"Swagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made an idiot of myself," he went on. "I'd no right to come down here like that. I just want you to forgive me now, that's all. I didn't mean to swagger about being rich. I'm not enjoying it a ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud voice, popped her ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "I like it better than anything else in the world. But what I mean is—I was thinking, seeing that this is such a great winter-resort, and all the swagger people of Europe come here—that probably you youngsters ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... khaki struts the limelit boards: With false moustache, set smirk and ogling eyes And straddling legs and swinging hips she tries To swagger it like a soldier, while the chords Of rampant ragtime jangle, clash, and clatter; And over the brassy blare and drumming din She strains to squirt her squeaky notes and thin ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... was this idea which later in the afternoon induced him to swagger forward to shake hands with me with a flash insolent leer on his face. I took pains to be especially nice to him, treating him with deference, and making remarks upon the extreme heat of the weather with such pleasantness ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... that Oberlies had picked up in Germany. He was an older man than Yoeder, wore a short beard that was white and curly, like his hair, and though he was low in stature, his puffy red face and full blue eyes, and a certain swagger about his carriage, gave him a look of importance. He was boastful and quick-tempered, but until the war broke out in Europe nobody had ever had any trouble with him. Since then he had constantly found fault and complained,—everything was better in ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the leopard are the whiskers. You cannot get a skin from a native with them on, and gay, reckless young hunters wear them stuck in their hair and swagger tremendously while the Elders shake their heads and keep a keen eye on their ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... said you played the piano nicely; but Ethel is all for handsome men, tall, erect six-footers, with a little swing and swagger to them. She thought you small and finicky. But Ethel's rich enough to have her ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... suddenly opened. Fenn entered and received a little chorus of welcome. He was wearing a rough black overcoat over his evening clothes, and a black bowler hat. He advanced to the table with a little familiar swagger. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... And this was not due to wholly superficial things like his dandyism, his dark, sinister good looks and a great deal of the mere polished melodrama that he wrote. There was something in his all-round interests; in the variety of things he tried; in his half-aristocratic swagger as poet and politician, that made him in some ways a real touchstone of the time. It is noticeable about him that he is always turning up everywhere and that he brings other people out, generally in a hostile ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... embarrassment increased. "No," he answered shortly. Then, after an instant's hesitation. "That ball was given by the Astorbilts and was one of the most swagger affairs of the season. The Planet—the paper with which I was connected—issues a Sunday supplement of half-tone reproductions of photographs. One page was given up to pictures of the ball ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist—its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour—the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches. You saw that remarkable speech which appeared in the British Weekly this week. It is a very remarkable product, as an illustration of the spirit we have got to fight. It is his ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... negative. To the Royalist view of the points in dispute Milton opposes the Independent view. A refutation, which follows each step of an adverse book, is necessarily devoid of originality. But Milton is worse than tedious; his reply is in a tone of rude railing and insolent swagger, which would have been always unbecoming, but which at this ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... me anxiously what was amiss. I hastened to reassure her, but begged her to close the door into the inn place which her husband had left open. She wonderingly complied, but was enlightened a moment afterwards, when she saw Dick Cludde swagger in, followed by the two naval captains whom his lady mother ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... furnished throughout with such fittings; they form its very construction. Style does not exist in modern arrayings, for all their prettiness and precision, and for all the successes—which are not to be denied—of their outer part; the happy little swagger that simulates style is but another sign of its absence, being prepared by mere dodges and dexterities beneath, and the triumph and success of the present art of raiment—"fit" itself—is but the result of a masked and lurking labour ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... to the Dons,' Carrel said with a short laugh, and he lit a cigarette with all the swagger ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... "elle s'avance en se balancant sur ses hanches comme une pouliche du haras de Cordoue"; she suggests an operatic Carmen in her swagger. She is slender, with short, dark hair, cropped a la Boutet de Monvel, and she flourishes a cigarette, the smoke from which wreathes upward and obscures—nay makes more subtle—the strange poignancy of her deep blue eyes. Her ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... men, a tanner by trade, had so far been most successful, and, like Nat, he began to be disdainful of the rest, and to swagger it somewhat each time his turn to shoot came round. "The prize will surely be thine, Arthur-a-Bland," cried Monceux, loudly clapping his hands together after this fellow had made ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... the combatants. After which he rebuked Billy Silver with a swagger-stick. Wren's share in the business he overlooked. He was by way of being a patron of Wren's, and he disliked Billy Silver, partly for his own sake and partly because he hated his brother, with whom he had come into contact once or twice ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... natives were astir in preparation for the great event. All of them discarded their tarred clothing, appearing in natty white "Americanos" and dinky straw hats, while some even sported swagger sticks. In the Philippines any white suit which consists of well fitting trousers and a coat buttoning up to the throat, as contradistinguished from baggy pantaloons with a camisa worn on the outside, is called by the natives an "Americano," and ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... generale of several forthcoming plays, which, in plain English, means an anticipatory performance to a private audience, given in order to assist the critics—or some of them—in carrying out their duties and fighting the clock, and perhaps also for the purpose of giving seats to some of the swagger "deadheads" who crowd the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... all the club windows. My reputation is gone. I frighten no man more. My nose is pulled by whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it. I am found out. And in the days of my triumphs, when people were yet afraid of me, and were taken in by my swagger, I always knew that I was a lily-liver, and expected that I should be ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will underhand that I mean the metre of the lines just quoted.) I do not find these anapaests in the Elizabethan or in the seventeenth-century poets, or most rarely. They were dear to the eighteenth century, and, much more than the heroic couplet, are the distinctive metre of that age. They swagger—or, worse, they strut—in its lighter verse, from its first year to its last. Swinburne's anapaests are far too delicate for swagger or strut; but for all their dance, all their spring, all their flight, all their flutter, we are compelled to ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... Bear due proportion to his outer part, As once 'twas said of Macklin in the Jew, 'This is the very Falstaff Shakspeare drew.' To you, with diffidence, he bids me say, Should you approve, you may command his stay, To lie and swagger here another day. If not, to better men he'll leave his sack, And go as ballast, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... a man of some personal courage, never shrink from a row, nor be afraid to' fight a duel. He should be able to bully, bluster, swagger and swear, as occasion may require; nay, in desperate cases, such us peaching, &c. he should not object even to assassination. He should invite large parties to dine with him frequently, and have a particular sort of wine for particular companies. He ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Colebyville that morning in the new buggy, rather pleased to be the centre of observation and remark. He quite liked to swagger before these country people whom he chose otherwise to ignore. He was well dressed, his buggy was the admired of all admirers, and he was newly married. Country gossip had some pleasing qualifications. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... confessed to nothing. Certainly he was what some might call handsome, of a pictorial, exuberant style of beauty, all attitude, profile, and impudence: a man whom I could see in fancy parade on the grand stand at a race-meeting, or swagger in Piccadilly, staring down the women, and stared at himself with admiration by the coal porters. Of his frame of mind at that moment his face offered a lively if an unconscious picture. He was lividly pale, and his lip was caught up in a smile that could almost ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the daytime? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour swagger, and a kind of conscious air, peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... me as having more glitter than warmth, and although she is neither tall nor full-bodied, she seems to have the power of making point take the place of weight. Yet, oddly enough, there is an occasional air of masculine loose-jointedness about her movements, a half-defiant sort of slouch and swagger which would probably carry much farther in her Old World than in our easier-moving New World, where disdain of decorum can not be regarded as quite ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... said Peter. "You think there is no danger? You advise me to brazen the dina giacca out, to swagger it off?" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... of the contents of the windows, made for the purpose of impressing the bystanders with the notion that he is going in to purchase a diamond bracelet or some such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with a careless swagger, and giving himself really the air of a member of the swell mob. When inside he speaks in so low a voice as to be perfectly inaudible, and has to say it all over again. When, in the course of his rambling conversation about a "friend" of his, ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... moved in deepest darkness, lessened only by the light of many stars. Even so, in time one's eyes grew accustomed and it was a glamorous spectacle—twenty-eight beasts moving through dark defiles and over steep passes among the rugged, ragged hills. From any one spot they seemed at once to swagger and to slink, swaying as they moved on and vanished into obscurity. The small wild things in the night paused affrightedly in their scurryings until they had gone ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... of the French spirit. . . . They swagger, but their swagger is only the outer form of a deep and ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... eyes were turned on the tramp, and more than one hand was placed on a revolver, The bar-keeper with an ugly look, and bullying swagger, stepped from behind the bar and advanced on the tramp, his face distorted with rage, and his fists doubled in a most ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... 'She thinks I swagger about the child—that I bore people,' said the Colonel. 'I hope you smoke.' He appeared ten minutes later in the smoking-room, in a brilliant equipment, a suit of crimson foulard covered with little white spots. He gratified Lyon's eye, made him feel that the modern age has its splendour ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... professor. He had already left the army and wore serge clothes, with well-cut coats, wide trousers, and expensive ties. My sister was enraptured with his pins and studs and his red-silk handkerchief, which, out of swagger, he wore in his outside breast-pocket. Once, when we had nothing to do, she and I fell to counting up his suits and came to the conclusion that he must have at least ten. It was clear that he still loved my sister, but never once, even in joke, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... dull rage against the other two. How dared they pretend not to be afraid? It was all swagger—he knew that very well. Various unpleasant recollections began to rise in his mind. He remembered how that Indian spy had stalked the settler's cabin at Earl's Court. He could see him now, stealing over the sand, then listening with his ear to the ground, and turning to beckon on the ambushed ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... deep pansy eyes rested in his. He felt a sudden intoxication of the senses. Almost with a swagger he drew up a chair and seated himself beside her. Already he was the conquering male in headlong pursuit. Nor was he disturbed by the least suspicion of having been filled with the sensations and the impulses ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... might call Mr. N. Levy, from his assurance, but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society—rather the mauvais ton of a person not sure of his own position, but who has resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... had never put so much impetuosity, so much daring to the square inch, into any day before. He lounged back a little in his chair, put his hands in his pockets and tried to feel swaggering and at ease. Madame Beattie, he knew, wouldn't object to swagger. And if it would help him dramatically, so much the better. "Madame Beattie," he repeated, "I've a proposition to make to you. I thought of ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... thrilling," said T. B. thoughtfully; "but why do swagger criminals come in their motor-cars with their pistols and masks—they were masked if I remember the printed account aright?" Ela nodded. "Why do they come on so ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... two legs apiece, and crossed them in concert with the utmost regularity. One might think, at first, that these narrow boots were as uncomfortable to the calesero as the Scottish instrument of torture of that name; but his little swagger when he is down, and his freedom in kicking when he is up, show that he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "it is my concern. And you," continued he, turning towards Chvabrine, "do not swagger; whether she be your wife or no, I take whomsoever I please to see her. Your ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... preferred boys still young enough to be secretly proud of the necessity of shaving every other day, young enough to swagger a little when they lighted a cigarette. At her present rate of progress, by the time she was fifty, she would have come by successive gradations to the level of ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... up-stairs he smoked a cigarette. But he sneaked away. He paused at the bend in the stairs. Below him was Gertie, silver-gowned, wonderful. He wanted to go down to her. He would have given up his chance for a motor-car to be able to swagger down like an Eddie Klemm. For the Carl Ericson who sailed his ice-boat over inch-thick ice was timid now. He poked into the library, and in a nausea of discomfort he conversed with Mrs. Cowles, Mrs. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the nature of the boy. Perhaps sometimes we are inclined to droop apologetic heads, because we know that some women are sentimental, that they don't all "look at things in the large," as men invariably do. In view, however, of the record of this youthful movement of ours, we have a right rather to swagger than to apologize. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... revolted slaves was to get as far away from their late masters as possible. In spite of their fatigue, they rowed hard until daybreak. At first there was some difficulty with the European riff-raff. These wanted to swagger about on deck and bully the Indians; but neither Hernando nor his two English friends would hear of it. They had chosen the able-bodied sailors from amongst the rowers, and placed them on deck to attend to helm and sails. All not wanted for this duty must sit at the oars. Two ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... quarter of the deck. Who could tell whether I housed on the port or starboard side of steerage No. 2 and 3? And it was only there that my superiority became practical; everywhere else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much as a swagger to indicate that I was a gentleman after all, and had broken meat to tea. Still, I was like one with a patent of nobility in a drawer at home; and when I felt out of spirits I could go down and refresh myself with a look ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... does me the honour to relieve me from the trouble of bearing my own name," he resumed, "cannot be of very lofty pretensions, or he would have aspired higher. I suspect him of being merely one of those silly young countrymen of mine, of whom so many crowd stage-coaches and packets, to swagger over their less ambitious fellow-mortals with the strut and exactions of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... them after the completion of their studies. The temper of the students is admirable. Rarely if ever do they betray any traces of the hectoring spirit which still lingers at Heidelberg, for instance. But for the display of corps-caps and cannon boots and an occasional swagger in the street, one might pass an entire semester in Leipsic without realizing that the city contains three thousand students. Undoubtedly, the young men perceive, like their colleagues of Yale, that their surroundings are too ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... spotted cubes of ivory. The difference is, that where we go, we may happen to see persons of quality amusing themselves with a game; and in the ordinary houses you will meet bullies and sharpers, who will strive either to cheat or to swagger ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... My dear estate, how well I love it, My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it, They swear I am so kind and good, I hug them till I squeeze their blood. Libertas bears a large import: First, how to swagger in a court; And, secondly, to show my fury Against an uncomplying jury; And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention, To favour Wood, and keep my pension; And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick, Get the great seal and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... not to be outdone in SANG FROID. I cocked my hat, and drawing my cloak over my shoulders, went out with a swagger which drove the curs from the gate before I came within a dozen paces of it. The rascals outside fell back as quickly, and in a moment I was in the street. Another moment and I should have been clear of the place and free to lie by for a while—when, without warning, ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... a cuif tak' up a quill, Wha ne'er did aught that he did well, To gar the muses rant and reel, An' flaunt and swagger, Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that daft ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sickly grin. There sat Unc' Billy Possum in a pine tree right over his head. He knew now that there was no backing out; he had got to go on. He tried to swagger and ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... with acrimony, perhaps, but with certain fundamental understandings. The eighteenth-century belief in a liberal civilisation was still a dogma; for dogma is the only thing that makes argument or reasoning possible. America, under all its swagger, did still really believe that Europe was its fountain and its mother, because Europe was more fully civilised. Dickens, under all his disgust, did still believe that America was in advance of Europe, because it was more democratic. It was an age, in short, in which the word "progress" ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... they are unimaginative and ungenerous; they can't sympathize with what seems a hopeless cause, and Ireland to them only suggests the dirty Irish of Polterham back streets. As for European war, the idiots are fond of drums and fifes and military swagger; they haven't brains enough to ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... largely in telling people what he thinks; and never hesitates to hit rich and poor alike in his discourses. He has been transplanted to the Parish Church, and he will stir up a few of the respectable otiose souls there if he has an opportunity. There is a good deal of swagger about him; he believes in carry a stick and turning it; in admiring himself and letting other people know that he is of a cypher; there is much conceit and ever so much bombast about him; he likes giving historical lectures; thinks he is an authority on everything appertaining ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... workmen as they loitered about the streets, their stomachs empty, said to each other that it was a great honour for Mugsborough that their Member should be promoted in this way. They boasted about it and assumed as much swagger in their gait as ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... secret cannot be concealed. The mask which men would wear slips aside and discloses the face beneath it. (1) Time reveals character. As the years pass along, a man generally gets to be known for what he is. For example, if a man is a coward and enlists in the army, he may swagger about and look like a real soldier, but a time will come when the spirit of the man will show itself, and he will be set down at his real value. Or a young man in an office may act dishonestly and go on perhaps for long ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... no longer. Not even for you, not even for the chance of getting Christian back. It's empty swagger to say that I wish to GOD I'd the chance of giving my life to get him back for you. But you must come home now. I've bitten my lip through in holding my tongue, but I won't see you kneel another minute at the feet of that ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... swagger a bit, Harriet, but 'tis not an offensive swagger. As to his hat: 'tis a standing joke of the army as to how he keeps it on in battle. The hotter the fight the further on the side it gets. I saw a letter that General Greene writ to His Excellency in which he declared ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an air, ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... near the base of the old oak, while the other seated himself a few paces from him. Neither spoke for a little while; then the stranger broke the silence. His voice was not, in its natural tones, otherwise than pleasing; but there was an assumption in his manner of speaking and a spice of sarcastic swagger which grated very painfully on the sensibilities of his companion. However, it was pretty evident that the stranger had no particular care to spare the feelings of the person whom he ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... may be Reuben Ring; still it hath much of the swagger of the other, though their stature be nearly equal—the manner of carrying the musket is much the same with all the borderers too—one cannot easily tell the form of man from a stump by this light—and—yet do I think it will prove to be the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... looked down at Ugolone, lumbering along behind the van. If they jumped it must be almost on top of him, and in the darkness he looked as big as a house and very alarming. Even Beppo lost his swagger, and as for Beppina, she was speechless with terror. The ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... and swagger of McKay I told the General to let him go, and plainly told McKay that I would go with him. That he, McKay, was an arrant coward and could not take any one, much less a company of one hundred men. I then expressed my belief to Gen. Davis that the killing had been ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... thought is enough to turn one's moral stomach. His cockle hat and staff transformed to a smart cockd beaver and a jemmy cane, his amice gray to the last Regent Street cut, and his painful Palmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop thy friend's sacriligious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the pilgrims there—the silly soothness in his setting out countenance—the Christian idiocy ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely understood. "I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening the shadow under the lobe of the ear. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... candelabra on the billiard-table, made Semyon Matveitch a low bow, and with a slight swagger and a malignant smile, moved towards me. A cat, I imagine, approaches a mouse who has no chance of escape in that way. All my daring left me in an instant. I knew the man was capable of... beating me. I began to tremble; yes; oh, shame! ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Wait now, Herbinger, you know who I mean, the fellow who's in one of the jobbers' offices; yes, of course, you must know him, he's one of the best-known men in Paris, that great big fair-haired boy who wears such swagger clothes; he always has a flower in his buttonhole and a light-coloured overcoat with a fold down the back; he goes about with that old image, takes her to all the first-nights. Very well! He gave a ball the other night, and all the smart people in Paris were there. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... refuse it," boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, but carrying off his confusion with a swagger. "That will come in very handy; fools are made for ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... responsible people did object to was the method of those who belonged to the Tirpitz school. The peace was to be preserved; I give that school full credit for this desire; but preserved on what terms? On the terms that the German was to be so strong by land and sea that he could swagger down the High Street of the world, making his will prevail at ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... do as he likes. He will have his own way after all. He has a will, a knowledge, a purse, friends of his own. He will let the world see that he can get along with his own resources. Barnabas Know-nothing may talk as he please, Job Do-nothing may do all he can, and Richard Bombast may swagger because he thinks matters are done as he planned; but Mr. Grumbler is independent of them all, and will, by-and-by, demonstrate it ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave- enough face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; disapproves ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... a group of men in the Court. One of them planted himself full in front and said with an insolent swagger: "Me and my mytes thinks there's too many parsons abart 'ere. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... against By-ends, Sir Having Greedy, and the Lord Old-man on the other, are in these drawings as simply distinguished by their costume. Good people, when not armed cap-a-pie, wear a speckled tunic girt about the waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. Bad people swagger in tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches, but the large majority in trousers, and for all the world like guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some inexplicable quirk, stands before Christian in laced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... murderer, the rustler, and the outlaw spurred their ponies on eastward when the valley of the San Pedro was too hot for them and took refuge here among their kind. On occasion the bolder ones among them ventured back to show themselves on Tombstone's streets or swagger into Charleston's dance-halls; but never for long and never unless they were traveling in ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... thinking of joining. If they had been making a move he would have gone at once—very competitive, and with a strong sense of form, he could not bear to be left behind in anything—but to do it off his own bat might look like 'swagger'; because of course it wasn't really necessary. Besides, he did not want to go, for the other side of this young Forsyte recoiled from leaping before he looked. It was altogether mixed pickles within him, hot and sickly pickles, and he became quite unlike ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his place with a lounging swagger, but his first ball was caught by the immortal Sibthorp, who uttered more puns on the occasion than the oldest man present recollected to have heard perpetrated in any given time. Russell—who, by the bye, excavated several quarts of 'heavy' during ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... in her. Then it was that, across half the gallery—for he had not moved from where she had first seen him—he struck her as confessing, with strange tears in his own eyes, to sharp identity of emotion. "Poor thing, poor thing"—it reached straight— "ISN'T she, for one's credit, on the swagger?" After which, as, held thus together they had still another strained minute, the shame, the pity, the better knowledge, the smothered protest, the divined anguish even, so overcame him that, blushing to his eyes, he turned short away. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... "foots"; If we're late down to breakfast, he snorts at us. He worries our lives out with pic-nics and shoots, And will flourish his Clarets and Ports at us. My wife likes her ease and her breakfast in bed; I hate cellar-swagger and scurry. Entertainment indeed! We're as lumpish as lead When we're not on the whirl or the worry. But turn out to-morrow, my BLOGGS? No, not me, Though I know what your "little hints" signify. Your "dear DICK" forsooth! Such a noodle as he The title of "duffer" would dignify You've ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... in his neat, serviceable undress uniform, with a cigar between his lips. He had abandoned the swagger frogged coat and silk sash for the unpretending patrol jacket of his brethren in the Line. He had been hard at work all day in barracks, inspecting meals, visiting the hospital, attending parades. He had paid his company personally, had seen every man, and found that there were no complaints. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... walked heavily, and looked up lowering at the car. The fellow's eyes were queer, and threatening, and sad—giving Stanley a feeling of discomfort. Then came a short, square man with an impudent, loquacious face and a bit of swagger in his walk. He, too, looked up at Stanley and made some remark which caused two thin-faced fellows with him to grin sheepishly. A spare old man, limping heavily, with a yellow face and drooping gray moustaches, walked next, alongside ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... started and then gazed at her fearfully. For the first time in the eight years since his marriage he was encountering the girl again. But a girl no longer. Her figure was slim as ever—or perhaps not quite, for a certain boyish swagger, a sort of insolent adolescence, had gone the way of the first blooming of her cheeks. But she was beautiful; dignity was there now, and the charming lines of a fortuitous nine-and-twenty; and she sat in the car with such perfect ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of drought and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... this extraordinary case. Mr. Arthur Shipman is the head of the firm of Shipman and Co., the wealthy jewellers. He is a widower, and lives very quietly by himself in his own old-fashioned way in the small Kensington house, leaving it to his two married sons to keep up the style and swagger befitting the representatives of so ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... herself before discovering that all she married him for, his old Knickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary for social acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be well thronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig, Kitty was what Beverly would call "swagger "; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closely and gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella; it was in her hat that she had gone wrong—a beautiful hat in itself, one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it didn't do at all. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... way,' he decided, and ordered his men to fall in and proceed. They passed through the village, which they now observed had been much abused by the Prussians, and on out into the country, with the lad marching beside the captain with a swagger that amused all ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... stronger. "Never show your feelings—to do so is not manly and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about your companions, and no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at." (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in his press, habitually understates everything.) "Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games hard, and keep the rules of them ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... only felt more sure what artistic merit really is, I should say that, though the chapel cannot be rated very highly from some standpoints, there are others from which it may be praised warmly enough. It is innocent of anatomy-worship, free from affectation or swagger, and not devoid of a good deal of homely naivete. It can no more be compared with Tabachetti or Donatello than Hogarth can with Rembrandt or Giovanni Bellini; but as it does not transcend the limitations of its age, so neither is it wanting in whatever merits that age possessed; ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... Cunningham could not understand a word of what the fakir said, but the pantomime was obvious. His was the voice and the manner of the professional beggar who has no more need to whine but still would ingratiate. It was the bullying, brazen swagger and the voice that traffics in filth and impudence instead of wit; and, in payment for his evening bellyful he was pouring out abuse of Cunningham that grew viler and yet viler as Cunningham came nearer and the fakir realized ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... tell you, my dear young lady: Young men like to go on sprees; they like gayety and distraction, and all sorts of dissipations, and their wives may sit at home and wait for them till midnight. And they come home drunk, and bully their wives, and swagger. But an old man will just sit near his wife; he'll die before he'll leave her. And he would like to look into her eyes all the time and to caress her and to kiss her hands. [Kisses ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... started for the ball-ground, but at this taunt he turned back, thrust his hands into his pockets, put on a swagger, and stammered: "No, I'm not afraid of a ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... side of the Channel, all with a very light and engaging pen, and then spreads himself on any old far-off thing that interests him, such as the theatre, perhaps a little self-consciously and with a pleasant air of swagger most forgivable and, indeed, enjoyable. His chief preoccupation is with art and letters, it is clear; but, turning from them to the handling of urgent things and difficult men, he faces the business manfully. Of the men in particular ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... gather from them what their words might mean. They, deep in their conversation, did not notice her. Then, with a feeling of extraordinary relief—she hardly knew why—she saw a familiar, substantial person coming along the promenade with a sort of friendly swagger. She went forward to meet him, still feeling as though she ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... Rose Maynard which would greet him on his return; of the poverty in which she and her father existed, and the joy which would be his when he took them from their squalid surroundings. They would all go to Pfahlert's Hotel—that was the swagger hotel in Sydney—and whilst he and old Mr. Maynard "trotted around" and enjoyed themselves, Rose, sweet Rose, and Mrs. Tracey would fuss about over the coming wedding and buy the trousseau and all that sort of thing. Of course Mrs. Tracey would fall in love with Rose ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... their pegs, with Barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of seal-skin, and blue cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same. Nevertheless, such a society in my juvenile estimation, during my short escapade from the middy's berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with a tolerable swagger, when Mr. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... this, he perceived one of the beeldars, or officers of the caliph's household, pass by him. "That would be a nice office," thought Yussuf, "and the caliph does not count his people like the cadi. It requires but an impudent swagger, and you are taken upon your own representation." Accordingly, nowise disheartened, and determined to earn his six dirhems, he returned home, squeezed his waist into as narrow a compass as he could, gave his turban a smart cock, washed his hands, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense—all in the role of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection; her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Haer, wearing a colonel's uniform and flicking his swagger stick along his booted leg, stood in the doorway. His voice was lazily arrogant. "And Mr. Holland, I must say, the Middle caste seems to have taken over the house. Well, Major Mauser? I assume you do not labor under the illusion that you are ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and there we did stop, in a drizzle of rain which prevented sight-seeing for those who had the wish, and the freedom, to go about. As for me, I was ordered by Lady Turnour to mend Mr. Stokes's socks, he having made peace by offering to "give her a swagger dinner in town." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... lemon and orange trees. Waiters in white aprons were already laying out on white tables the insignia of an early and elegant lunch; and this seemed to increase a satisfaction that already touched the top of swagger. Muscari had an eagle nose like Dante; his hair and neckerchief were dark and flowing; he carried a black cloak, and might almost have carried a black mask, so much did he bear with him a sort of Venetian melodrama. He acted as if a troubadour had still a definite social office, like a ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards the French usurper, I believe him to have always been ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... between a privateer and a man-of-war. There was plenty of flogging, and swearing, and rope's-ending, which the officers considered necessary to keep up their authority; but there was also a free-and-easy swagger, and an independent air about the men, which showed that they considered themselves on a par with their officers, and that they could quit the vessel whenever they fancied a change. At first I did not at all like it, but by degrees I got accustomed to the life, and imitated ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the heavy rubber garment she had worn through the swamp. Then she removed her outer clothing and got into the uniform and into the long, polished boots quickly. There was even the swagger cane that young Prussian ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... of his the individuality of the man somehow was thoroughly realised. Observing him, listening to him, as he stood there palpably before us, one seemed to understand better than ever Thackeray's declaration in regard to those same menials in plush breeches, that a certain delightful "quivering swagger" of the calves about them, had for him always, as he expressed it, "a frantic fascination!" Immediately afterwards, however, as the Reader turned a new leaf, in place of the momentary apparition of that particular flunkey, three very different persons appeared to step across the threshold on to ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... accept these terms. He saved a small sum out of the wreck of his fortune, and with his family removed to the West, where they were obliged to adopt a very different style of living. Randolph is now an office boy at a salary of four dollars a week, and is no longer able to swagger and boast as he has done hitherto. Mr. Tomkins, Linton's father, was elected president of the Groveton Bank in place of Mr. Duncan, much to the ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... man, before his betrothal, could conveniently count his riches on the fingers of his left hand—in pence! But he is happy now, because he can bring in a load of wool every year with his own waggon and oxen, and talk to the merchant with all the swagger and ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... that disturbed his mind was the fact that, swagger as he would, his shoulders, usually so square and trim, refused to fill out his uniform. It was the first time he had had it on for six months, his wardrobe having been limited to pajamas and bath-robes during his convalescence in various ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... "if it comes to that, I've business enough. Perhaps you'll just pay me this debt," he continued, changing his fawning manner into a bullying swagger. "I've ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of his adventure, with swelling chest and so considerable swagger that he quite impressed even his bitterest enemies, while Kala fairly danced for ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Monument, and beyond it the graceful dip of upper Beacon-street. My room is as spacious and luxurious as heart can desire, lighted by half a dozen electric lamps, and with a private bath-room attached, which is itself nearly as large as the bedroom assigned me in the "swagger" hotel of New York—an establishment, by the way, of which it has been wittily said that its purpose is "to provide exclusiveness for the masses." All the comforts of the club are at my command; the ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... in too many tests of Oak Creek whiskey, called "Pizen" by the natives. The cow-boys were picturesque enough. in their wide sombreros, woolly chaps, gay shirts, and a swagger that matched their trick of shooting. The miners were swarthy, bearded foreigners, who wore long boots, loose shirts, and belts from which ugly-looking ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... she might reasonably reply, "But this is how I support my friend Anne in her sublime evolutionary effort." Whenever he laughed at an old-fashioned actor for ranting, the actor might answer, "My exaggeration is not more absurd than the tail of a peacock or the swagger of a cock; it is the way I preach the great fruitful lie of the life-force that I am a very fine fellow." We have remarked the end of Shaw's campaign in favour of progress. This ought really to have been ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... enough, as far as that goes—one of those swagger flats in Prince's Square. I suppose we could manage all right. Will ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Jock goes with more swagger down Princes Street than Johnny Gurkha down the bazaar of Darrapore, particularly in the evening, when he doffs khaki for the mufti suit of his clan—the spotless white shorts, coat of black sateen, little cocked cap and brightly bordered stockings—a mode de rigueur that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... lead, showed a tendency to swagger. She bounced and tossed. The fair lad, swaying to the motions of his horse, rode the fretting creature patiently ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... determination, Mahoghany Drake, Leaping Buck, and little Trevor set off next day and followed Tom Brixton's trail into the mountains. It was a broad trail and very perceptible, at least to an Indian or a trapper, for Tom had a natural swagger, which he could not shake off, even in the hour of his humiliation, and, besides, he had never been an adept at treading the western wilderness with the care which the red man finds needful in order to escape from, or ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... didn't know me that first night; you had never seen me but once before, and you couldn't have known me. How did you know me to-night? You won't answer, or if you do you'll say you knew me by my swagger. Anything to insult a woman. I'd like to be a man for a few hours just to see how they feel toward women—just how much more contempt they feel than they show. I tell you, you didn't know me that ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... nation on the face of the earth is free? My youth is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I set myself to obtain wealth or power, does it mean that I must make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? To consent to be the servant of others who have likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered? Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well, then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I will work day and ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of hearing this at last, that one day I was goaded to reply that "home was getting too tame for me." And Jem, who always backed me up, said, "And me too." For which piece of swagger we forfeited our suppers; but when we went to bed we found pieces of cake under our pillows, for my mother could not bear us to be short of ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk; woodpeckers fly with an undulating motion, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising and falling in curves. All of this kind use their tails, which incline downwards, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... middle mass of Germany has never been on friendly terms with the Germany of the court and the landowner. It has inherited a burgerlich tradition and resented even while it tolerated the swagger of the aristocratic officer. It tolerated it because that sort of thing was supposed to be necessary to the national success. But Munich, the comic papers, Herr Harden, Vorwaerts, speak, I think, for the central masses of German life far more truly than any official utterances do. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... sent my face to the wall again; but this time not in anger. And that dogged fashion Mr. Sutherland had of taking his own way did me many a good turn. Often have I heard those bragging captains of the Hudson's Bay mercenaries swagger into the little cottage sitting-room, while I lay in bed on the other side of the thin board partition, and relate to Mr. Sutherland all the incidents of ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... changed then. Possibly it took on a little swagger; certainly he lost the dignity that he had shown under stress of feeling; he was now more like a cowboy about to boast or affect some stunning maneuver. Walking off the porch, he stood before ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... wonder if he spent much of his day in eating-houses and drinking-houses, obscurely hinting to admiring boon companions of the thing he could do an he would? Then, having drunk his fill, he would swagger, sometimes not over-steadily, out to the Park, and amuse himself by scowling at the Premier, or smiling a smile of hidden meaning at Daisy Medland, as they drove by. Also, he occasionally got into trouble: one zealous partisan of the Premier's ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... lark is but a bumpkin fowl, He sleeps in his nest till morn; But my blessing upon the jolly owl, That all night blows his horn. Then up with your cup till you stagger in speech, And match me this catch till you swagger and screech, And drink till you wink, my merry men each; For, though hours be late and weather be foul, We'll drink to the health ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and desolating braying began. "If you love Swagger Literature, put your telephone on to Bruggles, the Greatest Author of all Time. The Greatest Thinker of all Time. Teaches you Morals up to your Scalp! The very image of Socrates, except the back of his head, which is like Shakspeare. He has six toes, dresses ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... attempts at realizing history, by evolving its romantic element, and thus demonstrating to the languid and lazy readers of ninepenny nonsense, that the actual heroes and heroines of the world have surpassed in romantic daring the fictitious ones who swell and swagger in most novels and poems. Mr. Gayarre's work is more interesting, both as regards its characters and incidents, than Jane Eyre or James's "last," for, in truth, it requires a mind of large scope to imagine as great things as many men, in every country, have really performed. The ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... richest capitalists in Paris one day met an extremely pretty little working-girl. Her mother was with her, but the girl had taken the arm of a young fellow in very doubtful finery, with a very smart swagger. The millionaire fell in love with the girl at first sight; he followed her home, he went in; he heard all her story, a record of alternations of dancing at Mabille and days of starvation, of play-going and hard work; he took ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... pompous and pretentious and insincere is to be vulgar, I really think the vulgar of our time are not these old plutocrats—not even their grandsons, who hunt and shoot and yacht and swagger with the best—but those solemn little prigs who have done well at school or college, and become radicals and agnostics before they've even had time to find out what men and women are made of, or ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... had trembled all gratefully into derision, and not to seem to swagger he had put his possible virtue at its lowest. This she beautifully showed that she beautifully saw. "I dare say that if you did even that we should have to ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... of Bunyan's Pilgrim—why, the thought is enough to turn one's moral stomach. His cockle hat and staff transformed to a smart cockd beaver and a jemmy cane, his amice gray to the last Regent Street cut, and his painful Palmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop thy friend's sacriligious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the pilgrims there—the silly soothness in his setting ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... ratlin tow, Begins to jow an' croon; Some swagger hame, the best they dow, Some wait the afternoon. At slaps the billies halt a blink, Till lasses strip their shoon: Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink, They're a' in famous tune ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... eye gleams at once. He takes a stealthy look at her, and begins to twirl his moustache nervously, with his left hand akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his heels in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the left of the table, opposite her, and says) Louka: do you know what ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... about a newly sowed wheat field we pass through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever I ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs |
