"Swaying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blurred against the rising night, and the bat's wing flutters in our face, and the land-rail's cry sounds drearily across the fields, the spell sinks deeper still into our hearts. We seem in that hour to be standing by some unseen death-bed, and in the swaying of the elms we hear the sigh of ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... before them, but were encountered by stronger efforts, and inch by inch driven back again. At Westminster Bridge the chief struggle was maintained, so that fears were entertained lest the bridge should give way beneath the swaying masses. On these three points many of the more sturdy of the mob were severely wounded by the swords of the mounted police, and many were arrested and placed in custody under the charge of riot. When the "monster petition" was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed flowers from their hiding-place and excitedly called each other's attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs, regarding them ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... getting into the wood as the undergrowth of young oak scrub made it almost impenetrable; it stood up straight, and the great, swaying, huge, spreading boughs of the old oaks above came down and rested on and amongst the young oaks, like a roof upon pillars, and the leaves of both intermingled till they were like green silk curtains hung from ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... of swaying heads and voices screaming; the ecclesiastics thronged in terror from their places; the music ceased, and though the bells overhead continued for some seconds to clang upon the air, some wind of the disaster seemed to find its way at last even to the chamber where the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trail, but to Boyd Emerson, who drove, he seemed to be a sort of dancing doll, bobbing and swaying grotesquely, as if suspended by invisible wires. At times, it seemed to the driver's whimsical fancy as if each of them trod a measure in the centre of a colorless universe, something after the fashion of goldfish floating in ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... time by a rude triumphal chant to the dance about the watch-fire, were mentally as children, with keen senses and eager imagination, but feeble reason, with fresh and vigorous emotions, but without elaborate language for these emotions. Swaying and shouting in rhythmic consent, they came slowly to the use of ordered words and, even then, could but have repeated the same phrases over and over. The burden—sometimes senseless to our modern understanding—to be found in the present form of many of our ballads may be the survival of ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... Constance sat late with Mistress Penwick, and at last complained of thirst and they two stole below stair and I followed, and as if by accident Lady Constance brought Mistress Katherine to the curtained archway, and she saw thee swaying in thy cups, and after a while my lady led mistress to her room while she hastened away to a room apart and donned the garb of one of the dancing maids and came to thee as a gipsy, and she told thee false ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse- dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same blurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at their feet they could see the green summer waves, peacefully, amiably, swaying round the iron pillars ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... his run-ashore late, Challenging to battle, vouchsafing no pretenses, A reeling King Ogg, delirious in power, The quarter-deck carronades he seemed to make cower. "Put him in brig there!" said Lieutenant Marrot. "Put him in brig!" back he mocked like a parrot; "Try it, then!" swaying a fist like Thor's sledge, And making the pigmy constables hedge— Ship's corporals and the master-at-arms. "In brig there, I say!"—They dally no more; Like hounds let slip on a desperate boar, Together they pounce ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a heavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles all around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's face and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling and swaying and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft substances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently—panic! rush! swarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow got ever so much excited; ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... very weak, indeed. Her eyes troubled her. She could no longer see distinctly, and at times there appeared to her curious figures, huge crystal goblets of the most graceful shapes, floating and swaying in the air in front of her, almost within arm's reach. Vases of elegant forms, made of shimmering glass, bowed and courtesied toward her. Glass bulbs took graceful and varying shapes before her vision, now ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... disproportionate, but utterly ineffective objurgation of his cattle, jump into the air and kick his heels together in some paroxysm of indignation against them,—an act, however, which was received always with heavy bovine indifference, the dogged scorn of swaying, repudiating heads, or the dull contempt ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... venerable ladyship," remarked Pao-yue, turning round and swaying from side to side. "Why then ask after her? Were I rid of her, I believe I might ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... grow, sweep past your ears (like the wind aforesaid), go on, dying as it goes. When, as it dies, my stringed instruments come in. These to the left of the orchestra break into a soft slow movement, the music swaying drowsily from side to side, as it were, with a noise like the rustling of boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning. ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... easy chair beside a table, as she was in the habit of doing before retiring, and her women withdrew. As the old lady sat swaying to and fro, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings, Herman ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... climbed a low, rocky point, and found herself a seat on a fallen tree. Outside the lake heaved uneasily, still dotted with whitecaps whipped up by the southerly gale. At her feet surge after surge hammered the gravelly shore. Far through the woods behind her the wind whistled and hummed among swaying tops of giant fir and cedar. There was a heady freshness in that rollicking wind, an odor resinous and pungent mingled with that elusive smell of green growing stuff along the shore. Beginning where she sat, tree trunks rose in immense brown ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... feet, and flourishing of handkerchiefs; to all of which manifestations of delight, Brother Stiggins returned no other acknowledgment than staring with a wild eye, and a fixed smile, at the extreme top of the wick of the candle on the table, swaying his body to and fro, meanwhile, in a very unsteady and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Waters leaves the ladies with a gallant bow, and pushes his way through the swaying and excited crowd, toward the spot where the animals ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... further resistance to the gliding of the animal. Every detail of the anchor, the curved portion, the little teeth at the head, the arms, etc., can be interpreted in the most beautiful way, above all the form of the anchor itself, for the two arms prevent it from swaying round to the side. The position of the anchors, too, is definite and significant; they lie obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the animal, and therefore they act alike whether the animal is creeping backwards or forwards. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... two infernal ships, swaying unsteadily with the current; the pilots of course, as they neared the bridge, having noiselessly effected their escape in the skiffs. The slight fire upon the deck scarcely illuminated the dark ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a lily softly swaying in the hushed air, so my being moves in its elements, in the charming dream of her.' 'Our souls rush forward in colossal plans, like exulting streams rushing perpetually through mountain and forest.' ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... the stern, calmly facing the clouded faces with the air of a laborer who has completed a good day's work. As they came alongside the ship he instructed each man how to mount the swaying rope ladder and watched them solicitously until ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... cried Mr. Damon, as he looked down, and saw, in the glare of the great light, the figure of the woman clinging to the swaying rope. "Help her, someone! Tom! Ned! ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... scope of this book. The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a general sense of delicate grace quite ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... the middle of the stream, when a movement of the deck upset her balance, and sent her swaying against Ralph's arm. She looked up with a laughing apology, and was startled by the sight of his face. So far was he from sharing her amusement, that never in the course of their acquaintance had she seen him so pale, so set. He seized the hand she had laid on his arm, and held it in ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fear was. She kept whipping and urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious to our assurances that there was plenty of time. The people who met us that night must have thought we were quite mad. I held on the reins, Peggy gripped the swaying side of the buggy, and Aunt Olivia bent forward, hat and hair blowing back from her set face with its strangely crimson cheeks, and plied the whip. In such a guise did we whirl through the village and over ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to the side of the swaying woman. And now the halbardiers formed escort about her, the headsman in front, with the edge of his axe turned towards her in token of her conviction, and she ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... and stood swaying on her feet, holding herself upright by the back of the chair. Her eyes were piteous in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... look met his, how had all coldness and unconcern vanished from his face! How glowed his eyes with the lustre of great and world-swaying thoughts, as, rising from his chair, he returned the gaze of his sovereign with one ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the young girl came forward. She seemed now to be walking in a dream, the chintz hangings to be swaying ghostlike around her, the yells and shrieks below to come from the very bowels ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... whose name no one knew, a ci-devant noble, the first prisoner condemned by the newly constituted Revolutionary Tribunal. He could be seen by glimpses between the guardsmen's hats, sitting with hands tied behind his back, his head bared and swaying from side to side, his face to the cart's tail. The headsman stood beside him lolling against the rail. The passers-by had stopped to look and were telling each other it was likely one of the fellows who starved the people, and staring with eyes of indifference. Gamelin, coming closer, ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... to the scene of the orgies, they found that the blacksmith, who had hitherto been considered—and really was—one of the quietest men of the party, was now among the drunkards. He stood in the midst of the rioters, his large frame swaying to and fro, while he held the ponderous fore-hammer threateningly in his hands, and insanity gleamed in his eyes as he ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... began to lightly pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" of sawn planks, which they were ponderously dragging with that ostentatious submissiveness peculiar to their ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... he did not show it, but slid gently down, his hands being too horny from constant handling of ropes to be injured by the friction; neither did the task on hand seem difficult, as he went down and down, swaying more and more as the length of rope between him and the iron bar increased, and gradually beginning to turn as the hard rope showed ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... chiefs and nobles had failed to defend the pass; and they now failed to destroy the Chuquichaca bridge, apparently relying on their ability to take care of one Spanish soldier at a time and prevent the Spaniards from crossing the narrow, swaying structure. General Hurtado was not taking any such chances. He had brought with him one or two light mountain field pieces, with which the raw troops of the Inca were little acquainted. The sides of the valley at this point rise steeply from the river and the reverberations caused ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... this fine evening put me in mind of it; it is Mrs Barbauld's Ode." And then putting myself into due attitude, I mouthed it through, much to my own, and still more to Mr R's satisfaction. That was a curious, a simple, and yet a cheering scene. My listener was swaying to and fro, with the cadences of the poetry; I with passionate fervour ranting before him; and, in the meantime, his rod and line, unnoticed by either, were navigating peacefully, yet rapidly, down the river. When I had concluded, his tackle was just turning an ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dared not watch too closely what followed. Inured as he thought he was to the tricks of Hyperspace, to acceleration and anti-gravity, the oscillation of that swinging seat, the weird swaying of the half-recumbent figure, did things to his sight and to his sense of balance which seemed perilous in the extreme. But when the groan broke through the hum of Ali's mysterious machine, all of them knew that the Engineer-apprentice ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... rushing away, swaying exquisitely over a series of terrific explosions, he gave a little skip and a half turn, light and youthful, in the porch of ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... on the king. With a hurried pace he ascends the steps of the furnace. He has nearly reached the top. He stops. Now the vast assembly eagerly listen for a royal address. But why turns he not his face toward the throng? Regardless of the swaying masses, he lifts his hand on high—he speaks! Hark! "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... warmth and beauty. Donald's gaze is now fixed on a window above the preacher's head, for on these great days that window is to him as the gate of heaven. All I could see would be a bit of blue, and the fretted sunlight through the swaying branches of an old plane tree. But Donald has seen his Lord hanging upon the Cross for him, and the New Jerusalem descending like a bride adorned for her husband more plainly than if Perugino's great Crucifixion, with the kneeling saints, and Angelico's Outer Court ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... other, Form a mock portal with their pointed arch? Pardon my smiles! 'Tis a poor idiot boy, Who sits in the sun, and twirls a bough about, His weak eyes seeth'd in most unmeaning tears. And so he sits, swaying his cone-like head, And, staring at his bough from morn to sun-set, See-saws his voice in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Stock Exchange, the gamblers' paradise, in which millions were staked, won and lost, and ruin and affluence walked side by side. As I watched the swaying, shouting mass with wonder and amusement, a thrill ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... the name, and snatched from the woman's hand an open telegram she held. She read it, and then without a word or cry, collapsed in a dead faint. With a shriek of fear Leontine tried to catch the swaying figure; but the best she could do was to break the fall. When Roger reached the door it was to find Beverley in a white heap on the floor with the Frenchwoman kneeling by her side. He caught his wife up, and, carrying her back into his ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that rose to his lips died away unspoken and he pressed her head against him almost roughly to hide the look of trusting devotion that suddenly hurt him. For a few moments she lay still, then slipped free of his arms and stood before him, swaying slightly from side to side, her hands busily patting her hair into order and ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... had been assisted to his feet, he stood for a moment, with his legs apart, swaying with giddiness; then, aware that they were observing this, he looked at the Colonel and laughed. It was a silent laugh, of the eyes and mouth and a movement in the throat. One could not help thinking that should he let it out it ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... and I turned and looked on my dear, And beheld her frightened wonder, and her grief without a tear, And knew how her thought was mine—when, hark! o'er the hubbub and noise, Faint and a long way off, the music's measured voice, And the crowd was swaying and swaying, and somehow, I knew not why, A dream came into my heart of deliverance drawing anigh. Then with roll and thunder of drums grew the music louder and loud, And the whole street tumbled and surged, and cleft was the holiday ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... there his only reward was the sight of a man on horseback headed for the hills, swaying dangerously ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that Eric Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell upon his knees and threw his long arms ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... frizzled, their greatcoats yellowish-green, and their muddy helmets sporting the crescent in place of our grenade. Their eyes are like balls of ivory or onyx, that shine from faces like new pennies, flattened or angular. Now and again comes swaying along above the line the coal-black mask of a Senegalese sharpshooter. Behind the company goes a red flag with a green hand in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... was nothing of the kind. Rubens knew what he was about, and at last actually got on to his feet, when, after swaying feebly about for a moment, he staggered in my direction (he could not see) and literally fell into my arms, with one last wag of ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... drew out the black bottle, before described in this narrative, and let it slide again into her pocket,—let it slide again, but it did not completely regain its former place. Caught by some accident, it hung half out, swaying over the edge of the pocket, as the fat midwife rolled backwards and forwards in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... shouts, Mr. Lincoln stood up, his long body swaying to and fro as he lifted high the improvised tongs. They heard a terrified squeal, and there was the rat squirming and wriggling,—it seemed before their very eyes. And Stephen forgot the country tavern, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the bodies lay among the living in the sun. When the dead-cart came in, they were thrown into it like logs of wood. It was a horrible sight,—the stony eyes, the sunken cheeks, the matted hair, the ghastly countenances, the swaying limbs, as the cart jolted along the uneven ground! More than thirteen thousand soldiers starved and murdered by the Rebels were thus carried out ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... suffocating, much as he had felt with Greggs' fingers tightening on his windpipe, that week-old night at Troyon's; he experienced real difficulty about breathing, and was conscious of a sickish throbbing in his temples and a pounding in his bosom like the tolling of a great bell. He stared, swaying.... ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... pale, and though his fingers still mechanically clutched the iron rail, was swaying to and fro; the warder unlocked the passage-gate, and ran to him just in time to save his falling headlong on ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... to his summer palace to enjoy a ride on one of his elephants, an enormous beast. I mounted a ladder provided to climb aloft to the HOWDAH or saddle, which is silk-cushioned and boxlike; and then for a rolling, tossing, swaying, and heaving down into a gully, too much thrilled to worry or exclaim, but hanging on ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below. The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time she could safely stay so far from ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... driven toward the north. It swept on past toppling skyscrapers until it was over the place where Madison Square once spread its lawns, looked down upon by gigantic structures, most of which had now either crumbled and disappeared or were swaying to their fall. Here there was an eddy, and the boat turned round and round amid floating debris until two other draggled creatures, who had been clinging to floating objects, succeeded by desperate efforts in pulling themselves into it. Others tried but failed, and no one lent ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Janetta, going hurriedly up to the swaying figure in the faded dressing-gown, and trying gently to force her backwards. "I will tell you all about it afterwards; please come away ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Nature would have elated me; but then I strode on, holding Caesar's rein, lost in the golden glamour of it all, until snow peak and solemn forest seemed but a fitting background for the slender figure swaying to the horse's stride, while the pale, calm face brought into the shadowy aisles a charm of its own. Once—and I could not help myself—a few lines written by a master who loved Nature broke from me, and for a ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... jungle was not tenantless we had frequent assurance in the sudden sharp cracking of twigs and branches, as well as other more distant and more mysterious sounds; an occasional glimpse of a monkey was caught high aloft in the gently swaying branches of some forest giant; and birds of gorgeous plumage but more or less discordant cries constantly flitted from bough to bough, or swept in rapid flight across ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... and watched him while he walked forward with a very grand manner. He went straight to the gayest and largest group he could see. It was a group of gentlemen fairies, who were crowding around a lily of the valley, on the bent stem of which a tiny lady fairy was sitting, airily swaying herself to and fro, and laughing and chatting with all her ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... upon the detective, as he stood swaying slightly on the floor; and Cervera sharply demanded, ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. I heard the twitter of skimming swallows and the scattered covey's piping call; I heard the robin's gay whistle, the croaking of crows, the scolding of blue-jays, and the melancholy cooing of a dove. The swaying tree-tops seemed vocal with bird-song while he played, and the labyrinths of leafy shade echoed back the chorus. Then the violin sounded the hunter's horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... breeze-puffs, through all the summer, sweet-scented love messages, tidings of a matrimony as delicious as that of the angels." She stood up, and raised her arms above her head yearningly. The autumn wind was cooing in her hair, and softly swaying its silken meshes. ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... from her knees. Looking down she saw a stain of blood on her skirt, and she clung to his arm for a moment, swaying as though she would fall. There was a murmur among the people of pity and sympathy. "Poveretta! ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... electric brooders. We have all kinds of bird houses and nests. The sparrows, who are great abusers of hospitality, insist that their nests be immovable—that they do not sway in the wind; the wrens like swaying nests. So we mounted a number of wren boxes on strips of spring steel so that they would sway in the wind. The wrens liked the idea and the sparrows did not, so we have been able to have the wrens nest in peace. In summer we leave cherries on the trees and strawberries open in the beds, ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... knife hissed past Hollis's ear and struck the floor, its point sunk deep, its handle swaying idly back and forth. Yuma himself—inert, limp, rolled from Hollis's back and lay flat on his own, his eyes wide open and staring, two huge bullet holes in his forehead. And in the open doorway of the ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... on one leg, swaying and stumping heavily enough to drive in the flagstones, she hastened to the sacristy for the Missal, which she placed unopened on the lectern on the Epistle side, with its edges turned towards the middle of the altar. And afterwards she lighted the two candles. As she ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... his head, to behold Hawksley, shaven, pale, and handsome, wrapped in a bed quilt and swaying slightly. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... a moment he stood to his full height, swaying and groping in the air, then fell prostrate his full length upon the floor. The lovers rushed to his aid. Edwin tore open his neckcloth and plucked aside his diamond pin to give him air. But it was too late. Earl Oxhead had breathed his last. Life had fled. The earl was extinct. That ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... with critical interest the swaying figure high in air. With a taste for archaeology, he admired the accuracy of the drapery and associations. He was amused, it may be, with occasional anachronisms as to garments or equipments. He knew that the original of this personage had been nothing more than a human being, who might indeed ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... calamity. Never in his life did he ride faster than on the road to Norling Parva. Far ahead of him he could see at the turn, now and again, a figure running. Something had happened. His heart grew cold: he knew as well as though he had seen it, the high cart swaying on one wheel round the corner as the maddened horses tore on their way; the one jerk too much, and the momentary reaction in the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... that nothing could stay him—as clear as it had been in the arroyo that he would keep his word and face Leddy—he was hanging on her word and he was seeing her eyes moist, with a bright fire like that of sunshine on still water. She was swaying slightly as a young pine might in a wind. Her eyes darkened as with fear, then her cheeks went crimson with the stir of her blood; and suddenly, her eyes were sparkling in their moisture like water when it ripples ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... their hands on each other's shoulders, the couples, swaying from side to side, half sing, half murmur, ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... Baroness found nothing to criticise but the price that was asked for it and the fact that the coachman wore a straw hat. (At Silberstadt Madame Munster had had liveries of yellow and crimson.) They drove into the country, and the Baroness, leaning far back and swaying her lace-fringed parasol, looked to right and to left and surveyed the way-side objects. After a while she pronounced them "affreux." Her brother remarked that it was apparently a country in which the foreground was inferior to the plans recules: and ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... The reptile's swaying head had drawn back and the huge snake launched itself forward from its coils straight for the dazed lad only a few feet ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... germs vitalized—by giving our thoughts to another we really make them our own. Only well-sexed people produce literature—poetry is the pollen of the mind. Meter, rhythm, lilt and style are stamen, pistil and stalk swaying in the warm ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... water as she struck out with bare arms by the side of a swift prau. She was beautiful, she was faithful, and in the silence of foreign countries she spoke to me very low in the language of my people. No one saw her; no one heard her; she was mine only! In daylight she moved with a swaying walk before me upon the weary paths; her figure was straight and flexible like the stem of a slender tree; the heels of her feet were round and polished like shells of eggs; with her round arm she made signs. At night she looked into my face. And she was sad! ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... had interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure, and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was, a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed both strength and prowess when, washed overboard in a "seel" of the ship, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... considerable effort to haul it up into the house again, and this was finally accomplished only after Tabitha had crawled back through the window to tug at it from above, while Tom pushed at it from below, swaying and bumping in the sycamore until both children held their breath for fear boy and Bible would land in a heap on ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... lighted window, and through the drawn curtains I distinctly perceived a woman, dressed in white, with her hair loose, and swaying before her instrument like a person conscious that she was alone and ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... forget, through later days, How they had bloomed with lifted, tossing heads Of swaying girls who thronged these ordered ways Like windy tulips blowing in their beds. Stones may remember laughter down a hall, And eyes more bright than blossoms in the grass,— A dream to haunt them—after all and all— When they are dust with dusty ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... over the loose, roughly laid cobble stones, and the swaying carriage hung on leathers, forbade talking. Lavinia heard her companion's voice but she did not know what he was saying. Not that it mattered for she was in too much of a flutter to heed anything but her own emotions, and these were so confused that they told ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... and looked out of the round port-hole. She felt very tired, and leaned her head against the cushioned wall. She could hear the monotonous chant of the negroes, and feel the swaying motion of the vessel, and soon was fast asleep. She did not know when the schooner was towed out into the channel, nor when the sails were hoisted and they went sailing ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the lantern put a hand each on Lermontoff's shoulders, and marched him away. They walked together down a long passage, the swaying lantern casting its yellow rays on the iron bolts of door after door, until at last the gaoler stopped, threw back six bolts, inserted a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously open. The lantern ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... man absorbed in ecstasy, and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which he pointed, had neutralized all effects. They examined the picture, moving from right to left, standing directly before it, bending, swaying, ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... he fear the wind as it fumbles around the porch and plays like a kitten with the awning cords? Bless you, he has become a playmate of the children of the night—the swaying branches, the stars, the swirl of leaves—all the romping children of the night. And if there was any fear at all within the darkness, it has gone ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... passed, unconscious of his presence, and he had not moved nor spoken. Though really of the average height, she was a little thing to the eyes of Gavin, who always felt tall and stout except when he looked down. The grace of her swaying figure was ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... could be tempted to weave cradles among the swaying elm limbs if {234} strings and fragments of brightly coloured yarns were placed where the birds could find them. Baron von Berlepsch, whose experiments in attracting birds to his place in Germany have been widely advertised, found that when the tops of bushes were drawn in closely by means ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... here periodically, for the benefit of certain charities; but the sight best worth seeing, is the Hall at the period of an election, or of political excitement, crowded with a feverish army of workmen, cheering, groaning, swaying to and fro, under the speeches of their favourite orators. Then in this Pagan temple may be seen a living specimen of a Brummagem Jupiter, with a cross of Vulcan, lion-faced, hairy, bearded, deep-mouthed swaggering, fluent in frank ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... His hair was rumpled, his face was flushed, and his eyes were bleared and wide with an unreasoning, belligerent light as he got up, swaying unsteadily, and looked ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I was in my own city and in my Palace I saw him. Then my daughter was beautiful, and her body was like a swaying wand of the boolda tree. But my city passed, and she was broken like a trailing vine, and the young man came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... more loudly than ever, and as they reached the deck the rain dashed into their faces with such violence that they could hardly see. But they were aware that something had occurred. By the light of several lanterns swaying in the terrific blast they saw that one of the auxiliary masts had broken off near ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... hearts therein assembled to worship Him—in the cathedral's "long-drawn aisles and fretted vaults"—in mighty multitudes all crowded in silence, as beneath the shadow of a thunder-cloud, to see some one single human being die—or swaying and swinging backwards and forwards, and to and fro, to hail a victorious armament returning from the war of Liberty, with him who hath "taken the start of this majestic world" conspicuous from afar in front, encircled with music, and with the standard of his unconquered country afloat above ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... land again. There he stationed himself to see how the pool-snipe played. They resembled small storks; like these, they had little bodies, long legs and necks, and light, swaying movements; only they were not gray, but brown. They stood in a long row on the shore where it was washed by waves. As soon as a wave rolled in, the whole row ran backward; as soon as it receded, they followed it. And they kept ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... part to attempt to reassure her as much as possible after the indignities' she had suffered. The watcher's eyes strained. She was going. He half started forward—to risk all—to speak. His lips formed a name but did not breathe it, for at that moment the swaying of the boat had thrown a flicker of light on the face and Mr. Heatherbloom drew back, the edge of his ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... him, but waved her hand, and gave him a bright smile that was brimming with unshed tears. It seemed like instant, daring suicide in him to stand on that swaying, clattering house as it moved off irresponsibly down the plane of vision. She watched him till he was out of sight, a mere speck on the horizon of the prairie; and then she turned her horse slowly into the road, and went her ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... hearing our calls. Only on the trees which stood some distance apart were traces of its onslaught to be seen; many of the leaves were blown inside out, and remained so, giving a variegated look to the motionless foliage. We got into the cart, and drove home. I sat, swaying to and fro, and slowly breathing in the damp, rather keen air; and all my recent reveries and regrets were drowned in the one sensation of drowsiness and fatigue, in the one desire to get back as soon as possible to the shelter of a warm house, to ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... razor being plied under such untoward circumstances. But these sea-barbers pride themselves upon their sea-legs, and often you will see them standing over their patients with their feet wide apart, and scientifically swaying their bodies to the motion of the ship, as they flourish their edge-tools about the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the dark spread of the vans plunging frantically in the air. I remember I stretched out my arms in an impotent gesture of aid, for with the speed of a bird of prey the dark mass lurched in a flat swaying parabola towards the earth, spinning the while upon itself, and striking the deep bed of snow, burst into a ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... heads in our hands, as though we were convicted but penitent criminals. So much for dramatic or dialogue pieces. When it comes to lyric poetry—his favourite form of literature—Leeson sings, or rather cantillates, swaying his body to the rhythm of the lines. If any of the poets could hear him they would become 'bus-conductors at once; it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... Am I hurt?" panted the boy, as, passing the rein over his wrist, he clapped his hands to his temples, sitting upright and swaying with his pony's ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... for the janitor to leave a lamp swinging in the cathedral at Pisa, but in that steady swaying motion the boy Galileo saw the pendulum, and conceived the idea of thus ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... plunged, half woman and half devil, In many a foul and roaring revel, By some fierce craving fanned, Alexis, with the girlish face And swaying movements full of grace, The Ruler ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... a surprising extent the moment he found himself in her presence. Not because she was a beautiful woman, for he scarcely honored her face or even her superb figure with a look. All his glances were centered on her large fan, which, in swaying to and fro, alternately hid and revealed the splendor on her breast; and when by chance it hung suspended for a moment in her forgetful hand and he caught a full glimpse of the great gem, I perceived such a change in his face that, if nothing more had occurred that night to ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... alongside singly, in a subdued buzz of expostulation cut short by a "Not a pace more! You go to the devil!" from some man staggering up the accommodation-ladder—a dark figure, with a long bag poised on the shoulder. In the forecastle the newcomers, upright and swaying amongst corded boxes and bundles of bedding, made friends with the old hands, who sat one above another in the two tiers of bunks, gazing at their future shipmates with glances critical but friendly. The two forecastle ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... a hill by the springs of Amymone, where its lair was found. Here Iolaus left the horses stand. Hercules leaped from the chariot and sought with burning arrows to drive the many-headed serpent from its hiding place. It came forth hissing, its nine heads raised and swaying like the branches of ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... for the two sweet little things would swing on the burdock-leaves that grew over the brook. Sitting side by side, the plump sisters were placidly swaying up and down over the clear brown water rippling below, when—ah! sad to relate—the stem broke, and down went leaf, chickens and all, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... exclaimed Teddy, clutching at his companion's coat sleeve, as two hulking, swaying figures appeared out of the shadows of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... and ashen, like the face Of some poor wretch who drains life's cup too fast Yet, swaying to and fro, as if to fling About chilled Nature its lithe arms of grace, Smiling with promise in the wintry blast, The optimistic Willow spoke ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... much understood and accepted on the other hand that there was nothing in the stream. Thus I reasoned it out, sitting under the aspen, and yet somehow the general opinion did not satisfy me. There must be something in so sweet a stream. The sedges by the shore, the flags in the shallow, slowly swaying from side to side with the current, the sedge-reedlings calling, the moorhens and water-rats, all gave ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... air-ship—in fact, he had never tried to operate an elongated balloon before, and so much of this first experience was absolutely new. Imagine a great bag of yellow oiled silk, cigar-shaped, fully inflated with hydrogen gas, but swaying in the morning breeze, and tugging at its restraining ropes: a vast bubble eighty-two feet long, and twelve feel in diameter at its greatest girth. Such was the balloon of Santos-Dumont's first air-ship. Suspended by cords from the great gas-bag was the basket, to which was attached the motor ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... great picture, a stirring panorama of an earlier day, which now unfolded. Slow, swaying, stately, the ox teams came on, as though impelled by and not compelling the fleet of white canvas sails. The teams did not hasten, did not abate their speed, but moved in an unagitated advance that ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... armed force and thus reestablish the standard which we gradually gave up between 1867 and 1882, and will do so, not on account of the position in which we happen to find ourselves, nor of any fears which may be swaying the stock exchange and public opinion, but because of an anticipatory estimate of the general conditions of Europe. In addressing you, therefore, I shall have to say more about these conditions ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... and remained there for another moment swaying about, and saying that he had not come for money, and that he could very well understand things. For his part he always behaved properly with people when people behaved properly with him. And he repeated that since she showed herself good-natured ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... guest," reflected Piotr to himself, but at last he could hold out no longer; he felt that he must in one way or another shake Trirodov's self-assurance. Piotr walked up to him and, swaying before him on his long thin legs, remarked, without almost the slightest effort ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... upon the German from behind. His right fist struck the man a stunning blow on the back of the neck. The German wheeled and clinched with his opponent, and for a moment they stood, arms locked about each other, swaying upright in the boat. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... Gretchen had taught herself to sing the song which the wind sang to the pine branches. In the summer time she learned the chirp and twitter of the birds, until her voice might almost be mistaken for a bird's voice; she learned to dance as the swaying shadows did, and even to talk to the stars which shone through the little square window when Granny came home too late or too tired ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... sitting in a large double swing out in the grounds, gently swaying to and fro, and with the fragment of a little song on her rosy lips as she waited for him to join ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... worked and toiled at the greatest possible disadvantage, the swaying of the boat frequently causing it to baffle all his efforts to move onward. Several times, when he braced his shoulders, the craft would sag against the pole with such force as almost to wrench it from ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis |
