"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Smithfield rather than eat a beefsteak on a Friday in Lent. Here is Bob of the —— Circuit, who has made a fortune in Railroad Committees, and whose dinners are so good—bellowing out with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross, Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel! Ply battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours—id Deus vult." After which comes a mellifluous description ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sun do you mean, girl?" he exclaimed, both startled and horrified by her determined words. "Do you think I would desert you in the middle of the current and swim ashore?" ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... with some anxiety, they saw the paper give one sharp rustle in her hands, and then quiver a little. She bowed her head over it, and everything seemed to swim. But she never moved: they could neither of them see her face, she defended herself with the paper. The letters cleared again, and, still hiding her face, she studied and studied ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... offered by the native names and words preserved in the accounts. The term for their large canoes, tahucup, is from the Maya tahal, to swim, and kop, that which is hollow, or hollowed out. The name potonchan, Aguilar translated as, "the place that stinks" (lugar que hiede). He evidently understood it as derived from the Maya verb tunhal, ...
— The Battle and the Ruins of Cintla • Daniel G. Brinton
... striking examples, ranging all through Tintoretto's life, of his untiring imagination. In the Salute is that "Marriage of Cana," in which all the actors seem to swim in golden light. The sharp silhouettes bring out an effect of radiant sunshine with which the hall is flooded, and all the architectural lines lead our eyes towards the central figure, placed at a distance. On that long canvas in ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... So again it is probable, from what we know of the embryos of mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles, that these animals are the modified descendants of some ancient progenitor, which was furnished in its adult state with branchiae, a swim-bladder, four fin-like limbs, and a long tail, all fitted ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... from shore; the point of the head bearing N. 18 deg. E., distant half a league; the little islet before-mentioned N.E. by E. 1/2 E., and the N.W. point of the bay N. 32 deg. W. Many people appeared on the shore, and some attempted to swim off to us; but having occasion to send the boat ahead to sound, they retired as she drew near them. This, however, gave us a favourable idea ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... magazine things. But say, when I get out in the tall grass, there's nothing will take but a lot of cheesy old stories and slang and junk that if any of us were to indulge in it here, he'd get the gate so fast it would make his head swim." ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... one who has never before been mounted. She is led out, her owner springs on her back, and goads her over the sand and rocks of the desert at full speed for sixty miles, without one moment's respite. She is then forced, steaming and panting, into water deep enough for her to swim. If, immediately after this, she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... castle, nor ceased to rise till they had swept the chief from the highest tower, where "he was down an his hard-hearted knees, sayin' his baids as fast as he cud, an' bawlin' at all the saints aither to bring him a boat or taiche him how to swim quick." Regard for the unfortunate tenants, however, prevented any interference by the saints thus vigorously and practically supplicated, so the chief was drowned and went, as the story-teller concluded, to a locality where he "naded more wather than he'd left behind him, an' had the comp'ny ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... coast, and a small party were left on a rock not far from land. To their horror they found the sea rising higher and higher, and threatening before long to cover their place of refuge. Some of them proposed to try and swim for land, and would have done so, but just as they were preparing for it an officer saw a plant of Samphire growing on the rock, and told them they might stay and trust to that little plant that the sea would rise no further, for ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... man would spread secretly through the village; the lad who heard them would vanish suddenly from home, would steal mysteriously through the forests and swamps, pursued by the Muscovites, would leap to hiding in the Niemen, and beneath its flood swim to the shore of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, where he would hear sweet words of greeting, "Welcome, comrade!" But before he departed, he would climb a stony hill and call to the Muscovites across the Niemen: "Until we meet again!" Thus there had stolen away Gorecki, Pac, and Obuchowicz; ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... dying tiger seizes his prey, and both, losing the saddle in the struggle, came headlong into the river, and were swept down the stream. Their course might be traced by the blood which bubbled up to the surface. They were twice seen to rise, the Dutchman striving to swim, and Burley clinging to him in a manner that showed his desire that both should perish. Their corpses were taken out about a quarter of a mile down the river. As Balfour's grasp could not have been unclenched without ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... — Left our moorings before sunrise, and halted about eight A.M. at a little island stacked with elephant-grass, where, after as good a swim as the tangled weeds would permit, we breakfasted pleasantly under ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Marcel, pointing to some trout. "They are the most expert swimmers of the aquatic race. Those little creatures, without any appearance of pretension, could, however, make a fortune by the exhibition of their skill; fancy, they can swim up a perpendicular waterfall as easily as we should accept an invitation to supper. I have almost had a chance of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... for she was still in a very depressed state from the effects of the journey, and her head was "all of a swim," as she expressed it. So Susan was left to her own thoughts; and as the cab rattled along the road in front of the sea, she wondered anxiously which of those tall houses with balconies was Mrs Enticknapp's. But presently they turned ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... again, the phosphorescence is still more partial. "Great domes of pale gold with long streamers," to use the eloquent words of Professor Martin Duncan, "move slowly along in endless succession; small silvery disks swim, now enlarging and now contracting, and here and there a green or bluish gleam marks the course of a tiny, but rapidly rising and sinking globe. Hour after hour the procession passes by, and the fishermen hauling in their nets from the midst drag out liquid light, and the soft sea ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... me by the various set: They were indeed an elegant quartette! My mind went to and fro, and wavered long; At length I've chosen (Samuel thinks me wrong) That around whose azure brim, Silver figures seem to swim, Like fleece-white clouds, that on the skyey blue, Waked by no breeze, the self-same shapes retain; Or ocean nymphs, with limbs of snowy hue, Slow floating o'er ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Little Claus, as he went off with his money and the great chest, in which the sexton lay still concealed. On one side of the forest was a broad, deep river, the water flowed so rapidly that very few were able to swim against the stream. A new bridge had lately been built across it, and in the middle of this bridge Little Claus stopped, and said, loud enough to be heard by the sexton, "Now what shall I do with this stupid chest; it is as heavy as if it were full of stones: I shall ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... river on horseback, and the army uttered shouts of admiration as they saw that the chiefs were the first to set the example of intrepidity. They braved enough dangers to make the strongest brain reel. The current forced their horses to swim diagonally across, which doubled the length of the passage; and as they swam, blocks of ice struck against their flanks ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... from Bilid el-Ingliz, a dark, cold country across the sea, where it rains without ceasing. And he helped strip his master of the hateful, tight, hot European clothes and trotted joyfully after him to the swimming-bath, and watched him dive in and swim the length and climb out the other end, and disappear between curtains into the luxurious rooms ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... distractedly, and otherwise put the ship into the likeness of a forlorn wreck, clapping the men, save one or two, under hatches. This I did to prevent the shedding of precious blood, knowing full well that the ignorant savages, believing the ship in sore distress, would swim off to her with provisions and fruit, bearing no arms. Which they did, while we, as fast as they clomb the sides, despatched them at leisure, without unseemly outcry or alarms. Having thus disposed of the most adventurous, we landed and took possession ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... that braves On Vaga's breast the fretful waves, This shell upon the deep would swim, And gaily lift its fearless brim Above the tossing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of Wateree Crick. My mammy name Phoebe. Pappy have to git a pass to come to see mammy, befo' de war. Sometime dat crick git up over de bank and I, to dis day, 'members one time pappy come in all wet and drenched wid water. Him had made de mule swim de crick. Him stayed over his leave dat was writ on de pass. Patarollers (patrollers) come ask for de pass. They say: 'De time done out, nigger.' Pappy try to explain but they pay no 'tention to him. Tied him up, pulled ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... I can easily believe. But he simply cannot do it. His head would swim round, long, long before he got half-way. He would have to crawl down again on ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... assistance, and heard a hoarse whistle not far away. He could see nothing, for the fog was as impenetrable as a blanket He began to swim toward the sound. He could not tell whether the whistle was that of the tug or the Merry Seas or of some other vessel. Again he sent up a call for help. The water was cold and his clothing heavy. He was thinking of trying to get out of his shoes and outer coat, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... through the ranks, proudly sweeps down the tide of battle? Bar [22-58]and bulwark no longer shelter the Trojans; nay, within the gates and even on the mounded walls they clash in battle and make the trenches swim with blood. Aeneas is away and ignorant. Wilt thou never then let our leaguer be raised? Again a foe overhangs the walls of infant Troy; and another army, and a second son of Tydeus rises from Aetolian Arpi against the Trojans. Truly I think my wounds are yet to come, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... disturbance as possible, Drew sank to his armpits in the pellucid waters, and then began to swim. He believed the shark had started briskly for some other point in the lagoon; but he knew the eyes of the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... safe and sound, and was now on her road to mingle congratulations with her affectionate son. The ship, it seems, had done its office; the mechanism had played admirably; but who can provide for every thing? The old lady, it turned out, could swim like a duck; and the whole result had been to refresh her with a little sea-bathing. Here was worshipful intelligence. Could any man's temper be expected to stand such continued sieges? Money, and trouble, and infinite contrivance, wasted upon one old ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... full, and the swift current was pulling at it like a giant, while the Grizzly, floating deep, was almost equally unmanageable. The situation had in one minute changed from tranquil voyaging to deadly peril. Sweeny, unable to swim, and staggering in the rapid, made a plunge at the bearskin boat, probably with an idea of getting into it. But Thurstane, all himself from the first, shouted in that brazen voice of military command which is so secure of obedience, "Steady, man! Don't climb ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... I told you, and keep me well informed till you think matters are growing desperate. Then seize your chance, run down to the water's edge, swim to one of the boats, and ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... they saw Acre, many-towered; and all about it the tents of the Christian hosts, and before it in the blue waters of the bay ships riding at anchor, more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte Gibello or swim sentinel about its base. Trumpets from the shore answered to their trumpets; they heard a wild tattoo of drums within the walls. On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took up their moorings; and King Richard, throwing the end ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... fly to heaven—want to swim there. An' if they find too much lan' after they get there, they'll spen' the res' of eternity prayin' for ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Every time you feel that kind of dope mounting to your head, trot across the road to the club and have a swim in their tank. You'd be surprised how it would bring you down ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... ship courts the gale, To swim once more the ocean, The lessening land wakes in my heart A sad but sweet emotion: For, though I love the broad blue sea, My heart's still true to thee, my love, My ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Vienna. If she was a young woman who respected herself, the household gear she would insist on bringing would entail an Iliad of embarrassments. An old farmer of Sangamon County still talks of a featherbed weighing fifty-four pounds with which his wife made him swim six ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Monmouth recoiled at this moment from grandsons and relations and ties of all kinds. He did not wish to be reminded of his identity, but to swim unmolested and undisturbed in his Epicurean dream. When, therefore, his fair visitors; Clotilde, who opened her mouth only to breathe roses and diamonds, and Ermengarde, who was so good-natured that she sacrificed even her lovers to her friends; saw him merely ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... been dutiful Only to thee, O God most beautiful, Lighten thou me, As I swim through the dim long rollers, with ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... eager eye. Twelve or fifteen feet upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a huge round boulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the river, which here rushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim to this boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At imminent risk and by dint of frantic scrambling he worked his way along the cliff until he had gained a point opposite the boulder and considerably above it. Then, without hesitation, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... expansion of Fisette's chest worked palpitating beneath the great arms, and, just ere endurance reached its limit and the trees began to swim before Manson's eyes, his little finger touched the haft of the sheath knife that hung at Fisette's back. The touch ran through Fisette's laboring frame like fire, for he had reached the point where the world seemed dipped in blood. Slowly Manson pushed down his hand, never relaxing his titanic ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... as he stood up and looked round. "It is all over. I vote, Terence, that we both strip and take a swim, then spread out our clothes to dry, after which we will breakfast comfortably and ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... line with that tree. Now, if you should be separated from me and discovered, make straight for the cutter. But if you are cut off from it, run up the river until you get a little above where the vessel lies, and then jump in and swim out ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... sleeping chamber. This latter room, the stone floor of which was covered with fine matting, contained a very beautiful and spacious ivory couch, most luxuriously furnished, a number of elegant and equally luxurious divans, and an immense bath, almost big enough to swim in, sunk into the floor. The official who had me in charge pointed out these various matters to me, as well as a very handsome suit of clothing, evidently made expressly for me, which, he intimated, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... said, smiling, "did the old jackass wake you? I found him as good as an alarum clock myself. How about a swim?" ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. "Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing," he thought. "By morning it will be swirling down the street in the lower parts, flooding the basements and cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is it now?" And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on the wall, ticking away hurriedly, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... waltz—"the Olga,"—which is carried on with spirit, lasting a very long while—young Lark saying he does not waltz, for it makes his head swim; and that he has an objection to stand holding by the shelf, experiencing a sensation delightful as standing upon one's head in a swing, before a lady that ought to have your best attention;—however, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... lay the narrowing channel, smooth and grim, A hundred deaths beneath it, and never a sign; There lay the enemy's ships, and sink or swim The flag was flying, and he ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... industry, and philosophy is good for correcting whatever in science might disturb religious faith, which in turn is helpful in living. What industry or life are good for it would be unsympathetic to inquire: the stream is mighty, and we must swim with the stream. Concern for survival, however, which seems to be the pragmatic principle in morals, does not afford a remedy for moral anarchy. To take firm hold on life, according to Nietzsche, we should be imperious, poetical, atheistic; but according to William James we should be democratic, ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... pale band that was broadening along the horizon. As he passed the stile with his head bent, and his eyes on the ground, something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge, and in the strange twilight, now tinged with a flush from the west, a figure seemed to swim past him and disappear. For a moment he wondered who it could be, the light was so flickering and unsteady, so unlike the real atmosphere of the day, when he recollected it was only Annie Morgan, old Morgan's daughter at the White ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Payawan, our immediate objective. Payawan consists of two shacks and a name. Here we were to have had our first meeting with the clans of the Ifugao, but through some misunderstanding they took the place of meeting to be at Kiangan, some, miles further on; so we all rested a while, and some of us took a swim in the little river we had just crossed, finding the water on first shock almost cold, but delightful beyond belief. Cootes and I were quite satisfied with the pool we found near the shack, but Strong and the rest thought they saw a better one downstream, so ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... to-day, Ned?" said he, addressing me. "Feared of shark, heh? Shark nebber bite me. Suppose I meet shark in water, I swim after him—him run like debbel." I was tempted, and, like the rest, was soon ready. In quick succession we jumped off the spritsail yard, the black leading. We had scarcely been in the water five minutes, when some voice in-board cried out, "A shark! a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... He continued, however, to swim after his conscious efforts ceased: for his body was found next morning on a strip of Cornish sand between Gorran and Mevagissey, washed by every ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... darkness; the possibility of fertilization following sexual relations at any time during the fertile life of a woman; the essential facts of sexual relation as a method of depositing sperm-cells so that they can swim on the way to meet an egg-cell; and the nature of the close blood relationship of mother and embryo. These are physiological topics which many parents would like to have taught to their daughters of fourteen to eighteen by some careful ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... a bad place to swim, my friend! There ain't enough water to drown you, but if you stir you'll run ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... I have ever been to anyone else. Then I will think of the time when I will be as close as that to my wife. She is still, you see, an awakening woman. For a moment I will close my eyes and the quick, shrewd, determined eyes of that other woman will look into mine. My head will swim and then I will quickly open my eyes and see again the dear woman with whom I have undertaken to live out my life. Then I will sleep and when I awake in the morning it will be as it was that evening when I walked out of my dark apartment after having had ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of a partial cover for his body. The western shore was only fifty feet distant, but the quiet, swift, dark current that glanced through the interval sufficiently showed that here he would be compelled to swim. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... presence of mind to keep hold of it and to swim quickly away from the vessel, trying to shout as he swam; but the sudden ducking had filled his mouth with water and he could do little ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... I was conveyed "Twice Round the Clock." True Sala-ite was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of graphic GEORGE AUGUSTUS: And now I find me revelling through A magazine of saffron hue, Called "Sala's Journal," and I swim Once more in London's rushing tide, Piloted as of old by him Through "London Up to Date." With pride, I own I have a goodly time, For still it seems the golden ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... retired to their beds, and soon slept soundly. Fritz, the eldest, watched with me. "I have been considering," said he, "how we could save ourselves. If we only had some cork jackets, or bladders, for mamma and my brothers, you and I don't need them, we could then swim to land." ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... place by creeping, some by walking, some by running or leaping; others again fly, while others live in the water and swim. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... necessity of hunting up and down a dictionary. Your own memory, and the inevitable suggestions of the context, furnish a dictionary pro hac vice. And afterwards, upon advancing to other books, where you are obliged to forego such aids, and to swim without corks, you find yourself already in possession of the particles for expressing addition, succession, exception, inference—in short, of all the forms by which transition or connection is effected (if, but, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a mile from shore, which is a pretty good swim for one man alone, but here he was with three others ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... the western shore, for once I imagined I could vaguely distinguish the tops of trees outlined against the slightly lighter sky. Yet this vision was so fleeting, I dare not loosen my hold upon the boat to swim in that direction; and, even as I gazed in uncertainty, the dim outline vanished as though it had been a dream, and we were again being forced outward into the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of grapeshot from the Queen Charlotte and the Leander shattered the entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to swim from destruction. ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... outsee nature and God, and drink truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class as a mere announcement of the fact that they find themselves not in the state of mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and "it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the season of the spring tide the water at Riviere Ouelle retreats so far that the entrapped "porpoises" are left high and dry in the fishery and are readily killed. But in the season of neap tides enough water is left for them to swim about within the semi-circle of stakes. Boats are taken into the fishery through the outer line of stakes and then begins a regular whale hunt within a very circumscribed area. If the belugas are numerous their ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... branches fresh & green, In whose cool bowres the birds with many a song Do welcom with their Quire the Sumers Queen: The Meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among Are intermixt, with verdant grass between. The silver-scaled fish that softly swim, Within the sweet brooks ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... him through a course of sprouts," as they termed it. They made him spend what money he had in buying goodies which he was not permitted to taste. They threw him into the canal, to see if he could swim, and then dragged him around in the sand to dry his clothes. These and similar delicate attentions they bestowed upon him ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... have had to ascend the stream at least five hundred metres before finding a spot free from grasses and rushes where I could land, there were nine chances to one that I could not find my way in the fog and that I should drown, no matter how well I could swim. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... breeze blowing from the land and waves are beginning to run on the water. They have taken the canoe out into the lake. We must swim ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... foot on the beach, Pinocchio gave a leap and fell into the water. Alidoro tried to stop, but as he was running very fast, he couldn't, and he, too, landed far out in the sea. Strange though it may seem, the Dog could not swim. He beat the water with his paws to hold himself up, but the harder he tried, the deeper he sank. As he stuck his head out once more, the poor fellow's eyes were bulging and he barked out wildly, "I ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... gazing out, saw a late, lopsided moon swim into the sky and by its light the yard below develop a beauty of glistening leaves and fretted shadows. The windows of the houses beyond the fence shone bright, glazed with a pallid luster. Even Mrs. Meeker's stable, wherein she kept her horse ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... your beefsteak, which proves virulent with the same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence of early peas; it is in the corn, in the succotash, in the squash; the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourself at the dessert; but the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... courage; the Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the whole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's making; it is alone strong. How many pented bredds, pretending to be real, are fitter to swim than to be worshipped!—This Knox cannot live but by fact: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He is an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic: it is the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... "How can I do it?" her trembling lips whisper, and she looks about her on the rocks as if to say, "Oh, is there no other way out of this wretched predicament?" The boy, as he sits astride, is getting his feet wet by this time: the horse will have to swim for it presently. Still she hesitates, and throws a shrinking glance over the vast audience gathered on the sands silently attentive—the band, the organ-grinder and the balladist all breathlessly awaiting the issue, no doubt feeling that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... his knees and the mare answered in a lope that stretched into a gallop, fast and faster as she reached the levels and sped toward Elk River. Sandy was not going to waste time looking for a ford. The mare could swim. The moon, sloping down toward the west, still above the range, helped by the big white stars, made the valley bright almost as day. He scanned the mountain toward the peaks, passed over the dark impenetrable pines, surveyed the stretch of gently rising ground between the Elk and the trees and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Instantly then there flashed through his mind knowledge of the fact that Finn was no water dog; that he had never been trained to fetch from the water, or to handle human beings gently with his teeth. The Master had never even seen Finn swim. That was a great love, a wonderful trust which had shone out from Finn's eyes, when, instinct protesting in his whining bark, he had leaped the rail in obedience to orders given on the impulse, and without thought. Would Finn be able to help the child who had often played with him ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... for setting out from the European side was, that the little cape above Sestos was a more prominent starting place, and the frigate, which lay below, close under the Asiatic castle, formed a better point of view for us to swim towards; and, in fact, we landed immediately ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and back again," I promised recklessly. I wasn't sure of what he had in mind, but I knew him—and seeing that we were in the same boat, I thought it fitting that we should sink or swim together. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... hacking and carving, So nought will be lacking for the starving Chosen of God, who in frozen wonderment Realize now what the terrible thunder meant. How their mouths water while they are looking At miles of slaughter and sniffing the cooking! Whiffs of delectable fragrance swim by; Spice-laden vagrants that float and entice, Tickling the throat and brimming the eye. Ah! what rejoicing and crackling and roasting! Ah! How the boys sing as, cackling and boasting, The angels' old wives and their nervous assistants Run ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... reason he elevated her into a kind of test position, and if her replies gave him no encouragement, they at least served to make him feel the inevitableness and the reality of his present position. It would have been easy to get into the swim and let it carry him carelessly on—moderately easy, at any rate. But with Hilda to refer to he was forced to take notice, and it was she, therefore, that hastened the end. Just after Christmas, in a fit of temporary boldness, he told her about Louise, so that it was Louise again who was ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... speech. "I don't want to hurt you, mother, but don't you see? He tyrannizes over all of us, and it's bad for our souls. Why should he bellow at the servants? Or talk to you the way he did to-night?" She smiled faintly. "We're all drowning, and I want to swim, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... candles were seven! And the spirit of the carnival was upon the company. Song was followed by story, and story by song—until at last the room seemed to swim in a ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... quite unhurt. "How do you expect I am going home in these trousers? Perhaps your mother'll pay me for a new pair, eh? And give you a jolly good thrashing for tumbling in? Here's half a crown for you, you young ruffian! and if I catch you on these rocks again, I'll throw you in and let you swim for it: see ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... injustice—she bestowed inventive faculty, and set us naked and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, the world—let those swim who can—the heavy** may sink. To me she gave naught else, and how to make the best use of my endowment is my present business. Men's natural rights are equal; claim is met by claim, effort by effort, and force by force—right is with the strongest—the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... began to see," he continued, "that education of the masses was to be our only preserver, that we should have to sink or swim by that. I began to see, dimly, that this was true for other movements going on to-day. Now comes Hodder with what I sincerely believe is the key. He compels men like me to recognize that our movements are not merely moral, but religious. Religion, as yet unidentified, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... disappear before so many curious eyes; they would be filled with horror at the supposed catastrophe. In the meantime we may as well go out on deck to enjoy the fresh morning air. As for me, I propose to indulge in the luxury of a swim." ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sheets, paste in new parts, or pin slips together. Manipulate your material. Mold it to suit your purposes. Make it follow your plan. By this you will secure a good plan. If this seems a great deal to do, compare it with the time and energy required to learn how to swim, how to play a musical instrument, how to "shoot" in basketball, how to act a part in ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... See! the strong ribs which form the roomy side; Bolts yielding slowly to the sturdiest stroke, And planks which curve and crackle in the smoke. Around the whole rise cloudy wreaths, and far Bear the warm pungence of o'er-boiling tar. Dabbling on shore half-naked sea-boys crowd, Swim round a ship, or swing upon the shroud; Or in a boat purloin'd, with paddles play, And grow familiar with the watery way: Young though they be, they feel whose sons they are, They know what British seamen do and ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... take my M.Y. down, the man not holding the boat secure to the ship, our weight pushed it from us, and we plunged headlong into the sea. My dear M.Y.'s clothes prevented her from sinking, and she was first assisted again into the boat. I went overhead, and had to swim several turns before I could reach the boat. The salt water being warm, and the time not long, we received no further injury. What shall we render unto the Lord for all his mercies to us, his poor unworthy servants! how often has he ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... strange that occasionally a boy may be found who has never taken the trouble to learn how to swim. In the country this is a rare occurrence; which would make the neglect of such an athletic fellow as Puss ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... expedition, which has cost millions, will find us in amusements this winter. It is lucky, for I despair of the Opera. The Mattei has sent certificates to prove that she is stopped by an inundation. The certificates I suppose can swim. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... for wading shod, To go forth with line and rod, Loved the heather, and the sod, Loved to rest On the crystal river's brim Where she saw the fishes swim, And she heard the thrushes' hymn, ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... rhythm of a haunting waltz. Scattered couples moved slowly, arm in arm, along the riverside walk, drinking in the fragrance of the night. Overhead stars popped out in brilliance and dropped their reflections to swim lazily on spellbound waters.... And still the fiacre lingered in inaction, still the driver lorded it aloft, in ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... is a great luxury among the natives, and of all country-born people, who appear to be fully as fond of the water as ducks are, and never look so well pleased as when they are paddling about in it, for nearly all the women can swim. ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: and the rest, some on boards, and some on ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... down that slope fast as my aching legs would carry me, I made up my mind that I would swim out into the sea and drown there, since it is better to drown than to be torn to pieces. "But why ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... life a mixed character, not all good or bad, but made up of both, starts across the fateful river, gets on very well until he reaches about half-way over, when his head becomes dizzy, and he tumbles into the boiling flood below. He swims for his life. (Every Indian on earth can swim, and he does not forget the art in the world of spirits.) Buffeting the waters, he is carried swiftly down the rushing current, and at last makes the shore, to find a country which, like his former life, is a mixture of good and bad. Some days are fair, and ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... for the loss of all, except two persons, by the heavy sea, the sharp reefs, and the blows received by those who tried to swim from the floating cargo. The two ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to this question must be aware that the intellectual gesture is entirely different in highly inflected languages such as Greek and Latin and in so uninflected a language as English, that learning Greek to improve one's English style is like learning to swim in order to fence better, and that familiarity with Greek seems only too often to render a man incapable of clear, strong expression in English at all. Yet Mr. Gilkes can permit this old assertion, so dear to country rectors and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... a great many friends among the boys; she could out-run, out-jump, out-swim any of them in the big country school. She was supple and trim, golden-haired and dark-eyed, and ready for anything that required enterprise and activity of mind or body. Her ragged skirts were still short at eleven—short enough not to impede her. And she led the chase ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... on fine days, the boys used to run straight down to the shore and bathe. A bright and joyous scene it was. They stripped off their clothes on the shingle that adjoined the beach, and then running along the sands, would swim out far into the bay till their heads looked like small dots glancing in the sunshine. This year Eric had learned to swim, and he enjoyed the bathing more ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... fine swim under the starshine. The air was warm as the water, and the water as warm as tepid milk. The good salt taste of it was in his mouth, the tingling of it along his limbs; and the steady beat of his heart, heavy and strong, made ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... tiny cells, with lashes very like those we saw coming from the moss-flower, and I have pressed them in the position in which they would naturally leave the plant. You will also see on this side several cells in which these tiny spores are forming, ready to burst out and swim; for this green weed is merely a collection of cells, like the single-celled plants on land. Each cell can work as a separate plant; it feeds, grows, and can send out ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... slow increases by degrees in rapidity and volume, then falls away almost to silence, again swells and quickens and so alternates, the motions of the dancer's willowy and obedient figure accurately according now seeming to swim languidly, and anon her little feet having their will of her, and fluttering in midair like a couple of birds. She is an engaging creature, her ways are ways of pleasantness, but whether all her paths are peace depends somewhat, it is reasonable to conjecture, upon the circumspection ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... she betakes, And with her beares the fowle welfavourd witch: 245 Through mirkesome aire her readie way she makes. Her twyfold Teme, of which two blacke as pitch, And two were browne, yet each to each unlich, Did softly swim away, ne ever stampe, Unlesse she chaunst their stubborne mouths to twitch; 250 Then foming tarre, their bridles they would champe, And trampling the ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... have had a delicious time, and I think, too, we owe our lives to Miss Bee. Loftie was making an awful mess of that sail, and you know, Kate, none of us can swim. Now look at Loftie, do look at him! See how he's bending towards Miss Meadowsweet. He is quite taken with her, I can see. Oh, what a flirt he is. Doesn't she hold herself nicely, Kate? And hasn't she ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... followed it for some days. At last they came to the Big River,[1] and there, on the other side, they saw many lodges. They crept down a coulee into the valley, and hid in a small piece of timber just opposite the camp. Toward evening the man said: "Kyi, my brothers. To-night I will swim across and look all through the camp for my wife. If I do not find her, I will cache and look again to-morrow evening. But if I do not return before daylight of the second night, then you will know I am killed. Then you will do as you think best. Maybe you will want to take revenge. Maybe ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... and the bright red and white of her sail floated on the waves for a minute, and then all that was left of her were the masthead and yard—and on them a few men. The rest were gone, for they were in their mail, and might not swim. Only a few yet clung to ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... the middle of the river, he found means to overset the wherry by accident, and every man, disregarding the prisoner, consulted his own safety. As for Hackabout, to whom that element was quite familiar, he mounted astride upon the keel of the boat, which was uppermost, and exhorted the bailiffs to swim for their lives; protesting before God, that they had no ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... at sixteen, his tall daughter was still a child, not a premature society girl. He insisted upon plain gowns and a pigtail, upon hearty exercise and wholesome friendships with boys as well as with girls. So far as lay in his power, he had taught Cicely "to ride, to row, to swim, to tell the truth and to fight the devil," and the result was quite to the liking of Billy and Theodora. They enjoyed Cicely's irresponsible fun and her frank expressions of opinion; they enjoyed the atmosphere of ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... I will be on shore an hour before midnight. By that time the black fellows will have turned in. Tell the negro who brought you off that there will be a couple of doubloons for him if he comes alongside at the hour I name. If he fails me, I must swim on shore, although there is a risk of being snapt up by a shark or a stray crocodile. However, I may find another chance before that of getting on shore. Now you'd better be off, for it won't do for you to be seen lingering about ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... you hear that, gentlemen blockheads, that seldom hear anything but yourselves? Next after the paper-maker, who furnished the sine qua non, takes rank, not the engraver or illustrator (our modern novelist cannot swim without this caricaturing villain as one of his bladders; all higher forms of literature laugh at him), but the binder; for he, by raising books into ornamental furniture, has given even to non-intellectual people by myriads a motive for encouraging literature and an interest ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Young.—There is a wide difference in the relative helplessness of nesting birds, and a corresponding difference in the methods of parental care. The young of praecocial birds are able to run or swim with their parents almost as soon as hatched, for they not only have the strength to do this, but their bodies being covered with down they are protected from the sun or cold. Examples of such birds are the ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... slips and patches of free land; you thread your path through the crowds of Europe, and at last, on the banks of Jordan, you joyfully know that you are upon the very frontier of all accustomed respectabilities. There, on the other side of the river (you can swim it with one arm), there reigns the people that will be like to put you to death for not being a vagrant, for not being a robber, for not being armed and houseless. There is comfort in that—health, comfort, and strength to ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the Apache village we reached the Colorado river, and we had a hard time finding a suitable place to cross. Finally we decided to build a raft of logs and ferry our stuff on that, and swim the horses. This we did successfully, and also cached the furs to keep them safe ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... babbing your father's gone a-cabbing to catch a shilling for its pence to make the baby babbing dance for old Diamond's a duck they say he can swim but the duck of diamonds is baby that's him and of all the swallows the merriest fellows that bake their cake with the water they shake out of the river flowing for ever and make dust into clay on the shiniest day to build their nest ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... they were not very well behaved and needed a good scolding; so he began to strut about and talk at the top of his voice; but the ducklings had their swim and came out ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various
... of the privileges of rank, Carew," the Captain observed as dryly as if he had not risen from his warm bed to swim the river and walk a mile in the darkness and the downpour, in order to see how the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... the heat is excessive during the whole year, and where it is so agreeable to bathe several times in the day. The children pass a considerable part of their lives in the water; all the inhabitants, even the women of the most opulent families, know how to swim; and in a country where man is so near the state of nature, one of the first questions asked on meeting in the morning is, whether the water is cooler than it was on the preceding evening. One of the modes of bathing is ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... You that scum the molten lead. 3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs; 1. You that drive the trembling hosts Of poor, poor ghosts, With your sharpened prongs; 2. You that thrust them off the brim; 3. You that plunge them when they swim: 1. Till they drown; Till they go On a row, Down, down, down: Ten ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... last to the river bank with its fringe of trees and willows and canes. My intention was to swim across, but the current was swift, the water forbiddingly dark and cold. A mist obscured the other bank. I could not, indeed, see the water more than a few yards out. It was a hazardous and horrible undertaking, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce |
