"Swimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there be lone, 'Mid all those horrors there, Than hear the sickly honeyed tone And see the swimming ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Rose and Slide Mountain in the distance, above the green of the trees. Part of this building is devoted to indoor sports and consists of a gymnasium, conducted by able instructors; a handball court, bowling alleys, pool and billiard tables and a spacious swimming pool with shower-baths; it furthermore has a library and a large number of private rooms for out- of-town guests. At the time of the writing of this book, 1917, the Y. M. C. A. donated the use of its Assembly Hall to the American Red Cross for making hospital supplies ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... busy this morning in making preparations for crossing the Barwan. The boats were soon put together, and on reconnoitring the river in one of them, I soon found a favourable place for swimming the cattle and horses at, and which was effected without accident. The unloaded drays were next drawn through the river at the same place; which was about three hundred yards lower down the river than that at which we had encamped, and which was marked ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... battle with two hundred and fifty-five men. Of these, fifty-eight were killed, sixty-six wounded, and thirty-one missing. The last item is unusually large for a naval action, and was probably due to the attempt to escape to shore by swimming. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... an expression in his eyes and about his mouth that made him handsomer than she would have believed a man could be. She was looking at him longingly, her beautiful eyes swimming. Her lips were saying inaudibly, "I ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... prehensile, and serves the animal as a fifth hand to suspend itself from the branches of trees; and, lastly, among the whales, it grows to an enormous size, and becomes the principal instrument for swimming. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... was a great skull of fish, we being vnprouided of fishing furniture with a long spike nayle made a hooke, and fastening the same to one of our sounding lines, before the bait was changed we tooke more than fortie great Cods, the fish swimming so abundantly thicke about our barke as is incredible to bee reported, of which with a small portion of salt that we had, we presented some thirtie couple, or thereaboutes, and so returned for England. And hauing reported to M. Secretarie Walsingham the whole ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... his eyes into unguided units. The formations melted: wings touched and locked; the planes fell dizzily or shot off in wild, ungoverned, swerving flight. The air was misty about him; it was fragrant in his nostrils; the world was swimming.... ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... I saw them all three consulting together, and then my friend the policeman started hastily throwing off his clothes with the apparent intention of swimming across the river, while the other two came running along the bank after me. They were both in plain clothes, but the unmistakable stamp of a Scotland Yard detective was clearly ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... full river of love that Sir Willoughby supposed the whole floating bulk of his personality to be securely sustained; and therefore it was that, believing himself swimming at his ease, he discoursed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... away had rolled The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold, And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled, Like the first gods before they made the world And misery, swimming the stormless sea In beauty and in divine gaiety. The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn With leaves—the holly's Autumn falls in June— And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat. The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit With tossing ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... is so shallow that in some parts reeds grow in it, where wild ducks are very fond of building their nests. Once, shepherds who were with the cattle, near that river, saw a wild duck, with eighteen little ones swimming about, and as the little ducks were so small they thought it would be very easy to catch them. So accordingly they got into the water, and were trying to catch the young ones, when they perceived that the old duck, instead of flying away, as they expected she would ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... matter, nearly three and a third pounds to the gallon, that it is easy to float on the surface with hands, feet and head above the water. One who can swim but little in fresh water will find the buoyancy of the water here so great as to make swimming easy. When one stands erect in it, the body sinks down about as far as the top of the shoulders. Care needs to be taken to keep the water out of the mouth, nose and eyes, as it is so salty that it is very disagreeable to ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... sputtered Johnston, shaking his bushy head like a swimming dog. "Look, the shore is not very far." Thorndyke was saving his wind, and said nothing, but accommodated his stroke to that of his companion, and thus they breasted the gently-rolling billows until finally, completely exhausted, they climbed up the shelving rocks and lay down ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... now than ever, because great ships, swimming in deepest waters, have unluckily come safe to haven though wafted there by the same pernicious wind. Every great man, who gains a great end by dishonest means, does more to deteriorate his country and lower the standard of his countrymen ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... at last, that they had fallen behind the furious onset of the flood, but Roger was still swimming with it, desperately throwing up his head from time to time, and snorting the water from his nostrils. All his efforts to gain a foothold failed; his strength was nearly spent, and unless some help should come in a few minutes, it would come in vain. And in the darkness, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... splendors of these remote and lonely forests rather overwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality of the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and terrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon, and revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his own utter helplessness. Only Defago, as a symbol of a distant civilization where man was master, stood between him and a pitiless death by exhaustion ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... came up—providentially with its senses—the sergeant's command lingered and he set his face away, swimming with all his might. Once or twice he paused for breath, because it is hard work propelling a life belt through the water, but these rests were momentary; till, feeling himself safe from suction, he turned over on his back ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... that you get a Carnegie medal if it takes the rest of my life. I guess," he remarked unabashed, as his companions joined him, "it will be fresh-water swimming for your ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... vice, shameless and unveiled, is not allowed to flaunt without a check; but there is taint and gangrene among all; feeble wills and failing hearts to bear up against the intoxicating stream of music, and giddy heads for thought or reason amid the whirl and swimming ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the water was the little fish swimming about, while an army of beavers began to pile up earth and stones in a high bank to keep the river back. How they worked, digging and heaping with teeth and claws, and beating the earth hard with their queer tails ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... hopes to cross the Kyle ere night.' Now, this Kyle was 20 leagues off with a very ill stream, as the Irishman very well knew, so that he said, with a very great oath, lie would not go with him that length, but if he liked to sport the laird with several sorts of swimming, he would give a trial. 'Sport here, sport there, wherever I go you must go.' With this the cheese and butter come, and Duncan desires the Irishman to make ready, but all his persuasions (not against his will) would not prevail with Mac a Chruimb, whereupon ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... words; she caught Frisk up with her eyes swimming, and ran away with him to pour her self-reproach and relief into his pricked ears, without making any attempt to express her thanks to his rescuer. Her sister, however, made him ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... (provisionally taken as the larva of F. cervina) is a small white worm, found swimming in the aqueous fluid in the anterior chamber. It may be apparently harmless for a long time, but will eventually induce keratitis with ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... portal was another room where the basin of a swimming-pool spread cool and inviting ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill: if at least I am capable of writing anything, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that I have escaped from a shipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming, where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... proved to be the person towards whom the cockswain was steering the boat. "Where is Lord Tremlyn?" he asked, as he surveyed the surrounding waters. "There!" he screamed wildly, as he pointed over the stern, where the person indicated was swimming for the first cutter. ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... The surroundings and conveniences were more Oriental than Mexican, inviting the stranger to bathe by the extraordinary facilities offered to him, and captivating the senses by beauty and fragrance. There is a spacious swimming-bath within the walls, beside the single bathrooms, in both of which the water is kept at a delightful temperature. The luxury of these baths, after a long, dusty ride over Mexican roads, can hardly be imagined by those who have not enjoyed ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... we can be out of doors all day long if we choose; papa doesn't mind as long as we're in time for meals and looking clean and decent. There's a lovely cove near our house,—it isn't deep or dangerous,—and there we go boating and swimming; then there's fishing and crabbing, and drives about the country in the big, rattly depot-wagon behind Pegasus,—that's our horse, but he's an awful old slow-poke,—and rides on our donkey, G. W. L. Spry. Oh, I tell you now, it's all just splendid! ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... plunged into the water with a splash, and swam about in the rain, flapping his arms, and sending waves back, and on the waves tossed white lilies; he swam out to the middle of the pool and dived, and in a minute came up again in another place and kept on swimming and diving, trying to reach the bottom. "Ah! how delicious!" he shouted in his glee. "How delicious!" He swam to the mill, spoke to the peasants, and came back, and in the middle of the pool he lay on his back to ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... fresh-water supplies. Garcon, with some of his men, lay in ambush at the spot, and while the officer talked with the negro the concealed men fired upon the boat, killing Luffborough and two of his men. One man got away by swimming, and was picked up by the fleet; two others were taken prisoners, and, as was afterwards learned, Garcon coated them with tar and ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... with a needle, which disengages the air, when the fishes immediately descend to the bottom of the well, into which they are thrown. Without this operation, it would be impossible to keep the cod under water whilst they had life. In swimming, the fins enable fishes to preserve their upright position, especially those of the belly, which act like two feet. Without those, they would swim with their bellies upward, as it is in their backs that the centre of gravity lies. In ascending and descending, these are likewise ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... each other at that point? A thirty-or forty-foot dam built across there would back up the water over an acre or two of ground in there—that land is unfit for anything else—and it would give them all the water they'd need for cutting ice in the winter and swimming in the summer; and as for electricity, a little direct-connection unit run by gasoline and setting in one corner of the garage, where it would be near at hand, would do the trick nicely. You know, Al," he continued, "the trouble with our ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... throw out their tiny casting nets, as this Pyrgoma does, to catch every passing animalcule, and sweep them into the jaws concealed within its shell. And this creature, rooted to one spot through life and death, was in its infancy a free swimming animal, hovering from place to place upon delicate ciliae, till, having sown its wild oats, it settled down in life, built itself a good stone house, and became a landowner, or rather a glebae adscriptus, for ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... the Honey Creek settlement the lion-hearted minister told of swimming through flooded rivers, getting lost on the plains and suffering for food and water, of lying down to rest at night in wet clothes with no shelter but the woods, of hand to hand fights with rowdies who endeavored to sell drink ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... Pullman cars, one opening into the other, constructed for giants. Each car was about as large as the large hall in Bursley Town Hall, and, like that auditorium, had a ceiling painted to represent blue sky, milk-white clouds, and birds. But in the corners were groups of naked Cupids, swimming joyously on the ceiling; in Bursley Town Hall there were no naked Cupids. He understood now that he had been quite wrong in his estimate of the room by which he had come into this Versailles. Instead of being large it was tiny, and instead of being luxurious ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... cherished desires shall never be fulfilled. Thou shalt be king only in name, of that region where there are no roads for (the passage of) horses and cars and elephants, and good vehicles, and asses, and goats and bullocks, and palanquins; where there is swimming only by rafts and floats.' Yayati next addressed Anu and said, 'O Anu, take my weakness and decrepitude. I shall with thy youth enjoy the pleasures of life for a thousand years.' To this Anu replied, 'Those that are decrepit always ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... not been a terribly lonely little boy. He had been a leader in a gang devoted to fighting, swimming, pickerel-spearing, beggie-stealing, and catching ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... how to save the lad, and indeed I fear he had been left to destruction—for I had deemed it madness to try to reach the boat by swimming—but for the extraordinary bravery of the bo'sun, who, without hesitating, dashed into the water and swam boldly out to the boat, which, by the grace of God, he reached without mishap, and climbed in over ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... rheumatism. The baths are of marble and easily entered, and furnished with ingenious contrivances to facilitate the application of the water to any particular part. Near the Casino, and standing by itself, is a swimming bath, 62 ft. long by 29 wide and 5 deep, filled with the mineral water cooled down to 90 Fahr. The surplus water is still carried off by the underground channels constructed by the Romans. At intervals along their course perpendicular ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... many killed and wounded on board the Cassandra, that the crew, losing heart, refused to fight the ship any longer. Thirteen had been killed and twenty-four wounded, among the latter Macrae himself, who had been struck by a musket ball on the head; so, some in the long boat and some by swimming reached the shore, leaving on board three wounded men who could not be moved, and who were butchered ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... time he came to see me, I was lying betwixt sleep and waking, my eyes wide open in the darkness, the sickness quite departed, but succeeded by a horrid giddiness and swimming that was almost worse to bear. I ached, besides, in every limb, and the cords that bound me seemed to be of fire. The smell of the hole in which I lay seemed to have become a part of me; and during the long interval since his last visit I had suffered tortures of fear, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... individuals; and that something is best to be found in athletic sports. It was a genuine impulse which led Sir Humphrey Davy to care more for fishing than even for chemistry, and made Byron prouder of his swimming than of "Childe Harold," and induced Sir Robert Walpole always to open his gamekeeper's letters first, and his diplomatic correspondence afterwards. Athletic sports are "boyish," are they? Then they are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... are in the army," said Francis. "That's as much swimming as anyone expects of a fellow who has expectations. In fact, it's I who have to swim all the time, if you come to think of it. You are ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... that she was kicked out of heaven by the spirit, her husband, for an amour with a man; while others, again, hold the belief that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. Be this as it may, the animals swimming in the watery waste below saw her falling, and hastily met in council to determine what should be done. The case was referred to the beaver. The beaver commended it to the judgment of the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... the Red River on one occasion. Bill was doing the playing, and I was driving and baiting. We had caught a nice string of fish, and had about come to the conclusion that there were no more of our kind left worth fishing for, when a nice looking young man came swimming up. We thought at first he was too small to angle for; but you can't sometimes always tell, for we found out that this one was larger than anything we had caught ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... transform so completely the whole condition of those rivers that it needs very nice calculation to do one's work at precisely the right tune. To vary the experiment, I had often thought of trying a personal reconnoissance by swimming, at a certain point, whenever circumstances should ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the ascent, barking and coughing among the gleaming young heads, white shoulders, jewels, and chiffon, like an old dog slowly swimming up the rapids of a sparkling river; while down below, in the drawing room, George began to recover from the degradation into which this relic of early settler days had dragged him. What restored him completely was a dark-eyed little beauty of nineteen, very knowing in lustrous ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... mother bird, on a different lake, whose two eggs had been carried off by a thieving muskrat; but she did not know who did it, for Musquash knows how to roll the eggs into water and carry them off, before eating, where the mother bird will not find the shells. She came swimming down to meet us the moment our canoe entered the lake; and what she seemed to cry was, "Where are they? O where are they?" She followed us across the lake, accusing us of robbery, and asking the same question over ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... brought us; for I insisted upon seeing it. Sir Arthur called me a mad girl, adding there was no ruling me. I persisted in questioning and cross-examining the surgeon, till I was convinced that, as he said, there was no great danger; and I then retired to rest: that is, I retired to the same swimming motion which the chaise had communicated to my nerves, or my brain, or I know not what, and to dreaming of swords, pistols, murdered men, and all the horrid ramblings of the fancy ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... his failure to return. The prisoners were afterward taken to a factory and searched for weapons. They were subsequently provided with passports enabling them to go anywhere in the town, but not outside. The witness in question managed to effect his escape by swimming across the river. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... an unspeakable pleasure it will be to look down from heaven and see Rigby, Masterton, all the Campbells and Nabobs, swimming in fire and brimstone, while you are sitting with Whitefield and his old women, looking beautiful, frisking and singing; all which you may have by ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... La Bassee Canal became a very useful asset, and not only were there constant bathing parties, but it was actually possible at the end of July to hold a swimming gala in the "Brewery Reach." There were several well contested races and diving competitions, uninterrupted by hostile aircraft, and a very pleasant afternoon (considering the Boche were less than a mile away) was ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... the table and his whole frame shook with emotion, while Blanche, with her own sad beautiful eyes swimming in tears, could not utter a word of consolation. When he had partially ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... minnows, with a hook and a bit of worm on it, or a fern-web, or a blow-fly, hung from a hazel pulse-stick. For of all the things I learned at Blundell's, only two abode with me, and one of these was the knack of fishing, and the other the art of swimming. And indeed they have a very rude manner of teaching children to swim there; for the big boys take the little boys, and put them through a certain process, which they grimly call "sheep-washing." In the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in 1699, first mentions the water serpents referred to by Van Bu. "In passing," he says, "we saw three water serpents swimming about in the sea, of a yellow colour, spotted with dark brown spots. Next day we saw two water serpents, different in shape from such as we had formerly seen; one very long and as big as a man's leg in girth, having a red head, which I have ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... of course," said his heavy-shouldered host, as he drew out a wooden pipe and a pouch of black Cavendish, "but that isn't the worst: they disturb the pools most abominably—swimming about under water they frighten the salmon out of their senses. But when you get them about a deer-forest they are a still more intolerable nuisance; you are never safe; just as you are getting up to the stag, creeping along the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... getting into one of the canoes. According to his statement, the bay presented an awful spectacle after the catastrophe. The ship had disappeared, but the bay was covered with fragments of the wreck, with shattered canoes, and Indians swimming for their lives, or struggling in the agonies of death; while those who had escaped the danger remained aghast and stupefied, or made with frantic panic for the shore. Upwards of a hundred savages were destroyed ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... scorn, and took a stick out to the end of the wharf. Beth and Don accompanied him. Don seemed anxious to have the stick thrown, for he watched it with glistening eyes. Harvey threw it. Don immediately jumped after it, and succeeded in swimming to shore with it. By this time, he was probably tired, for he did not return to the children, but lay down on the bank ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... been good," eagerly answered the little fellow, lifting his swimming eyes to her face, "you may ask nurse if I havn't ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... reason for the first principles of religion; and such as are ignorant of many more weighty things that are easily to be seen in the face and superficies of the Scripture; nothing will serve these but swimming in the deeps, when they have not yet learned to wade through the shallows of the Scriptures. Like the Gnostics of old, who thought they knew all things, though they knew nothing as they ought to know. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his grandfather's house, and there was talk of Indian "massacrees," and Simon Girty's warriors, and British red-coats, and the awful things that happened to little boys who disobeyed their elders and went swimming, or berrying, or told even the teeniest kind of fibs. He overheard his grandfather and the neighbours discussing a battle on Lake Erie, and rejoiced with them over the report of a great victory for "our side." ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... inferred from what has been already said, their invasions have been rather irruptions, inroads, or, what are called, raids, than a proper conquest and occupation of the countries which have been their victims. They would go forward, 200,000 of them at once, at the rate of 100 miles a day, swimming the rivers, galloping over the plains, intoxicated with the excitement of air and speed, as if it were a fox-chase, or full of pride and fury at the reverses which set them in motion; seeking indeed their fortunes, but seeking ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... mist of the forest, hung over them in the distance. It was not indolent repose this immobility of life suggested; no—the absence of life, something dead, even in its grandeur, was what came to me from every side of the horizon. I remember big white clouds were swimming by, slowly and very high up, and the hot summer day lay motionless upon the silent earth. The reddish water of the stream glided without a splash among the thick reeds: at its bottom could be dimly discerned round cushions of pointed moss, and its banks sank away ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... were not the first creatures. Before them lived immense reptiles: flying, swimming, and walking. Earlier than the reptiles in this world there were only snails and fish, and before them only plants, but plants such ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... example, one of the operators in the Cincinnati office was George Ellsworth, who was telegrapher for Morgan, the famous Southern Guerrilla, and was with him when he made his raid into Ohio and was captured near the Pennsylvania line. Ellsworth himself made a narrow escape by swimming the Ohio River with the aid of an army mule. Yet we can well appreciate the unimpressionable way in which some of the men did their work, from an anecdote that Mr. Edison tells of that awful night of Friday, April 14, 1865: "I noticed," he says, "an immense crowd gathering ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... number of swans which beautified the Thames. Foreigners on their first visit to London were usually very much impressed by the number and the beauty of these birds. Hentzner, in 1598, stated that the river "abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of them and their noise is vastly agreeable to the boats that meet them in their course"; and the Italian Francesco Ferretti observed that the "broad river of Thames" was "most charming, and quite full of swans ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... put on his full suit of evening clothes, a black pearl shirt stud, a tall silk hat, in the dead of night, and flung himself from the stern of a P. & O. boat into the sea. He had no knowledge of swimming and expected to drown at once. But he was not built for drowning. The laws of buoyancy and displacement caused him to float upon his back, high out of the water, like an empty barrel. Nor was the water into which he had fallen as tepid as he had expected. From his description, with its accompaniment ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... girl to her and kissed her eagerly; then gently motioned her back to her chair. "Don't mind it," she smiled, with swimming eyes, and a shade of embarrassment. "I don't know of anything that would help me as much as a good cry. If I could have had a daughter like you, I should—but never mind now." She tried to laugh, as she ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... was perceived on board the ship, and we were called upon to re-embark speedily, or we should all be lost; for what we took for an island proved to be the back of a sea monster. The nimblest got into the sloop, others betook themselves to swimming; but for myself, I was still upon the back of the creature when he dived into the sea, and I had time only to catch hold of a piece of wood that we had brought out of the ship. Meanwhile, the captain, having received those on board who were in the sloop, and taken ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... could not be purchased by victory. Where destined to appear at all, it is likely to be developed in extreme youth, which explains such instances as the gamins de Paris, and that of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who in boyhood conveyed a dispatch during a naval engagement, swimming through double lines of fire. Indeed, among heroic races, young soldiers are preferable for daring; such, at least, is the testimony of the highest authorities, as Ney and Wellington. "I have found," said the Duke, "that raw troops, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... his head, and not far from the surface, he saw a huge thornback, bending toward them and seeming to look down on them, as it flew slowly through the water—the action of the two sides of its body fringed with fins, and its consequent motion, were much more like the act of flying than that of swimming. Behind him floated his long tail, making him yet more resemble the hideously imagined kite which he at once suggested. But the terrible thing about him was the death's-head look of the upper part of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... as in swimming: he who flounders and splashes on the surface makes more noise, and attracts more attention, than the pearl-diver who quietly dives in quest of treasures to the bottom. The vast acquirements of the new Governor were the theme of marvel among the simple burghers of New ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... life and resourcefulness. Hut and mat making. Knots. Fire lighting. Cooking. Boat management. Judging distances, heights and numbers. Swimming. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... it, to those who suffer, all the comfort the human heart can crave. Those who have heard him, as many have, relate such touching episodes of the war, cannot recall without emotion the quivering lip, the face gnarled and writhed to stifle the rising sob, and the patient, loving eyes swimming in tears, which mirrored the tender pity of his gentle and loving nature. He seemed a stranger to the harsher and stormier passions of man. Easily grieved, he seemed incapable of hate.... It is first among ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... of myself and my children. At the further end of it, always covered at high water, was an outlying cluster of low rocks, in the heart of which the lord of the manor, a noble-hearted Christian gentleman of the old school, had constructed a bath of graduated depth—an open-air swimming-pool—the only really safe place for men who were swimmers to bathe in. Thither I was in the habit of taking my two little men every morning, and bathing with them, that I might develop the fish that was in them; ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... were so confident, and his laugh so buoyant, that Mr. Heard, who had been fully expecting him to withdraw from the affair, began to feel that he had under-rated his swimming powers. "Just jumping in and swimming out again is not quite the same as saving a drownding man," he said, with ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... church. They were a dolorous company. The daring spirit of mutiny had passed away, leaving behind it the fear of the skipper. The courage, uplift and inspiring glow of the brandy had ebbed and evaporated, leaving the quaking stomach, the swimming brain, the misty eye. They groaned as they hacked at the trees, for the desire to lie down on the cold snow was heavy upon them; but still they hacked away, for the fear of Black Dennis Nolan, the unconquerable, was like ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... des Plantes is not absolutely secure from visits of the serpent; for the trigonocephalus goes everywhere,—mounting to the very summits of the cocoa-palms, swimming rivers, ascending walls, hiding in thatched roofs, breeding in bagasse heaps. But, despite what has been printed to the contrary, this reptile fears man and hates light: it rarely shows itself voluntarily during the day. Therefore, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... of meal from great and long trees, as thick as two men are able to fathom. Having taken off the thin bark, the wood within is only about three fingers thick, all the rest being pith, from which the meal is made. This pith is broken to pieces, and stirred among water, the light dross swimming, and being thrown away, while the finer parts settle at the bottom, and is made into paste[14]. I brought some of this to Venice, which tastes not much unlike barley bread. The wood of this tree is so heavy as to sink in water like iron, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... triumphant, and she had all but achieved the honours of the drawing-room. Unless the Lord Chamberlain should interfere, and why should he interfere? her appearance in the larger world of society would be as triumphant as in Park Lane. Her beautiful eyes were swimming in light, the glow of satisfaction and triumph. It fatigued her a little indeed to play the part of a virtuous chaperon, and stand or sit in one place all the evening, awaiting her debutante between ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... beautiful it is now, when one sees the wild bee, moving from one flower to another in search of food, which doubtless is as sweet to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of favoured Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and tender young, the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the guardship of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of sea birds in search of places wherein to repose or to feed—how beautiful is ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... there watching her swimming cork for over an hour when the first light western breeze arrived, spreading a dainty ripple across the pond. Her cork danced, drifted; beneath it she caught the momentary glimmer of the minnow; then the cork was jerked under; she clasped the pole with all her ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... your rich man's plaster too, and covers the multitude of sins. That's your big pike's swimming-bladder, that keeps him atop and feeding: that's his calling and election, his oil of anointing, his salvum fac regem, his yeoman of the wardrobe, who keeps the velvet-piled side of this world uppermost, lest his delicate eyes should see ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... shore stood the family bathing-house; and the girls came down to sit in its shadow and watch the swimming. It was late in August, and on the first of September Emilia was ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... from which the Other Shore is best visible had merely been seen so far from the swimming place in front of the rented cottages. It was while in the water that I determined to explore. The first thing that impressed me when I reached the eminence was the silence. It was something to be dreamed of, when the Lake was also still. There was no road; a hay field came down to the very ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... in so lonesome a spot made him so sad that he was about to cry, but just then he saw a big Fish swimming near-by, with his head far ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... called to her men for guidance. They threw him a rope's end as he came to the stern, and he clung to it for a little while, hoping to see the flash of a white hood that the queen wore, over the white wave crests: but at last he gave up, and the Vikings hauled him on board, praising him for his swimming, as he had ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... besides much colourful romance to the life of the village youth of those early days. For down the mill race they ran their racing craft, jostling and screaming, urging with long poles their laggard flotillas to victory. The pond by the mill was to the boys "swimming hole" and fishing pool, where, during the long summer evenings and through the sunny summer days, they spent amphibious hours in high and serene content. But in springtime when the pond was black with floating logs it became the scene of thrilling ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... as it gets hot, we just swim instead of walk," said Astro. "And, believe me, there's going to be a lot of swimming done!" ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... relations to the economy of nature, they are of very much less moment than four-footed animals, or than the undomesticated birds. The domestic turkey [Footnote: The wild turkey takes readily to the water, and is able to cross rivers of very considerable width by swimming. By way of giving me an idea of the former abundance of this bird, an old and highly respectable gentleman who was among the early white settlers of the West, told me that he once counted, in walking down the northern bank of the Ohio River, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the Major, after a hearty draught. "That's like new life. I had half-forgotten. Everything's been swimming round me. Now tell me, some one—you, Sergeant—did not Mr Maine come suddenly upon us, as if from the dead, to ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... now fairly placing his hand on Jasper's guilty head, and fixing his bright soft eye, swimming in tears, on that downcast gloomy face. "You repent!—you repent! Yes; call back your BOYHOOD—call it back! Let it stand before you, now, visible, palpable! Lo! I see it! Do not you? Fearless, joyous Image! Wild, lawless, wilful, as you say. Wild from exuberant ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... come here at last," so the letter closes, "and we are having beautiful weather. I am going in swimming in the Aisne this afternoon for the first time. In fine health ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... swimming in tears, were raised imploringly to his, and Sir Everard was two-and-twenty, and very susceptible to a ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea coming after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy which I had no means or strength to contend with: my business was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could; and so by swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself toward the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the wave, as it would carry me a great way toward the shore when it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... to be cautious in swimming or boating, or you may meet with an accident; with other signs it denotes a ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... the swimming, the boxing, the fencing, and the pistol practice," he complained, referring to diversions in which Orange was an expert and himself the bored but dutiful participant. "They nearly always drop these things when they marry." The ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... against the wall. St. Britius laughed aloud. The officiating priest rebuked him, but, on being told what had happened, improved the accident for the edification of his hearers.22 On the bursting of a certain glacier on the Alps, it is said the devil was seen swimming down the Rhone, a drawn sword in one hand, a golden ball in the other: opposite the town of Martigny, he cried, "Rise," and instantly the obedient river swelled above its banks and destroyed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Bushytail, the squirrel boys, might ask Uncle Wiggily to go after hickory nuts with them, or maybe Lulu, Alice or Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, would want their bunny uncle to see them go swimming. ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... a squadron of his Polish guard to swim the river. These fine fellows threw themselves into it without hesitation. At first, they proceeded in good order, and when out of their depth redoubled their exertions. They soon reached the middle of the river by swimming. But there, the increased rapidity of the current broke their order. Their horses then became frightened, quitted their ranks, and were carried away by the violence of the waves. They no longer swam, but floated about in scattered groups. Their riders ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... great variety of parts and conveniences; the natationes, or swimming places; the portici, where people amused themselves in walking, conversing, and disputing together, as Cicero says, In porticibus deambulantes disputabant; the basilicae, where the bathers assembled, before they entered, and after they came out of the bath; the atria, or ample courts, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Moors. Sodre fought with one of these alone, and Raphael and Perez assailed the other. Almost on the first onset, great numbers of the enemies were so dismayed that they leapt into the sea to escape by swimming. On the coming up of De Gama with the rest of the fleet, all the enemies ships made off as fast as they could towards the shore, except those two which were beset at the first, and were unable to escape, which were accordingly taken possession of. De Gama, considering ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... little children came, and the grandfather was never satisfied with embracing and kissing them; and in the midst of the rejoicings Jennariello entered, as a third sharer in them, who, after suffering so many storms of fate, was now swimming in macaroni broth. But notwithstanding all the after pleasures that he enjoyed in life, his past dangers never went from his mind; and he was always thinking on the error his brother had committed, and how careful a man ought to be not to fall ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... warriors near enough to see all that passed, while he went alone to the lodge. As he entered he saw five horrid-looking manitoes in the act of eating. It was the father and his four sons. They looked hideous; their eyes were swimming low in their heads, as if half starved. They offered him something ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... me when it's a question of swimming, for I wasn't brought up in a bath tub. Many's the time I swam across Black Lake. Water's all right, but swamps—good night! Maybe if you don't live near meadow lands you won't understand how it was. But ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity, "and she have also took nothing. I have seen to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... to be ashamed of ourselves; they daunted and challenged and attacked. But the enemy was too strong for them. A fusillade drove them off, and once again we were free to consider the case of the duck, who was still swimming anxiously about, hoping against hope. More shots were fired, one of the boys waded in with a stick, and the dogs were added to the assault; and in the face of so determined a bombardment the poor little creature at ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... indeed pleased when he saw little Hiranya running towards him. "Be quick, be quick!" he cried, "and set me free." Very soon the sharp teeth of the mouse had bitten through the meshes of the net, and before the hunter came back, after trying in vain to catch the deer, the tortoise was safely swimming across the river, leaving the net upon the ground, whilst the crow and the mouse were back in ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... sooner become a Buddhist than a beef-eater a guzzler of olla podrida. The Spaniards without weariness eat the same dinner day after day, year in, year out: it is always the same white, thin, oily soup; a dish of haricot beans and maize swimming in a revolting sauce; a nameless entree fried in oil—Andalusians have a passion for other animals' insides; a thin steak, tough as leather and grilled to utter dryness; raisins and oranges. You rise from table feeling that you have ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... in defiance of all native customs and prejudices. At Athens her party was joined by Lord Sligo, who was making some excavations in the neighbourhood, and by Lord Byron, who had just won fresh laurels by swimming the Hellespont. Lady Hester formed but a poor opinion of the poet, whose affectations she used to mimic with considerable effect. 'I think Lord Byron was a strange character,' she said, many years later. 'His generosity was for a motive, his avarice ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... interrupted Otto, "she went plump on the other side like a sack of potatoes, and we met under the canoe and dived well astern before coming up for breath. You know what pains you took with our swimming and diving, Dom; it helped us then, I can tell you; and so here we are, all alive and hearty. But I saw the black fellow goin' to send a spear at Pina, and can't think why he didn't let fly. ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... with him that can shake a man from the water wagon or a woman from her virtue. He smokes like a factory, and drinks like a fish, yet at a moment's notice he is ready for some great feat of endurance—such as playing through the racket championship, or swimming from Newport to Narragansett Pier. He might have been—anything you please. But what can I say definitely that he is? Well, at this very moment, he is co-respondent in a divorce suit which is delighting the newspapers, and it looks as if he'd have to marry her in the ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... their irons. This happened in the night. When morning came, it was discovered that the Negros had broken their shackles, and were busy in making rafts; upon which afterwards they placed the women and children. The men attended upon the latter, swimming by their side, whilst they drifted to the island where the crew were. But what was the sequel? From an apprehension that the Negros would consume the water and provision, which had been landed, the crew resolved ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... me dancing about the kitchen with a great bump on my forehead, a big spoon in my hand, and a pair of bright purple feet. The plums were lying all over the hearth, the saucepan in the middle of the room, the basin was broken, and the sugar swimming about as if the bowl had turned itself over trying to sweeten our mess ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... direct interposition of heaven. 'It was God,' says he, 'who then, as I verily believe, sent to my aid a Saracen, who was a subject of the Emperor of Germany. He wore a pair of coarse trowsers, and, swimming straight to me, he came into my vessel and embraced my knees. "My lord," he said, "if you do not what I shall advise, you are lost. In order to save yourself, you must leap into the river, without being observed." He had a cord thrown to me, and I leaped into the river, followed by the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds, Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves, Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting, The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating, The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body, The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating, The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching, The divine list for myself or you or for any one making, The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... course, was 62 deg. 44'—longitude 74 deg. 16', and when off Cape Digges we parted company with the Prince of Wales, as bound to James's Bay. We stood on direct for York Factory, and when about fifty miles from Cary Swan's Nest, the chief mate pointed out to me a polar bear, with her two cubs swimming towards the ship. He immediately ordered the jolly-boat to be lowered, and asked me to accompany him in the attempt to kill her. Some axes were put into the boat, in case the ferocious animal should ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... heaths among, Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes; Where is that soul of freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead! Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies! Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death; Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep, Disturb ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that the cerebrum is the psychic brain, the cerebellum the physiological brain, and the optic lobes the intermediate or psycho-physiological brain, not sufficient to give the animal its character and propensities, but sufficient to guide it in swimming about. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... an adaptable race as the Anglo-Saxon. In spite of the dismal prognostications of Marcus Clarke regarding the future Australian, whom he describes as being "a tall, coarse, strong-jawed, greedy, pushing, talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship," it is more likely that he will be a cultured, indolent individual, with an intense appreciation of the arts and sciences, and a dislike to hard work and utilitarian principles. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... from the east had its source in two very large springs, a he-spring and a she-spring, in which lived two large Water Monsters. These had a pair of youngsters who delighted in emerging from the depths of the spring and swimming out across the meadows in the shallow water where there was neither current nor river banks. Coyote spied them one day, and being ever a meddler and trouble-maker—though withal a fellow of polished mien—stole them, putting the two under ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... It came quite near, so that I could see the face of my husband and the face of my brother. But suddenly a great wave struck it upon one side, and it turned down into the water and it did not come up again. And then we saw my husband and my brother swimming but we could see them only when the waves lifted them up. Tall like hills the waves were, and the head of my husband, and the head of my brother would go up, up, up, and then down, and each time they rose to the top of a wave so that we could see them they would cry out, "Tasukete! tasukete!" ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Forest and had headed for the Smiling Pool to see if Grandfather Frog was awake yet. He had no idea of meeting a stranger there, and so you can imagine just how surprised he was when he got in sight of the Smiling Pool to see some one whom he never had seen before swimming about there. He knew right away who it was. He knew that it was Mrs. Quack the Duck, because he had often heard about her. And then, too, it was very clear from her looks that she was a cousin of the ducks he had seen in Farmer Brown's dooryard. The difference ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... flowers—wild strawberry blossoms, white anemones, clover, and forget-me-nots. At first he thought that only the vegetable family was on the march, but presently he saw that animals and people accompanied them. The insects were buzzing around advancing bushes, the fishes were swimming in moving ditches, the birds were singing in strolling trees. Both tame and wild beasts were racing, and amongst all this people moved along—some with spades and scythes, others with axes, and others, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... only firmer there would never be such ridiculous proceedings as one hears about; but they are so afraid of losing maids that they put up with anything. No wonder the girls find this out and cease to have any respect for them. Look at Mrs. Graham! A latch-key allowed, and no caps or aprons. That's swimming with the tide, with ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... "Well, swimming won't hurt her," said Arthur; "but I'm not going to let my Plush Bear get in the water. I'm going to make a sand cave for him to ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope |
