"Swoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Roper's letter, and had since that been living in fear of two things; in a lesser fear of some terrible rejoinder from Amelia, and in a greater fear of a more terrible visit from his lady-love. Were she to swoop down in very truth upon his Guestwick home, and declare herself to his mother and sister as his affianced bride, what mode of escape would then be left for him? But this she had not yet done, nor had she even answered his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... do with her), would be in attendance; and then her brother's man would complete his master's equipment; and then her father would give his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her, and, escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs. There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages, which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and clattering, they would do; and so they would be driven madly through narrow unsavoury streets, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... accordance with these plans would require a force of skilled mechanics under the supervision of a master builder? And do you realize that time is a most important factor in our present undertaking? Who can tell at what moment Brute MacNair may swoop down, upon us like Attila of old, and strike a fatal blow to our little outpost of civilization? And if he finds me here—" His voice trailed into silence and his eyes swept gloomily the northern ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... search of a more aggressive adversary than Edward, would pay visits, when as likely as not another neighbour with profound convictions and a craving for proselytes would swoop down on the defenceless Bumpuses: Joe Shivers, for instance, who lived in one of the tenements above the cleaning and dyeing establishment kept by the Pappas Bros., and known as "The Gentleman." In the daytime Mr. Shivers was a model ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... left was as open from the north as was that on the other side from the south. Davout's rear-guard was steadily disintegrating under hardships and before the harassing attacks of the Russian riders under Platoff. Partizan warfare was assuming alarming dimensions. In a single swoop two thousand French recruits under Baraguey d'Hilliers had been made prisoners, and similar events were growing all too frequent. In consequence of these crushing discouragements the whole army was rearrayed. "We must march as we did in Egypt," ran the order: "the baggage in the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... at the idea of Jake Feinn owning a team worth $200, and, as he was also a chronic litigator, it was generally conceded that Johnson would be discharged. But his misfortunes seemed to swoop down on him from the very first moment. At the preliminary examination Johnson acted like a man who was dazed. He couldn't talk or understand English very well. He failed to get a lawyer. He pleaded guilty, not knowing what it meant, and was permitted ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... platform, he made a swoop upon Andy. The latter stood his ground, and there was a shock. Then Andy was swayed to and fro as the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... vitality and spirits? Well, there was one fly—the keenest player of them all, by the way—who, when it had alighted three or four times in rapid succession on my taboo wall and succeeded each time in eluding the velvet- careful swoop of my hand, would grow so excited and jubilant that it would dart around and around my head at top speed, wheeling, veering, reversing, and always keeping within the limits of the narrow circle in which it ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... meeting in the street below, which I was just in time to witness. Berry's swoop was so sudden that his prey appeared to realize that the game was up, and made no attempt to fly. It was almost piteous. An apprehension of certain embarrassment to come extinguished the instant impulse to shriek with laughter which was written plain upon their ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... moment's rest to those who were ill-advised enough to fall into his clutches. Trespolo was in one of his good moods of repentance, when the prince, after gazing on the young girl with the fierce eagerness of a vulture about to swoop upon its prey, turned to speak to his intimate adviser. The poor servant understood his master's abominable design, and not wishing to share the guilt of a sacrilegious conversation, opened his eyes very wide and turned them up to heaven in ecstatic contemplation. The prince coughed, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... turning aside by a hair's breadth. And it is all quite useless: for they crush each other out of existence. The humanitarians wage war on the patriots. The patriots wage war on the humanitarians. And meanwhile the enemy comes and destroys both country and humanity in one swoop. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the parties of rebels and commandoes of the Mexican army were hovering along the Rio Grande, ready to swoop like hawks upon unprotected Americans. The thin line of United States soldiers was strung along the desert country, watchfully waiting, policing the district as best they could. But they could not protect Americans who went over ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... spot, and as the dove ascended, a hawk suddenly rose from the copse and pursued the dove; and the dove was terrified, and soared circling high above the crowd, when, lo, the hawk, poising itself one moment on its wings, swooped with a sudden swoop, and, abandoning its prey, alighted on the plumed ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... of an imaginary gas attack sounds. One backward fling of the head and the steel helmet falls off, for there is no time to lift it off. A dive into the bag carried on the chest and the respirator is grasped and with one skilful swoop it is drawn over the face. Your nose is pinched shut by a clamp, your teeth grip the rubber mouthpiece, and, like a diver, you must now get your one safe stream of pure air through the respirator. You draw in the air from a tube which rises from a tin of chemical on your chest. ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... and again she saw the horror at her feet; saw Nick, bent to destroy like an eagle above his prey, merciless, full of strength, terrible; saw the man beneath him, writhing, convulsed, tortured; saw his upturned face, and starting eyes; saw the sudden downward swoop of Nick's right hand, the flash of ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... blame than himself. And further, how sure and swift was the retribution which followed a mistake committed within his sphere of action! What opportunity did Jackson miss? His penetration was unerring; and when, after he had marked his prey, did he ever hesitate to swoop? "What seemed reckless audacity," it has been well said by one of the greatest of Southern soldiers, "was the essence of prudence. His eye had caught at a glance the entire situation, and his genius, with marvellous celerity and accuracy, had weighed all the chances of success ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... 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
... 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 when ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... upper regions, amidst that sea of leaves, whole tribes of birds, long since vanished from England, carried on their aerial business, and now and then the eagle made a swoop amongst them, and then there was ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... British submarines and hydroplanes and torpedo craft pouring up the Rhine in support of it; Viard might crave for brilliance with the motor bicycles, aeroplanes, and ski-men among the Swiss mountains, and a sudden swoop upon Vienna; the thing was to listen—and wait for the other side to begin experimenting. It was all experimenting. And meanwhile he remained in profile, with an air of assurance—like a man who sits in an automobile after the ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... Times! and how little more than "yes" and "no" does she get! I take heart. Roger loves people who talk—people who are merry and make jests. It was my most worthless gabble that first drew him toward me. Cheered and emboldened by this thought, I swoop down like a sudden eagle to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of this dashed Swoop of the Vulture business," he grumbled, as he paced before his tent, ever and anon pausing to sweep the city below him with his glasses. "I should like to find the fellow who started the idea! Making me look a fool! ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... feelings. He had collected his Bowlderos, and was giving his instructions as to the manner in which they were to follow, and keep near his person, in the expected hand-to-hand encounter, when the heavy rushing of the air, and the swoop of the mass from above, announced what had occurred. Turning to the men, he calmly ordered them to aid in getting rid of the incumbrances, and was in the very act of directing Wycherly to join in the same ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Americans had taken and made over new for the war. Long vistas of docks had been built since the fighting began; Jimmie saw huge cranes that dipped down into the hold of a ship, and pulled out whole locomotives, or maybe half a dozen automobile trucks in one swoop. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... often have been and still are impleaded in Court Christian—these particulars, I say, being recapitulated and set forth in terrible array, by the rector, excited in the whole parish so much dread of the rapacious vulture, who was coming with such a swoop upon them, that high and low, young and old, rich and poor, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... sheer ecstasy, cried, "Oh, I just love to be knocked flat and have my breath taken away with unexpected news like that! It makes you tingle all over and at the same time have a queer die-away feeling too, like when you swoop ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... addition to our Scriptures. But if we should look at the matter earnestly, and give deep thought to the relative positions, lives, and endings of these two noble men, Issa and Christ, we could scarcely doubt that they are one. Without trying, as does the author, to break down with one fell swoop, the entire structure of the Bible, we cannot but admit the probability ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... Ingelow was mistaken, for here in his "fair field" appeared the most formidable rival he could possibly have had—a rival who seemed likely to eclipse himself and Oleander and Sardonyx at one fell swoop. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... more, but that was enough to reveal the black, seething hell the Rebellion has brewed. Can there be any peace with miscreants who thus deliberately plan the murder, at one swoop, of hundreds of unarmed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the progress of the 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 Man" stopped a railway contractor from getting out ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... may be acquainted. A mediatised Prince is an unhappy victim of those Congresses which, among other good and evil, purged with great effect the ancient German political system. By the regulations then determined on, that country was freed at one fell swoop from the vexatious and harassing dominion of the various petty Princes who exercised absolute sovereignties over little nations of fifty thousand souls. These independent sovereigns became subjects; and either ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... reasons he was the only one of the lot who heard with no misgivings the vicious swoop of the storm; so long as the tent-pegs held he didn't care how hard it rained. But the others who woke to the roar of wind and the crash of thunder and to the swish and beat of much falling water, turned uneasily in their beds and hoped that it ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... 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 limitless expanse ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... which psychologists are addicted. As M. Comte's style is here unusually vivacious, we will quote the whole passage. Are we uncharitable in supposing that the prospect of demolishing, at one fell swoop, the brilliant reputations of a whole class of Parisian savans, added something to the piquancy of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios. The nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons—for I sometimes made a day of it—like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... high above her and for an instant hung poised like a hawk that is about to strike. Then, like the hawk that cannot miss its prey, swiftly did he swoop down and smote with his sword the devouring monster of the ocean. Not once, but again and again he smote, until all the water round the rock was churned into slime and blood-stained froth, and until his loathsome combatant floated ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... hath fallen!" he muttered. "Fool, fool that I was never to dream of this! Friends, followers, all I hold most dear, swallowed up in this fell swoop! God of mercy, how may it be born! And thou, thou," he added, in increased agony, roused from that stupor by the wild shouts of "Sir Nigel, Sir Nigel! where is he? why does he tarry in such an hour?" that rung shrilly on the air. "Agnes, mine own, it is ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... them for a good many years now," he told me. "I've seen them tackle a man, a bull, a team, and stand against the swoop of an eagle. Two ganders may be hard as swordsmen at each other, when they're drawing off their flocks, but they'll stand back to back against any outsider. Yes, I've watched them a long time, and I've never yet seen them do anything a ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day; while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were cleared away at one swoop. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... 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, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... probably stand nearly or quite as high in the scale as these insects, having sufficient mental capacity to admire bright colours. They certainly discover flowers by colour. The Humming-bird Sphinx may often be seen to swoop down from a distance on a bunch of flowers in the midst of green foliage; and I have been assured by two persons abroad, that these moths repeatedly visit flowers painted on the walls of a room, and vainly endeavour to insert their proboscis ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... 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 sticks at the ground, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... reorganises for a second shot his bronco stumbles. Silver Phil pitches from the saddle an' strikes the grass to one side. As he half rises, Dan lowers on him like the swoop of a hawk. It's as though Dan's goin' to snatch ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... execution of this hazardous ruse that he would let go of the controls and permit his machine to literally fall, sometimes from a height of a mile or more, making no attempt at recovery until within sixty metres of the ground, when he would save himself by a hawk-like swoop in which his wheels would actually ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... found that the muse had played me another of her tricks, and had betrayed me into the hands of a footpad. There was no time to parley; he made me turn my pockets inside out; and hearing the sound of distant footsteps, he made one fell swoop upon purse, watch, and all, gave me a thwack over my unlucky pate that laid me sprawling on the ground; and scampered away with ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... buildings. They only came when an animal was killed for meat, and would then 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, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... race issue was understandable; the war was in its darkest days, and whatever his aspirations for American society, the President was convinced that, while some change was necessary, "to go the whole way at one fell swoop would seriously impair the general average efficiency of the Navy."[3-21] He wanted the board to study the question further, noting that there were some additional tasks and some special assignments that could be worked (p. 065) out for the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... a fly, it is quick business. There is no strife, no pursuit,—one fell swoop, and the matter is ended. Now note that yonder little sparrow is less skilled. It is the chippy, and he finds his subsistence properly in various seeds and the larvae of insects, though he occasionally has higher aspirations, and seeks to emulate the pewee, commencing and ending his career ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the escape of Cornelia. Pompeius half rose from his seat; the boat was pitching in the choppy harbour swell; the general steadied himself by grasping the hands of Philip the freedman. Suddenly, like the swoop of a hawk on its prey, Agias saw the right hand of Septimius tear his short sword from its sheath. A scream broke from the Hellene's lips; before the Magnus could turn his head, the blow was struck. Pompeius ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of the Island that most of the battles take place between organized labour and the apostles of free labour. Let there be any industrial trouble of any kind, and down upon the district swoop dozens of fussy futilitarians, to argue, exhort, bully, and agitate generally. Fabians, Social Democrats, Clarionettes, Syndicalists, Extremists, Arbitrators, Union leaders, Christian Care Committees—gaily they trip along and take charge of the hapless workers, until the poor fellows or girls ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... its spring small birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of fascination is nothing more than by its presence near their nests to incite them to attack, and to hazard near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope to force him to retreat, until once within the compass of his fell swoop they fall victims to their temerity. I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever explanation may be received, the fact cannot be questioned, and is ever attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by the animal. They have the same strange susceptibility ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... that machine gun in there on the plane, an' it was then I decided he was a-goin' to slip somepin over on somebody. He didn't take me with him after that, but two or three times when he come into the field he'd swoop down on that there square target he made and put over in the corner and I'd hear the ratti-tat-tat of that machine gun a-goin'. I ast him what was he goin' to do with it an' he said: 'We're a-goin' out one of these nights and ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... 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 ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... miserable with its incessant, mournful "mo-poke! mo-poke!" As Dot could understand all the voices, it amused her to listen to the wrangles of the Flying Foxes, as they ate the fruit of a wild fig tree near by. She saw them swoop past on their huge black wings with a solemn flapping. Then, as each little Fox approached the tree, the Foxes who were there already screamed, and swore in dreadfully bad language at the visitor. For every little Fox on the tree was afraid some other Flying ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... start with the origin of matter and that is too far beyond man for him to penetrate. Just enjoy to the depths of your soul——that's worship. Be thankful for everything——that's praising God as the birds praise him. And 'do unto others' that's all there is of love and religion combined in one fell swoop." ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... 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
... seconds from the time when he first caught sight of it that the aeroplane came perpendicularly above his head, the whirring ceased, and the machine descended with graceful swoop upon the well-cropt turf within fifty yards of the spot where the two golfers stood. As soon as it alighted, Mr. McMurtrie handed his sticks to the caddie, and, as one released from a spell, hurried to meet the man who had just stepped out ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... interior was nearly filled with papers. Many were letters; some fragments of manuscripts, memorandums, accounts, and other similar documents. The hawk does not pounce upon the chicken with a more sudden swoop than Judith sprang forward to seize this mine of hitherto concealed knowledge. Her education, as the reader will have perceived, was far superior to her situation in life, and her eye glanced over page after page of the letters with a readiness that her schooling supplied, and with an avidity that ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... could a man hope to accomplish by a few quiet colloquial remarks delivered in his ordinary voice? The man who expected to get attention should claim it by the strident shrillness of his tones, should be able to bend his two knees in eloquent unison, and send one clenched hand with a driving swoop into the palm of the other—and repeat as often as necessary. Abner questioned as well his mental powers, his quality of brain-fibre, his breadth of view. The feeble creature rested in no degree upon the great, broad, fundamental principles—principles whose adoption ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... The German aviators will not as a class stand up to those of the Allies. They are not nimble in the air. Such champions as they have produced have been men of one trick; one of their great men, Immelmann—he was put down by an English boy a month or so ago—had a sort of hawk's swoop. He would go very high and then come down at his utmost pace at his antagonist, firing his machine gun at him as he came. If he missed in this hysterical lunge, he went on down.... This does not strike the Allied aviator as very brilliant. A gentleman of that sort can sooner or later ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... 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 tackle might be twice ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... at rest on that point," said Belbeis quietly; "they will not attempt to do so. The moment we are seen they will swoop down on us and attempt to cut us up. Well, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... occasioned by the sudden flight of the dove, which, escaping from her hold, soared aloft. Jennet followed the course of its silver wings, as they cleaved the blue sky, and then all at once saw a large hawk, which apparently had been hovering about, swoop down upon it, and bear it off. Some white feathers fell down near the little girl, and she picked up one of them and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shining. "Now there'll be something doing." Then he struck a tragic attitude and declaimed, "Little do the treacherous hawks in yonder nest realize that the eagles of the law are about to swoop down on them." ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... struck roots as firm as the wild fir-trees do—looked at moments rather like a prison than a palace; that my foolish young heart would sigh, 'Oh! that I had wings'—not as a dove, to fly home to its nest and croodle there—but as an eagle, to swoop away over land and sea, in a rampant and self-glorifying fashion, on which I now look back as altogether unwholesome and undesirable. But the thirst for adventure and excitement was strong in me, as perhaps it ought to be in all at twenty-one. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... a whole benchful accounted for at one swoop." Still Jemmy did not reply. The sunbeam drifting between the benches before him fell on a little patch of earth—a patch collected by one of the slaves whose comrades, humouring his whim, had brought him a handful or two in their pockets whenever they returned from shore. Upon this patch of earth ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... involvement of other nations is merely accidental. It is ourselves whom Germany is making this huge effort to crush, and but for one small circumstance she would have come within a measurable prospect of success. To swoop down on France through Belgium, to crush her in three weeks, to seize her fleet, and with the combined fleets of France and Germany to attack ours—that was the proposition, and who can say that it might not have succeeded? The small circumstance ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... been silently patrolling under lowered speed, swerved and darted a wine-colored, surrey-built touring car with a cape top. Durkin recognized it at a glance; it was Penfield's huge machine. Its movement, as it swung in toward the startled woman, seemed like the swoop of a hawk. It appeared to stop only for a moment, but in that moment two men leaped from the wide-swung tonneau door. When they clambered into it once more Durkin saw that Frank was between them. And one of the men was MacNutt, and the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... reasoned it out that the sack must be filled with the best food that the boy could wish for, so he darted toward it. But before the bird could get there a terrible clamour arose about him. Sparrows, crows, and swallows came rushing up with wild shrieks, thinking that the eagle meant to swoop down upon some bird. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... moon, the nip in the air, the little wind that came so gently, yet with such sinister stealth, all portended one thing,—that the great northern winter was lurking just beyond the mountains, ready to swoop forth. Of course there would be likely time in plenty for a dash into Clearwater; yet the little breath of fall was almost gone. Far away, rising and falling faint as a cobweb in the air, a coyote sang to the rising moon,—a strange, sobbing song of pain and ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... up in one swinging swoop, and I wished that Jerry and I had been strong enough to do that last night. Greg had only time for one gasp before he was quite comfortable against our man's shoulder. But he was brave, because ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... swoop like a Falcon: A rumbling waggon now trundles thee off: O My King! Hast thou in truth then forsaken thy wife and thy children and the Diet of thy People? O My King! Circling in pride like an Eagle whilom Thou didst lead us, O My King! But now Thou hast ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... pay their appointed toll sometimes squandered much of their money in useless tribute. Karl is said to have freed them afterwards from the burden of this tax. After Gotrik had crossed Friesland, and Karl had now come back from Rome, Gotrik determined to swoop down upon the further districts of Germany, but was treacherously attacked by one of his own servants, and perished at home by the sword of a traitor. When Karl heard this, he leapt up overjoyed, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... previous raid. When I called them up, as I proposed to do directly the door had closed on the ambassadors, there would be no lack of response. It would not again be a case of Inspector Bones and Constable Johnson to the rescue. A great cloud of willing helpers would swoop to our help. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... swoop of hand, sharp vibrating police decrees, an unsleeping paternal government darts down the fabric of our hopes, sends off the nearly captured prey, loud neighing and with heels kicked high in air, but safe, to his ancestral Lombard pastures, and whirls away ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... moment Mr Bickersdyke's memory poised motionless, like a hawk about to swoop. Then it darted at the mark. Everything came to him in a flash. The hands of the clock whizzed back. He was no longer Mr John Bickersdyke, manager of the London branch of the New Asiatic Bank, lying on a sofa in the Cumberland Street Turkish Baths. He was Jack Bickersdyke, clerk ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... alertness, constant danger, constant escape! An ocean Ishmaelite, he wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing suddenly to swoop down on some merchant vessel with rattle of musketry, shouting, yells, and a hell of unbridled passions let loose to rend and tear. What a Carlislean hero! What a setting of blood and lust and flame and rapine ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... took it from some book he read—about woman and her true nature. According to Henrietta Templeton Price, as near as I could get her, this Shaw or Shavian believes that women is merely a flock of men-hawks circling above the herd till they see a nice fat little lamb of a man, then one fell swoop and all is over but the screams of the victim dying out horribly. They bear him off to their nest in a blasted pine and pick the meat from his bones at leisure. Of course that ain't the way ladies was spoken ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Shepherd, if it be his, as Izaak Walton without suspicion assumes, and, if it did not compel comparison with Marlowe's more exquisite melody, would assure his place among the poets of the age. He was able to barb a fierce sarcasm with courtly grace. How his fancy could swoop down and strike, and pierce as it flashed, may be felt in each ringing ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... not. Think I want to be left alone in this benighted land, with a couple of million Austrians likely to swoop down on it at any minute? I guess not. The air may not be safe, but it can't be any worse than I would have been if I were left behind to await the arrival of the invader. But where ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... indeed that face were seen in it no more! Yes, secret it was no longer to myself, I loved! And like all on whom love descends, sometimes softly, slowly, with the gradual wing of the cushat settling down into its nest, sometimes with the swoop of the eagle on his unsuspecting quarry, I believed that none ever before loved as I loved; that such love was an abnormal wonder, made solely for me, and I for it. Then my mind insensibly hushed its ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... us, in his way of putting them, by merely "being in a counting-house and looking about you," as Pip's means of paying his debts are lightened and made easy by his method of simply adding them up with a margin. "The time comes," says Herbert, "when you see your opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it, and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital you have nothing to do but employ it." In like manner Pip tells us "Suppose your debts to be one hundred and sixty four pounds four and two-pence, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... all that depended on his speed, and took the path with a leap. The dazed king and his ministers saw him with whom they had that moment talked stretch a vast and ever-widening breach between them with a bat-like swoop, and while they watched he ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... There were four of them altogether, and right wild and vicious-looking brutes they were. They marched close together in a band, and never parted company. The moment I and my men tried to separate and head them off, the leader would swoop down upon us with open mouth, and the result of this appalling apparition was that my black assistants fled precipitately. Alone I followed the camels for several days in the hope of being able ultimately ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... uneasy about their families; and neither the officers nor the soldiers had any proper idea of the value of obedience. Among their own hills and forests and for their own work, they were literally unequalled; and they were ready enough to swoop down from their strongholds, strike some definite blow, or do some single piece of valiant fighting in the low country, and then fall back as quickly as they had come. But they were not particularly suited ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... With a wild swoop all the plates, glasses, and cutlery on the saloon tables crashed to starboard. Were it not for the restraint of the fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on top ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... spoke, the hawk eyes of Miss Horn glowed on each side of her hawk nose, which grew more and more hooked as she glared, while her neck went craning forward as if she were on the point of making a swoop on the offender. Mrs Mellis's voice trembled with something like fear ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... these and many other measures will be skimmed over by a simple reference, and attention focussed on a particularly large and notable transaction by which William K. Vanderbilt in 1898 added about $59,000,000 to his fortune at one superb swoop. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... 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 his own furious blasts into the sky, their echoes drowned by ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... the dull sound of the wind descended to their ears, though not a breath was stirring a withered and nearly solitary blade of grass at their feet. Once or twice, large black clouds drove across the opening above them, resembling heavy-winged vultures sailing in the void, preparatory to a swoop upon ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... vanguard come, Coasting along, as swallows, beating low Before a hint of rain. In buoyant air, Circling thy poise, and hardly move the wing, And rather float than fly. Then other spirits, Shrill and more fierce, came wailing down the gale; As plaintive plovers came with swoop and scream To lure our footsteps from their furrowy nest, So these, as lapwing guardians, sailed and swung To save the secrets ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes, never yet pardoned by the financiering economist of "cheese parings and candle ends" for the splendid Thames tunnel job, and L200,000 of the public money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head Charlatanerie, as of the distinct species classified as farceurs according to the French nomenclature. For other species, and diversities of species, of a lower scale, but of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... politics, breathed fire and fury against the French, spoke of his near visit to Paris on a diplomatic errand, and, growing more confidential, hinted of a great scheme, an insurrection in Normandy, Admiral Tromp to swoop down on Quilleboeuf, a Platonic republic to be reared on the ruins of the French monarchy. Had Spinoza seen the shadow of a shameful death hovering over the spirited veteran, had he foreknown that the poor old gentleman—tool ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... broke over the white face, as Peace looked up at the frightened figures above her and giggled hysterically, "I've often wondered what it would feel like to fly. Do you s'pose it makes the birds sick and dizzy every time they make a swoop?" ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... she was fourteen, for some reason been convinced that Kovrin would marry her and no one else. She was bewildered, could not grasp it, could not believe herself. . . . At one minute such joy would swoop down upon her that she longed to fly away to the clouds and there pray to God, at another moment she would remember that in August she would have to part from her home and leave her father; or, goodness knows why, the idea would occur ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... under the dragon so cleverly that the monster did not awake. Full of joy, they hurried off with her and sailed away. But presently the dragon awoke and missing the princess flew after them through the air. Just as he was hovering above the ship to swoop down upon it, the hunter shot him through the heart and he tumbled down dead, but falling on the vessel his carcase smashed it into pieces. They laid hold of two planks and drifted about till the tailor ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... examination of this particular development scatters their doctrines to the four winds. Because the salient traits to the next higher development, could not part with their own identity, or send these distinguishing characteristics, in one fell swoop, through many stages, only to reappear at last in the upper type, and only between infancy and manhood, and only in one sex. This argument is overwhelming, and the present purpose is to elucidate it ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... sea-birds swoop upon the darksome wave, Clouds of darts and glistening lances drank the red blood of ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this will be passing, as it were, behind the act drop of our first experience, behind this first picture of the urbanised Urseren valley. The literature of the subject will be growing and developing with the easy swiftness of an eagle's swoop as we come down the hillside; unseen in that twilight, unthought of by us until this moment, a thousand men at a thousand glowing desks, a busy specialist press, will be perpetually sifting, criticising, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... to secure another. What a prisoner to deliver into the hands of his royal mistress! Fired with the thoughts, the good count forgot all the arrangements of the king; or rather, blinded by former success, he trusted everything to courage and fortune, and thought that by one bold swoop he might again bear off the royal prize and wear his laurels without competition.* His only fear was that the master of Calatrava and the belligerent bishop might come up in time to share the glory of the victory; so, ordering every one to horse, this hot-spirited ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... agreed. "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
... downward, the severed line whipping out after him. The first plunge flung him off his feet. A long swoop which he took on his back dizzied him. But as the fall continued, he was able to slow it a little by bracing arms and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... saw her swoop down like a mother bird to her young. (Winthrop tries to speak; his voice fails; he sinks limply back on the blanket). Steve! Only fainted. Ah! (he rises and goes slowly to Fair; when he speaks, his voice ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... time to lose. Every hour for us meant so much more of that precious pay-dirt that lay under the frozen surface. The Winter leapt on us with a swoop, a harsh, unconciliating Winter, that made out-door work an unmitigated hardship. But there was the hope of fortune nerving and bracing us, till we lost in it all thought of self. Nothing short of desperate sickness, death even, would drive us from our posts. It was with this dauntless ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... faltered. But she sprang from bed before depression could swoop down upon her. And while she was dressing a suggestion came to her that sent her to the breakfast-table with a serene and even joyful face. It had come to her that she would better not attempt to carry out her resolve until after Christmas, lest she mar ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... bucket to go to the river for water. As she bent over to fill the vessel a roaring noise like thunder filled the air, and one of the birds darted down and seized her in its talons. The villagers saw the bird swoop down, and they wailed aloud in sorrow and terror as they watched her being carried through the air ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, "Come! there's enough of you! You get along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I hope!" As if I had besought them as a favor to bother ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of God! We come! We come! In swoop for fierce flesh, like a bird of prey, In scent of the blood of the brave to-day, By the splendor of God! We come! We come! Sword in hand, for the Love of God! Since blood is holy and royal wine, Advance! Drink health to the Norman line, Sword in hand, for the ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... game, the larvae in their transformation-sleep? I do not know yet, What I do know is that her slender legs and her dainty velvet dress do not allow her to make underground searches. When she has found the propitious place, suddenly she will swoop down, lay her egg on the surface in that lightning touch with the tip of her abdomen and straightway fly up again. What I suspect, for reasons set forth presently, is that the grub that comes out of the Bombylius' ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... you would call a good time, because he couldn't help thinking of his mother's warning. He kept looking all around to see whether a weasel or a mink or a fox might be trying to steal up behind him. And he kept looking up to make sure that no big bird was ready to swoop down upon him. ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... herring-gulls; one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew—length two inches—with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to remove the mud-stains that were not properly off—to his nice liking—yet. And, to add to that, he had no sooner ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... altar there. The sounding feet Of thunder and the 'wildering wings of rain Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat, And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain; But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain, Year after year, the days of tender heat, And gracious nights, whose lips with flowers are sweet, And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain. A still, bright pool. To men I may not tell The secret that its ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... learned that game is not to be picked up tamely, like huckleberries, and changed their style of hunting,—creeping, instead of trotting openly so that even a porcupine must notice them, hiding behind rocks and bushes and tufts of grass till the precise moment came, and then leaping with the swoop of a goshawk on a ptarmigan. A wolf that cannot catch a grasshopper has no business hunting rabbits—this seemed to be the unconscious motive that led the old mother, every sunny afternoon, to ignore the thickets where game was hiding plentifully and take ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... Unfortunately for Troy a current unknown to him existed outside, which, unimportant to craft of any burden, was awkward for a swimmer who might be taken in it unawares. Troy found himself carried to the left and then round in a swoop out to sea. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... begin to leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; I wish to Heaven that I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... rapidly with her tail, she runs hither and thither, snuffing eagerly in the grass. Now Sancho comes up and catches the cold trail, for a covey has certainly been in that place to-day. Most probably they rose from the spot, frightened by the swoop of a hawk, and made for the nearest cover, for the dogs can do nothing with the scent. But that little whiff of the exciting effluvia has brought them down to their work, and a beautiful sight it is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... land Streams the band; Hot desire, Drunken-fire In their gaze Wildly plays,— Makes their hair Bristle there. And the troop, With fell swoop, Women, men, Coming then, Ply their blows And expose, Void of shame, All the frame. Iron shot, Fierce and hot, Strike with fear On the ear; All they slay On their way. O'er the land Pours the band; All take flight ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... I'm sure we'll have sport yet. Hilloa! I've another!" and Murphy began hauling in the salmon. "Billy, you rascal, get ready; watch him—that's it—mind him now!" Billy put out his gaff to seize the prize, and, making a grand swoop, affected to miss the fish. "Gaff him, you thief, gaff him!" shouted Murphy, "gaff him, or he'll ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... bad weather;" and the mist as she spoke came rolling down the sound with the swoop of a falcon. Hitherto they had been singularly fortunate. "Fine weather and fair winds," had been the usual morning greeting; or if a passing squall appeared it had found them near to some sheltered loch, or inlet. Lord Forfar was for putting into Boisdale, for the glass was going ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... with a single swoop Meacham flung his drill back into the crowd and caught up his hammer to strike. His partner dropped his hammer and chucked in a fresh drill—smash, the hammer struck it into the rock—and so they turned and struck while the ramping miners below them looked on in envious amazement. As each drill ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... exploring a cave where bats are likely to have congregated the natives will speak in the most respectful terms of this deity, for he would be sure to hear them if they spoke flippantly of him, and might swoop from the cave roof and whip their eyes out with his leathern wings or tear them with his claws. Hence they bow their heads and speak with reverence of the Lord Calapnitan's cave, the Lord Calapnitan's stalactite, even recognizing his temporary ownership of their clothing, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... upon the little knoll several warriors, mounted and uttering the usual war-whoop, as if they were about to swoop down upon a human enemy. This touched the dignity of Mato, and he immediately prepared to accept the challenge. Every Indian was alive to the possibilities of the occasion, for it is well known that Mato, or grizzly bear, alone among animals is given the rank of a warrior, so that whoever conquers ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... from the chief, food and wine were brought to her, while the brigands gathered together and listened eagerly to this counsel and to that. There were many who, like Vasilici, had taken to the hills merely to swoop down upon the defenceless for pillage and for ransom, who cared nothing who might sit upon the throne in Sturatzberg, and among these there was a certain resentment that latterly there had come a change into the councils, that the organization was ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... great, rawhide hoop whistled and shot down aslant like the swoop of a nighthawk. Surry's eye was upon it unwinkingly. He saw where the next leap would bring him within its terrible grip, and he made that leap to one side instead, so that the rawhide thudded into the dust alongside his nose. He swerved ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Like every spirit that was ever called for, this ex-elocutionist happened to be within a few seconds' flight of the circle, and had nothing in the world to do but to swoop down and tip as long as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... magazines that lay a greater stress on the brains of the hero than on his good looks. But, for the sake of one of your ardent readers, let that hero use his brains to get himself out of whatever he has gotten into. Don't let a space ship swoop down from above to rescue him. That type of story reminds me a lot of the one where Jonah was rescued from the deep by the timely arrival of the friendly whale. By the way, there's a suggestion for a reprint. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various |
