"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wolf, en Brer 'Coon, en Brer 'Possum. I won't make sho', but it seem like ter me dat plum down ter ole Brer Mink 'uz 'mongs' um. Leas'ways, dey wuz a whole passel un um, en dey whirl in, dey did, en dey buil' de house in less'n no time. Brer Rabbit, he make lak it make he head swim fer ter climb up on de scaffle, en likewise he say it make 'im ketch de palsy fer ter wuk in de sun, but he got 'im a squar', en he stuck a pencil behime he year, en he went 'roun' medjun[9] en markin'—medjun en markin'—en he wuz dat busy dat de yuther creeturs say ter deyse'f ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... boy, 'tis pleasure enough To have a sup of such goodly stuff— To float away in a sky of fog, And swim the while in a sea of grog; So, high or low, Let the world go, The how-d'ye-do ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... off the coast of Portugal. The fight lasted, it is said, all day. At length both vessels were found to be on fire. Columbus jumped from his blazing ship into the sea, and catching hold of a floating oar, managed, with its help, to swim to the ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... Skan-skan, [51] the avenger, Who dwells in the uttermost parts —in the earth and the blue, starry ether, Ever watching, with all-seeing eyes, the deeds of the wives and the warriors, As an osprey afar in the skies, sees the fish as they swim in the waters, Oft spread they the bison-tongue feast, and singing preferred their petitions, Till the Day-Spirit [70] rose in the East —in the red, rosy robes of the morning, To sail o'er the sea of the skies, to his ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... between Beirut and Vienna. If she was a young woman who respected herself, the household gear she would insist on bringing would entail an Iliad of embarrassments. An old farmer of Sangamon County still talks of a featherbed weighing fifty-four pounds with which his wife made him swim six ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... I ever rustled with," went on Bill, discontentedly. "Nuthin' to do! Say, if nobody wants to swim maybe some ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Vavasor; he never asked if he could swim. But indeed Vavasor could swim, well enough, only he did not see the necessity for it. He did not love his neighbor enough to grasp the facts of the case. And after all he could and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the Cape again,' said she; 'and here you may find your father. Let us look well round us, for if we meet a ship it must be his. None but the Phantom Ship could swim in a ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... day's work in prospect for the next day—weeding a large patch of onions that were so far away from the creek that he would have no chance, even at his noon hour, of going down to the water for a cool little swim. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... defense of a smaller boy, and did not shrink from pitching into a fellow twice his size. He could tell all about the great base-ball and foot-ball games of New York City, knew the pitchers by name and yet did not boast uncomfortably. He could swim like a duck and dive fearlessly. He could outrun them all, by his lightness of foot, and was an expert in gliding away from any hand that sought to hold him back. They admired him ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... you know; it's getting cold now, and pretty soon we'll have to fly away to the south, but all this summer long we used to get up in the morning in time to see the sun rise, and to have a wonderful swim. And then we have so many things to read and study; and David talks to me, and tells me all that he knows; and besides all that we have to tell each other how much we love each other, which takes a fearful amount of time. It seems that neither of us can ever quite realize the glory of it, and ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... down to the beach in a little while. Can you swim? Mother will teach you—she taught each one of us. I'm going to try for the life-saving medal this year! We have sport contests at the club in August. Can you play tennis?" Keineth said no. Peggy's manner became just a little patronizing. "Oh, it's easy to ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... furnished with many intricate folds or frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled very much those of the gecko lizards. The bird was kept as a pet in Jabuti's house at Ega for a long time afterwards, where it became accustomed to swim about in a common hand-basin full of water, and was ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... These haue two enemies, the one in the sea, the other in the aire. In the sea the fish which is called Albocore, as big as a Salmon, followeth them with great swiftnesse to take them. This poore fish not being able to swim fast, for he hath no finnes, but swimmeth with moouing of his taile, shutting his wings, lifteth himselue aboue the water, and flieth not very hie: the Albocore seeing that, although he haue no wings, yet he giueth a great ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... see anything to laugh at. He just became so excited that he could hardly float, and then he turned round and started to swim back to the pool as hard ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... himself. Ten miles more and they would have been safe, for the Rio Grande is not a difficult river either to ford or to swim. He dismounted and made his way on foot to a point where he could command a view, but he had barely established himself when he found ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... less thy glories in the deep, Where fish in millions swim and creep, With wondrous motions, swift or slow, Still ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... for assistance. They asked anxiously after each other, but their anxiety appeared to subside in an hour or two, when they found there was nobody missing but Richard Martin. Robert told the police it was all right, Dick could swim like a cork. However, next morning he came with a sorrowful face to say his brother had not reappeared, and begged them to drag the river. This was done, and a body found, which the survivors and Mrs. Richard ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... live or die, sink or swim; and I shall expect to meet you, all booted and spurred and fit for the fight, April first,' ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... see you have found more than you expected. I am sure you would like to see the merry ducks which shall swim on my brook, ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... islands, calling them Goulburn Islands. Here they found traces of the visits of the Malays on their voyages after trepang, before mentioned by Captain Flinders, and also could tell from the boldness and cunning of the natives that they were well used to visitors; they even had the audacity to swim off after dark and cut the whale boat adrift, fortunately the theft was detected before the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... shore ice when they discovered, much to their horror, that their ice pan had broken loose from the shore and was drifting out to sea. They hurried along the edge of it for some distance in the hope of finding a bridge to shore. In this they were disappointed. Beth could not swim. Fortunately the guide could. Leaping into the stinging water he swam from one cake to the next one, leading the dogs. Beth clung to the back of the sled and was thus brought ashore. After wading many swollen torrents, they at last reached Cape Prince of Wales in safety. This sounds ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... moon would be a good thing, provided he reached the end of his journey, for it would give him a fine clear view of the picture on the barn, which he so much wanted to see. On the other hand, he would have preferred a dark night for a swim in Swift River. There were fish there—pickerel—which would rather swallow him than not. And he knew that they were sure to be feeding by the light of ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... outdone, added new and dulcet notes. Presently, the dinner-hour being come and the tables spread hard by the fair lakelet under the thickset laurels and other goodly trees, they seated themselves there, as it pleased the king, and eating, watched the fish swim in vast shoals about the lake, which gave bytimes occasion for talk as well as observation. When they had made an end of dining and the meats and tables were removed, they fell anew to singing more blithely than ever; after which, beds having been spread in various places about the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... For he was strong and great of stature, his hair was yellow as gold, and his grey eyes shone with the light of swords. He was gentle and loving as a woman, and even as a lad his strength was the strength of two men; and there were none in all the quarter who could leap or swim or wrestle against Eric Brighteyes. Men held him in honour and spoke well of him, though as yet he had done no deeds, but lived at home on Coldback, managing the farm, for now Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, his father, was dead. But ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... my skin! that's just the contrariness o' things," continued Joe, in sententious cynicism. "Ef an able seaman had fallen from the yard-arm that night he'd been sunk in sight o' the ship, and thet baby ez can't swim a stroke sails ashore, sound asleep, with ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... continued vehemently. "You will have it! You will not let me rest till you have it! Then have it, only see to it, it be done thoroughly! There shall not be one left to cast it in the King's teeth and cry, 'Et tu, Carole!' Swim, swim in blood if you will," he continued, with growing wildness. "Oh, 'twill be a merry night! And it's true so far, you may kill fleas all day, but burn the coat, and there's an end. So burn it, burn it, and—" He broke off with a start as he discovered Tavannes at his elbow. "God's death, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... fish could swim, or had some muscular power, several of the bystanders were rife for experimenting ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... land? You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, and testimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your own ignorance you should sink her, and be drowned. You would try to learn the laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfilling which vessels swim, and ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... lit with gleams Of that lost land of reedy streams. Along whose brim Forever swim Pan's lilies, ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... retaining their polar forces. If we had a mobile liquid of the specific gravity of steel, we might, by making the magnets float in it, realize this state of things, for in such a liquid the magnets would neither sink nor swim. Now, the principle of gravitation enunciated by Newton is that every particle of matter, of every kind, attracts every other particle with a force varying inversely as the square of the distance. In virtue of the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... like bowls, are not comfortable wear, however much it may amuse the onlooker to see you try to walk in them. If you have a nice fur coat like a company promoter's, it is most annoying to be made to swim in it. And if you had a tail, surely it would be solely your own affair; that any one should tie a tin can to it would strike you as an unwarrantable ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... must cross that stream," murmured Jack, with half a shudder, as he looked out upon the prodigious volume rushing southward like myriads of wild horses; "it seems to me no one can swim to the other shore, nor can a raft or boat ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... to the holy ones that you have escaped, sahib," Rujub said, as soon as he came within speaking distance of Bathurst. "I was in an agony last night. I was with you in thought, and saw the boats approaching the ambuscade. I saw you leap over and swim to shore. I saw you fall, and I cried out. For a moment I thought you were killed. Then I saw you go on and fall again, and saw your friends carry you in. I watched you recover and come on here, and then I willed it that you should wait here till I came for you. I have brought you ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... I would. I have always liked to be afloat, but I think I have never adequately conceived of the enjoyment till now, when I begin to feel a power over that which supports me. I suppose I must have felt something like this sense of triumph when I first learned to swim; but I have forgotten it. O that I could run wild!—that is, that I could put myself into a true relation with Nature, and be on friendly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... if you'll get a canal boat or a raft," said he, "or, if the children are kept out of sight, I'll strip, ma'm, and swim ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... desires, your insinuating habit and wild will [2]. These are of no advantage to you. This is all which I have to tell you.' On the other hand, Confucius is made to say to his disciples, 'I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the arrow. But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... fascination," he said. "You are in the swim, and you must hold your own. You gamble with other men, and when you win you chuckle. All the time you're whittling your conscience away—if ever you had any. You're never quite dishonest, and you're never quite honest. You come ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... friends among the boys; she could out-run, out-jump, out-swim any of them in the big country school. She was supple and trim, golden-haired and dark-eyed, and ready for anything that required enterprise and activity of mind or body. Her ragged skirts were still short at eleven—short enough not to impede her. And she led the chase for pleasure ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... to the Exigency of their respective Textures; the Salt Adhering, for the most part, to the Sides and Top, and the Phlegme Fastening it self there too in great Drops, the Oyle and Spirit placing themselves Under, or Above one another, according as their Ponderousness makes them Swim or Sink. For 'tis Observable, that though Oyl or Liquid Sulphur be one of the Elements Separated by this Fiery Analysis, yet the Heat which Accidentally Unites the Particles of the other Volatile Principles, has not alwayes the same Operation ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... great Nahrwan Canal. This was now, in effect, a deep nulla, and had silted in, so that its bottom was above the Adhaim bank. Its cliffs were tenanted with blue rock-pigeon, with hedgehogs and porcupines. Shoals of mackerel-like fish used to swim up the Tigris, with fins skimming the surface. Erskine showed me how to shoot these; as, in later days, when we were in the Palestine line at Arsuf, I have seen Diggins stunning fish with rifle-shots in the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... Payawan consists of two shacks and a name. Here we were to have had our first meeting with the clans of the Ifugao, but through some misunderstanding they took the place of meeting to be at Kiangan, some, miles further on; so we all rested a while, and some of us took a swim in the little river we had just crossed, finding the water on first shock almost cold, but delightful beyond belief. Cootes and I were quite satisfied with the pool we found near the shack, but Strong and the rest thought they saw a better one downstream, so they ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the earth in soft repose, All that exist, the load of life depose; When woods are hush'd, and murmuring billows done, When stars descending half their course have run; In silence all—The beasts, the feather'd brood, 655 That swim the lake, or haunt the thicket wood, All thro' the silent night, in balmy sleep Their hearts reliev'd in sweet oblivion steep. Not wretched Dido—night descends in vain Her eyes unclos'd, and unrepriev'd her pain; 660 Rest flies her soul, and sleep her couch forsakes; Care through the livelong ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... the airy Lagoon, he felt like a new man. He had not left the hotel ten minutes before he was fast asleep in the gondola. Waking, on reaching the landing-place, he crossed the Lido, and enjoyed a morning's swim in the Adriatic. There was only a poor restaurant on the island, in those days; but his appetite was now ready for anything; he ate whatever was offered to him, like a famished man. He could hardly believe, when he reflected on it, that he had sent ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... on shore in New England, he and the principal officers of the ship, walking out to a place now called by the Salemites, Northfield, to view the Indian wigwams, they saw on the other side of the river a small canoe. He would have had one of the company swim over and fetch it, rather than walk several miles on foot, it being very hot weather; but none of the party could swim but himself; and so he plunged in, and, as he was swimming over, was taken with the cramp a few roods from the shore ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... comprehend the difficulties I have to overcome in making a few tolerable verses. A happy combination by nature, an irrepressible and fruitful intellect, made you a great poet without any effort of your own. I feel and acknowledge the inferiority of my talent. I swim about in the ocean of poetry with my life-preserver under my arm. I do not write as well as I think. My ideas are stronger than my expressions; and in this embarrassment, I am often content if my verses are as little indifferent as possible, and do not expect them ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... "What, swim?" he asked, and looked rueful. He was one of the many sailors I have known who had not that ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... smile upon you! There should be a special grace for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... boat. I shall scull myself up the river for an hour or two. And put in some towels. I may take a swim." ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... COD-SOUNDS. The swim-bladders of the cod-fish, cured and packed for the market; the palates also of the fish are included ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "once I was a tiny black egg in a globe of clear white jelly, and floated around along the bank of this same brook. Soon I grew into a wee tadpole, and freed myself from the globe of jelly, and found I could swim about. I had a long flat tail which I used as a paddle to help me swim. I had no feet nor legs then, but I grew very fast, and soon two legs came out near my tail, and by and by two front ones came, and I did not need my tail any more, so it disappeared. Then I discovered that I had a long, ...
— Buttercup Gold and Other Stories • Ellen Robena Field
... cool off for five minutes," proposed Dick, as he filled the feed bag for the horse. "After that we'll be ready for a swim." ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... waves lie the overwhelmed forests—prostrate trunks and broken stumps in countless numbers overspreading the gathered vegetable remains of centuries before. Upon these the sea builds a protective covering of sand or mud, more or less thick. Here sea creatures come to live, fishes swim hungrily to and fro, and shellfishes die in the mud which, by and by, is to become firm rock with stony animal ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... appropriate the energies of sun, soil and air, though in large part they take them in forms already prepared by the plants themselves; but, unlike the plants, animals possess the autonomous power to move about in space—to creep or crawl or run or swim or fly—it is thus evident that, compared with plants, animals belong to a higher order, or higher class, or higher type, or higher dimension of life; we may therefore say that the type of animal life is a type of two dimensions—a two-dimensional type; I have called them ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... save you a great deal of pain. In short, I beg of you not to take her, or her circumstances, too seriously. There are quite a number of such men and women as her husband and herself, and they are always certain to be more or less before the public eye. Whoever else goes down, she will swim, simply because she can't help it. I want you to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all our neighbors, even when they declare the entire North Sea (in which we also have a certain interest) as a place of battle and blow up our ships with their mines. We patiently destroy the mines which swim away from our neighbors' territorial waters and land upon our shores. In short, we perform a very difficult act of balancing as well as we can. But it seems to us that under difficult circumstances we are following the only correct road which can lead ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... adventurer, I might swim or I might sink; the chances are it would be the latter, for storms would arise, when those disappear who have no root in the country, and no fortune to secure them breathing ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... said that a nation is a friendship, and the common life of nations in the future must also be a friendship, necessarily less intimate but in no way less real. The youth of the world must never be called to swim again, with old age on its back, through seas of needless death to the steep and distant cliffs of military victory. There must be no more secret plots, nor seeming justification of plots, by little ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... days before he could swim, so he floundered about in the water, beating it wildly, to bring himself to the surface. When he came up, Billy Topsail was leaning over to catch him. Donald lifted his arm. His fingers touched Billy's, ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... out upon the sea, and one evening the net was so heavy that hardly could he draw it into the boat. And he laughed, and said to himself, 'Surely I have caught all the fish that swim, or snared some dull monster that will be a marvel to men, or some thing of horror that the great Queen will desire,' and putting forth all his strength, he tugged at the coarse ropes till, like lines ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... a bit cold-blooded—this criticism of one's wife; but I know that, however much of a sycophant I may have been in my younger days, my wife has outdone me since then. Presently we were both in the swim, swept off our feet by the current and carried down the river of success, willy-nilly, toward its mouth—to a safe haven, I wonder, or the deluge of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the dictates of my soul, To act the brute and ev'ry way control? No, no, sweet fair, you know me not 'tis plain: I truly wish your fondest love to gain; Your heart I've probed, 'tis all that I desire; Mid joys I swim; my bosom feels the fire. Your rigour now in turn you may display; It is but fair: be bountiful I pray; Myself from hence your lover I declare; No woman merits more my bed to share, Whatever rank, or beauty, sense or life, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... crew at the disappearance of their young lord! All loved him; all would have given their lives for him; but as they did not know how to swim, of course they declined to make any useless plunges in search of him, and stood on their oars in mute wonder and grief. ONCE, his fair head and golden ringlets were seen to arise from the water; TWICE, puffing and panting, it appeared for an instant again; ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,—though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the air at once. He was the best shot with the bow of all men, and never missed his mark. He could leap more than his own height, with all his war-gear, and as far backwards as forwards. He could swim like a seal, and there was no game in which it was any good for anyone to strive with him; and so it has been said that no man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair skinned. His nose was straight, and a little turned up at the end. He was blue-eyed ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... attributes which, if observed in an independent animal, would be put down to instinct guided by sense-organs, as when the {384} spermatozoon of an insect finds its way into the minute micropyle of the egg, or as when the antherozoids of certain algae swim by the aid of their ciliae to the female plant, and force themselves into a minute orifice. In these latter cases, however, we must believe that the male element has acquired its powers, on the same principle with the larvae of animals, namely by successive modifications ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... at a sharp turn of the stream under a high bank, was a deep pool, a place held much in dread by the country lads and lasses, being a haunt of the kelpie. Francis knew the spot well, and had good reason to fear that, carried into it, he must be drowned, for he could not swim. Roused by the thought to a yet harder struggle, he succeeded in getting upon his feet, and reaching the bank, where he lay for a while, exhausted. When at length he came to himself and rose, he found the water ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... should. It was muddy, being near its parent glaciers. The stream was wide, rapid, and rough, and I could hear the smaller stones knocking against each other under the rage of the waters, as upon a seashore. Fording was out of the question. I could not swim and carry my swag, and I dared not leave my swag behind me. My only chance was to make a small raft; and that would be difficult to make, and not at all safe when it was made,—not for one man in such ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Light before He spoke the word; The darkness understood not, though it heard: But man looks up to where the planets swim, And thinks God's thoughts ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... to be strung through the whole beech grove that covered the crest of the hill. The first sign of it began less than ten yards beyond the sentry, where a couple of squatting thralls were skinning a slain deer; and as far as eye could swim in the flood of sunset light, the green aisles were dotted with scattered groups. Every flat rock had a ring of dice-throwers bending over it; every fallen trunk its row of idlers. Wherever a cluster of boulders made a passable ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... which is prodigiously awful and enormously disgusting. It is plaited of serpents' backs, wattled together like wicker work, whose heads turn inwards, vomiting poison. In the lake of venom thus deposited within these immense wriggling walls of snakes the worst of the damned wade and swim. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... reasonable philosophy. "Since we are to be slaves," they said, "at least let's have some serf bathing." And donning (with a shudder) the rather gruesome padded bathing suits they found in the lockers, they went off for a swim. Others, of a humorous turn, derived a certain rudimentary amusement in studying the garden marked Reserved for Patients with Insane Delusions, where they found a very excellent relief-model of the ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... in many tight places. Yes, indeed, Whitefoot had been in many tight places. He had had narrow escapes of all kinds. But never had he felt so utterly hopeless as now. The moment he landed in that sap, Whitefoot began to swim frantically. He isn't a particularly good swimmer, but he could swim well enough to keep afloat for a while. His first thought was to scramble up the side of the tin pail, but when he reached it and tried to ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... Spencer, draining his wine-glass to the depth of its stem. "Mr. Pelz, believe me if the Atlantic Ocean was made out of this stuff, you wouldn't have to engage passage for me; I'd swim across." ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... There were things there that made his brain swim. Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the water seems beautifully clear. Let's get up to-morrow morning and have a bathe. I'll swim you across there ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... and his servant were both engaged loading a kind of raft, or flat boat, with various produce for market. A dispute arose between them, the boy fell or was pushed overboard, and though the creek was quite shallow, and he was known to be able to swim, he was never seen from ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... departure of my brother to the better land, our spirit-band informed us very plainly through "Ouija," that it was our duty to remove to Boston in order that our children might have better educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the "Hub of the Universe." We obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of our angel friends were fully verified. In our new home the older girls met those to whom they were married in Heaven, and to whom they gave their hands and hearts. I now look back over a half ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Halcyone for ever mourns her spouse; Who now, in feathers clad, as poets feign, Makes a short summer on the wintry main.— Then he that to the cliffs the maid pursued, And seem'd by turns to soar, and swim the flood;— And she, who, snared by Love, her father sold, With her, who fondly snared the rolling gold; And her young paramour, who made his boast That he had gain'd the prize his rival lost.— Acis and Galatea next were ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... soothe and satisfy the human ear. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night: nor these alone, whose notes Nice-finger'd Art must emulate in vain, But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime In still-repeated circles, screaming loud, The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the Minster. They all three rose, and without an instant's warning— they could not tell afterwards how it happened—the boat half capsized, and they were in eight or nine feet of water. Baruch could not swim and went down at once, but on coming up close to the gunwale he caught at it and held fast. Looking round, he saw that Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss Masters, and, having caught her by the back of the neck, was taking her ashore. The boatman, who could also swim, called ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... crossed the river on horseback, and the army uttered shouts of admiration as they saw that the chiefs were the first to set the example of intrepidity. They braved enough dangers to make the strongest brain reel. The current forced their horses to swim diagonally across, which doubled the length of the passage; and as they swam, blocks of ice struck against their flanks and sides, making ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the most excruciating pain I ever endured, with feet cut to the bones by the rocks, and back blistered by the sun—exhausted with fatigue—up to the waist—sometimes to the neck in the water, and frequently obliged to swim. Seeing, however, that several had reached the highest sand-bank, lighted a fire, and were employed in erecting a tent from the cloth and small spars which had floated up, I felt my spirits revive, and had strength sufficient ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... erst gathered cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard to say, "There ain't water enough to float a duck; nought can swim but the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... "a Third-rate is—390 Stand back, and you shall see her gratis! This was the Flag-ship at the Nile, The Vanguard—you may smirk and smile, But, pretty Maid, if you look near, You'll find you've much in little here! 395 A nobler ship did never swim, And you shall see her in full trim: I'll set, my friends, to do you honour, Set every inch of sail upon her." So said, so done; and masts, sails, yards, 400 He names them all; and interlards His speech with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the end of anything is horrid, even a loathed sea-voyage. After all, it isn't a bad old ship, and the people have been nice. To-night I am filled with kindness to everyone. Even Mrs. Albert Murray seems to swim in a rosy and golden haze, and I am conscious of quite an affection for her, though I expect, when in a little I go down to the cabin and find her fussing and accusing us of losing her things, I shall ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... told us that this is the method of Creation. Each animal has evolved the parts it needed and desired. The horse is fleet because it wishes to be; the bird flies because it desires to; the duck has a web-foot because it wants to swim. All things come through desire, and every sincere prayer is answered. Many people know this, but they do not believe it thoroughly enough so that it shapes ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th' eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as big as himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he gets there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which big ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... A man is on a burning ship; the crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped—gone in the lifeboats—and he is left alone. In the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of help. He cannot swim. If he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship he burns. In any event he can live but a ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... face the general foe — A phantom pale and grim. If you flinch at his glare, he'll grow And gather your strength to him; But your power will rise if you laugh in his eyes and away in a mist he'll swim. ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... domesticated. The birds in this class are distinguished by two kinds of tissue—light meat on the breast and dark meat on the other parts of the body. In the second class are included those fowls which swim, such as ducks and geese. These are characterized by web feet and long thick bills, and their meat is more nearly the same color over the entire body. The third class is comprised of birds that belong to the family of doves. Pigeons, which are called squabs when used ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... the king went for a long walk in the woods. When he came back to his own garden, he sent for his family to come down to the lake for a swim. ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt
... descended too and when she slipped through the thickets and reached a certain point, something like despair tightened about her heart. Across the line of her march boiled a freshet which might as well have been a river. To swim it with her impediments was impossible and though it might carry her dangerously close to the road which she sought to avoid, she had no choice. She must follow it until a ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... A Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring! Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring? Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!—bring out your boats amain, There's a great red pool to swim them ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... dissipation, and his head had been turned by the black eyes of a bold beauty. He had very little money, but he was lucky at cards, made many acquaintances, took part in all entertainments, in a word, he was in the swim. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... dictionary. Your own memory, and the inevitable suggestions of the context, furnish a dictionary pro hac vice. And afterwards, upon advancing to other books, where you are obliged to forego such aids, and to swim without corks, you find yourself already in possession of the particles for expressing addition, succession, exception, inference—in short, of all the forms by which transition or connection is effected (if, but, and, therefore, however, notwithstanding), together with all those adverbs ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... me! You make my head swim, Smathers, that you do!" he managed to say at last. "I had him—I had the Vanishing Cracksman—in my blessed paws—and then went and let that French hussy—But look here; I say, now, how do you know it was him? Nobody can go by his looks; so how do ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... wish to love him, and, with eyes on him alone, they so fill their hearts with thoughts of him that nothing strange can thenceforth enter there. They have bound their lives resolutely, as one who knows how to swim, yet wishes to die, ties his hands together before leaping from a high bridge ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... Mind out, mister! (Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... should be damaged by the Precession of the Equinoxes," he would have responded with a brief "All right, Sir," and a quick military gesture, and have put the thing in his pocket. As it was, I simply gave him the watch, and remarked that I was going to take a swim. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... teaching her to swim," said Ben, looking out of the corner of his eye at his father, to see what impression this explanation made ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... Mickleham indicates politely that if she took this one it would have to swim for it. (The Haggerty Woman takes it long afterwards when she thinks, erroneously, that ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... climates would melt away amidst the torrid heat of Central Asia. Then, again, there are some insects that live only a few hours, and some that live a few days at the utmost: what means were adopted for preserving these? Some animals, too, do not pair, but run in herds; many species of fish swim in shoals; sometimes males and sometimes females predominate, as in the case of deer, where one male heads and appropriates a whole herd of females, or in the case of bees, where many males are devoted to the queen of the hive. These ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... saying that the young lady was very fond of paying visits. Another person, the wife of a United States senator, informed me that if I should go to Washington in January, I should be quite "in the swim." I inquired the meaning of the phrase, but her explanation made it rather more than less ambiguous. To say that I am on the go describes very accurately my own situation. I went yesterday to the Pognanuc High School, to hear fifty-seven boys and girls recite in unison a most ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... or more simple members, or such clauses as complete their sense without subdivision, are constructed into a period; if they require a pause greater than that of the comma, they are usually separated by the semicolon: as, "Straws swim upon the surface; but pearls lie at the bottom."—Murray's Gram., p. 276. "Every thing grows old; every thing passes away; every thing disappears."—Hiley's Gram., p. 115. "Alexander asked them the distance of the Persian capital; what forces the king of Persia could bring into the field; what ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... lying dead along the shore, and some of them partly devoured by the wolves; they have either sunk through the ice during the winter, or been drowned in attempting to cross, or else, after crossing to some high bluff, found themselves too much exhausted either to ascend or swim back again, and perished for want of food; in this situation we found several small parties of them. There are geese too in abundance, and more bald-eagles than we have hitherto observed; the nests of these last being always accompanied by those of ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... of the park and country beyond may be obtained. In the foreground is a piece of water, bathing, with its rapid current, the grassy banks which border the wood, while the low-lying branches of the trees dip into the flood, on which swans, dazzlingly white, swim in stately fashion. Beneath an old willow, whose drooping boughs form quite a vault of pale verdure, a squadron of multicolored boats remain fastened to the balustrade of a landing stage. Through an opening in the trees you see in the distance fields of yellow corn, and in the near background, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... and white in colour; the female brownish instead of black; most have yellow or orange eye, and more or less white on wings which does not show as they swim. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence of early peas; it is in the corn, hi the succotash, in the squash; the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourself at the dessert; but the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and your misery is great upon you—especially ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Come now, come now, friends. The poor child is not pretty, but he is good, and he can swim ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... Going still farther forward, he was surprised to hear the roar of the flames in the furnaces below. It looked at that moment as though the Bellevite was doomed to sail under a Confederate flag. But if he could do nothing more, he could save himself, even if he had to jump into the river and swim to ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... so rare for any girl to learn swimming. A man who can't swim is only half the man he might be, and to a woman I should think it must be of even more benefit. As in everything else, women are trammelled by their clothes; to be able to get rid of them, and to move about with free ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... The rascal that would not give cut-and-thrust for his country as long as he had a breath to draw, or a leg to stand on, should be tied neck and heels, without benefit of clergy, and thrown over Leith pier, to swim for his life ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the populace by his most hazardous escape from prison. Being confined at Bremen, in a dungeon on the third story of the prison of that town, he contrived to let himself down without exciting the vigilance of the sentinels, and to swim across the Weser, though heavily laden with irons. When about half-way over, he was espied by a sentinel, who fired at him, and shot him in the calf of the leg: but the undaunted robber struck out manfully, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... royal game. It would seem strange at first thought that an island like Singapore could not be cleared of this terrible pest, and so we remarked. "Ah," replied a resident, "you forget that we draw an unlimited supply from the main-land. Tigers swim across the narrow straits continually, and not until the land is cleared from jungle will our island be free from them." The natives dig pits as traps for the tigers, similar to the manner of catching them in India, except that at Singapore a series of sharp, upright stakes were ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... One the horses could wade, but the other was so deep that they were compelled to swim. On the further bank of the second they stopped a while to rest the horses and to count the men to see that no straggler had dropped away in the darkness. Then they sprang into the saddle again and rode on as before through a country ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... horse's knees before you buy him; take no ticket-of-leave man into your house for charity; touch no prospectus that has founders' shares, and do not play with firearms or knives and never go near the water till you know how to swim. Oh! blessed wisdom of the ages! sole patrimony of the poor! The road lay white in the sun, and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... gits on deck a cullud boy 'bout my size say 'Wanna look about a bit?' So I foller him below an' fo' I knowed it, I feel de boat kinda shakin.' I run to a porthole an' look out. Dere was Key West too far away to swim back to. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... inferiority; and, wishing to make friends with so fine a neighbor, he whirled a tempting morsel of food towards one of the swimming party, and politely offered it to him. "No, I thank you," replied the swimmer, "I don't eat; my sister does the eating, I only swim." Turning to another of the gay company with the same offer, he was answered, "Thank you, the eaters are at the other side; I only lay eggs." "What strange people!" thought the star-fish; but, with all his ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... elderly ladies are seated, one knitting, the other reading the report of yesterday's sermons, giving bits aloud now and then; on the carpet a little boy about three years of age is sprawling, apparently trying to swim on ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... such thing!" she retorted sharply. "You saw me dive; if you had the brains of a scared rabbit, you'd know that when a girl had gone to the trouble to climb into a bathing-suit and then jumped into the water she wanted a swim. And to be ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory |
