"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves; but away beyond, the smoke of chimneys curled into the still air. A man was mowing in some field on the hillside, and the cry of sheep came from the valley. By and by they reached the shelving coast of fine hill gravel, and as they turned to swim easily back a sleepy figure staggered down the pier and stumbled rather ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... to trouble them, which it must soon, they'll move. Then we will run for the river; 'tis but fifty yards. The Lady Eve can swim like a duck, and so can you. The tide has turned, and will bear you to the point, and I'll hold the bank against any who try to follow, and take my chance. What say you of that ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... not sit down; she stood in the middle of the room slowly fanning herself; she had for him the same familiar grace. She seemed to wait for him to speak. Now that he was alone with her all the passion he had never stifled surged into his senses; it hummed in his eyes and made things swim round him. The bright, empty room grew dim and blurred, and through the heaving veil he felt her hover before him with gleaming eyes and parted lips. If he had seen more distinctly he would have perceived her smile was fixed and a trifle forced—that she was frightened at what she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Alice could swim, and, after the plunge into the stream, she did not lose her head. She knew she would come up in a second, even though hampered by her clothes. Her only fear was lest she be entangled in the fish-line. And in another second she knew this was the case. She could feel her feet bound together. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... resolution, sir, that has been often made but never kept—for this reason: you can't sit on dry land and calculate the force of the stream. It carries those who paddle in it off their feet, and then they must swim with it or—sink." ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of real artists, but the big fish left and the minnows swim slimily about, giving off nothing but their own ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... perplexities and exigencies of the wild Brest blockade in midwinter, in January, 1801, he wrote concerning repairs to his own vessels, "Under the present impending storm from the north of Europe, and the necessity there is of equipping every ship in the royal ports that can swim, no ship under my command must have anything done to her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this anchorage,"—at Torbay, an open though partially sheltered roadstead. Here again is seen the subordination of the particular and personal care to the broad considerations ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... a cut; but I'd forgotten all about it when I come to again in the dark, and couldn't make it out. My head was all of a swim like, and I couldn't recklect anything about what had happened, nor make out where I was, only that I was in the dark. All I could understand was that my head was aching awful and swimming round and round, and I seemed to have been fast asleep for hours and hours, and that I had woke up. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh's dreadful gaze Hugh's brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking some natural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he might watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out of the reeds crept a great red fox. The hare smelt or saw, and leaped away. The fox sprang ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... followed with the utmost caution—a caution which he redoubled as he drew near to the riverside. He would have thought little of going over the quay wall when the water was up, for that would only mean a ducking, and he could swim like a fish. But in some places patches of deep mud were laid bare at low tide, spots in which the finest swimmer would flounder, sink, and perish. Chippy sought for a mooring-post, and was full of delight when his hands came against ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... it would be safe to cross, as the ground at that point was inaccessible to the enemy's horse; that having taken off their clothes, and taken their daggers in their hands, they went over undressed, in expectation of having to swim, but that, as they went on, they reached the other side before they were wet to the middle, and, having thus forded the stream, and taken the clothes, they came back again. 13. Xenophon immediately therefore made a libation, ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... but dar's breakers ahead! Dat boss ob mine am one ob de biggest debbils dat am runnin' loose. Ef I should tell yous all dat I know 'bout him, your hair would rose up and stick frough de roof wid horror. Can you swim, sonny?" ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... her dresses were already hanging. The delicate perfume he had already remarked made his head swim again. As he bent down to shove the trunk back, her skirts brushed his cheek like a caress. They were burning when he came out. Perhaps she guessed; at any rate she ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... world that it won't do to wait. If you wait to fit yourself before acting, you never will act. You will somehow lose the habit of acting. Study too conscientiously the one hundred best books on swimming, and of course you'll learn a great deal about it, but you never will swim. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... not know if you are a Catholic, Hero; but I guess your kitchen is; and so I am pretty sure that you will eat fish Fridays. I know you are a person of sense, so I know you will often delight Leander, as he rises from the day's swim which, for your sake, Hero, he takes across the cold Hellespont of life,—(all men are Leanders, and all women should be their Heros, holding high love-torches for them,)—as he rises, I say, with "a sound of wateriness," I know you will often delight him with oysters, scalloped, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... sink?" interpreted Ryder. "No, indeed, I can swim," he assured her, and revisited with smiling satisfaction she knelt again before the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Edgecomb,—best swimmer I ever saw. He could swim back an' forth across this river half a dozen times,—and do you know what happened to him last September? He drowned in three foot of water up above the bend, that's what he did. Come on. Let's be movin'. It'll be hotter'n blazes by ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the barbarians thought the Romans would not be able to cross without a bridge,—a conviction which led them to encamp in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank,—he sent ahead Celtae who were accustomed to swim easily in full armor across the most turbulent streams. These fell unexpectedly upon the enemy, but instead of shooting at any of the men confined themselves to wounding the horses that drew their chariots and consequently in the confusion ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... would have been sufficient to lift him out of danger, but in his terror and excitement he quite miscalculated their power, and in a single moment he was far out of reach of the dangerous yard and anything it contained. But the mad rush of it all made his head swim; he felt dizzy and confused, and, instead of clearing the wall, he landed on the top of it and clung to the crumbling coping with hands ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... carriage or horses over by it, and that it was not the punt the General said we were to cross. The escort replied it was to Pretorius' Punt that the General told them to take us, and we must cross; that we must leave the carriage behind and swim the horses, which we refused to do, as we should then have had no means of getting on. I asked them to show me their written instructions, which they did (written in Dutch), and I pointed out that the name of Pretorius was not in it. I then told them they must either take ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Courtney-Boyle sees fit to tell, and that officer will never understand why one taxpayer at least demands his arrest after the war till he shall have given the full tale. Did he sight the shadowy underline of the small steamboat green through the deadlights? Or did she suddenly swim into his vision from behind, and obscure, without warning, his periscope with a single brown clutching hand? Was she alone, or one of a mob of splashing, shouting small craft? He may well have been too busy to note, for there ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... was saying, "we're a-going to sink, and I carn't swim! The blarsted tar's give way ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I called to her to be careful, but while I was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under ...
— Different Girls • Various
... anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after a moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You have to float, and do what every one expects you to do—your children and your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. All the world is in a conspiracy ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... in Paris where it passes the Ministry of Marine. As for its depth, it is enough to say that the three regiments of Corbineau's brigade had forded it seventy-two hours previously without accident, and did so again on the day of which I write. Their horses never lost their footing and had to swim only at two or three places. At this time the crossing presented only a few minor inconveniences to the cavalry the artillery and the carts, one of which was that the riders and carters were wet up to their knees, which was not insupportable ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... cloudy sail, Bannered with youth and lanterned with the stars. What fates for ballast? by what voices grim And laughters urged, your astral course I mark,— Warped to what ports remote your hulks shall swim Or anchor silent in what stagnant dark? Mine arms have raised you from the cosmic deep; Now Fire hath sprent his jewelled drops and sown Marvellous seeds whence beauty's plants shall creep Season to season weaving, zone to zone. Now sacerdotal Love shall shape and dye His forms within ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... not only have each of the eyes an action quite independent of the other, but one side of its body would appear to be sometimes asleep whilst the other is vigilant and active: one will assume a green tinge whilst the opposite one is red; and it is said that the chameleon is utterly unable to swim, from the incapacity of the muscles of the two sides to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... too young to swim. But you are wet," added the Indian, noticing for the first time the condition ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... something besides listen to stories. Every morning he was up at sunrise and went with a thrall to feed the hunting dogs. Thorstein taught him to swim in the rough waters of the fiord. Often he went with the men a-hunting in the woods and learned to ride a horse and pull a bow and throw a lance. Ivar taught him to play the harp and to make up songs. He went much to the smithy, where the warriors mended their helmets and made ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... will pardon me for burdening this beautiful Essay with a commentary which is worse than superfluous for him. For it has proved for many,—I will not say a pons asinorum,—but a very narrow bridge, which it made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and yet they must cross it, or one domain of Emerson's intellect will ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... sunk deep before reaching the edge. Manifestly he had lunged the last few feet. Slone found a better place, and waded in, urging Nagger. The big horse plunged, almost going under, and began to swim. Slone kept up-stream beside him. He found, presently, that the water was thick and made him tired, so it was necessary to grasp a stirrup and be towed. The river appeared only a few hundred feet wide, but probably it ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... of the way, we succeeded in getting over. I saw it was impossible to carry the sick back, and that there was but one way to render them secure. I had the horses unhitched, and told the driver to swim them back and bring over two or three more wagons. Two more finally reached me, and one team, in attempting to cross, was carried down stream and drowned. I had the three wagons placed on the highest point I could find, then chained together and staked securely to the ground. Over the boxes ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... as wisely as they should have mattered little. The essential point was that they had to be given the right of self-government. They could not be kept in pupilage. Like other Americans, they had to be left to strike out for themselves and to sink or swim according to the measure of their own capacities. When this was done it was certain that they would commit many blunders, and that some of these blunders would work harm not only to themselves but to the whole nation. Nevertheless, all this had to be accepted ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... But Tony Babington always was a fool, and a wrong-headed fool, who was sure to ruin himself sooner or later. You remember the decoy for the wild-fowl? Well, never was silly duck or goose so ready to swim into the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boat's lines and she was being blown out into the current. Then your uncle struggled half up again and helped Phyllis get the mattress outside the bull railings, where I climbed out and held it. He asked if I could swim and when I said yes he warned me not to swim to the shore as the river was falling and the bank caving, but to float with the mattress and call till I was picked up. So I went over with it. But it ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... fairly have claimed it; and, moreover, the approval of several of his fellow-workmen, to whom he had spoken. I was a little "riled," I confess, by his manner, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard to sink or swim. But it seemed childish to relinquish a plan which I had once thought wise and well-laid, just because I myself did not receive all the honour and consequence due to the originator. So I coolly took the part assigned to me, which is something like that of steward ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the soul out of her," when a low, panting sound was heard, and a white shape appeared gliding over the water. The captain had let the feluccas go, and the Jenny Jones was moving. He waved for the mate. "It's all up. Here's a mess. You must go home overland; suppose you swim ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... oar; Pareah instantly quitted the officer, snatched the oar out of the man's hand, and snapped it in two across his knee. At length the multitude began to attack our people with stones. They made some resistance, but were soon overpowered, and obliged to swim for safety to the small cutter, which lay farther out than the pinnace. The officers, not being expert swimmers, retreated to a small rock in the water, where they were closely pursued by the Indians. One man darted a broken oar at the master; but his foot slipping at the time, he missed him, which ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... disturbed by the wind, but when we had gone beyond the island, the storm attacked us with such fury that I thought myself lost, for, although a good swimmer, I was not sure I had strength enough to resist the violence of the waves and swim to the shore. I ordered the men to go back to the island, but they answered that I had not to deal with a couple of cowards, and that I had no occasion to be afraid. I knew the disposition of our gondoliers, and I made up my mind to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... chimes there sink and swim Along the consecrated air, The benediction and the hymn, The voice of praise ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... me to touch very lightly on employment by the cinematograph firms; but from the enquiries I have made, the usual payment seems to be roughly from 5s. to 7s. 6d. a day, the workers finding their own clothes: 10s. 6d. if the workers can ride and swim: 3s. a day for walking on, when light meals are provided. There is a form of application to be filled in, ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... remember that inside of them there is a long slender bladder filled with air. This bladder assists in making the fish light, hence making it easier for it to support itself in the water. In certain swampy regions these lungfish swim freely in the water of the marshes. When the dry season comes, however, the water evaporates, draining the marshes completely. This would prove the death of most fishes. The lungfish have a curious habit which keeps them over the dry season. They cover ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... the copse 'gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck's brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 240 But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the Hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. 245 The shaggy mounds ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... his favorite son. Captain Boling through an interpreter, expressed his regret at the occurrence, but not a word did Tenaya utter in reply. Later, he made an attempt to escape but was caught as he was about to swim across the river. Tenaya expected to be shot for this attempt and when brought into the presence of Captain Boling he said in great emotion, "Kill me, Sir Captain, yes, kill me as you killed my son, as you would ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... and with a light, quick stroke, arrest the winged prey before it has time to soar beyond reach. The puma is a good angler. Sitting by the water's edge he watches for his victims, and no sooner does an unfortunate fish swim within reach, than the nimble paw is outstretched, and it is swept out of the water on dry land, and ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... lordship such gallants would mind these impediments? such are the very essence of the adventures which they come to seek.—The Knight of the Swan would swim through the moat—he of the Eagle would fly over the wails—he of the Thunderbolt would burst open ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... to say—you two who haven't a lame ankle," the younger girl said, seriously enough. "But I don't believe I can even swim!" ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... a circle round the hand, the water will always keep at the greater distance from the centre, whence in the eddies formed in rivers during a flood a person who endeavours to keep above water or to swim is liable to be detained in them, but on suffering himself to sink or dive he is said readily to escape. This circulation of water in descending through a hole in a vessel Dr. Franklin has ingeniously applied to the explanation of hurricanes ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... belly on the back and between two waters. I am not so dexte rous that you. Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what don't to be ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... violent longings in general for anything. But also to the old, loving companionship is inexpressibly precious; the best thing by far that this world contains or this life knows. And Esther longed for it now, even till tears rose and dimmed her sight, and made all the moonshiny landscape swim and melt and be lost in the watery veil. But then, as the veil cleared and the moonlight came into view again, came also other words into Esther's mind,—'Be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Lodge asked his Uncle Jerry, who is supposed to be communicating, "Do you remember anything when you were young?" Phinuit (for him) replies at once, "Yes, I pretty nigh got drowned. Tried to swim the creek, and we fellows all of us got into a little boat. We got tipped over. He will remember it. Ask Bob if he remembers that about swimming the creek; he ought to remember it." Uncle Robert, consulted, remembers the incident ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... and deep below, Bursting, bubbling, swelling the flow, Like hill torrents after the snow,— Bubbling, gurgling, in whirling strife, 310 Swaying, sweeping, to and fro,— He must swim for ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... imperceptibly into others, for the book is much like the cabalistic manuscript described in its pages: now it is blurred over with deceptive sameness, and again it brims with multifarious beauties like those that swim within the golden depth of Tieck's enchanted goblet. The ultimate and most insistent moral is perhaps that which brings it into comparison with Goethe's "Faust"; this, namely, that, in order to defraud Nature of her dues, we must enter into ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... present when their nurse, that is to say their mother, bathed them; when we read in Suetonius that Augustus, the master of the world which he had conquered and which he himself governed, himself taught his grandsons to write, to swim, to understand the beginnings of science, and that he always had them with him, we cannot help smiling at the little people of those days who amused themselves with such follies, and who were too ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... still farther forward, he was surprised to hear the roar of the flames in the furnaces below. It looked at that moment as though the Bellevite was doomed to sail under a Confederate flag. But if he could do nothing more, he could save himself, even if he had to jump into the river and swim to the shore. ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... and yet he entrusted the safety of one of the boys, as well as his own life, to another, who, until then, had never been in a similar position. Why he did so would be hard to explain, but he never admitted that his course was a mistake. Sometimes, as is well known, a boy is taught to swim by flinging him into deep water, where he must choose between keeping afloat and drowning; and it may be the guide believed that, by tossing his young friends into the midst of danger at the very beginning of their ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... jade can trot as high As any other Pegasus can fly. So the dull Eel moves nimbler in the mud, Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood. As skilful divers to the bottom fall, Sooner than those that cannot swim at all, So in the way of writing, without thinking, Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking. Thou writ'st below ev'n thy own nat'ral parts, And with acquir'd dulness, and new arts Of studied nonsense, tak'st kind ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... rash to deny that," said Mr. Randolph. "Daisy, I think I understand you. I do not require so much depth as is necessary for Ransom's understanding to swim in." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to join the lady, victorious, but with a bump on his brow, found the door locked, tore up the curtains, made a rope ladder, got halfway down when the ladder broke, and he went headfirst into the moat, sixty feet below. Could swim like a duck, paddled round the castle till he came to a little door guarded by two stout fellows, knocked their heads together till they cracked like a couple of nuts, then, by a trifling exertion of his prodigious strength, he smashed in the door, went up a pair of stone steps covered with dust ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake's stern face softened. His mind went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, until this man's face, young, strong, and cheery then, appeared behind a white life-buoy; and he heard again the panting voice of his rescuer: "Here ye are, Mr. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... new conditions. Oh, for the love of heaven, let us be frank, and confess that we have not met them as things practical go. We hadn't the training for it. A man who has not been taught to swim may rationally be excused for preferring to sit upon the bank; and should he elect to ornament his idleness with protestations that he is self-evidently an excellent swimmer, because once upon a time ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... moment Tom Austin's horse gave a smothered neigh and disappeared. His master, freeing his feet from the stirrups, began to swim vigorously. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... state that I struck the water head foremost, and it was by instinct, I suppose, that I immediately started to swim away from the side of ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... us! But another Jesuit is more particular in his accounts. He positively assures us that we shall experience a supreme pleasure in kissing and embracing the bodies of the blessed; they will bathe in the presence of each other, and for this purpose there are most agreeable baths in which we shall swim like fish; that we shall all warble as sweetly as larks and nightingales; that the angels will dress themselves in female habits, their hair curled; wearing petticoats and fardingales, and with the finest linen; that men ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stoutly refused to listen to further appeals and expressed his regret that the first seeds of wrong should have been thus sown. No longer able to keep up the fight, with starvation staring them in the face, and being in nakedness, at the end of the fourth year the women attempted to swim the river in parties, but the attempts resulted only in death, for the swift current would have been too much even for the strongest men to buffet. Seeing this self-sacrifice and realizing that the race would be ultimately exterminated if ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... steamer sailing at noon! A steamer, and he couldn't swim a stroke and was always terrified by water. And the trip West with the home team! What about that? Why had he not the presence of mind to cut in and just perfectly tell her where they were going? But he had let the moment pass. It was too late. He didn't want to begin by ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... through the reed grass to find the sword-flags; the stout willow-herbs will not be trampled down, but resist the foot like underwood. Pink lychnis flowers behind the withy stoles, and little black moorhens swim away, as you gather it, after their mother, who has dived under the water-grass, and broken the smooth surface of the duckweed. Yellow loosestrife is rising, thick comfrey stands at the very edge; the sandpipers run where the shore is free ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... infect each thing they see. If I could think how these my thoughts to leave, Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end; If rebel sense would reason's law receive; Or reason foiled, would not in vain contend: Then might I think what thoughts were best to think: Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink. ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... and with such a list that the raft slipped into the water and floated of its own accord. On this all of them, including two had been wounded by flying splinters, rolled overboard after it, caught hold of the clumsy old float, and tried to swim it out to where Powell could pick them up. They had only gained a few yards when a steam-launch coming from the harbor bore down on them. Some marines in the bow were about to open fire, when Hobson sang out, 'Is there any officer ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... they all plunged, for Thialfe and Raska were used to a hardy life, and so were able to swim with scarcely more weariness than Thor and Loki, and were not long in reaching ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... fish add nothing to the "weight of the bucket of water in which they swim?" Charles II. is said to have asked the Royal Society. A still more extraordinary question has been propounded in the grave pages of the Quarterly Journal of Science, edited by Mr. Crookes, a Fellow of the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... eye—verily circumspect, though without the least betrayal of alarm or want of confidence, which was learnt from the need of being always as it were on guard, was soon learnt likewise by Patteson, while the air of suspicion or fear was most carefully avoided. The swim back to the boat was in water 'too warm, but refreshing,' and ended with a dive under the boat for the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... provided he reached the end of his journey, for it would give him a fine clear view of the picture on the barn, which he so much wanted to see. On the other hand, he would have preferred a dark night for a swim in Swift River. There were fish there—pickerel—which would rather swallow him than not. And he knew that they were sure to be feeding by the ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a fine swim under the starshine. The air was warm as the water, and the water as warm as tepid milk. The good salt taste of it was in his mouth, the tingling of it along his limbs; and the steady beat of his heart, heavy and strong, made ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... thunder-storm. The education of the son was perhaps the noblest portion of his varied and variously honourable activity. True to his maxim, that a ruddy-checked boy was worth more than a pale one, the old soldier in person initiated his son into all bodily exercises, and taught him to wrestle, to ride, to swim, to box, and to endure heat and cold. But he felt very justly, that the time had gone by when it sufficed for a Roman to be a good farmer and soldier; and be felt also that it could not but have an injurious influence on the mind of his boy, if he should subsequently learn ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the sort of fury with which she plunged into pleasure and excitement, a state of mind which apparently, without any transition, succeeded her late melancholy. She had done with sentiment, she thought, forever. She meant to be practical and positive, a little Parisienne, and "in the swim." There were plenty of examples among those she knew that she could follow. Berthe, Helene, and Claire Wermant were excellent leaders in that sort of thing. Those three daughters of the 'agent de change' were at this time at Treport, in charge of a governess, who let them do whatever they pleased, ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... mountainous head ploughed up the waves like a ship's cutwater, piling high the foam and spray before it. To miss us was now a sheer impossibility and no earthly power could arrest the creature's career. Instant destruction appeared inevitable. I grew dizzy, and my head began to swim, while the thought flashed confusedly through my mind, that infinite wisdom had decreed that we must die, and this manner of perishing had been chosen in mercy, to spare us the prolonged horrors of starvation. What a multitude of incoherent thoughts and recollections crowded upon my mind in that ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... both sides. But the subject he was fondest of was that which I relished least: my—now his—horse. Into the open ulcer of my heart he poured the acid of all manner of questions concerning my lost steed's qualities and capabilities: would he swim? how was he in fording? did he jump well! how did he stand fire? I smothered my irritation, and answered as pleasantly ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... mentioned above as having been taken on the 17th of June, as well as on other occasions. I observed these animals in the water, and found that their long silk-like antennae had, when uninjured, a length of five or six inches; they swim with the rounded part first, and the long antennae trailing after them like tails; the progressive motion is produced by introducing water into certain sacs, or cavities, and expelling it by a contraction of the muscles with great violence. I observed ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... moving off—she was frightened and did not know what to do. Growler rushed into the water, and continued to bark very loud. As Eva saw the boat getting away out into the river, she jumped out and with an oar commenced to swim for the shore. Growler took hold of her dress, and was taking her ashore, when an old slave named Sam, rushed into the water and taking her from the faithful dog, bore her in safety to the land. She lay sick for some time and she had a horrid fever ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... enemy." But Prince Lasar answered: "My son, how canst thou combat such a host, who hast never been in battle? The cries of the Tartars will terrify thee, and they will slay thee!" "Teach not the goose to swim, father," answered Yaroslav, "nor a knight's son to fight with Tartars! Only give me what I demand, ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... merit with its two immediate predecessors. As a whole it is not, perhaps, quite so much admired, but it contains the famous imaginary speech of John Adams, which is the best known and most hackneyed passage in any of these orations. The opening lines, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote," since Mr. Webster first pronounced them in Faneuil Hall, have risen even to the dignity of a familiar quotation. The passage, indeed, is perhaps the best example we have of the ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... tremulous voice, 'swim with me as near to the edge of the hole as you can before you dive, then let me take a long breath, and, as I sha'nt be able to speak after I've taken it, you'll watch my face, and the moment you see me wink—dive! And oh!' he added, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... have my swim for nuthin'; so I tuk the tail in my teeth, an' swam back for the shore. I hadn't made three strokes ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... gentleman's definition of what is natural. But this I do know, that when God made the human soul and gave it certain capacities, He meant these capacities should be exercised. The wing of the bird indicates its right to fly; and the fin of the fish the right to swim. So in human beings, the existence of a power, presupposes the right to its use, subject to the law of benevolence. The gentleman says the voice of woman can not be heard. I am not aware that the audience finds any difficulty in hearing us from this platform. All Europe and America have listened ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... oily feast in the dark, with the sacks heaped about him. With Master Richard to help him, he began to swim in adventure, and the pair were so fascinated and absorbed that one of the farm-servants went bawling 'Master Richard' about the outlying buildings for two or three minutes before they heard him. When at last ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... of Governor Heartall. Timothy is "an odd fish, that loves to swim in troubled waters." He says, "I never laugh at the governor's good humors, nor frown at his infirmities. I always keep a steady, sober phiz, fixed as the gentleman's on horseback at Charing Cross; and, in his worst of humors, when all is fire and faggots with him, if I turn round and coolly ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... brother, was unable to regard unmoved, and packed off over the sea indifferent to what might happen to them so long as Uncle Arthur knew nothing about it. Having flung these kittens into the water to swim or drown, so long as he didn't have to listen to their cries while they were doing it, Uncle Arthur apparently ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... spent only my income I should either wear shoes and no clothes, or clothes and no shoes," answered Kitty, laughing, with a little air of recklessness that sat well on her. "Besides," she added sagely, "it is well to burn one's ships. Sink or swim." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... had been one of his pupils, and who had been very greatly influenced by his opinion in religion and social matters. [Footnote: Kingsley (see memoir) said to Maurice, when opposition was fiercest against him: "Your cause is mine. We swim in the same boat, and stand or fall thenceforth together."] Neither man could bear the narrowness of "parties" in religion. They always demanded more toleration, broader views, and refused to be bound by narrow creeds. It ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... water-proof th' skin of th' dongola water goats is, like th' skin of th' duck. An' swim? A duck isn't in it wid a water goat. I remimber seein' thim in ould Ireland whin I was a bye, Dugan, swimmin in th' lake of Killarney. Ah, ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... clear before us as evening fell. But after we had retired to rest and were sound alseep, my two sisters arose and took me up, bed and all, and threw me into the sea: they did the same with the young Prince who, as he could not swim, sank and was drowned and Allah enrolled him in the noble army of Martyrs.[FN323] As for me would Heaven I had been drowned with him, but Allah deemed that I should be of the saved; so when I awoke and found myself in the sea and saw the ship ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... (A, Fig. 2) can be made of colored stones held together by cement, and an inverted jar can be supported in the position shown at B. If the mouth of the jar is below the surface of the water it will stay filled and allow the fish to swim up inside as shown. Some washed pebbles or gravel should be placed on the bottom, and, if desired, a few Chinese lilies or other plants may ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... dell and precipitous hill, the chase for life and death went on—nor ceased till it had brought pursued and pursuer to the banks of the broad Ohio. Here they who had dared to be the hindermost found themselves reduced to desperate straits, whether to fight or swim—their comrades, unmindful of them, having pushed off in all the canoes, and being by this time far out upon the river. Needing but a glance to tell them where their chances lay, with a loud yell of defiance, they leaped from ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... daughter of a sea captain, and she has been with him on many voyages. There was every reason to suppose that she could swim quite as well as I—or better. No, Frank, you made your choice between us that day. It's all right," and she forced a laugh that was not very musical. "I don't deny that, at one time, I did think ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... into the Pioneer. The canoe was bowled over like a tenpin, and Ned went head first into the yellow flood. He came to the surface a dozen feet below, and when he found he was out of his depth he made a valiant effort to swim up to Randy, who was fighting hard to drive the Water Sprite off the island, so that he might hasten ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... make a sound you are a slave fur life," whispered the waterman, as he slipped overboard and began to swim, with his hand upon the stern. As he did this, straining every muscle of his countenance to keep afloat, the wound in his cheek began to bleed again, and he felt his strength going. Down, down he began to settle, till the water reached his nostrils, and the woman ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... then the great Atlantic rollers, tumbling in upon the beach. The Indians of Nashola's village would go thither sometimes to dig for clams, to fish from the high rocks, and even, on occasions, to swim in the breakers close to shore. But they were land-abiding folk, they feared nothing in the forest, and would launch their canoes in the most headlong rapids of the inland rivers; yet there was dread and awe ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... startled at this movement. She swung out as far as she could, the line yielding, and suddenly she dropped into the water. The captain rang the gong to stop the screw, and then to back it. If the siamang could swim at all, she was very clumsy in the water; and the waves, for there was considerable sea on, seemed to ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... are going to be around the water," said Mr. Bunker, "you ought to learn how to row a boat as well as how to swim." ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... your ruin. Strive not against the will of Odin, nor against the Norns.' The words caused Slagfid to pause for a moment, then the figure of Swanvite danced before him and beckoned to him again, and his mother was forgotten. There were rivers to swim, precipices to climb, chasms to leap, but he passed them all gladly till at last he noticed that the higher he got the less the figure seemed like Swanvite. He felt frightened and tried to turn back, but he could not. On ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... that, don't say such things to me; I sink or swim with you. (To GAUNT.) Old man, you've struck me hard; give me a good word to go with. Name your time; I'll stand the test. Give me a spark of hope, and I'll fight through for it. Say just this—"Prove I was mistaken," and by George, I'll ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me; it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... clams, an' a number iv mosquitos with pianola attachments an' steel rams. There day be day th' head iv th' nation thransacts th' nation's business as follows: four A.M., a plunge into th' salt, salt sea an' a swim iv twenty miles; five A.M., horse-back ride, th' prisidint insthructin' his two sons, aged two and four rayspictively, to jump th' first Methodist church without knockin' off th' shingles; six A.M., ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... inventions, the invention of alphabetical writing, Plato did not look with much complacency. He seems to have thought that the use of letters had operated on the human mind as the use of the go-cart in learning to walk, or of corks in learning to swim, is said to operate on the human body. It was a support which, in his opinion, soon became indispensable to those who used it, which made vigorous exertion first unnecessary and then impossible. The powers of the intellect would, he conceived, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spectators thought fit; the young ones following their dams, and the old stags rising one against another and combating with their fore feet, not daring at this season of the year to make use of their horns. At the command of the keeper they would then move forward to a large piece of water and swim through the whole length of it, after which they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... that I was not burned!" But how could I sleep when she could not? I, indeed, said each morning that I had slept awhile in order to content her; but it was not so; but, like David, "all the night made I my bed to swim; I watered my couch with my tears." [Footnote: Ps. vi. 6.] Moreover, I again fell into heavy unbelief, so that I neither could nor would pray. Nevertheless the Lord "did not deal with me after my sins, nor reward me according ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... families, as that the deans of Rochester ever since the foundation by turns have died deans and bishops; the bird with a white breast that haunts the family of Oxenham near Exeter just before the death of any of that family; the bodies of trees that are seen to swim in a pool near Brereton in Cheshire, a certain warning to the heir of that honourable family to prepare for the next world." And such remarkables as "Number of children, such as the Lady Temple, who before she died saw seven hundred descended ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... swim very well; he therefore immediately cast himself into the sea on the ship's sinking, and got safe on shore under the castle, where he was soon relieved by the grand vizier's order. After changing his clothes, and being well treated, he was introduced to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... The peaks towering behind bathed in crimson, and the intervening hills rising one above the other to the furthermost summits like a giant staircase, rich in a mysterious purple. As we walked back from our evening swim, over the short, springing grass, that scene at sunset never abated its charms one whit. And we were always glad on entering the town that no one wore plain, ugly European clothes but ourselves. The national costumes, so full of colour, blended harmoniously ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... their descendants with the organ well developed. The mammary glands in Ornithorhynchus may, perhaps, be considered as nascent compared with the udders of a cow—Ovigerous frena, in certain cirripedes, are nascent branchiae—in [illegible] the swim bladder is almost rudimentary for this purpose, and is nascent as a lung. The small wing of penguin, used only as a fin, might be nascent as a wing; not that I think so; for the whole structure of the bird is adapted for flight, and a penguin so closely resembles other birds, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... her abreast of the vessel, quickly, and bid her swim out to it. Let her use some of the cunning that is in her pretty little head, and make them wonder what else our island has to offer in dainties. Then, ere evening, I shall have work for thee that shall complete what Pascherette begins. Command the minx to bring ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... I said. "Let's get out before we have to swim for it. Now be steady and remember your training as an equestrienne. Grab me by the neck and hang on and we'll be out of ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... haven't thought this out," he went on. "You do not know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our heads swim with the thought of being together. But what can we do? Here am I, fixed to respectability and this laboratory; you're living at home. It means... just ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... good gallant steed, That will not ask a kind caress, To swim the Santee at our need, When on his heels the foemen press,— The true heart and the ready hand, The spirit stubborn to be free, The twisted bore, the smiting brand,— And we are Marion's men, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... unpaid. Sir W. Coventry tells me plainly, that to all future complaints of lack of money he will answer but with the shrug of the shoulder; which methought did come to my heart, to see him to begin to abandon the King's affairs, and let them sink or swim. My wife had been to day at White Hall to the Maunday, it being Maunday Thursday; but the King did not wash the poor people's feet himself, but the Bishop of London ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... birds having a Gull or Tern-like form and with a hooked bill, the base of which is covered with a scaly shield. They have webbed feet and are able to swim and dive, but they commonly get their living by preying upon the Gulls and Terns, overtaking them by their superior speed and by their strength and ferocity forcing them to relinquish their food. The Jaegers especially are one of the swiftest and ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... and the vessel set sail. This dog was sleeping on the banks [of the river]; when he awoke, and saw the ship in the middle of the stream, he was surprised, and having barked and jumped into the river, he began to swim [after us]. I sent a skiff for him, at last having seized [the faithful animal], they conveyed him into the ship. One month passed in safety on the river; somehow, my second brother became enamoured of ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... would like to tell some of the boys and girls who live far away something about my home and pleasures. The name of my home is Baywood Lodge. It is within a stone's-throw of a beautiful sheet of water known as Hempstead Bay. We sail, row, swim, and fish, and we have horses, and ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... occasionally separated from the stomach by a slight constriction which may be capable of contraction so as to prevent regurgitation. There are few exceptions to this structural and functional simplicity. In fishes (see ICHTHYOLOGY, Anatomy) the swim-bladder is developed as a dorsal outgrowth of the oesophagus and may remain in open connexion with it. In certain Teleosteis (e.g. Liitodeira) it is longer than the length it has to traverse and is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... but she dared not show her grief before her parents, and the only relief she could find from her sorrow was to swim over by starlight to the island where she had been accustomed to meet her lover, and there, calling upon his name, bewail the loss of him who was dearer to her ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... betimes the next morning; and Mrs. Vanderlyn, who was to start for St. Moritz in the afternoon, devoted her last hours to anxious conferences with her maid and Susy. Strefford, with Fred Gillow and the others, had gone for a swim at the Lido, and Lansing seized the opportunity to ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... taskers of the dead. 2. You that boiling cauldrons blow, You that scum the molten lead. 3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs; 1. You that drive the trembling hosts Of poor, poor ghosts, With your sharpened prongs; 2. You that thrust them off the brim; 3. You that plunge them when they swim: 1. Till they drown; Till they go On a row, Down, down, down: Ten thousand, thousand, thousand ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... getting your fish securely hooked; but, on the other hand, there was the danger, if the hooked fish be allowed to remain too long in the water, that it would disastrously shake itself free of the barb and swim away. That was what Barney was afraid had been happening with Dick Sherwood. Therefore he was thinking of returning to his abandoned scheme of selling stock to Dick. He might get Dick's money in that way, though of course not so much money, and ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... in the water would of itself have been a serious thing to poor Gubbins, who, of course, could not swim; but to add to his terror there was a shark, plainly visible, his back fin indeed now and then rising out of the water, swimming round and round, opening his mouth, but by no means shutting his eyes, to see what luck would send him. And good rations and regular meals, with something a day ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... low, or we'd be there yet. And, you may believe me, the engineers will have a considerable bridge to build before they get over that river and a lot of these others. If we were two months later we'd have to swim a lot of these streams, and that's something I don't want with ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... will be for bullheads and the like, While he shall fish for gamey bass, for pickerel, and for pike; I really do not care a rap for all the fish that swim— But it's worth the wealth of Indies just to be along with him In grassy fields, in leafy woods, beside the water-brooks, And hear him tell of things he's seen or read of in his books— To hear the sweet philosophy ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field |
