"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... secrets of their hearts and souls laid bare to your transmortal mind. To these twain, dwellers in the provinces of good and of evil, you shall seek to give what aid your wisdom can devise for them. And in that attempt—the attempt to swerve them from the paths dictated by their own temperaments, you shall learn the reason for the ills you deprecate.—I have spoken. Obey the word; and in this labor ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... faithless, faithful only he Among innumerable false, unmov'd, Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrified; His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal. Nor number, nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... even more nervous. The tall water-tank and windmill were right in line. Before the young aviator could swerve the flying machine to escape the vane upon the roof of the tower, and the long arms of the mill, they were right upon ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... early and was about her morning work. Her education was that of the soldier, who must know himself no more, whom no personal pain must swerve from the slightest minutiae of duty. So she was there, at her usual hour, dressed with the same cool neatness, her brown hair parted in satin bands, and only the colorless cheek and lip differing from the Mary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... science of arms, having won wealth by pursuing the methods prescribed for the military caste, you have celebrated all the time-honoured sacrificial rites. You take no delight in sensual pleasures; you do not act, O lord of men, from motives of enjoyment, nor do you swerve from virtue from greed of riches; it is for this, you have been named the Virtuous King, O son of Pritha! Having won kingdoms and riches and means of enjoyment, your best delight has been charity and truth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... left according as you see rocks ahead, and I shall steer with my paddle behind. I have a good deal more power over the boat than you have, and you must depend upon me for the steering, unless there is occasion for a smart swerve." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... decry it as something too sublime for earth. It must be our guiding star to lead us rightly as far as we may go. We can travel rightly that part of the road we now tread on only by shaping it true to the great end that ought to inspire us all. We shall have many temptations to swerve aside, but the power of mind that keeps our position clear and firm will react against every destroying influence. In the first stage of the fight for internal unity, when blind bigotry is furiously insisting that we but plan an insidious scheme for the oppression of a minority, our ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... co-ordination of muscles in any movement, the more truly each muscle holds its own individuality. This power of freedom in motion should be worked for after once approaching the natural equilibrium. If you rest on your left leg, it pushes your left hip a little farther out, which causes your body to swerve slightly to the right,—and, to keep the balance true, the head again tips to the left a little. Now rise slowly and freely from that to standing on both feet, with body and head erect; then drop on the right foot with the body to ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... islands, and in continuous shelter. Sometimes the narrows are not wider than the Thames at Oxford; then you steam out into what seems to be a land-locked expanse of water, with precipitous mountain rocks ahead. By and by you swerve to right or left, and a totally different picture is presented. And so it is, hour after hour, and day after day. For many a league north of Bergen the mountains and island rocks are bare of vegetation—gloomy masses of grey and brown that frown upon the waters ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... leaning over his staff,—and calling to mind whose dwelling stood at such and such a spot, and whose field or garden occupied the site of those more recent houses. He can render a reason for all the bends and deviations of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible and plastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a straight line, in order to visit every settler's door. The Main Street is still youthful; the coeval man is in his latest age. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch of fourscore, yet shall ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saw de light an' swerve f'm de sin road to de straight an' narrow in de Fall Revival five yeahs back—de time Sis Ellers got drowned at de baptisin' an' stayed undeh till she blowed up at Vicksbu'g. Mah man went ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... disposal of this wealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets for industry. But through this very combination the movement imposed on Prussia by her kings, and on Germany by Prussia, was bound to swerve from its course, whilst gathering speed and flinging itself forward. Sooner or later it was bound to escape from all control and become a plunge ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson
... these steady currents when wind and waves are in tumultuous confusion? They are always present. No winds blow them aside, no waves drench their subtle fire, no mountains make them swerve. But how ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... clear-sighted, and perspicacious. They kept up a vigorous detective system throughout the kingdom; they did the work of spies, and urged the nation along a path of obedience, from which it had no business to swerve. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... as it seemed to the fugitive that the foremost horses were upon him and their riders' hands were outstretched to tear him from his saddle, the mustang made a sudden swerve and what seemed ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... place not to be able to lie a little at times. Even Mrs. Upjohn, the female lay-head of the Presbyterians, who was a walking Decalogue, her every sentence being a law beginning with Thou shalt not, admitted practically, if not theoretically, that without risk of damnation it was possible to swerve occasionally from a too rigid Yea and Nay. Perhaps,—ah, well, there is no use in exhausting the perhapses. The fact remained. Of girl-friends she had plenty, and of men-friends she had plenty; but of lovers ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... manifest mistake or error has occurred. The man supposed to be murdered walks into court; but it is a minute too late; the verdict has been given—the sentence pronounced. All the court judges, witnesses, counsel—look at each other in dismay; the great law automaton cannot be made to swerve in its path by any power there. And the average Englishman likes the contemplation of such a case, it is sneered; and the sneer may be joined in by those who, under other systems, have the immediate power of setting any such mistakes right ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... was quicker than he and leaped aside barely in time to avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view. With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head, and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... have also a double tricycle, on which I ride every morning with my garden boy. It is a capital exercise; the steering occupies one's thoughts almost as well as a game. One can't think much of business while going seven or eight miles an hour with the probability that any considerable swerve ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... and alarmed at this unusual sight, felt an impulse to slow, to swerve, to test the apparition in some way; but second thought convinced him it must be deception of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... looked up impudently to behold the strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving. Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... with facilities for his active brain to take advantage of, where MILLIONS were to be commanded, with no limits, no bounds for action and enterprise, would bring him back to his determination not to swerve ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and more Than he, and men,—the earth, the heavens, and all:— That,—were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge More than was ever man's,—I would not prize them Without her love: for her employ them all; Commend them, and condemn them to her service, Or to ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... that Jellicoe should have formed his battle line on his starboard instead of his port wing, thus turning toward the enemy and concentrating on the head of their column at once. Forming on the port division caused the battle fleet to swerve away from the enemy and open the range just at the critical moment of contact, leaving Beatty unsupported in his dash across the head of the enemy's line. It is said that the latter even sent a signal to the Marlborough for the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... no man ever possessed these requisites in greater perfection than John Mitchell. Were but his figure less Tartarish and more gaunt, he would be the very 'Talus' of Spenser. Neither frown nor favour, in the course of fifteen years, have ever made him swerve from the fair performance of his duty, though the lairds with whom he has to deal have omitted no means of making him enter into their views, and to do things or leave them undone, as might suit their humour or ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... performs his necessary portion of the general labour—who executes the unavoidable task assigned to him. All bodies act according to laws, inherent in their peculiar essence, without the capability to swerve, even for a single instant, from those according to which Nature herself acts. This is the central power, to which all other powers, essences, and energies, are submitted: she regulates the motions of beings, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... distinctly to understand that they thought I had very contracted notions on matters and things, to suppose so trifling an obstacle could disturb the harmony and unity of a Horizontal vote. They went for a principle, and the devil himself could not make them swerve from the pursuit ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said the landlord in explanation, "if he should swerve from the high-road, for he thinks of taking you cross country, and it ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... We must swerve for a moment and cut across lots, that we may touch every one of the big structural elements of plot and relate them with logical closeness to the playlet, summing them all up in the end and tying them closely into—what I hope may be—a helpful ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... there, he could swerve off to the right again as he reached the treacherous ground, and edge safely round it, while the main body of his pursuers would ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near, Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here; Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that the dawn ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... guns had done their work well. The trenches were blown to irrecognizable pits dotted with dead. The barbed wire had been cut like so much twine. Starting from the Rue Tilleloy the Lincolns and the Berkshires were off the mark first, with orders to swerve to right and left respectively as soon as they had captured the first line of trenches, in order to let the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade through to the village. The Germans left alive in the trenches, half demented with fright, surrounded by a welter ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Dale burst into the saloon, suddenly to check his impetus, to swerve aside toward the bar and halt. The door had not ceased swinging when again it was propelled inward, this time to admit Helen ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... word has also become the symbol of an imperfect good, which is almost an evil. The law sacrifices the individual to the universal, and is the tyranny of the many over the few (compare Republic). It has fixed rules which are the props of order, and will not swerve or bend in extreme cases. It is the beginning of political society, but there is something higher—an intelligent ruler, whether God or man, who is able to adapt himself to the endless varieties of circumstances. ...
— Statesman • Plato
... God peace and alliance, Promising that they would him honour, fear, and serve: All kind of people were bound in those covenants, That from his law they should never swerve; For ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... as of old constructed, was defective in many points; in none so glaringly as in that condition which required unanimity in questions of peace or war, and in the provision, from which they had no power to swerve, that all the taxes should be uniform. Both these stipulations were, of sheer necessity, continually disregarded; so that the government could be carried on at all only by repeated violations of the constitution. In order to excuse measures dictated by this necessity, each stadtholder was perpetually ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... would still retain something private, which has no place there. Being established in charity, they can never deviate therefrom by any defect, and have no will or desire save the pure will of pure love, and can swerve from it in nothing. They can neither commit sin nor ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... virtue. But that integrity which, however tempting the opportunity, or however secure against detection, no selfishness nor resentment, no lust of power, place, favor, profit, or pleasure, can cause to swerve from the strict rule of right, is the perfection of man's moral nature. In this sense, the poet was right when he pronounced "an honest man's the noblest work of God." It is almost inconceivable what an erect and independent spirit this high endowment communicates to the man, and what a moral ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... it would be necessary for them to swerve to the left, which would give the pursuers an advantage; but there was no help for it, and Arroyo—whom fear had now rendered irresolute—rather mechanically than otherwise, turned towards the left, and headed for ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... There is so much in a man's world that a woman knows nothing of. When he comes home at night, tired beyond words, and sick to death of the world and its ways, make him sure. When he thinks himself defeated, make him sure. When you see him tempted to swerve even the least from the straight path, make him sure. When the last parting comes, if he is leaving you, give him the certainty to take with him into his narrow house, and make his last sleep sweet. And if you are the one to ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... shifting his sapling whip so as to bring the club end of it uppermost. The next instant he aimed a furious blow at his adversary's horse. The quick eye and hand of the rider disappointed that with a sudden swerve. In another moment, and Ellen hardly saw how, it was so quick, John had dismounted, taken Mr. Saunders by the collar, and hurled him quite over into the gully at the side of the road, where he lay at full length without stirring. "Ride on, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... in the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in the cabin ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... its six barrels threatened death, right and left, beside and before and around him, as he turned from face to face. Instantly there fell a hush—instantly the assault paused. Every one felt that there no faltering would make the hand tremble or the ball swerve. Whereever Jasper turned the foes recoiled. He laughed with audacious mockery as ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and Charles Carroll of Carrollton being of the number. The mission, however, was without success; for the ancient capital, although the most foreign in speech and custom of all places in British North America, remained steadfast under the temptation to swerve from her allegiance. Franklin, indeed, added nothing to his reputation by his general relations with the settlements on the St. Lawrence. For twenty-four years he had held the position of Deputy-Postmaster General for the English colonies, Quebec being ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... was the most precious burden that Barney Custer might ever expect to carry. Under these circumstances his speed was greatly reduced from what he would have wished, but at that he was forced to accept grave risks. The road might end abruptly at the brink of a ravine—it might swerve perilously close to a stone quarry—or plunge headlong into a pond or river. Barney shuddered at the possibilities; but nothing of the sort happened. The street ran straight out of the town into a country road, rather ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... plunging back with sudden bound, Headed by one black mighty steed, Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed, Without a single speck or hair Of white upon his shaggy hide; They snort, they foam, neigh, swerve aside. And backward to the forest fly, By instinct, from a human eye. They left me there to my despair, Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch, Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, Believed from that unwonted weight, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... momentary swinging of their mood to pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over Slim's misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming; and, if they ever behaved like boys let out of school, they did ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Trewinion's heir observe Never from the right to swerve, If from God's pure laws he stray Trewinion's power shall die away; His glory given to another; And he be crushed by younger brother. Then his son, though born the first, By the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... startled and stampeded by the vivid lightning and sharp peals of thunder, come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to a conference meeting in a city where opinion ran so strongly against him. On October 5 he made a formal appeal to the powers for the aid guaranteed him by treaty, but the demand came too late to induce Wellington to swerve from the policy of non-intervention, and on November 4 the conference of London began its labours by proposing an armistice in Belgium, which was accepted by both parties. This left Maastricht and the citadel of Antwerp in the hands ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... differ. He was told that Mr. Southey was no blind political partisan, but an honest vindicator of what, in his conscience, he believed to be right—that no earthly consideration could have tempted him to swerve from the plain paths of truth and justice. An appeal was made to his writings, which manifested great moderation: and as it respected the Church, the London, and the Baptist Missionary Societies, it ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... want to use the ordinary cant about duty and all the rest of it. We may sympathise with you—personally, I admire the attitude you have taken, though perhaps I shouldn't say it—but our own feelings do not matter the toss of a button. Nothing you can do or say will swerve us from what we judge to be ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... about to do the same, being retarded by the broken stirrup-leather, when a tremendous shout caused his horse to swerve, break its bridle, and dash away. At the same moment a band of Don Cossacks came swooping down the gorge. Lancey flung himself flat beneath a mass of underwood. The Cossacks saw only one horseman, and went past the place with a wild yell. Another ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... are genuine, never forced. His grief is not the semblance of woe, but comes from the heart. His devotion is unmixed with other feelings. It is single, unselfish, profound. Prosperity affects it not; adversity cannot make it swerve. Ingratitude, that saddest of human vices, is unknown to the dog. He does not forget past favours, but, when attached by benefits received, his love endures through life. But I shall have never done with reciting the praises of this noble animal; the subject ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... is above all reproach, that I may say to myself: 'Thank God, I helped to make him what he is.' This is all that I want, Ned; and your future life will be your best acknowledgment, or will prove your heartless ingratitude. Let neither success nor failure tempt you to swerve from what your own heart tells you to be right and fair. Turn out as your schemes may, never forget to keep your motives pure; and believe me, that come what will, you'll find an easy conscience a great comforter in the hour of trial. Your father was one of my oldest ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... together-namely, that Jesus Christ is righteous, and will not swerve in judgment; also, that he pleads for us by the new law, with which Satan hath nothing to do, nor, had he, can he by it bring in a plea against us, because that law, in the very body of it, consists ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shortness of food, which was thinning the flesh over Finn's haunches now, it was another cause which led him to swerve from the north-westerly course in a south-westerly direction. He paid no particular heed to old Tufter's continuous growls about the direction taken by the pack under his leadership; but what he was forced to notice was the fact that for two whole days no water had been seen, and the lolling ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... knew that he must not move while the men on him were firing; they must do the fighting. But when the tiger had apparently beaten all the men and was actually leaping on him, the elephant had a new duty to do: he must swerve aside. So the elephant swerved aside just as the tiger was alighting on the box ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... careless whim, a rather aimless, satisfying hobby, not at all serious, entirely extraneous to his every-day life, and interesting only from its aimlessness, being as near to an unselfish and decent motive as the man had ever come. But it was not of sufficient consequence to stand out against or swerve the course of a quarrel; wherefore, he was gladdened by the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... life fled; clanged his armour o'er the corpse. With laughter of triumph stalwart Molus' son A second arrow sped, with strong desire To smite Polites, ill-starred Priam's son: But with a swift side-swerve did he escape The death, nor did the arrow touch his flesh. As when a shipman, as his bark flies on O'er sea-gulfs, spies amid the rushing tide A rock, and to escape it swiftly puts The helm about, and turns aside the ship Even as he listeth, that a little strength Averts a great disaster; so did ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... consequence frustrate his Majesty's good intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make me swerve out of the path which I have ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... accomplish the remainder of the run in safety. He held up his hand as a warning to those behind him to be extra vigilant, for they were at what was probably the most dangerous point of the run, and the next instant waved to the Peruvian to swerve the canoe powerfully to the left. The Indian obeyed, to the best of his ability; but he was old, his strength was nothing like what it had been, and the little craft did not swerve quite smartly enough to carry her clear of a rock that lay in her course. Therefore ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Not in man's knowledge, not in wisdom, lies The lack that makes for sorrow. Nay, we scan And know the right—for wit hath many a man— But will not to the last end strive and serve. For some grow too soon weary, and some swerve To other paths, setting before the Right The diverse far-off image of Delight: And many are delights beneath the sun! Long hours of converse; and to sit alone Musing—a deadly happiness!—and Shame: Though two things ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... night and in the rain, you swerve round some corner into the straight, by Grant Park, in full sight of one of the most dazzling spectacles that Chicago or any other city can offer—Michigan Avenue on a wet evening. Each of the thousands of electric standards in Michigan Avenue ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... happily to yourself that neither men, women or devils can swerve you one degree from the divine light shining upon your direct pathway ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... off; an occasional thunderstorm would trail over the ranges, but none came to the saddle. Sometimes it was as though an invisible hand held them back; I had more than once seen a rain cloud heading straight for the saddle, only to swerve to right or left, and pass sometimes within a few hundred yards ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... to unbend. The proffer of refreshment did not tempt him to swerve from the object of his mission. While Underwood was talking, trying to gain time, his eyes were taking in the contents ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... the disguise of promoters of peace and industry, a revolution of the disaffected among ourselves would be attempted. Many were the dissuasions resorted to for the purpose of checking the zeal of the committee, and causing the court to swerve from its patronage of so bold a measure! The court, the government, the committee, and the leading men in the mercantile interests of the metropolis and the provinces, pursued the even tenor of their way, amused at the folly of so ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... this was the dreariest evening aspect of the sea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants of the poop left it at the sound of the bell. The captain first, with a sudden swerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even looking once towards his wife and his wife's father. Those two got up and moved towards the companion, the old gent very erect, his thin locks stirring gently about the nape of his neck, and carrying the rugs ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... credited, tended to shake public confidence not only in the dealings of the Supreme Council with the smaller countries, but also in the nature of the occult influences that were believed to be occasionally causing its decisions to swerve from the orthodox direction. And these reports were believed by many even in Conference circles. Time and again I was visited by delegates complaining that this or that decision was or would be taken in response to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... mere man, fear to quit The clue God gave me as most fit To guide my footsteps through life's maze, Because himself discerns all ways Open to reach him: I, a man Able to mark where faith began To swerve aside, till from its summit Judgment drops her damning plummet, Pronouncing such a fatal space Departed from the founder's base: He will not bid me enter too, But rather sit, as now I do, Awaiting his return ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... less personage than Columbus. They had different elements to contend in. But the man whom princely wealth and position, and the temptation to intrigue which there must have been in the then state of the Portuguese court, never induced to swerve from the one purpose which he maintained for forty years, unshaken by popular clamour, however sorely vexed he might be with inward doubts and misgivings; who passed laborious days and watchful nights in devotion to ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... wheel round and round, 700 Then plunging back with sudden bound, Headed by one black mighty steed, Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed, Without a single speck or hair Of white upon his shaggy hide; They snort—they foam—neigh—swerve aside, And backward to the forest fly, By instinct, from a human eye. They left me there to my despair, Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710 Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, Relieved from that unwonted weight, From whence I could not extricate Nor him nor ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... "Mr Simpson is a natural base-ball pitcher, he has an acquired swerve at bandy, and he is a lepidopterist of considerable charm. But he ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... beginning to emerge, oddly, from the Apollo. The merits and absurdities of the type were already there, indeed, in posse. How persistent was the type, and the instinct! A man of Roger's antecedents might seem to swerve from the course; but the smallest favourable variation of circumstances, and there he was again on the track, trotting happily between ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... displayed a lack of nerve; You did not quite-now did you?-play the game; For when you saw me you were seen to swerve, Doubtless in order to disturb my aim. No, no, you must not ask me to forgive A swerve because you basely ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... either side, like sparks from a blade that is being sharpened, the whiteness round about ran swifter, swifter, in pure flame the white slope flew against her, and she fused like one molten, dancing globule, rushed through a white intensity. Then there was a great swerve at the bottom, when they swung as it were in a fall to ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... fear. The secret of the machine had been revealed to him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself. Precariously balanced, he descended the Square again, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street. Constance, in the parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly past the window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest and ran in pursuit; for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict sense, steep. Half-way ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... he throws wide open the swinging screen doors, and a broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes, though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... through our combining the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato, therefore answers to the experience, or the empirical knowledge of modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena), and not with absolute ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... equal before God and the law, each respecting the rights of his fellows. What we have to remember is, that before this truth was advocated by any order, or embodied in any political constitution, it was embedded in the will of God and the constitution of the human soul. Nor will Masonry ever swerve one jot or tittle from its ancient and eloquent demand till all men, everywhere, are free in body, mind, and soul. As it is, Lowell was right when ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... calculated by the astronomer.... The little birds are guided in their flight through the waste, lone wilderness of the sky, and over wide seas, without a compass or a map or a path, by His counsel and will. And they obey that guidance without the slightest inclination to swerve from it or seek a ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... of his prey, and it seemed hopeless to expect to save poor Roshan Khan from his clutches. Just at this moment, however, the terrified youth caught sight of the brute over his left shoulder, and providentially made a quick swerve to the right. As the lion turned to follow him, he came broadside on to me, and just as he had Roshan Khan within striking distance and was about to seize him, he dropped in the middle of what would otherwise ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... are not dangerous if their flight is carefully watched, as they swerve to the left, and their landing-place can thus be fairly accurately judged. Two varieties, however—the windupwerfer and the hoppitwerfer—swerve to the right. The googliwerfer swerves ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... abuses. If a child's natural aversion to vice has never been wilfully perverted, the time will come when his welfare may be intrusted to the safe-keeping of his protective instincts. You need not fear that he will swerve from the path of health when his simple habits, sanctioned by nature and inclination, have acquired the additional strength of long practice. When the age of blind deference is past, vice is generally too unattractive to be ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against it, but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and drifted with the stream. Last year, in a house match"—Psmith's voice took on a deeper tone of melancholy—"I took seven for thirteen in the second innings on a hard wicket. I did ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of parts. I swear then by the immaculate efficacy, wherever it abides in greatest sanctity and fulness, by all the entrances and exits of the holy mount Libanus, and by all that is contained in the preface to the true history of Charlemagne, with the death of the giant Fierabras, not to swerve or depart from the oath I have taken, or from the commands which may be laid upon me by the least of these ladies, under penalty, should I do otherwise, or attempt to do otherwise, that from this time forth till then, and from thenceforth ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... stain, never tinge, its sacred purity; the savage Indian, though he sees little to admire in a flower, yet seeing this one would veil his face and turn back; even the browsing beast crashing his way through the forest, struck with its strange glory, would swerve aside and pass on without harming it. Afterwards I heard from some Indians to whom I described it that the flower I had discovered was called Hata; also that they had a superstition concerning it—a strange belief. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... softly, "it is not for you to question me, but to obey me! I have not undertaken this step without mastering all its details, and I refuse to allow you to swerve me in a single one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... what a predicament your precious advice has brought me; how much more practical my own arrangement was! The handkerchief looked inelegant, if you like, but it would have prevented me this trouble. Why did I swerve from my principles? Why was I led ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Just before the midyear examinations came a crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... a tough yarn," said Kinnison. "It's true enough to the character of Washington. He never let his feelings swerve him from the strict line of duty. But all that stuff about the Indian girl is somebody's invention, or the most extraordinary thing of the kind I've heard tell of. I don't doubt your friend's veracity, but it's a ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and smiled, and then bowed. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... examined; and that, when the guides of the church do institute any ceremonies as necessary for edification, yet ecclesia liberum habet judicium approbandi aut reprobandi eas.(157) Nay, the canon law,(158) prohibiting to depart or swerve from the rules and discipline of the Roman church, yet excepteth discretionem justitiae and so permitteth to do otherwise than the church prescribeth, if it be done cum discretione justitiae. The schoolmen also give liberty to a private ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... flushed with foolish pride, the soldiers pale with fear, The faltering flags, the feeble fire from ranks that swerve and veer, The wild mistakes, the dismal doubts, the coward hearts that flee— The good cause needs a nobler knight to ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... talk much. There was no noticeable change in him—a little more abstracted perhaps. He would walk in the street or come into a room with a quick look round him, and sometimes for no earthly reason he would swerve. Did you ever watch a cat crossing a room? It sidles along by the furniture and walks over an open space of carpet as if it were picking its way among obstacles. Well, Hollond behaved like that, but he had always been ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... governor in place of John Jay in 1800, the existing Legislature would undoubtedly have been reconvened in extra session, and presidential electors chosen favourable to his own party, as Hamilton wanted. But, at the bottom of his nature, there was bed-rock principle from which no pressure could swerve him. He could exclaim with Emerson, "I will say those things which I have meditated for their own sake and not for the first time with a view to that occasion." In these words is the secret of his relation to the Whig party. He asked no office, and he gave only the ripe fruit ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in the true humour of observation, will find in that sufficient company. From its subtle windings and changes of level there arises a keen and continuous interest, that keeps the attention ever alert and cheerful. Every sensitive adjustment to the contour of the ground, every little dip and swerve, seems instinct with life and an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The road rolls upon the easy slopes of the country, like a long ship in the hollows of the sea. The very margins of waste ground, as they trench a little farther on ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... street, then through a yet newer road made by the pulling down of old buildings in Lord-street, and reminding one by its sides of the ruins of Petra, and afterwards merged into the Orchard. To neither the right nor the left did we swerve, but moved on, the chapel being directly is front of us; but in a few moments afterwards we found ourselves surrounded by myriads of pots and a mighty cordon of crates—it was the pot fair. Thinking that the Orchard was public ground, and seeing the chapel so very ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... 2. Imply, signify, involve. 3. Martial, warlike, military, soldierlike. 4. Wander, deviate, err, stray, swerve, diverge. 5. Abate, decrease, diminish, lessen, moderate. 6. Emancipation, freedom, independence, liberty. 7. Old, ancient, antique, antiquated, obsolete. 8. Adorn, beautify, bedeck, decorate, ornament, 9. Active, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... nothing to divide the Covenanted ranks, or diminish their power, or swerve them from ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... then a flash of lightning would show him a solid mass of cattle hurling themselves upon him. At such times the lad would swerve his mount to the left a little and shoot ahead for a few moments, in an attempt to get sufficient lead of them to enable him to reach the right or upper end ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... broken-winded tootle on a coach-horn and the black-and- scarlet drag of the local garrison trundles into view. The unsophisticated gun-horses in the lead shy violently at the flapping canvas of an orange-stall and swerve to the left into a roulette-booth presided over by a vociferous ancient in a tattered overcoat and blue spectacles. The gamblers scatter like flushed partridges and the ancient bites the turf beneath his upturned board amid a shower of silver ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... baulked of Paris. Even now, looking back on those days, I sometimes wonder why they made that sudden swerve to the south-east, missing their great objective. It was for Paris that they had fought their way westwards and southwards through an incessant battlefield from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... long tail—and yelling fit to raise the world. The sparrow-hawk's skinny yellow claw, thrust forward, was clutching thin air an inch behind his central tail-feathers, but that was all she got of him—just thin air. There was no crash as he hurled into the green maze; but she, failing to swerve exactly in time, made a mighty crash, and retired somewhat dazed, thankful that she retained two whole wings to fly with. There is no room for big-winged sparrow-hawks in close cover, anyway, and Blackie, who was born to the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... ahead at full speed for a few hundred yards, as if to chase an adversary; then they would swerve aside, the slaves on one side rowing, while those on the other backed, so as to make a rapid turn. Then she lay for a minute or two immovable, and then backed water, or turned to avoid the attack of an imaginary foe. Then ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... shifting Proteus, changing now to this, now to the other aspect, never finding place, fashion, or ground to stay and settle in; but, without spoiling the harmony, conquers and overcomes the horrid monsters, and however much he may swerve, he easily returns to himself[B] by means of those inward instincts that, like the nine Muses, dance and sing round the splendours of the universal Apollo, and under tangible images and material things, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... found the lead truck and led the way. They neared the bar where Sheila was working, and Bruce Gordon swore. She was running toward the center of the street, frantically trying to flag him down, and he barely managed to swerve around her. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... powerful stride of his horse, but already the three rocks, gaunt and high, loomed before him as if forming an impassable barrier across the road. Suddenly, just as Jose and Gallito had almost reached them and the sheriff was gaining upon the fugitives in great leaps, he saw them swerve their horses aside and dash into a clump of trees to the right ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... immolation of Dunster the Rev. Mr. Mitchell had made up his mind that he "would have an argument able to remove a mountain" before he would swerve from his orthodoxy; he had since confirmed his faith by preaching "more than half a score ungainsayable sermons" "in defence of this comfortable truth," and he was now prepared to maintain it against ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... watching them. The woman looked at him, made some remark to the man, and then both grinned weakly, recognizing the situation. The man on the team drove carefully, but a stone on the outer side caused his team to swerve a trifle. The wheels hit the wheels of the buggy, and the cradle tilted swiftly on to the back of the balky mare, and she bolted. In all her experience of a long, balky life, a cradle as a means of breaking her spirit had not been encountered. James had not ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search of turtles' eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve off—and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the Americans finally returned to the quay, close to which the Arabella was moored. As they neared the place a great military automobile came tearing along, scattering pedestrians right and left, made a sudden swerve, caught a man who was not agile enough to escape and sent him spinning along the dock until he fell headlong, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... the Town of Neisse. I heard the roar of cannon and doleful shrieks. Above our batteries the whole atmosphere was inflamed; and to complete the calamity, I missed the way, and got lost in the darkness. Finally, in descending the hill, my horse, frightened, made a terrible swerve or side-jump. I did not know the cause; but after having, with difficulty, got him into the road again, I found myself opposite to a deserter who had been hanged that day! I was horribly disgusted by the sight; the gallows being very low, and the head of the malefactor almost ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... against Cavalry cohesion is the first and dominating condition. It must be absolutely impossible for the horses to swerve either to right or left. Accurate dressing and the maintenance of the two ranks come only in the second place. Against Infantry or Artillery, on the other hand, the essential is that every horse ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... every one. Curates mind the parish, Sweepers mind the Court, We'll away to Snowdon For our ten days' sport, Fish the August evening Till the eve is past, Whoop like boys at pounders Fairly played and grassed. When they cease to dimple, Lunge, and swerve, and leap, Then up over Siabod Choose our nest, and sleep. Up a thousand feet, Tom, Round the lion's head, Find soft stones to leeward And make up our bed. Bat our bread and bacon, Smoke the pipe of peace, And, ere we be drowsy, Give our boots a grease. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... had thought to shield and serve, Himself had ministry instead, He heard no vexing call to swerve From larger toil, for labors sped By smaller hand and ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... of his servants which had long been manifest to all his neighbours, with a view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to dismiss them from his service, and to offer my aid in effecting the object should he require it, and he promises me not to swerve from it, but afterwards relents and retains the impostors, I pity his weakness, but I do not consider it due to myself, or to my character, to insist upon his fulfilling his promise. By considering two cases so very distinct, the same, you have placed yourself in a disagreeable situation, for ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... no harm, but rather help all true love by repeating. "Of one thing rest you well assured—and I do hope that it may prove of service to your rest, love, else would my own be broken—no difference of rank, or fortune, or of life itself, shall ever make me swerve from truth to you. We have passed through many troubles, dangers, and dispartments, but never yet was doubt between us; neither ever shall be. Each has trusted well the other; and still each must do so. Though ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... lovely, and the gentle, became silent, reserved, and harsh. Nothing could swerve her from a determination made, and with feelings of the deepest parental affection for her daughter, she had crushed and broken her spirit in the sweet ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... with a sudden spurt of speed, tried to cross the highway. He did manage to do it, but by such a narrow margin that in very terror Andy Foger shut off the power, jammed down the brakes and steered to one side. So suddenly was he obliged to swerve over that the ponderous machine skidded and went into the ditch at the side of the road, where it brought ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... the ferns and brambles now, and we can go on. Are you comfortable?" He looked up, read her answer in her burning eyes and the warm lips pressed to his forehead at the roots of his straight dark hair, and again moved onward as in a mesmeric dream. But he did not swerve from his direct course, and with a final dash through the undergrowth parted the leafy ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... could be seen at work at the long gun, and another shot from it was momentarily expected. The instant the bow of the enemy began to swerve to port, the captain of the Bellevite gave the order to put the helm to starboard. Almost at the same instant the enemy stopped her screw, swung round and fired her long gun. The projectile crashed through the bulwarks between the foremast and ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... who love the negro more than the Union to induce the President to swerve from his established policy are unavailing. He will neither be persuaded by promises nor intimidated by threats. To-day he was called upon by two United States Senators and rather peremptorily requested to accept the services ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... cross the river by a suspension bridge, passing over Rensselaer Island and seeing ahead of us the handsome new freight houses of the D. & H.R.R., and to right and left the boats of the Hudson River Steamship lines lying against the wharves. Once over the bridge the tracks swerve to the right, and soon lead ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... by brother murderously slain, By right of kinship to the Princes dead, I claim and hold the throne and sovereignty. Yet 'tis no easy matter to discern The temper of a man, his mind and will, Till he be proved by exercise of power; And in my case, if one who reigns supreme Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied By fear of consequence, that man I hold, And ever held, the basest of the base. And I contemn the man who sets his friend Before his country. For myself, I call To witness Zeus, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the siction av Finnigin, On the road sup'rintinded by Flannigan, A rail give way on a bit av a curve, An' some kyars went off as they made the swerve. "There's nobody hurted," sez Finnigin, "But repoorts must be made to Flannigan." An' he winked at ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... with mind,— Be never stung into self-hate At crouching always in the crate Of prudent knowledge round him wrought, And so grow small as his own thought. Kings, think of the woman's body you love best How the beloved lines twin and merge, Go into rhyme and differ, swerve and kiss, Relent to hollows or like yearning pout,— Curves that come to wondrous doubt Or smooth into simplicities; Like a skill of married tunes Curdled out of the air; How it is all sung delivering magic To your pent hamper'd souls! I tell you, kings, yours are but stammer'd songs To ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... people that the reason he could not possibly resemble them, existed in the unhappy circumstance of having been subject to too strict an education under a family tutor, who had never suffered him to swerve from the one right way, and who (additional misfortune!) had inspired him with such a silly reverence for Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, that he had been induced to make them his models. "Whatever manners," says the emperor, "I may have previously contracted, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... lake. Towards it he fled at an undiminished pace: and Quita, sitting square and steady, with a rushing sound in her ears, foresaw that in less than five minutes her mad hope might be terribly fulfilled. For at the lake's edge the pony must needs swerve sharply, or come to a dead halt: and in either case, at their present rate of speed, she would be flung violently out of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Roger stood where he was. The distance to shore was not great if he was only certain of going straight ahead. To swerve from that direction meant wandering out to meet the cruel Jersey tide, presently coming in like a hunter on its prey. To remain where he was meant anxious hours for his mother and for Win, about whom Roger was already so ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... of a harem. But I adhered to my resolution; every method to induce me to speak was tried in vain; even blows, torture from pinching, and other means were resorted to, but would not induce me to swerve from my resolution; at last they concluded that I was either born dumb, or had become so from fright at the time that the attack and slaughter of my family took place. I was eighteen months in the harem of Osman Ali, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a backward step, as if to turn in another direction. But it was too late now. Both met in the narrow path. Not to touch her, he drew up against the bank, with a side swerve like a skittish horse, looking at her in a wild, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is no ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... measures. All on a sudden a tall, slender youth, in the coarse dress of a railway fireman, sprang from the midst of the pallid-faced group and, waving his handkerchief over his head, called back, "Stay where you are one minute!" and then, without a second's falter or swerve, straight for the nearest building, a low, one-story log-house, the manager's office near the mouth of the mine, waving his white signal high as his arm could reach, and shouting, "Don't fire—we are friends!" George Graham swiftly climbed for the upper level. ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... be an advanced woman, intellectual, daring; she would allow her stunted abilities to have definite expression. Either she would find a new circle of friends or else swerve the course of the present circle into an atmosphere of Ibsen, Pater, advanced feminine thought, and so on—with Egyptology as a special side line. She would even become an advocate of parlour socialism, ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions—not in these her honor dwells. She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... little deformed man, that he would give an exhibition with his pig, whose wonderful qualifications had already got noised over town, and attract a greater audience. Indeed, as I have resolved never to swerve from the truth in this history, it must be here acknowledged that the pig had become quite as famous ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... seconds must be divided into hundredths, and action must be instantaneous, instinctive, and without flaw. McGee felt one of the spreading limbs brush against his right wing tip, felt the plane swerve for a moment, then respond to rudder and aileron. It was a case where one moment he was supremely thankful for flying speed, and the next, as the ground of the level field was flashing under the wheels, wishing that he had held to his ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... to swerve an inch out of my road to oblige you, Bill Fletcher, you are almost as big a fool as you are a rascal," replied Christopher in a cool voice, as he brought his team to a halt and placed himself at the head of it with his long rawhide whip ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... themselves in this fiery ordeal to swerve from their duty to their State, through the temptation of personal gain, let me say that they will be branded and dishonored, despised at home and abroad; that they will be political pariahs forever, unless they reconsider ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Black Wolf and his band were out on the war-path. A soldier coming in wounded, escaped from the massacre of the post at Devil's Hoof Gap, had reported it. With the large command known to be here camped on Sweetstream Fork, they would not come this way; they would swerve up the Gunpowder River twenty miles away, destroying the settlement and Little Fort Slade, and would sweep on, probably for a general massacre, up the Great Horn as far as Fort Doncaster. He himself, with the regiment, would try to save Fort Slade, but in the meantime Captain Thornton's troop, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... shot out through the screen of concealing boughs into the broader stream beyond, and I struggled hastily to swerve the boat's bow upward against the current. The downward sweep of the water at this point was not particularly strong, the main channel being some distance further out, and we were soon making perceptible progress. The light ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... among the weeds something like fruits. By the 6th, Pinzon began to urge a southwesterly course, in order to find the islands, which the signs seemed to indicate in that direction. Still the Admiral would not swerve from his purpose, and kept his course westerly. On Sunday the Nina fired a bombard and hoisted a flag as a signal that she saw land, but it proved a delusion. Observing towards evening a flock of birds flying to the southwest, the Admiral yielded to Pinzon's ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... thrown their belongings into the car. Tom took the wheel, with Sam beside him, leaving the hired man to get in among the baggage. Then away they rolled, over the little bridge that spanned the river and connected the railroad station with the village of Dexter's Corners. Then, with a swerve that sent Jack Ness up against the side of the car, they struck into the country road leading to ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... the above rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion; but you are in no case to swerve from these rules, or to pass beyond ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... turning homeward, looked for the machines which would assuredly rise to intercept him. Already the Archies were banging away at him, and a fragment of shell had actually struck his fuselage. But he was not bothering about Archies. He did swerve toward a battery skilfully hidden behind a hayrick and drop two hopeful bombs, but he scarcely troubled to make ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... another instant one of the German planes was seen to swerve to one side, and then it darted downward, and in a manner to indicate that its pilot had been killed or wounded, for the machine was out of control. Like a dead leaf it descended, crashing into a shapeless mass in a field some distance from ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... appalling, was now not my only source of peril. Target could no more be guided nor stopped than could the forest fire. The trail grew more winding and overhung more thickly by pine branches. The horse did not swerve an inch for tree or thicket, but ran as if free, and the saving of my life began to be a matter of dodging. Once a crashing blow from a branch almost knocked me from the saddle. The wind in my ears half drowned the roar behind me. With ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... the face of the universe, Never to falter and never to swerve; Toil for it!—bleed for it!—if there be need for it, Stretch every sinew ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... arm Ootah pushed forward after the moving team. He knew they were being carried steadily and slowly seaward, but he had hopes that the ice field would swerve landward toward the south where an armlike glacier jutted, elbow-fashion, into the ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... delicate sentiment, or lofty aspiration, in a book than in a life. The written leaf, if it be, as some few are, a safe-keeper and conductor of celestial fire, is secure. Poverty cannot pinch, passion swerve, or trial shake it. But the man Lessing, harassed and striving life-long, always poor and always hopeful, with no patron but his own right-hand, the very shuttlecock of fortune, who saw ruin's ploughshare drive through the hearth on which his first home-fire was hardly kindled, and who, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... got into the city I can't tell to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened my eyes we had skinned through, leaving a corpulent and cursing driver far behind. After ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... all his clear insight into this Universe, the message of Heaven through him, which he could not suppress, but was inspired and compelled to utter in this world by such methods as he had. There for him lay the first commandment; this is what it would have been the unforgivable sin to swerve from and desert: the treason of treasons for him, it were there; compared with which ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... stable too fast, the sagacious Pendennis saving himself from going through a partition by a swerve which splintered a shaft of the runabout and almost threw the driver to the floor. George swore, and then swore again at the fat old darkey, Tom, for giggling at ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... electric bell rapidly twice, and there began a curious game. The other car put on extra speed and darted ahead—their own shot forward and kept abreast of it. It slowed suddenly, and made as if to swerve in behind; Blaine's driver slowed also, until both cars almost came to a grinding halt. Three times these maneuvers were repeated, and then there occurred what the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... had released himself from the strait-jacket, and with the speed of a panther had ascended the stairs. He saw the monster crashing through the last remaining barrier, and without hesitation he fired at the thing as he closed in. His one thought was to delay it or make it swerve in its course momentarily, with the hope that by some chance Eva might have time to escape. Could he only accomplish this, he thought his mission successful, regardless of the outcome as far ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... half-furtive quickness that marks a self-absorbed man; and as he passed the policeman standing stolidly under the arched door-way of the big court-yard he swerved a little, as if startled out of his thoughts. He realized his swerve almost before it was accomplished, and pulled himself ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... help me over to the house, I could manage all right. What a beastly nuisance! It wasn't your fault a bit. Only you tackled me when I was just trying to swerve, and my ankle ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... are prepared to utter falsehoods, Jacques, for the sake of shielding me, you will lose my approbation. I shall be very angry with you if you do so. You understand; you must not swerve ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... and reputation are concerned in supporting with dignity the character you now bear. Let no motive, therefore, make you swerve from your duty, violate your vows or betray your trust; but be true and faithful, and imitate the example of that celebrated artist whom you have this evening represented. Thus you will render yourself deserving of the honor which we have conferred, and merit the ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... surrender a post of honour which every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, "the leadership of the country gentlemen of England," will never influence me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes in the British empire at home and in the colonies, any more than they can ever make me forget the attachment, the friendship, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... loyal to the King of France, affirming that they would never take the oath of allegiance to the crown of England, to the prejudice of what they owed to their King, their country, and their religion, and intimating their resolution, in the event of any attempt to make them swerve from their fidelity to France, or to interfere with the exercise of their religion, to leave the country and betake themselves to Cape Breton, then called the Ile Royale. And they there remained until 1755, at which time the English and New England ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... of the Adventurer caused her mind to swerve sharply off at a tangent. Where he had piqued and aroused her curiosity before, he now, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. It was strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. 100 Good morrow; for, as I take it, it ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad |
