"Swoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself— The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 30 [An Eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.—Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Just short of the roofs the taut wings flash a reverse, there is a lightning swoop, a startling hollow wind-sound, and the rushing bird is beating skyward again, hawking deliberately as before, and uttering ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... a succession of deceptions, tricks and chicanery she cheated Esau out of his blessing, obtained it for Jacob, and deceived and deluded her dying husband, all at one fell swoop. ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... up Salt Creek. Here it's only ten days till I gotta plunk down six thousan' iron men, plus a raft o' interest money. And the mortgages o' this blame rancho are watchin' me like buzzards, ready to swoop down the minute I begin to gasp. They got me where the hair's short, Heine. I not only lose the rancho and all, but every cent Jo and me and Hiram's put into her. I ain't sellin' an acre these days. Won't till summer's here, and the blame'-fool homesteaders see that Paloma ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... the gunwale as the current lifted and swept the canoe down at a pace past control; as it sped straight for the point of the smooth water, and so, seeming to be warned by the roar it met, balanced itself fore-and-aft for one swift instant and plunged with a swoop that caught away ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... books, my books!' exclaimed Biffen, with a genuine groan. 'And all my notes! At one fell swoop! If I didn't laugh, old friend, I should sit down and cry; indeed I should. All my classics, with years of scribbling in the margins! How am I to buy ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... soft buzz of a high-powered car, and presently two lights appeared at the further end. They came towards her swiftly, almost silently. It was like the swoop of an immense bird. And then in the strong glare shed forth by the hall-lamps she saw the huge body of an ambulance-car, and a Red Cross ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... or two back from the firing line a couple of big motor-cars swing over the crest of a gentle rise, swoop down into the dip, and halt suddenly. A little group of men with scarlet staff-bands on their caps and tabs on their collars climb out of the cars and move off the track into the grass of the hollow. They prod ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... ships upon a sheet Of wrinkled silver! Then, as the thunder followed, One thought burst through his brain— One ship was gone! Over the grim precipitous edge he hung, An eagle waiting for the lightning now To swoop upon his prey. One iron hand Gripped a rough tree-root like a bunch of snakes; And, as the rain rushed round him, far away He saw to northward yet another flash, A scribble of God's finger in the sky Over a waste of white stampeding waves. His ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... fair stand-up Fight; whereas the Maroons had no such scruples, and spared neither age, nor sex, nor Degree—that had a white skin—in their bloodthirsty frenzy. The Savage Indians in the American plantations, who will swoop down on some peaceful English settlement, slaying, scalping, and Burning up men, women, and children,—with other Horrors and Outrages not to be described in decent terms,—are just on a par with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... shall rest with the outlaws of the Yorkshire forests. I have sure spies on the Saxon's motions—To-night they sleep in the convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or whatever they call that churl of a Saxon Saint at Burton-on-Trent. Next day's march brings them within our reach, and, falcon-ways, we swoop on them at once. Presently after I will appear in mine own shape, play the courteous knight, rescue the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from the hands of the rude ravishers, conduct her to Front-de-Boeuf's Castle, or to Normandy, if it should be necessary, and produce her not again ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... energy settles the case once and for all. Determinism is routed; Free Will wins the day; and here again, as usual, theory follows fact, instead of dictating what those facts should be! At "one fell swoop" we are enabled to solve and to settle for ever one of the most bitterly disputed points in the whole ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... their enemies, to cover their own shame. Antiochus was furious alike at what he termed the insolence of a handful of outlaws, and the cowardice of his picked troops, who had flaunted their banners and gone forth as if to assured victory, and had then fled like some gay-plumed bird before the swoop of the eagle. Not only the oppressed inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs had cause to tremble at the rage of the tyrant, but his own Syrian officers and the obsequious courtiers who stood in his presence. And none more so than Pollux, once ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... gasped with amazed indignation. One at a time was the usual forfeit, but to lose five "at one fell swoop" seemed excessive, and would make a considerable difference to her weekly record. She blazed against the injustice. No girl in the form had ever ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... on the western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting for this sign to swoop down upon ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces, gazing at the Planetara's image. And at the altimeter's needle. It was moving now. The Planetara was descending. But not with an orderly swoop. ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... away from the blanched face to the field of battle, towards the sky above it. Circling above were the vile aasvogels, the loathsome birds which followed the track of war, watching, waiting till they could swoop upon the flesh blistering in the sun. Instinctively she drew nearer to the body of the dying man, as though to protect it from the evil flying things. She forced between his lips a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... penguin rookery. Two or three eggs of a brown or greenish-brown colour with darker spots or blotches are laid about the end of October, and, from this time till the chicks are reared, the parent exhibits much annoyance at the presence of any person in the vicinity. They utter shrill cries and swoop down continuously in an attempt to strike the invader with their wings. Several of our party received black eyes as a result of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... battle and the chase, I presume—impelled me to pursue it, and so I too circled and dived. The moment I came down into the warm atmosphere of Caspak, the creature came for me again, rising above me so that it might swoop down upon me. Nothing could better have suited my armament, since my machine-gun was pointed upward at an angle of about degrees and could not be either depressed or elevated by the pilot. If I had brought someone along with me, we could have raked ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of spirit; I longed to see a thousand wild and painted warriors swoop down upon the train. I thought of our peaceful dry-goods store at home, and I would gladly have sat down in another butter-tub could I have been there. I even thought of earthquakes with a sudden longing; but we were not near enough the Western shore to hope for anything so good ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... and ouistitis, and the black coaitas of the genus "ateles," all assembled around the juvia-tree. There were parrots, and macaws, and other nut-eating birds. High above in the air soared the great eagle watching his opportunity to swoop down on the pacas or agoutis, his natural prey. It was altogether a singular assemblage of wild animals—a zoological ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... goin' to get it!" the little boy cried. With his hat he made a swoop for the butterfly, and then suddenly he and Flossie, who was close behind him, tumbled down through a hole in the ground, which seemed quickly to open at their very feet, between two ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... for their trouble. A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of these mountebanks; but as soon as the show-woman caught a whisper of this, she was down upon them with a swoop: if mesdames could persuade their neighbours to act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured them, would be polite enough: mesdames had probably had their bowl of soup, and perhaps a glass of wine that evening; the mountebanks also had a taste for soup, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Harry. "I move we go back to the cellar and get a bunch of those Russian rifles with sufficient ammunition, fill the tanks of the Eagle with some of this gasoline, get aboard a lot of canned goods and swoop down on the German camp like a hawk after some chickens. We can let down a trapeze for ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... have them all 'at one fell swoop,' Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages; They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop, To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages, Till some less rigid editor shall stoop To call them back into their separate cages, Instead of standing staring all together, Like garden ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... there was shade, and waited, uneasy lest the quick-tongued Ailleen should again swoop down upon them with anger which they knew was just, and yet unable to do otherwise than wait, if only to see whether Slaughter would come, and what he would do ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... of the two strove to "cut across lots" when she came near the south-eastern corner, whereat, facing north, stood the big house of the commanding officer; but Mrs. Miller was too experienced a hand, and bore down upon the pair in sudden swoop from her piazza to the front gate, and they had to stop and ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... cigarette waggishly a-rake; and his billycock had just the correct and knowing cock. He kept well under the lee of the tent; and if he was brazen, it was clear that he was sinning and fearful of discovery: for he had one eye always on the watch for the Avenging Angel who might swoop down on ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Class-Chairman, maintained a discreet silence. Instead of the usual sky-larking, care-free crowd that infested the cozy quarters of the happy-go-lucky Hicks, every collegian present, except the ever-cheerful youth, seemed to have lost his best friend and his last dollar at one fell swoop! ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... showed, by repeated instances, his own natural bent and genius, which no difficulties were strong enough to overcome. His first great action on record, although not successful in the end, and tinctured with the innocence of youth, is yet highly creditable to him. He made a general swoop of a hundred and twenty nightcaps belonging to his companions, and disposed of them to his satisfaction; but as it was discovered that of all the youths in the college of Clermont, he only was the possessor ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... a visible interference of fortune in favour of Henker Rothhals. Now general commotion shuttled them, and the stranger's keen hazel eyes read their intentions rightly when he lifted his redoubtable staff in preparation for another mighty swoop, this time defensive. Rothhals, and half a dozen others, with a war-cry of curses, spurred their steeds at once to ride him down. They had not reckoned the length and good-will of their antagonist's weapon. Scarce were they in motion, when round it whizzed, grazing the nostrils of their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bit of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either side and rein their fiery chargers up, allowing me to forge ahead; they amuse themselves by ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... thinking of hitting him, but simply wishing to empty the gun of its charge in case of accident, I took aim and fired. The great bird faltered in its flight, one of its wings seemed to lose all power, and then with a circling swoop he came down with a thud upon a ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... said Mr. Spence. "He might be posing for a statue to be called 'Despair!' He reminds me of Macduff. Macbeth, Act iv., somewhere near the end. 'What, all my pretty chickens, at one fell swoop?' That's what Shields is saying ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... the good old state of Texas. I had come for excitement and adventure and it was not long until I had both articles doled out to me in large chunks. Those Indians used to break out from their reservations, swoop down on some settlement, kill everything in sight and then loot and burn to their heart's content. There was no warning—just a few shots, then a shrill war-whoop, and a perfect horde of yelling and shooting red devils would be upon you. Precautions ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Ameshof, who with Mr. Kotze had made a stand against the President in this matter, was also obliged to relinquish his judgeship. Thus it will be seen that at one swoop Mr. Kruger disposed of three reputable intermediaries whom he had used to great advantage at one time or another. 'Something for nothing,' for Mr. Kruger! Whether Mr. Kotze acted in haste or whether Sir ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... "Let's see it." She gave the wire at the small end the slightest of twists. "There, it ought to swoop." ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... words of the riders. Why the colonel did not spring his trap at once I could not guess; though I learned later that he had magnified our two-man spying venture into a patriot foray meant to capture the whole houseful of British officers at a swoop, and was taking his ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... we suddenly begin to descend, our road sweeping round the mountain sides with tremendous curves for about two hours or more, when all of a sudden we seemed to swoop down upon St. Claude, the little bishopric in the heart of the mountains. The effect was magical. We appeared to have been plunged from the top of the world to the bottom! In fact, you go up and down such tremendous heights in the Jura that ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... on immortality by Iamblichus, the Alexandrian platonist, of whom the Emperor Julian said that he was posterior to Plato in time but not in genius. At last, shutting up my book, I opened my door and took a last look at the dreary fell and still more dreary sky. As I protruded my head, a swoop of wind caught me and sent the red ashes of my pipe sparkling and dancing through the darkness. At the same moment the moon shone brilliantly out from between two clouds, and I saw, sitting on the hillside, not two hundred yards from my ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and his steel clad warriors threading the snows of Mount St. Bernard, and having gained the dizzy height, Prentiss represented "the man of destiny" looking down upon the sunny plains of Italy, and then with a mighty swoop, descending from the clouds and making the grasp of Empire ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... furiously toward two of his planes whose erratic movements showed that they were being attacked. As he neared them he saw one catch fire and begin its earthward swoop. Then the fuselage crackled beside him, and his instrument board dissolved into ruin. Instinctively he went round in a tight bank and loosed his machine-gun. Nothing there! Nothing at all! Yet his right wing went ragged, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... also the Saracens, a race whom it is never desirable to have either for friends or enemies, ranging up and down the country, if ever they found anything, plundered it in a moment, like rapacious hawks who, if from on high they behold any prey, carry it off with rapid swoop, or, if they fail in ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... to forty line-of-battle ships ordered by the Admiralty at one fell swoop, to be built by contract, towards the end of the Napoleon war, and which turned out badly. The writer served in one, the Rodney 74, which fully exposed her weakness in the first gale she experienced, and was sent home, thereby weakening the blockading fleet. Many never went to sea as ships ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... tackle, but to no avail. The big salmon would have nothing to do with anything Pierre offered him. He tried one fly after another, but without effect. It seemed as if the big salmon despised his efforts. As if in defiance, every now and then the fish would swoop up to the surface and jump two or three feet out ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... was either the downfall of a planetary mass on the star, or the collision of the star with a star-cloudlet, or nebula, traversing space in one direction while the star swept onwards in another. A planet could not very well come into final conflict with its sun at one fell swoop. It would gradually draw nearer and nearer, not by the narrowing of its path, but by the change of the path's shape. The path would, in fact, become more and more eccentric; until, at length, at its point of nearest approach, the planet would graze its primary, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... We swoop, as it were, to the skies, and we drop, as it were, to the very sea bed, and we are seasick to the souls of us, one and all; and of the five hundred men the staunch boat carries, there are a round four hundred and fifty wounded, and a round four hundred who will ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... labour and sorrow." The little chaps who have their birthday parties among sub-Arctic reeds are surrounded with enemies from the first day they crack their baby shells. Lynx and raccoon prey upon them by land, eagles and owls swoop upon them as they swim; and as with one eye they scan the sky above them, a greedy pike is apt to snap their web-feet from under them and draw them ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... size, and this he did three times each day. The boys were brought to him by the "Condor," a perfectly hideous bird as large as a cow and as fierce as a tiger. If ever I dared go down that street and disobey my mother, the Condor would "swoop" down over the roofs, snatch me up in his long yellow beak with the blood of the last boy on it, and with thunder and lightning would carry me off far over the clouds and drop ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... either then or later. By what I cannot help thinking was a most fortuitous circumstance for the League, at a moment when its existence was not known outside three or four parishes, Mr Gerald Balfour determined to swoop down upon it and to crush it with the whole might of the Crown forces. Two Resident Magistrates and the Assistant Inspector-General of Constabulary, with a small army corps of special police, were sent to Westport. Result—the inevitable conflict between the police and people took place, prosecutions ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... non-committal and dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette, that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop! ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... reputed rich, secretive, and probably kept her personal property about her. From what the major had said the husband, Mowbray, evidently had been cast off by Helen Mowbray on account of his rascalities, and, being a bird of prey, would swoop down upon her property as soon as he learned of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures, they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse. The consuls of those countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy men, and the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires. There is a spirit in the Palace and beyond which is blowing fast to a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a mighty swoop of his right arm, let his lips form the word that everyone knew to ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... soldiers curse him, for at three o'clock every morning they were forced to get up and stand at arms until broad daylight. The Federal officers wanted no more surprises. But in spite of all their vigilance, Morgan would swoop down and carry off prisoners ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... neither trouble or expense. They say it is a clear case, etc. I will speak to Johnson about the "Fears in Solitude." If he gives them up they are yours. That dull ode has been printed often enough, and may now be allowed to "sink with deep swoop, and to the bottom go," to quote an admired author; but the two others will do with ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... make ze millions and millions by ze great enterprizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in command, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone." One time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern Pacific, wrote him at New York about the loss of three thousand head of sheep, the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the lightning swoop down upon the moorland. I caught a glimpse of a man running as one blinded—his hands above his head to protect himself—vaguely through the inky peat-hags. Then I turned to look on Sandie who was also gazing into the darkness—his face like the archangel Michael's. I had not yet found my voice, ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... seize the treasure as contraband, which would save much legal trouble, since under the law or the edicts wealth might not be shipped abroad by heretics. The plan of Ramiro and his friends was to facilitate the escape of the treasure to the open sea, where they proposed to swoop down upon it and convey ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... we arrived in this astonishingly perfect old town early in the afternoon, coming by way of Capel Curig (whence we saw Snowdon crowned with a double rainbow), sweet Bettws-y-coed, or "station in the wood," and so down the river valley in a bird swoop, to noble Conway, with its castle that was once a famous Welsh fortress. Now, in piping days of peace, its towers and turrets still dominate bridge and river, and the great pile is as fine, in its way, as Carcassone. Don't you remember, it was from Conway Castle that Richard the Second started ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... irreverential contempt for all things human and divine. Would that—(and the wish is expressed more in sorrow than in anger)—would that your entire species were condensed into one enormous bluebottle, that we might crush you all at a single swoop! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... Victory, over fear, over doubt, over littleness, her gold shoes ring like the noise of a sparkling sword, her steps are swift. They stand for an instant, hands locked, looking back at the long roller-coaster swoop of the Avenue, listening to the roll of tired wheels, the faint horns, the loud horns. They know each other now—their hands grip tighter—in the wandering instant the whole background of streets ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk," was first to swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall the direct style of the Californian "sixties." "The hogwash and 'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slop-bucket of Messrs. —— and Co., of 'Frisco, by ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Mnemosyn! inspire these men, inspire my muse who knows our exploits and those of the Athenians. With what a godlike ardour did they swoop down at Artemisium[467] on the ships of the Medes! What a glorious victory was that! For the soldiers of Leonidas,[468] they were like fierce wild-boars whetting their tushes. The sweat ran down their faces, and drenched ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... of the whirring, snowy wings, Cooled the hot air, diffusing mystic calm. Again I shuddered as I marked the glare Which shot from the fell Raven's fiendish eye, The while he measured where his pall-like swoop Might seize the Dove as Death had seized Lenore: 'Lenore!' he shrieked, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... chances and came to the conclusion that he could swoop down, nip Mrs Gummidge, and get back to his bust of Pallas without being caught. He tried it, but his master was too quick for him, and foiled, he lay sullenly in Gethryn's hands, his two long claws projecting helplessly between the brown fists of ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... across this line that the wandering tribesmen pass in their journeys to or from the pastures round Mount Sinai. The steep hills on our left form at once a hiding-place and a lookout. There they can watch for travelers passing along this road, and swoop ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... like," he thought longingly, "would be to make a break for the border; to round up about twenty of the boys and to swoop down on this place like a gale out of hell! Clean 'em for fair, pick the little Gordon girl up and race back to the border with her. If it wasn't ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... shadows as they wheel and circle, or flashing sunshine from brown wings by quick, sudden swoops, hovering and swooping throughout the sunshine, or rising to melt into blue depths of the heavens, where other arching, floating specks tell of myriads there, ready to swoop, and fall and gather and feast wherever their lowest ranks drop earthwards ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... motors thundered. For a long distance they raced through blinding spray. Little by little this diminished until with a swoop, like a sea gull, the magnificent plane shot upward. The next instant they felt a dash of cold rain upon their cheeks. Was the storm upon them? Or was this merely a warning dash which had reached them far in advance of the deluge? For the ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... grow nothing less hardy than millet, peas and buckwheat. In crossing to the valley, or rather trench, of the upper Indus, we have the choice of two passes, one 13,060 and the other 13,500 feet above tide. Having selected the least of these two evils, we swoop nearly six thousand feet down upon the village of Astor and a new language, the Dard. The temptation to stop and study either is small. If we are insatiate of climbing or find the heat at Astor—only 7853 feet above the sea—oppressive, we have the ice-cone of Nanga ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... substantial one; he seemed resolved, at one ample swoop, to repay Lady Annabel for all her hospitality; and he really took such delight in their participation of it, that his principal guest was constrained to check herself in more than one warning intimation that moderation was desirable, were it only for ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... train of thought, she retraced her steps. But just as she was starting to join her other cousins, she unexpectedly descried, ahead of her, a pair of jade-coloured butterflies, of the size of a circular fan. Now they soared high, now they made a swoop down, in their flight against the breeze; much ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... so they watched that thing swoop and duck and sail up there overhead. And then, slow and easy as a feather in a May breeze, down she flutters and lands soft on a hummock a little ways off. And that Augustus—a fool for luck—staggers out of it safe and sound, and sets ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... calmer devotion of genius was added the idolatrous enthusiasm of the peoples of France, Italy, Germany. And, indeed, since Mohammed, no single mind had united within itself capacities so various in their power over the imaginations of men—an energy of will, swift, sudden, terrifying as the eagle's swoop; the prestige of deeds which in his thirtieth year recalled the youth of Alexander and the maturer actions of Hannibal and Caesar; an imaginative language which found for his ideas words that came as from a distance, like those ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... Lucien, laying his hand upon Basil's arm—"hold, brother! it is the red-tailed hawk. See, he is going to swoop down. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... hang about, keeping a sharp eye on the proceedings and watching their chance. This would come when the carcass was dressed and lights and other portions thrown to the dogs; then the carancho would swoop down like a kite, and snatching up the meat with his beak would rise to a height of twenty or thirty yards in the air, and dropping his prize would deftly catch it again in his claws and soar away to feed on it at leisure. I was never tired of admiring this feat of the carancho, which ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... morning, when Mr. Archibald went out of his cabin door, he looked over the lake and saw a bird suddenly swoop down upon the water, breaking the smooth surface into sparkles of silver, and then rise again, a little silvery fish ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... letter to Andrew Gregory was an exposure of the plans of the great train-robber gang, together with their whereabouts on a certain day to come. They were to swoop down on Tinkletown on the night of the open-air performance of "As You Like It," and their most desperate coup was to be the result. The scheme was to hold up and rob the entire audience while the performance was going on. Anderson Crow was in a cold perspiration. The performance was but ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... rebel—intense, red-hot in her advocacy of Southern rights and her denunciation of Northern wrongs. Although she had not taken up arms against the Government, she was none the less subject to the indiscriminating swoop of the Proclamation; her niggers, according to that document, were free, and if the Confederacy failed, she could only get pay for them by establishing her loyalty in a court of justice. Her loyalty to the Yankee nation?—not she! She was spunky as a widow of thirty can be. She ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... uneasiness and turmoil without have reached even to thee. Thou beatest thy wings against the wires, thou turnest thy bright eyes to mine restlessly. Why? Pantest thou to be free, silly one, that the hawk may swoop on its defenceless prey? Better, perhaps, the cage for thee, and the prison for thy master. Well, out if thou wilt! Here at least thou art safe!" and opening the cage, the starling flew to his bosom, and nestled there, with its ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... round and round, each apparently doing its utmost to get above the other. The two, however, were very evenly matched, for, whereas the kite had its strong beak and talons, deadly weapons for seizing and rending when at close quarters, and could make a powerful swoop at his prey—the heron, though an awkward bird in the air, and ungainly in its movements, had yet its long, sharp, bill, with which it could receive its enemy as it were “at point of bayonet,” and even transfix him, should he make a reckless onset. Again ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... she had, unobserved, as she thought, spread out her silver before her, two of her descendants came suddenly upon her. At first they seemed begging for a share, but she repulsed them with angry gestures, when one of them made a sudden swoop, and possessed ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Muses, careering in air on the vast white arc of his wings, against a sky so dark that it must symbolise the obscure discourse of those who write in prose. You are left quite doubtful whether he will strike the rocky terrace in the foreground with his slender, silver hooves, or will swoop down into the valley below, or will soar to heaven and out of sight. You are left by the painter in a pleasant uncertainty, but Hippocrene may break out anywhere, and of the vivacious courser himself all that we can be sure of is that we are certain to see him alighting before us ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... a Raincy by name, whatever you may be by nature," said the old man. Suddenly the boy stood up straight and firm before him, with a dourness on his face which was clearly not akin to the swoop and dash of ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... out. Two strong companies struck off into the hills; the third and weakest of the trio kept the road, apparently marching straight into the trap. Signals had been arranged. At a given sign the three parties were to swoop down upon the position held ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of rope and chains, over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks overhanging the yawning basin; while the Doctor, directed to a certain chute in midstream, took unladen Pilgrim over the great dam, with a wild swoop which made our eyes swim to witness from ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... aim the volley was returned; and ere the smoke rose a cheer rang through the ravine, and Riley fell with a swoop on the intrenchments. With bayonet and butt of musket, the Second and Seventh drove the enemy from his guns, leaping into his camp and slaughtering all before them. Up rushed Smith's own brigade on the left, driving a party of Mexicans before ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Blue-feather," said White-coat. "We have all we want to eat here, everyone is kind, and we have a good home. I have heard that in other places men set traps for birds or shoot them, and that sometimes large hawks swoop down and carry them off. You might be caught out in a storm and find no shelter; besides, it would almost kill me to be separated from you long. You might be able to bear it, but not I. Surely it is best to stay ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... the ground, where it is completely exposed. The bearers instantly retire, the door is closed and locked. These towers are open at the top, on the cornice of which hundreds of vultures are always waiting in full view of every one, and as soon as the body is left they swoop down to their awful meal, eagerly tearing and devouring the flesh, absolutely picking it clean from the bones, which fall into a space below in an indiscriminate mass, to be decomposed by time and the elements. The hideous detail of the scene is not visible to the spectators, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Xenophon, and would not see his old friend, Caesar, neglected without an effort to defend him; so he confiscated the gum-pot, and effectually stopped the stamp business by whisking away at one fell swoop all that lay ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... a swoop through the air, a scream from Barbara, a crash— two crashes, a momentary glimpse of a brindle cat with a mackerel crosswise in its mouth and the ends dragging on the ground, a rattle of claws on the fence. Then Jed and ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... his hands outspread, waiting for the moment to swoop. "Missy sahib, not move—not move!" he said softly above her. "My missy sahib not going to be hurt. Peter taking care ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... first. He was tall and slender and flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of build. He had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and knew all the latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music, the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister nymphs flew past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy. A brief, uncontrollable ripple of laughter ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gather his people together an' swoop down with them on the murderin' convicts. He found out from signs, that I couldn't make nothin' of, that his tribe had divided into two parties, one going towards a hunting-ground called Big Cypress, an' the other to another place where deer an' bear are thick. As soon as the chief was buried, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... shout, and cheer on cheer, as first one, then another of the enemy was overturned or dodged. The more he achieved, the less his enemies ventured against him, and he dashed through their "forwards" and between their "quarter-backs." Next moment, with a mighty swoop, their "half-back" ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... could hear Gino coming in on tiptoe. He even knew what was passing in his mind, how now he was at fault, now he was hopeful, now he was wondering whether after all the victim had not escaped down the stairs. There was a quick swoop above him, and then a low growl like a dog's. Gino had broken his ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... cigarettes; and that Mabel is trying cubebs for her catarrh; and that the cashier of the Teenth National belongs to a whist club in the suburbs and is the superintendent of a Sunday-school in the city; and that Dan has put Daisy up to visiting her mother to ward off a threatened swoop down from the old lady; and that the Czar hasn't done a blame thing except to become the ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... atmosphere this morning every beauteous feature of the valley was disclosed to her inspection. The early morning haze had lifted, and the few fleecy clouds that floated in the blue bowl of sky were motionless, their majestic billows glowing in the sun. She saw a Mexican eagle swoop over the cloud, sailing on slow wing high above it, and growing so distant in her vision that he became a mere speck moving in the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... different troops gathered together and rode away southward. I suppose they had received word of better opportunity for plunder somewhere else; they took little but hard knocks from us, and doubtless any change was welcome. When we had seen the last of them, and had watched the vultures swoop down on a horse they had left behind, we took new heart and rode on; and it so happened that the Germans chose that occasion for a rest. Their dwindling Kurdish escort was growing mutinous and they took advantage of a village with high mud walls to get behind cover and try to reestablish ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... billiard ball, but as he warmed up and became more thoroughly stirred, his intellectual dome changed to a delicate pink. Then, when he rose to the full height of his eloquent flight, and prepared to swoop down upon his adversaries and carry them into camp, it is said that his smooth intellectual rink was as red as the flush of rosy dawn on the 5th ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... collision was a fierce one. With the mass of fire between us and the ground directly below, blinded by the smoke and half suffocated by the heat, we were not conscious of the good fortune that awaited us, until, with a swoop and a plunge, we found ourselves submerged, and, with an equal velocity, immediately thrown back again by the buoyant force of the balloon into the open air. The flood of fire in which we had descended was instantly extinguished; and we awoke to a sense of our possible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... time to swerve from the attack, and swoop aloft—dropping his next to last projectile as he did so—when the whirling shape zoomed past, swung round and once more charged. He saw, vaguely, two men sat in it. One was the pilot, a "Gray" or Cosmos mercenary. The other—could it be? Yes, there was no mistaking! The other was Slade ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... tossing and heaving with the throes of dissolution. The sea arose tumultuously against the tottering city; the ground breathed fire, and quaked, and burst asunder; the houses reeled and fell, and thousands of inhabitants perished in the fall. Among them, at one dire swoop, the tenants of that happy cottage home. Together did these mortals ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... and was whirled off down to Wall street. His brokers had already been charged with his plans, and, before he reached the ground, every office where the Crooked Valley stock was held had been visited, and every considerable deposit of it ascertained, so that, before night, by one grand swoop, the General had absorbed a controlling interest in ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... such long and fearful intervals, and then, vision-like, of such short duration, that, with the closed oaks of the tradesmen, and the woe-begone faces of the starving scouts and bed-makers, a stranger might have imagined some ruthless plague had swept away, "at one fell swoop," two-thirds of the population of Rhedycina. It was at this dull period of time, that a poor student, having passed successfully the Scylla and Charybdis of an Oxonian's fears, the great go and little go, and exhausted by long and persevering efforts to obtain his degree, had just succeeded ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... dip from the rich, flat country of Normandy down the steep cliffs to the sea. Cancale is like the rest of it. The town itself stands on the brink of a swoop to the sands; the fishing-village proper, where the sea packs it solid in a great half-moon, with a light burning on one end that on clear nights can be seen as far as Mme. Poulard's cozy ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... seemed to go where there was no room for it, and vanish into air just when the grasp of some grasping "blind man" was ready to fasten upon him. And when he was blinded, he seemed to know by instinct where the walls were, and keeping clear of them he would swoop like a hawk from one end of the room to the other, pouncing upon the unlucky people who could by no means get out of the way fast enough. When this had lasted a while there was a general call for "the fox and the goose;" and Miss ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... fellows where you can all have a chance at them," said Mr. Choate with a smile. "It would be interesting to have a motion-picture record of the thoughts which flash through the mind of the average inland fisherman the first time he feels the tiger-like swoop of a five-foot barrancuda, the fierce yank of a hundred-pound amber-jack, or the sullen surge of a big grouper on his line; for even when armed with the heaviest rod, and a line as big around as a silver dollar, he is pretty sure to wish, at least subconsciously, that his ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... Hence this pair of words does not furnish an example of Inclusion. But as "dig" is frequently appropriated to "spade"—as we have often thought of those words together—this is a case of strong Concurrence. The term "swoop" is almost exclusively applied to "eagle." A certain action or movement of the eagle is termed swooping. But "eagle" does not mean "swoop," nor does "swoop" mean "eagle." We always think of "eagle" when we think of "swoop," but we do not often think of "swoop" when we think of "eagle." It is not ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... to help man the outposts that guarded the island at whose Southern extremity New York lies, from rebel attack; especially from the harassments of the partisan troops, and irregular Whiggery, who would swoop down in raiding parties, cut off our foragers, drive back our wood-cutters, and annoy us in a thousand ways. We had such raiders of our own, too, notably Captain James De Lancey's Westchester Light Horse, Simcoe's Rangers, and the Hessian yagers, who repaid the visits of our enemies by ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Kharbe and Turgu, Merodach to Shipak, Nergal to Shugab.* The Cossaean kings, already enriched by the spoils of their neighbours, and supported by a warlike youth, eager to enlist under their banner at the first call,** must have been often tempted to quit their barren domains and to swoop down on the rich country which lay at their feet. We are ignorant of the course of events which, towards the close of the XVIIIth century B.C., led to their gaining possession of it. The Cossaean king who seized on Babylon was named ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... spread out in circle formation, with a view to surrounding it, each a little higher than the other. With a lightning-like swoop the British bird, getting right in front of it and turning sharply, let fly his machine gun in rapid fire, Fritz answering energetically. In less than three minutes' time, a distinct wabbling was noticeable and the British sparrow, ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... confidence. When Greek meets Greek, said we, as we dashed through it, and gave a warning to old Neptune to take care of his interests below! Other huge parcels of water hit us obliquely, or come down upon us with a swoop like a falchion; steam hisses, and chimney gets red-hot; but though the vessel yields not, there be those on board who do: an Anglo-Sicilian pleasure party is quenched in twenty blanched faces at once; conversation is over, women retire, and the deck is deserted. Against such ups and downs as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... nature. What must her feelings have been when she heard that Prince Muishkin, the last of his and her line, had arrived in beggar's guise, a wretched idiot, a recipient of charity—all of which details the general gave out for greater effect! He was anxious to steal her interest at the first swoop, so as to distract her thoughts from other matters ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained by the landlady, whom he ran ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... I had a curious sense of being whirled at a terrific speed into some subterranean suck of waters. There was nothing to do but wait. We struck rocks and went rolling, shipping buckets of water at every dip. Then there was a long sickening swoop through utter blackness. It ended abruptly with a ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... have ample opportunity, amidst the crash of armies and the crumbling of an empire, to erase from his memory Elvas, and its "episode in winter quarters." From the heights of Traz os Montes, Wellington was now to make an eagle's swoop upon the north of Spain, and a lion's spring upon the herd, driven into the basin of Vittoria. The march now begun was to lead thence to the blood-stained passes of the Pyrennees, to Bayonne, Orthes, and Toulouse, and later, to Paris, from the field of Waterloo. But who ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... vehement seriousness, but rather the reverse!)—He concludes: "Have I need of Peace? Let those who need it give me what I want; or let them fight me again, and be beaten again. Have not they given whole Kingdoms to Spain? [Naples, at one swoop, to the Termagant; as broken glass, in that Polish-Election freak!] And to me they cannot spare a few trifling Principalities? If the Queen does not now grant me all I require, I shall in four weeks demand Four Principalities more! [Nay, I now do ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... midday meal, which was hurriedly eaten. Lars Gunnarson and the clerk still sat on the fence, laughing and chatting. They reminded Jan of a pair of hawks biding their time to swoop down upon helpless prey. Finally the men got down off the fence, opened the gate, and went toward ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... to wheel o'er the fight Of the blue coats and the red, 'Till the fire has ceased, and we swoop to the feast Which the ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... The earthward swoop of the upper boughs would hasten till the air was full of a whistling, whishing sound. Then came the rending crash as the great tree smashed prone, crushing what small timber stood in its path, followed by the earth-quivering shock of ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to be interviewed. With a swoop, the airplane left the ground and started upward. His pursuers were so close at hand they could almost grasp the wheels, as they leaped upward. Yet not quite. Bullets whistled about him, and several pinged against ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... alterations in the heart of the deceived one! I, who but a year—nay, six months ago—would not harm the meanest reptile that crawls, now thirst for vengeance—vengeance," repeated the old man, in a shrieking, hysterical tone, "upon those who have wronged me! I will exterminate them at one fell swoop—exterminate them all—all!" And his voice rang screechingly and wildly through the lofty room of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... transcontinental railway across the prairie, it was the Mounted Police that stepped in to see that the road was not blocked. Eastern contractors and workmen, who had not been used to seeing war-paint, were somewhat alarmed when a band of Indians would swoop down with the air of people who owned the earth, and in all such cases the Police were quickly called by wire or otherwise. Superintendent Shurtcliffe tells of a rather odd case in which an Indian chief with the appropriate name of "Front ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth |
