"Swimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... princess floated down the mill-stream, sometimes swimming and sometimes sinking, till she came near the mill. Now the miller's daughter was cooking that day, and needed water for her cooking. And as she went to draw it from the stream, she saw something floating towards ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... and ten lengths represented a very respectable distance to him. He proceeded now to attempt to lower his record. It was not often that he got the bath so much to himself. Usually, there was barely standing-room in the water, and long-distance swimming was impossible. But now, with a clear field, he should, he thought, be able to complete ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... fingers... and fell out of my bunk.... She went over so quick.... Water came in through the ventilator.... I couldn't move the door... dark as a grave... tried to scramble up into the upper berth.... Rats... a rat bit my finger as I got up.... I could hear him swimming below me.... I thought you would never come... I thought you were all gone overboard... of course... Could hear nothing but the wind.... Then you came... to look for the corpse, I suppose. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... whips could make oars drive her, but at the sound of my shouts the soldiers on her foredeck stopped their arrowshots, and the steersman swerved her off on a new course to pick us up. Till then we had been swimming leisurely across an angle of the harbour, so as to avoid landing where the sewers outpoured; but we stopped now, treading the water, and were helped over the side ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... presence of some living spirit, real though unseen, and companionable though silent; third, his impressions are exactly like our own, and delightfully familiar. When he tells of the long summer day spent in swimming, basking in the sun, and questing over the hills; or of the winter night when, on his skates, he chased the reflection of a star in the black ice; or of his exploring the lake in a boat, and getting suddenly ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... were so busy with canoeing, swimming, and hiking, during the week following the dinner-party that they saw very little of Mr. Gilroy, although they knew whenever he called at the camp, because he generally brought feed for the calf and ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... he needs, try golf, swimming, baseball, tennis, anything to gain your point; and, all the time, remember you are leading him by your apron-string because you have discovered the secret of "how ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... they were very stylish ducks, and once Jimmie Wibblewobble even rode in an automobile, but I can't tell you about that now, because you see I am going to relate to you how Lulu was caught fast in the mud. It happened one day when Jimmie and his two sisters were swimming about on the pond, ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... have a good day to-day, boys," said Mr. Newton. "We have had a mighty fine week with our swimming and fishing and hikes, and some of us, too, have found some 'treasure,' if not exactly what we were searching for. This morning, after camp duties, every boy will find a quiet spot apart from any disturbance and write a letter ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... side it was turbid and gray, and perfectly opaque. You could not have seen the pollywogs in the shallowest places along the margin. On the other side it was so clear and transparent that you could have seen fishes swimming where it was ten feet deep. It was of such a rich and beautiful blue color, too, as if it had been tinted with a dye, and the color was of so rich and brilliant a hue, that Mrs. Holiday was continually admiring and ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... cannot die as the Man can, and I know that it is with me ready to be shared. As I write this, there is a mist within my room. I always sleep now like one ready to soar. In the crowded room tonight I felt myself making the movements of swimming, as if the air were water ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... the mashaks were stimulated to unwonted exertion by the promise of large rewards, and the party, swimming their horses by the bridles, crossed in less time than Gerrard had dared to hope. A brief halt to arrange loads, inspect girths and snatch a mouthful of food, and Gerrard and his men were in the saddle, and riding steadily into the gathering darkness. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... stare up the hill, and set the muleteers whacking and shouting at their convoy. It struck Amanda that Giorgio must be telling lies about a Bulgarian band. In another moment Benham and Amanda found themselves swimming in a torrent of mules. Presently they overtook a small flock of fortunately nimble sheep, and picked up several dogs, dogs that happily disregarded Benham in the general confusion. They also comprehended a small springless cart, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the dusky recruits came dropping in with weapons of all sorts—firelocks, knives, bludgeons—and with food, of which I for one was mighty glad, being sharp set after my swimming and a cold night. The negroes made a great clamour as their numbers increased—there were soon pretty nearly a hundred of them, all the able-bodied men on the estate and a fair sprinkling of women, too. 'Twas hopeless, the noise being so great, to expect that ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... strange old time, when he was swimming about—or when most of them were. There were no trees, to speak of; and no grass or anything but sea-weed and mosses; and no living things but fishes and oysters ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... afternoon in a comparatively philosophical and hopeful frame of mind. The next day she came to him with hurried, nervous steps, her usually pale cheeks mounting danger signals of flaming red, her eyes swimming. When she greeted him she choked, and two of the tears overflowed. Quite unmindful of the nursemaids across the square, Orde put his arm comfortingly about her shoulder. She hid her face against his sleeve and began ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... everywhere Haunt its cascades—like the hair That a Naiad tosses cool, Swimming strangely beautiful, With white fragrance for her bosom, And her mouth a breath of song— Under leaf and branch and blossom Flows the woodland spring along, Sparkling, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... is the evil of the times. I tell you what, if I had a son, I would hesitate a long while before giving him a literary education. I would have him learn chemistry, mathematics, fencing, cosmography, swimming, drawing, but not composition—no, not composition. Then, at least, he would be prevented from becoming a journalist. It is so easy, so tempting. They take pen and paper and write, it doesn't matter what, apropos to it doesn't matter what, and you have a newspaper article. In order to become a watchmaker, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... looking at this wide and heavy stream—though, to be sure, I did once see a young horse swim across the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec; a feat of natation which much enlarged my belief in what quadrupeds may accomplish when they have no choice between swimming and sinking. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... see what Gerald was doing with the wretched little coast boy; but she heard her companion say that the gentleman had put the boy down to scramble among the rocks, and he himself was going back to the pair on the rock, quite swimming now. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and made the sign of the cross over the water and immediately, by command and permission of God, the sea commenced to move out from its accustomed place—so swiftly too that the monsters of the sea were swimming and running and that it was with difficulty they escaped with the sea. However, many fishes were left behind on the dry strand owing to the suddenness of the ebb. Declan, his crosier in his hand, pursued the receding tide and his disciples ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... was far from being asleep. He had gone over again and again with everything within his range of vision, from the old woman nodding in her chair, to the bucket of water standing outside the door, with a gourd swimming on the top, and he was wondering at the delay, and feeling more and more that he should take Tom Hardy's advice, when he heard steps on the stairs, which he knew were not Mandy Ann's, and he rose ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... us had ever been abroad. And although it was before the days of swimming-pools and gymnasiums and a la carte cafes on ocean liners, the Atlantic was imposing enough. Maude had a more lasting capacity for pleasure than I, a keener enjoyment of new experiences, and as she lay beside ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... lower deck as she fell. He saw her strike the water and sink, and was after her in a moment. A broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, it was nothing for him to keep afloat in the water, till, in a moment or two, the child rose to the surface, and he caught her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the boat-side, handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were stretched eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, and her father bore her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies' cabin, ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... was not nearly so severe a shock to the boy as he had expected. Both went under the water, but rising again in a moment Sam slid off the animal's back, to give the poor fellow a better chance of escape by swimming. Striking out boldly Sam reached the bank and crawling up looked for his horse. The poor beast was evidently too severely hurt to swim with ease, and so he drifted away, Sam running along the bank, calling and encouraging him. He struck the shore at last, and Sam examining him found that ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... we now entered was entirely roofless. In its centre was a long tank of water, set below the level of the floor like the swimming pool of a natatorium. Near one side of the pool floated an odd-looking black object. Whether it were some strange monster of these buried waters, or a queer raft, I ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be downright rude to those who possessed it. And if any three-thousand-dollar-a-year professor, through a too strict respect for Stillwater's standards of learning, should lose to that institution a half-million-dollar observatory, swimming-pool, or gymnasium, he was the sort of college president, who would see to it that the college lost also the services of that ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... close to the reeds, and could listen to the strange sounds which are often heard there. By day I had seen water-snakes putting up their heads and swimming about. There were great numbers of otters ('Lutra inunguis', F. Cuvier), which have made little spoors all over the plains in search of the fishes, among the tall grass of these flooded prairies; curious birds, too, jerked and wriggled among these reedy ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... stream over which the new Catalco bridge was being constructed there was a favorite swimming place used by the civil engineers and their assistants, the men and boys of the construction gang using another spot farther down ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... common. Agrippa busied himself building the Pantheon; also public baths, of which he was responsible for a hundred and seventy within the limits of the city. Fair play to the Romans, they washed. All classes had their daily baths; all good houses had hot baths and swimming-tanks. The outer Rome he found in brick and left in marble:—but the inner Rome he had to rebuild was much more ruinous than the outer; as for the material he found it built of—well, it would be daring optimism and euphemism to call ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... picked up floating, for she was too fat to sink; but she had been floating the wrong way uppermost, and she was dead. There was a poor little child saved rather strangely. He was picked up by a gentleman who was in a wherry, holding on to the wool of a sheep which had escaped and was swimming. His father and mother were drowned, and the boy did not know their names; all that he knew was that his own name was Jack; so they christened him John Lamb, and the gentleman ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... wonderful unity of forms pervades the whole, and that the algebraic harmonies serve to express depths of emotion hitherto unknown. In the same way the Vienna people have been lately crowding the theatre to see the Rhine-daughters in their long blue robes swimming about under the surface of the river, to see the fight with the dragon, the march of the gods over the rainbow, the ride of the walkyries on their wild steeds, the burning Walhalla, etc., and have gradually discovered that their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... into the water, and struck out toward us. Of course he could not overtake a sail-boat, and we soon left him behind. He kept on swimming, however, until his hat fell off. Turning around, he picked up the hat, and jammed it on his head again. By this time the Captain had put about, and started on a tack that brought us near the swimmer. The young man came alongside, with a smile ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... fault it causes shame;[1] but here I cannot be silent, and by the notes of this comedy, Reader, I swear to thee,—so may they not be void of lasting grace,—that I saw through that thick and dark air a shape come swimming upwards marvelous to every steadfast heart; like as he returns who goes down sometimes to loose an anchor that grapples either a rock or other thing that in the sea is hid, who stretches upward, and draws ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the risk, and like a Newfoundland dog, panting brought his friend to shore, with no worse effects than the drenching to both. And here I may say that one of the accomplishments specially encouraged by the Doctor was that of swimming; the very youngest were taught to swim by the Under Master, in a small pool in the river Bain, called "Dead Man's Hole," about 100 yards from the first lock of the canal. After gaining proficiency we bathed in the canal and lockpit itself. The Doctor gave a reward of 5/- to any boy who ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... which accompany this passage are too much effaced to be reproduced. The upper represents the two sacks joined by ropes, as here described, the other shows four camels with riders swimming through a river.] ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Service," and found to my joy that this needed very little alteration. The hero chanced to be in Germany at the outset of the war. He was imprisoned at Ruhleben, Potsdam, Dantzic, Frankfort and Wilhelmshaven. He escaped from these places by swimming the Rhine (thrice), the Danube, the Meuse, the Elbe, the Vistula, the Bug, the Volga, the Kiel Canal and Lake Geneva. He chloroformed, sandbagged, choked and gagged sentinels throughout the length and breadth of Germany. From under a railway carriage seat he overheard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... follow Tyrrell wherever he went, till we could find ourselves alone, and without the chance of intrusion. It was then my determination to force him into a contest, and that no trembling of the hand, no error of the swimming sight, might betray my purpose, to place us foot to foot, and the mouth of each pistol almost to the very temple of each antagonist. Nor was I deterred for a moment from this resolution by the knowledge that my own death must be as certain as my victim's. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have to stop their ears with wax lest they should hear them, and leap into the water and be drowned; of the sunken galleys with their tall masts, and the frozen sailors clinging to the rigging, and the mackerel swimming in and out of the open portholes; of the little barnacles who are great travellers, and cling to the keels of the ships and go round and round the world; and of the cuttlefish who live in the sides of the cliffs ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... opens the column of water through which the ship passes when advancing; hence we say, head-way, head-sails, head-sea, &c. It is evident that the fore-part of a ship is called its head, from its analogy to that of a fish, or any animal while swimming. Also, in a confined sense, to that part on each side of the stem outside the bows proper which is appropriated to the use of the sailors for wringing swabs, or any wet jobs, for no wet is permitted in-board after the decks are dried. Also, hydrographically, the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The fishing is fair; and in still weather yachting is rather a favorite amusement. Further than this there is little to be said, save that the hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... to the windows of the ground-floor, and flooded the parlours. A minute afterwards, the servants came to tell M. Zill that his cellars were full, and his casks of wine floating about and staving one another. Presently we saw a jackass laden with vegetables come swimming down the street, carried along by the current. He was swept away into a large open drain, and disappeared. The peasant who owned him, and who had also been carried away, only saved himself from a like fate by clinging to a lamp-post. In one hour there fell more water than there falls ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... for a long while. The swimming faintness passed away. An intense stillness seemed to invade her, and the room, and the street outside. And for vast distances beyond. Half hours and hours rang clearly through the silence from the mantel-clock. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... a quarter per day; while for two wretched meals we paid a dollar and a half each. The reader may judge of our fare from the fact that one day our soup was raspberry juice and water, and another time, cold beer, flavoured with pepper and cinnamon. Add tough beafsteaks swimming in grease and rancid butter, and you have the principal ingredients. For the first time in my life I found my digestive powers unequal to the task of mastering a new ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... from the ball-room into the tiny garden and up the ladder-like stairs to the rock above, crowned with the old windmill, and look over the iron railing. Far below you, swimming in a faint mist under the summer stars, all Paris lies glittering at ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... hunt, I approached the bank of the river and noticed many very large fish with red backs, as though filled with blood. They were swimming on the surface enjoying the rays of the sun. When the river was entirely free from ice, these fish appeared in enormous quantities. Soon I realized that they were working up-stream for the spawning season in the smaller rivers. I thought ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Copenhagener's year. The pleasant waters of Denmark are beloved of yachtsmen. Sailing round the wooded islands, you are impressed by their picturesque beauty, which is seen to advantage from the water. One is not surprised that this popular pastime comes first with every Danish boy, who, whether swimming, rowing, or sailing, feels perfectly at home on the water. Everybody cycles in Denmark. Cycle-stands are provided outside every shop, station, office, and college, so that you have no more difficulty in disposing of your cycle than ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... unaccountable is simple. Now and then it happens that when a sudden demand is made upon a person to save his life by swimming he instinctively does the right thing. He adjusts his body correctly, and uses his legs and arms properly—his action being exactly like those of a bullfrog when he starts on a voyage to the other side of the spring ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... Jove! I understand!" He rode off toward the barracks, his head swimming with joy, his heart jumping like mad. At the edge of the parade ground he turned in his saddle and audaciously lifted his hat to the girl who, to his certain knowledge, was standing behind the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... followed them, having ridden fast and furious across the long broomy braes of Boreland, and wet the fringes of his charger's silken coverture by vaingloriously swimming the Dee at the castle pool instead of going round by the fords. This he did in the hope that Maud Lindesay might see him. And so she did; for as he came round by the outside of the moat, making his horse caracole and thinking no little of himself, he heard a voice from an upper ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... her feet touched the ground she felt as if the whole world had turned to liquid and were swimming around her in a ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... it?" he asked, springing to his feet, his head swimming and smarting. "We had a row, didn't we? Did they hurt you? Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head—one of their hatchet men. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... of twigs which had arrested the progress of the floating salmon lay just about an arm's length from Barnes's face. Swimming high, his mighty shoulders thrusting up a wave before him which buried Barnes's head safely from view, the bear reached the salmon. Grabbing it triumphantly in his jaws, he turned to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... read—in my happier days: the rope, poison, drowning. The latter I believed to be the easier method of death; and I thought of the Little Sea down where we washed the sheep and had begun to go in swimming on warm days. There was water enough there in the deepest place;—and once in, it ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... loudly at these invectives: the poor gypsy girl fixed her two burning eyes on Lorand's face and kept them there till they turned into two orbs swimming in water. Then she sprang up, threw down her chair and ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... while we in our open pinnaces and far under them had nothing to shroud and cover us." Fortune at last favoured the attackers. The Spanish commander fell dead on his deck with a bullet through his head. A panic seized the sailors, most of whom jumped overboard and tried by swimming and wading to reach the shore. Some succeeded, but many were drowned; whilst those who remained on board signified their readiness to capitulate by hoisting a couple of "handkerchers" on rapiers. The English lost no time ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... church, enriched with the royal tombs. At the distance of twenty miles from London is the castle of Windsor, a most delightful retreat of the Kings of England, as well as famous for several of their tombs, and for the ceremonial of the Order of the Garter. This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks: the sight of them, and their noise, are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their course. It is joined to the city by a bridge of stone, wonderfully built; is never increased by any rains, rising only ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... hyacinth, who was only fourteen years of age, was quiet and thoughtful. Her large swimming blue eyes looked somewhat pensive, but a childish smile played around her mouth, and I could not blow it off; nor did I ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... was a copious one. There was salmon, an omelet, mutton cutlets with mashed potatoes, stewed kidneys, cauliflowers, cold meats, and apricot tarts—everything cooked too much, and swimming in sauce which, but for its grittiness, would have been flavourless. However, there was some fairly fine fruit on the glass stands, particularly some peaches. And, besides, the people did not seem at all difficult to please; ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... worse case in the brutal position in which they had bound him, had fainted. She was afraid she would faint herself—it was not only the pain, but it was terribly close in the confined space, and her head was swimming. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... youth that for one moment they were both in the air at the same time, but the former had not gone off with a spring, he merely tumbled over, half involuntarily, so that when they struck the water there was at least a yard between them. But this was not a long space. The superior swimming powers of the bear over the man would have diminished the distance to nothing in a minute or so. Even as it was, the bear was within six inches of March's heels when Hawkswing and Redhand gained the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... the inexperienced calf soon met its fate. It was struck and killed, and a harpoon fixed in the mother, when, roused to reckless fury, she flew on one of the boats, and made her tail descend with such tremendous force on the very centre of it, as to cut it in two, and kill two of the men, the rest swimming in ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... stand as near the water's edge as possible, in order to see things a little better. All of a sudden one of the boys cried: "Oh, see, there is a cradle afloat in mid-stream!" The other boy, whose sight was keener, shouted: "See, a dog is swimming after it and is trying to push ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Look at that fellow jump. He's got 'em all beat!" and Tom excitedly, pointed at the porpoises, the whole school of which was swimming but a ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... of the knights was in striking contrast with the prevailing modes. Instead of the seven liberal arts, the seven perfections of the knight were taught,—horsemanship, swimming, use of bow and arrow, swordsmanship, hunting, chess-playing, and verse-making. Their purpose was to prepare for the activities of the life in which their lot was cast; that of the monasteries was to preserve learning to fit ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... was presented to her. I know nothing in the world which could be more touching than the joy of this excellent woman at the sight of Napoleon's son. She at first regarded him with eyes swimming in tears; then she took him in her arms, and pressed him to her heart with a tenderness too deep for words. There were present no indiscreet witnesses to take pleasure in indulging irreverent curiosity, or observe with critical irony the feelings of Josephine, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... said the old man; "how foolish of me not to have made a line fast to the shore! I'll not trust myself to John Shark by swimming to the boat." ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... worked without stopping (barring the ten or twelve minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till twelve. Then I went to the cafe to have breakfast—how I used to enjoy those breakfasts—fried eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, nice bread and butter, then cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and smoke ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... gently—gently. If he takes fright and darts away, you leave your paw where it is, or move it as close to the spot where he was lying as you can reach, and wait. Sooner or later he will come back, swimming downstream and then swinging round to take his station almost exactly in the same spot as before. If you leave your paw absolutely still, he does not mind it, and may even, on his return, come and lie right up ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... oh dear!" And the sweet eyes were turned, all swimming in water upon Henry, with a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... but still followed hard after the slaver. A sandy little bay was ahead, sheltered somewhat by a reef of rocks from the roll of the Atlantic. Towards it the slaver was steered. She grounded in smooth water. A boat was lowered, and into it some of her crew tumbled, while others appeared to be swimming on shore. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the jury, excepting the crew of the boat, who first discovered him. It was said that there were bruises about his head. His ship-mates said, that he was one of the best swimmers they ever knew. It was strongly suspected that he was discovered swimming, and that some of the marines knocked him on the head, in revenge for turning them out of their hammocks in the night. His clothing, his money, and his watch, were taken by lieutenant Osmore, the commander of this prison ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... regular a row Haste Haste, some God indulgent prove And bear me, bear me to my love Then might—for yet the sultry hour Glows from the sun's oppressive power 30 Then might her bosom soft and white Heave upon my swimming sight As yon two swans together heave Upon the gently-swelling wave Haste—haste some God indulgent prove 35 And bear—oh bear ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of this influence is demonstrated in hypnotism. The hypnotic subject is told that he is in the water; he accepts the statement as true and makes swimming motions. He is told that a band is marching down the street, playing "The Star Spangled Banner;" he declares he hears the music, arises and ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the camera moved about to pick out details of the estate. It showed a swimming pool back of the house. It swung briefly about landscaped gardens, scanning across cultivated fields and orchards. It flicked across a winding, tree-lined road, then came back to a rough area ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... never made a single comfortable meal at an American hotel. The meat was swimming in grease, and the female servants uncivil, impudent, dirty, slow, and provoking. Occasionally they are a little slow, it must be confessed; but I never met with one, male or female, who was uncivil, impudent, or provoking. If ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... grew restless and full of echoes; where shadowy reeds like elfin swords clattered and thrust and parried across the darkling pools of haunted waters unstirred save for the swirl of a startled fish or the smoothly spreading wake of some furry creature swimming without a sound. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... soda-water bottle against the Sphinx, or eaten sandwiches to the immortal memory of Cheops, it may be as well to explain that the Mena House Hotel is a long, rambling, roomy building, situated within five minutes' walk of the Great Pyramid, and happily possessed of a golfing-ground and a marble swimming- bath. That ubiquitous nuisance, the "amateur photographer," can there have his "dark room" for the development of his more or less imperfect "plates"; and there is a resident chaplain for the piously inclined. With a chaplain and a "dark room," what more can the aspiring soul of ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... which pretty Miss Ware, who was his teacher at the "Union" school, was trying to interest him, by the attractive idea of oiling his gun-barrels, and that something still more attractive—perhaps a boy with crossed fingers, for it was not too late for swimming—had lured him from that. At any rate, Jim ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... Probably there was in his action a good deal of swimming with the stream, in the hope of being able to divert it; but, also, he may have been all the more struck by Philip's miracles, because he knew a real one, by reason of his experience of sham ones. At any rate, neither Philip nor Luke ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... multitude of canoes. I had nowhere, in the course of my voyages, seen so numerous a body of people assembled in one place. For, besides those who had come off to us in canoes, all the shore of the bay was covered with spectators, and many hundreds were swimming around the ships like shoals of fish. We could not but be struck with the singularity of this scene, and perhaps there were few on board who lamented our having failed in our endeavors to find a northern passage homeward ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the prisoners to be thrown from the gallery into the river, telling them to go and eat fish, as they had not chosen to fast during Lent; which was done forthwith. Divers boatmen who were on the river despatched with their oars those who tried to save themselves by swimming." [Histoire generale du Languedoc, liv. xxxviii. f. v., p. 227.] At Troyes, in Champagne, "during the early part of August, 1572, the majority of the Protestants of the town, who were returning from Esleau-Mont, where ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... struck the rowel deep into the flank of his wading horse, and in scorn of the depth drove him up the river. The shoulders of the swimming horse broke the swirling water, as he panted and snorted against it; and if Philip Yordas had drawn back at once, he might even now have crossed safely. But the fury of his blood was up, the stronger the torrent the fiercer his will, and the fight between passion ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... see the Pierrots, or the brothers Zeno, or Daisy Budd and her troupe of performing seals. For Ellen Barfoot in her bath-chair on the esplanade was a prisoner— civilization's prisoner—all the bars of her cage falling across the esplanade on sunny days when the town hall, the drapery stores, the swimming-bath, and the memorial hall striped the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... success in all that he attempted, and to gain it by his indomitable energy and will. If he was brilliant as a scholar, he was not, therefore, backward in those other arts which school-boys prize beyond scholarship. He was as famous on the river for his swimming and his boating as he was famous in the classroom for his application and his ability. His masters predicted for him a brilliant University career, and it is possible that Hastings may have seen Daylesford Manor awaiting ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and without a handle; and the body of a wooden fish was scooped out, and closed with a cover imitating the scales, to deceive the eye by the appearance of a solid mass. Sometimes a goose was represented, ready for table, or swimming on the water, and pluming itself; the head being the handle of a box formed of its hollow body; some consisted of an open part or cup, attached to a covered box; others of different shapes offered the usual variety ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Smathers' face swimming above him and tried to lift himself from the bed. "Shoulda taken pills," he said through the haze that was beginning to fold over him again. "Locker box." And ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and avoidable handicaps, seriously affecting many children throughout the Dominion, which ought to receive more serious attention are insufficiency of sunlight and fresh air in the home and at school, insufficient daily outing and exercise, lack of adequate provision in the way of playgrounds and swimming-baths, and last, but not least, the highly injurious ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... solved by the most important means possessed by physiology, vivisection. And the speechless condition in which every human being is born can not be regarded as a disease that may be healed by instruction, as is the case with certain forms of acquired aphasia. A set of other accomplishments, such as swimming, riding, fencing, piano-playing, the acquirement of which is physiological, are learned like articulate speech, and nobody calls the person that can not swim an anomaly on that account. The inability to appropriate ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... Hispaniola, separated from that island by a narrow strip of sea, there is a humpbacked little island, a few miles long, rather hilly in its centre, and very densely wooded. At a distance it resembles a swimming turtle, so that the adventurers on Hispaniola called it Tortuga, or Turtle Island. Later on, it was known as Petit Guaves. Between this Tortuga and the larger island there was an excellent anchorage for ships, which had been defended at one time by a Spanish garrison. The Spaniards ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... most of the afternoon, swimming and indulging in a few wrestling matches. At wrestling, Wade consistently proved himself not only built like a gorilla but muscled like one; but Arcot proved that skill was not without merit several times, for he had found that ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... cutlasses and muskets, they sprang overboard, and attempted to make their way to the not distant bank. A few had been cut down at the first onslaught; half-a-dozen yielded themselves prisoners, and two had tumbled into the boats, making eight in all captured. The others, in shoals, were swimming for their lives. The seamen, irritated at the opposition they had met with, would have shot them down, but Jack ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... concern to Heraclitus, that worthy weeping philosopher of antiquity. In addition to these various speculations, it was the opinion of Herschel that the sun is a magnificent, habitable abode; the light it furnishes arising from certain empyreal, luminous or phosphoric clouds, swimming ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... resonance. The makeshift gymnasium and carpentery, in the stables and coach-house, have been mentioned before. If among "real studies" we may include the cricket, this was, as we saw, well cared for; while the instructor in swimming had nothing to complain of, with four miles of good beach, and the Irish ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... sombre that the mahogany sideboard had its own reddish light, so quiet that the clock could be heard ticking in the next room; time, you could hear, going leisurely. There would be a long lath of sunlight, numberless atoms swimming in it, slanting from a corner of the window to brighten a patch of carpet. Two flies would be hovering under the ceiling. Sometimes they would dart at a tangent to hover in another place. I used to wonder what ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... judgment? Dum venerit judicari? Thou hast, quoth Panurge, a right, clear, and neat spirit, Friar John, my metropolitan cod; thou speakst in very deed pertinently and to purpose. That belike was the reason which moved Leander of Abydos in Asia, whilst he was swimming through the Hellespontic sea to make a visit to his sweetheart Hero of Sestus in Europe, to pray unto Neptune and all the other marine ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... had left us and we were making sail when we discovered an Indian in the water swimming towards the shore, which in all probability he would not have been able to reach. We took him up and luckily another canoe coming alongside we put him in her. The people of the canoe said that the man was insane, but how he came to be swimming so far from the land we could not ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... town was in consequence of his failure to return. The prisoners were afterward taken to a factory and searched for weapons. They were subsequently provided with passports enabling them to go anywhere in the town, but not outside. The witness in question managed to effect his escape by swimming across the river. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the town was gathered on the shore, in impatient expectation of their loving and good Father. When they perceived the vessel from afar, there was nothing to be heard but cries of joy, nothing to be seen but tears of devotion. Some, more impatient than the rest, threw themselves into the sea, and swimming up to the galley, accompanied it to the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... queen and Uncle Nep, with Keo swimming between them, set out upon their journey. They swam up the river all that day and all the next, until they came at sundown to a high, rocky wall, beneath which was the cave where the might ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... grace before meals All right. But I say grace before the play and the opera, And grace before the concert and pantomime, And grace before I open a book, And grace before sketching, painting, Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing; And grace before I dip ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... agreeable afterglow of excitement when thought lapses from examination of a specific object into a suffusive sense of its connections with all the rest of our existence—seems, as it were, to throw itself on its back after vigorous swimming and float with the repose of unexhausted strength—Lydgate felt a triumphant delight in his studies, and something like pity for those less lucky men who ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Meanwhile Frank was swimming with all his might toward the spot in the foamy wake of the boat, where he knew the unfortunate Puss must be ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... passenger with a binocular announced that the sailor was swimming around to the far side to get the man ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... overhung with maples and walnuts, the water cool and thrilling. At a distance it sparkled bright and blue in the breeze and sun. There were jelly-fish swimming about, and several left to melt away on the shore. On the shore, sprouting amongst the sand and gravel, I found samphire, growing somewhat like asparagus. It is an excellent salad at this season, salt, yet with an herb-like ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. 'I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me back my wife, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the boys and saw their danger. There was not a moment to be lost. He started upon the full run, throwing off coat and waistcoat and shoes, in his almost frantic speed, till he reached the water. He then plunged in, and, by swimming and wading, seized the canoe when it was within but about twenty feet of the roaring falls. With almost superhuman exertions he succeeded in dragging ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... evening. He could stay home and read, or go back to the garage, though after eight things were very quiet. For amusement there were the pool shack, the cheap dances, the street corner, the Y.M.C.A. This last had proved a boon. The swimming pool, the gym, the reading room, had given Chug many happy, healthful hours. But, after all, there ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... notwithstanding my fear of a scolding from my parents, mingled with some dread of the unknown element. Soon I undressed upon the gravelly bank, and ventured gently into the water, not too far down the gradually shelving bank; here he let me wait awhile, swimming out himself across the stream; then he returned to my side, and as he left the water, standing upright, to dry himself in the bright sunshine, it seemed to me that my eyes must be dazzled by the power of the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... distinctly apparent. On her gold belt hung a little gold watch. She too was angling. The stillness of the grave reigned about them both. Both were motionless, as the river upon which their floats were swimming. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... musket at the water; the flash illuminated the side of the ship, and an echo rolled solemnly back from the shore. Three or four men pointed and called, "There he goes—there—there! See him swimming!" For a moment I myself saw him, a dark spot at the apex of a V-shaped ripple, then he disappeared. It was the last we ever knew of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... will find room to publish this, as I like nothing better than helping someone get started on my favorite hobby, aviation. I have, however, several hobbies, including football, basket-ball, tennis, swimming, boating and hiking. I live within ten miles of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and can see from the study hall window, which I now am seated near to, three ranges of the mountains all covered ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray; the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there, nevertheless—impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon, dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already rich and ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... the quadrupeds, and, in their relations to the economy of nature, they are of very much less moment than four-footed animals, or than the undomesticated birds. The domestic turkey [Footnote: The wild turkey takes readily to the water, and is able to cross rivers of very considerable width by swimming. By way of giving me an idea of the former abundance of this bird, an old and highly respectable gentleman who was among the early white settlers of the West, told me that he once counted, in walking down ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... feeble objections, but they were promptly overruled, and before she quite knew how it had happened she found herself committed to a promise that she would be at Berrier Cove the following morning, prepared to take a first lesson in the art of swimming. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... He was swimming in that black fury-sea that was neither wet nor clinging. He was made of lead in a universe that weighed nothing. He was sinking, sinking. In vain he struggled. The dark, dry ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... the pond. His flask had leaked and let every bit of the shot out, and when he came to load up after shooting his last partridge he stopped with the powder, for there was no shot to put in. Just then he came in sight of the pond and there were seven geese swimming round in it; and that ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods. Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight we were on the track, and found they had prevented ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... would be impossible; to attempt swimming it destruction. The staunchest steed could not stem its surges. Even the huge river-horse of Africa would be swept off his feet and tossed to the surface like one of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... forced by the savages to continue on day after day, and night after night, for many, many weary miles toward the "Staked Plain," crossing en route the Brazos, Wachita, Red, Canadian, and Arkansas Rivers, several of which were at swimming stages. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... peregrination; and in an hour after we found ourselves on the banks of a river, nearly as broad as the Thames at Putney, and apparently of great depth, the current running very slowly in a northerly direction. Vast flocks of wild ducks were swimming in the stream; but after being once fired at, they grew so shy that we could not get near them a second time. Nothing is more certain than that the sound of a gun had never before been heard within many miles ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... on, then," exclaimed the King, "and let none remain to reproach me with the deed," and after all, when daylight appeared, he placed himself at a window of the Louvre, which overlooks the Seine, and with a carbine he fired at the unfortunate fugitives who tried to save themselves by swimming across the river. In his reign was built the Tuileries, he himself laying the first stone; it was intended for the Queen Mother, but Catherine did not inhabit it long, her conscience not permitting her to enjoy repose anywhere. Charles died a few months ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... left them the next day, and went on board the ship. We prepared immediately to sail, but did not weigh that night. The next morning early, two of the five men came swimming to the ship's side, and making the most lamentable complaint of the other three, begged to be taken into the ship for God's sake, for they should be murdered, and begged the captain to take them on board, though he hanged them immediately. Upon this the captain pretended to have no ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... trousers, drawers, or shirt, fearing that his legs might become entangled in the attempt; he therefore returned his knife into the pocket of his trousers, and put the collar over his head, which, although it assisted in keeping him above water, retarded his swimming; and after a few moments' thinking what was best to be done, he determined to abandon it. He now, to his great surprise, perceived one of his messmates swimming ahead of him; but he did not hail him. The roaring of the hurricane was past; the cries of drowning men were no longer heard; ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... it. That part of the channel I proposed swimming was exactly where two men have been drowned, so people say. I'm not a very strong swimmer, and they were. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sudden rains at the head of the water having brought it down in a wild spate. On the opposite side were the gathered people and the tent. Before Mr. Kello knew where he was, there was his minister on the mare swimming across, and carried down in a long diagonal, the people looking on in terror. He landed, shook himself, and preached with his usual fervor. As I have said, he never liked to speak of this bit of hardihood, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... aire, by night Full often hath she gossipt by my side, And sat with me on Neptunes yellow sands, Marking th' embarked traders on the flood, When we haue laught to see the sailes conceiue, And grow big bellied with the wanton winde: Which she with pretty and with swimming gate, Following (her wombe then rich with my yong squire) Would imitate, and saile vpon the Land, To fetch me trifles, and returne againe, As from a voyage, rich with merchandize. But she being mortall, of that boy did ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Mr. James Douglas, of the building of a certain tabernacle in London—first it started out to be a Jam Factory, then a happy idea occurred to the builder that he should turn it into a Waterworks, then the foreman suggested that it would make an ideal swimming-bath, but finally the architect came on the scene and said, "Here, half a minute; there's an alteration wanted here; we're going to make it into a church"—at such moments, Dr. Orchard might be likened to a duo-decimo Chesterton—but ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope I shall always love our poor little spheroid, so long my home, which some kind angel may point out to me as a gilded globule swimming in the sunlight far away. After walking the streets of pure gold in the New Jerusalem, might not one like a short vacation, to visit the well-remembered green fields and flowery meadows? I had a very ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... to lose a day," Anna said, again rising in bed, and sitting upright, until the swimming in her head, that commenced upon the least motion, had subsided. Then she got out upon the floor, and stood for a few moments, while her head seemed reeling, and she every instant about to sink down. In a little while this dizziness went off, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... month after I had descended this part of the river, Captain Boyton, clothed in his famous swimming-suit, paddled his way down the current from Bayou Goula to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred miles. The incidents of this curious voyage are now a part of the river's history, and this seems the place for the brave captain to tell his ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... bait neatly to the right, at the edge of the lily-pads, let it sink a few inches, and then with the tip well lowered, bring the bait around on a slight curve by a quick succession of draws, with a momentary pause between each; the object being to imitate as nearly as possible a swimming frog. If this be neatly done and if the bait be made as it should be, at every short halt the legs will spread naturally and the imitation is perfect enough to deceive the most experienced bass or pickerel. When half a dozen casts to right and left have been made ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... conscious of a very slight check—it was not exactly a jar. His feeling was that rather of a man who thinks that he is swimming in deep water, and finds suddenly that he can ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman |
