"Swarm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Rampart she stopped an instant and looked back. The quick flash of anxiety deepening to defiance made the others turn. The bit they could see of the water-front thoroughfare was alive. The inhabitants were rushing about like a swarm of ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... manage to swarm up if the trunk was inclined about forty-five degrees. Select straight ones, and of some size; ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... carried to "the Cuezcomate," an extinct geyser-crater, famous through all the country, and popularly believed to be the mouth of hell; when the body was thrown into this opening, it is said the devils were seen to swarm upward to ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... hammer at the wall, while stones and arrows hurtle down on their steel roof. Other companies rush intrepidly forward with long scaling-ladders, and strive to hook them to the top of the wall. The Saracens, with equal energy and courage, labor to cast them down. If perchance a ladder be fixed, men swarm up, undaunted by the weapons hurled at them. Scores, struck dead or wounded, loosen their hold and fall to the ground; but as many more clamber over their dead bodies and spring to their places. If a knight but reach the top of the ladder, ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... flew against one another like a scattering swarm of locusts, to the right and left; this phenomenon lasted until daybreak; people were thrown into consternation and cried to God, the Most ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... About eight o'clock, I dressed and breakfasted, and then took a wherry over to Gosport, and in half an hour was at the house, which was full of people with white favours, and in such a bustle, that it reminded me of a hive of bees just previous to a swarm. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Lucca has an appearance in itself of stately solemn dulness, and bears no trace of the smiling prosperity of the adjacent country: the shops are poor and empty, there are no signs of business, and the streets swarm with beggars. The interior of the Duomo is a fine specimen of Gothic: the exterior is Greek, Gothic, and Saracenic jumbled together in vile taste: it contains nothing very interesting. The palace is like other palaces, very fine and so forth; ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... valley, adorned with soft and smooth pastures and hamlets rosy as the rose, with the sable shadow-stains of the majestic mountains and the black lace and white of pines and eternal snow, become alive with the movements of men, whose multitudes swarm in distinct masses. Attacks develop, wave by wave, across the fields and then stand still. Houses are eviscerated like human beings and towns like houses. Villages appear in crumpled whiteness as though fallen from heaven to earth. The very shape of the plain ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... to arrive at an understanding of the state of humanity at the present time. Imagine very imperfect, very undeveloped beings, possessing, however, an infinity of latent potentialities; imagine them born in a dark cavern where they swarm pell-mell, passing their time chiefly in devouring one another. Every moment this cavern is entered, and a certain number of these poor beings are taken out of it and carried into the light of day, ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... most advantageous manner. Throw away none of your time upon those trivial, futile books, published by idle or necessitous authors, for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers; such sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day; flap them away, they have no sting. 'Certum pete finem', have some one object for those leisure moments, and pursue that object invariably till you have attained it; and then take some other. For instance, considering your destination, I would advise ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down the street. Even in the second he stood there a ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... the whole Empire by religious feuds, in which the doctrine in question becomes invisible amid the passions and crimes of the disputants, while the Lords of the Church were hordes of wild monks, who swarm out of their dens to head the lowest mobs, or fight pitched battles with each other. The ecclesiastical history of the fifth century in the Eastern Empire is one, which not even the genius of a Gibbon or a Milman can ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... thyself quiet, and let none of those people see thee; they swarm so at Rome and at the Vatican, that thou wouldst not be safe, even at my side, if they were to perceive that thou didst observe them. The murdered man whom they flung into the water is Francisco Borgia, Duke of Candia; his murderer ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... graceful all three of them. She had also brought to her Court, and more particularly attached to her person, a very pretty child, only daughter of the Marquis de Villette, and sister, consequently, of the Comte and of the Chevalier de Villette, whom I have previously mentioned. This swarm of nephews, cousins, and nieces garnished the armchairs and sofas of her chamber. They served as comrades and playfellows to the legitimate princes and as pages of honour to my daughter; and when the carriage of the Marquise came into the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... fellow it implies, Who in the morning hates to rise; When all the rest are up at four, He wants to sleep a little more. When others into meeting swarm, He keeps his nest so good and warm, That sometimes when the sisters come To make the beds and sweep the room, Who do they find wrap'd up so snug? Ah! who is it but ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... effort to soften and equalize the contrast of forms, while life is introduced into the landscape only by means of the immeasurably rich accessories which make every rock, every valley, and especially the entire river, swarm with people. These are, in truth, cultural landscapes, in which we perceive the greatest charm of the region to lie in the pathway of human work, just as the whole age in which they were painted longed to get away from the devastation ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... the poor creature under the hypocritical cloak of benevolence and care. Here and there cargo cranes looking like instruments of torture for ships swing cruel hooks at the end of long chains. Gangs of dock- labourers swarm with muddy feet over the gangways. It is a moving sight this, of so many men of the earth, earthy, who never cared anything for a ship, trampling unconcerned, brutal and ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... strewn with baskets and buckets of varying dimensions, into which the nuts were gathered before being consigned to the huge hamper guarded by Amos Burr. A hoarse clamour, like that produced by a flock of crows, went up from the animated swarm as it settled ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... reached the Soda Springs, we met the most remarkable migration of red lady-bugs that I ever saw. They were coming in myriads from down the main canyon and each side canyon. They extended in a swarm from the ground to a distance above it of from ten to twelve feet. Huge rocks would be covered six or eight inches deep with them. Occasionally they would light upon a tree, and in a few moments the tree or ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... children stayed with the little old woman in her tiny cottage on the edge of the river. Each morning they crossed the bridge and stationed themselves by the Antwerp road to watch the swarm of sad-faced Belgians as they hurried through Boom on their way to the frontier and to safety in Holland. Each day they hoped that before the sun went down they should see their mother among the hurrying multitudes, but each day brought a fresh disappointment, and ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... was over Westchester, headquarters tripled the swarm of interceptors and observation planes. Squadrons from Connecticut and southern New Jersey deployed to form a monstrous funnel, the small end before her, the large end pointing out to open sea. Heavy bombers closed in above, laying a smoke screen at 10,000 feet to discourage her from rising. ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn
... engaged to make an expression of the iniquity of the place. Suddenly death came upon Lizon. A pit was dug near his tavern and he was placed in a coffin, but as the box was lowered it was felt to grow lighter, while there poured from it a swarm of fat and filthy snakes. The fog that overspread the earth that morning seemed to blow by in human forms, the grave rolled like a wave after it had been covered, and after darkness fell a blue will-o'-the-wisp ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... to find an innumerable swarm of mosquitoes buzzing about our habitation, and apparently endeavouring to carry it off bodily. Letting down, however, the muslin curtains, which the foreknowledge of the faithful Q.M.G. had provided us with, we succeeded in puzzling the enemy for the time being. About eight o'clock, the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... was a good one; the fuel oak and ash and beech. The flames made a silky, rustling sound; now and then a coal fell with a softly agreeable crash and a swarm of golden sparks whirled up the chimney, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... on land and partially in water. Here again there must be manifestation of the type of life, this time of what we call the reptile type; the tortoise is chosen as the typical creature, and while the tortoise typifies the type to be evolved, reptiles, amphibious creatures of every description, swarm over the earth, becoming more and more land-like in their character as the proportion of land to water increases. There is meanwhile going on, in the "imperishable sacred land," a preparation for further evolution. There is one ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... many a field. The Exchange—of rather more pretensions and vastly more comfort—was at that time in the hands of a northern firm, who "could keep a hotel." The latter was political headquarters—the President, the Cabinet and a swarm of the possible ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the river runs broad, a blue-green mirror amid dumpy willows and lanky poplars, and the windmills on its banks throw their arms about like giants at play. The steamers swarm in the bright waters; at evening their lights are like will-o'-the-wisps. The long bridge of boats opens; a steamer passes, followed by a crowd of boats; it closes, and the waiting crowd upon it hurry over. The Rhine at night here presents a most ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... absurdity of the doctrine of numerical equality between planets and satellites. As further discoveries were made, the number of satellites was at first raised above the number of planets; but in recent times, when the swarm of minor planets came to be discovered, the number of planets speedily reached and speedily passed the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... way to the King's fire, but at last it lay before her; before and below her, for it had been built in a depression of the little open. The last charred log had fallen apart, spreading a swarm of golden glow-worms over the black earth, there was still enough light to reveal a ring of muffled forms sprawling around the sloping sides of the hollow, with their feet toward the fire and their heads lost in darkness. Pausing in the tree-shadow, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... much more slender, and the calyx-tubes of the flowers were noticeably more elongated. It seems not improbable that Oenothera cruciata includes a group of lesser unities, and may prove to comprise a [591] swarm of elementary species, while the original strain might even now be still in a condition of mutability. A close scrutiny in the native region is likely to ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... the men of Amathus cut off the head of Onesilos, because he had besieged them; and having brought it to Amathus they hung it over the gate of the city: and as the head hung there, when it had now become a hollow, a swarm of bees entered into it and filled it with honeycomb. This having so come to pass, the Amathusians consulted an Oracle about the head, and they received an answer bidding them take it down and bury it and sacrifice to Onesilos every year as a hero; and if they did ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... still prevalent in some rural districts that the bees must be told at once if a death occur in the family, or every swarm will take flight. In Whittier's poem, Telling the Bees, the lover coming to visit his mistress sees the small servant draping the hives with black, and hears ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... thickest, blackest clouds. They had watched them settle down on tree, bush, bright green meadow, and fields of waving corn. And they had trembled. For they knew that in an incredibly short time not a vestige of anything green would be left. For a swarm of locusts to visit the land they had thought one of the direst calamities that could come upon them. But now invaders as numerous and far more terrible had ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... indignation.... It was all a dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had never come to the cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, everywhere small feuds and hatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, timidities, feebleness of purpose, dwarfish imaginations, swarm over the great and simple issues.... It is a war now like any other of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that have shattered empires and devastated the world; it is a war without point, a war that has lost its soul, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... decorations had lost their splendour and become antiquated. Fashion had taken up its abode in the Marais, near the Place Royale, and it was thither that profligate women and celebrated beauties now enticed the humming swarm of old rakes and young libertines. Not one of them all would have thought of residing in the mansion, or even in the quarter, wherein the king's mistress had once dwelt. It would have been a step downward in the social scale, and equivalent to a confession that their charms were ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fears to observe that it was not yet destroyed. The mud hovels, like huge beehives, in which the Kafirs dwelt, were not yet burnt, and the only smoke visible was that which rose from cooking fires. But it was quite plain that the people, who in the distance seemed to swarm in and about the place like black ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... Gilbert and Charley made an excursion down the river last night, to look for water, but, as they did not return in the morning, and as water had been found, after they left, about four miles lower down, we started to meet them. Observing a swarm of white cranes circling in the air, and taking their flight down the river, I concluded that we should meet with a good supply of water lower down, and, therefore, passed the nearest water-hole; but, the country and the bed of the river being ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... and had to dig a tank twenty feet long by six feet deep, and six feet wide at the bottom, though at the top it was much wider. I may remark—and what I now say applies to almost every other water I ever got by digging in all my wanderings—that whenever we commenced to dig, a swarm of large and small red hornets immediately came around us, and, generally speaking, diamond birds (Amadina) would also come and twitter near, and when water was got, would drink in great numbers. With regard to the hornets, though they swarmed round our heads and faces in clouds, no one was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... substance in fermentation, whether acetic or vinous. Hence it will abound about cider mills, swarm on preserves in the pantry, and in cellars or places where wine is being made or stored. The paper showed the tendency of the glucose in the over-ripe grape to the vinous ferment, and that the fly delighted in it. A singular ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... keen-scented dogs and the shepherds too, and they seek what first to attack and carry off, often glaring around, but the sheep are just huddled together and trample on one another; so the heroes grievously scared the arrogant Bebrycians. And as shepherds or beekeepers smoke out a huge swarm of bees in a rock, and they meanwhile, pent up in their hive, murmur with droning hum, till, stupefied by the murky smoke, they fly forth far from the rock; so they stayed steadfast no longer, but scattered ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... our country to-day is that we have but few statesmen. We have a great swarm, a great hoard of politicians; but it is only now and then that we find a man who is large enough truly to deserve the name—statesman. The large majority in public life to-day are there not for the purpose of serving the best interests of those whom they are supposed to represent, but ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... The streets 'here swarm with military, and indeed the profession of arms seems to have too much sway in the Prussian dominions. The subalterns and young men of the Prussian Army are said to have republican sentiments, and they, in common with all the burghers, desire a ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... degree of cleanliness, where such a number of wretches are crouded together without conveniences, or even the necessaries of life. They are ordered twice a week to strip, clean, and bathe themselves in the sea: but, notwithstanding all the precautions of discipline, they swarm with vermin, and the vessel smells like an hospital, or crouded jail. They seem, nevertheless, quite insensible of their misery, like so many convicts in Newgate: they laugh and sing, and swear, and get drunk when they can. When you enter ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... down on roofs, brown tiles and chimney-pots, set one above the other like a big card-castle. Each house has its foot on a neighbour's neck, and its shoulder set against the native stone. The streets meander in and out, and up and down, overarched and balconied, but very clean. They swarm with children, healthy, happy, little monkeys, who grow fat on salt fish and yellow polenta, with oil ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... after fording a certain river, found his body covered all over by a swarm of small leeches, busily sucking his blood. His first impulse was to tear the tormentors from his flesh: but his servant warned him that to pull them off by mechanical violence would expose his life to danger. They must not be torn off, lest portions ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the cottage we had now procured, down in West Grove, N.J., where we had gone finally to escape the city, and the swarm of reporters that seemed never to cease pursuing us ... for, when we found out that they did not want propaganda, we sought ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... showered silken floss till the cabins and grass were white; the birds returned to the oasis; the sun kissed warm color into the cherries, and the distant noise of the river seemed like the humming of a swarm of bees. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... in that too discreet voice of his, and then Jervaise scowled and looked round at the ascending humanity of the staircase. His son Frank detached himself from the swarm, politely picked his way down into the Hall, and began to put John under a ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... has summon'd all his creditors by the drum, And they swarm about him like so many soldiers On the pay day; and has found such a new way To pay his old debts, as, 'tis very likely, He ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... earth to the depth of an inch and upwards to deposit their eggs. The operation of laying being completed, they leave the ground pierced like a sieve, and disappear, for their existence has now reached its termination. Three weeks afterwards, however, the eggs open, and myriads of young locusts swarm the earth. On the spot where they are born, whatever will serve them for food is quickly consumed. As soon as they have acquired sufficient strength they abandon their birth-place, destroy all kinds of vegetation ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... me by lifting on the point of your dissecting-knife this stinging sin of mine to which you refer? The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination. Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to select for ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Eve a bogie sits on every stile.[577] On that night in Ireland all the fairy hills are thrown wide open and the fairies swarm forth; any man who is bold enough may then peep into the open green hills and see the treasures hidden in them. Worse than that, the cave of Cruachan in Connaught, known as "the Hell-gate of Ireland," is unbarred on Samhain Eve or Hallowe'en, and a host ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... it strictly looked after, with its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, because they more affect open fields than enclosures; after harvest some few landrails ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... exist just to amuse, made the new road over the moor, cutting right through the home of twilight, that wood above the "Falls," where till then they had always enjoyed inviolable enchantment. They trooped forthwith in their multitudinous secrecy down into the glen, to swarm about the old road. In half a century or so they had it almost abandoned, save for occasional horsemen and harmless persons seeking beauty, for whom the fairies have never had much feeling of aversion. And now, after a hundred years, it is all theirs; ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... was not lawfully her due. This small slip was attended with another indiscretion, which had likewise an unlucky effect upon her reputation. She had been favoured with the addresses of one of those hopeful heirs who swarm and swagger about town, under the denomination of bucks; and, in the confidence of his honour, consented to be one of a party that made an excursion as far as Windsor, thinking herself secured from scandal by the company of another young lady, who had also condescended to trust her person to the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... almost epic dignity. New York, since it took to doing business in towers, has become interesting to look at from the sea; nor is it possible to walk through the overshadowed streets without feeling a pleasing wonder. A city, when enough people swarm in it, is as fascinating as an ant-hill, and its buildings, whatever other charms they may have, are at least as curious and delightful as sea-shells or birds' nests. The purpose of improvements ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Toombs, the Confederate secretary of state, did not hesitate to declare that "the firing upon it at this time is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... mighty lord! Low on his funeral couch he lies: No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the Sable Warrior fled? Thy son is gone; he rests among the dead. The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born? Gone to salute the rising morn. Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows, While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, Regardless ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... parallel to it, was a long gentle valley. In the old days the Germans had been content to build their trenches half-way up the eastern slope, and the French had faced them on the opposite side, but now the Huns in the foolish arrogance of their hearts must needs swarm over the whole valley, and offer themselves and their works as targets for our searching gun-fire. On the summit of their ridge and due east of Hebuterne is Puisieux-au-Mont, in almost the same condition of devastation as Gommecourt, while further beyond, ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... chiefly due, I think, to the swarm of vagrants thrown upon society by the disbanding of the rebel armies and the emancipation of the slaves at a season of the year when it is difficult for those who seek ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... signification of terms as "all life," "beasts," "cattle." Though these are often used without discrimination, still at various places the Scripture employs them discriminatingly; for instance, when it says, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures." Gen 1, 24. "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures." Gen 1, 20. In those places the words of the genus stand for all living beings on the earth and in the waters. Here the constituent species are named—chayah, remes, and behemah—though ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm of them around —sometimes as much as four or five acres—you can't count them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and as John entered he was aware of an odour of drugs and saw Dr. McGregor sound asleep in an armchair, a red silk handkerchief over his bald head, and a swarm of disappointed flies hovering above him. In the back room the clink and rattle of a pestle and mortar ceased as ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... of arrows whenever they obtained a glimpse of the savages, and he himself headed a sally and drove them back to the woods. But as soon as he and his men had returned to the fortress, out came the savages again like a swarm of bees, and ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... less valuable. In the Last Day he hopes to illustrate the reassembly of the atoms that compose the human body at the "trump of doom" by the collection of bees into a swarm at the tinkling of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... without a rustic treat, Waggons bedecked with greenery stood anigh, A swarm of children in the cheerful street With girls to marshal them; but all went by And none I noted save this only sweet: Too young her charge more venturous sport to try, With whirling baubles still they play content, And softly ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... been decreed that if they ever revealed themselves to man again, they must go. This all happened at the worst time possible, for Joan of Arc was ill of a fever and out of her head, and what could we do who had not her gifts of reasoning and persuasion? We flew in a swarm to her bed and cried out, "Joan, wake! Wake, there is no moment to lose! Come and plead for the fairies—come and save them; only you can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that made his domain swarm with busy hands, like a bee-hive or ant-hill, would not serve his own interest, as well ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... neither reproach nor stain. I have seen the Saracen host of Spain, Over plain and valley and mountain spread, And the regions hidden beneath their tread. Countless the swarm of the foe, and we A marvellous little company." Roland answered him, "All the more My spirit within me burns therefore. God and the angels of heaven defend That France through me from her glory bend. Death were ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... little creek. The quays are black with crowds of people waving their hats and handkerchiefs. But silently and quietly the Fram heads towards the fjord, steers slowly past Bygdoe and Dyna out on her unknown path, while little nimble craft, steamers, and pleasure-boats swarm around her. Peaceful and snug lay the villas along the shore behind their veils of foliage, just as they ever seemed of old. Ah, "fair is the woodland slope, and never did it look fairer!" Long, long, will it be before we shall plough ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... A swarm of small white animals ran wildly past them from behind, and after them came a howling, laughing, scrambling mob that filled the street. Someone had loosed a few score rabbits for the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... likely to attempt running through the passage without waiting for our convoy," observed the first lieutenant to Norman Foley. "Besides the French, the Bahamas still swarm with picarooning rascals, who are ever on the look-out for merchant craft, and would not scruple to lay aboard any they ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... and among them were occasional luminous white figures. As weeks passed and his efforts continued, there came a noticeable increase in the number of these moving shapes until, when the doctor desired it, he could make them swarm everywhere, over the walls, the ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... return from King William Land on September 19th. It was about six miles south-east of Gladman Point, and at the foot of a high hill, which Toolooah remarked would make a good look-out tower for deer-hunting. All along this part of the coast, where Simpson Strait is narrowest, would soon swarm with reindeer waiting for the salt water to freeze, so they could continue their navigation southward. It is for this reason that we selected it as our permanent camp while we also awaited the freezing of the strait, so that we could cross with our heavy sleds. When Henry and Frank ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... of liberty. If we find nothing obnoxious in universal regimentation; if we feel that life would have as much savor when all of us were told off to our tasks, or at least circumscribed and supervised in our activities, by a swarm of officials carrying out the benevolent edicts of a paternal Government; if we hold as of no account the exercise of individual choice and the development of individual potentialities which are the very lifeblood of the existing ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... of the hotel of his fell purpose, Mr. and Mrs. Peattie found themselves the victims of insistent and deliberate misapprehensions from the moment they were shown to the bridal suite until they fled from the swarm of land speculators and mining promoters which Field's ingenuity brought about them wherever they moved in Colorado. That this was merely a sportive method of showing his real friendship for both Mr. and Mrs. Peattie may be ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... thrusts onward its wall, One mass down the valley they tramp; Fascine-fill the marsh and the stream; Like hornets they swarm up the ramp, Lancing a breach through the long palisade, Where the rival swarms of the stubborn foe, While the sun goes high and goes down o'er the fight, Sting them back, blow answering blow:— O life-blood lavish as rain On war's red Aceldama plain! While the volleying death-rattle rings, And ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... day, Said old Fox, "pray don't send them away, For a hungrier swarm Would work me more harm; I had rather the full ones ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane
... (op. cit., p. 6 f.) relates that on a certain occasion when his party was driven from its wagons by a swarm of bees, a Nandi man appeared, announced that he was of the bee totem, and volunteered to restore quiet, which he did, going stark naked into the swarm. His success was doubtless due to his knowledge of the habits ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Are poured on her unheeding ear. 'He will return—dear lady, trust!— With joy return;—he will—he must. Well was it time to seek afar Some refuge from impending war, When e'en Clan-Alpine's rugged swarm Are cowed by the approaching storm. I saw their boats with many a light, Floating the livelong yesternight, Shifting like flashes darted forth By the red streamers of the north; I marked at morn how close they ride, Thick ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Consolation, Oo-koo-hoo and his party were greeted by a swarm of their copper-coloured friends, among whom were The Little Pine and his father, mother, and sister. Making his way through the press, The Owl strode toward the trading room to shake hands with Factor Mackenzie; but the trader, hearing of Oo-koo-hoo's arrival, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... The Man to be watched for and avoided—the low, square, black-browed, black-bearded Man who brandished a broom at the little girls who dropped their apple-cores and crusts on the pavements, and who shook his fist at the jeering little boys who dared to swarm to the forbidden top and sit straddling the dividing fence. That Uncle Michael, the janitor, was getting old and had rheumatic twinges was indeed Uncle Michael's excuse, but Emmy Lou did not know this, and her fear of Uncle Michael ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... magnificent a set of venerable heads as painter or sculptor would desire to see,—heads, full of—what? They have no history, their traditions are scarcely worthy the name, they claim descent from a dog, their houses and persons swarm with vermin, they are sunk in the grossest ignorance, they have no letters or any numbers above a thousand, they are clothed in the bark of trees and the untanned skins of beasts, they worship the bear, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... little distance bore a curious resemblance to a cluster of white beehives; and the round, soft, hairy natives, creeping out and in continually, and moving about amongst them, were not unlike (with the aid of a little imagination) to a swarm of monstrous black bees—an idea which was further strengthened by the continuous hum that floated on the air over the busy settlement. Kayaks and oomiaks lay about in several places supported on blocks of ice, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Circumstances of the Fact"; and that this invitation was likely to bring half London within his doors appears from Fielding's own description of the condition of the capital at the time. "There is not a street," he declares, speaking of Westminster, "which doth not swarm all day with beggars, and all night with thieves. Stop your coach at what shop you will, however expeditious the tradesman is to attend you, a beggar is commonly beforehand with him; and if you should directly face his door the tradesman must often turn ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... musketoon. My pet swallows' nest, demure above my door, to them offered the aspect of a culverin's mouth; and, as now, I made my customary approach-call, by which I heralded my return from any excursion on the stream of an evening, I could swear these invaders looked for naught less than a swarm of archers springing to the walls, and the hoarse answer of my men-at-arms back of each guarded portal. Such is the power of youthful dreaming, such the residuary heritage of days of high emprise, when life was full of blood and wine and love, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... If you hold a cannon-ball in your hand, perception by the sense of touch tells you that it is continuous, or what is called solid and hard; but it is not so in reality except as a concept limited by our finite senses. A fair analogy would be to liken it to a swarm of bees, for we know that it is composed of an immense number of independent atoms or molecules which are darting about, and circling round each other at an enormous speed but never touching; they are also pulsating at a definite enormous rate; we can at will ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... now that it lies the other way. A dozen things may happen to set all right. I must not forget, however," he continued, with a darker look, "that I have dipped into my credit so freely that I could not borrow any more without exciting suspicion and having the whole swarm down on us. After all, our hopes lie in the diamonds. Ezra cannot fail. He must succeed. Who can ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dread of that liquid and avoid it whenever they can. Horses are less timorous, and the best way to get a camel through the ford is to lead him behind a horse and pound him vigorously at the same time. When the river is at all dangerous there is always a swarm of natives around the ford ready to lend a hand if suitably compensated. They all talk very much and in loud tones; their voices mingle with the neighing of horses, the screams of camels, the roaring of the river, and the laughter of the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... when they were at their dance about the mountain, the Coyote stole the fire, and ran with it down the slope of the burning mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he had done they streamed out after him, red and angry, with a humming sound like a swarm of bees. But the Coyote was still ahead; the sparks of the brand streamed out along his flanks, as he carried it in his mouth; and he stretched his body to ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... the word was given, and like a swarm of angry bees the French sprang from their trenches and rushed in mad haste across the narrow space dividing them from the Malakoff. The place, a moment before quiet and apparently deserted, seemed suddenly alive. A few bounds ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... gone back to Wills Creek, leaving Ensign Ward, with forty men, at work upon the fort, when, on the 17th of April, a swarm of canoes came down the Allegheny, with over five hundred Frenchmen, who planted cannon against the unfinished stockade, and summoned the ensign to surrender. He had no recourse but to submit, and was allowed to depart, with his men, across ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... when the [censure for] irregular government was removed from them; but for this purpose a conference was first summoned by the archbishop. It included the bishop of Sinopolis, the superiors and masters of the religious orders—and with them crowded in all the swarm of doctors and masters of Santo Tomas, to the no little annoyance of the bishop and the religious orders. In this conference the question was asked whether the members of the cabildo were worthy of being absolved for their irregular acts. All answered in the affirmative, except little ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... all the Lord's blessings?" asked Mother Mayberry, as she looked down the Road at the little swarm with tender ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in Middle Arkansas, to say nothing of Banks at New Orleans and Baton Rouge, set at rest the silly dream that a thin strip of sea-coast only is in possession of our foes. The truth is, the Yankees are in great force in the very heart of the Confederacy; they swarm on all our borders; they threaten every important city yet belonging to us; and nearly two hundred thousand of them are within two days' march of the Confederate capital. This is no fiction. It is a fact so positive that no one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... was, that spread Its flowery bosom to the noonday beam, Where many a rosebud rears its blushing head, And herbs for food with future plenty teem. Soothed by the lulling sound of grove and stream, Romantic visions swarm on Edwin's soul: He minded not the sun's last trembling gleam, Nor heard from far the twilight curfew toll; When slowly on his ear ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the contemporary of Simonides, was considerably his junior: He was born either at, or in the neighbourhood of, Thebes in Boeotia, about the year 522 B.C. Later writers tell us that his future glory as a poet was miraculously foreshadowed by a swarm of bees which rested upon his lips while he was asleep, and that this miracle first led him to compose poetry. He commenced his professional career at an early age, and soon acquired so great a reputation, that he was employed by various states and princes ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... blindfolded wreck that yet had something ironically military about his bearing—and the next moment the bull had ripped him open and his bowls were dragging upon the ground: and the bull was charging his swarm of pests again. Then came pealing through the air a bugle-call that froze my blood—"IT IS I, SOLDIER—COME!" I turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed people; she cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that riderless horse, who staggered forward towards ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... window, saw on the blank wall of a great hulk of a building half a mile away, the fine strong figure of a man with black shaggy hair on his young leonine head rise and wave his handkerchief to a woman with tears running down her face and anguish in her eyes, standing in a swarm of children. What indeed are sordid thorns when the "large white plumes are ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... wrong to try to introduce into literature the same toleration as must necessarily prevail in society towards those stupid, brainless people who everywhere swarm in it. In literature such people are impudent intruders; and to disparage the bad is here duty towards the good; for he who thinks nothing bad will think nothing good either. Politeness, which has its source in social relations, is in literature ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... and feeling this boat, with all its light and life, speeding, twinkling on and on through the night like a swarm of stars, the thought came—and I was wishing I ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the chapel-bell rings, and at once the huts swarm. We follow the crowd. They enter the chapel by a door at the end nearest their dens, and seat themselves, the women at the farther, the men at the hither extreme, all facing a raised desk at the middle of one side. Behind them, opposite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... 22nd, a great jabbering outside the ship, as though a colony of monkeys had encountered another babel, announced that we were at Malta. Boats by the hundred swarm around us, and never was seen such a gesticulating, swearing crowd, as their occupants, nor such pushing and hauling, such splashing and wrangling, and even fighting to maintain their stations alongside. One's eyes cannot fail to be arrested ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... the thought that she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely life gave her more and more of that fastidious dislike to males in general, as such, which is not rare in maidens who ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Callender House to the Valcour apartment had, of course, only insured his finding Flora not at home, all its evening except the very end was passed with her, Flora, in her open balcony overlooking the old Place d'Armes. His head ringing with a swarm of things still to be done and ordered done, he had purposed to remain only long enough to tell his dire news manfully, accept without insistent debate whatever odium it might entail, and decently leave its gentle recipients to their grief and dismay. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Harpers—them thet dwells furthest back in ther sticks—air a doin' a heap of buzzin' an' talkin'. They're right sim'lar ter bees gittin' ready ter swarm. I've done seed ter that. I reckon when this hyar stranger starts in ter rob ther honey outen thet hive he's goin' ter find a tol'able nasty lot ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... hardly be a tempting pursuit for a proud and indolent race. It was no wonder therefore that the business of the brigand, the smuggler, the professional mendicant became from year to year more attractive and more overdone; while an ever-thickening swarm of priests, friars, and nuns of every order, engendered out of a corrupt and decaying society, increasing the general indolence, immorality, and unproductive consumption, and frightfully diminishing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sat as immovable as bronze caryatides on either side of the entrance, whilst a swarm of policemen made the carriages move on, and drove away from the aristocratic avenue de Valois the band of poverty-stricken and ragged creatures who crowded the pavement with the hope of securing a handsome tip by opening a carriage door or ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... refused to rise on the milk. It seemed impossible to keep meat sweet. Jimmy lost interest in the gathering of firewood and the carrying of water; and as a result, the waterbutts first shrank, then leaked, and finally lay down, a medley of planks and iron hoops. A swarm of grasshoppers passed through the homestead, and to use Sam's explicit English: "Vegetable bin finissem all about"; and by the time fresh seeds were springing the Wet returned with renewed vigour, and flooded out the garden. Then stores began to fail, including soap ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... it by. The strength of all these surrounding leagues with their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He is more powerless than the mote ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... keep from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron posts supporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to the twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking. The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage and babies, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... wine was proving entirely too much for the old bottles. Madam's ultimatums and Miss Isobel's protests had alike proved unavailing. The young people invaded the house like a swarm of noisy locusts. Between dances they flew out to the porch, some of the couples dashing out to sit in automobiles, others driving madly around the block to the incessant honking of horns. Then the music would call them back, and in they would pour, singing ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Kentucky. It must be confessed that a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States, were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout the Republic. The ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... the cautious, restrictive, limiting nature of this advice! Observe the lack of largeness, freedom and generosity in it. Dr. Wayland, I am sure, has never specialized just such a regimen for the poor Italians, Hungarians or Irish, who swarm, in lowly degradation, in immigrant ships to our shores. No! for them he wants, all Americans want, the widest, largest culture of the land; the instant opening, not simply of the common schools; and then an easy passage to the bar, the ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... to both sexes, the men frequently throw over their garments the skin of a bear, wolf, or sea-otter, with the fur outwards: they wear the hair loose, unless tied up in the scalping-lock: they cover themselves with paint, and swarm with vermin; upon the paint they strew mica to make it glitter. They perforate the nose and ears, and put various ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... together into the streets, and entering St. James's Park, took their way round by the head of the decoy towards the side of the river. While in the streets they both kept silence; but as soon as they had passed the ever-moving crowds that swarm in the thoroughfares of the great metropolis, Wilton began the conversation, by inquiring eagerly after ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... window, and it was left three days at rest. At the end of that time, the water, which was beautifully clear when introduced, had grown a little hazy, and, as the sunbeams fell aslant it, the unaided eye could perceive a multitude of minute whitish creatures darting forward and backward like a swarm of bees. Then five Actinias were laid upon the rocks, to which they at once adhered, spreading out their restless tentacles in busy seizure of the tiny prey. In a week more the foggy appearance had ceased; but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... swarmed with children, who seemed, for the most part, to be enjoying themselves very much. Charlotte May Pilgreen and Sary Denson were hunched amicably over one of the books, shuddering beatifically over a pictured skeleton. A swarm surrounded the drug store, the glass door of ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... political theories of men in the Old World who do not find things to their mind; but, whether for good or evil, it should not be overlooked that the acorn from which it sprang was ripened on the British oak. Every successive swarm that has gone out from this officina gentium has, when left to its own instincts—may I not call them hereditary instincts?—assumed a more or less thoroughly democratic form. This would seem to show, what ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... answered. The air was on a sudden filled with the weirdest row I had ever heard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their shrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, and this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figures sweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore little petticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men as to their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage of bucks, and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the opportunities which the wilderness affords, in the way of fit dwelling-places for the swarm which goes forth from a hive, are much less than can readily be provided by art. In almost all cases the wild bees have to expend a great deal of labor in searching for a fit residence; and after ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... great kindness.[39] These little beetles sometimes leave the nest, and may be observed sunning themselves at the entrance. The busy workers are never so busy but that they can spend a fraction of a second for the purpose of caressing their diminutive playmates. On one occasion, a swarm was about to take place in one of my formicaries. The young princes and princesses had emerged and had congregated about the entrance; they seemed loath to take wing and fly away on their honeymoon jaunt out into the unknown world. The workers were gently urging them ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... in itself a great trial; besides, being naturally shy and timid, I was afraid of strangers, and although Miss Primrose was not unkind she had an habitual frown, which even the elder girls dreaded. My future companions, who were all older than I, came round me like a swarm of bees, and asked if my father had a title, what was the name of our estate, if we kept a carriage, and other such questions, which made me first feel the difference of station. However, the girls were very kind, ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... built obediently in the straw-thatched hives, and the same spoliation continued. A few days before Hugh had visited a church in the neighbourhood, and had become aware of a loud humming in the chancel. He found that an immense swarm of bees had been hatched out in the roof, and were dying in hundreds, in their attempt to escape through the closed windows. There were plenty of apertures in the church through which they could have escaped, if they had had any idea of exploration. But they were ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... halls, where fortune takes its ease, Sunk in the treasures of all lands and seas; In happy homes, where warmth and comfort meet The weary traveler with their smiles to greet; In lowly dwellings, where the needy swarm Round starving embers, chilling limbs to warm, Rises the prayer that makes the sad heart light— "Thank God for home, this bitter, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... as persistent and evilly intentioned as a swarm of flies, and bold enough to strike back when anybody kicked them. While we wrestled and swore, but made no headway, we were accosted by a Greek, who seemed from long experience able to pass through them without ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... always gave a full holiday on Saturday. Then the wharves were sure to swarm with the mischievous little chaps, all eager to carry out some favorite plan for amusement, in which old Ocean was sure to be engaged as a play-fellow. Poor indeed was the lad who had not a fish-hook and line with which to try his skill. The very youngest had his tiny ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... temporary out o' it in the way o' pleasure, as rabbits, or mayhap bad smelling water for the rheumatics. (It was the waters Lunnon swells came for down on the old estate.) To my thinkin' these pleasure colernies is bad things; they settles as senseless as a swarm of bees, just because their leader's lit there first; and when they've buzzed themselves out and moved on, like as not some sillies as has come gapin' too close is bit fatal ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... in the telescope because it has ten moons (to include one which is disputed) and a wonderful system of "rings" round it. The so-called rings are a mighty swarm of meteorites—pieces of iron and stone of all sorts and sizes, which reflect the light of the sun to us. This ocean of matter is some miles deep, and stretches from a few thousand miles from the surface ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... apparent than a general concentration took place, and we were speedily surrounded by a bustling crowd, putting up trading tents and shacks, dancing booths, eating-places, etc., so that with the motley crowd, including a large number of women and children, and a swarm of dogs such as we never dreamt of, amounting in a short space by constant accessions to over a thousand, we were in the heart of life ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... of her breath. An indolent, dark-skinned race, turbaned and scantly clothed, move through the meadows, splash in the river, and rest beneath the palm-trees, which meet in graceful clusters here and there, as if striving to get beneath one another's shadow. Dirty villages swarm and babble on the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... fifty yards away and threw a shower of dirt over us. There was a precipitate flop, a falling backwards and forwards and all became messed up in an intricate jumble of flesh, equipment, clothing and rifles in the bottom of the trench. A swarm of "bees" buzzed overhead, a few dropped into the trench and Pryor who gripped one with his hand swore under his breath. The splinter was ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... (glas haidd) green barley. It is rather singular that the words, without the slightest alteration, will admit of another simile equally beautiful and appropriate, viz.—glas haid, a blue swarm of flies. The word glas may be indicative of the prevailing colour of the dress ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... Then she was aware of nothing till she woke up with her head on Veronica's shoulder, against which she had fallen, and on which she had been patiently supported for hours. "Ecco Venezia!" cried the old woman, pointing to a swarm of lights that seemed to float upon an expanse of sea. Lydia did not understand; she thought she was again on board the Aroostook, and that the lights she saw were the lights of the shipping in Boston harbor. The illusion passed, and left her heart sore. She issued from the glare of the ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. The Tale of a Tub is so much superiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it[934]: 'there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life[935].' I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels, 'When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.' I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sedulously spread her nets, but all in vain, for her own temperament stood in the way. With money in her pocket, there awakened in her again the former actress with her careless and sporty disposition and craving for pleasure and enjoyment. Being still seductive, she was surrounded by a swarm of various admirers with whom she squandered all she had, together with the reputation which she had succeeded in establishing for herself with ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... technical talk," Rhoda protested, watching in hypnotized horror as the speck swarm swelled ever ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... laborer has become the annual "hired man." At present, there are no means of measuring the effect of this new element; but it cannot fail to depress the tone of farming society, and surround it with a new swarm of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and then relapses into irrelevancy; so that it is obvious English people do without the word for the delightful reason that they have not got the thing. We have it here very badly; an epidemic raging at the end of nearly every summer, when cottages and farms swarm with soldiers and horses, when all the female part of the population gets engaged to be married and will not work, when all the male part is jealous and wants to fight, and when my house is crowded with individuals so brilliant and decorative in ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... wish I were going too!" cried Milly. "What lovely fun it would be! Imagine having a gymnasium, and climbing poles, and walking on planks. Muriel told me all about it when she was over here. She said she learnt to swarm up a rope like sailors do. And there's a swimming bath, and hockey, and cricket, and tennis. You can't think how I envy you, Patty. You're the luckiest girl in the world. It will seem so slow to stay on at Miss Dawson's. I shan't like it one ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... naked. They bring loads of provisions to sell, through the rain, and are eager traders for beads. Plantains, cassava, and maize, are the chief food. The first rains had now begun, and the white ants took the hint to swarm and colonize. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... criminal in Newgate, to bribe him with a pardon, on condition he would swear high treason against his master, who discovered his correspondence, and secured his person, when a certain grave politician had given him warning to make his escape: and by this means I should have drawn a whole swarm of hedge-writers to exhaust their catalogue of scurrilities against me as a liar, and a slanderer. But with submission to the author of that forementioned paper, I think he has carried that expression to the utmost it will bear: for after all this noise, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... King, that a witty knight, who then lived, and who was by his education, and principles, a Papist, being asked by a nobleman what news? he made answer, I hear no news my lord, only, God's Papists can get no preferment, because the King's Papists swarm so thick. This was a sententious, and witty observation, and it will always hold true, that the religion of the King will become the religion of people of fashion, and the lower ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... they were called—small wooden shanties covered with beaten-out cans. Steve and Mark would look down on these houses, waiting until all the Chinamen were inside; then one of them would grab an empty beer-bottle, throw it down on those tin can roofs, and dodge behind the blinds. The Chinamen would swarm out and look up at the row of houses on the edge of the bluff, shake their fists, and pour out Chinese vituperation. By and by, when they had retired and everything was quiet again, their tormentors would throw another bottle. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thousand families and the million children. These were all in evidence in less than ten seconds; the peculiar quality of that scream had done it; not only from the top story of the highest rookery did they swarm, but from every near-by campo, and way back to ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... carry them to the place where the tree was felled for the box, and lay the chips on the stump from which the wood was cut, and then go again on the night of the funeral to the same place, you will see Buso. Stand near the stump, and you will see passing before you (1) a swarm of fireflies; (2) the intestines of the dead person; (3) many heads of the dead person; (4) many arms of the dead person; (5) many legs of the dead person; (6) the entire body passing before you; (7) shadows flitting before you; and finally (8) the Buso. But no one yet ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... wings of the former fanned our faces, while the latter uttered a harsh croak or shriek as it flew through the gloom. Generally all around us was silent and dark, an oppressive gloom pervading the atmosphere, except when we passed through a swarm of fireflies or elaters, as we now ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... time, two such lovers were a heavy burthen on Valerie. On the day when this drama reopens, Valerie, spurred by one of those incidents which have the effect in life that the ringing of a bell has in inducing a swarm of bees to settle, went up to Lisbeth's rooms to give vent to one of those comforting lamentations—a sort of cigarette blown off from the tongue—by which women alleviate ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... men at the pumps; boats given up to the women and children. The good ship—well, never mind the name of ship; have forgotten it—lurches, gives one long roll, and sinks! Remaining passengers, headed by myself, swarm up the rigging to the mizzen-top. High sea, thunder and lightning. Great privations. Sun sinks in red, moon rises in green. All hope gone, when—hurrah, a sail! It is the life-boat! Slung on board by ropes. Rockets and coloured lights let off. The coxswain calls upon the crew to "pull blue," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... more dull days than they had, contrived to get through it by torturing Adeline with utter silence of all tidings from the East, and by a swarm of suitors, with the fantastic Viscount foremost. She never was awake from her dream until Mr. Holdsworth came to dinner, and was so straightforward and easy that he thawed ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... come to pass I could not have told; but we were eating celestial viands, and my black butterflies having fled away, a swarm of their gorgeous-tinted kindred were fluttering radiantly over Miss Esme ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus is this, who underneath the rock ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... "Some managed to swarm up by the cable on to the bows, but three men who were stationed there disposed of them before enough could gain a footing to be dangerous. The captain had been keeping the guns in reserve in case the proa that had dropped ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... mind to that," declared Thad. "I've heard several farmers tell how they lost a fine swarm, no matter how much racket they kicked up with dishpans and all sorts of tin buckets. There are lots of bee trees in this region I'd be willing to wager now. And if we could find one, it would be great. I like honey about as ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... glistening bamboos, which they drive into the bottom and make fast at stem and stern. It is pleasant to watch the play of muscle, and attitudes, and the flicker of the reflected blue sky on their brown perspiring backs as they swarm up the sloping yards and cotton sails to brail up. No need for anatomy here, or at home for that matter; if an artist can't remember the reflected blue on warm damp flesh, he does not better matters by telling us what he has learned of the machinery inside—that is, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Genevieve was the origin of the Latin Quarter in Paris, but the migration to the south had probably begun before Abelard came, and was rather due to the overcrowding of the episcopal schools. Teachers and scholars began to swarm to the new quarter over the bridge where quiet, purer air and better accommodation were found. Ordinances of Bishop Gilbert, 1116, and Stephen, 1124, transcribed by Felibien, make this clear. So disturbed were the canons by the numbers of students ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... effort; and of course the army waiting at Albany for the word to advance got news of a different color, and Montreal was as safe as Quebec. In the west, the Foxes, having planned an attack on Detroit, did really lay siege to it; but Du Buisson, who defended it, summoned a swarm of Indian allies to his aid, and the Foxes found that the boot was on the other leg; they were all either slain or carried into slavery. Down in the Carolinas, a party of Tuscaroras attacked a settlement of Palatines near Pamlico Sound, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... woman who was Kilby and a controlled devil's swarm of microlife looked over at him and asked in Kilby's voice, "Halder, do you think we should still go on trying to ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... with him, as with so many others, this thought, like a pebble flung into the bosom of a lake, was lost in the abyss of his tumultuous thoughts. Nevertheless, in spite of himself the author was compelled to investigate, and eventually there was gathered within his mind, little by little, a swarm of conclusions, more or less just, on the subject of married life. Works like the present one are formed in the mind of the author with as much mystery as that with which truffles grow on the scented plains of Perigord. Out of the primitive and holy horror which adultery caused him and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... the country of the Celti, in its vast size and extent, reaches from the furthest sea and the arctic regions to the lake Maeotis eastward, and to that part of Scythia which is near Pontus, and that there the nations mingle together; that they did not swarm out of their country all at once, or on a sudden, but advancing by force of arms, in the summer season, every year, in the course of time they crossed the whole continent. And thus, though each party had several appellations, yet the whole army was called by ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... suddenly, and the horse turned into the path and stopped, and when he stood he was not any quieter than when he had been moving. He did not raise his head or whisk his tail. He did not move his ears to the sounds behind and on either side of him. He did not paw and fumble with his feet. There was a swarm of flies about his head; they moved along from the point of his nose to the top of his forehead, but mostly they clustered in black, obscene patches about his eyes, and through these patches his eyes looked out with a strange patience, a strange ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... might get through without any further trouble. We met at Ballinamona, and we drew Blake's coverts without a word. We killed our fox too and then went away to Pulhaddin gorse. I'll be blest if all the county weren't there. I never saw the boys swarm about a place so thick. Pulhaddin is the best gorse in the county. Of course it was no use drawing it; but as we were going away on the road to Loughrea the crowd was so thick that there was no riding among them. Ever so many horsemen got into the fields to be away from the crowd. But Tom ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Humans, gasping. Hope drags each cold form From hearth to hearth, to find no ember warm; Then, their eyes glitter frost, who hear hope yell As up she climbs the rocks and falls pell-mell Back from small herbs, where monsters swoop and swarm. ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... them not, the well known powers of air, That swarm through all the middle kingdom, weaving Their fairy webs, with many a fatal snare The feeble race of men deceiving. First, the sharp spirit-tooth, from out the North, And arrowy tongues and fangs come thickly flying; Then from the East they greedily dart forth, ...
— Faust • Goethe |
