"Swifter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he was stronger and swifter of foot than any of his tribe. He became a mighty hunter. He knew the ways of all the wild things and could read the signs of the seasons. As he grew older they made him a chief and listened while he spoke at the council board, but Wo was not satisfied. His name was a question and questioning ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... of "The Sleeper" grew in volume, and that the people on the nearer platform were standing up. The nearer swifter platform he perceived was empty to the right of him, and far across the space the platform running in the opposite direction was coming crowded and passing away bare. With incredible swiftness a vast crowd had gathered in the central space before his eyes; a dense swaying ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelike body, and her head, erect, eager, and snake-like itself. Her sharp, menacing cry sent the hair bristling along his back, and he snarled warningly at her. She came closer and closer. There was a leap, swifter than his unpractised sight, and the lean, yellow body disappeared for a moment out of the field of his vision. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth buried ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... urged his horse to greater effort and the animal responded nobly. For a moment he kept pace with Hal's swifter mount. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... imposes upon Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS. He has to "surpass himself," but he must not do it once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic "greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement, all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all reserving ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... looked on queerly, appraising him anew. He took Woods's blows when he must and felt the pain go stabbing through his body; but he stood up and struck back and forced the fight steadily, crowding his adversary relentlessly, seeming always to strike swifter and harder. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... another. The race has grown more desperate and more wild as the stampede neared the sea. The weaker reindeer have been thrown down, and trampled to death by their stronger fellows. A thousand sharp hoofs have crushed and cut through hide and flesh and bone. Ever swifter and more terrible in their motion, the ruthless herd has raced onward, careless of the slain, careless of food, careless of any drink but the sharp salt water ahead of them. And when at last the Laplanders reach the shore their deer are once more quietly grazing, once more ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... Sam. ii. 1). He will do nothing in this crisis of his fortunes, when all which had been so long a hope seemed to be rapidly becoming a fact, until his Shepherd shall lead him. Rapid and impetuous as he was by nature, schooled to swift decisions, followed by still swifter action, knowing that a blow struck at once, while all was chaos and despair at home, might set him on the throne, he holds nature and policy and the impatience of his people in check to hear what God will say. So fully did he fulfil the vow of his early ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... out into the swirling water. Blake was still swifter in his movements. He caught the fugitive by the arm ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... approached, Jane could distinguish Garth's slim, agile figure, in white flannels and the violet shirt; and young Ronnie, huge and powerful, trusting to the terrific force of his cuts and drives to counterbalance Garth's keener eye and swifter turn of wrist. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... correspond by messages; the result is, Olaf resolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to call a Thing, and openly claim his kingship there. The Thing itself was willing enough: opposition parties do here and there bestir themselves; but Olaf is always swifter than they. Five kinglets somewhere in the Uplands, [11]—all descendants of Haarfagr; but averse to break the peace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon Jarl both have always willingly allowed to peaceable people,—seem to be the main opposition party. These five take the field against Olaf with ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... the St. Lawrence. Ever a demon of unrest drove Law forward; ever there beckoned to him that irresistible West, of which he was one of the earliest to feel the charm. Farther and farther westward, swift and swifter than ever the boats of the fur traders had made the journey before, he and his party, led by Du Mesne, the ex-galley-slave and wanderer whom Law had by chance met again, and gladly, at Montreal, had made the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... swifter than the others, darted for the chair, but Joel was not in it. On the other side of it, looking at them, his hands out of his pockets, he stood, saying, "What ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... it," she murmured again, half breathlessly, as I drew her with swifter and more voluptuous motion into the vortex of the dancers. "You tried to be cold, but I knew I could make you love me—yes, love me passionately—and I was right." Then with an outburst of triumphant vanity she added, "I believe you would ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... (sings). To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed Paws the ground and snuffs the air! There's not a foal of Arab's breed 550 More knows whom he must bear; On the hill he will not tire, Swifter as it waxes higher; In the marsh he will not slacken, On the plain be overtaken; In the wave he will not sink, Nor pause at the brook's side to drink; In the race he will not pant, In the combat he'll not faint; On ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... then rejoined the rest of the party, and the engine having received its supply of water, the carriage was placed behind it, for it cannot turn, and was set off at its utmost speed, thirty-five miles an hour, swifter than a bird flies (for they tried the experiment with a snipe). You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the air was; the motion is as smooth as possible, too. I could either have read or written; and as it was, I stood up, and with my bonnet off 'drank the air before me.' ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... unchanged, the glad rush of its waters was as joyous as ever, but the spirits were quieted that used to answer it with sweeter freshness and lighter joyousness. Its faint echo of the old-time laugh was blended now in Fleda's ear with a gentle wail for the rushing days and swifter fleeing delights of human life;—gentle, faint, but clear,—she could hear it very well. Taking up her walk again with a step yet slower and a brow yet more quiet, she went on till she came in sight of the little mill; and presently above the noise of the brook could hear the saw ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... unknown. By January, General Cameron had passed beyond Ngaruawahia, the village which had been the Maori King's head-quarters, and which stood at the fine river-junction where the brown, sluggish Waipa loses its name and waters in the light-green volume of the swifter Waikato. Twice the English beat the enemy in the triangle between the rivers. A third encounter was signalised by the most heroic incident in the Colony's history. Some three hundred Maoris were shut up in entrenchments at a place called ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... and got once more to the sunken ledge, panting and perspiring, for they had worked hard and the current seemed, therefore, even swifter now than before. There, holding their canoe in place, they waited a little longer than on the first attempt, to ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... first, merely sceptical or negative step, that easiest step on the threshold, had alone remained in general memory; and the "doctrine of motion" seemed to those who had felt its seduction to make all fixed knowledge impossible. The swift passage of things, the still swifter passage of those modes of our conscious being which seemed to reflect them, might indeed be the burning of the divine fire: but what was ascertained was that they did pass away like a devouring flame, or like ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... and tent, all of exquisite manufacture; and while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she prayed, "that her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of reindeer; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... bell, and with an explosive cough that shook her big frame almost free of the rails the Mogul heaved slowly ahead. The shortened "Time Freight" picked up its heels and came jerkily after, and with her ponderous drivers rolling swifter and swifter, and the heavy panting speedily changing to short, quick, and quickening puffs, faster and faster big 705 swung clear of the switch-points, smoothly rounded to the main line, and with its dozen brown chickens following close, Indian file, after the fussy old ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... of this, for they increased their speed, and one or two swifter of foot than the others, got a-head of them and cried out aloud ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... many canoes of a single piece of wood, and, though narrow, yet in length and shape similar to our row-boats, but swifter in movement. They steer only by oars. Some of these boats are large, some small, some of medium size. Yet they row many of the larger row-boats with eighteen cross-benches, with which they cross to all those islands, which are innumerable, and with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... him. Ken stepped up again. The pitcher whirled slowly this time, turning with long, easy motion, and threw underhand. The ball sailed, floated, soared. Long before it reached Ken it had fooled him completely. He chopped at it vainly. The next ball pitched came up swifter, but just before it crossed the plate it seemed to stop, as if pulled back by a string, and then dropped down. Ken fell to his knees ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... conclusions on the point, and I was the acknowledged leader of the school. Athletics, indeed, were my strong point, for I may say, almost without egotism, that I had so cultivated my muscles to the sad neglect of my proper studies, that I could swim like a fish, dive like an Indian pearl hunter, run swifter than anybody else, and play cricket and football with the best; but, as far as my real school duties were concerned, I'm afraid I was a sad dunce, as I was always at ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the strait waistcoat, yet I happened to be swifter than any of them. The keeper was soon the first in the chase: it was up a narrow lane, with a high-banked hedge on each side. A man was coming down it, and the keeper called to him to stop me. The man seeing my arms confined, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... eye, From whence he sees his absent brother fly, With transport views the airy rule his own, And swells on an imaginary throne. 450 Fain would he cast a tedious age away, And live out all in one triumphant day. He chides the lazy progress of the sun, And bids the year with swifter motion run: With anxious hopes his craving mind is toss'd And all his joys in ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... dance for you," he said to Laurie, and seven pigeons stepped into the centre of the room. They began with a faint flutter of their wings, turning their heads from side to side, gradually growing swifter in their motion, until their brilliant colors blended and intermingled in a beautiful prismatic effect. It was like a wonderful rainbow dance, only the colors changed as the pigeons moved about, and they opened and closed their wings in ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... triumphant! Earthly torment The Poet soul did fully bear, Extinguished are the lights inspired, The laurel crown lies leafless there! The murderer contemptuous gazing Did stedfastly his weapon aim, No swifter beat his heart, Assassin! Nor shook his lifted hand for shame. No wonder; from a distance came he As an adventurer unknown, For worthy title, star of order— Stood but his mad desire alone. Sneering and self-complacent ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... Swifter than an eagle, Perseus flew up towards the sky. Then he turned, and the Magic Slippers bore him over the sea straight towards the north. On and on he went, and soon the sea was passed; and he came to a famous land, where ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... imagination are for the purpose of assigning to each its separate intellectual capacities. From these orderings follows his idea that poetry is of an earlier date than philosophy, the product of an irregular faculty, less governable than the reason and of swifter development. In turn, these assumptions lead into a form of historical primitivism in which the products of the first poets were "extemporary effusions," rudely imitative of pastoral scenes or celebratory of the divine being. Thus ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... to the waving leaf and getting a free ride at the expense of the already overburdened Medium. Ten is the extreme number seen, but six to eight Minims collected on a single leaf is not uncommon. Several times I have seen one of these little banner-riders shift deftly from leaf to leaf, when a swifter carrier passed by, as a circus bareback rider changes ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... ground. When it dropped, the slave was anchored; and at night his arm was tied to the end of the pole which he carried, so that a whole file was hobbled during sleep. If any one became too enfeebled to preserve his place, the brutal keepers transferred him to the swifter voracity of the hyena, who scented the wake of the caravan across the waste to the sea's margin, where the shark ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... doctor; "for, though it is doubtless able to leap with great accuracy upon its prey, we saw it took some time to recharge the upper air-chamber, so that, were it not armed with poison glands, it would fall an easy victim to its more powerful and swifter contemporaries, and would soon ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... men of Erin to smite and to batter, to cut and to hew, to slay and to destroy the others for a long space and while. Next came to them the nine chariot-fighters of the champions from Norseland, and the three foot-warriors along with them, and no swifter were the nine chariot-men than the three men ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Walter Furst). Meanwhile to arms, and wait in readiness. The fiery signal on the mountain tops! For swifter than a boat can scour the lake Shall you have tidings of our victory; And when you see the welcome flames ascend Then, like the lightning, swoop upon the foe, And lay the despots and their ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... over the course before and knew pretty well what was ahead of him. The wind was blowing stiffly straight up the lake and the boat silently, and swifter than the fastest express, was flying from Canada and lessening the distance to the ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... all reason, despite even the evidence of her own eyes, Cornelia kept a reserve. And in that pitiful last meeting, there had been a flash from Hyde's eyes, that said to her—she knew not what of unconquerable love and wrong and sorrow—a flash swifter than lightning and equally potential. It had stirred into tumult and revolt all the platitudes with which she had tried to quiet her restless heart; made her doubtful, pitiful and uncertain of all things, even while her lover's reckless gaiety seemed to confirm her worst suspicions. ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... was the material creation, when, suddenly blazing forth in mid space, the new-born sun dispelled the darkness of the ancient night. But infinitely more magnificent is it when the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all outward things, revealing the beauty of their colors, and the exquisite symmetry of their proportions and forms; when the light of reason penetrates to their invisible properties and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... The desire of the thing wasted them, and they forgot to eat and ceased to talk among themselves. But one day Shon McGann, muttering aves as he rode, gained on the cattle, until once again the Scarlet Hunter came forth from a cleft of the mountains, and drove the herd forward with swifter feet. But the Irishman had learned the power in this thing, and had taught Trafford, who knew not those availing prayers, and with these sacred conjurations on their lips they gained on the cattle length by length, though the Scarlet Hunter rode abreast ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... terror-striking sword, His own fierce heart had tempered like its blade. What slaughter followed! Ah! what conflict wild! What swifter journeys unto darksome death! But blame not him! Ourselves have madly turned On one another's breasts that cunning edge Wherewith he meant mere blood of ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... of the slain, From the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan turned not back, And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided; They were swifter than eagles, They were ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all that in the preceding argument we placed under the unity of ...
— Philebus • Plato
... the very limit of the serpent striking range, and begin to feint,—teasing him, startling him, trying to draw his blow. How the emerald and the topazine eyes glow then!—they are flames! A moment more and the triangular head, hissing from the coil, flashes swift as if moved by wings. But swifter still the stroke of the armed paw that dashes the horror aside, flinging it mangled in the dust. Nevertheless, pussy does not yet dare to spring;—the enemy, still active, has almost instantly reformed his coil;—but ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... rushes in; sometimes the air opens the lungs that it may. The desire is all but contemporaneous with the fulfilment, in Christ's dealing with men. The message is flashed along the wire from earth to heaven, in an incalculably brief space of time, and the answer comes, swift as thought and swifter than light. So, dear friends, there is no reason whatever why a similar instantaneous change should not pass over any man who hears the Good News. He may be unsaved when his hearing of it begins, and saved when his hearing of it ends. It is for himself ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... broke into a swifter run, almost losing his presence of mind from his great, agonizing fear. The picture of the Indian, whom he had felled to the floor, when he insulted his wife years before, rose before him, and he saw his child already struggling in the savage's merciless grasp. Nearer ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... parts, agreeably to the scale of art. Moreover, the subject represented is handled according to the laws of theatrical exhibition; everything foreign and incongruous is kept out, while all that is essential to the matter in hand is hurried on with swifter progress than in real life; over the whole, viz., the situations and characters, a certain clearness and distinctness of appearance is thrown, which the vague and indeterminate outlines of reality seldom possess. Thus the form ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Swifter and swifter the bright boat sped, But the hands spake thin like men long dead - "How striking like that boat were we In the days, sweet days, ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... welnigh midnight, they made us trudge in our way apace. Then I fearing the great danger which might happen, ran amongst the middle of the other Horses, to the end I might defend and save my poore buttocks from the Wolves, whereat every man much marvelled to see, that I scowred away swifter then the other Horses. But such was my agility, not to get me any prayse, but rather for feare: at that time I remembered with my selfe, that the valiant Horse Pegasus did fly in the ayre more to avoyd the danger of ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... rifle shot had been swifter, Less trouble a sabre thrust, But his Fate decided fever, And each man ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... flight, Swifter far than youth's delight, Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... glared he was already close to the yawning throat of a passage. He ran on the swifter for the light, entered the passage and turned a corner into absolute night again. He was knocked sideways, rolled over, and recovered his feet. He found himself one of a crowd of invisible fugitives pressing in one direction. His one thought now was their thought ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... superficially contrasting. She is the Romola of a different race and clime, a different nurture, and an era which, chronologically nearly the same, is in reality far removed. For the warm and swift Italian we have the yet warmer and swifter Gypsy blood; for the long line of noble ancestry, descent from an outcast and degraded race; for the nurture amid the environments, almost in the creed of classicism, the upbringing under noble female charge in a household of that land where the Roman Church had just sealed its full ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... of a boy still, was Jimmy Challoner. Perhaps he would never grow up into a man as Kettering and Sangster understood the word; but his very boyishness was what Christine had first loved in him. Perhaps he could have chosen no surer or swifter way to her forgiveness ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... high mettle leaped to vivid life, and then, as though the flag had dropped, the starting drum had tapped, Van's fleeting spirit whirled into his dying race. Lying on his side, his hoofs flew through the air, his powerful limbs worked back and forth swifter than ever in their swiftest gallop, his eyes were aflame, his nostrils wide distended, his chest heaving, and his magnificent machinery running like lightning. Only for a minute, though,—only for one short, painful minute. It was only a half-mile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... survivors at length began to move off rapidly across our front, to their left. As yet there was no running away, they were but changing direction and massing at another point. With, if possible, swifter, deadlier fire they were followed and driven. Maxims, Lee-Metfords, and Martini-Henrys from Maxwell's brigade shattered the loose and weakened dervish columns. The few rounds fired back at us by the enemy from their Krupp gun and rifled cannon, which were stationed ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... written on parchment with a reed [78] dipped in ink, [79] but far more frequently on waxen tablets with the stilus. Wax was preferred to other material, as admitting a swifter hand and an easier erasure. When Cicero wrote, his ideas came so fast that his handwriting became illegible. His brother more than once complains of this defect. We hear of his writing three letters to Atticus in one day. Familiar missives like these were penned ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... expedition arrived at Binu, a cluster of twenty houses on the river bank. And from here thirty odd Binu men accompanied them, armed with spears and arrows, chattering and grimacing with delight at the warlike array. The long quiet stretches of river gave way to swifter water, and progress was slower and more dogged. The Balesuna grew shallow as well, and oftener were the loaded boats bumped along and half-lifted over the bottom. In places timber-falls blocked the passage of the narrow stream, and the boats and canoes were portaged around. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... Schmettau), which indeed seems to have been the fact on every small occasion;—"but fatally forbidden to try." Not so fatally perhaps, had Schmettau looked beyond his epaulettes: was not the thing, by that slow method, got done? By the swifter method, awakening a new Seven-Years business, how infinitely ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... FAWN once said to his Mother, "You are larger than a dog, and swifter, and more used to running, and you have your horns as a defense; why, then, O Mother! do the hounds frighten you so?" She smiled, and said: "I know full well, my son, that all you say is true. I have the advantages ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... savage mouths of the huge guns, the blackened timbers of a burned blockade-runner showed above the water at low tide. Coming in from Nassau with a cargo of priceless value to the gasping Confederacy, she was observed and chased by one of our vessels, a swifter sailer, even, than herself. The war ship closed rapidly upon her. She sought the protection of the guns of Fort Fisher, which opened venomously on the chaser. They did not stop her, though they were less than half a mile away. In another minute she ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and disappear. There was a reason why no one should know, not even McDowell. It must be their secret. Some day he would tell her why. Her heart thumped excitedly as he went on like a boy planning a wonderful day. He could see the swifter beat of it in the flush that rose into her face and the joy glowing tremulously in her eyes as she looked at him. They would get ready quietly. They might go tomorrow, the next day, any time. It would be a glorious adventure, just they ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... those days were men, because necessity had made it a habit to them, and swifter still, as a matter of course, were impulsive boys. Their tree nest fairly made, work, they decided, must begin at once. The only point to be determined upon was regarding the location of the pit. There was a tempting spread of green herbage some hundred feet to the north and ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... drums throbbed swifter Bakahenzie began to shuffle in a stooping posture as if he were snuffing a trail. To the continuous grunting he continued this dance for fully a quarter of an hour. Then stopping abruptly in front of the king ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of joy, "on pinions swifter than the wind. Not the lingering of an instant will I bear. Look! one, two, three—thirty minutes after nine. I will reach Curling's gate by the morn's dawn. I will put my girl into a chaise, and by noon she shall throw herself into the arms of her sister. But first, shall ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... decided to go hunting over the saw-tooth range which formed the edge of the world. They tried to dissuade him, saying it was certain death because a pack of monstrous white wolves, taller than the moose and swifter than the eagle, was known to range these mountains, running madly in chase. Always, on clear, cold nights, could be seen the flashing of the moonbeams from their gleaming hungry sides, and although many hunters had crossed the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Epicurus does intolerable things and violates the conceptions, in moving all bodies with equal celerity, and admitting none of them to be swifter than another. And yet it is much more intolerable and farther remote from sense, that nothing can ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Jonathan, brother! In life ye were pleasant and lovely to see; And still in your death ye are lovely together, Tho' great is my grief, and my sorrow, for thee. Ye were swifter than eagles, ye heaven anointed, And stronger than lions, thou glorious pair, Bur sad was the day, that Jehovah appointed, To humble your ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... won, Profaned the temple of Solomon, Slaying the patriarch at the fount. 'Twas he who in plight unto Gan the count, His sword with a thousand coins bestowed. Gramimond named he the steed he rode, Swifter than ever was falcon's flight; Well did he prick with the sharp spurs bright, To strike Duke Samson, the fearless knight. Buckler and cuirass at once he rent, And his pennon's flaps through his body sent; Dead he cast him, with levelled spear. "Strike, ye heathens; their doom is ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... scientific logic of the insurance tables and the sad conviction of the psalmist, one sees it go with a passionate prescience of never seeing its like again such as the younger witness cannot know. Each new summer of the few left must be shorter and swifter than the last: its Junes will be thirty days long, and its Julys and Augusts thirty-one, in compliance with the almanac; but the days will be of so small a compass that fourteen of them will rattle round in a week of the old size like shrivelled ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... swifter. Did ever horses gallop so fast? Swifter and yet swifter, till the air sang past them and the ground seemed to fly away beneath. The slope was done. They were on the flat; the flat was past, they were in the fields; the fields were left behind; and, behold! ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... eye on HALDANE, Ex-Minister of War, The sleek and supple-minded And suave Lord Chancellor, Whose brain, so keen and subtle, Moves swifter than a shuttle, Obscuring, like the cuttle, Things that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... I'll not be converted from one to the other. It were making a helot of a free man, and you do not love me, Fanfulla, if you drive this argument further. Do you think me sad, cast down, at the prospect of this banishment? Why, boy, the blood runs swifter through my veins since I heard the sentence. It frees me from Babbiano in an hour when perhaps my duty—the reciprocation of the people's love—might otherwise have held me here, and it gives me liberty to go forth, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... the word that April saith To change the cold heart of the weary time, To stir and soften all the time to tears, Tears joyfuller than mirth; As even to May's clear height the young days climb With feet not swifter than those fair first years Whose flowers revive not ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... their rifles from them and were scattering in all directions over the ice, but that gleaming wave, that Juggernaut of grinding bergs, was swifter than they, and bore down upon them at the speed of a racehorse. It shot them into the air like so many playthings, caught them up again, and bore them away in its ravenous maw like the insatiable Moloch that it was. In ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... make the ground in a safe place? With every ounce of power, his propeller crank revolving like lightning, still he made alarmingly slow progress. Good reason why. Two of his propeller blades were shot off. The other two were revolving swifter than can be imagined. He felt that he was drifting down, down, amid the riff-raff, smoke and confusion of a battlefield over, which the thunders of conflict had ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... the Big River. So to save time he led us close to shore. And then it happened. There was a bang, bang of a terrible gun, and down fell Mr. Quack just as we had seen so many fall before. It was awful. There was Mr. Quack flying in front of me on swift, strong wings, and there never was a swifter, stronger flier or a handsomer Duck than Mr. Quack, and then all in the wink of an eye he was tumbling helplessly down, down to the water below, and I was flying on alone, for the other Ducks turned off, and I don't know what became of them. I couldn't stop to see what became of Mr. Quack, because ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... strained and opened with a jerk, thrusting out a coronet of little sharp tips, spreading a whorl of tiny, spiky, brownish leaves, that lengthened rapidly, lengthened visibly even as we watched. The movement was slower than any animal's, swifter than any plant's I have ever seen before. How can I suggest it to you—the way that growth went on? The leaf tips grew so that they moved onward even while we looked at them. The brown seed-case ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... stream flowing with a muddy one, Till, in its onward current, it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother, A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite. Shadow forth thee; the world hath not another Of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no 'arm?" cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard the news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi's. ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... of his father in the church of San Gennaro?' 'Do you then know his family?' I asked with great surprise. Zanoni made me no answer, and the next moment I was engaged with the Sicilian. To do him justice, his imbrogliato was magnificent, and a swifter lounger never crossed a sword; nevertheless," added Cetoxa, with a pleasing modesty, "he was run through the body. I went up to him; he could scarcely speak. 'Have you any request to make,—any affairs to settle?' He shook his head. 'Where would you wish ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... untiring wing Strike music from a world that wailed and strove, Each bright soul born and every glorious thing, From very freedom to man's joy thereof, O time, O change and death, Whose now not hateful breath But gives the music swifter feet to move Through sharp remeasuring tones Of refluent antiphones More tender-tuned than heart or throat of dove, Soul into soul, song into song, Life changing into life, by laws ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was his flight, the working of his brain was even swifter, and very soon, without slackening his speed, he was swerving round again towards the open. He could see the moonlight gleaming through the trees, and he made a dash for it, utterly reckless, since caution was of no avail, but alert for every danger, cunning for ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the "Flitter" steamed off down the bay, and the flight of the prodigal grand-son was on. No swifter, cleaner, handsomer boat ever sailed out of the harbor of New York, and it was a merry crowd that she carried out to sea. Brewster's guests numbered twenty-five, and they brought with them a liberal supply of maids, valets, ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... and once more took their place on the bear skin. The singers and dancers in the center of the great throng began their weird chants and slow rhythmical steps. The tom-tom burst forth, the chants became louder, the dance swifter. The maidens took up the chant, first low and sweet, and as it grew higher and louder, the young braves added their voices, then the older people joined the chorus. Torches of cedar, burning like rockets, were thrown into the air, the tom-toms pealed out their muffled notes, and ...
— The Sheep Eaters • William Alonzo Allen
... since man is the noblest of animals, his body ought to be the best disposed in what is proper to an animal, that is, in sense and movement. But some animals have sharper senses and quicker movement than man; thus dogs have a keener smell, and birds a swifter flight. Therefore man's body was not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Stranger it seemed, if thou couldst cast away Those golden musics as a thing of nought, A dream for which no longer thou hadst need! Ah, was it here then that the break of day Brought thee the substance for the shadow, taught Thy soul a swifter road To ease it of its load And watch this world of shadows as a ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... ceased, and we saw through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lances, with their red pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white coat was pierced from behind. The lancers were Poles—the most terrible warriors I have ever seen, and, to speak truth, our friends, and our brothers. They never turned from us in our hour of need; they gave us the last drop of their blood. ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Why do some live rather than others? If all the individuals of each species were exactly alike in every respect, we could only say it is a matter of chance. But they are not alike. We find that they vary in many different ways. Some are stronger, some swifter, some hardier in constitution, some more cunning. An obscure colour may render concealment more easy for some, keener sight may enable others to discover prey or escape from an enemy better than their fellows. Among plants the smallest differences may be useful ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the Ouled Nail scattered their feather-crowned dancing girls from Ceuta to Suez. And in the Atlas it entered the hill castles of Kabyles, whose unveiled, fierce-eyed, red-haired women, drenched with half a dozen perfumes, and clattering with silver, coral, turquoise and gold, were swifter than snakes ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... Kilmer in The Bookman, Richard LeGallienne speaks of young poets "touched with the ringer of a moonlight that has written 'fated' upon their brows," adding, "Probably our feeling is nothing more than our realization that temperaments so vital and intense must inevitably tempt richer and swifter fates than those ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... inward triumph doth my soul up-heave And spread abroad through endlesse 'spersed aire. My nimble mind this clammie clod doth leave, And lightly stepping on from starre to starre Swifter then lightning, passeth wide and farre, Measuring th' unbounded Heavens and wastfull skie; Ne ought she finds her passage to debarre, For still the azure Orb as she draws nigh Gives back, new starres appear, the worlds ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... severe earthquake must be! how terrible it is to feel this heaving of the solid earth, to lose our confidence in its security, and to be reminded that the elements of destruction which lurk beneath our feet, are yet swifter and more powerful to destroy, than those which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... asses in greatest abundance, with plenty of ostriches; besides these, there were bustards and antelopes. These creatures were occasionally chased by the cavalry. The asses, when pursued, would run forward a space, and then stand still—their pace being much swifter than that of horses; and as soon as the horses came close, they went through the same performance. The only way to catch them was for the riders to post themselves at intervals, and to hunt them in relays, as it were. The ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... was dizzy with the thought of these millions and millions of dollars, and all these hundreds and hundreds of persons culling them upon the beach and flying in the air higher and swifter than eagles. ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... second day to see about mules. The Turk with a trade to make believes that of several partners one is always "easier" than the rest; consequently, one man can bring him to see swifter reason than a number can. He came back that evening with twelve good mules ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... perceiving the tactics of the swifter schooner, was now tacking about with the intention of bringing the gun to bear upon her once more as she attempted to slip by. But Captain Jack in his new-fanned fury had made up his mind to a desperate ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... crimes, And that my fortunes were esteem'd thy faults, That thou for me wert hated, and not think I would with winged haste prevent that change, When thou might'st win all to thyself again, By forfeiture of me! Did those fond words Fly swifter from thy lips, than this my brain, This sparkling forge, created me an armour T' encounter chance and thee? Well, read my charms, And may they lay that hold upon thy senses, As thou hadst snuft up hemlock, or ta'en down The juice of poppy and of mandrakes. Sleep, Voluptuous Caesar, and security ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... behind us, and soon afterwards the distant bellowing, mixed up with the roaring and sharper cries of other animals, were borne down unto our ears. The atmosphere grew oppressive and heavy, while the flames, swifter than the wind, appeared raging upon the horizon. The fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with wolves and panthers; droves of elks and antelopes passed swifter than ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... who began fighting with him was called, because of her swiftness, Aella, or Bride of the Wind; but she found in Hercules a swifter opponent, was forced to yield and was in her swift flight overtaken by him and vanquished. A second fell at the first attack; then Prothoe, the third, who had come off victor in seven duels, also fell. Hercules laid ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... proud, but good-hearted Gloucestershire baron—he had wooed and won her, too, with the full consent of father, kinsmen, and friends, and he was now on his way to the baron's castle to arrange with his betrothed the ceremonial of the nuptials. Ride on, thou gallant knight, ride on, and swifter too; for though the day will be yet early when thou arrivest, thou wilt find thyself expected within the Gothic enciente of the Baron de Botetourt's dwelling. A banner waves from the topmost tower to do thee honor and welcome; there walks, too, by the battlements, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... me from the lions, for I fear This soul of mine they will in pieces tear. Come, then, and let us both expostulate The case betwixt us, till we animate And kindle in our hearts that burning love To Christ, to grace, to life, that we may move Swifter than eagles to this blessed prey; Then shall it be well with us in that day The trump shall sound, the dead made rise, and stand, Then to receive, for breach of God's command, Such thunder-claps as these, Depart from me Into hell-fire, you that the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... their passing still in the air, Keith rode on, the noise dying away in his rear. As the hours passed, his horse wearied and had to be spurred into the swifter stride, but the man seemed tireless. The sun was an hour high when they climbed the long hill, and loped into Carson City. The cantonment was to the right, but Keith, having no report to make, rode directly ahead down the one long street to a livery corral, leaving his horse there, and ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... much regarded by the Prince, and resolved to gain yet higher honours. "Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of what the mechanic sciences can perform. I have been long of opinion that, instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots, man might use the swifter migration of wings, that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... could avail against such overwhelming numbers as assailed the Union right. The stream of disorganized men flowing back from the thickets became wider and swifter every minute; every minute, too, the din of the conflict came closer; every minute the tide of battle rolled on to regiments lying nearer ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... active, when the man is weary; it is clear-headed and collected, when the man is stupid and dull; it needs no slumber, when man must sleep or drop; ever at its post, ever ready for work, its alacrity never flags, its patience never gives in; its might is stronger than combined hundreds, and swifter than the flight of birds; it can burrow beneath the earth, and walk upon the largest rivers and sink not. This is the green tree; what then shall ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the actual visible losses owing to the presence of the language difficulty. No one can estimate the value of the losses entailed by the absence of free intercourse due to removable linguistic barriers. Potential (but at present non-realized) extension of goodwill, swifter progress, and wider knowledge represent one side of their value; while consequent non-realized increase in volume of actual business represents their value in money. The negative statement of absence of results from intercourse that never took place affords no ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... favourite hound," answered Eumaeus, "and there was none swifter or keener of scent in all the land. Formerly the young men would take him with them to hunt the wild goat or the hare or the deer; but now that he is sore stricken with years not one of the women ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... spite of this we covered the distance, which by land would have taken us eighty-eight hours, in three and one-half days. The river, therefore, must flow with an average velocity of almost four miles per hour. In places it is much swifter, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... own life and the lives of my three sons that are the best fighting men in the whole world." "We will take the beast for you if you have a mind," said Finn. "Do not try to do that," she said, "for I myself am swifter than you are, and I cannot come up with it." "We will not let it go till we know what sort of a beast is it," said Finn. "If you yourself or your share of men go after it, I will bind you hand and foot," ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... cottonwoods, she sometimes felt as if the water must have sovereign qualities, from having been the object of so much service and desire. That stream was the only living thing left of the drama that had been played out in the canyon centuries ago. In the rapid, restless heart of it, flowing swifter than the rest, there was a continuity of life that reached back into the old time. The glittering thread of current had a kind of lightly worn, loosely knit personality, graceful and laughing. Thea's bath came ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... as in old times the little skiff flew over the water, in the shadow of the mountain and the sunlight of the bay, coasting the shores, making acquaintance with the evergreens and oaks that skirted them and looked over into the water's edge. Where once Elizabeth had gone, Winthrop and Winnie with swifter and surer progress went; many an hour, in the early and the late sunbeams. For those weeks that they stayed, they lived in the beauties of the land, rather than according to old Karen's wish, on ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Time, thy foot for him Who gave thee swifter wings, Nor let thine envious shadow dim The ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... food. These powerful fishes make war upon no other living creature; and, though furnished with instruments to spread general destruction, are as innocent and as peaceful as a drove of oxen. The Narwal is much swifter than the whale, and would never be taken by the fishermen but for those very tusks, which at first appear to be its principal defence. These animals are always seen in herds of several at a time; and whenever they are attacked they crowd together in such a manner, that they ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... impetuous Eights! Sweeping and strong is the stroke, as they race from Putney to Mortlake, Shying the Crab Tree bight, shooting through Hammersmith Bridge; Onward elastic they strain to the deep low moan of the rowlock; Louder the cheer from the bank, swifter ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Road Runners ruffles their feathers an' runs on swifter, jest to show what a slow racket keepin' ahead of me an' Peets is. An' these yere locoed birds keeps up sech ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... herbs—and I am his son! My father (that bled out his life 'neath my lord's supper table) knew divers secret ways within the thickness of these walls—so do I know more of Pertolepe's castle than doth Pertolepe himself. Come, reach hither thy shackles and I will cut them off, a chisel is swifter ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... wanes like a shadow that is cast, Swifter than eagles' wings my years fly fast, And I remember not my gladness past, Either by day or ...
— Hebrew Literature
... of a sister in a woman's shape. Mine, alas!—O woeful prince, O more woeful princess!—eats the herb of the field somewhere in the shape of a mare, as ugly as she was once beautiful, but swifter than ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... simplest and most natural method of defence. The swifter animals, however, such as deer, gazelles, and hares, which may easily escape by running their fastest, do not always use this method, but have other means so ingenious as to be real arts. Wolves, when they see that they are outnumbered, will sometimes escape by following the exact tracks of a ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... thought it could be in a woman; And if it can, I will presume in you, To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Out-living beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnow'd purity in love; How were I then uplifted! But ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the sea-horses of the deep, And we race through the waters blue, Faster than wind and swifter than tide We gallop ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... they pass with swifter foot within the prison. Alaric was allowed the use of books and pens and paper, but even with these he found a day in prison to be almost an unendurable eternity. This was the real punishment of his guilt; it was not that he could not eat well, and lie soft, or enjoy ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... in God. More refined power than electricity is transmitted over these substantial filaments to any point of any world. The fleshly body is not sensitive to this spiritual power, but the pure soul, when free from the body, is at once sensitive to these chords of power and is carried swifter than a current of electricity to Abraham's bosom, where it is entitled forever to a free use of this perfect power without being subject to any ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... But all the swifter will he go Through the pale, scattered asphodels, Down mote-hung dusk of olive dells, To where the ancient basins throw Fleet threads of blue and trembling zones Of gold upon the ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... and away they rode a full gallop. But the faster they went, the faster were they followed; and as the horses behind were somewhat swifter than those before, so the former were at length overtaken. A happy circumstance for poor Sophia; whose fears, joined to her fatigue, had almost overpowered her spirits; but she was now instantly relieved by a female voice, that greeted her in the softest manner, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... threw him a piece of meat. But a dog that chanced to be in the tent was quicker than he and seized it and ran off. Rage gave Antar the fleetness of the wind. With mighty leaps he bounded after the dog. Swifter darted no eagle upon its prey than Antar pursued the rogue. With a mighty spring he caught it and seizing its jaws tore them asunder down to the beast's shoulders, and in triumph he held the meat aloft. But the King grew afraid and let ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... found time to practise some on the motor-cycle. He had mastered the method of controlling and driving it, and all he needed now was practice. Joe had been a good bicycle rider, and this stood him in good stead though the motion was much swifter, and the exhilaration of fairly flying through space with no effort on his part was ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... company with a young man of mean and slouching attire. For some five or six exchanges they conversed together with an animated air; then the fellow shouldered again into the tap; and the young lady, with something swifter than a walk, retraced her steps towards Challoner. He saw her coming, a miracle of grace; her ankle, as she hurried, flashing from her dress; her movements eloquent of speed and youth; and though ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Guardi!" And here a distant shout, fleeter in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards, reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last leap, the blue hesitates—the red springs into the air, drops d'aplomb, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to him, is near, nearer still; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the English Channel. That a month after their starting Rodgers should still have hoped to overtake them, gives a lively impression of the lumbering slowness of trade movement under convoy; but he counted also upon the far swifter joint speed of his few and well-found ships. To the effective fulfilment of his double object, defensive and offensive, however, he required more ships than his own squadron, and he held his course ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan |
