"Swimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather irruptions, inroads, or, what are called, raids, than a proper conquest and occupation of the countries which have been their victims. They would go forward, 200,000 of them at once, at the rate of 100 miles a day, swimming the rivers, galloping over the plains, intoxicated with the excitement of air and speed, as if it were a fox-chase, or full of pride and fury at the reverses which set them in motion; seeking indeed their fortunes, but seeking them on no plan; like a flight of locusts, or a swarm of angry wasps ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... forget to write us." Naphtali, speaking in his hoarse whisper, half in jest, half in earnest, made me repeat my promise to send him a "ship ticket" from America. I promised everything that was asked of me. My head was swimming ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... great precaution. The inhabitants of the Mamelles assert that it devours young crocodiles. This species seems to be the same as that which frequents the banks of the Nile. It grows to the length of four feet and uses its tail in swimming. ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... disconcerted than I am at the present moment. I would go on to B——'s as if nothing had happened; and put up with the inconvenience of swimming the river in the morning. In the meantime, though I was well splashed, all the things in my pockets were dry. I particularly congratulated myself on the good fortune of having been so close to the root at the Royal ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the voluntary muscles for the most important crisis of a woman's life. "Some of the slower Spanish dances" are commended for the development of the abdominal muscles, but one would rather recommend swimming, the abandonment of the corset, and, if the gymnasium is to be used, some of the various exercises which serve these muscles, however little they may serve to exploit the apparatus of the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... wing, used as a fan in summer and to furnish wind for an obdurate wood fire in winter, was found limply swimming in the bucket. Indeed, for days thereafter, divers articles, missed from the big, front room, accompanied the bucket on its return trips. When one of grandpap's well-worn Sunday boots was brought to the surface, it was believed that the last of the missing ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... most of them had now left to join in the pursuit. After sustaining one or two heavy fires, and baffling one or two small parties who pursued him for a short distance, he crossed the river below the ford by swimming, and, entering the wood at a point where there was no pursuit, returned by a circuitous route to Bryant's Station. In the mean time, the great mass of the victors and vanquished crowded the bank of ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... turned the place was saturated with the blood of fish and offal. The sea was covered with offal; thousands of gulls were flying in every direction and feeding upon it, while great numbers of eider ducks, as tame as farm ducks, were swimming everywhere and feeding. They were not afraid, for no one is allowed to shoot them. The bare rocks were black with hundreds of thousands of heads of cod that had been put there ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... pool-side scene, with hotel and tropical palms against an unbelievable blue sky. Professor Emil Losch loomed on the screen; he was in swimming trunks, a small gray man who seemed hard as nails, his lean ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... 'Mid all those horrors there, Than hear the sickly honeyed tone And see the swimming ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... defect. A select body of auxiliaries, disencumbered of their baggage, who were well acquainted with the fords, and accustomed, after the manner of their country, to direct their horses and manage their arms while swimming, [87] were ordered suddenly to plunge into the channel; by which movement, the enemy, who expected the arrival of a fleet, and a formal invasion by sea, were struck with terror and astonishment, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... question here is not concerning our genius and elocution, but our species and figure. If we could make and assume to ourselves any form, would you be unwilling to resemble the sea-triton as he is painted supported swimming on sea-monsters whose bodies are partly human? Here I touch on a difficult point; for so great is the force of nature that there is no man who would not choose to be like a man, nor, indeed, any ant that would not be like an ant. But like what man? For ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... came from the villa and who returned there. Boris or Michael, or another. They went and returned through the reeds. But in coming they used a boat; they returned by swimming." ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... in quite the opposite direction—and that he wouldn't be goin' to the Joyces' place to-night at all; what 'ud bring him there, and it gettin' so late? But of course he went there, as surely as a swimming bubble goes over the cataract's smooth lip, or a fascinated little bird down ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... calculation as to how much earlier he would have to get up that morning to be able to take an hour off in the afternoon, that made Peter hesitate, but the sudden swimming of his senses about the point of meeting eyes. "I'll tell you what," he said, "you come by for Ellen, and I'll walk over about four and ride home ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... up, groping in the dark, his head swimming, a deadly numbness dragging at his limbs. He had no pain, only a strange sensation of being drawn upwards. Then his head bumped against the door, and the remaining glimmer of consciousness shaped itself into the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... blip that was just swimming into view, a sharp green point against the screen. "We do have to worry about that one." He selected a lever and ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... apparently contented with his escape, made off. But about sunset Captain Delois, iron in hand, watching from the knight-heads of the "Ann Alexander" for other whales to repair his ill-luck, saw the redoubtable fighter not far away, swimming at about a speed of five knots. At the same time the whale spied the ship. Increasing his speed to fifteen knots, he bore down upon her, and with the full force of his more than 100 tons bulk struck her "a terrible blow about two feet from the keel and just abreast of the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... to hear for an hour or so the sullen thrashing of the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft swirl raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the rushes, the restless twitterings of the few ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... to bed, and the sun was already some distance above the horizon when we awoke on the next morning. It had been perfectly calm during the night, and we found ourselves still so near the scene of the preceding day's combat, that several corpses were swimming around the vessel. As I went forward I was not a little alarmed to see the number of black ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... is a small village at this place, where we got breakfast cooked, and did justice to it. We hired horses to take us to Granada; but as the road for a league further on was overflown by the lake, we went on in the boat, and a boy took the horses round to meet us, swimming them ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... struggles of two little chickens in a tub of water. Henry bitterly exclaimed against this cruelty, but Fred innocently replied that "he had no hand in the matter; he had thought, for some time, how much prettier they would look swimming like ducks, and therefore tried to teach them—but the foolish things persisted in walking along with their eyes ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... little way out, in which two men in red shirts, with ropes and lifebelts, sit watching to see that no one goes too far out, for the tide is often very strong. Sometimes these men, who are called sauveteurs, stand on the sand, and if they think anyone is swimming too far they blow a trumpet ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... it?" he asked, springing to his feet, his head swimming and smarting. "We had a row, didn't we? Did they hurt you? Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head—one of their hatchet men. Did they ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... broke, and her guide gave her up for lost, when, to his surprise and joy, he saw her boldly clearing the water by his side, and they soon reached the bank in safety. During her visits to Dieppe, the Duchess had acquired a proficiency in swimming, and it has since frequently saved her in the hour of need. Overpowered by fatigue and hunger, and chilled by the cold of her dripping garments, this courageous woman felt that her physical powers were no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... the matter became known to you. Naturally I took more than a casual interest in Krovitch after that. Reports got disturbing, so I ran the Bronx over to sort of hang around until needed. To be perfectly frank, I was looking for you. When the skipper called me that morning and said some one was swimming for the boat I took a long guess that it was you. The first time you sank the launch was almost on top of you. We pulled you out of the very ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... with folds so soft and fair, Swimming in the pure quiet air! Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow; Where, midst their labor, pause the reaper train, As cool it comes along the grain. Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee In thy ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... guard the gold, lest anybody should try to steal it. It would not be easy to steal, even if it had no guard, and knowing this has perhaps made these pretty keepers a little careless about it, so that now, instead of watching it very closely, they are swimming and diving and circling about, trying to catch one another, having the jolliest time in the world, and never thinking that there may be ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... he, "I'm not, myself, governed by any mere spirit of bravado. It's swimming water, yes—any fool knows that, outside of yon one. What I do say is that we can't afford to waste time here fooling with that boat. We've got to swim it. I agree with you, Wingate. This river's been forded by the trains for years, and I don't see as we ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... May-flowers, I brought home some frogs' eggs in my basket. They looked like hemp seed in lemon jelly. In about a week each egg separated from the main part in a little ball. It took two weeks for the pollywogs to hatch, but when they did, it was very comical to see them swimming about. If we scared them, they would run to their balls, or homes, as we called them. I put them in the brook, and afterward when I went to look for them, I could not find them. I suppose they had developed into little frogs, and hopped away. ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... natural born singer how she studies and works, is like asking the fish swimming about in the ocean, to tell you where is the sea! She could not tell you how she does it. Singing is as the breath of life to Tetrazzini—as natural as the air she breathes. Realizing this, I began at ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... For there, swimming about, or climbing on to a great mass of ice a quarter of a mile away, but which looked half that distance in the clear air, was the herd in perfect safety. They were of all sizes, from calves not half grownup to ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... residence is the refuse-pit, which fills practically the whole of the rectangular farmyard, and resembles (in size and shape only) an open-air swimming bath. Its abundant contents are apparently the sole asset of the household; for if you proceed, in the interests of health, to spread a decent mantle of honest earth thereover, you do so to the accompaniment of a harmonised chorus of lamentation, very creditably rendered by the entire ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... and shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and pungent, and stings the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... together in my ears like a symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a good talk lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot within you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming around you with the colours of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... peace could not be purchased by victory. Where destined to appear at all, it is likely to be developed in extreme youth, which explains such instances as the gamins de Paris, and that of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who in boyhood conveyed a dispatch during a naval engagement, swimming through double lines of fire. Indeed, among heroic races, young soldiers are preferable for daring; such, at least, is the testimony of the highest authorities, as Ney and Wellington. "I have found," said the Duke, "that raw troops, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the sloop, others betook themselves to swimming; but as for myself, I was still upon the island when it disappeared into the sea, and I had only time to catch hold of a piece of wood that we had brought out of the ship to make a fire. Meanwhile, the captain, having received on board those who were ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... three succeeding ones we were travelling through a district park- or garden-like in its exquisite artificial beauty. The trail, which was at first fairly good, ran now along the top of an embankment some six feet broad constructed across the swimming paddy fields, then dropped into a little valley shaded with fine "namti" trees, and again it wound along a low ridge. Far off against the western horizon stretched the splendid snow-line of the Tibetan range from which I had just come, but now more than a hundred miles away. Every inch ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... silent congregation of the previous evening was reassembled, and we saw how, above the horizon, there rose a little carmine-red ball, spreading a dim, wintry light. Far around, amid the mists, rose the mountains, as if swimming in a white rolling sea, only their summits being visible, so that we could imagine ourselves standing on a little hill in the midst of an inundated plain, in which here and there rose dry clods of earth. To retain what I saw and felt, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... so-called trusses with poor results up to last May, when you fitted me, and I can positively state that from that day my rupture has not been down since. I indulge in athletic sports, in swimming and bathing and wore your truss in the water with no inconvenience whatever. I feel confident that I am now entirely cured of my rupture, and write this hoping that some afflicted brothers may take advantage of your grand invention. You ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... Venusian!" said McGuire, throwing off his jacket. And in that strange room in a strange world, under the shadow of death and of tortures unknown, the two men stripped with all the care-free abandon of a couple of schoolboys racing to be first in the old swimming hole. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... possible consequences of this magnanimity, the envoy and his companion traveled without pausing for more than sixty miles. And then, here was the Alleghany to cross again, and no horse to help one. Swimming was out of the question, even for the iron Washington, for the river was hurtling with ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... they gone; there will they ever bide; Swimming in waves of joys and heavenly loves: He still a bridegroom, she a gladsome bride; Their hearts in love, like spheres still constant moving; No change, no grief, no age can them befall; Their bridal bed is in that heavenly hall, Where all days are ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... throat any time these fourteen years gone. The others, big men all and not very much afraid of responsibility, are selling horses, breaking trails, drinking sangaree, running railways beyond the timberline, swimming rivers, blowing up tree-stumps, and making cities where no cities were, in all the five quarters of the world. Only people will not believe this when you tell them. They are too near things and a great deal ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... navy had emigrated or perished, he was, in 1793, made a captain of the republican navy, and in 1796 an admiral. During the battle of Aboukir he was the chief of the staff, under Admiral Brueys, and saved himself by swimming, when l'Orient took fire and blew up. Bonaparte wrote to him on this occasion: "The picture you have sent me of the disaster of l'Orient, and of your own dreadful situation, is horrible; but be assured that, having such a miraculous escape, DESTINY intends you to avenge one ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... crushed by an accident. But the wind still blowing hurricanes, they would not venture the loss of one of their boats: and during the hot contentions between him, and the ungrateful chief of the vessel he had preserved, they were driven out far to sea; whence his swimming arm, had he plunged into the boisterous deep, could have been of no use to him. Indignation, despair, overwhelmed him. None appeared to understand the nature of his feelings; all pretending to wonder that a European born, should not be grateful to any occasion that would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... Street, just estraying a little way from our temporary nest, and taking good account of landmarks and corners, so as to find our way readily back again. It is long since I have had such a childish feeling; but all that I had heard and felt about the vastness of London made it seem like swimming in a boundless ocean, to venture one step beyond the only spot I knew. My first actual impression of London was of stately and spacious streets, and by no means so dusky and grimy as I had expected,—not merely in the streets about this quarter of the town, which is the aristocratic ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... length. We were obliged to fire seven pistol balls into its head to kill it before we could get it on board. It was cut up and put into pickle for those who chose to eat it. There was a beautiful fish, striped alternately black and yellow, swimming under it. The sailors called it a pilot-fish, and they informed me that sharks are very seldom without one or two, and that they appear to direct them where to go; this last must be mere conjecture. The ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... content to dismiss no riddle with a mere "I do not know." Jurgen was no more able to give up questioning the meaning of life than could a trout relinquish swimming: indeed, he lived submerged in a flood of curiosity and doubt, as his native element. That death ended all things might very well be the case: yet if the outcome proved otherwise, how much more pleasant it would be, for ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... she said shakily, "I hope he'll get on all right. He's such a child," she added, knitting her pretty brow. "I wish to goodness we were married. Then I could have gone with him." She stumbled, and I caught her. She looked up at me with her grey eyes swimming. "I've often seen you off, Boy, but ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... this, twelve years ago, Amiel wrote in his diary: "The whole atmosphere has a luminous serenity, a limpid clearness. The islands are like swans swimming in a golden stream. Peace, splendour, boundless space! . . . I long to catch the wild bird, happiness, and tame it. These mornings impress me indescribably. They intoxicate me, they carry me away. I feel beguiled out of myself, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... away in swimming trim," thought Dave, "so that may be so. I'll go out on that ledge of rocks ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... I expected him to do this; and before he could pick up the oars, I stepped out of my covert, and was prepared to leap into the boat with him; for, though the day was warm and pleasant, I had no fancy for swimming off to the Marian. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... there it was, swimming slowly under the vessel, not two fathoms below the keel—its immense bulk being impressively visible, owing to the position of the observers, and its round eyes staring as if in astonishment at the strange creature above. [The author has seen a whale in precisely ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... that I had that something was going wrong with me was a swimming in my head—so sudden and so violent that I lurched forward and was close to pitching over the rail of the bridge into the sea. For a moment I fancied that the ship had taken a quick plunge; and then ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... him, now, swimming strongly. She gripped an arm of the unconscious Schuyler.... Together, she and Blake, dividing the weight, slowly, inch by inch, fought their way along the rope. At length they reached the side of the swamped knockabout.... Blake crawled upon its slippery deck. He lay for a moment, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... either from irritation or association, and then falls into great pain itself, from the too great action of its own fibres. Hence any muscle, by being too vehemently exerted, falls into cramp, as in swimming too forcibly in water, which is painfully cold; and a secondary pain is then induced by the too violent contraction of the muscle; though the pain, which was the cause of the contraction, ceases. Which accounts for the continuance of the contraction, and distinguishes this disease from ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... is to be defended, it may be shown that those witticisms, aimed at him, about the giraffe getting its long neck by continually stretching it, or the whale getting its tail by holding its hind legs too close in swimming, do not apply to Darwinism, but to the exploded theory ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... until a certain sum of money was paid for his release. The merchants and officials were tortured with fire, and then thrown from the bridge with their wives and children into the river. Lest any of them should escape by swimming, boatfuls of soldiers despatched those who were not killed by the fall. At the present day there is a curious bubbling immediately below the bridge, which prevents the water from freezing in winter, and according to popular belief this is caused by the spirits of the terrible ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... eighteen bedrooms, billiard-room, music-room, art gallery and swimming-pool." He shook his head. "And no one to use 'em but us. We had a boy." He stopped, and for an instant, as though asking pardon, laid his hand upon the knee of Mrs. Farrell. "But he was taken when he was four, and none came since. My wife has ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... a red and white brachet, caught by the swift stream that ran into the race, fast swimming as ever he could swim, yet by no means able to escape. Then Martimor stripped off his harness and leaped into the water and did marvellously to rescue the little hound. But the fierce river dragged his legs, and buffeted him, and hurtled at him, and drew him ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... possible delay, and hurry away. Windy nights were good for the sport, and I can still see the river lit up with the lumps of light that a torch makes in a high wind. The torches, of course, were used to attract the fish, which came swimming to the sheen, and were then speared. As little noise as possible was made; but though the men bit their lips instead of crying out when they missed their fish, there was a continuous ring of their weapons on the stones, and every irrepressible ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... are wonderful extremes of chromatic gradation, for it is the hand and mind of nature that adorns herself; she can see unerringly, and lay on divinely, the remotest intricacies of shade, and her colors are pure light, swimming in ether. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... your wag-tail dogs, your wealthy pursy manufacturers! He decried the attractions of the sublimer House, and laughed at the transparent Whiggery of his party in replenishing it from the upper shoots of the commonalty: 'Dragging it down to prop it up! swamping it to keep it swimming!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Peter Moore, grinning. "The last time was in Panama. Remember? I tripped you up, after you knocked the wind out of me, and you fell, clothes and all, into the Washington Hotel's swimming tank." ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... morning was stealing into the gloomy cell when Antoinette arrived at this conclusion, and the next moment she was up and dressed. She approached the bed upon which Dolores was lying, still asleep. Antoinette seated herself at the foot of the bed and waited. It was her pale face and eyes swimming with tears that first met her companion's ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupcon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... their hands clutched the tubes, then tore it ruthlessly from their puny grasp, and flung it afar. The dog, accustomed to sporting in the surf with its mistress, rushed to seize this flotsam, but the powerful jaws could find no hold. As the dog approached, swimming, Josephine put her hand to its collar, and so supported it while they waited anxiously ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... to bits, he ran into the surf. The girls had been watching him read and had been laughing over the expression on his face. They followed him into the water, and one of them managed to slip over the ropes beside him. The others made a fuss; and, not being used to swimming flirtations, Evan thought a real accident had happened. He bravely swam under the rope and rescued the water-nymph. An hour later, when they were all acquainted, he discovered that she could out-do him thrice ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... tried my small dorg at the swimming business, by throwing him into a shallow pond. I had to go in after the beast pretty smart, boots, trowsers, socks, and all. He and I had a roast by the fire that evening. My trowsers, however, getting overdone in the operation, I lost $4 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... when he reached the city. So he spent sixpence of his little store on a bath in the swimming baths, and another sixpence on some breakfast. Then, refreshed in body and mind, he called at the post-office. There was nothing for him there. Though he hardly expected any letter yet, his heart sunk as he thought what news might ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... not too sure, you must know, that one has not happened already. To see you lead that signore by the nose! You came swimming among the tree-stems like an angel. You might have knocked me down with a feather. And how he kissed your hand! Miracles! Why, if you had been the maiden I dream about, he couldn't have been more respectful. If you ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... may hold my whistle as well as your own," said Bawly, "for I might lose it under water." Then into the pond Bawly hopped, and was soon swimming ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... had been early observed, gazing at the wreck, and, later, a wagon had been drawn upon the beach. There was no sign of a life-boat, however, or of any attempt at rescue; and, about nine o'clock, it was determined that some one should try to land by swimming, and, if possible, get help. Though it seemed almost sure death to trust one's self to the surf, a sailor, with a life-preserver, jumped overboard, and, notwithstanding a current drifting him to leeward, was seen to reach the shore. A ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... these mines than those that can hardly give a sound reason for the first principles of religion; and such as are ignorant of many more weighty things that are easily to be seen in the face and superficies of the Scripture; nothing will serve these but swimming in the deeps, when they have not yet learned to wade through the shallows of the Scriptures. Like the Gnostics of old, who thought they knew all things, though they knew nothing as they ought to know. And as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that it was her trusted friend making illicit love to her remained, in spite of all her effort, an insignificant thing in her mind. The music confused and distracted her, and made her struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam. That was the inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The music throbbed into the warnings ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... blonde young woman stepped from the swimming pool of the Turkish Bath, the attendant thought that never had she seen so fair and golden and beautiful a creature. Unable to contain her admiration, she spoke her thought. The beautiful blonde thanked her ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... morning; but he did not chuse to run any risque. How cold water comes to be such a bugbear, I know not: if I am not mistaken, Hippocrates recommends immersion in cold water for the gout; and Celsus expressly says, in omni tussi utilis est natatio: in every cough swimming is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... find room to publish this, as I like nothing better than helping someone get started on my favorite hobby, aviation. I have, however, several hobbies, including football, basket-ball, tennis, swimming, boating and hiking. I live within ten miles of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and can see from the study hall window, which I now am seated near to, three ranges of the mountains all covered with more than ten inches of snow.—Richard M. Evans, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Withers, were 163 Indian ponies captured in the Chillicothe woods; the other plunder was considerable, being chiefly silver ornaments and clothing. After crossing the Ohio in boats—the horses swimming—there was an auction of the booty, which was appraised at L32,000, continental money, each man getting goods or horses to the value of about L110. The Indian loss was five killed at the town, and many ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Priscilla, swimming close under the rocks. "You'll have to hop out or you'll be stuck there till the tide rises, and that won't be till swell ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... caught a startled look in the eyes of each at the Sherrill fete. Every wild instinct, if she had but heeded the warning, had pointed the way; the childhood escapade in the forest, the tomboy pranks of riding and running and swimming that had horrified Aunt Agatha to the point of tears, and later the persistent call of ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... relieved Jimmy's swimming brain, as thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York—perhaps ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... nor old. There mighte men see joyes new, When the medicine, fine and true, Thus restor'd had ev'ry wight, So well the queen as the knight, Unto perfect joy and heal, That *floating they were in such weal* *swimming in such As folk that woulden in no wise happiness* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... added beauty to the place. By simple irrigating means this stream is made to fertilize a considerable tract of land used as vegetable gardens, lying between Tulipan and Havana. The Bishop's Garden still contains large stone basins for swimming purposes, cascades, fountains, and miniature lakes, all rendered possible by means of this small, clear, deep river. The neglected place is sadly suggestive of decay, with its moss-covered paths, tangled undergrowth, and untrimmed foliage. ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... there are whole flocks of sea-birds swimming about! All the animals that live in the sea—the whales and walruses, the codfish and the seals—swarm in the saucer of the Old Woman of the Sea. That is where they all come from. Sometimes the Old Woman of the Sea keeps all the ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... She turned blindly towards it; but before she could utter the cry that rose to her lips, she was again lifted from the saddle, carried forward, and gently placed upon what seemed to be a moss-grown bank. Opening her half swimming eyes she recognized the Indian cross. The crowd seemed to recede before her. Her eyes closed again as a strong arm passed ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... The Universe lies in every human heart, and he plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed themselves of it. Something deeply ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... Weissnichtwo; "Prometheus Bound" would have been impossible. Only one with at least a dram of dizziness could have conceived an "eagle-baffling mountain, black, wintry, dead, unmeasured." In the days when we read Jules Verne, was not our chief pleasure found in his marvelous way of suspending us with swimming senses over some fearful abyss; wet and slippery crags maybe, and void and blackness before us and below; and then just to give full measure of fright, a sound of running water in the depths. Doesn't it raise the hair? Could a ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... the torch aside and bade Milo trample it out, then she, too, ascended to the deck to view her victory. The sea was dotted with swimming men, the beach was full of running men, terrified men made the cliff resound with their cries. Then, sure that the schooner was free of foes, Dolores looked toward the sloop, now within hail of the schooner and coming fast with sail and sweeps, while her crew stared over the low bulwarks in puzzlement ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... them. Marcel, the former prevot des marchands, who had been instructed to furnish one thousand men, was not ready in time; and Dumas, who was to have acted as guide, overslept the appointed hour. About five o'clock in the morning a Huguenot succeeded in swimming across the river, and carried to Montgomery the first tidings of the events of the last two hours. The count at once notified his comrades, but, although there were among them those who had been most urgent to leave Paris ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the Miami on a raft, their horses swimming after them; and were met on landing by a crowd of warriors, who, after smoking with them, escorted them to the neighboring town, where they were greeted by a fusillade of welcome. "We entered with English ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... discernable, and finding also that the Impregnating Virtue of this Wood did by its being frequently Infus'd in New Water by degrees Decay, I Conjectur'd that the Tincture afforded by the Wood must proceed from some Subtiler parts of it drawn forth by the Water, which swimming too and fro in it did so Modifie the Light, as to exhibit such and such Colours; and because these Subtile parts were so easily Soluble even in Cold water, I concluded that they must abound with Salts, and perhaps contain much of the Essential ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... silken bodies of the emigrants followed him in the starlight. In ones and twos and threes they climbed over the dam and with them went a dozen children born three months before. Easily and swiftly they began the journey down-stream, the youngsters swimming furiously to keep up with their parents. In all they numbered forty. Broken Tooth swam well in the lead, with his older workers and battlers behind him. In the ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... "Miss Lady Ellison, I, Calvin Blount, old Calvin Blount, this sort of man like I told you, I offer myself to you, and all I have, for your own. I offer you that—" The girl's eyes looked up at him, swimming now all the more in tears. His face was distorted, but he went on. "Don't," said he, "please don't! Listen, here's the answer. By the Eternal, you can't and you shan't marry old Cal Blount! It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right, Miss Lady," said he again, presently. "It's right ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... bathing (or baptism) place of the Greeks, northwards from that of the Latins, to which English travellers are usually conducted, we had to cross, by swimming as we could. {5} King David, on his return from exile, had a ferry-boat to carry over his household, but we had none. Probably, on his escaping from Absalom, he ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... said, 'very difficult. It is like swimming with corks. One would be always tempted to look ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... upon her swimming senses, upon eyes suddenly opened, ears suddenly made free of the music of the spheres; and her hand—the hand that had first girded on her boy's attire—went out to Blake like that of ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... started swimming, and little by little he neared the land, swimming with a strong stroke until he brought them ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... thee, perhaps, O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming eyes—"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that account a Duck had chosen to make her nest there. She was sitting on her eggs; but the pleasure she had felt at first was now almost gone, because she had been there so long, and had so few visitors, for the other Ducks preferred swimming on the canals to sitting among the burdock ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... him now with candid, inexpressible, guileless affection in those swimming eyes, and said with touching sweetness: "Ungrateful! Should I not be so if I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time. Now I must tell you first of all how happy I am over you, over my sweet little Effi. The very ground beneath my feet here is on fire, and yet our good city is growing more and more quiet and lonesome. The last summer guest left yesterday. Toward the end he went swimming at nine degrees above zero (Centigrade), and the attendants were always rejoiced when he came out alive. For they feared a stroke of apoplexy, which would give the baths a bad reputation, as though the water were worse here than elsewhere. I rejoice when ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there, nevertheless—impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon, dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... and began to fight, and I didn't care if I were whipped black and blue, I meant to finish that old black-faced Shropshire. I set the pole on the back of its neck and pushed with all my might, and I got it in, too. My, but it made a splash! It wasn't much good at swimming either, and it had no chance, for I stood on the roots and pushed it down, and hit it over the nose with all my might, and I didn't care how far it came on the cars, or how much money it cost, it never would chase me, and make ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... fact, a web of water framed between the hills, its rushing warp-currents, as it rolled along, woven by smoking steam-shuttles with a woof of foam,—how, at the entrance of a bay, flocks of snowy sails, with black, shining beaks, and sleek, unruffled plumage, were swimming out to sea,—how another river, not quite so unique as the last, was also in sight, coiling among emerald steeps and crags and precipices and forest,—while beyond, green woodlands, checkered fields, groves, orchards, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... robberies in Caithness, Sweyn is besieged by Jarl Ragnvald in Lambaborg, now known as Freswick Castle, but escapes by swimming in his armour under the cliffs and landing in Caithness, whence he passed southwards through Sutherland to Scotland and Edinburgh, where King David I received him with honour, and reconciled ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... shadowy scuttle through the weed. He would tease the expectant anemones, causing them to close suddenly over his finger. But Helena liked to watch without touching things. Meanwhile the sun was slanting behind the cross far away to the west, and the light was swimming in silver and gold upon the lacquered water. At last Siegmund looked doubtfully at two miles more of glistening, gilded boulders. Helena was seated on a stone, dabbling her feet in a warm pool, delicately feeling the ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... anything I order. Knowing well enough that this seemingly sweeping proposition embraces but two or three articles, I order him to prepare scrambled eggs, bread, and sheerah. An hour later he brings in the scrambled eggs, swimming in hot molasses and grease! He has stirred the grease and molasses together, and in this ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... for his store in Philadelphia. Franklin was to be his managing and confidential clerk, with the prospect of rapid advancement. At the same time Sir William Wyndham, ex-chancellor of the exchequer, endeavored to persuade Franklin to open a swimming school in London. He promised very aristocratic patronage; and as an opening for money-getting this plan was perhaps the better. Franklin almost closed with the proposition. He seems, however, to have had a little ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... crew had leaped into the water, and were now swimming madly to the shore. At the same moment Glynn cut the line that fastened the two canoes together, and seizing his paddle, urged his craft up the river as fast as possible. But his single arm could not drive it with much speed against the stream, and before he had advanced a dozen yards, one of ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... an appearance, a sensuous image of the pure spiritual life, and the whole of Sense is only a picture swimming before our present knowing faculty like a dream and ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... patiently waited for two hours, and the scene and the sunshine had thrown me into a kind of reverie, when my companion, who was more awake, arrested my attention. A full-sized female haff-fish was swimming slowly past, within eight yards of my feet, her head askance, and her eyes fixed upon me; the gun, charged with two balls, was immediately pointed. I followed her with the aim for some distance, when she dived ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... much hampered by enemy fire. It was renewed after the moon had gone down, but then it was impossible to find the easiest route or to negotiate the current in the dark. Farther down stream, however, the efforts met with better fortune. A small party succeeded in swimming across in the dark and landing on the left bank. These towed a rope behind them, by which, after landing, they hauled across light rafts. The crossing by the raft-loads of men had to be carried out in the face of some hostile fire. Portions of the scrub ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... followed the growth of the impulse towards the first surrender. It came upon me for the first time when I was twelve. How well I remember that day! My sanity had fought its strongest battle, and my head was still throbbing and swimming with the strain of it. I was taken to a strange house, and left alone in a bright room. On the wall there was a picture of a very beautiful woman. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I couldn't move from in front of it. New passions, that I had never felt before, were tearing me. The picture ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... her eyes swimming with tears of joy and gentle affection for the simple soul so incapable of grasping anything but his own single purpose. "Oil?" she cried. "Oh, Zip, don't you understand? Don't you see? It's oil—coal-oil. You've been searching ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... you please, Madamoiselle," urged Monsieur. Petty sat almost directly in front of him, or rather she stood—Miss Woodhull wished each pupil to stand while reciting—and upon being urged to "proceed" raised to him a pair of violet eyes swimming in tears, and ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... saw two Swannes of goodly hewe Come softly swimming downe along the Lee; Two fairer Birds I yet did never see; The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew, Did never whiter shew; Nor Jove himselfe, when he a Swan would be, For love of Leda, whiter did appeare; ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... grief and sympathy. Some of the men had ridden till daylight; the women, worn out and exhausted, had perhaps an hour or so of sleep towards morning—yet they were all there, except Ben Duggan, on the long, hot, dusty road back, heads swimming in the heat and faces and hands coated with perspiration and dust—and never, never once breaking out of a slow walk. It would have been the same had it been pouring with rain. I have seen funerals trotting fast in London, and they are trotting ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... time have we remained sitting on our form, both buried in one book, having quite forgotten each other's existence, and yet not apart; each conscious of the other's presence, and bathing in an ocean of thought, like two fish swimming in the same waters. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... his weakness rendered intoxicating, the strange look of everything around him, the nervous excitement of every human approach, kept him up until he reached the churchyard, across which he was crawling, to find the curate's lodging, when suddenly his brain seemed to go swimming away into regions beyond the senses. He attempted to seat himself on a grave-stone, but lost consciousness, and fell at full length between ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... myself. But Johnson Major, who was kicking off his cricketing-shoes, said, "It'll take an hour to get round. I'll go. Get him some water, and keep his cap on. The sun is blazing." And before we could speak he was in the canal and swimming across. ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... worshipping many gods, we might peradventure stumble upon one really existent: whether good or bad ought not to trouble us, provided he took intelligent concern in the drift of things. To quarrel about his qualities would be a useless repetition of the folly of our elders—the folly of swimming awhile in a roaring swirl. Some one suggested how much easier and more satisfactory it is to believe in one God than in many; besides which Paganism is a fixed system intolerant of freedom. Who, it was argued, would voluntarily forego making ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... at the edges, and in places also in the centre, with thick reeds. Here, in the creeks or rather pools between the reeds, live and breed a countless multitude of ducks of all possible kinds—quackers, half- quackers, pintails, teals, divers, etc. Small flocks are for ever flitting about and swimming on the water, and at a gunshot, they rise in such clouds that the sportsman involuntarily clutches his hat with one hand and utters a prolonged Pshaw! I walked with Yermolai along beside the pond; but, in the first place, the duck is a wary bird, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... went to Sunday-school, and I was not often seen inside the church. My Sundays were spent rather roaming in the woods and fields, or climbing to "Old Clump," or, in summer, following the streams and swimming in the pools. Occasionally I went fishing, though this was to incur parental displeasure—unless I brought home some fine trout, in which case the displeasure was much tempered. I think this Sunday-school in the woods and fields ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... soul was recited with an abundance of tears. The father-guardian perceiving he was in his agony, imparted to him the last sacramental absolution; which he, bowing his head to receive, instantly raised it again; opened, for the last time, his eyes, now swimming in joy, and inebriated with heavenly delight; fixed them, just as they were closing, with a look of ineffable tenderness, upon the image of Out blessed Lady, and composing his lips to a sweet smile, without farther movement or demonstration, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... our way. Usually they paid no more regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud; but sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of them, and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of a man who was steering very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that corner," said Jimmy. "He's simply rolling in money. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's been building a horse-trough and drinking fountain with a bust of himself on top. Why doesn't he build a private swimming-bath close to his bed, so that he can just roll off into it of a morning? I wish I was rich; I'd soon show ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... and re-spoken. Yet the sun was not, as he had begun to suppose, still in the sky; it sank toward the horizon, the violet shadows slipped out from the western hills, and Lemuel finished his toil in a swimming gold mist. It was two miles to Nantbrook, and disregarding his aching muscles he hurried over the gray undulating road. The people of the village were gathered on their commanding porches, the barkeeper at the hotel bulked in his doorway. The lower part of Lemuel's own house was closed; ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer |
