"Swear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... examined, and his evidence proved similar to that of the first. The day-book was sent for, and the day in August —— referred to; there was a name written down on the side of the page, which the shopman said he had no doubt, indeed he could almost swear, was the gentleman's name, as there was no other name put down on that day. The name, as taken down, was Derbennon. This was all the information we could obtain, and we then quitted the shop, and drove off without there being any recognition of me on the part ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... that there is no putting a pig in the right way." Sometimes rather cruel tricks were played on the credulous poet. One evening Goldsmith came in clamorous for his supper, and ordered chops. Directly the supper came in, the wags, by pre-agreement, began to sniff and swear. Some pushed the plate away; others declared the rascal who had dared set such chops before a gentleman should be made to swallow them himself. The waiter was savagely rung up, and forced to eat the supper, to which he consented ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... questioning, contradicting, and otherwise ingeniously tormenting the check-takers and porters of the establishment. One pompous official, in particular, became so helplessly indignant that he retired into a little office overlooking the platform, and was heard to swear fluently, all by himself, for several minutes. The time having expired and the doors being opened, we passed out with the rest of the home-going Parisians, and were about to take our places, when Mueller, climbing like a cat to the roof-seats on the top of the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... at me and began to swear. He took me for a maniac,—a wild, crazy man, and told me the best thing I could do would be to go below and turn in, and he would take me back to my friends, if ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... I cried. "You have come to the end of your tricks now. I will have no more of them. Listen to what I say." I strode across and shook her roughly by the shoulder "As sure as there is a God in heaven, I swear that if you try another of your deviltries upon me I will have your life for it. Come what may, I will have your life. I have come to the end of ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rose risen run ran run say said said see saw seen set set set shake shook shaken shine shone shone show showed shown shrink shrank shrunk sing sang sung sit sat sat slink slunk slunk speak spoke spoken spend spent spent spit spit spit spat spat steal stole stolen swear swore sworn sweep swept swept swim swam swum take took taken tear tore torn throw threw thrown thrust thrust thrust tread trod trod trodden wake woke waked waked wear wore worn weave wove woven weep wept wept ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... begin and probably come to the conclusion in the end it was the fault of the band that the tune never quite came off. On the other hand Gallagher, whatever suspicions he might have, couldn't possibly swear that we were playing anything objectionable. I wonder if there's a version of 'God Save the King' with ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... thief, I'll swear that there was half a bottle left when I took my last glass; for I held the bottle up to the candle to ascertain ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... out to my address to my constituents at King's Lynn, and to my speech in answer to Peel's manifesto. Pray read it. At first I thought I could swear to its being * * * *, I now think I can swear to its being * * * *; the servility to Peel, and the official red-tape style would equally do for either; but the no-popery page, I think, fixes it on ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... mistaken, for the Corinthians and Argives and Boeotians, and the other states, were quite willing to let them go, and swore and covenanted, that, if he would pay them money, they would make over to him the Hellenes of the continent, and we alone refused to give them up and swear. Such was the natural nobility of this city, so sound and healthy was the spirit of freedom among us, and the instinctive dislike of the barbarian, because we are pure Hellenes, having no admixture of barbarism in us. For we are not like many others, descendants ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... swear, as I shall answer to God at the Great Day of Judgment, I have not, nor shall have, in my possession, any gun, sword or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... if not a dreadful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. I do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I suspect I might prove an alibi as to some of them. I don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go to church; and I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that, I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't know what sin is, or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my pupils. I grope around all the while trying to find this way. At times, I think they ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper type of girl, in the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the detestable products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was just getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn't tell Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying his leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry did. She noticed in those ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... think that!" said Gervase, looking at her dazzling face with a passion of admiration he made no attempt to conceal. "Men on the whole are not as cruel or as treacherous as women. I would swear, looking at you, that, beautiful as you are, you are cruel, and that is perhaps why I love you! You are like a splendid tigress waiting ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... and his silk hat settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip—his boots were too tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"—he muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the right, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of mixed blood jabbered in French, Cree, and Chipewyan chiefly, but when they wanted to swear, they felt the inadequacy of these mellifluous or lisping tongues, and fell back on virile Saxon, whose tang, projectivity, and wealth of vile epithet evidently supplied a long-felt want in the Great Lone Land ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... you?" Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... that you are not the Princess Yetive," he continued emphatically; "but what can I do; the men won't believe me. They swear they have been tricked and are panic-stricken over the situation. The hunters tell them that the Axphain authorities, fully aware of the hurried flight of the Princess through these wilds, are preparing to intercept ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... fired the fuse what did you waste precious seconds looking for? If I wasn't too scared to notice anything clearly I'd swear you found something ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a week passed but he went either once or twice a-hunting, sometimes in the environs of the city, sometimes farther off; at which time the villages through which he passed felt the effects of his generosity, which gained him the love and blessings of the people: and it was common for them to swear by his head. Thus, without giving the least umbrage to the sultan, to whom he paid all imaginable respect, Aladdin, by his affable behavior and liberality, had won the affections of the people, and was more beloved than the sultan himself. With all these good qualities he showed a courage ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... merely a great big village; and mainly mud and thatch. The streets were muddy, crooked, unpaved. The populace was an ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and splendors, of nodding plumes and shining armor. The king had a palace there; he saw the outside of it. It made him sigh; yes, and swear a little, in a poor juvenile sixth century way. We saw knights and grandees whom we knew, but they didn't know us in our rags and dirt and raw welts and bruises, and wouldn't have recognized us if we had hailed them, nor stopped to answer, either, it being unlawful to speak with slaves on a chain. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to-morrow morning. God grant she may not have gone down! but every ship that comes in brings intelligence of a terrible gale (which indeed was felt ashore here) on the night of the fourteenth; and the sea-captains swear (not without some prejudice, of course) that no steamer could have lived through it, supposing her to have been in its full fury. As there is no steam-packet to go to England, supposing the Caledonia not to arrive, we are obliged to send our letters by the Garrick ship, which sails early ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... effect" of a page of writing. It is sometimes startling to see the resemblance in "picture effect" between the music pages of different composers. The handsomely abused Perosi, for instance, writes many a page, which, if held at arm's length, you would swear was one of Palestrina's. Some of Mr. Whiting's music has a decidedly Brahmsic picture effect. This feeling is emphasized when one remembers the enthusiasm shown for Brahms in Whiting's concerts, where the works of the Ursus Minor of Vienna hold ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the bailiff; "I will swear both an assault and an attempt to a rescue. If officers are to be used in this manner, there is an end of all law and justice. But, though I am not a match for you myself, I have those below that are." He then ran to the door and called up two ill-looking ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... fierce oaths between his teeth, then cried in a piteous voice, "Unbind me, good young masters! I have five little children at home. By Saint Bavon I swear to give you each a ten-guilder piece if you will ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... believe a man when he asks for vodka. The people are all mean, vile, spoilt. Take these waiters, for instance. They have countenances like professors, and grey heads; they get two hundred roubles a month, they live in houses of their own and send their girls to the high school, but you may swear at them and give yourself airs as much as you please. For a rouble the engineer will gulp down a whole pot of mustard and crow like a cock. On my honour, if one of them would take offence I would make him a present of a ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the mark, O my soul—at whom again are we to launch our shafts of honour from a friendly mind? At Akragas will I take aim, and will proclaim and swear it with a mind of truth, that for a hundred years no city hath brought forth a man of mind more prone to well-doing towards friends or of ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... (which even to-day, in spite of all our "progress," flourishes among both the rich and the poor) crystallised in the purpose of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge—whose motto was, and is "Nullius in verba" (that is, "We swear by no man's words"), and whose original first rule, to be observed at its meetings, was that no one should discourse of his opinions or narrate a marvel, but that any member who wished to address the society should "bring in," that ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... I hear our next move is there. I'll try to show myself to be what my father wished me. I don't suppose I shall—but I'll try in my feeble way. That much I swear—here over his body. So ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... hieron, kai theos, kai horkos, kai agalma.] This Atlas (of which I have been speaking) is a mountain with a cavity, and of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a Deity: and it is the great object by which they swear; and to which they pay their devotions. The cave in the mountain was certainly named Co-el, the house of God; equivalent to Coelus of the Romans. To this the people made their offerings: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. It seems ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... that of the Sicilians, clothes them with an equal reality. There is scarcely a loch in that country, in which the remains of cities have not been at various times discovered; and many men have been met with who would solemnly swear they saw, and who no doubt did see, representations of them in certain states of the atmosphere. The most celebrated is that which occurs on the lake of Killarney. This romantic sheet of water is bounded on one side by a semi-circle of ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... sufficed. The Country Gentlemen were then of a very furious way of thinking concerning the rights of the present Illustrious House to the Throne; but Times do alter, and so likewise do Men's Thoughts and Opinions, and I dare swear there is no Brunswicker or Church of England man more leal at this ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... little children which we meet, Amongst the sports and pastimes in the street, We very often hear them curse and swear, Before they've learned a word ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... human wisdom," said Toussaint, "that a man should swear that he will be always wise? What is human virtue, that he should pledge his salvation on governing well? I dare not ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... villain shall not live! War. I'll have his blood, or die in seeking it. Pem. The like oath Pembroke takes. Lan. And so doth Lancaster. Now send our heralds to defy the king; And make the people swear to ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... were against reason, said the king, I swear, so mote I thee:[91] My horse is better than thy mare, And that thou well ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... going away and getting over it the best way I could. So you see I must by nature be your sworn enemy, only it's of no use, for I've fallen in love with you at first sight. So now, if you will ask me to sit down, I will swear to let bygones be bygones, and be your true knight and devoted servant as long as I live. How you do remind me of your mother, only by Jove, you're twice ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... likewise to regard your friends As creatures sent to serve your ends. Be prompt to lie: there is no wit In telling truth, to lose by it. And knock down worth, bespatter merit: Don't stint—all will your scandal credit. Be bumptious, bully, swear, and fight— And all will ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... it belongs to your character, and therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which you say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will send you away from my island with all marks of my friendship. Tell me ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... not name him, Nor give you any Character to know him; But if you dare, and instantly ride forth At the west port of the City, and defend there My reputation, against all you meet, For two hours only, I'le not swear Dinant, To satisfie, (though sure I think I shall) What ever you desire, if you denie this, Be desperate, for willingly, by this light, I'le never ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... the Nation, arise in might! And then swear by the God we adore, This vicious crowd shall be put to flight, And forever ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... As nought abides to swear by, folly seen So plain and heard so loud might well nigh make Wise men believe in even the devil and God. What ails you? Whence comes lightning in your eyes, With hissing hints of thunder on your lips? Fools! ...
— The Duke of Gandia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... streets, or smashing a window. Last time it was for a fight with a poor man with a large family. He got up the fight on purpose, and as both were about to be apprehended, he says to the man he was fighting with, 'Jack, give me half-a-crown and I'll swear all the blame on myself;' poor Jack was glad to accept the offer, so when they were taken before the magistrate the old beauty said—'Please sir, it was me that assaulted that man, and as I am entirely in the fault I hope you will give me all the punishment.' So Jack got out rejoicing, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... the Fortunes of Nigel (chapter ii.), swear "by the bones of the immortal Napier.'' It would perhaps be rank heresy to suppose that Sir Walter did not know that "Napier's bones'' were an apparatus for purposes of calculation, but he certainly puts the expression in such an ambiguous form that many of his readers are likely to suppose ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... for Lord Charlemont, that he was loyal to the death. He was not romantic in the style of expressing himself,—he would not have understood how to swear fealty on a drawn sword—but when he said—'I'm game,'-it came to the same thing. Reversing his car, he sped away, whizzing up the road like a boomerang, back to Badsworth Hall. Maryllia watched him till he was out of sight,—then with a sigh of relief, she turned and look wistfully at the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... think she has had time to invent anything yet; but she pretends there is something, and says if I don't give you up, if I don't swear never to look at you again, ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... at least," was his only comment, and then he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would have sworn by him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years he was our oracle. Never shall we forget the first, the only time our faith was shaken. We gazed upon and loved his honest face; we reciprocated the firm pressure of his manly grasp; our eyes descended in admiration even unto the ground on which he stood, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... these three clubs will undertake to help the people to stop being an abstraction, to swear off from being a Ghost in their own house. The great working majority of the American people—of the men and the women who made the Red Cross so effective during the war, which came to the rescue of the people of the nation with the people of other nations, ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... care for the Injoyment, but to let you see I have ta'en deliberated Malice to thee, and will be revenged on one Whore for the Sins of another; I will smile and deceive thee, flatter thee, and beat thee, kiss and swear, and lye to thee, imbrace thee and rob thee, as she did me, fawn on thee, and strip thee stark naked, then hang thee out at my Window by the Heels, with a Paper of scurvey Verses fasten'd to thy Breast, in praise of damnable Women— Come, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... it discovers the genius of parties, may be worth relating. Sir John Lambe urging him to prosecute the Puritans, the prelate asked what sort of people these same Puritans were. Sir John replied, "that to the world they seemed to be such as would not swear, whore, or be drunk; out they would lie, cozen, and deceive; that they would frequently hear two sermons a day, and repeat them too, and that some, times they would fast all day long." This character must be conceived to be satirical; yet it may be allowed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... success. Hopeless of success in the projects of accommodation which they laid before the king, and unable to bring him into Scotland in face of the refusal of the General Assembly to receive a sovereign who would not swear to the Covenant, the Scottish army in January 1647 accepted L400,000 in discharge of its claims, handed Charles over to a Committee of the Houses, and marched back over the Border. The success of their diplomacy restored the confidence of the Houses. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now WAS your letter. I swear ...
— Lady Windermere's Fan • Oscar Wilde
... which violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is rather singular that Johnson and Carlyle should each of them have shipwrecked his sagacity and shown a terrible leak in ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... We hope that the President will, with courage, refuse to listen to the speech of evil counsellors and heed the voice of conscience and of honour. We further hope that he will renew his promise to protect the Republic; and will publicly swear that a monarchical ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the more I couldn't help seein' and believin' that it was right and fair to free the niggers and let them have a fair show and a white man's chance—votin' and all. That's what I call a fair hack, and I swear, Mr. Le Moyne, I don't know how it may seem to you, but to my mind any man that ain't willing to let any other man have that, is a damn coward! I'm as white as anybody, and hain't no more reason to stand ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... in a picture. The dress is the picture—this common white dress, with black spots, une robe a poix, une petite confection de soixante cinq francs, as the French would say; and very far it is from all remembrance of the diaphanous, fairy-like skirts of our eighteenth century English school, but I swear to you no less charming. It is a very simple and yet a very beautiful reality. A lady, in white dress with black spots, sitting on a red sofa, a dark chocolate red, in the subdued light of her own quiet, prosaic French appartment, le deuxieme au dessus l'entre-sol. The drawing is less ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... by these ruffians, and compelled to make known where the guns and ammunition were hidden. The poor woman, surrounded by her dear children (who were from time to time pushed back by these soldiers), answered that she could swear before the holy God that there was not a single gun or cartridge or anything of that sort hidden on that farm. In the meantime the curtains were destroyed by the smoke and flames to ashes. The house, at least, was not attacked by the flames, but the low, mean lot put at the four corners ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... Worship?" quoth the landlord, calling the Tinker Worship to soothe him, as a man would pour oil upon angry water. "I saw no knave with Your Worship, for I swear no man would dare call that man knave so nigh to Sherwood Forest. A right stout yeoman I saw with Your Worship, but I thought that Your Worship knew him, for few there be about here that pass him ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... such a man as Hugh Peters; saying that it had been better for the poor Cavalier never to have come with the King into England again; for he that hath the impudence to deny obedience to the lawful magistrate, and to swear to the oath of allegiance, &c., was better treated now-a-days in Newgate, than a poor Royalist that hath suffered all his life for the King, is at White Hall ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... expected to be punished as his fellows were; but this—this was awful. He clinched his hands until the nails dug into the palms. His face was as pale as death. He sweated with the consuming fire of impotent rage. He wished that he might run away somewhere where he could hide and tear things and swear. For a moment only he entertained the thought, and then a look into the determined face of the woman at his side drove the thought away. To his childish eyes, distorted by resentment, she was an implacable and relentless monster who would follow him ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... an oath is sometimes called a sacrament: for it is written in the Decretals (Caus. xxii, qu. 5): "Children who have not attained the use of reason must not be obliged to swear: and whoever has foresworn himself once, must no more be a witness, nor be allowed to take a sacrament," i.e. an oath. But an oath is not a kind of sign, therefore it seems that a sacrament is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... recent dinner at Cambridge, Professor Humphry, who came to Cambridge to commence what has been a brilliant career by a journey on the "Star" coach, lightly hit off Joe Walton, the driver of the "Star," as a man who "used to swear like a trooper and ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... I swear before Heaven that no thought of wrong came to my mind; I never dreamed of it. I had watched her first because the rare grace of her tall figure and of her walk came to me as a surprise, then because she was evidently in such bitter sorrow, then because she seemed so desirous of being alone, ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They are in their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has bewitched the world, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... not altogether free from a suspicion that Mrs Thorne knew the story of Johnny's love and was trying to serve Johnny,—as other people had tried to do, very ineffectually. When this suspicion came upon her she would shut her heart against her lover's praises, and swear that she would stand by those two letters which she had written in her book at home. But the suspicion would not always be there, and there did come upon her a conviction that her lover was more esteemed among men and women than she had been accustomed to believe. Her cousin, Bernard Dale, who ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... also decidedly ungentlemanly to propose to a girl if she had money and you had none. Moreover, it was extremely selfish to remove a girl from a comfortable position to a poorer one, though she might positively swear she preferred it; and lastly, it was unwise for various reasons, to be too amiable to the girl, or to give any but the dimmest clue to ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... Sicilian king from his Italian dominions. The offers which William made were, namely: to pay a sum equivalent to that tendered by Emanuel; to surrender the three sea-ports in question as an indemnification for the damage done by Scitinius; and to swear fealty to the pope as the ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... Madame the Virgin, to this end, to thank her for the liberty of my dear wife; and the other for my said patron, if I am successful in my undertaking to liberate the bondswoman Tiennette here present, and for which I rely upon his assistance. Moreover, I swear by my eternal salvation, to persevere with courage in this affair, to spend therein all I process, and only to quit it with my life. God has heard me," said he. "And you, little one," he ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... and it isn't. I wanted to see Christine. You won't believe me, I know, but I've been worried to death about her ever since she left me. Ask Sangster, if you don't believe me. I swear to you that, if it were possible, I'd give my right hand this minute to undo all the rotten past and start again. I suppose it's too late. I suppose she hates me. She said she did that last night in London. She looks as if she does now. The way she asked me if ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... experience that he was in one of those aching miseries which make men turn to such as she, slipped from the shadows and murmured to him. She was taller than he, and had to bend her long slender neck that he might hear. He hated her for being a streetwalker and for being taller than he, and began to swear at her. But before he could get the words out of his mouth she had wiped the smile from her pale oval face with the adeptness of a proud woman who had long preserved her pride in the fields of contempt, and glided away with a dignity that denied what she was and what ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Messieurs Simeuse are here," said the abbe, "I would give ten pints of my blood and my right arm to save them; but if Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne is in the secret she has not—and this I swear on my eternal salvation—betrayed it in any way, neither has she done me the honor to consult me. I am now very glad of her discretion, if discretion there be. We played cards last night as usual, at boston, in almost complete silence, until half-past ten o'clock, and we neither saw nor heard ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... each other's hand, 65 Then plunged into the angry flood, that bold and dauntless band. High flew the spray above their heads, yet onward still they bore, Midst cheer, and shout, and answering yell, and shot, and cannon-roar,— "Now, by the Holy Cross! I swear, since earth and sea began, Was never such a daring deed essay'd by mortal man!" 70 Thick blew the smoke across the stream, and faster flash'd the flame: The water plash'd in hissing jets as ball and bullet came. Yet onward push'd the Cavaliers all ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... here Swear nevermore to slacken Till in the land of life we Cease to be counted, Our names ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... talk that a-way!" He burst into tears and flung his arms around the Sheriff's neck. He protested that he had never, seen him take a drink in his life; he would go and tell the Judge so; if necessary, he would swear to it ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... as he folded me in his arms," will you forgive your bad boy this once more? I have been a jealous, insulting brute, but I swear to you—" ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... picking up a crew, or perhaps a trifle over-loaded or not properly found, and short-handed in consequence. That's the sort of craft I'd look out for you, and if one wouldn't take you, another would. I'd tog you out like an A.B., and swear you knew your duty." ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... favourite child Exclaim'd,—"'Tis, by Heaven! a terrible thing Before a he-party to sit and to sing!" "By my shoul! Master Moore, you there may be right," Said a son of green Erin; "tho' dear to my sight Are all the sweet cratures, call'd women, I swear, Yet I think we can feel just as well as the fair: Tho' you'd bribe us with songs, blood and 'ounds! let me say, I'd not be a woman for one ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... set you as free as you are to-day, my white blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!" ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; "don't, oh, don't swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you— at your very elbow—while you thus insult Him ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... been wholly wanting. I could not have stopped the horses in time; the child would have been run over and killed; the big, fat coroner would have come and sat on it and have made us all, who witnessed the scene, swear over the matter; the poor mother would have gone to the lunatic asylum; the father would have committed suicide; the nursery maid would have—obtained another place and been the death of an indefinite ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the great cabin, and sometimes vote him small parcels of plate and china (for it may be noted that Roberts drank his tea constantly), but then every man, as the humor takes him, will use the plate and china, intrude into his apartment, swear at him, seize a part of his victuals and drink, if they like it, without his offering to find fault or contest it. Yet Roberts, by a better management than usual, became the chief director in everything of moment; ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... said to Betty Murdoch, as he affectionately rubbed one of Finn's ears, "I believe this old gallant has quite fallen in love with Miss Desdemona, and I could swear he's been hunting in her company to-night. He has all the look of it. I suspect it carries him back to old days, past the quarantine, past even Australia—eh, old chap?—and back to his hunting ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... the jail, but do not swear; it is a sin. By removing him from this his great temptation we may save even his blood-stained soul. But the souls of his victims? Oh, sir, when a good man is hurried to his grave our lamentations are natural but unwise; but think what he commits who ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the Chief warned me. "It would ruin the whole future of space travel, as people are just learning to accept it as a matter of course. You will swear your men to utter secrecy, and pass me your word, in behalf of your officers and yourself, that you will not divulge ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... high-priest appears or as he does so. Is or is not the Sabbath broken by the killing of the Paschal lamb? Why is it lawful to take tithe of corn and wine and oil, and not of anise, cummin, and peppers? In swearing by the Temple, should one not first swear by the gold on the Temple? and in swearing by the altar, should one or should one not first swear by the sacrifices on it? These things, since he preaches, he must know. If he ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... corporation of Law clerks and of the school. There was no turpitude which was not sacred on that day. And then there were gay gossips in the crowd—Simone Quatrelivres, Agnes la Gadine, and Rabine Piedebou. Was it not the least that one could do to swear at one's ease and revile the name of God a little, on so fine a day, in such good company as dignitaries of the church and loose women? So they did not abstain; and, in the midst of the uproar, there was a frightful concert of blasphemies and enormities of all ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the Captain, stepping close and gripping him by the upper arm, "will you swear to me you have ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... under the "solvent tenant test," (which was generally adopted by the Conservative barristers,) the claimant was obliged to swear and to prove that "he could obtain from a good and solvent tenant a clear yearly rent of ten pounds over and above what he paid himself," while the freeholder, qualifying under "the beneficial interest test," (which was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... (for you claim to be my own father), that I did not drive his cows to my house—so may I prosper—nor crossed the threshold: this I say truly. I reverence Helios greatly and the other gods, and you I love and him I dread. You yourself know that I am not guilty: and I will swear a great oath upon it:—No! by these rich-decked porticoes of the gods. And some day I will punish him, strong as he is, for this pitiless inquisition; but now ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... that decides it. Two happened while I was there, and in my presence; and all the parties went away, to outward appearance, satisfied and contented with his determination. He keeps a strict discipline. I never saw one of his people drunk, nor heard one of them swear, all the time I was there. He does not allow them rum; but in lieu gives them English beer. It is surprizing to see how cheerful the men go to work, considering they have not been bred to it. There are no idlers there. Even the ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... that would sometimes go. Just as the donkey chanc'd to feel, you know, Which he would ride, whenever his brigade Was ordered to the streets for a parade; But as the times got hard, he'd loudly swear The oats that donkey ate he could not spare. At length he said: "I'll turn him out, py Gott!" Looked at his wife and to her said, "Vy not? Let him go eat upon the public ways, I want him only for the training days." So the poor donkey had to feed on thistles. Until ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... and illusive pacifications, Alfred attempted to bind the Danes by Christian oaths. Their customary mode of binding themselves, in cases where they wished to impose a solemn religious obligation, was to swear by a certain ornament which they wore upon their arms, which is called in the chronicles of those times a bracelet. What its form and fashion was we can not now precisely know; but it is plain that ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... And if you saw these bills in the next five minutes you'd be able to swear they're the same bills you ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... "Beats thunder, I swear!" said he, "if the old woman haint got spliced again—and she's every month of fifty-six ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Color. Extreme red, yellow, and blue are discordant. (They "shriek" and "swear." Mark Twain calls Roxana's gown "a volcanic eruption of infernal splendors.") Yet there are some who claim that the child craves them, and must have them to produce a thrill. So also does he crave candies, matches, and the carving-knife. He covets the trumpet, fire-gong, and bass-drum ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... the breast of the savage a deep hatred against all white men; a hatred so intense that he frequently, during and subsequent to the mutiny, declared he would eat the first white man he killed; yet this cannibal was made to swear allegiance to our sovereign on the Holy Evangelists, and was then called ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... some character or other by their dress; some affect the tremendous, and wear a great and fiercely cocked hat, an enormous sword, a short waistcoat and a black cravat; these I should be almost tempted to swear the peace against, in my own defense, if I were not convinced that they are but meek asses in lions' skins. Others go in brown frocks, leather breeches, great oaken cudgels in their hands, their hats uncocked, and their hair unpowdered; and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to the little one robbed of her all right up to the door of death. She that is named Shiloh, which means rest. Do it, oh, God,—take it from my account if she ain't got none yet herse'f, an' I swear to You with the faith of Abraham that henceforth I will live to light a fire-brand in this valley that will burn out this child slavery, upheld now by ignorance and the greed of the gold lovers. Save little Shiloh, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... go sneaking after her," he had thought. "She's true, I'll swear to it. The man's lying... Very well, then, Davy, boy, don't you take rest till you're ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... cried the Squire, chuckling, "I long to see how you'll astonish Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment where we put the top-dressing; and when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you'll know to a pound how much oilcake has gone ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Day unto day, in the revolutions of that glorious orb, which shed a flood of light over the impenetrable forests and wild wastes that surrounded me, uttereth speech. Yet His voice is not heard among the heathen, nor His name known throughout these vast territories by Europeans in general, but to swear by.——Oh! for wisdom, truly Christian faith, integrity and zeal in my labours as a minister, in this heathen ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... to be still more indelicate in her manner, so that Chia Lien could not refrain himself from making a full exhibition of his warm sentiments. When their tete-a-tete had come to a close, they both went on again to vow by the mountains and swear by the seas, and though they found it difficult to part company and hard to tear themselves away, they, in due course, became, after this occasion, mutual sworn friends. But by a certain day the virus in Ta Chieh's system had become exhausted, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... John Frost, returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without kings; he was imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls. One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper" (evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... the business over, but I don't see why a decent woman, and her a God-be-praised widow, should lose her living because you can't train your brats in the way they should go. But this is mine! If you don't stand by me and swear to do it here and now, it's not another drink one of you shall get in my place ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Sam, honest to Gawd it was. He come back, boss; said he'd been fightin' with a cat-o'-mountain! Say, boss, you sure hit him hard. One of his lamps is a pudding! Boss, I'll swear I ain't had nothin' ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... the police are after me sharp. They've had me before the mayor twice, and got two or three to swear they saw me pick up the child in Briar street and run off with him. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... heard Washington swear," Lafayette once remarked, "was when he called General Charles Lee a 'damned poltroon,' after the arrest of that officer for treasonable conduct." Nor was Washington the only person of self-restraint and good manners whose temper and angry passions were roused by this ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... tried to seal the fountains of truth. Picture a man kneeling before the authorities at Rome and stating: "With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. I swear that for the future I will never say nor assert anything verbally or in writing which may give rise to a {463} similar suspicion against me."[3] Thus he was compelled to recant and deny his theory that the earth ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... whose indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of their praefect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military consent might be ratified by the civil authority. This important ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John—what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a lifelong hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift was a reverent, was a pious spirit—for Swift could love ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... place the Queen did not fully accept from anybody, at any time. At that period, it is probable she would have gladly taken off the crown, to place it on his dear head, and doffed the ermine mantle to put it on his manly shoulders, and would have been the first to swear ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Doctor Heath. "Miss Wardour possesses one of those peculiar constitutions upon which all opiates act with disastrous effect. It is fortunate that a cautious hand,—I was about to say a skilled hand,—administered the drug. I could swear that not the half of an ordinary dose was given her, for a full dose would have prostrated her for days; and the quantity it would require to make you or me sleep soundly for half the night, would kill ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... The mere thought of it makes me tremble. I find myself implicated in the murder of the Lyons' courier. Three women and two men, whom I know not—whose residence I know not—(for you well know that I have not left Paris)—have had the impudence to swear that they recognise me, and that I was the first of the four who presented himself at their houses on horseback. You know, also, that I have not crossed a horse's back since my arrival in Paris. You may understand the importance of such an accusation, which tends at nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... he had no stomach to face the reckoning. He had not noticed before how wiry and strong Stanislaus looked. But when he saw that the boy made no movement, only spoke in that quiet voice, he plucked up a little courage. He began to bluster and swear. ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... a fearsome night this is! The trees will be all broken. What a noise in the lum! I daresay there's some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?" he bawled up the chimney. "Ye'll hae heard," said he, "lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried below that corner—the hearth-stane there, where ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... I'm goin' to do. And ain't this Jasper Starbuck's daughter? I thought so," he added when Lou nodded at him. "I've knowed Jasper a long time, but folks don't git round a visitin' now like they uster. Never seed yo' father drunk in my life—swear it's a fact; never did. I'll bet he kin whup a ground-hog as big as he is. And I'll sw'ar, ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... out of their noses." The outrages, thus perpetrated, with all the affrighting influences brought to bear, prevailed over Carrier's children. Some of them were used as witnesses against her. A little girl, not eight years old, was made to swear that she was a witch; that her mother, when she was six years old, made her so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, "in her spirit," to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... ever in the fashion, and to do humbly and dutifully whatso she seeth everybody else doing. In the meantime you must content yourself as best you can by the playing of those two pieces which you give out as the most damnable ever writ, but which your countrymen, I warn you, will swear are the best you have ever done. But this I will say, that if I could speak across the ages to our descendants, I should heartily recommend them to fulfil your wish; for the Scottish minstrel hath well said that he that maketh the songs of a nation is ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... to be discharged, when the lady whom he had accused declared she would swear the peace against him, for that he had called her a whore several times. "Oho! you will swear the peace, madam, will you?" cries the justice: "Give her the peace, presently; and pray, Mr. Constable, secure the prisoner, now we have him, while a warrant is made to take him up." All which was immediately ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... dear Sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savour of affectation; but as to any more traffic of that debtor or creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY—on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by—past transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! BURNS'S character for generosity of sentiment ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... but look here, what did you swear by—the holy Virgin of Guadalupe? No? Well, was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... he would say, "off an island called the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors had caught a lot of parrots and we were teaching them to swear. Up and down the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they used was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts of the Spanish ship outside the harbor. Outside the harbor they were, so we threw ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... judges conferred together for a brief while, and then ordered that a Mass book should be brought, and bade Dalaber lay his hand upon it and swear to answer truthfully ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is, that now, on the eve of your marriage, you should not be alarmed on his account. I firmly believe you have no cause for any special fear. Ought you not to respect his wishes, and rest satisfied without seeking to know more than he and I tell you? I will swear, Charlotte, if that is any consolation to you, that I am not immediately anxious about ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... eat the meats consecrated to idols, even when a man or woman is dying of hunger? May one enter into agreements with native camel-drivers and carriers who swear by their gods to keep the bargain? May a lie be told in certain conditions?—say, so as to get among heretics in pretending to be one of themselves, and thus be able to spy on them and denounce them? May adultery be practised with a woman who ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... to be married! Gone to swear a peace! False blood to false blood joined! Gone to be friends! Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche these provinces? It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard,— Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again: It can not be;—thou ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... us through de War. We saw Yankee soldiers come through in droves lak Coxsey's Army. We wasn't afraid for ourselves but we was afraid dey would catch old Master or one of de boys when dey would come home on a furlough. We'd hep 'em git away and just swear dat dey hadn't ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... spare themselves, it was because every labor increased their earnings in the settling of accounts at the end of each season. This time, it is true, the profit would be almost nothing, and that gave them just cause to curse and swear ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne |
