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More "Swimmer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suffice to produce cohesion belongs to educational psychology. How long does it take to form habits? How many repetitions of a lesson will bring a man into the condition in which he responds automatically to certain calls upon him, as does a swimmer dropped into the water, a reporter in forming his shorthand words, or a cyclist guiding and balancing his machine? In each case two processes are necessary. There is first the series of progressive lessons in which the movements are learned and mastered until the pupil can begin practice. Then ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... for Tim Reardon. There wasn't a better swimmer of his size in all Benton. Only a few of the larger lads dared to dive with him from the very top of Pulpit Rock, a high point on the bank of the stream, some miles below. Now he was stumped by a girl no bigger than himself, and he felt his knees ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the Victory twice, played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was a first-rate swimmer. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... irrelevant past swept across my mind. I heard again the long winding note of the bugle echoing through the pines, the dead in uneven rows, the moon lighting their faces. I caught once more the cry of the girl my friend loved, he who died and never knew. I saw the quick plunge of the strong swimmer, white arms clinging to his neck, and heard once more that joyous shout from a hundred throats. And I could still hear the hoarse voice of the captain with drenched book and flickering lantern, and shivered again as I caught the dull splash ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... an expert swimmer but his skill was not of much avail when he plunged headlong into the rushing waters of the Colorado. The boat was moving swiftly when he met with his accident and it was impossible for the Go Ahead Boy to retrace his course and ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... they sank through the shiny water—sank like stones—and for the first time since he had known them began to swim quickly. Kotick followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea Cow was anything of a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore—a cliff that ran down into deep water, and plunged into a dark hole at the foot of it, twenty fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and Kotick badly wanted fresh air ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... as you might think. The river is as cold as a well, and the swimmer would soon be chilled through, and perhaps taken with the cramp. It is this coldness of the water which makes the fish ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... cunning of the wild creatures. And so the young son of their chieftain was made to sleep in the skins of the beaver and coyote, that he might grow wise in building, and keen of scent in following game. On some days he was fed with la-pe'-si that he might become a good swimmer, and on other days the eggs of the great to-tau'-kon (crane) were his food, that he might grow tall and keen of sight, and have a clear, ringing voice. He was also fed on the flesh of the he'-ker that he might be fleet of foot, and on that of the great yo-sem'-i-te (grizzly bear) ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... in romance. His long ears and peculiar bray are explained by a story which goes back to the Flood. On that occasion, it is said, the male donkey was inadvertently left outside the ark, but being a good swimmer, he nevertheless managed to preserve his life. After many desperate efforts he at last succeeded in calling out the patriarch's name, as nearly as the vocal organs of a jackass would allow. "No-ah, No-ah," cried the forlorn beast. Noah's attention was at last aroused, and on looking ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... which resembled the grasp in which a drowning man seizes the swimmer who dives for him, I looked at my mother without speaking, holding both her hands. She had thrown back her veil, and in the flickering light of the station I saw that she was very pale and had been weeping. I had ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... deck, taking the order as meant for himself, cast off the rope, the end of which dropped overboard before the error was discovered. Thus the rope my father held was fastened neither to the ship nor to the boat. He was a powerful swimmer, but he soon became entangled in the coil of rope in such a manner that the more he struggled to free himself the worse became the tangle, so that his very efforts to swim made his position more difficult than if he ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... talking—so far as he could understand their old bookish dialect—as if in some hitherto undiscovered land. Their ignorance of the geography of the whole coast, and even of the sea from which they came, actually aroused his critical indignation; their coarse and stupid allusions to the fair Indian swimmer as the "mermaid" that they had seen upon their bow made him more furious still. Yet he was helpless to express his contemptuous anger, or even make them conscious of his presence. Then an interval ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... by peril of shipwreck, and only just reached the shore. Then he quickly took some sound craft, and accomplished the journey which he had before begun. Hadding, seeing he was caught, proceeded to ask his companion whether he was a skilled and practised swimmer; and when the other said he was not, Hadding despairing of flight, deliberately turned the vessel over and held on inside to its hollow, thus making his pursuers think him dead. Then he attacked Toste, who, careless and unaware, was greedily ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... armed the small boat and sent it once more toward the land to seek a supply; the waves and surf, however, were so great that it could not reach the shore. The natives assembled on the beach, by their signs and gestures, eagerly invited the French to approach: one young sailor, a bold swimmer, threw himself into the water, bearing some presents for the savages, but his heart failed him on a nearer approach, and he turned to regain the boat; his strength was exhausted, however, and a heavy sea washed him, almost insensible, up upon the beach. The Indians treated him with great kindness, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... again, as we were shooting a long rapid, a table-top rock caught us in mid-current. We were wrecked. It was critical. The waves swayed us perilously this way and that. Birch would be full of water, or overturned, in a moment. Small chance for a swimmer in such maelstroems! All this we saw, but had no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and delicately—for a coarse movement would have been death—wormed our boat off the rock and went fleeting through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... lifts from the sepulchre a handful of roses. There is another picture wonderfully fine in the same style by Agostino Caracci. This fashion of varying the attitude of the Virgin was carried in the later schools to every excess of affectation. In a picture by Lanfranco. she cleaves the air like a swimmer, which ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... had come to see the party off. Just as the latter arrived, the youth, Herbert, who had been amusing himself rocking a punt in a creek by the shore, managed to upset the craft and precipitate himself into deep water. The mishap had no more serious result—for the lad was a good swimmer—than to frighten Rose, and deprive her of the anticipated pleasure of a visit to "Bellevue" with Helene and her brother Edward. Bidding the former a hurried goodbye, with injunctions to her brother to take care of her friend, Rose disappeared ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... spread of her two palms like a swimmer cleaving the water, Kate parted her veil of hair and looked out at the girl. "Jack who? Is that the man up at ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... breath, and then, with the poise of a practised swimmer, dived—cutting the water with barely a splash. For the space of a half-minute Yorke stared apprehensively at the swirling eddy, beneath which the other had vanished. The line still remained taut. Then he gave a gasp of relief, as Redmond's ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... the boat followed, and nearly touched his back, he seemed to be wallowing in an agitated pool of pale greenish fire, which went down and down for quite a couple of fathoms, the boat passing right above it with the men backing water at a shout from Poole, so that they passed the disappearing swimmer again. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... ahead. As the swimmer strode shivering up the roadway, the car approached him. The assistant swung open the door and ran forward with a thick, ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the food on which men grow to their fullest stature; the waters of bitterness are the debatable ford through which they reach the shores of wisdom; the ashes boldly grasped and eaten without faltering are the price that must be paid for the golden fruit of knowledge. The swimmer cannot tell his strength till he has gone through the wild force of opposing waves; the great man cannot tell the might of his hand and the power of his resistance till he has wrestled with the angel of adversity, and held it close ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... dived and swam, brought up bottom, treaded water, and led me in a dozen exercises and tricks of the expert swimmer. The water was very cool, and ten minutes in it, with our sharpening hunger, were enough delight. Fragrance of the Jasmine, as she came dripping from water and lingered a few moments on the brink, was a rapturous object. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Welleran!' And the savage, lusting sword that had thirsted for a hundred years went up with the hand of Rold and swept through a tribesman's ribs. And with the warm blood all about it there came a joy into the curved soul of that mighty sword, like to the joy of a swimmer coming up dripping out of warm seas after living for long in a dry land. When they saw the red cloak and that terrible sword a cry ran through the tribal armies, 'Welleran lives!' And there arose the sounds of the exulting of victorious men, ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... very active during the day, and was warm; the water felt bitterly cold, but I was young and vigourous, a very good swimmer, and encouraged by the presence of the Emperor, I was making towards the Russian, when my example and probably the praise I received from the Emperor, persuaded a lieutenant of artillery named Roumestain to come ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... learned this secret, and had therefore always kept his soul merry, he was happiest of all during the time of his noviceship. The very air around him breathed of God and heaven. His life there was really an unbroken prayer. He was like a swimmer who has been fighting his way through nasty, choppy, little waves, going ahead surely, but with great difficulty, and who comes at last into long, quiet, rolling swells, where his progress is delightful, where he can make long, easy strokes and feel pleasure ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... sea. This is no bad miniature of the dealings of nature with the transitory race of man. Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even while it lasts! and into what great waters, not to be crossed by any swimmer, God's pale Praetorian throws us ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... morning is a-glimmer With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, A bough of song ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... gaiety, went to picnics and dances, rowed herself about in the bay with her friends, and sauntered about the town with her father and mother on Sunday afternoon. She was also fond of bathing, and was a good swimmer. Michael hardly knew how to put his objection into words, but he nevertheless had a horror of women who could swim. It seemed to him an ungodly accomplishment. He did not believe for a moment that St. Paul would have sanctioned it, and he sternly forbade Eliza the use of one of the bathing-machines ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... fact, every one said he was surely guilty. He had misused his wife's life; he was a drunkard and subject to fits of violence; he had asked his wife to go rowing on the river at a season when it was still cold; she had screamed; he was a good swimmer; there were signs of blows on her head; he had rescued himself, but not her, and he had tried to run away from the town without reporting her death. To be sure, he had been able to show that he had been drinking, and evidence was brought ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... my fall had been seen, whether I should be saved, realised my hopeless condition if I had not been observed, and, above all, was thinking steadfastly and with horror of the shark I had not long ago watched stemming in fire past the ship. I was a very indifferent swimmer, and what little power I had in that way was like to be paralysed by thoughts of the shark. I rose and fetched a breath, shook the water out of my eyes, and looked for the ship. She had been sliding along at the rate of ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... time and then that hero of inconceivable prowess began to fight with the Kalingas. Transgressing that division of the Kalingas which was incapable of being crossed, the mighty-armed Satyaki approached the presence of Dhananjaya, the son of Pritha. Like a tired swimmer in water when he reaches the land, Yuyudhana became comforted on obtaining the sight of Dhananjaya, that tiger among men. Beholding him approach, Kesava, addressing Partha, said, "Yonder cometh the grandson of Sini, O Partha, following in thy wake. O thou of prowess incapable of being baffled, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... down, and the swirling waters seemed to sweep over and beyond them. Blue Dave lost not a moment. Flinging himself into the flood from the vantage-ground on which he stood, a few strokes of his sinewy arms carried him to where he saw George Denham disappear. That young man was an expert swimmer; and though the sudden immersion had taken him at a disadvantage, he would have made his way out with little difficulty but for the fact that a heavy piece of driftwood had been hurled against his head. Stunned, but still conscious, he was making an ineffectual ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... survives his blighted hopes and disappointments, who takes them just for what they are—lessons, and perhaps blessings in disguise—is the true hero. He is like a strong swimmer; the waves dash over him, but he is never submerged. We can not help applauding and admiring such a man; and the world, good-natured and wise in its verdict, cheers him when he gains the goal. There may be brutality in the sport, but there can be no question as to the merit, when the smaller prizefighter, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... coming, and that there were men in it of no small account. It fell out on a bright day in harvest-time that Kjartan's company saw a number of men going to swim in the river Nith. Kjartan said they ought to go too, for the sport; and so they did. There was one man of the place who was far the best swimmer. Kjartan says to Bolli: ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... white figure ran out, frightening in its swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... kingdom that no mean nor evil deed might lightly be done, nor evil word spoken in the presence of Beowulf. In battle against the Swedes, no sword had hewn down more men than the sword of Beowulf. And when the champion swimmer of the land of the Goths challenged the young giant Beowulf to swim a match with him, for five whole days they swam together. A tempest driving down from the twilight land of the ice and snow parted them then, and he who had been champion was driven ashore and thankfully struggled ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... the surface. Great was the relief of Frank and the others when, amid the foaming water, Johnston's head appeared, and he struck out to keep himself afloat. But it was evident that he had little strength left, and was quite unable to contend with the mighty current. Good swimmer as he was, the danger of drowning ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... preparing a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been up till now a stranger. He would ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... pointed at each end—which they put edge-wise in front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive under the surf-crested billows of the Pacific. When at a certain distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. The spectator might almost fancy him to be mounted upon the sea-horse ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... everything seriously. A prisoner lying under sentence of death would listen to the madman who should tell him that by pronouncing some gibberish he could escape through the keyhole; for suffering is credulous, and clings to an idea until it fails, as the swimmer borne along by the current clings to the branch ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... the rock, he saw Lois relax and slip downward. Barely had she touched the water ere Jasper with a mighty effort leaped forward and caught her in his arms. Then in an instant they were both swept away. Fortunately, Jasper was a strong swimmer, and as they shot forward he was able to keep Lois' head above water, and ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... from their setting, that it never changed, even when he was sipping his soup or smoking a cigar. His preciseness became a byword between us. His grandmother, indeed, had been a German. Nature had endowed him with all sorts of talents. He danced capitally, was a dashing horseman, and a first-rate swimmer; did carpentering, carving and joinery, bound books and cut out silhouettes, painted in watercolours nosegays of flowers or Napoleon in profile in a blue uniform; played the zither with feeling; knew a number of tricks, with cards and without; and had a fair knowledge of mechanics, physics, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... noticeable stiffness and toilsomeness of its progression. The gull, less concerned to sustain itself, uses the wing more flexibly, bending it slightly at the elbow, and pressing back the outer portion with each stroke. So a heavy swimmer must keep his hands flat, pressing down upon the water to hold up his head; while one who swims very lightly handles them more freely and flexibly, using them at pleasure to assist his progress. Yet the matter refuses to be wholly explained, and remains ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... lying, it seemed, on a soft bed where he was weightless, he stirred and flung out one arm. From his fingertips he saw whirls of violet light sweep out and away, as vortices might have been set in motion by a swimmer in ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... 'twas long And long ago!—how fierce you grew and hot When anything impeded the straight, strong, Wild sweep of the great billow you had got Atop of, like a swimmer bold? Great Scott! How fine your wavemanship! How loud your song Of "Down with railroads!" When the wave subsided And left you ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... me that such was the case. One day, however, I saw a bear busy making a meal off a bullock that had died of disease, and had been thrown into the bed of a stream." In another page Captain Baldwin states that the Himalayan Bear is a good swimmer; he noticed one crossing the River Pindur in the flood, when, as he remarks, "no human being, however strong a swimmer, could have stemmed ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Spencer's ambition to swim ten lengths of the bath. He was not a young Channel swimmer, and ten lengths represented a very respectable distance to him. He proceeded now to attempt to lower his record. It was not often that he got the bath so much to himself. Usually, there was barely standing-room in the water, ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a tavern. It looked a wayfarer, like its patrons the river-drivers, with whom it was most popular. You felt that it had no part in the career of the village on either side, but was like a rock in a channel, at which a swimmer caught ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... climate and delightful scenery combine to stimulate the animal spirits, she pursued the same wild and reckless course which had so often threatened to cut off her frail tenure of life. A daring horsewoman and swimmer, she alternated these exercises with fatiguing studies and incessant social pleasures. She practiced music five or six hours a day, spent several hours in violent exercise, and in the evenings not engaged at the theatre would go to parties, where she amused herself and her friends in a thousand ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... much of a swimmer," said he, "and, though I'm fat enough to float upon the surface of the water, I'd only bob around and get ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... became to him the Margaret of Goethe—before her fall. Day by day his words, his looks enraptured the poor girl, who yielded herself up with delicious non-resistance to the current of love; she caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the overhanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no dread of a coming absence sadden the happy hours of those fleeting days? Daily some little circumstance reminded them of the parting that ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... escape began to present themselves. Two especially I had to steel my thoughts against continually—a descent with a parachute that declined to open, whether on to German or any other soil, or else a splash and then a brief struggle in the cold North Sea. I am no great swimmer and it ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for the missing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had disappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side to encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the other way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings, the swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing strength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings, leaning ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he could not overtake a sail-boat, and we soon left him behind. He kept on swimming, however, until his hat fell off. Turning around, he picked up the hat, and jammed it on his head again. By this time the Captain had put about, and started on a tack that brought us near the swimmer. The young man came alongside, with a smile on ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... there an end to their perpetual haste, Their iterated round of low and high, Or is it one monotony of waste Under the vision of the vacant sky? And thou, who on the ocean of thy days Dost like a swimmer patiently contend, And though thou steerest with a shoreward gaze Misdoubtest of a harbour or an end, What would the threat, or what the promise be, Could I but read the riddle ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... did. The next day the owner of the ax fell into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked out on the water and brought the man in on his shoulders. We who do not believe that the age of miracles has passed, can well understand how Benedict was an active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through the natural powers which he evolved by living a sane and simple life, he was able to perform many feats which peasants round about considered miraculous. Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch. He found ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... that it was worth coming from the east to the west of the world to see the fight of those two. Then the foreigner gave a sudden great fall to Oisin, to bring him into the sea, for he was a great swimmer, and he thought to get the better of him there. And Oisin thought it would not be worthy of him to refuse any man his place of fighting. So they went into the water together, and they were trying to drown one another till they came to the sand and the gravel of the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... colder than Lydia had expected. They swam out to a floating platform when Mr. Briggerland and Jean put in an appearance. Jean had come straight from the house in her bathing-gown, over which she wore a light wrap. Lydia watched her with amazement, for the girl was an expert swimmer. She could dive from almost any height and could remain under ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... you get to the bridge," laughed Frank. "Just you make up your mind there's going to be some way open for us to get out of this. And if the worst comes, I'm a boss swimmer, remember, Bob." ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... splashing among the reeds below the bank. Then a shot was fired from a pistol, followed by another; but the men summoned to surrender had done so to their comrades, who whispered to them to trust themselves to their strong arms, two of the swimmers taking a non-swimmer between them, and bringing him across in safety to the rest, crouching upon the narrow strip of bank beneath ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... current, swollen high by months of rain: And fast his blood was flowing, and he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, and spent with changing blows: And oft they thought him sinking, but still again he rose. Never, I ween, did swimmer, in such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood safe to the landing-place: But his limbs were borne up bravely by the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber bare ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... several times, and has been most kind. He has all along said that he believed you would turn up one of these days, for as the weather was fine and the sea fairly calm when you were run down, the probabilities in favor of your being picked up were great, especially as you were such a good swimmer. I am sure he will be delighted to hear of ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... swimmer, but it was with the utmost difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the pier, owing to the swell caused by the many steamboats passing. But it was accomplished at last, and almost on the verge of exhaustion himself, he succeeded in effecting a landing and laying his burden ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... rope and checked too suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... gravestones, which mark the spots where noble enterprises perished, for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." And yet more eloquently it has been said by a younger American thinker, (D.A. Wasson,) "Intellect in a weak body is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket,—the richer he would be, under other circumstances, by so much the greater ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... adopted, where any other game can be obtained. The easiest mode of taking the antelope is when it is found attempting to cross a river—as its slender limbs and small delicate hoofs render it but a poor swimmer. The Indians sometimes destroy whole herds while thus endeavouring to swim across the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... has been manned, and set loose as quickly as could be done. It is rowed towards the spot, where the swimmer was last seen; and all eyes are strained upon it—all ears listening to catch any word ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... and endurance, rather than weight and strength, he was always conspicuous. Not one in the school could compete with him in long-distance running, and when he was one of the hares there was but little chance for the hounds. He was a capital swimmer, and one of the best boxers in the school. He had a reputation for being a leader in every mischievous prank; but he was honorable and manly, would scorn to shelter himself under the semblance of a lie, and was a prime favourite with his ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... drifting rapidly away from the scene of the catastrophe, and the dimly discerned steamboat was just disappearing from his view, when the boy thought he heard a gurgling cry from the water. Could some bold swimmer have escaped? He bent his head to the water's edge and listened. Again he heard the cry. And this time it seemed nearer. Some human being was struggling in the river. Now, if ever, was the time for his promptest action, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... meantime I kept on my course without thinking that any accident would befall him, as I knew him to be an excellent swimmer, and no fainthearted ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... had given him. Love's deepest delight is the ineffable consciousness of our own weakness. We drink the sweetened cup in its entirety when, having ceased to will, we abandon ourselves with the lethal languors of the swimmer to the vague depths of dreams. And it was past midnight when the Marquis left Fitzwilliam Place. The ladies accompanied him downstairs; their hands helped him to his hat and coat, and then the lock slipped back sharply, and in the gloom, broken in one spot by the low-burning ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... stricken airship, burning fiercely, sank rapidly through the night, I realised that I must fight for my life in the ice cold waters of the bay. I hate cold water and, being but an indifferent swimmer, I hesitated whether to throw off my coat and shoes, and, having finally decided, I had only time to rid myself of one shoe and my coat when I saw the surging swells directly beneath me and leapt overside just in time to escape the crash of ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... and the wavering water, the "fleck!" of Claggett Chew's metal-tipped whip as it hit the water where he had been only a second before. Chris would have dived under the great barnacled hull of the Vulture then and there, to come up on the other side, but good swimmer though he was, he was unsure that he could hold even a full breath for so long a dive. Added to this, he had had no time to do more than gasp a momentary breath of air, and even as he rose to the surface with bursting lungs, he saw the figure of ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... shouted; but his voice did not reach the swimmer, who, in a few strokes, was in the full force of the stream, and was soon lost to the sight of the horsemen among the short foaming ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... he only gave way to in moments of excitement, Jack bounded to his feet, threw off his clothes, shook back his hair, and, with a lion-like spring, dashed over the sands and plunged into the sea with such force as quite to envelop Peterkin in a shower of spray. Jack was a remarkably good swimmer and diver, so that after his plunge we saw no sign of him for nearly a minute; after which he suddenly emerged, with a cry of joy, a good many yards out from the shore. My spirits were so much raised ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... although the bank was still some distance away. Poeri, ceasing to scull, seemed to cast an uneasy glance around him. He had perceived the whitish spot made on the water by Tahoser's rolled up dress. Thinking she was discovered, the intrepid swimmer bravely dived, resolved not to come to the surface, even were she to drown, until ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... climb in Indian file by a stairway rough-hewn in the ground: "Look out!" The shout means that a soldier half-way up the steps has been struck in the loins by a shell-fragment; he falls with his arms forward, bareheaded, like the diving swimmer. We can see the shapeless silhouette of the mass as it plunges into the gulf. I can almost see the detail of his blown hair over the black ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... 'swim' last night, it gave me an idea. I'm some swimmer, Dave Dashaway. Always was. Took the prize in a contest in Plum Creek back at home one Fourth of July. I found a way out of that shut in place and made ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... a fine swimmer. Come back, Snap!" he called to the big dog, getting his hands on his collar, just in time, for Snap was determined to go to the rescue himself. He whined, pulled and tugged to get ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... no swimmer to brag of; not with rifle and powder, in such a river. For a moment he was daunted, but he swiftly scouted along the shore, seeking a partial ford, or islands that would aid him. By a miracle he came to a canoe—an old canoe, half ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... for it but to make a small raft to carry us across, Miss Kingston. I am a good swimmer, but the river is full and of considerable width; still, I think I can get across. But my boy ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... comrades as an excellent swimmer, boatman, and scholar. At fourteen he was first in the examination for the foundation. His name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory still attests his victory over many older competitors. He stayed two years longer at the school, and was looking forward to a studentship ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Lytton Dale, keeping the morning of his birthday (8th September), as he always delighted to do, with his wife and children. In the afternoon he went down to bathe in the river, being himself an excellent swimmer, and wishing to teach his two younger children an art in which he had always found health and keen enjoyment. He swam across the pool and called on his daughter to follow him. Noticing that she was in some difficulty, he jumped ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... enchanted woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves, Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm. Fair you fare. Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeballs under hoods Have you by the hair. Enter these enchanted ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... as well as the Malaksan, inspires the natives with superstitious fear on account of the suspicious neighborhood of the solfatara, and therefore has not been profaned by either mariner, fisher, or swimmer, and was very full of fish. For the purpose of measuring its depth, I had a raft of bamboos constructed; and when my companions saw me floating safely on the lake, they all, without exception, sprang into it, and tumbled about in the water with infinite delight and loud outcries, as if they wished ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... silk gown, but a man's mantle and a hat and feathers. And now he had to undergo a rigid examination. Every maiden knows that a masked ball is a dangerous maze for unprotected hearts. It is like plunging into a whelming sea of dangers, and you will be drowned if you are not a good swimmer. Rose did not consider Philip the best swimmer in the world—it is difficult to say why. He denied having danced, but when she asked him, he could not deny having talked with some feminine masks. He related the whole story to her, yet would constantly ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... blast of the Sun struck across his staring eyes, but he did not flinch. Unconscious, his hands clutched at the control knobs as his sagging legs let him drift weightlessly toward the floor. He was like a drowning swimmer, out of control and ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... net but merely as a guide to lead him about and by his struggles to force him to become exhausted. A very interesting experiment has demonstrated that a skilful fisherman can with a fly rod and light line in a very short time tire out a strong swimmer to which the line has been attached and force him to give up the struggle and come to the side of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... to them, and a bench which he had torn up with the strength of despair. Fritz had contrived to catch one of the ropes and fasten it round Jack, who still swam, but feebly, as if nearly exhausted. Fritz had been considered an excellent swimmer in Switzerland; he preserved all his presence of mind, calling to us to draw the rope gently, while he supported the poor boy, and pushed him towards the pinnace. At last I was able to reach and draw him up; and when I saw him extended, nearly ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... in her apartment on the morning of her return to New York, resembled somewhat those of a swimmer who, after wavering on a raw morning at the brink of a chill pool, nerves himself to the plunge. She was aching, but she knew that she had done well. If she wanted happiness, she must fight for it, and for all these months she had been ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... wrinkles and wavelets along the shore, which rippled against the canoe and the end of the paddle when held motionless. Further out in the river the disturbance was so marked that it would have caused some annoyance even to a strong swimmer. ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... When a swimmer thrusts his foot forward, the toes naturally drop together and partly close, presenting only a narrow front—almost an edge—of resistance to the water; then, when he makes a backward stroke, the toes spread far apart and, with the connecting membranes, are converted into a broad, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... It is a main lesson of wisdom to know your own from another's. I have learned that I cannot dispose of other people's facts; but I possess such a key to my own as persuades me, against all their denials, that they also have a key to theirs. A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a finger they will drown him. They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices. Charity ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to make the terrible choice between the river and the fire. She was alone; there was none to advise or help her or be her companion in inevitable death. Her thoughts must have gone to her brother, with his strength and courage, his skill as a swimmer; but he was far away, unconscious of her desperate extremity. She had to choose, and the river was her choice. With that tragic conception of the drowning of Zenobia fresh in his mind, the realization ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... application, all our needs deferred to the needs of the new generation that tramples on our heels?" and he found the answer in the presence of an overwhelming Will to Live manifesting itself throughout the universe of Matter, thrusting us ruthlessly before it, as a strong swimmer thrusts a wave before him as he swims. That the personal egotism should be subordinated to and overwhelmed by a pervading Will to Live filled his soul with passionate rebellion and coloured his exposition with the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... I guv it up, an' stayed whar I war, cross-legs on a branch o' the tree. It warn't the most comf'table kind o' seat; but I hed somethin' else than cushions to think of. I didn't know the minit I mout be shot out into the Massissippi; an' as I niver war much o' a swimmer,—to say nothin' o' bein' smashed by the branches in fallin',—I warn't ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... other self-respecting animal can consent to live in them; and so buoyant that a man can't drown himself, even if he tries, because the sea is saturated with salts of various sorts till it has become a kind of soup or porridge, in which a swimmer floats, will he nill he. Persons in the neighbourhood who wish to commit suicide are therefore obliged to go elsewhere: much as in Tasmania, the healthiest climate in the world, people who want to die are obliged to run across for a week ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... now as the mother of a tall son, hardened a little by public-school life, a cricketer, a rower, a swimmer; perhaps intellectual too, the winner of a scholarship. There were so many hearts and minds that the mother of a son must learn to keep, to companion, to influence, to go forward with: the heart and the mind of the child, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... upper part of the thigh. In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be combined with the demands of modesty. In England, the regulations of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming Association, require that the male swimmer's costume shall extend not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and that the female swimmer's costume shall extend to within not more than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to be no easy task, as the swirl of the river bore strongly toward the opposite shore, yet I had always been a powerful swimmer, and although now seriously hampered by boots, and heavy, sodden clothing, succeeded in making steady progress. A log swept by me, white bursts of spray illuminating its sides, and I grappled it gratefully, my fingers finding grip on the sodden bark. Using this for partial support, and ceasing ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Dr. Follen. He perished, with above a hundred others, in a burning steam-boat, on the Long Island Sound; at night, and in mid-winter, the freezing waters affording no chance of escape to the boldest swimmer or the most tenacious clinger to existence. He perished in the very flower of vigorous manhood, cut off in the midst of excellent usefulness, separated, for the first time, from a most dearly loved wife and child, who were prevented from accompanying him by sickness. In a scene ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... return'd to Sir John Graeme, declaring that he would not meddle whatever his Brother [Marshal Keith] might do, that Lord Marshall would receive no papers from little people. Pickle believes that the paper was given to Lord Marshall by Mr. Swimmer, or a Knight that has lately been abroad, who is now in Parliament— Pickle has been told that the Pension lately given to the Cardinal out of the Abbey of St. Aman, 'twas for the Young Pretender's behoof, and that Mr. O'brien, commonly ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... A prisoner lying under sentence of death would listen to the madman who should tell him that by pronouncing some gibberish he could escape through the keyhole; for suffering is credulous, and clings to an idea until it fails, as the swimmer borne along by the current clings to the branch ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... feet long by two feet wide, pointed at each end—which they put edge-wise in front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive under the surf-crested billows of the Pacific. When at a certain distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. The spectator might ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... flung at Marcella Maxwell had been but the fruit of some obscure and shrinking foresight that he himself should die drowned and lost in pity; for as he waited for death his soul seemed to sink into the suffering of the world, as a spent swimmer sinks into the wave. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fearful certainty. Just before he dived next time, a dark object was plainly visible on the water close behind him. George was wild with fear for poor blackee. He shouted at the monster, he shouted and beckoned to the swimmer; and last, snatching up a stone, he darted up a little bed of rock elevated about a yard above the shore. The next dive the black came up within thirty yards of this very place, but the shark came at him the next moment. He dived again, but before the fish followed ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the shore, and supporting a helpless form; before he could touch bottom, however, he was relieved of his burden by some of the men who were swimming out after him, and he turned back toward a floating head which could just be seen above the water. He was a powerful swimmer, but without a line by which he and any one he might rescue could be pulled to shore, his task ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... touched him; in doing which he lost his balance, and with a faint cry fell from the parapet far down to the water below. Each of the gentlemen at once sprang upon the stone work and looked over where the boy had fallen, but it would have been madness for any one, however good a swimmer; and as they realized this and their helpless situation, they stood for a ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... "Beelzebub" had been floundering in the sea of improbity, holding by a slender life-line to the respectable world that had cast him overboard. He must have felt that with this ultimate shock the line had snapped, and have experienced the welcome ease of the drowning swimmer who has ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... and my kinsmen's blood, Fled through the Desert, till one day a tribe Of hungry Bedouins found me in the sand, Half mad with famine, and they took me up, And made a slave of me,—of me, a prince! All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them, In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart, Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against The howling sea of my adversity. At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop, I stood like a young eagle on a crag. The traveller passed me with suspicious fear: I asked for nothing; I was not a thief. The lean dogs snuffed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... heavenly clear waters of Bermuda. On the other hand, Neptune and his pasteboard diadem and wooden-pointed pitchfork, should have put on his dressing-gown and retired. As a toe dancer in an alleged court scene, on land, Annette was a mere simperer. Possibly Pavlowa as a swimmer in Bermuda waters would have been as much of a mistake. Each queen to ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... for the garrison. At the end of that time all must end. Yet still in the distance could be seen the masts of the ships, holding out an unfulfilled promise of relief; still hope was not quite dead in the hearts of the besieged. Efforts had been made to send word to the town from the fleet. One swimmer who attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was caught and hanged. On the 13th of July a letter from the fleet, sewed up in a cloth button, reached the commander of the garrison. It was from Kirke, the general in command of the party of relief, and promised speedy ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... been occasioned by his own wilfulness, ran aft to the taffrail; and when he saw the poor sailor struggling in the waves, impelled by his really fine nature, he darted overboard to save him; but he was not by any means a powerful swimmer, and, encumbered with his apparel, it was soon evident that he could do no more than ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the peril behind, and influenced in his weakness and helplessness as a swimmer by one whom he instinctively felt to be at home in the water, and his master, Jack obeyed, keeping to the slow stroke with his arms, while his action with his legs was that of ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... and merrily, as if the idea of being paid for his work was a very funny joke. I confess I began to be afraid that the man was mad, though he looked sane enough; and I was rather glad to think that I was a good swimmer, since we were so close to a deep swift stream. However, he went on by ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... those who had frightened us, and furious with those who had laughed at us. In another moment we were all again in the water, the black and myself swimming some distance from the ship. For two successive voyages there had been a sort of rivalry between us: each fancied that he was the best swimmer, and we were now ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... And goodlier they glow For the eyes of the swimmer Who scans them below As he crosses the zone of their flowerage that knows not of ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... as not to be carried past camp and in this they made a great mistake for they were caught in a whirlpool caused by a projection, and the raft was wrenched from them while they were violently thrown around. Steward being a powerful swimmer succeeded after nearly going under for good in regaining the raft which Clem meanwhile had been losing and recovering quickly several times. He was not a good swimmer. After this whirlpool was passed they reached ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... thing she sees: True grief is fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild; Continuance tames the one: the other wild, Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still With too much labour drowns for want ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... her Italian seasons, especially in Naples, where perfection of climate and delightful scenery combine to stimulate the animal spirits, she pursued the same wild and reckless course which had so often threatened to cut off her frail tenure of life. A daring horsewoman and swimmer, she alternated these exercises with fatiguing studies and incessant social pleasures. She practiced music five or six hours a day, spent several hours in violent exercise, and in the evenings not engaged at the theatre would go to parties, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... is the end of May, June and early July. It grows warmer in July, and from then on to December one may enjoy it. In September and October it is generally deliciously warm, and I have gone in half a dozen times a day. A good swimmer can cross the stream, if he does not lose his head, for the current is powerful, and one is borne down far faster than he imagines, and it is much further across than it seems to be. Several times, when I have wanted to cross, and there was no boat, I have swam ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... in its expressionless strength. Over the black water, under the lowering sky, or through the bright still moonlight, the same unfeeling tone fills the ear of night. And sometimes, when the lingering moon sheds a broad trail of light along the still waters of the lake, the graceful swimmer will glide across and disappear in the darkness, breaking the bright reflection into a multitude of chasing, quivering, trailing threads of silver. Throughout the day, where the cedars come down to meet their shadows in the dark water, he swims ceaselessly about, sitting low, with black, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Dabney, of course, didn't understand the theory of the field he'd bought fame-rights to. But there was no point in bringing that up. Johnny Simms beamed at both of them. He was the swimmer Babs had pointed out in the swimming-pool. His face was completely unlined and placid, like the face of a college undergraduate. He had never worried about anything. He'd never had a care in the world. He merely listened with ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... be used when the swimmer is in the upright position assumed in treading water. A swimmer can maintain this position for a long time, but can ordinarily make no headway ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 26, May 6, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and a gale of talk and laughter came to his ears. Wilbur stared at the picture, his face devoid of expression. The "Petrel" came on—drew nearer—was not a hundred feet away from the schooner's stern. A strong swimmer, such as Wilbur, could cover the distance in a few strides. Two ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or not. But they saw that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the runner. They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the forest for its silence at noon. The vineyard-dresser wreathed his hair with ivy that he might keep off the rays of the sun as he stooped over the young shoots, and for ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... strong current underneath. I remembered, too, how the stick I had thrown into it had disappeared from sight, and felt that there could be no hope for me. But this was only for a moment. I was a strong swimmer, and had been accustomed to the water all my life. After all, "Hell's Mouth" was not very wide, and I hoped I should be able to grasp the edge of the rocks and thus save myself. Then I remembered that Cap'n ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the largest in the South Island. The Waitaki was never fordable at this point, and passengers were ferried across in a small boat behind which the horses were swum. This latter is a somewhat dangerous operation unless expertly carried out; a horse which may be a powerful swimmer being able to work a swift stream so much faster than a boat can be rowed, there is danger that he may strike and overturn the latter, and so he must not be allowed to get above or ahead of the boat, but be kept in his place ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... now a well-grown girl of twelve, very straight and slim and with big dark eyes. She gave him when he went away the little Testament she had gotten as a prize, and which was one of her most cherished possessions. Other boys found the first honor as climber, runner, rock-flinger, wrestler, swimmer, and fighter open once more to them, and were free from the silent and somewhat contemptuous gaze of him who, however they looked down on him, was a sort of silent power among them. Vashti alone felt a void and found by its sudden absence how great a force was ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... a handful of roses. There is another picture wonderfully fine in the same style by Agostino Caracci. This fashion of varying the attitude of the Virgin was carried in the later schools to every excess of affectation. In a picture by Lanfranco. she cleaves the air like a swimmer, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... swimming-schools for ladies are now established in many places, at home and abroad; and the newspapers have lately chronicled a swimming-match at a girls' school in Berlin, where thirty-three competitors were entered for the prize,—and another among titled ladies in Paris, where each fashionable swimmer was allowed the use of the left hand only, the right hand sustaining an open parasol. Our own waters have, it may be, exhibited spectacles as graceful, though less known to fame. Never may I forget the bevy of bright maidens who under my pilotage buffeted on many a summer's day the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... was quiet, so that the wreck had only a gently undulating motion, that was nothing to the swimmer who had had no sleep for twenty hours. Tarzan of the Apes curled up upon the slimy timbers, and ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... past the threatening rock, but making straight for the big raft below. A clenched hand is raised to bid the men there stand aside—he will manage alone. But they take no heed. One thrusts a pole between the swimmer's legs as he nears the raft, another grasps him by the neck, and they haul him up—a heavy pull, with the water striving all the time to suck him under. Inch by inch the blue shirt rises ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... could be saved; it was but a choice of death by fire or water: to quit the ship must be fatal; they had seen the boat and its crew swallowed up by the yawning waves, when the tempest raged less fiercely than now, and she was too far from the shore to afford even a ray of hope that the strongest swimmer might gain the beach. On the other hand, to remain on board was to encounter a still more terrible death—a burning funeral pile amidst the waters. While they hesitated in doubt and horror, one of their fears was relieved,—the heavy sea that washed ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... would go abroad also—as a member of the aviation, corps. He already owned a fairly good hydro-aeroplane which had not killed him yet—he was a good swimmer, and lucky. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... rowlocks, and sat down to scull. At the same moment Gerard sprang from the bank into the stream, and began swimming towards the boat. Kathleen strained at the oars, and little by little the distance between them increased, although Gerard was a strong swimmer. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. "Surely je ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... concerned about me, for I mean to repent yet." Not many days afterwards, he was crossing a river, with a number of others, for the purpose of spending the day in amusement. The skiff upset, and they were plunged into the water. All the rest of the company but A—— (who was the best swimmer among them), reached the shore. He was heard, as he struggled towards the bank, to utter a fearful oath, calling upon God to damn his soul. God took him at his word. He sunk to rise no more—a fearful warning on those ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... Ha ha!" Wolfgang thought it great fun. "That's a mere trifle to me. I've really missed my vocation, you know. You ought not to have put me into an office. I ought to have been a swimmer, a rider or—well, a cowboy in ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... rocks make the water white. Instantly all but the steersman drop down, flat in the bottom of the canoe, paddles rigid athwart. No need to pull now! The waters do the work; and motion on the part of the men would be fatal. Here the strongest swimmer would be as a chip on a cataract. The task now is not to paddle, but to steer—to keep the craft away from the rocks. This is the part of the steersman, who stands braced to his paddle used rudder-wise astern; and the canoe rides the wildest plunge like ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... I ween,[80] did swimmer, In such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood 520 Safe to the landing-place: But his limbs were borne up bravely By the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber Bore bravely up ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... an age, to the watchers, before a black spot appeared suddenly, beyond the foaming line of breakers. There was a general shout of "There he is!" But they had scarce time to note the position of the swimmer, when he again disappeared. Again and again he came up, each time rapidly decreasing the distance between himself and the shipwrecked vessel; and keeping his head above the waves for a few seconds, only, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... sat in her apartment on the morning of her return to New York, resembled somewhat those of a swimmer who, after wavering on a raw morning at the brink of a chill pool, nerves himself to the plunge. She was aching, but she knew that she had done well. If she wanted happiness, she must fight for it, and for all these months ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... it was his intention to save Lady Ruth and appear the hero. He trusted in his well-known ability as an expert swimmer to accomplish this, and never once thought fate would step in and deal ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... concluded to drown himself, and I said it was an excellent idea—the only trouble being that he was so good a swimmer. So we went down to the beach. I went along to see that the thing was done right. Then something most romantic happened. There came in on the sea something that had been on its way for three years. It rolled in across the broad Pacific with a message that was full of meaning ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fell on the soft mud by the river bank. Though the ground was soft, the descent shook him and imbedded him so deeply he could not extricate himself for some time. But terror lends energy, and he was now thoroughly terrified: he thrust the letters in his pocket, and, being an excellent swimmer, dashed at once into the river; but he soon found it choked up with masonry and debris of every kind: he coasted this, got into the stream, and swam across to the other side. Then taking the lowest and darkest ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... be answered. One thing, namely why the other ships sent no assistance, I have learn'd from a person on board one of them: the firing was never once heard, owing to the very stormy night, and no tidings came to them till next morning. The sea was quite high enough to have thrown out the most expert swimmer, and might not your brother have received some blow in the shock, which disabled him? We are glad to hear poor Dorothy is a little better. None of you are able to bear such a stroke. To people oppressed with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... journey was over at last, although his frail boat had been destroyed on the rocks before he reached the shore. An excellent swimmer, Levy had stripped off his shoes and coat and jumped into the water. Cleaving the waves with long powerful strokes, he soon reached land, where for several hours he lay wet and exhausted, so bitterly discouraged that he almost wished ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... splintered crags. We are too far to hear the thunder of them; but their ominous sheet- lightning fully explains to me the story of the three hairs. Along this goblin coast on a wild day there would be no possible chance for the strongest swimmer, or the stoutest boat; there is no place for the foot, no hold for the hand, nothing but the sea raving against a precipice of iron. Even to-day, under the feeblest breath imaginable, great swells deluge us with spray as they splash past. And for two long hours this jagged frowning ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... my shoulder; my arms, understand, Must be free; do not touch them—-please follow my wishes, Unless you are anxious to fatten the fishes." The woman obeyed him. "You need not fear me," She replied, "I am wholly at home in the sea. I knew all the arts of the swimmer, I thought, But confess I was frightened when suddenly caught With a cramp in my knee at this distance from shore." With slow even breast strokes the strong swimmer bore His fair burden landward. She lay on the billows As lightly as if she ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... running very high at the time, and there was great danger of his being drowned. But he was a good swimmer, and struck out for the nearest land. This was a small island, called the Isle of St. Mary's, not far from the coast of Nice, and here he was thrown on shore by the waves. The weather was very cold, and he had nothing ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... waters seemed to sweep over and beyond them. Blue Dave lost not a moment. Flinging himself into the flood from the vantage-ground on which he stood, a few strokes of his sinewy arms carried him to where he saw George Denham disappear. That young man was an expert swimmer; and though the sudden immersion had taken him at a disadvantage, he would have made his way out with little difficulty but for the fact that a heavy piece of driftwood had been hurled against his head. Stunned, but still conscious, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... so laborious an undertaking is it to capture them thus, that the plan is but seldom adopted, where any other game can be obtained. The easiest mode of taking the antelope is when it is found attempting to cross a river—as its slender limbs and small delicate hoofs render it but a poor swimmer. The Indians sometimes destroy whole herds while thus endeavouring to swim across the great streams of ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... drowned men's fingers, all coated with the mud of years and bandaged with pennons of the green lake slime. In still other places the lake is shallow for long stretches, no deeper than breast deep to a man, but dangerous because of the weed growths and the sunken drifts which entangle a swimmer's limbs. Its banks are mainly mud, its waters are muddied too, being a rich coffee color in the spring and a copperish yellow in the summer, and the trees along its shore are mud colored clear up to their lower limbs after the spring ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... would make bathing dangerous were the water smooth; but the rapid whirlpools through which our steam-boat dashes on disdainfully, would, at the same time, make it impossible to any thing but a fish. A passenger assured us he had once seen a man lost in the Vistula, who, from being a great swimmer, trusted imprudently to his strength, and was sucked down by a vortex of far less impetuosity, he thought, than this through which we were moving. From this point till we arrived at Messina, as every body was ripe for bathing, the whole conversation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... faithfully obeyed the command of the priest in saving animal life, but how much more valuable was a man than any of the lower orders of creation? "Whatever may happen," he said, "I cannot let this man drown before my eyes," and as the boat just then came alongside the swimmer, he was hauled into it and delivered from ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... would not let him try it. He is a capital swimmer, but it's a stiff pull, and he can't catch her up, for she will drift with the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... been thinking in Hindi, but a tremor came on him, and with an effort like that of a swimmer before sharks, who hurls himself half out of the water, his mind leaped up from a darkness that was swallowing it and took refuge in—the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... stood to look out over that surface. A sleek brown head bobbed up. Shann put fingers to his mouth and whistled. The head turned, black button eyes regarded him, short legs began to churn water. To his gratification the swimmer was obeying his summons. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... take any chances. Buck can get across with you all right, but if he's got us both on him he might go down and then we'd have to follow Emerson on foot. We're coverin' ground almighty slow, anyway. I'm the best swimmer, and you-all can take care ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... surface, and tried to look about me, I saw the boat not more than fifty yards off, and, being a good swimmer, I struck out for it, although I felt terribly exhausted. In a few minutes my comrades saw me, and, with a cheer, put out the oars and began to row towards me. I saw that the line was slack, and that they were hauling it in—a sign that the whale had ceased running and would soon come ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... scriptures, upon woman that have been declared proper or fit for him. A son begotten upon a women belonging to a degraded caste, instead of rescuing the sire, brings him to grief even as a heavy weight brings to grief a swimmer desirous of crossing water. Whether a man happens to be possessed of learning or not, lust and wrath are natural attributes of humanity in this world. Women, therefore, may always be seen to drag men into the wrong path. This natural disposition of women is such that man's contact with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her eyes closed, than everyone in the boat thought he saw, just opposite his own eyes, a terrific human head rising above the water; not like the head of a swimmer, but planted upright on the surface of the river, and keeping pace with the boat. Each turned to his neighbour to show him the cause of his terror, and found him looking equally frightened, but pointing in a different direction, where the half-laughing, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the unfortunate sailor was beaten until he screamed for mercy. After wearing out the sugarcane upon him, with the remark that if he ever saw him on the sloop again, he would kill him, the captain pitched him into the water. Aymes, who was a good swimmer, made the best of his way to the shore, and stayed there with Anderson. Twenty-four natives were shipped at Hawaii, twelve for the crew and ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... been very active during the day, and was warm; the water felt bitterly cold, but I was young and vigourous, a very good swimmer, and encouraged by the presence of the Emperor, I was making towards the Russian, when my example and probably the praise I received from the Emperor, persuaded a lieutenant of artillery named Roumestain ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea-lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fish-like. He remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... new day. The pagan populace of Antioch—reckless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift—were preparing for the Saturnalia. But all this Hermas had renounced. He cleft his way through the crowd slowly, like a reluctant swimmer ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... disaster. As he ran the stranger flung off his coat, but there was no time to divest himself of his heavy riding-boots, so in he plunged and struck out boldly with the air of a strong and competent swimmer. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had with a few strokes pull'd her out of his reach; and ever when he drew near the boat, we ask'd if he would ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... its waters, the brook comes swollen down; You see it by the lightning—a river wide and brown. Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and roar, Till, seizing on a willow, he leaps ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... [Mrs. Hamilton, the Channel swimmer] said, 'I occasionally took hot drinks and ate cold roast chicken, the small bones of which I kept chewing, as it seemed to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... difficulty. In swimming the horses particular care had to be taken, for there was only one small spot on the other side at which they could be landed. As explained on the 5th, on the occasion of the second start, it requires a strong swift swimmer to lead a horse across a stream, and in this the white men, or at least, three of them, were much superior to the black-boys, who, although all good swimmers, were much more efficient in the service of the raft. ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... how to swim. They were running quite close to shore, and she felt that a good swimmer could gain land without much effort. Then a man came out from shore in a ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... submitted to the triumph of his arms when their bone was still in the gristle, and during the warm season of the year have suffered, both at morning and evening, its torrent to be breasted by the daring young swimmer. To wrestle, the boy, without doubt, began almost as soon as he was able to stand alone; and to dance was learned without a master, whether according to the figures practised in the ring of pleasure, or the more active steps taken in the pantomimic ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... awkward in the shallows," murmured the water-rat, as she swam quietly over to the far shore, keeping half an eye on the stoat, who was also something of a swimmer. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have begun to grow weary. He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every stroke that his ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... their depth, and had to swim for safety. Both sought the shore, and each, with all his might, strained every nerve to reach it first that he might end the conflict with one of the guns lying on the beach. The Indian was the more expert swimmer, and Poe, outstripped by him, turned and swam farther into the river, in the hope of avoiding being [269] shot by diving. Fortunately his antagonist laid hold on the gun which had been discharged at ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... drinking; courted fatigue as a form of bodily indulgence; would tramp from twenty to thirty miles in any weather on a chance of sport; loved the bite of the wind, the shock of cold water; and was a bold swimmer in a generation that ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at the question. "Why, Elizabeth," she said, leaning towards her, "Olga's a perfect fish in the water. She's the best swimmer in camp. Look—there she ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... stood and took some long, deep breaths; then, having made everything ready, I jerked myself out of that diving-suit in a very few seconds, and, standing free, I gave a great leap upward, and went straight to the surface. I am a good swimmer, and with a few strokes I caught the chains. Stealthily I clambered up, making not the least noise, and peeped over the rail. There was nobody forward. The whole ship's company seemed to be crowded aft, where there was a great stir and confusion. I slipped quietly over the rail and, without ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... violence, causing an agitation which the Spaniards call resacca.[2] Umbria's boat was caught in a whirlpool like a mountain torrent which, despite his efforts, dashed him into the sea and sunk his barque before the eyes of his companions. Only one Spaniard, who was a skilful swimmer, succeeded in saving himself by clutching a rock which rose slightly above the waters, and there held out against the raging tempest. The next day when the sea had abated and the tide had left the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... in the United States of America has not been simply obeying some law of its own being; it has been following the whole stream of American development. You can call it a drift if you like; but the Library has not been simply drifting. The swimmer in a rapid stream may give up all effort and submit to be borne along by the current, or he may try to get somewhere. In so doing, he may battle with the current and achieve nothing but fatigue, or he may use the force of the ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... interesting. It may be seen sometimes at evening in swampy areas and meadows. It is yellowish above, whitish below, with an extremely long tail. It travels by long leaps, takes readily to the water and is an expert swimmer. The meadow mice are bluish grey and are found in swampy places. The wood mice are pure white below, brown ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... on Thursday, July 16th, 1891. It appears that on the day named Deacon and some of his companions had been bathing, and had just come ashore and commenced to dress, when their attention was called to two boys struggling in the water. The other boys on the beach, regarding him as the best swimmer, shouted out, 'Go for them.' He immediately divested himself of the only garment he had on, and, plunging into the water, succeeded in bringing Walter Marsh within reach of Albert Nicholls, who was walking out waist-deep to meet ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... till he reached the river Nemh at a ford called Ath-Mheadhon [Affane] which no one could cross except a swimmer or a very strong person at low water in a dry season of summer heat, for the tide flows against the stream far as Lismore, five miles further up. On this particular occasion it happened to be high tide. The ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... as if it were the author of all things!" And then I hear someone ask him whence it originated—someone fishing for a little metaphysics, some dose of philosophy. What! catch Laotse? "I know," said Confucius, "how birds fly, beasts run, fishes swim. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer hooked, the flyer shot with an arrow. But there is the Dragon; I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds and rises into heaven." No; you cannot hook, snare, or shoot the Dragon. "I do not know whose son ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... little suggests that she sent the copy to the journal in question, or at least inspired the paragraph, perhaps in a letter to her friend, Dr. Gordon Hake, who with his family then resided at Bury St. Edmunds. Borrow was a perfect swimmer, and there is no reason to suppose but that he did act heroically.[178] In my Borrow Papers I find in his handwriting his own account ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... held to the bottom by his steel arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events, drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeing his form at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and, holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures, and that is why their luminous shadows ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the lieutenant of the watch descried a man in the waves swimming to the vessel. As soon as he was within hearing the lieutenant hailed him. The swimmer immediately made himself known: it was Luidgi. They put out the boat, and he came on board. Then he told them that Ottoviani had been arrested, and he had only escaped himself by jumping into the sea. Murat's first idea was to go to the rescue ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... presently the tall form of Renardet appeared on the summit of the Fox's tower. He ran round the platform, like a madman. Then he seized the flagstaff and shook it furiously without succeeding in breaking it, then, all of a sudden, like a swimmer taking a plunge, he dashed into the air with his two hands ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... a girl done to earn her immunity from self-defendings and the petty anxieties? Nothing, Elinor decided; at least, nothing more purposeful than the swimmer does when he lets himself drift with the current. None the less, the immunity was hers, undeniably, palpably. For the first time in her life Miss Brentwood found herself looking, with a little shudder of withdrawal and ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... sufficient reasons, one of which was to make it a little less likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, which was a sound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and one at least, the bow oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a drowning man out of the water after a hard struggle to keep him from carrying ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his help. He had grown much during the last year, and was extremely active. There was plenty of life in him; he could swim, tread the water, and turn and roll about in it. He was much inclined to offer himself for the mackerel shoals: they take the best swimmer, draw him under the water, eat him up, and so there is an end of him; but this ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... A swimmer starts across a stream which is 450 yards wide. He swims for five minutes at the rate of three miles per hour, and for three minutes at the rate of four miles per hour. He then reaches the other bank, where he sees a young lady five ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... her; but she was a good swimmer and could not help coming once to the surface. Her expression was that of a bather enjoying the cool fresh water that laved and gurgled round her. Perhaps the wild storm of applause, the mingled cries ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... its great wings to greet the well-known sea, to greet the sinking lurid sun: I recalled it, as I heard Yakov. He sang, utterly forgetful of his rival and all of us; he seemed supported, as a bold swimmer by the waves, by our silent, passionate sympathy. He sang, and in every sound of his voice one seemed to feel something dear and akin to us, something of breadth and space, as though the familiar steppes ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... chorus of shouting went roaring up, as if an army cried. Noise and physical sensation were too intimately blended to be separated; his brain struggled in confusion, emerging now and then for a moment of consecutive thought and sinking back into semi-unconsciousness as a spent swimmer goes down, fighting wildly for life. He knew that a light had come into the car. He saw it amid the smoke, and his first thought was that it was flame. Dulled and half asphyxiated, he said to himself now almost with indifference that the end ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... has no appreciation of humor or fondness for political intrigue, and department drudgery would be intolerable to him were it not for his passionate fondness for out-door exercise. A bold horseman, an untiring pedestrian, and enthusiastic angler, and a good swimmer, he preserves his health, and gives close attention to the affairs of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... would carefully show them how to do it, explain the risks, and then either share the danger himself or, if that were not possible, stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy courage of the looker-on. He was a good swimmer, and taught them to swim. He thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during their holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and encouraged them to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Duckling's five aunts pushed their way through the crowd to the nest under the edge of the strawstack. "Have you noticed what fine large feet he has?" said one of them. "That is like his mother's people. See what a strong web is between the three long toes on each foot! He will be a good swimmer. The one toe that points backward is small, to be sure, but he does not need that in swimming. That is only to ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... an Inniskilling Fusilier raced Thomson and myself over these terrible salt pits to the sea edge where an unconscious man was lying, having been dragged out of the water after disappearing like a stone, although said to be a strong swimmer. ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... translated all this to the pacha, the latter was lost in astonishment. "Allah wakbar! God is every where! Did you ever hear of such a swimmer? Twenty thousand miles—five months and three days. It is a wonderful story! Let his mouth be ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the horseman shouted; but his voice did not reach the swimmer, who, in a few strokes, was in the full force of the stream, and was soon lost to the sight of the horsemen among the short foaming waves of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... sickly condition did not permit him, when a child, to go and dabble in the Seine. Whilst his schoolfellows ran and threw themselves into the river, he lay abed between a couple of warm blankets. Laurent had become an intrepid swimmer, and an indefatigable oarsman. Camille had preserved that terror for deep water which is inherent in women and children. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make sure ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... that of the crocodile, except that the orbit was much larger, and had the nostril placed close to it, as in the whale, and not near the end of the snout. It had four paddles and a powerful tail, and was very active in its movements and a rapid swimmer. ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... that it might become one. A trouble had come upon her, out of which she did not see her way. To dive among the waters in warm weather is very pleasant; there is nothing pleasanter. But when the young swimmer first feels the thorough immersion of his plunge, there comes upon him a strong desire to be quickly out again. He will remember afterwards how joyous it was; but now, at this moment, the dry land is everything to him. So it was with Dorothy. She had thought of Brooke Burgess as one of those ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... passengers and crew were dragged to the waist, and under the cold smile of Sharkey each in turn was thrown over the side—Sweetlocks standing by the rail and ham-stringing them with his cutlass as they passed over, lest some strong swimmer should rise in judgment against them. A portly, grey-haired woman, the wife of one of the planters, was among the captives, but she also was thrust screaming and clutching ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Dodge, with unexpected spirit; "I am not one of them 'ere fellers as fears a big river; and my hoss is a dreadful fine swimmer." ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... did. But if not, in one way I could have escaped; for I had been forgotten, and every man was watching the shore. I could drop overboard and swim ashore somewhere beyond the reach of the Danes, being a good swimmer; but as I say, I doubted if I might. So I stayed, whether wrongly or not I will leave others to decide; but seeing that I doubted, I think I need not be blamed for ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... rest. He should ask for fair and honourable terms, but if these were refused the garrison and the whole male inhabitants in the city, putting the women and children in the centre, would sally out and cut their way through, or die fighting in the midst of the Spaniards. The swimmer who took the letter was drowned, but his body was washed ashore and the letter taken to the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... after him in time to hear him splash into the water, and turning to come through the cabin for the long boat, heard Jarrow sobbing on the deck, and crawling about, or so it seemed, for the captain's arms were moving like a swimmer's although he was making no progress forward. And as he struggled, he gave ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... of Philosophy has been of use to me through the whole of my life. Socrates said of Heraclitus: "What I have understood of his book is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what I have not understood is so too; but one must be a Delian swimmer not to be drowned in it." I tried for a long time to follow this advice with regard to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did not despair. I understood some of it, why should not the rest follow in time? Thus, I never gave up the study ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... was no swimmer to brag of; not with rifle and powder, in such a river. For a moment he was daunted, but he swiftly scouted along the shore, seeking a partial ford, or islands that would aid him. By a miracle he came to a canoe—an old canoe, half concealed in the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... James were in the buggy on the way home, Gordon all at once gave a great sigh, like that of a swimmer who yields to the force of the current, or the fighter who sinks before his opponent. "I'm about done, too," he said. "Here, take ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... The swimmer and the boat's crew Long fought for life and breath, And all appeared together Entering the jaws of death, As Roberval steered from them, Outbreathing curses loud, And imprecations furious That stout hearts ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... much with Thomson, once told me he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent; but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach.' Johnson's Works, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... intelligent sailor. Howarti was always the first man to leap overboard with the tow rope, when it became necessary to drag the vessel against wind and stream: he was, like all Nubians, an admirable swimmer. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... canal glimmering under the grey sky. Straight before him the high-road ran, without so much as a tree to shelter him, for miles. On the horizon a score of windmills waved their arms like beckoning ghosts. He was a good swimmer. It flashed upon him that his one hope was to make for the canal and strike for the farther bank. There was a reasonable chance of shaking off one or more of his ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jenik at once concluded that this must be the hiding-place of his wife. So he proceeded directly to the shore with his dog and his cat. When he arrived on the beach, he said to the dog: 'You are an excellent swimmer, and you, little one, are very light; jump on the dog's back and he will take you to the palace. Once there, he will hide himself near the door, and you must steal secretly in and try to ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... already dashing into the water, and we all feared that within five minutes' time we should have a score of the infuriated wretches around us. If so our doom was sealed, for these savages, unlike the feeble swimmer of civilized countries, are, if anything, more formidable antagonists in the water than when on the land. It was all a trial of strength; our natives pulled till their oars bent again, and the crowd of swimmers shot through the water despite its ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... good swimmer, I struck out at once and made for the side of the pirate vessel, where I caught the end of a rope, and soon clambered on board. I was much exhausted, and sat down on the breech of a carronade to rest and recover my stunned and ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy wants to be a fast runner, a fine swimmer, a good fighter—he wants to be strong and brave and self-reliant and many other things, besides. He admires these qualities in other boys; a feeling of his inner nature, in accord with his conscience, tells him he would like to be ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... correspondence, mental and physical, to his surroundings as to mention the seal as his correlative, which, in my opinion, is about as sensible as speaking of the reciprocal relations of a Cincinnati man and a hog. Unlike the seal, which is preeminently an amphibian and a swimmer, the Eskimo has no physical capability of the latter kind, being unable to swim and having the greatest aversion to water except for purposes of navigation. He wins our admiration from the expert management at sea of his little shuttle-shaped canoe, ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... How sweet it was! There is a method of teaching swimming which is not the least successful, I am told. It consists in throwing the future swimmer into the water and praying God to help him. I am assured that after the first lesson he keeps ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... water is like ice! To one accustomed to the warm American bathing-suit the linen substitute of Tenby is a most insufficient protection. At home I have on occasion extended the revels of the surf for a full hour, being a pretty strong swimmer and exceedingly fond of the exercise. I get enough at Tenby in precisely two minutes, and hasten to don my customary clothing. Nevertheless, it is contended that the surf at Tenby is pleasant for bathers as late as Christmas, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... shall tell you. He was swimming about with his wife, who was a fine swimmer; but all at once Hachah disappeared. Presently he stood upon the very tree that he had seen in his dream, and gazed out over the water. The tree was very springy, and Hachah felt sure that he could fly; so before ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a bright day in harvest-time that Kjartan's company saw a number of men going to swim in the river Nith. Kjartan said they ought to go too, for the sport; and so they did. There was one man of the place who was far the best swimmer. Kjartan ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... from God in some mysterious way in order to reduce life to a dramatic antagonism, is not faith, but infirmity. Excessive strenuous belief is not faith. By faith we disbelieve, and it is the drowning man, and not the strong swimmer, who clutches at the floating straw. It is in the nature of man, it is in the present purpose of things, that the real world of our experience and will should appear to us not only as a progressive existence in space and time, but as a scheme ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... and alone with Worth and Queen. She had learned to manage the boat, and much to the disappointment of Watts and the disapproval of Wayne sometimes went about on the river unattended. Katie contended that as a good swimmer and not a bad mechanic she was entitled to freedom in the matter. She held that to be taken about in a boat had no relation to taking a boat and going about in it; that when Watts went ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
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