"Swagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... partaken of his fourth cuspidor of beer and was in a delightful state of swagger and fight when he saw an unusual commotion up the street. What was it, thought Bonaparte—a crowd of boys and men surrounding another man with an organ and leading a little devil of a hairy thing, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... future—even the narrow bounds of an earthly future—holds men prisoners. A few careless dogs, to be sure, live their day, blind to the years to come, but that is brute stupidity. A few brave souls swagger through their prime with some bravado, knowing the final cost, but willing to pay it by installments through the dribbling years which follow; but the usury of time makes that folly. The wise choke ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost his swagger in a moment. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... retains this great fund of precious "properties," this prodigious capital decoratively invested and scintillating throughout Christendom at effectively- scattered points. You see I am forced to agree after all, in spite of the sliding shutter and the profane swagger of the sacristan, that a certain pastoral majesty saved the situation, or at least made irony gape. Yet it was from a natural desire to breathe a sweeter air that I immediately afterwards undertook the interminable climb ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the lines Are stranger to my lips, and alien quite To car and eye and mind. I tell thee, Cosimo, This play of thine is one in which no man Should swagger on, trusting the prompter's voice; For mountains tipped with fire back up the scene, Out of the coppice roars the tiger's voice: The lightning's touch is death; the thunder rends The very rocks whereon its anger lights, The paths are mined with gins; and giants wait To slay me should ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... was almost fantastic so strongly did the arrogance of the one emphasize the deep abasement of the other. Dacre was of large build and inclined to stoutness. He had the ruddy complexion of the English country squire. He moved with the swagger of the ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... amongst the Western barbarians, or, turning far afield, we consider that mysterious and majestic art that flourished in Central and South America before the coming of the white men, in every case we observe three common characteristics—absence of representation, absence of technical swagger, sublimely impressive form. Nor is it hard to discover the connection between these three. Formal significance loses itself in preoccupation with exact ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... of a cat, but of a cat that was well acquainted with the ground it was moving over; the step showed no doubt or apprehension, it could hardly be called stealthy, but it glided on firmly and cautiously, without haste, or swagger, or unevenness.... The oftener you heard him speak, the more his speaking gained upon you.... He never seemed occupied with himself. His effort was evidently directed to convince you, not that he was eloquent, but that he was right.... ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... space-suited figure came clanking around the curve of the small metal world. The antenna of his walkie-talkie glittered above his head. He seemed to swagger against the ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... smoking his one cigarette solemnly and admiringly while she was on the stage; poking after her like a tame bear. He's a funny fellow, that Lord Harold. He's a Tom Dorgan, with the brains and the graft and—and the brute, too, Mag, washed out of him; a Tom Dorgan that's been kept dressed in swagger clothes all his life and living at top-notch—a big, clean, handsome, ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... (James) grasped at arbitrary power, to which he discovered an inclination thro' the whole of his reign, it has been observed, and not without good reason, that he made himself mean and contemptible to all the world abroad, though affecting to swagger over his parliament and people at home, which he did in a manner that was far from ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "You see sentry-go is awfully unpopular, and a figure of iron in times of peace is every bit as good as a man of brass. The pence go to the Canteen Fund along with the fines for drunkenness. It seems reasonable enough that a fellow, if he wants to be saluted, should pay for the swagger. If a fellow likes to turn out the guard, he can do it with sixpence—but then of course he hasn't the right ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... increased. "No," he answered shortly. Then, after an instant's hesitation. "That ball was given by the Astorbilts and was one of the most swagger affairs of the season. The Planet—the paper with which I was connected—issues a Sunday supplement of half-tone reproductions of photographs. One page was given up to pictures of the ball and the ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sight; then rose, resumed his fardel, and creeping quick along the hedgerows, followed Leonard towards the town. Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the path, and straight towards the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... There would then be no question agitated in Congress without eliciting the informal and contrariant opinions of the softer sex." This top-lofty sentiment accorded well with the customary assumption and swagger of one of the lords of creation. For the young reformer was evidently a firm believer in the divine right of his sex to rule in the world of politics. But as he grew taller and broader the horizon of woman widened, and her sphere embraced every duty, responsibility, and right ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... for another and offered her services. Bruant led her to the piano, she accompanied him as best she could, the music being new to her, he sang us his St. Lazare and La Soularde, all the while striding up and down with magnificent swagger, and was about to begin a third of his most famous songs when the pianist arrived, his unmistakable fright quickly lost in his bewilderment at being received with an amiability he had not any right to expect, and allowed ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... retort in suggesting that he ought to have a certain giddy fancy waistcoat. He complimented her on her taste, bought the waistcoat and, going to the rear of the shop, returned wearing it with a momentarily appreciated show of jaunty swagger. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the sharer of my blanket shelter derived infinite entertainment from an article therein contained, entitled "Feeding the Fighting Man." Of course, it is illustrated with photographs, the first one depicting a sleek and stiff Yeomanic-looking, khaki-clad being standing by the side of a swagger little drawing-table covered with a fringed tablecloth, and obviously groaning under what we learn are the gentleman's daily rations. Apart from the article, this picture alone is calculated to make one's mouth water. The article opens with an extract from that great book, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Haer, wearing a colonel's uniform and flicking his swagger stick along his booted leg, stood in the doorway. His voice was lazily arrogant. "And Mr. Holland, I must say, the Middle caste seems to have taken over the house. Well, Major Mauser? I assume you do not labor under the illusion that you are welcome ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... reins and saddles; Lord Tybar's exquisitely poised figure, so perfectly maintaining and carrying up the symmetry of his horse as to suggest the horse would be disfigured, truncated, were he to dismount; his taking swagger, his ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... person who was perfectly calm. He found his coat and put it on; he adjusted his glasses. In fact, the scoutmaster, returned unscathed from his battle, might have been taken as a model for all victors. For he did not smile exultantly, did not swagger one step, but was grave and modest. "Put on your hat, sweetheart," he said to Cis. His voice was deep ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... begin to run with his little companion; Mrs. Bolton following after them, with Captain Costigan at her side. But the captain was too majestic and dignified in his movements to run for friend or enemy, and he pursued his course with the usual jaunty swagger which distinguished his steps, so that he and his companion were speedily distanced by ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wholly superficial things like his dandyism, his dark, sinister good looks and a great deal of the mere polished melodrama that he wrote. There was something in his all-round interests; in the variety of things he tried; in his half-aristocratic swagger as poet and politician, that made him in some ways a real touchstone of the time. It is noticeable about him that he is always turning up everywhere and that he brings other people out, generally in a hostile spirit. His ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... concise, and seems to have been originally aimed against precocious youths who gave themselves the airs of manhood before their time. "Does your mother know you're out?" was the provoking query addressed to young men of more than reasonable swagger, who smoked cigars in the streets, and wore false whiskers to look irresistible. We have seen many a conceited fellow who could not suffer a woman to pass him without staring her out of countenance, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... offensive of all musical notes. It is so unnecessary too, as if the day didn't come soon enough without his warning; but I suppose he is anxious to waken his hens and get them at their daily task, and so he disturbs the entire community. In short, I dislike him; his swagger, his autocratic strut, his greed, his irritating self-consciousness, his endless parading of himself up and down ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... light hair out of the way; pull your cap over your eyes; gather your veil down close; draw up your figure; throw back your head; walk with a little springy sway and swagger, as if you didn't care a damson for anybody, and—there! I declare no one could tell you from me!" exclaimed Capitola in delight, as she completed the disguise and the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... sergeant—was one of those men who love a drop of the native, and whose heart besides it expands into a sort of surly kindness that has something comical and not disagreeable in it. In addition to this, he never felt a confidence in his own authority with half the swagger which he did when three quarters gone. Steen and he were never friends, nor indeed was Steen ever a popular man among his acquaintances. In matters of trade and business he was notoriously dishonest, and in the moral and ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... course, was particularly proud of the boy. As he grew, and found his feet, and began to wander about the house and the front yard, with a gait in which a funny little swagger was often interrupted by sudden and unpremeditated down-sittings, she was keen to mark ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... Bradley stared: and as they rounded the corner of the hedge he remarked suddenly "I say! There's that swagger ayah of yours walking with Lady Despard. She's jolly smart, for an ayah. Did you bring her from India? You never said you'd ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... He will have his own way after all. He has a will, a knowledge, a purse, friends of his own. He will let the world see that he can get along with his own resources. Barnabas Know-nothing may talk as he please, Job Do-nothing may do all he can, and Richard Bombast may swagger because he thinks matters are done as he planned; but Mr. Grumbler is independent of them all, and will, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a lounging swagger, but his first ball was caught by the immortal Sibthorp, who uttered more puns on the occasion than the oldest man present recollected to have heard perpetrated in any given time. Russell—who, by the bye, excavated several quarts of 'heavy' during his innings—was the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... vain, in fact. If I were unconscious of it, I'd be unbearable, but—it amuses me as much as it amuses others, and that takes the curse off of it. I am delighted at some of my own antics. I love to swagger and I adore an audience, but to be laughed at by others would kill me. Ridicule! Scorn! I'm insensible ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... He went, without any swagger. His face was white. Miss Belcher and the Rector drew back as though he carried a disease, and let him pass. At the door he turned and his eyes, with a kind of miserable raillery ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my faith; I must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers here: I have not lived all ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... negative and, for that, the stronger. "Never show your feelings—to do so is not manly and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about your companions, and no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at." (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in his press, habitually understates everything.) "Think little of money, and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... cubes of ivory. The difference is, that where we go, we may happen to see persons of quality amusing themselves with a game; and in the ordinary houses you will meet bullies and sharpers, who will strive either to cheat or to swagger you out ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... that some women are sentimental, that they don't all "look at things in the large," as men invariably do. In view, however, of the record of this youthful movement of ours, we have a right rather to swagger than to apologize. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... bravely on the field of battle, was a sportsman and had about him that frank and abundant gaiete de coeur, which powerfully attracts the less exuberant Englishman. For his part CASANUOVA (that was his name) bore all his successes with good-nature and without swagger. Of course there were whispers about him. Where so many women worshipped, it was certain that two or three would lose their heads. Amongst this limited number was little Mrs. MILLETT, one of Lady CALLENDER's most intimate friends. She made no secret of her grande passion. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... almost boyish merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of drought and frost ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... devoured the scene. On the chair from which the model had risen she had deposited yet another hat, so large, so audacious and beplumed that it seemed to have a positive personality, a positive swagger of its own, and to be winking roguishly at the audience. Meanwhile Madame's muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry—a tawdry flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, too solid" ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... small boy glorifies the other in his mind, setting him on a level with Three-Fingered Jack, or Goliath's conqueror, and the aggressive boy, feeling rather than understanding the other's reverence, does his best to look as if he deserved it. To see Lil swagger and to hear her bark, and to see the foolish humble Schwartz follow her, admiring her, believing in her, utterly borne away by her insolent pretence that the whole show was got up by her orders—to observe this was to see one half ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... with the crowd, because austere and taciturn; he would not wear the pomps and tinsels, or swagger it in public to their taste. He was too reserved; he was not a good mixer: if you fell on your knees to him, he simply recoiled in disgust. He would not witness the gladiatorial games, with their sickening senseless bloodshed; nor ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... declares it impossible; every one hangs back. Upon which Diego Mendez with a fine gesture comes forward and volunteers; makes his little dramatic effect and has his little ovation. Thoroughly Spanish this, significant of that mixture of vanity and bravery, of swagger and fearlessness, which is characteristic of the best in Spain. It was a desperately brave thing to venture upon, this voyage from Jamaica to Espanola in a native canoe and across a sea visited by dreadful hurricanes; and the volunteer was ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... I've made an idiot of myself," he went on. "I'd no right to come down here like that. I just want you to forgive me now, that's all. I didn't mean to swagger about being rich. I'm not enjoying it a bit till you ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in a somewhat ordinary style, but Juliet thought his mouth wore the most unpleasant expression she had ever seen. It was drawn down at the corners in a sneering curve, and a decided frown knitted his brows. He walked with the suggestion of a swagger, as if ready to challenge any who should dispute his right to the place ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the praise bestowed upon him and gave his shoulders a swagger. "Speakin' of that, boss," he said, "reminds me of a chap who rode into Cabin Gulch a few weeks ago. Braced right into Beard's place, where we was all playin' faro, an' he asks for Jack Kells. Right off we all thought he was ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... know what they would say in some of the swagger hospitals, if they were asked to trepan a man's skull under these conditions," he said as the operation was finished. "But he'll pull through, and thank you, as the old man will when he knows, for saving his life. Aren't you ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... eighth innings started, William, all swagger and confidence, started on a new tack. "Fans and fan-esses," he said, addressing the crowd through the megaphone, "why don't you root? Make a noise like you meant it. The Torontos have simply gotter win ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... though certainly critical. He was a type outside of her experience, and, by the law of opposites, attracted her. Every line of him showed tremendous driving power, force, energy. He was not without some touch of Western swagger; but it went well with the air of youth to which his boyish laugh ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... point," said Pigeon, "is that F.S. corps are 'swagger'—the correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you know," he drawled, trying to ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... smuggle into Mr. Jordan's library a picture of Tom Steele, one of Daniel O'Connell's henchmen, to whom he gave the title of Head Pacificator of Ireland. Many amusing stories are told of this official, of his gaudy uniform, his strut and swagger, and his pompous language. At a political meeting on one occasion, he attacked, it seems, one Peter Purcell, a Dublin tradesman who had fallen out with the Liberator on some minor question. "Say no more on the subject, Tom," cried O'Connell, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... meet with an enemy, nor vaunt as if we could do better, when we hear of others that they have been foiled, Nor be tickled at the thoughts of our own manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried. Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before. He would swagger, ay, he would; he would, as his vain mind prompted him to say, do better, and stand more for his Master than all men; but who so foiled, and run down ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... a movement, caused the landlord to glance towards the door. A stranger had entered. He was not of the Grub Street fraternity. He had too much swagger. His clothes were too fine, despite their tawdriness, his sword hilt too much in evidence. What could be seen of his dark face, the upper half of which his slouched hat concealed, was rather that of a fighter than of a writer. The landlord summed up the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... they watched the line patiently waiting outside the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no deserter—only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he remained in blissful unconsciousness ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that mysterious person, who, from being a poverty-stricken younger son, hanging loose on town, became in a day, no man knows how, the richest and most splendid of blades. The Beau's secret died with him; but Law fled to France with 100,000 crowns in his valise. Here the swagger, courage, and undeniable genius of Mr. Law gained the favour of the Regent d'Orleans, the Bank and the Mississippi Scheme were floated, the Rue Quincampoix was crowded, France swam in a dream of gold, and ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... bit, Harriet, but 'tis not an offensive swagger. As to his hat: 'tis a standing joke of the army as to how he keeps it on in battle. The hotter the fight the further on the side it gets. I saw a letter that General Greene writ to His Excellency in which ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... confided to him, did as he was bidden. He was very harsh to the poor Captain; but in such a condition a man can hardly expect that people should not be harsh to him. The Captain endeavoured to hold up his head, and to swagger, and to assume an air of pinchbeck respectability. But the attorney would not permit it. He required that the man should own himself to be penniless, a scoundrel, only anxious to be bought; and the Captain at last admitted the facts. The ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... the table with a semblance of that swagger affected by the weakling in presence of women, yet permitting the wandering eye and uncertain gestures to betray his uneasiness. Something had evidently gone wrong with ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... millions!" boasted Denver with a swagger. "I'm made, if I can only hold onto it. But I'll tell you right now, if you want to hold your claims you'd better do a little assessment work. There's going to be a rush, when this strike of mine gets out, that'll make ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... hall with a little swagger. Mr. Gainor felt that he had risen admirably to a great situation. As a matter ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... be at a cremerie in the rue St. Rustique, where I am inclined to think I may get credit for milk and a roll if I swagger." ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... heads and tusks of boars, And the cells Hung all round with the fells Of the fallow-deer. And then what cheer! What jolly, fat friars, Sitting round the great, roaring fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... said he, "that ye and your gang mean to make away with me. But I would let you know that I too have something to say about it—something that will set down your swagger, maybe." ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... richest capitalists in Paris one day met an extremely pretty little working-girl. Her mother was with her, but the girl had taken the arm of a young fellow in very doubtful finery, with a very smart swagger. The millionaire fell in love with the girl at first sight; he followed her home, he went in; he heard all her story, a record of alternations of dancing at Mabille and days of starvation, of play-going and hard work; ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... perceived one of the beeldars, or officers of the caliph's household, pass by him. "That would be a nice office," thought Yussuf, "and the caliph does not count his people like the cadi. It requires but an impudent swagger, and you are taken upon your own representation." Accordingly, nowise disheartened, and determined to earn his six dirhems, he returned home, squeezed his waist into as narrow a compass as he could, gave his turban a smart cock, washed his hands, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... chuprassies,[H] and everything complete, to take home, than the unfigured "mum" of Beluchistan, or the sea-aye-ee mocking bird, Kokiolliensis Lyttonia. But the Political Agent cannot be taken home. The purple bloom fades in the scornful climate of England; the paralytic swagger passes into sheer imbecility; the thirteen-gun tall talk reverberates in jeering echoes; the chuprassies are only so many black men, and the raja is felt to be a joke. The Political ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... art of reading as one likes is the most difficult, perhaps the most impossible, of all the arts in modern times, constitutes one of those serio-comic problems of civilisation—a problem which civilisation itself, with all its swagger of science, its literary braggadocio, its Library Cure, with all its Board Schools, Commissioners of Education and specialists, and bishops and newsboys, all hard at work upon it, is only beginning ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is all very well for a writer to affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag as ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strange soldier's pistol was whipped out—a flash, a report, and Jim George fell dead at his feet, a victim to his own swagger and an innocent jest of his companions. So dumbfounded were the innocent "foragers," that they allowed the cavalryman to ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... relations, friends, and dependants, in a most exorbitant manner, he was weak enough to imagine that he had provided a support against an evil day. He had the best among all false appearances of courage, which was a most unlimited assurance, whereby he would swagger the boldest men into a dread of his power, but had not the smallest portion of magnanimity, growing jealous, and disgracing every man, who was known to bear the least civility to those he disliked. He had some small smattering ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the ball-ground, but at this taunt he turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and stammered: "No, I'm not afraid of a ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... cigars. The actors were coming in from the theatres for supper, and Maxwell found himself with his friends in a group with a charming old comedian who was telling brief, vivid little stories, and sketching character, with illustrations from his delightful art. He was not swagger, like some of the younger men who stood about with their bell-crowned hats on, before they went into supper; and two or three other elderly actors who sat round him and took their turn in the anecdote and mimicry looked, with their smooth-shaven faces, like old-fashioned ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the other with a swagger. "That's how yer paw used ter put it. Your maw warn't much good no how, with her finicky notions 'bout eddicati'n an' sech. A little pone and baken with plenty good ol' red eye's good 'nough fer us. ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... that formed the climax of his career. But no detailed knowledge of circumstances is necessary to rouse interest in a man who wrote like that. You may be offended by the self-consciousness and the swagger, or you may be charmed by the frankness and dash, but you can not remain indifferent. Burns had many moods besides those reflected in these sentences, but here we can see as vividly as in any of his poetry the fundamental ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... so sure about that," said the Tennessee Shad. "This chap's no bottle baby; he's more of a sport than you think. I'll bet you he's got a few swagger trophies, in ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... seeming a bit dull, instead of moping and feeling sorry and waiting for something to happen, Jay looked about for some way of amusing himself. He was something of a bully,—a great deal of a bully, in fact,—this dashing rascal in a gay blue coat; and the more he could swagger, the better he ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La Mancha, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... readin that a minister has committed bribery and perjury, or that a littery man has committed perjury and murder, or that a Duke has stabbed his wife in fifty places, or some story equally horrible; yet for all that it's admiral to see how the French gents will swagger—how they will be the scenters of civilization—how they will be the Igsamples of Europ, and nothink shall prevent 'em—knowing they will have it, I say I listen, smokin my pip in silence. But to ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the candelabra on the billiard-table, made Semyon Matveitch a low bow, and with a slight swagger and a malignant smile, moved towards me. A cat, I imagine, approaches a mouse who has no chance of escape in that way. All my daring left me in an instant. I knew the man was capable of... beating me. I began to tremble; yes; oh, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... drinkers of the inn had his own individuality of swagger, his truculent independence of mien, which suggested a man by no means habitually used either to receive commands or to render unquestioning obedience. Each of the men resembled his fellows in a certain flamboyant air of ferocity, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and his left foot hacked off in the marketplace. No more were marriages to be celebrated with pomp and feasting, no more was the youthful warrior to swagger with flowing hair; henceforth, the believer must banquet on dates and milk, and his head must be kept shaved. Minor transgressions were punished by confiscation of property or by imprisonment and chains. But the rhinoceros whip was the favourite ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... the waist with a corsage of orchids. Merlin started and then gazed at her fearfully. For the first time in the eight years since his marriage he was encountering the girl again. But a girl no longer. Her figure was slim as ever—or perhaps not quite, for a certain boyish swagger, a sort of insolent adolescence, had gone the way of the first blooming of her cheeks. But she was beautiful; dignity was there now, and the charming lines of a fortuitous nine-and-twenty; and she sat in the car with such perfect appropriateness ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... time his benighted mind would swagger him into droll ideas of attempting to chastise his Imperial prisoner, at another, his childish fear of the consequences of his chastisement was pathetic, and when one droll farce after another broke down, he shielded himself with manifestations of ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... even assumed a military swagger and spoke somewhat contemptuously of the line and mobiles, whose discipline was as lax as their own, and among whom drunkenness was rife, for whatever else failed, the supply of wine and spirits appeared inexhaustible. Cuthbert went not unfrequently to dine at the English ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... ROSIE. We're bored to extinction, and BLOGGS is a "foots"; If we're late down to breakfast, he snorts at us. He worries our lives out with pic-nics and shoots, And will flourish his Clarets and Ports at us. My wife likes her ease and her breakfast in bed; I hate cellar-swagger and scurry. Entertainment indeed! We're as lumpish as lead When we're not on the whirl or the worry. But turn out to-morrow, my BLOGGS? No, not me, Though I know what your "little hints" signify. Your "dear DICK" forsooth! Such a noodle as he The title of "duffer" would dignify You've ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... Polish officers, the beret of Czecho-Slovaks. And everywhere, too, the gay and well-known red pom-pon bobbed on the caps of French blue-jackets, and British marines stalked in pairs, looking every inch the soldier with their swagger sticks and their ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... proposal solved the difficulty. I besought him to make out the bill for my little entertainment as quickly as possible. Then I dismounted from my chair and beckoned to the dwarf, still sitting white and piteous, to join me. He obeyed like a frightened child who had been naughty. All his swagger and braggadocio were gone. His bosom heaved with suppressed sobs. He sat down on the chair I had vacated and buried his face on the ecarte table. We remained thus aloof from the crowd who were intent on the calculation at the baccarat table. At last the raven in the dinner-jacket ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... her vanity most was the high position that her husband would then occupy. He would pay their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier, and all those people who now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... to in that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his swagger was outrageous. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... very soul of the man, was mere affectation and mise-en-scene with Dryden. The heroes of Corneille reflect that nobility of spirit which never entirely forsook France till the days of the Regency; those of Dryden give utterance to nothing better than the insolent swagger of the Restoration. ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... young Countess, she sat there smiling, while the clumsy dragoons came rattling up, beaming at my red riding-breeches, and all saluting the Countess with a cheerful yet respectful swagger that touched me deeply as I noted the lines of hunger ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... home, fagged out and dusty, at dinner time, Marietta presented a visiting card to him, on her handsomest salver. She presented it with a flourish that was almost a swagger. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... excitement, and applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set of conventions which were generally understood—there was even a new language. You were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and "natty"; they were "swagger" ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... this region are more youthful in aspect, carry themselves with more swagger, wear their hats jantily, with greasy curls coaxed to project beyond the brim. They affect a sort of secondhand gentility, cultivate great brooches, silver guard-chains, and whiskers, and have the air of persons claiming vice-royalty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... thrown down, or the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered his subjugation ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... laboured under the possession of a secret—a secret of mighty power. What wonder if he spent much of his day in eating-houses and drinking-houses, obscurely hinting to admiring boon companions of the thing he could do an he would? Then, having drunk his fill, he would swagger, sometimes not over-steadily, out to the Park, and amuse himself by scowling at the Premier, or smiling a smile of hidden meaning at Daisy Medland, as they drove by. Also, he occasionally got into trouble: ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... blunder, and that they would refuse to let us have the horse and wagon, for I knew that I could not have stood the test as she did; and then, too, these colonial horses seem to have such a good opinion of themselves, and they carry their heads with a swagger that is entirely different from the meek, downtrodden air of the Turpins, and Smilers, and Sharpers of the old country; and their names are as bumptious as themselves. Fancy a horse being named Rockefeller! ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... me!" snarled the strange boy, in a contemptuous tone, cocking his fists up in a scientific manner, and dropping into a stoop- shouldered swagger that would have driven envy into the heart of a bullying hack-driver. "Git the bloke on his pins!" he sneered, turning to the crowd.— "S'pose I'm goin' to hit a man w'en ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... public street, deserting McLean in the presence of Cheyenne; and when Cheyenne saw this, and learned how she had been Mrs. Lusk for eight long, if intermittent, years, Cheyenne laughed loudly. Lin McLean laughed, too, and went about his business, ready to swagger at the necessary moment, and with the necessary kind of joke always ready to shield his hurt spirit. And soon, of course, the matter grew stale, seldom raked up in the Bow Leg country where Lin had been ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... long line of iron picket fence surrounding Grimsby Hill, he saw Mrs. Carter's motor enter the gate. It seemed to be a good omen. He hurried to the gate, peered in, then passed on. He couldn't go and swagger past that exclusive-looking gate-house and intrude on that sweep of rhododendron-lined private driveway. He walked shyly along the iron fence for a quarter of a mile before he got up courage to go back, rush through the towering iron gateway and past the gate-house, into the sacred estate. He ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... expressions, which give such a peculiar flavour to the conversation of the 'people' in Southern France, rolled off his tongue with a sonority that could hardly have been excelled at Nimes or Tarascon. His swagger, his gestures, and his elocutionary power were amazing. He would stop walking, and, placing his stick—which he called his trique—under his arm, would speak in a tragic stage-whisper; then, clutching his trique and flourishing it over ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... needed Custer. However, his view of the case did not mean theirs. Custer believed in the mailed hand, and if given the power he declared he would settle the Indian Question in America once and forever. His confidence and assumption and what Senator Dawes called swagger were not to their liking. Anyway, Custer was attracting altogether too much attention—the people followed him on Pennsylvania ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... his scarlet-trimmed winter greens, tapped the toe of one boot with his swagger-stick. "With all respect, sir," he said, "I feel that if we do no more than hold the line, we're lending moral comfort to the foes of prosperity. Attack! That's my battle-plan, ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... his eyes and a little to one side, and strolled on, humming an old Mexican air. His walk was the swagger of a young Mexican gallant, and in the dimness they would not notice his Northern fairness. Several pairs of eyes observed him, but not with disapproval. They considered him a trim Mexican lad. Some of the men in the doorways took up the air that he ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... who never let me alone the whole time I was at Pratt's—he put me in mind of a pallbearer. His name was Selkirk, and he had a family in Westerly, out on the Grade Suburban . . . . Some of the girls never came back at all, except to swagger in and buy expensive things, and tell us we were fools to work. And after a while I noticed Florry was getting discouraged. We never had so much as a nickel left over on Saturdays and they made ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Some boys swagger, chew tobacco, talk vulgar, and swear because they do not wish to be called "sissies." They fancy such actions and language make them manly, but nothing could be ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... at him strangely, but he continued with growing enthusiasm: "I mean to sit at such a table as this, with such a chef, with such wines—to know one crowded hour like this is to live! Not a thing is missing; all this swagger furniture, the rich atmosphere of smartness about the whole place; best of all, the company. It's a great thing to have the real people around you, the right sort, you know, socially; people you'd ask to your own table at home. There are only ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... a necessity of all great nations to hate meanness, and nothing under God's heaven ever was so mean as American slavery. Think of it. Men who swagger around with pistols and bowie-knifes to avenge their insulted honor, if any one should question it,—imagine one turning up his sleeves to horsewhip an old woman for burning his steak, or pocketing her wages, earned ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... for doings in swagger society, eh, Droom? If anyone but Billy Fernmore had done that, he would have been ostracised ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... ii. 165 dragging or trailing the skirts walking without the usual strut or swagger: here it means assuming the humble manners of a slave in presence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... retreated again into the door-way. He was an elderly man, dressed almost more than well, for there was about him a slight affectation of dandyism; and though he had for the moment been abashed, there was about him also a slight swagger. "Good morning, ladies," he said, re-entering again, and bowing to young Herbert, who stood looking at him; "I believe Sir Thomas is at home; would you send your servant in to say that a gentleman wants to see him for a minute or so, on very particular ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable. Our cicada stood alert and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet—a most reserved, discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if uncertain whether ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards the French usurper, I believe ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... are in these drawings as simply distinguished by their costume. Good people, when not armed cap-a-pie, wear a speckled tunic girt about the waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. Bad people swagger in tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches, but the large majority in trousers, and for all the world like guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I got SOME brains around me," he added, inspired by Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get up pretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got MY ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... independent professions of faith, they were like the noble Adalbert, little provincial snobs, rich, idle young men of family, who dabbled and flirted with letters for the fun of it. They were very glad to swagger about as giant-killers: but they were kindly enough and never slew anybody but a few inoffensive people or those whom they thought could never harm them. They cared nothing for setting by the ears a society to which they knew very well they would one day ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... courtesy that communicated itself to all with whom they came in contact. The cowboys, Beulah soon discovered, were as unlike the cowboys of fiction and of her imagination as a Manitoba steer is unlike his Alberta brother; they did not carry revolvers, nor swagger in high boots, nor rip the air with their profanity; and their table manners reminded her of George and Harry Grant, and the Grants were outstanding examples of right living in the Plainville district. And Mrs. Arthurs, gentle and kind in all ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... half-hour,—and then go, with the fixed resolution that he would never willingly spend another shilling on behalf of that wretched man. But at a quarter past eleven the wretched man came,—swaggering into the office, though it had not, hitherto, been his custom to swagger. But misfortune masters all but the great men, and upsets the best-learned lesson of even a long life. "I hope I have not kept you waiting, Mr. Wharton. Well, Hartlepod, how are you to-day? So this little affair is to be settled at last, and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope |
