"Swagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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, reduced at once into his natural insignificance ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... 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 ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... blinking uneasily under their shaggy brows, Mr. Leslie watched his visitor cross towards the door. The engineer walked firmly and resolutely, with his head well up, yet without any trace of swagger ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... shut with a violent clatter. The stairs resounded to a series of unsteady footbeats, and the door of my study was flung back. In the opening, staring at me with quiet dignity, stood a young, careless fellow, about five feet ten in height and decidedly dark of complexion. The swagger of his entrance branded him as an adventurer. The ghastly pallor of his face, which was almost colorless, branded him as a man who has found something more than ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... other day (having no change in my pocket), and the mater could not quite determine whether it was a trait of madness or of nobility. I could have told her with absolute confidence that it was neither the one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that the thirty shillings had ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... though," 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
... of the second day was about equal to that of the first; the result of the third a good deal better, and Bill, who was fortunate enough to discover a small nugget, returned to camp with a self-satisfied swagger that indicated elation, though his visage expressed nothing but stolidity, slightly tinged with surprise. On the fourth day the cradles were made, and a very large portion of their gains thereby swept away in consequence of the unconscionable prices charged for every article used in their construction. ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... tuck your 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 instructions ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... seeing. General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops, said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent them from being annihilated by 15,000 French, when General Championnet evacuated Rome. The King entered with all the swagger of an Oriental potentate. The Neapolitans followed the French to Castellana, and when the latter faced up to them they stampeded in disordered panic. Some were wounded, but few were killed, and the King, forgetting in his fright his pledged undertaking to go forth trusting in "God and Nelson," ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... all her failures and blunders, and there were hours when she still felt his dominion and exulted in it. But there were others when she saw his defects and was irritated by them: when his loudness and redness, his misplaced joviality, his familiarity with the servants, his alternating swagger and ceremony with her friends, jarred on perceptions that had developed in her unawares. Now and then she caught herself thinking that his two predecessors—who were gradually becoming merged in her memory—would ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... mingled all the most remarkable specimens of the race of lions, a kind of game which is hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardor and perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love songs, such as those with which Oberea charmed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... turned across Hyde Park, where a big company of girl guides was drilling, watched by a crowd of curious on-lookers. Across a belt of grass some boy scouts were performing similar evolutions, marching with all the extra polish and swagger they could command, just to show the guides that girls were all very well in their way, but that no one with skirts could really hope to do credit to a uniform. Cecilia ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... would seem to lack a Vice? Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice Here, there, and everywhere, as the cat is with the mice: True Vetus Iniquitas. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice? I will teach thee to cheat, child, to cog, lie, and swagger, And ever and anon to be drawing forth ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the money they spent, or the time they had been at the university. The chief difference was that those who were less rich and less hardened than he had less spirit: that is, had less noise, nonsense and swagger. But, though the scene was not what I expected, it was new, and in a certain sense enlivening, and my flowing spirits were soon ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?—one which I have never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... in her. Then it was that, across half the gallery—for he had not moved from where she had first seen him—he struck her as confessing, with strange tears in his own eyes, to sharp identity of emotion. "Poor thing, poor thing"—it reached straight— "ISN'T she, for one's credit, on the swagger?" After which, as, held thus together they had still another strained minute, the shame, the pity, the better knowledge, the smothered protest, the divined anguish even, so overcame him that, blushing to his eyes, he turned short away. The affair but of a few muffled ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... hang two handsome tools at his side, Go in disguis'd attire, wear iron enough, Is held a tall man and a soldier. He that with greatest grace can swear Gog's-zounds, Or in a tavern make a drunken fray, Can cheat at dice, swagger in bawdy-houses, Wear velvet on his face, and with a grace Can face it out with,—As I am a soldier! He that can clap his sword upon the board, He's a brave man—and such a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... 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 a guy who had a ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... that had often put him through the acid test. The plain, cactus-torn chaps, flannel shirt open at the sinewy throat, dusty, wide-brimmed hat, revolver peeping from its leather pocket on the thigh: every detail contributed to the impression of efficiency he created. Even the one touch of swagger about him, the blue silk kerchief knotted loosely around his neck, lent color to his ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... mass of Germany has never been on friendly terms with the Germany of the court and the landowner. It has inherited a burgerlich tradition and resented even while it tolerated the swagger of the aristocratic officer. It tolerated it because that sort of thing was supposed to be necessary to the national success. But Munich, the comic papers, Herr Harden, Vorwaerts, speak, I think, for the central masses of German life far more truly than any official ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... struts the limelit boards: With false moustache, set smirk and ogling eyes And straddling legs and swinging hips she tries To swagger it like a soldier, while the chords Of rampant ragtime jangle, clash, and clatter; And over the brassy blare and drumming din She strains to squirt her squeaky notes and thin Spirtle of ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... the emptying aisles; and, even as she pinned on her velveteen poke bonnet at a too-swagger angle, and fluffed out a few carefully provided curls across her brow, she kept watch and, with obvious subterfuge, slid into her little unlined silk coat with a deliberation not her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... girl is becoming conscious of himself as a person, and resents being treated as a child; the only way he knows of asserting his personality is by affecting an air of disdain toward those who presume to treat him as a child. This swagger is more likely to be put on when there is a third person present. It is therefore always safer to reserve your discussions and corrections to the time when you are alone with your girl or boy, and can place your conversation on ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... him at last to get out on the road again for home. And, having prepared his team for the journey, he hitched them up to his spring-cart himself, paid his bill, and, with a flourish of his whip, and a swagger which only a team of six such magnificent horses as he possessed could give him, left the hotel at a gallop, the steely muscles of his arms controlling his fiery children as easily as the harsh voice of a northern ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... much opposed to the general theory of acting, and the story is told with great gusto of a boy who was sent to see Garrick, we believe, and who was greatly delighted with the fine phrasing and swagger of a supernumerary, but could not understand why people applauded such an ordinary bumpkin as Garrick, who did not differ a whit from all the country boobies he had ever seen. It is insisted that the actor must ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... them after the completion of their studies. The temper of the students is admirable. Rarely if ever do they betray any traces of the hectoring spirit which still lingers at Heidelberg, for instance. But for the display of corps-caps and cannon boots and an occasional swagger in the street, one might pass an entire semester in Leipsic without realizing that the city contains three thousand students. Undoubtedly, the young men perceive, like their colleagues of Yale, that their surroundings are too ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... and kurumaya (rickshaw runner). However, since the alarming discovery that a professional burglar had, Diogenes-like, been occupying an old tub in a corner of the wide grounds, a policeman has been allowed to patrol the garden; but he has to drop that omnipotent swagger which marks ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... individuality of the man somehow was thoroughly realised. Observing him, listening to him, as he stood there palpably before us, one seemed to understand better than ever Thackeray's declaration in regard to those same menials in plush breeches, that a certain delightful "quivering swagger" of the calves about them, had for him always, as he expressed it, "a frantic fascination!" Immediately afterwards, however, as the Reader turned a new leaf, in place of the momentary apparition of that particular flunkey, three very different persons appeared to step across the threshold on to ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... already shown himself only too apt a pupil in the lessons in the midst of which his childhood had been passed. He had at his tongue's tip all the slang of the stables and all the blackguardisms of the betting-ring; and boy—almost child—as he was, he affected the swagger and habits of a "fast man," like a ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... their forests; the phonograph screeches its reply to le violon; and Pierre and Henri and Jacques no longer find themselves the kings of the earth when they come in from far countries with their precious cargoes of furs. And they no longer swagger and tell loud-voiced adventure, or sing their wild river songs in the same old abandon, for there are streets at Athabasca Landing now, and hotels, and schools, and rules and regulations of a kind new and terrifying to the ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... seems to stagger, with a hey, with a hey, Who but now did so swagger, with a ho; God's fish he's stuck in the mire, And all the fat's in the fire, With ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... beauty of that squadron of cavalry that I had seen riding out of their barrack gates to entrain for the front. The men and the horses were superb—clean-limbed, finely trained, exquisite in their pride of life. As they came out into the streets of Paris the men put on the little touch of swagger which belongs to the Frenchman when the public gaze is on him. Even the horses tossed their heads and seemed to realize the homage of the populace. Hundreds of women were in the crowd, waving handkerchiefs, springing forward out of their line to throw ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... 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 ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... furnished throughout with such fittings; they form its very construction. Style does not exist in modern arrayings, for all their prettiness and precision, and for all the successes—which are not to be denied—of their outer part; the happy little swagger that simulates style is but another sign of its absence, being prepared by mere dodges and dexterities beneath, and the triumph and success of the present art of raiment—"fit" itself—is but the result of a masked and lurking ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... alack for the bandy-legged man! He could not ruffle and swagger it off as Gaston Carew had done of old; a London apprentice was harder nuts than ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... the 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
... with the dentist on the boat, Marcus's gorge rose within him at McTeague's boasting swagger. When McTeague had slapped him on the back, Marcus had retired to some little distance while he recovered his breath, and glared at the dentist fiercely as he strode up and down, glorying in the admiring glances ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... 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 ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... have this out, Julia," he was saying. "If anybody or anything has come between us, there's going to be trouble. If that's the great Maraton, with his swagger evening clothes and big house, well, he's not the man for our job, and I shan't mind being the first to tell ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the majority of the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... as they loitered about the streets, their stomachs empty, said to each other that it was a great honour for Mugsborough that their Member should be promoted in this way. They boasted about it and assumed as much swagger in their gait as their broken ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... this wail together, but not to its end, she had called it "so ungenuine." How rakishly now it came ripping out. "My fortune is too hard for thee," it declared, "'twould chill thy dearest joy. I'd rather weep to see thee free," and ended with "destroy"; but it had the swagger ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... of joyous and rather indolent oblivion in their quarter of the city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and down the street by which the Charlesbridge cars arrive,—the young with a harmless swagger, and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat has already noted as attending advanced years in their race. They seem the natural human interest of a street so largely devoted to old clothes; and the thoughtful may see a felicity in their presence ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... is in a stir. ROPER gets up and speaks to the reporter. JACK, throwing up his head, walks with a swagger to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... regard to material conditions, but singularly unobservant and stupid when it was a question of psychology. He had been a sawyer in his early experience, but later became a bartender in Muskegon. He was in general a good-humoured animal enough, but fond of a swagger, given to showing off, and exceedingly ugly when his ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... up alongside of me presently, with a hang-dog look on him, as if he had been caught stealing jam. "What a lark it'll be when she's really gone!" he observed, with a swagger obviously assumed. ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... swagger about the child—that I bore people,' said the Colonel. 'I hope you smoke.' He appeared ten minutes later in the smoking-room, in a brilliant equipment, a suit of crimson foulard covered with little ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... French staff officer's dress, boldly riding up to the head of the French infantry column and in the name of the, Duke of Ragusa commanding its general to halt. True, I did not know the password—which might have been awkward. But a staff officer can swagger through some small difficulties, as I had already proved twice that night. But for the stumble of a horse—who knows? The possibility seems to me scarcely more fantastic than the accident which actually ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... notions, hauteur; vainglory, crest; arrogance &c. (assumption) 885. proud man, highflier[obs3]; fine gentleman, fine lady. V. be proud &c. adj.; put a good face on; look one in the face; stalk abroad, perk oneself up; think no small beer of oneself; presume, swagger, strut; rear one's head, lift up one's head, hold up one's head; hold one's head high, look big, take the wall, "bear like the Turk no rival near the throne" [Pope], carry with a high hand; ride the high horse, mount on ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... preparation made; their intended movements are duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in "great principles;" they condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of "constitutions"—in talk. The big swagger about "great principles" eventuates, however, in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as high treason, and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and next, with cap in hand, and most mendicant meanness, supplicating the said traitor—denounced—repealing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Perez for protection. It was immensely flattering to the vanity of the mob, as typifying the state of terror to which the aristocrats had been reduced, and all the louts in town felt an inch the taller, by reason of it, and walked with an additional swagger. The demand for the details of the scene between Perez and Desire was insatiable and Obadiah was called on twenty times a day to relate to gaping, grinning audiences just how she looked, what she did, and said, and what Perez said. The fact that Obadiah's ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... said the Prince, and he ordered out his pack of hippopotamuses at once. It was his custom to hunt big game with hippopotamuses, and people would not have minded that so much—but he would swagger about in the streets of the town with his pack yelping and gamboling at his heels, and when he did that, the green-grocer, who had his stall in the marketplace, always regretted it; and the crockery merchant, who spread his wares on the pavement, was ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... will support her cause, Enforce her dictates, and sustain her laws; Rich with her spoils, his sanction will dismay, And bid the insurgents tremble and obey. He comes!—but where, the amazing theme to hit, Discover language or ideas fit? Splay-footed words, that hector, bounce, and swagger, 380 The sense to puzzle, and the brain to stagger? Our patriot comes! with frenzy fired, the Muse With allegoric eye his figure views! Like the grim portress of hell-gate he stands, Bellona's scourge hangs trembling in his hands! Around him, fiercer than the ravenous shark, "A cry ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... notice of it however—either by word, or the movement of a feature. On the contrary, he appears perfectly indifferent to the character of the reception given him. Not that his manner betrays anything like swagger—for he is evidently not one of the swaggering sort. Rather is his behaviour characterised by a cool, quiet effrontery—a sort of sarcastic assurance—ten times more irritating. This is displayed in the laconic style of his ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... horses before the castle gateway, where their hoofs beat a sort of fanfare on the stone pavement; and the footman, letting himself smartly down, pulled, with a peremptory gesture that was just not quite a swagger, the bronze hand at the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... found to be in no little confusion on the arrival of the Movable Column, mutiny being rampant among the troops, and the military authorities taking scarcely any precautions to prevent an outbreak. In the streets it was apparent from the swagger of the native soldiers that they believed the ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... alive now (though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty 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 ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... and barracks are filled with red-coated infantry or blue-coated artillery the whole year round. All summer long great iron-clads bring their imposing bulks to anchor off the Dockyard, and Jack Tars in foolish, merry, and alas! too often vicious companies, swagger through the streets in noisy enjoyment ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... said Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely understood. "I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... word. Nor is it difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of the greatest ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... one and should be acted upon. As it is now, the justice there dispensed is so mixed and doctored that it satisfies only the vitiated taste of the roughs. The proceedings in the McFARLAND and JACKSON case show that swagger, not study—bullying, not brains, are in a fair way to become the important qualifications of a counsel. The lawyers should organize in their own defence and classify themselves. Mr. PUNCHINELLO suggests the following method as the simplest and probably the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... not so damned fine of you fellows to be honest. You're all born with silver spoons in your mouths, and then you swagger about with everlasting virtue because you haven't got other people's spoons in your pockets. But I was born in a Pimlico lodging house and I had to make my spoon, and there'd be plenty to say I only spoiled a horn or an honest ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... of light! Death is the common right Of toads and men, — Of earl and midge The privilege. Why swagger then? The gnat's ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... shoulders and threw out his chest and the boy standing beside the blacksmith threw up his chin, unconsciously imitating the swagger ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... better, when we hear of others that they have been toiled, nor be tickled at the thoughts of our own manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried.[258] Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before. He would swagger, aye, 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 by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fantastic fragments, of ill-fitting parts—physically, mentally, spiritually. It was as if a soul had seen itself in a crooked mirror and had fashioned a form to match the distorted image. Hugh wouldn't, couldn't force himself to be inconspicuous. He would swagger; he would talk loud; his big, beautiful voice would challenge attention, create an audience. He would have some impossible, ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... it be avoided?" Amos asked, impatiently; for the tone in which the barber's apprentice spoke, and the swagger he had assumed, grated ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... type; he believes largely in telling people what he thinks; and never hesitates to hit rich and poor alike in his discourses. He has been transplanted to the Parish Church, and he will stir up a few of the respectable otiose souls there if he has an opportunity. There is a good deal of swagger about him; he believes in carry a stick and turning it; in admiring himself and letting other people know that he is of a cypher; there is much conceit and ever so much bombast about him; he likes ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... make of a woman. She could see how the Condrip pair pressed their brother's widow on the subject of Aunt Maud—who wasn't, after all, their aunt; made her, over their interminable cups, chatter and even swagger about Lancaster Gate, made her more vulgar than it had seemed written that any Croy could possibly become on such a subject. They laid it down, they rubbed it in, that Lancaster Gate was to be kept in sight, and that she, Kate, was to keep it; so that, curiously, or at all ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... put up," said Stubbs presently, turning into a large and well-lighted hotel. "Put your best foot foremost now, and walk in like you owned the place. Can you swagger ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... and you won't have any more of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist—its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour—the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches. You saw that remarkable speech which appeared in the British Weekly this week. It is a very remarkable product, as an illustration of the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... 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 ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... artificial water. Pasture is "feed," herd and flock alike become "mob." "Country" is used as a synonym for grazing; "good country" means simply good grazing land. A man tramping in search of work is a "swagman" or "swagger," from the "swag" or roll of blankets he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient "mana," which covers prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; "whare," a rough hut; "taihoa," equivalent to the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... 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 he declared that Drayton fought with it on his right ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... in many ways: yet the radical distinction between them is that whereas Gattamelata is the faithful portrait of a modest though successful warrior, it must be confessed that Verrocchio makes an idealised soldier of fortune, full of bravado and swagger, a Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre of the Quattrocento. But, striking as the contrast of sentiment is, noticeable alike in the artist and his model, these two statues remain the finest equestrian monuments in the world, their one possible rival ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... nobody else 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 ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... distrust which is the beginning of panic. In a stock market as in a powder magazine there are always dread possibilities of explosion, and he who would survive must have incombustible nerves and an ice-packed brain; asbestos assurances and an unblushing swagger have averted many money conflagrations and ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Union soldiers headed by Corporal Evans, an insolent young fellow of about twenty-five. He has a very boisterous manner, giving his orders with a swagger. ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... songs of Dibdin to the heart of the British sailor; and in this lies the proof of their genuineness. His songs are simple and melodious; there is a manly ring in their word and rhythm; they have the swagger and the fearlessness of the typical tar; they have, too, the beat of his true heart, his kindly waggery, his sturdy fidelity to his country and his king. There is nothing quite like them ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... lead, showed a tendency to swagger. She bounced and tossed. The fair lad, swaying to the motions of his horse, rode the fretting ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... 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, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... explained the mystery, and got the fellows to admire him, and when Thor decided to play the game I thought 'All O.K.; I'll just wait until he scatters Hamilton and Ballard over Bannister Field, then I'll swagger before Butch and say, "Oh, I told you just to leave it to Hicks!"' But now Thor has spilled the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... he rarely sees. Sometimes a latch-key is heard about half-past six. The man is thick, strong, common, his jaws are heavy, his eyes are expressionless, there is about him the loud swagger of the caserne, and he suggests the inevitable question, Why did she marry him?—a question that every young man of refined mind asks a thousand times by day and ten thousand times by night, asks till he is five-and-thirty, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... brace of baboons answer'd, Yes; and said thou wert a pitiful poor fellow, and didst live upon posts: and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that lords gave thee to fool to them, and swagger. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... in their conversation, did not notice her. Then, with a feeling of extraordinary relief—she hardly knew why—she saw a familiar, substantial person coming along the promenade with a sort of friendly swagger. She went forward to meet him, still feeling as though she were ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... considerable, 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
... last, after a careful examination of the contents of the windows, made for the purpose of impressing the bystanders with the notion that he is going in to purchase a diamond bracelet or some such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with a careless swagger, and giving himself really the air of a member of the swell mob. When inside he speaks in so low a voice as to be perfectly inaudible, and has to say it all over again. When, in the course of his rambling conversation about a "friend" ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... credit," remarked Thompson, with the unconscious spiritual swagger which so often antecedes, and possibly generates, lapse. "I never could see that swearing did any good; so I just say to myself, 'You'd like to come out, would you?—well, then, once for all, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... heavy rubber garment she had worn through the swamp. Then she removed her outer clothing and got into the uniform and into the long, polished boots quickly. There was even the swagger cane that young Prussian ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... 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 ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... tall hat, set rather jauntily on his head, and he was dressed in black with a long frock coat buttoned across the chest and fitting him close to the body. As he came, with a half saunter, half swagger, along the street, I knew him again at once by his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in a soft, melodious voice with a colonial "twang" which ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... leveled a displeased stare upon the speaker, a young farmer with a bibulous eye and slight swagger of defiance. At the proper moment, with the right audience, the Judge was willing to impart information with lavish generosity. But any attempt to force his hand was looked upon as a distinct infringement of ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... of Alpines manoeuvring ... a company from Noirmont.... Listen ... listen.... What gaiety!... What swagger!... I tell you, close to the frontier like this, it takes such ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the queerest specimen of a boy I ever saw. He's awfully grown up, but he's small and terribly swagger. His riding clothes are gorgeous, and you mustn't laugh at them. Dad did, but it was into Bobs' mane. He came with us cutting-out, and Betty was too good for him, swinging round, so he came a lovely cropper into some wild raspberries. It was so funny ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the 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, an hour or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... old blackguard? No, no, Varia—that won't do! It won't do, I tell you! And look at the swagger of the man! He's all to blame himself, and yet he puts on so much 'side' that you'd think—my word!—'It's too much trouble to go through the gate, you must break the fence for me!' That's the sort of air he ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of voting, on the prairie, and hitched their horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters went home. Caleb May did not get into the neighborhood ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... accomplish. Not that I have any purpose of imitating Johnson, whose general learning and power of expression I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are little better than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious maxims are made to swagger in lofty and mystic language, and get some credit only because they are not easily understood. There are some of the great moralist's papers which I cannot peruse without thinking on a second-rate masquerade, where the best-known ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... My dear estate, how well I love it, My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it, They swear I am so kind and good, I hug them till I squeeze their blood. Libertas bears a large import: First, how to swagger in a court; And, secondly, to show my fury Against an uncomplying jury; And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention, To favour Wood, and keep my pension; And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick, Get the great seal ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... importance of avoiding an altercation which might possibly detain us, and would be certain to add to our notoriety, I remained quiet; and presently the entrance of a tall, dark-complexioned man, who carried himself with a peculiar swagger, and seemed to be famous for something or other, diverted the attention of the company ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... stood upon the deck, gazing in wonder at all they saw, "here's for you;" and he handed them a tray of broken biscuit and a can of water. Then thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked up and down the deck with an enormous swagger, whistling vociferously. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne |
