics have begun seriously to doubt whether the huge figure of the blind old man, as it looms through the grey ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... much. Once you told us how Hus was burned because he had dared to tell the truth to those in power. You told us how he went to the stake and joyfully commended himself into the hands of God, and how he prophesied about the swan that should come singing new songs in praise of awakened freedom. That's the way I have thought that you would meet your death—with your head thrown back, and your eyes toward the sky, and the people crying: ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... are "Sydney Ducks," who have seen service in the chain-gangs of Australia. They have also served as sailors, this being their original calling. But since a certain voyage to the Swan River settlement—in which they were but passengers, sent out at the expense of Her Britannic Majesty's Government—they have had aversion to the sea, and only take to it intermittently—when under the necessity of working passage from port to port for other purposes. Escaping ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... on rings was of Roman origin My wife and I had some high words Petition against hackney coaches Playing the fool with the lass of the house Posies for Rings, Handkerchers and Gloves Some merry talk with a plain bold maid of the house To the Swan and drank our morning draft Wedding for which the posy ring was required Went to bed with my head not well by my too ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

... no sooner uttered than Pedro, much to his astonishment, saw that the lovely princess had been turned into a white swan, with a small gold crown on the top of ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image—and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but —a swan. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... three varieties, the ordinary type, a brown-flowered one and one with tubular rays. Seeds of each of these three sorts ordinarily contain a few belonging to the others. Iberis umbellata rosea often gives some white and violet examples. The "Swan" variety of the opium-poppy, a dwarfish double-flowered form of a pure white, contained some single-flowered and some red-flowered plants, when sown from commercial seed are said to be pure. But these were only occasional admixtures, since after artificial ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... Sing out thy swan-song with full throat, September, From a full heart, with golden notes and clear! No rose will wreathe thee; yet the harebell's here, And still thy crown of heath the hills remember. Bright burns thy fire, e'en to its ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... the deceit there is in exact proportions; its depth was vista-like, something never to be said of an equal interior. When he stopped to make survey, and looked down upon the floor, he was standing upon the breast of a Leda, represented as caressing a swan; and, looking farther, he saw the whole floor was similarly laid in mosaic pictures of mythological subjects. And there were stools and chairs, each a separate design, and a work of art exquisitely composed, and tables much carven, and here and there couches ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Brisket." So he did; and continuing his way along the back of the Bank and the narrow street which used to be called Lad Lane,—I wish they would not alter the names of the streets; was it not enough that the "Swan with Two Necks" should be pulled down, foreshadowing, perhaps, in its ruin the fate of another bird with two necks, from which this one took its emblematic character?—and so making his way out into Aldersgate Street. He had never before ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... and home-bred Kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The Swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, Swan and Shadow! We will not see them; will not go, Today, nor yet tomorrow; Enough if in our hearts we know, There's ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... of any anxiety I had felt in regard to having my swan-like throat cut by the Danites, but thinks my wholesale denunciation of a people I had never seen was rather hasty. The following is the paragraph to which the Saints objected. It occurs in an "Artemus Ward" paper on Brigham Young, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... kindreds of the Mid-mark had roofs like to it; and of these the chiefest were the Elkings, the Vallings, the Alftings, the Beamings, the Galtings, and the Bearings; who bore on their banners the Elk, the Falcon, the Swan, the Tree, the Boar, and the Bear. But other lesser and newer kindreds there were than these: as for the Hartings above named, they were ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... their midst a white unruffled swan appear. One strange barge that snowy tapestries enfold, White its tasseled, silver prow. Who is here? Prince of Love in masquerade or Prince of Fear, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... and the Spokane are several beautiful lakes. We met a hunter coming from one of them, who had shot a white swan. He said he found it circling round and round its dead mate, in so much distress that he thought it was a kindness to ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... follow the dress to its conclusion. George Odell, a fisherman, says, "In the month of March, just above Old Swan stairs, off against the Iron Wharfs, when I was dredging for coals I picked up a bundle, which was tied up with either a piece of chimney line or window line, in the cover of a chair bottom; there were ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... Rallus rythyrhynchus, is called "little donkey" from its braying cries. Strange eerie voices have all these birds. Of the remaining aquatic species, the most important is the spur-winged crested screamer; a noble bird as large as a swan, yet its favourite pastime is to soar upwards until it loses itself to sight in the blue ether, whenca it pours forth its resounding choral notes, which reach the distant earth clarified, and with a rhythmic swell and fall ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... because I at the same time ate mackerel with gooseberries as the sauce. The first syllable of the latter word, being that which had coexisted with the image of the bird so called, I may then think of a goose. In the next moment the image of a swan may arise before me, though I had never seen the two birds together. In the first two instances, I am conscious that their co-existence in time was the circumstance, that enabled me to recollect them; and equally conscious am I that the latter ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge









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