"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caper sauce and some other things for luncheon, and how he called for a bottle of wine, and how he went to the theatre in the evening! In short, he did himself thoroughly well. Next, he saw in the street a young English lady, as graceful as a swan, and set off after her on his wooden leg. 'But no,' he thought to himself. 'To the devil with that sort of thing just now! I will wait until I have drawn my pension. For the present I have spent enough.' (And I may tell you that by now he had got through fully half his money.) Two or three days ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... cannot like a visible circle flow Until by measured compass I can meet The place I started from with weary feet. That proudly point the obvious path they go. Ah no,—mine be the instinct given to trust That all will in the outcome fall aright. Like a migrant swan still wandering since I must, I'll fill a life's full cycle in my flight: Though I soar into the clouds or sink to dust, My orb will come around; ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... quiet distinction which characterized her mother. Her white and slender fingers, her pearly neck, her cheeks tinted with varying hues reminded one of the lovely Englishwomen who have been so poetically compared in their manner to the gracefulness of a swan. She entered the apartment, and seeing near her stepmother the stranger of whom she had already heard so much, saluted him without any girlish awkwardness, or even lowering her eyes, and with an elegance that redoubled ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Fortitude, and Justice. In the lower tier on the canopy are six figures: Saxulf, first Abbot; Cuthwin, first Bishop of Leicester; John de Sais; Benedict; S. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, his hand resting on the head of his tame swan; and John Chambers, last Abbot and first Bishop of Peterborough. In the upper tier are four Bishops: Bishop Dove, the theologian; Bishop Cumberland, the philosopher; Bishop Kennett, the antiquary; ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair." Then, of course, there is the "classic profile," the "deep, unfathomable eyes," the "lily-white skin," and "hair like the raven's wing," not to mention the "swan-like neck" ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... like the shepherds in the Bucolics. The rival reciters were sometimes attached to the same gondola; but often the response came from a passing gondolier, a stranger to the singer who challenged the contest. Rogers, in his Italy, laments the silence which greeted the swan-song ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... I swan! There, there! I wouldn't make so much fuss over it!" she said, stripping her hands out of the biscuit dough in order to go over and pat Sarah on the shoulder. "After all that to-do gettin' settled, seems 's ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the way, and before noon the shallop lay at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... "Well, I swan," said the grocery man, as he put some eggs in a funnel shaped brown paper for a servant girl. "What did the minister say ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... martyrs fell off the block in quick succession the trumpets brayed and the drums beat an accompaniment. Grim and ghastly was the scene in that Great Square in Prague, on that bright June morning well nigh three hundred years ago. There fell the flower of the Bohemian nobility; and there was heard the swan song of the Bohemian Brethren. As the sun rose higher in the eastern sky and shone on the windows of the Council House, the sun of the Brethren's pride and power was setting in a sea of blood; and ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... of the poet's passing is believed to have been an ancient dwelling-house adjacent to St. Michael's Church. At that date it was a private residence of the Whiddon family; but during later times it became known as the "Black Swan Inn," or tavern (a black swan being the crest of Sir John Whiddon, Judge of Queen's Bench in the first Mary's reign); while to-day this restored Mansion appears as the hostelry of the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... a mad argument to prove swan sane,—and good company besides I Well, I am mad, and expect to be so,-at least I think I have a right to be so, in the proportion of one hour to twenty-four, being so rational the rest of the time. I think it's but a reasonable allowance. [252] You will judge that this is my mad hour to-day, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... character. I'm branded as a felon. I'm hunted about the streets of London. He will accept you.'" He drew a vivid picture of the number of friends he had when he rowed for Dogget's Coat and Badge. He met with an accident midway; "and when I got to the Swan at Chelsea," he said, "I had no friends left. I was a losing man. Christ will never treat you like that. He has never let me want in the nine years since I have been converted." After a prayer the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... harlot—comfort of his bed, True prophetess, true paramour—I wot The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh, Full oft, of every rower, than was she. See, ill they did, and ill requites them now. His death ye know: she as a dying swan Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay, Close to his side, and to my couch has left A sweet new taste of joys that know ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... Swan's Hotel was one of those nondescript buildings of wood which are not worth more than a three-line paragraph even when they burn down. It was smelly. The kitchen joined the dining-room, and the dining-room the office, which was half ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... it after him, when, at the words "Der reine Thor," the pure—the clean-lived—the immaculate Fool, a commotion develops in the direction of the lake-side, cries of "Woe! A pity! A shame! Who did it?" A great wild swan flies in sight, sinks to earth hurt to death by an arrow, and the king's esquires bring in, chiding and accusing him, a tall, innocent-eyed, fresh-cheeked boy, armed with bow and arrows,—Parsifal. Rustic enough is ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... of a child of God in the midst of trials and afflictions, yet rejoicing in faith, and trusting continually in the care of a Father in heaven. Was the cold little sparrow singing itself away, as it was once believed the swan sung its own death-song? Or may the new neighbour of the robin be the very one whose voice rang out so clear and loud, above the howlings of the storm? I trust no rude blast nor chilling frost will mar the pleasure of our feathered friends, but that they may prosper in their plans, and ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... glorious moment on the very edge of the rock, the bronze and pink of her glistening in the sun, the spray still clinging to her from her last dive. Then, grace in every line of her lithe body, she sprang from the rock in a perfectly executed swan dive. ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... like a swan, that after living six weeks in a nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames. I do nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure and silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my opinion to the country, that in France, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... the eagle, the turkey-buzzard, the hawk, pelican, heron, gull, cormorant, crane, swan, and a great variety of wild ducks and geese. The pigeon, woodcock, and pheasant, are found in the forests ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... still maintained themselves in their pristine vigor. Clarendon[**] tells us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the marshal's court; was fined, as having opprobriously defamed the nobleman's crest, by calling the swan ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... hard fate to write best 625 Of those still that deserve it least; It matters not how false, or forc'd: So the best things be said o' th' worst: It goes for nothing when 'tis said; Only the arrow's drawn to th' bead, 630 Whether it be a swan or goose They level at: So shepherds use To set the same mark on the hip Both of their sound and rotten sheep: For wits, that carry low or wide, 635 Must be aim'd higher, or beside The mark, which else they ne'er come nigh, But when they take their ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... played like that before, for as the music swelled and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song. In a moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that were hungry for her—and he now knew, too late, that there was no one else who counted. But the organ was not so repressive, and as she listened she knew that the tragedy was not hers alone. While his fingers strayed ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... am watching daily. Of course I do not intend to undeceive her until the feeling grows too strong for her. By and by she will be enveloped in a flame which neither will, nor consciousness of duty, nor the modesty of the woman white as a swan, will be able to keep under control. Constantly the thought dwells with me that since I love her most, mine is the higher right. What can there be more logical or more true? The unwritten code of ethics of all people, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... xi.; see also PLINY, lib. ix. ch. vii.. lib. xi. ch. cxiii.; ATHENAEUS, lib. vii. ch. iii. vi. I have heard of sounds produced under water at Baltimore, and supposed to be produced by the "cat-fish;" and at Swan River in Australia, where they are ascribed to the "trumpeter." A similar noise heard in the Tagus is attributed by the Lisbon fishermen to the "Corvina"—but what fish is meant by that name, I ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... pleasurable excitement, it has its dangers, in the daydream where wishes are fulfilled without effort. Power, glory, beauty and admiration are obtained; the ugly Duckling becomes the Swan, Cinderella becomes the Princess, Jack kills the Giant and is honored by all men; the girl becomes the beauty and heroine of romance; the boy becomes the Hero, taking over power, wealth and beauty as his due. The world of romance ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... it is certain, that we cannot will to think of a new train of ideas, without previously thinking of the first link of it; as I cannot will to think of a black swan, without previously thinking of a black swan. But if I now think of a tail, I can voluntarily recollect all animals, which have tails; my will is so far free, that I can pursue the ideas linked to this idea of tail, as far as my knowledge of the subject extends; but to ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... appearance. There are numerous species in these sheltered channels, inlets and sounds of geese, ducks, swans, cormorants, ibises, bitterns, red-beaks, curlew, snipe, plover and moorhens. Conspicuous among these are the great white swan (Cygnus anatoides), the black-necked swan (Anser nigricollis), the antarctic goose (Anas antarctica) and the "race-horse" or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... dog-cart and rattled away into the darkness, while somewhat to my surprise Robert the Devil, or Devilish Bob, as those who had the care of him called the bay horse, played no antics on the outward journey, which was safely accomplished. So leaving him at the venerable "Swan," I hurried through the miry streets toward the church. They were thronged with pale-faced men and women who had sweated out their vigor in the glare of red furnace, dye-shop, and humming mill, but there ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... see the cart, or to hear of it, again. O Ratty! You can't think how obliged I am to you for consenting to come on this trip! I wouldn't have gone without you, and then I might never have seen that—that swan, that sunbeam, that thunderbolt! I might never have heard that entrancing sound, or smelt that bewitching smell! I owe it all to you, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... with the end passed the wrong way through the buckle and coiled inside; and a bayonet stuck in the ground, are all used as makeshift candlesticks. "In bygone days the broad feet, or rather legs, of the swan, after being stretched and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the spirit of Hengist stirring in me, and needs must that you and I take ship, and go on the swan's path even as our forefathers went; let us take the good ship somewhere—anywhere to be on the sea again. What say ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... at a restaurant, The Sign of the Swan, kept by an old English couple, who made a specialty of roast ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... they'd obleege me. So I permitting me to give them my parsevered, and carried my pinte. You view of the subject, they would don't say so. Be you from Barkshire? oblige me. So, I persevered, I be. Neow I swan! if I aint clean and gained my point. Indeed! beat. Are you from Berkshire? I ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... thoughts. After years of unquestioning humility I enjoyed a prolonged debauch of intellectual pride, and I marvelled at the little boy of yesterday who had wept because he could not be an imbecile. It was the apotheosis of the ugly duckling, and I saw my swan's plumage reflected in the placid faces of the boys around me, as in the vacant waters of a pool. As yet I did not dream of a moulting season, still less that a day would come when I should envy the ducks their domestic ease and the unthinking tranquillity of their lives. A little boy may be ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... also addressed to Maecenas, of the Second Book, the poet gives way to a burst of joyous anticipation of future fame, figuring himself as a swan soaring majestically across all the then known regions of the world. When he puts forth the Third Book several years afterwards, he closes it with a similar paean of triumph, which, unlike most prophecies of the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... miles away in the valley, a vast cloud came down with swan-shot of hail, black as blackest smoke, overwhelming house and wood, all gone and mixed with the sky; and behind the mass there followed a white cloud, sunlit, dragging along the ground like a cumulus fallen to the earth. At sunset the sky cleared, and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... room—at first abstractedly, with her features as firmly set as ever; but by degrees her brow relaxed, her footsteps became lighter and more leisurely; her head rode gracefully and was no longer bowed. She plumed herself like a swan after exertion. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... ocean, or its foam.[246] Then again she is closely linked with pigs, cows, lions, deer, goats, rams, dolphins, and a host of other creatures, not forgetting the dove, the swallow, the partridge, the sparling, the goose, and the swan.[247] ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had found it in Baltimore—part of a private cellar belonging some time in the past to either the Swan or Thomas families—he could not ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from the struggles and hardships that made him so. It reminds me of the fabled song of the swan, brother. He told his beautiful tale, and died. Ah! Poor Wilson, he was a ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Narcissus and I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and in no very buoyant spirits we turned into The Swan Inn. A more dismal coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be—gloomy, vast, and thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, sufficiently modern in appearance to ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... Intellect, and the Intellect by the Supreme Soul. That Eternal One endued with Divinity is beheld by Yogins (by their mental eye). The Supreme Soul endued with four legs, called respectively Waking, Dream, profound Sleep, and Turiya, like unto a swan, treading above the unfathomable ocean of worldly affairs doth not put forth one leg that is hid deep. Unto him that beholdeth that leg (viz., Turiya) as put forth for the purpose of guiding the other three, both death ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... slowly and calmly with appraising steps. The lace veil was over her face. She did not forget her sunshade, her bag, or her handkerchief. Louis, the waiter, opened the door for her. She sailed out like a gondola on the stage, or Lohengrin's swan. Her movements gave ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... at centre, carrying a lighted candle in a silver candlestick. She wears a dressing gown, with swan's down around her throat and at the edges of her sleeves. Her feet are in bedroom slippers topped with fur. Her hair hangs down in a braid. After listening intently to the sound of the file, she places candle ...
— Miss Civilization - A Comedy in One Act • Richard Harding Davis
... down into a cab, and drove to Swan & Edgar's. There he bought the finest little vests and petticoat and frocks and socks and coats they could find him. On his way back with his purchases he remembered shoes, stopped the cab at the boot-maker's, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... such an improvement to the landscape at the head of the lake. On the road we chatted hand in hand; I told her amusing tales at which she laughed heartilv. Then we reached the banks of the Elbe, and after having bid good-bye to the swan, sailing gracefully amidst the white water lilies, we returned to ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... I saw two swans of goodly hue Come softly swimming down along the lee; Two fairer birds I yet did never see; The snow which doth the top of Pindus strow, Did never whiter show, Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appear; Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near; So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, Seem'd foul to them, and bade his billows spare To wet their silken ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... brick, baronet," his parting speech had been, as he wrung that young man's hand; "you air, I swan! And your wife's another! ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... steamer making a rush to one side of the deck to look at something that was evidently both startling and attractive. I followed the crowd,—and my heart gave a quick throb of delight when I saw poised on the sparkling waters the fairylike 'Dream'!—her sails white as the wings of a swan, and her cordage gleaming like woven gold in the brilliant sunshine. She was a thing of perfect beauty as she seemed to glide on the very edge of the horizon like a vision between sky and sea. And as I pressed forward among the thronging passengers to look ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... this island. A good spirit had charge of it, which lived in a cave in the rocks immediately under the place where the fort now stands. This guardian spirit has often been seen by our people. It was white, with large wings like a swan's, but ten times larger. We were particular not to make much noise in that part of the island which it inhabited, for fear of disturbing it. But the noise at the fort has since driven it away, and no doubt a bad spirit ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... like a frightened swan; and the wheels of its chassis, registering every infinitesimal irregularity in the surface of the ground, magnified them all a hundred-fold. It was like riding in a tumbril driven at top-speed over the Giant's Causeway. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Sunium's marbled steep,[202] Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— Dash down yon ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... thue Sums old Ray hisse'f caint do!— Jes' sets there, and tilts her chair Forreds tel, 'pear-like, her hair Jes' spills in her lap—and then She jes' dips it up again With her hands, as white, I swan, As ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... Ales Avis by Cicero; and I doubt not but the northern constellation Cygnus is here to be understood, for the description and place of the Swan in the Atlas Coelestis are the same which Ales Avis ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... fatigued appeared his breathing. ''Tis a point of honour,' said he; And blew on still. Then were silenced All the trumpeters from Frickthal, Those from Solothurn and Aarau, By the trumpeter great Rassmann. Once again we met, 'twas evening. In the 'Golden Swan' he sat then; Like a giant 'mid the pigmies Looked he in this crowd of players. Many were the goblets emptied By the trumpeters from Frickthal, And from Solothurn and Aarau, But the most capacious goblet Was drank out by my brave Rassmann. And with ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... that a lame duckling might grow up into a wonderful swan, and munched his apple ruminatively. Neither happened to think of a certain incident, much discussed, in which that edible figured prominently. And he did not ask ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... wailing cry of the ghost-music. But while the blast continued they dared not pursue their hunt. It kept on in fits and gusts till the squall ceased—as suddenly almost as it had burst. The sky cleared, and the sun shone as a March sun can. But the blundering blasts and the swan-shot of the flying ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the inherent necessities of speech, are necessarily and irrevocably Germanic. "Les Maitres Chanteurs," "The Dwarfs of Niebelheim," "Elizabeta," are impossibilities, whereas, for instance, Beethoven's "Eroica" labours under no such disadvantage. "Goodbye, My Dearest Swan," invests part of "Lohengrin" with a certain grotesque colour that no one would ever dream of if there were no necessity for the singer to be tied down to the exigencies of palpable and certainly most materialistic language. The thought in itself is beautiful, but the ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... responsible for a vicious national habit which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the swan. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... a swan, you remember. I've always been fond of the boy because he's so genuine and original. Crude as a green apple now, but sound at the core, and only needs time to ripen. I'm sure he'll turn out a capital specimen ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating over the water. Then it dived, and I ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... voyaging north To their nest-places on Himala's breast. Calling in love-notes down their snowy line The bright birds flew, by fond love piloted; And Devadatta, cousin of the Prince, Pointed his bow, and loosed a wilful shaft Which found the wide wing of the foremost swan Broad-spread to glide upon the free blue road, So that it fell, the bitter arrow fixed, Bright scarlet blood-gouts staining the pure plumes. Which seeing, Prince Siddartha took the bird Tenderly up, rested it in his lap Sitting with knees crossed, as Lord Buddha sits And, soothing ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... tournament: the knight was known and named from the device used as his crest. Thus the heralds, in introducing him to the judges of the field, or to the lady that bestowed the prizes, called him the Knight of the Swan, the Knight of the Lion, &c., without mentioning any other title. And knights whose fame for gallantry and prowess was firmly established, had their crests painted over their coats of arms. In two or three generations the bearer of the arms established his right ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... upon by one of the swans, that pulled the animal into the water, and held it under till it was drowned. This cruel deed was noticed by the other deer in the park, and did not go long unrevenged; for shortly after this the very swan, which had never till this time been molested by the deer, was singled out when on land one day, and furiously attacked by the herd, which closed around the cruel swan, and soon ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... pale forehead, and fell in voluptuous clusters over her back. A tiara sculptured out of a single brilliant, and which darted a flash like lightning on the surrounding multitude, was placed somewhat negligently on the right side of her head; but no jewels broke the entrancing swell of her swan-like neck, or were dimmed by the lustre of her ravishing arms. How fair was the Queen of Hell! How thrilling the solemn lustre of her violet eye! A robe, purple as the last hour of twilight, encompassed her transcendent form, studded ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... what's come to pass that thou, thine armor cast away Art mute in heaven; and but an idle tale? At such a time the horns should sprout, the raging bull hold sway, Or they white hair beneath swan's down conceal Here's Dana's self! But touch that lovely form Thy limbs will melt ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... sunlight; and in striking contrast to her sat Miss Custer in the sheltered veranda, with her cool gray draperies flowing about her in the most graceful folds that could be imagined, as though a sculptor's hand had arranged them. Her dress was cut so as to disclose her white throat rising, swan-like, above a ruffling of soft yellow lace; and her sleeves, flaring a little and short enough to reveal a good deal of the exquisitely-moulded arms, were edged with the same costly trimming, throwing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... amidst the images of the formidable Carthaginian and the glorious Scipiad, the imagination of the poet is more at home than in his own degenerate age.(18) To him too his own song "gracefully welling up out of rich feeling" sounds, as compared with the common poems, "like the brief song of the swan compared with the cry of the crane";—with him too the heart swells, listening to the melodies of its own invention, with the hope of illustrious honours—just as Ennius forbids the men to whom he "gave from the depth ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... chief cooked it for us, and the grease he mixed with our beans and maize. This chief showed me his idol; it was a male cat's head, with the teeth sticking out; it was dressed in duffel cloth. Others have a snake, a turtle, a swan, a crane, a pigeon, or the like for their idols, to tell the fortune; they think they will always have good luck in doing so. From here two savages went with their ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... the middle of summer. Whilst the elevation of the principal peaks, Mount Exmouth, Mount Cunningham, and others was being taken, it was discovered that so far from Australia possessing only one large watercourse, the Swan River, it had several, the chief being Hawkesbury River, formed by the confluence of the Nepean, the Grose, and the Brisbane; the river Murray not being yet known. At the period under notice a commencement ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... comprised in its cellar or larder. In Heaven, there was neither soda-water nor biscuits. A great confusion consequently ensued; but at length the bard, whose love of fame was only equalled by his horror of getting fat, consoled himself with a swan stuffed with truffles, and a bottle of ...
— Ixion In Heaven • Benjamin Disraeli
... have never seen anything so pretty. How happy the new swan is! See how he rustles his feathers! See how proudly he curves ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... home of the Harveys, men who for over a century bore an important part in the history of our State. It was in older days, as now, a fair and fertile land. Herds of deer wandered through its forests; and great flocks of swan and wild geese floated upon its silver streams, feeding upon the sweet grass which then grew in those rivers. The waters were then salt, but with the choking up of the inlets that let in the saline waves of the Atlantic, the grass ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... under which dwelt the kindred of the Wolfings; and the other kindreds of the Mid-mark had roofs like to it; and of these the chiefest were the Elkings, the Vallings, the Alftings, the Beamings, the Galtings, and the Bearings; who bore on their banners the Elk, the Falcon, the Swan, the Tree, the Boar, and the Bear. But other lesser and newer kindreds there were than these: as for the Hartings above named, they were a ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Swan Day was to all appearance no nearer his return to the land of his birth than when he first trod the deck that bore him away from it. He was still on the first round of the high ladder to fortune. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... gold, and of such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no imperfect place in her. She looked round about her with a rolling hawk's eye, a smiling and wanton countenance, which near hand inflamed the hearts of all the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, which made them lightly ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Valentine's back turned than Mrs. Blyth's hand was passed under the pretty swan's-down coverlet that lay over her couch, as if in search of something hidden beneath it. In a moment the hand reappeared, holding a chalk drawing very neatly framed. It was Madonna's copy from the head of the Venus de' Medici—the same copy which Zack had honored with his most ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... At this same auncient Feast of Capulets Sups the faire Rosaline, whom thou so loues: With all the admired Beauties of Verona, Go thither and with vnattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee thinke thy Swan ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... strange and sweet, For the dim air echoed with elfin calls; And, far away, in the heart of the City, A murmur of laughter and revelry rose,— A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, And sweet as a swan-song's ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... while he doth make his choice; Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music: that the comparison May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream And watery ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... is alive. She is English. I was born in Australia. I was educated at York and Yale. I am a master of arts, a doctor of philosophy, and I am no good. Furthermore, I am an alcoholic. I have been an athlete. I used to swan-dive a hundred and ten feet in the clear. I hold several amateur records. I am a fish. I learned the crawl-stroke from the first of the Cavilles. I have done thirty miles in a rough sea. I have another record. I have punished more whiskey than any man of my years. I ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... in its psychological aspect. For once Leonardo has stripped bare not the body but the soul of desire,—the passion, the lust, the trembling and the shame. There is something frightening about Leda caught with the swan, about the effeminate Dionysus and John the Baptist's mouth "folded for a kiss of irresistible pleasure." If the stories then told about the children of Alexander VI and about Margaret of Navarre and Anne Boleyn were true, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... passionate, practical, designed for affairs and prospering in them far beyond the average. He founded a solid business in lamps and oils, and was the sole proprietor of a concern called the Greenside Company's Works—'a multifarious concern it was,' writes my cousin, Professor Swan, 'of tinsmiths, coppersmiths, brass-founders, blacksmiths, and japanners.' He was also, it seems, a shipowner and underwriter. He built himself 'a land'—Nos. 1 and 2 Baxter's Place, then no such unfashionable neighbourhood—and died, leaving his only son in easy circumstances, and giving to his ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the poor dear's so heavy I can't turn him all alone. Aren't you strong enough to lend a hand? To be sure, at your time of life, one an't apt to be worth much in the arms. At all events, an't you coming in to see him? You're his own mother; and, I swan, you haven't been near him this ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, is very theatrical. The river and its tiny craft, the little gabled houses of the neighbourhood, with ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... Masham, Dr. Arbuthnot, and I, were contriving a lie for to-morrow, that Mr. Noble,(20) who was hanged last Saturday, was recovered by his friends, and then seized again by the sheriff, and is now in a messenger's hands at the Black Swan in Holborn. We are all to send to our friends, to know whether they have heard anything of it, and so we hope it will spread. However, we shall do our endeavours; nothing shall be wanting on our parts, and leave the rest to ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... readers, equal almost anything that the poet has ever done. And only the lucky memory of a remark of Hartley Coleridge's (who never went wrong in criticism, whatever he did in life) saved him from explicitly damning "The Dying Swan," which stands at the very head of a whole class of poetry. In all this essay, to borrow one of his own favourite words, he simply "plouters"—splashes and flounders about without any guidance of critical theory. Compare, to ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Thomas Peyton, we must remember, had married Dorothy's eldest sister; she died many years ago, and Sir Thomas married again, in 1648, one Dame Cicely Swan, a widow, whose ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... was still not quite resigned; surely Florence might at least spend the summer in the country. At this, indeed, among her intimates, Mrs. Nightingale almost wept. 'We are ducks,' she said with tears in her eyes, 'who have hatched a wild swan.' But the poor lady was wrong; it was not a swan that they had ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... give the public an account of was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower. There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, and preserved a tolerable remembrance unto the time ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... the general motif is the stealing of the fairy-woman's clothes. The idea is the same as that found in stories where the fisherman steals the sea-woman's skin canoe as a prelude to making her his wife, or the feather cloak of the swan-maiden is seized by the hunter when he finds her asleep, thus placing the supernatural maiden in his power. Among savages it is quite a common and usual circumstance for the spouses not to mention each other's ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... drifted continually up from the south and joined the ranks of the pack, and there were stray wolves crossing the range from the Flathead to Swan River and back. Many of these mated with the unattached coyotes as they straggled north. Breed's pack was rapidly thinned down, pairs dropping out to den till at last only Peg and ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... a strange noise, saw in the lake a most beautiful red swan. Pulling his bow, he took deliberate aim, without effect. He shot every arrow from his quiver with the same result; then, fetching from his father's medicine sack three poisoned arrows, he shot them also at the bird. The last of the three arrows passed through the swan's neck, whereupon the bird ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... removed from the drawing-room, where the guest for a day had too many opportunities to be alone with it. To cover his inspection, she suggested that Rebecca should afford the company a final pleasure, a kind of swan's song, and went and opened the cottage-piano for her. The Jewess did not refuse the invitation and began Gounod's "Medje" in a voice which Von Sendlingen had room to admit had improved in tone and volumn, and would make her as worthy of the grand opera house as it had, five years before, of the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... are of different sizes; some are a quarter of a mile long and half as wide. They are built up of things that the hunters and fishermen threw away: oyster and mussel and periwinkle shells; bones of the wolf, the hyena, the dog; of wild duck, swan, and grouse; of cod, herring, flounder, and other deep-sea fish. Many of the bones had been split open for the purpose of extracting the marrow. Besides bones, there are also pieces of burnt wood; and there is sea plant, ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... young men now mounted the stone bench by the door, which allowed them to look over the ledge at the eastern sea. Presently the craft appeared round the end of the island, pure white, floating like a swan on the water, and ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... travelled on for many hours. The way was not easy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangled knee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms, looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, that carpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thickly that they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimes their way was a bog, and they were in ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... Mansion House, where a luncheon was prepared. At one o'clock the Lord Mayor in his half-state carriage with four horses and outriders, the Sheriffs in their state carriages, and some of the Aldermen in theirs, set out in procession for the Swan Tavern, Stratford. They held there a Court of Conservancy for the county of Essex, after which they proceeded to Blackwall, and crossed the water in the city state barge, which was decorated in grand style with banners and flags. At four they held a Court for the county of Kent, at the ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... waterman swept the water with a back stroke of his blade, and the light gondola whirled away into the centre of the vacant spot, like a swan giving ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... again are the "Swan-maidens" (See vol. v. 346) "one of the primitive myths, the common heritage of the whole Aryan (Iranian) race." In Persia Bahram-i-Gr when carried off by the Div Sapid seizes the Peri's dove-coat: in Santhli folk-lore Torica, the Goatherd, steals the garment doffed by one of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton |
