"Swear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It would seem that to swear is not to call God to witness. Whoever invokes the authority of Holy Writ calls God to witness, since it is His word that Holy Writ contains. Therefore, if to swear is to call God to witness, whoever invoked the authority of Holy Writ ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... But are you sure you can work it—with your people? If you back out, I swear, by the sin of the sack of Chitor, I'll join the beastly crowd who are learning to make bombs ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... stand alone in Macbeth. The later prophecies of the Witches Macbeth calls 'the equivocation of the fiend That lies like truth' (V. v. 43); and the Porter's remarks about the equivocator who 'could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven,' may be compared with the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... ceases to be assured to it. On the day that the South accepts any compromise whatever, it will have renounced, not the maintenance doubtless, but the propagation of slavery; it will have renounced its rule. Compromises, (there will be such, perhaps, let us swear to nothing; before or after the war, with the entire South, or with a part of it,) compromises will be signed henceforth without any delusion. The South knows, marvellously well, that these compromises will bear little resemblance ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... a fall. Since Franklin's day, in the city of Richmond, a young man went to the market to purchase a turkey. He looked around for some one to carry it home for him, being too proud to do it himself, and finding no one, he began to fret and swear, much to the annoyance of bystanders. A gentleman stepped up to him and said, "That is in my way, and I will take your turkey home for you." When they came to the house, the young fop asked, "What shall I pay you?" "O, nothing at all," replied the gentleman, "it was all in the way, and it ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... realise that it is all over. What is this?—such a cold, set face! My poor little Nora, I quite understand; you don't feel as if you could believe that I have forgiven you. But it is true, Nora, I swear it; I have forgiven you everything. I know that what you did, you did out of ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... devised better! We bring Obe the Bear, but they have now slain the great-toothed one. I saw it, I swear! They slew him easily!" He gasped for breath, then gained his feet and gave them eloquent gesture of what he ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... got so far in the course of his speech, when the faithful Sancho could restrain his admiration for his master no longer. Brimming over with enthusiasm, he burst out: "Is it possible there is any one in the world who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Tell me, gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or learned, who could say what my master has said; or is there a knight errant, whatever ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nothing, but that somehow or other I should say it I would trust,—I do trust to your frankness, kindness, and sympathy, to a feeling corresponding to my own. Do you understand that feeling? Do you know that I love you? I do, I do, I do! You must know it. If you don't, I solemnly swear it. I solemnly ask you, Elizabeth, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... says Swedenborg, "we shall treat of both these symbolical and typical resemblances, and of the astonishing things that occur, I will not say in the living body only, but throughout Nature, and which correspond so entirely to supreme and spiritual things, that one would swear that the physical world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world."[4] And Carlyle: "All visible things are emblems. What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking is not there at all. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... him for that. He's a devil, that monkey. He has bitten all the children around here, has killed all my chickens, and raised more hell in this village than the whole population put together. I swear, I believe he just enjoys being mean. Come in and have a snifter after that greeting! Did he ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... can swear to it. As I told you, I don't know him well, but I know all about him, and I am satisfied of his complete innocence, and that he is entirely unaware of Madame de ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... man respecting himself afterward! It destroys a woman's body, but the men—well, it's the most damnable, soul-destroying thing in a man's life; he's lost and don't even know it. Run along," he said after a pause, "or I'll hold forth for another hour in an unprofessional way. It makes me swear to see a pretty girl ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... said Whitaker, with much reverence; "I hope I know my place. I am your ladyship's poor servant; and I know it does not become me to drink and swear like your ladyship—that is, like his honour, Sir Geoffrey, I would say. But I pray you, if I am not to drink and swear after my degree, how are men to know Peveril of the Peak's steward,—and I may say ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... man sobered and a puzzled frown crossed his brow. "I have noticed, yes. But it's nonsense, Bert, I swear it is. She has been having dreams—worrying a lot, it seems. Guess I'll have to send ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... cared to look deeply. He loved these heroic workers of the fields. It had been given to him—a great task—to be the means of creating a test for them, his neighbors under a ban of suspicion; and now he could swear they were as true as the gold of the waving wheat. More than a harvest was this most strenuous and colorful of all times ever known in the Bend; it had a significance that ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... this answer the Young Man began to curse and to swear and to say that he had looked everywhere for help and had never found it; that he was minded to live his own life and to see what would come of it; that he thought the Older Man knew nothing of ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. But if they determine about nothing,—which it is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them, nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived with us,—but if however the gods determine about none of the things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful; and that is useful to every man which ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... judication is sound, Le-loo; stay where you be an' if he hain't a witch I'll bet my front tooth agin the string of his moccasin that I'll find the bridge, and I'll swear by my grandmother's hind leg that that little imp will pay for our ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... Halil, "those who have dishonoured thee shall, this very day, lie in the dust before thee, by Allah. I swear it. Thou shalt play with the heads of those who have played with thy heart, and that selfsame puffed-up Sultana who has stretched out her hand against thee shall be glad to kiss thy hand. I, Halil Patrona, have said it, and let me be accursed above all other Mussulmans ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... him and threw him out in the snow. There he would have certainly died, had not Dr. Wright happened along and carried him to the hospital, where he has been ever since. The doctor had Rosenblatt up before the Court, but he brought a dozen men to swear that the boy was a bad and dangerous boy and that he was only defending himself. Fancy a great big man against a boy thirteen! Well, would you believe it, Rosenblatt escaped and laid a charge against the boy, and would ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... Of course they do—as sheltered women may; But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay? They—If their own front door is shut, they'll swear the whole world's warm; What do they know of dread of death ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... to blows, with none To hinder. For the hand that thus had wrought Was any of ours, and none; the guilty man Escaped all knowledge. And we were prepared To lift hot iron with our bare palms; to walk Through fire, and swear by all the Gods at once That we were guiltless, ay, and ignorant Of who had plotted or performed this thing. When further search seemed bootless, at the last One spake, whose words bowed all our heads to the earth With fear. We knew not what to answer him, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... me and threated me. And say I, "Your Grace must know how young she was." And says he, "I would swear that at that date she was no child, but that I do not know how many of these nauseous Howard brats there be. Nor yet the order in which they came. But this I will swear that I think there has been some change of the Queen with a whelp that died in the ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... little great country folks," continued the devil, "how genteely they swear in order to obtain credit with their mistresses, or with the shop-keepers; and when they have decked themselves out, O how insolently they look upon many of the middling officers of the church and state, and how much worse on the common people! as if they were a species of reptiles in comparison ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... other replied, breathing heavily,—"not now, Monsieur Bulmaire. You have conquered, and the woman is yours. Yet lend me my life for a little till I may meet you more equitably. I will not fail you,—I swear it—I, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... advisedly on account of the constant loss he suffered, or perhaps because he thought his decision would be for my benefit), a determination from which he was to be moved neither by arguments, nor adjurations, nor abuse. He forced me to swear that I would never again visit his house for the sake of gaming, and I, on my part, swore by all the gods as he wished. That day's play was our last, and thenceforth I gave myself ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... signify a secret wish For now and then a favorite dish Of politics to suit them. But here we rest at perfect ease, For should they swear the moon was cheese, We never should ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... over Binder didn't have a friend in town. Leaked out little by little that as soon as one of the men who'd been cheering for jolly old Binder got yellow jack, the first thing he did was to make his wife swear that she'd have Magoffin do ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... word pointed solemnly to a snow-mound, where the man lay buried. But I did not see the big squaw, nor the face that had emerged from the tent flaps to wave me off; and when I also inquired after these, Louis' face darkened. He told me bluntly I was asking too many questions and began to swear in a mongrel jargon of French and English that my conduct was an insult he would take from no man. But Louis was ever short of temper. I remembered that of old. Presently his little flare-up died down, and he told me that the woman and her husband ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... The rigorous subordination of the young to their elders was maintained in war as in peace. The legend held, that after this constitution of Lycurgus had been approved by the Delphian oracle, he made the citizens swear to observe it until he should return from a projected journey. He then went to Crete, and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Yes, I will drive you to Bologna if the landlord will swear to look after my horse." And he was ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... then, consistently with my duty and loyalty, swear to this William and Mary as my lawful sovereigns? I say not 'tis incumbent on me to refuse to live under them a peaceful life, but make oath to them as my King and Queen I cannot, so long as King James shall ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she said. "And what must he do but come bursting round to my place—half an hour before I'm due to start for the show—and carry on like a madman. Scared stiff, I was. Tried to make me swear I'd marry him and start for Timbuctoo to-morrow, and when I wouldn't, wanted to shoot himself and me too—as though I'd made a muck of things. Well, I'd done my best, and when it came to that sort of sob-stuff I'd had enough. What's he take me for? Get me into trouble with ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... of the rights of the coordinate executive branch of the Government and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable from their nature of being disproved, thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... a dark day I was over-driven, and my joints stiffened, and my fortunes went down, and my whole family was sold. My brother, with head down and sprung in the knees, pulls the street car. My sister makes her living on the tow path, hearing the canal boys swear. My aunt died of the epizooetic. My uncle—blind, and afflicted with the bots, the ringbone and the spring-halt—wanders about the commons, trying to persuade somebody to shoot him. And here I stand, old and sick, to cry out against ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... girl if I were you," replied the other light-heartedly. "Even if I had been mixed up with her, as you gracefully express it, you wouldn't have anything to do with it. I believe you think I've been playing the devil with her now, you old moralist! Hear me swear, by yon pale—— Dash it! there isn't a moon—well, by the cresset on the top of the Empire, that the young person in question has been my model for a brief space, and nothing more. Only my model ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... prove, sir. That's just what they tould him: if they were caught themselves they knew there was no chance for them, and they would all swear together that he had been with them all along; and how could the boy prove that ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... almost broke into a sob. Then he attempted to laugh; and afterwards began to swear and pour forth coarse expressions, with the cold rage of one who, endowed with a delicate, sensitive mind, doubts his own powers, and dreams of wallowing in the mire. He ended by squatting down before one of the gratings which admit air into the cellars beneath ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... at him squarely. "With no woman, I swear. I have no more to do with women. What woman is as fair as philosophy, as winsome ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... some other Criticks have thought it very scholar-like in Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a Sword: but this is for ever met with. For instance, in the Passus primus of ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... marble hall: The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. Is this a dinner? this a genial room? No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb. A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread doctor[53] and his wand were there. 160 Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet-vine, and God bless the king. In plenty starving, tantalised in state, And ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... pieces of earthenware to scratch himself withal. His wife took the diagnosis of his complaints and prescribed profanity. She thought he would feel better if between the paroxysms of grief and pain he would swear a little. For each boil a plaster ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... it not lightly; oh! beware! beware! 'Tis no vain promise, no unmeaning word; Before God's altar, now ye both do swear, And by the High and Holy One 'tis heard! Be faithful to each other till life's close; Seek peace below, and ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... If something does not happen soon, I swear I'll cut and run. It wouldn't take a great deal to make me quit. The pluck of the rebels rather tickles me. I've half a mind to toss my luck among them, and stand ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... you, believe for one moment that I would now have her return to him, if, indeed, it were any longer possible? No, Franz; no; no; no; Karen shall never see that man again. Only over my dead body should he pass to her. I swear it, not only to you, but to myself. And Franz, dear Franz, what I think of now is you, and your love and loyalty to my Karen. You have saved her; you have saved me; it is life you bring—a new life, Franz," and smiling upon him, her cheeks still ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Catolicks that have bein at Geneve. The disciplin is very strick their yet. A Catholick if a craftsman they suffer him to excerce his trade 3 moneth: they'le let him stay no longer. If a man swear their, he'el be layd in prison, lay their 24 howers wtout meat or drink. A man cannot speak wt a woman on the Street wtout giving scandal. The Sabath is keipt as we do, nothing to be sold their on ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Some say she is a publican's widow, but Jackson, the solicitor here, has a different hypothesis. He says he's seen her running along carrying five cups and saucers of tea at once, and no one but a ship's waitress could do that. At any rate she's a great man of a woman; can swear like a trooper if things don't go right. She's got ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... embankment and peer in the direction from which the bullets were coming. In the company was a large, muscular German, who had early become restless and curious to see what was transpiring. He would occasionally break out and swear because he was not given a chance to fire at the hated Dons. Of a sudden he ripped out a choice lot of the best in his vocabulary, raised his head above the bank, and shook his huge fist at the line of sombreros ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... from off his steed—he tied him to a tree— He bent him to the maiden, and he took his kisses three; "To wrong thee, sweet Zorayda, I swear would be a sin!" And he knelt him at the fountain, and he ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... too, are religious, and our religion is simple; and we swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor, and pray for his welfare, which also ye, too, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... us through de War. We saw Yankee soldiers come through in droves lak Coxsey's Army. We wasn't afraid for ourselves but we was afraid dey would catch old Master or one of de boys when dey would come home on a furlough. We'd hep 'em git away and just swear dat dey ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... do whatever they please, let them strip us of everything we hold dear, so long as we are only a free people. We do not mind being poor; we are prepared, when the war is over, to live in tents as our forefathers did; but we do not want to swear allegiance to the despoilers of our ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... "I swear! to think I should come to you!" he said at length, looking at his companion, with an indescribable ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... head and her eyes flashed. "Yes, I will swear it," she said in a soft voice but with ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... would no longer do to say that Franziska was a pretty girl. We should henceforth have to swear by everything we held dear that she ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same energy, and there it falls even more definitely into the scope of our subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... friends would look beyond his grave, to my dishonored one, And hide the virtues of the sire behind the recreant son. And I can fancy, if there my corse its fettered limbs should lay, His frowning skull and crumbling bones would shrink from me away; But I swear to God I'm innocent, and never blood have shed! And they'll hang me to the gallows, ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... lilacs,—no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,—I can bear Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though From left to right, not knowing where to go, I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear So has it ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... should say, I would they should have entered in, and for that purpose I brought them out of Egypt, led them through the sea, and taught them in the wilderness, but they did not answer my work nor designs in that matter; wherefore they shall not, I swear they shall not. 'I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest.' Here is cutting down with judgment. So again, he saith, 'As I have sworn in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; although the works ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... further prompted Mr. Gavel, on the morning of the fete, to don a furred overcoat, and to swear off drink for the day. This abstinence, laudable in itself, disastrously affected his temper, and brought him before noon into wordy conflict with his engineer. The quarrel, suppressed for the time, ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Northumberland, at the head of five hundred of Lord Derwentwater's tenantry; they recognized him, as they declared, by a scar on his face; they had been to see him in the Tower, to refresh their memories, and could swear to him, as Charles Radcliffe, brother of the Earl of Derwentwater. After this deposition, Roger Downs, a person who had acted in the capacity of barber to the State prisoners, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the same Grounds, and with half the Degree of Anger, that he affirms the Production of that very Reverend Gentleman's, to be the Child of many Fathers, some one in his Spight (for I am not without my Friends of that Stamp) may run headlong into the other Extream, and swear, That mine had no Father at all:—And therefore, to make use of Bays's Plea in the Rehearsal, for Prince Pretty-Man; I merely do it, as he says, "for fear it should be said to be ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... manly wise speakest thou, but not thus will it be; and I will show thee that I think great scathe in thy death, for thy life will I give thee if thou wilt swear an oath for us here, to avenge thyself on none of those who ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... chiefs, before death, made their most trusty attendants swear to conceal their bones so that no one could discover them. "I do not wish," said the dying chief, "that my bones should be made into arrows to shoot mice, or into fish-hooks." So it is very difficult ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... I must perform. But will you swear never to part from it, and to keep it safely about you always? More I cannot tell you, but I beg you earnestly to take heed ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... me fully? You are never to reveal anything I may tell you to-night, unless I give you leave. You swear it?" ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... crackle and dry in my ears and burn me blind. Pretty soon those people who read my paper, say the prosperity of the United States will slow down into a quiet trickle, then a dribble shading off into a blast of air and a maddening gurgle, while folks stick their heads out the window and swear at the government for not giving ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... is bewildering. Sir Donald is now aroused. He will keep this appointment, and if the stranger fail to appear, take decisive steps. He has seen Alice Webster, and would swear to her identity. This pair shall be traced, and the facts be given publicity. He will write to Oswald Langdon that Alice is surely alive. He sends Charles to detective offices with advices for the shadowing ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... emphasis to the word by an oath, ejaculated with a heartiness that almost startled me. I had not heard him swear before. "No; the great trouble was to get him and keep him there, the ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... taken it it would have been wasted on people who were dying," he said. He wiped at his sweating face. "I won't ever do it again—I swear I won't." ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... principles were then, and are now, against the War. I stood, solitary and alone, in voting against that Resolution, and whenever a similar proposition is brought here it will meet with my opposition. Not one dollar, nor one man, I swear, by the Eternal, will I vote for this infernal, this stupendous folly, more stupendous than ever disgraced any civilized People on the face of God's Earth. If that be Treason, make ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... singing bird, my bonny flower, How dearly could I love thee! To sit with thee one pleasant hour, If thou would'st but approve me! I swear by lilies white and yellow, That flower on deepest water, Would'st thou but make me happy fellow, I'd wed the Shepherd's Daughter! By all that's on the earth or water, I more than love ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... played upon your sympathy and the chivalry of your character, leading you to believe that she is the most unfortunate, most maligned and persecuted woman in the whole world. But that is only her version of the story; and I swear to you that it is false! I know the story which the lips of the dying Siluce whispered into your ears, for my spirit was with you both then, and I say that every word of it is true, although I know that Bimbane has asserted ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... "Instructions" of 1695. These included ducking, keel-hauling, fasting, flogging, weighting until the "heart or back be ready to break," and "gogging" or scraping the tongue with hoop-iron for obscene or profane swearing; for although the "gentlemen of the quarter-deck" might swear to their heart's content, that form of recreation was strictly taboo in other parts of the ship. Here we have the origin of the brutal discipline of the next century, summed up in the Consolidation Act of George II. [Footnote: 22 George ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... sometime. I met him in the refreshment room at Yeovil station. I was waiting for a down train; he had changed on his way to town. As I opened the door I heard a huge voice in a more or less violent altercation, and there was S. F. U., in a villainous old suit of gray flannels (I'll swear it was the same one that he had on last time I saw him), and a mackintosh, though it was a blazing hot day. His pince-nez were tacked onto his ears with wire as usual. He greeted me with effusive shouts, and drew me aside. Then after a few commonplaces of greeting, he fumbled in his pockets, ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... that," growled Campbell. "As a people, yes, as you say; but as individuals—well, I don't know. But my father's a believer; I could swear to it." ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... This is his grievance, and he says that them blanketed consuls ought to know. 'They plays into each other's hands, and stops you at the Hatoba'—the policemen do. The visitor who is neither a seaman nor drunk, cannot swear to the truth of this, or indeed anything else. He moves not only among fascinating scenes and a lovely people but, as he is sure to find out before he has been a day ashore, between stormy questions. Three years ago there were no questions ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... state or fortune, dignity or rank, age or sex, were alike exiled. For as well the old and decrepit, as infants in the cradle and women lying in childbirth, were driven into banishment; whilst as many as had reached the years of discretion were compelled to swear upon the holy [Gospels][73] that immediately on crossing the sea they would present themselves to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in order that being so oftentimes pierced even by the sword of sympathy, he ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... romp,—in quarters where there is not too much elbow-room, the boys learn the first lesson of respecting one another's rights. The subsequent business meeting puts them upon the fundamentals of civilized society, as it were. Out of the debate of the question, Do we want boys who swear, steal, gamble, and smoke cigarettes? grow convictions as to why these vices are wrong that put "the gang" in its proper light. Punishment comes to appear, when administered by the boys themselves, a natural consequence of law-breaking, in defence of ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... moving about. I covered the sounds as well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiance of a pretty housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... considering whether the proposition which it affirms has been made out, I should have no uneasiness as to the result of this debate. But I know that no member weighs the words of a resolution for which he is asked to vote, as he would weigh the words of an affidavit which he was asked to swear. And I am aware that some persons, for whose humanity and honesty I entertain the greatest respect, are inclined to divide with the right honourable Baronet, not because they think that he has proved his case, but because they have taken up a notion that we are making war for ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the assembly, a man stepped up to me and warned me to be on my guard, for he had heard the two brothers swear they would horsewhip me when meeting was out for giving their sisters the jerks. 'Well,' said I, 'I'll ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... he watched two comrades who were playing at skat in the guard-room with dreadfully dirty cards. Suddenly he had a kind of waking vision. It was like the taking of the oath, when each man stretched out an arm to swear. The tattooed letters on Weise's arm, where the sleeve had slipped off, began suddenly to glow as brightly and clearly as if the sun were shining on them. Fraternity! that was not merely an empty word, then, not simply talk? If all ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... she might secretly buy for me, against my birthday, the Opera Sancti Augustini, which the Cantor at Wolgast wanted to sell. That it was not her fault that the young lord lay in wait for her one night; and that she would swear to me, by the living God, that naught that was unseemly had happened between them there, and that ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... was temper. The family knew this, and so did Jane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentle heart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under the pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not deceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready to believe that while it was swearing in the hall, Jane was biting holes in the hand-embroidered face pillow in ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... prince or something," he heard one young girl of a hospital unit say to a young medico of the outfit. "Did you ever see such a nose and brows in your life? And his hands——! You can never mistake hands. I would swear those hands had never done menial work for ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... now in force, without partiality, favour, or affection.... "So help you God." As the colonel raised the book to his lips he chanted the antiphon "So help me God." And the Judge-Advocate proceeded to swear the other members of the court, individually or collectively, three subalterns who were jointly and severally sworn holding the book together with a quaint solemnity, as though they were singing hymns at church out of a common hymn-book. Then ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... series of phenomena; but, at the same time, it must be recollected that the value of negative evidence depends entirely on the amount of positive corroboration it receives. If A.B. wishes to prove an alibi, it is of no use for him to get a thousand witnesses simply to swear that they did not see him in such and such a place, unless the witnesses are prepared to prove that they must have seen him had he been there. But the evidence that animal life commenced with the Lingula- ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... him with a rock at long range, he'd jump like a skittish colt and tremble all over. Then he'd pull out on the run, tail and trunk waving stiff, head over one shoulder and wicked eyes blazing, and the way he'd swear at me was something dreadful. A most immoral beast he was, a murderer, and ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... "Swear, then, that thou wilt quit Scotland, and vow fealty to Edward; that never more will thy sword be raised save against the contemned and hated Bruce. Be faithful but to me and to King Edward, and thou shalt ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... fastened had suddenly broken and let the man down with a bump. Then again, the mischievous ants took the greatest delight during the night in cutting the strings of the hammocks, and on several occasions my followers had nasty falls. Yet the Brazilians swear ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... for a capital offence would be obtainable. I asked on what pretence the young man would be got off, if the evidence against him was as clear as it was represented. She said some one would be found to swear an alibi. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... sleepy that if I don't give it now, I may forget it. Properly handled, that dirty thing in the chair there will give his show away. Keep him to-night as a drunk and disorderly. Better have a doctor to him. I tasted the stuff. Tomorrow I'll swear a dozen charges against him—burglary, abduction, instigation to murder, attempts to kill; and when he hears 'em read over, he'll be putty in ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... and hear her talk—talk in her dreams and in her fever—as if there were kind people listening to her, people that were kind to her long ago. And the room seemed full of angels sometimes, so that I was afraid to move and look about; for I could swear I heard the fanning of their wings and the rustle of their feet upon the carpet. Sometimes I saw big round tears upon her wasted cheeks, and I wouldn't brush them away, for they looked like jewels that the angels had dropped there. And then I tried to cry myself, but, ha! ha! I had to laugh ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... foreign English of our excellent German surgeon (Herr Grosse had a temper of his own, I can tell you!) to prevent her from breaking through the medical discipline which held her in its grasp. When she became quite unmanageable, and vehemently abused him to his face, our good Grosse used to swear at her, in a compound bad language of his own, with a tremendous aspiration at the beginning of it, which always set matters right by making her laugh. I see him again as I write, leaving the room on these ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... turning to his two friends. 'Hear this discontented grumbler. Isn't it enough to make a man swear never to help him in his plots and schemes again? Isn't ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... on account of the pen and the frosty morning at daybreak. I write in haste, a boat starting for Kalamo. I do not know whether the detention of the Bombard (if she be detained, for I cannot swear to it, and I can only judge from appearances, and what all these fellows say,) be an affair of the Government, and neutrality, and &c.—but she was stopped at least twelve miles distant from any ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... swear I will pursue all doomed by this despotic court, and, swifter than the lightning, strike a deadly weapon e'en in a ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... solemnly swear to be as good and faithful, as true and ever-loving wife as God will let me be," she said softly; "and may He forgive me for what I do, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... amount to so much as you think," said Helen; "and, anyway, suppose I swear on the stand that ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... "Well, Sally, I swear you're good at signallin'," broke out Long, as soon as the youths were fairly out of sight and sound; "you hev done ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... your go if you swear by the tusks of your grandfather that you will return to me in a year and a day and become my ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... a thief by trade, and was fresh from a prison. He assured his father that he knew nothing of all this. This was true; but after all Oscar knew too much of the character of Ned to believe him to be a good boy, or a safe companion. He had heard him swear and lie. He had also heard him sneer at virtue, and boast of deeds that no well-ordered conscience would approve. And yet he courted his company, and considered him a ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... forest, he seemed again to be back on Cape Cod picking his way over their own lost road through the wood, and he heard "the beat of a horse's feet and the swish of a skirt in the dew." And then a carbine would rattle, or a horse would stumble and a trooper swear, and he was again in the sweating jungle, where men, intent upon his ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... the old man, "and swear to you I know but one medicine that could have saved the Earl's life; and as no man living in England knows that antidote save myself—moreover, as the ingredients, one of them in particular, are scarce possible to be come by, I must needs suppose his escape ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... a mistake. I swear to you I am innocent. You don't know how it humiliates me for you to see me like this—you, who knew me in the old days at home, when I was rich and petted and loved. And now I haven't a friend in the world. My ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... quickly—so quickly that they both flinched away—the long handled knife which, usually, I carried with me for cutting down alders or other growth which sometimes entangled my flies as I fished along the stream. "Listen," said I, "I swear the pirates' oath. On the point of my blade," and I touched it with my right forefinger, "I swear that I pondered on two things when you ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... sullenly. She's good at that. Her dark hair is streaked with gray. She lets it hang down straight and whacks it off with hedge shears or something when it bothers her. Her face is lined and wrinkled far ahead of its time, and I swear, from the color of her teeth, that she chews betel nut. Somehow or other these PC witches ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... with disfiguring effect, sham as on a prison or—the simile made me smile—an orphan asylum. There was no hint of the comely roughness of untidy ivy on a ruin. Clipped, trained, and precise it was, as on a brand-new protestant church. I swear there was not a bird's nest nor a single earwig in it anywhere. About the porch it was particularly thick, smothering a seventeenth-century lamp with a contrast that was quite horrible. Extensive glass-houses spread away on the farther side of the house; the numerous towers ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... the last card has been played, and the game ended; for I gave her distinctly to understand that at my death, Prince would inherit every iota of my estate, and that my will had cut them off without a cent. I meant it then, I mean it now. I swear that lowborn fiddler's brood shall never darken these doors; but somehow, I am unable to get rid of the strange, disagreeable sensation the girl left behind her, as a farewell legacy. She stood there at that glass door, and raised ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... exceeding wroth rushed forward; but Kunti's son, Vrikodara, forbade them with a smile and said, 'Witness ye! I am more than a match for this Rakshasa. By my own self and by my brothers, and by my merit, and by my good deeds, and by my sacrifices, do I swear that I shall slay this Rakshasa.' And after this was said, those two heroes, the Rakshasa and Vrikodara challenging each other, caught each other by the arms. And they not forgiving each other, then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Constitution of the United States provides for its own amendment by the people by whom and for whom it was framed. Many amendments have already been made; more are likely in time to be found needful. And no one but a fool will swear blindly by 'the Constitution as it is,' if he is thereby to be precluded from voting for such improvements as time and circumstances may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... beneath the balcony. Much overcome, he bowed in silence to the people, and there was an instant hush over all. Then Chancellor Livingston administered the oath. Washington laid his hand upon the Bible, bowed, and said solemnly when the oath was concluded, "I swear, so help me God," and, bending reverently, kissed the book. Livingston stepped forward, and raising his hand cried, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" Then the cheers broke forth again, the cannon ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... funeral of Jacob a veil falls upon the Biblical history of Canaan, until the days when the spies were sent out to search the land. Joseph was buried in Egypt, not at Hebron, though he had made the Israelites swear before his death that his mummy should be eventually taken to Palestine. The road to Hebron, it is clear, was no longer open, and the power of the Hyksos princes must have been fast waning. The war of independence had broken out, and the native kings ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... had never known what it was to have death in my heart. But I swear to God, Meredyth, I played my part like a man. I had done a dastardly thing. There was nothing left for me but to make reparation. In a few moments I tore my life asunder. The girl I had wronged was to be the mother of my child. I accepted the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... for England's good, that I undertook a task to which I am unequal. I cannot rule myself. My passions are my masters; my smallest impulse my tyrant. Do you think that I renounced the Protectorate (and I have renounced it) in a fit of spleen? By the God that lives, I swear never to take up that bauble again; never again to burthen myself with the weight of care and misery, of which that ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... almost to the ground. How she did hate the man whose handwriting on the address she recognised at once! What should she do? In her agony she almost resolved that she would start at once for the Cedars and profess her willingness to go before all the magistrates in London and Littlebath, and swear that her cousin was no lion and that she was no lamb. At that moment her feelings towards the Christians and Christian Examiners of Littlebath were not the feelings of a Griselda. I think she could have spoken her mind freely had Mr Maguire come in her way. Then, when she saw Mrs Buggins's copy, ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... homage to me and I will question them of it; peradventure, some one of them may be able to give us news of it and Allah Almighty shall make all things easy to thee.' So Janshah homed with the hermit, until the day of the assembly, when all the birds and beasts and Jann came to swear fealty; and Yaghmus and his guest questioned them anent Takni, the Castle of Jewels; but they all replied, 'We never saw or heard of such a place.' At this, Janshah fell a weeping and lamenting and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... some knowledge of Italian, even Allahdad being soon able to swear fluently in it, and his aptitude, joined to a quarrelsome temper and an illogical prejudice against all ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had been singin' to them to keep 'em quiet there, For the lower deck is the dangerousest, requirin' constant care, An' give to me as the strongest man, though used to drink and swear. ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... pack animals, and we remained to hunt. In two days we killed all the game we could pack to camp on the ten animals. On our return the Lieutenant said to me: "This part we will have to keep to ourselves, for if we tell the General that we were out hunting and spent three days on the trip he would swear until everything around ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... down, and would rob them, pick their pockets, and leave them half dead. Others would tell of stealing horses, cattle, sheep, and slaves; and when they would be sometimes apprehended, by the aid of their friends, they would break jail. But they could most generally find enough to swear them clear of any kind of villany. They seemed to take great delight in telling of their exploits in robbery. There was a regular combination of them who had determined to resist law, wherever they went, ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... than I am, I'll swear!' said Caffyn, with a short laugh. 'Good-bye, Mrs. Featherstone,' he added to that lady, who stood by. 'You're not sorry, are you? Gilda will be a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... are a fool, I swear!" exclaimed Grandma. "Let me catch you lally-gagging off to Mountain City! ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... had a deep affection. Although she had never loved her husband, in difficult times she bravely stood by his side. When Menilek, the King of Shoa, made his demonstration before the amba, and treachery was feared, she sent out her son and made all the chiefs and soldiers swear fidelity to the throne. Two days before his death, Theodore sent for the wife he had not seen for years, and spent part of the afternoon with ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... peeking and the feller et one creemcake and we heard him say to Mister Hirvey that they were the best creem cakes he ever et and then he took another and took a hog bite out of it and then he jumped up and his eyes buged out and he spit it out and begun to swear and drink water and stamp round and Mister Hirvey said what is the matter and the man spit some more and swore and said they was helfire in the creemcake, and Mister Hirvey looked into it and said ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... pledged themselves by an oath most cordially taken, to accept us as their ruler. We invite you to follow their example, and like Trajan, we, the Sovereign, in whose name all oaths are made, will also swear to you. The bearers of this letter will receive your sworn promise, and will give you ours, "by the Lord's help to observe justice and fair clemency, the nourisher of the nations; that Goths and Romans shall meet with impartial treatment at our hands; and that there shall be no other division ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... I, e'en if thou wilt not. Shall I let thee, Who only dost deserve my love, be dragged To cruel death? And shall I let him live Who cares not for my love? I swear to thee, To-morrow thou shalt be the king in Argos. Nor shall my hand, nor shall my bosom tremble ... But ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... our Mother the Church, and on Pope Innocent III. and his Catholic successors, the whole kingdom of England and of Ireland, with all their rights and dependencies, for the remission of our sins; henceforth we hold them as a fief, and in, token thereof we swear allegiance and pay homage in presence of Pandulfo, Legate of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... night? - The night will last me my time. The gold on a crown or a crime Looks well enough yet by the lamps. Have we not fingers to write, Lips to swear at a need? Then, when danger decamps, Bury the ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... we ourselves have ever done in our lives that I will swear to you," said Mrs. M'Leod suddenly. "And we have changed our servants several times. So we ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... we are willing to allow to military men of the age in which he flourish'd;—for, observe: he vows to cudgel a man lurking to rob his Lady of her virtue, in a bower;—how appropriately, therefore, does he swear by the God of the Gardens! who is represented with a kind of cudgel (falx lignea) in his right hand; and is, moreover, furnished with another weapon of formidable dimensions, (Horace calls it Palus) for the express purpose of ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... sure I am," replied the sun-god; "and that your mates may never have chance to doubt it more, I swear by the terrible Styx [Footnote: The Styx was one of the great rivers of Hades. The oath by the Styx was regarded as so binding that even a god could not break it without being punished severely for his perjury. Any god who broke ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were banding themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the Golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at them as if he had been himself one of the King's cavaliers, and they no better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the Covenant. In sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature, and about seven months after he left the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... that was trailin' behind her, and before she knew what was comin' he whipped out a big pair of sharp, shiny shears, and made as if he was going to give her a hair-cut. At that she begins to scream, but the priest he wouldn't let go. 'I'll cut it off,' he says, 'close,' he says, 'if you don't swear on this crucifix to be a good squaw to Clem Dewler, and never set so much as one of your little feet in these places again.' She could feel the shears against her hair, and she was so scared she swore like he told her. And so she was that afraid of losin' her fine yellow hair afterward, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... me, Kidd; and if you do so, I intend to pay you well.' 'What do you call well?' I asked calmly. 'Why, I propose giving you two hundred pounds down, and fifty pounds a year for your life, if you remain faithful,' he answered. 'You must swear to me that you will not betray me, and that no threats or bribes shall move you.' I took the oath he prescribed. He then said, 'You must know that there are two children, now in the East, who are about to be sent home to their friends in England. Both ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... to bone. Now my purse won't run to petticuts and cetrer hevery week, As a pound a month won't do it. Ho! it's like their blessed cheek, Missis JOHN STRANGE WINTER'S Ammyzons as Lady JUNE remarks— To swear Crinerline is "ojus," dear, and 'idjous. 'Twill be larks To see them a wearin 'ooped-skirts, as in course they're bound to do, When they fair become the fashion. Yus, for all their bubbaroo. The seving ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... we have had a fine morning with you, Mr. Hennessey, and we certainly have learned a lot," Bob said, putting out his hand. "I can't swear, though, that we could make ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... flung it at the soldiers with such a sure aim that the rash leader, struck on the head, fell senseless to the ground. The rest again stood still. "Away with you!" cried Fadrique authoritatively, "or my dagger shall strike the next as surely, and then I swear I will never rest till I have found out your whole gang and appeased my rage." The dagger gleamed in the youth's hand, but yet more fearfully gleamed the fury in his eyes, and the soldiers fled. Then Zelinda bowed gratefully ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... been executed will do just as well? Here are plenty of witnesses—the Lord Chief Justice, Lord High Admiral, Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of State for the Home Department, First Lord of the Treasury, and Chief Commissioner of Police. NANK. But where are they? KO. There they are. They'll all swear to it—won't you? (To Pooh-Bah.) POOH. Am I to understand that all of us high Officers of State are required to perjure ourselves to ensure your safety? KO. Why not! You'll be grossly insulted, as usual. POOH. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... still more uneasy, when I found that any succored and befriended refugee from Ireland or elsewhere could stand up before that judge and swear, away the life or liberty or character of a refugee from China; but that by the law of the land the Chinaman could ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... and only flame. I can speak with a troop of faithful years at my back. But you and she have only been faithful to each other for a matter of days. I am not doubting the intensity of your inclination, but I can't help asking, Will it last? Are you prepared to swear that you will love her and ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... sorry we are to tease you; but what did you want meddling with the like of us, when it's a long time we are going our own ways — father and son, and his son after him, or mother and daughter, and her own daughter again — and it's little need we ever had of going up into a church and swear- ing — I'm told there's swearing with it — a word no man would believe, or with drawing rings on our fingers, would be cutting our skins maybe when we'd be taking the ass from the shafts, and pulling the straps ...
— The Tinker's Wedding • J. M. Synge
... Matilda was reckless, headstrong, violent, and unamenable to reason. One proof of the deplorable state of her mind was, that from her father's example she had learned to swear like a trooper. Her mother was greatly shocked at the 'unlady-like trick,' and wondered 'how she had picked it up.' 'But you can soon break her of it, Miss Grey,' said she: 'it is only a habit; and if you will just gently remind her every time she does ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte |
