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Sweep   Listen
verb
Sweep  v. i.  (past & past part. swept; pres. part. sweeping)  
1.
To clean rooms, yards, etc., or to clear away dust, dirt, litter, etc., with a broom, brush, or the like.
2.
To brush swiftly over the surface of anything; to pass with switness and force, as if brushing the surface of anything; to move in a stately manner; as, the wind sweeps across the plain; a woman sweeps through a drawing-room.
3.
To pass over anything comprehensively; to range through with rapidity; as, his eye sweeps through space.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sweep" Quotes from Famous Books



... gave the boat sent it on a couple of yards, and then it became stationary, with the water, which looked white and glassy, now rushing by us, and threatening to drive the canoe on to the rocks just behind, or else to capsize us, and sweep the party headlong down the long water slope up which we had been so toilsomely drawn. And I believe we should have been mastered, for what with three passengers and the chests, the canoe was heavily laden; but Gunson suddenly ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... round tower. It has its own court, well, and quarters inside, as well as the magazine, and other rooms for work. It has a traverse extending to the beach, on which are mounted a dozen large and moderate-sized pieces, which command the bay and sweep the wall, which extends along the shore to the gate and to the fort of Santiago. On the other side the fortress has a large salient tower, mounted with four large pieces, which command the shore ahead in the direction of the chapel of Nuestra Senora de Guia. The ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... whole male population assembled, all decently dressed in deep mourning, drawn up in two lines, and standing with their hats off, silent and motionless. The effect of the procession when crossing the Fly Bridge over the Tweed, and still more when winding around that high and long sweep of the road which is immediately opposite to the promontory of Old Melrose, was extremely striking and picturesque; and the view, looking back from the high ground towards the Eildon hills and Melrose, over the varied vale of the Tweed, till the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... stood unwinking before his three expatriated subjects. Two of them noted the traits of his house, even to his ears, which were full at top, and without any indentation at the bottom where they met the sweep ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... and shook his and said: 'Good. No reason on earth why a fellow with the right stuff shouldn't get anywhere. It's a free country.' And the giant drew his black brows together and remarked slowly: 'All countries—world—is to be free. War will sweep up ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... to enlist citizens in paving all the streets," he said at the Junto. "I have hired a poor man to sweep the pavement now laid, and keep it as clean and neat as a pin, that citizens may see for themselves the great benefit of ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... 1524). For this great purpose, and in full expectancy of success in it, the whole coast of the New World on each side, from Newfoundland on the northeast, curving westward on the south, around the whole sweep of the Gulf of Mexico, thence to Magellan's Straits, and thence through them up the Pacific to the Straits of Behring, was searched and researched with diligence. "Men could not get accustomed," says Humboldt, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... too late, before more blood shall stain the pages of our present history, before we exasperate and arouse bitter animosities, let us try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once and for all the land laws, which in their iniquitous operation have ruined her peasantry. Sweep away the leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and has given her back no word even of comfort in her degradation. Turn her barracks into flax mills, encourage a spirit of independence in her citizens, restore to her people the protection ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... commons and rolling meadows sweet with clustering haycocks, they came at last to the crest of the hill that guarded the eastern end of the dale. The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an unbroken chain of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of grain-fields and laden orchards; not one spot that did not make glorious pledges to the harvest time. Drinking its fairness with his eyes, the lord of the manor sighed ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... into the body of the bronze rider who stands in the Corte, on the left side, near the waist. Saw open the body, and within it thou wilt find the silver effigy of a winged genius. Take it out, hack it into a hundred pieces, and fling them in all directions, so that the winds may sweep them away. That night she whom thou lovest will come ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... the question. Suppose you and everybody else were to give up all superfluities, and confine all your energies to the unlimited production of bare necessaries. Suppose you occupy every acre of land with your corn-fields, or your piggeries; and sweep away all the parks, and woods, and heaths, and moorlands in England. Suppose you keep on letting your population multiply as fast as it chooses—and it WILL multiply, you know, in that ugly, reckless, anti-Malthusian fashion ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... great wailing, driving gust of storm at that moment, as if it wanted to sweep them off their feet, but it was a welcome blast, for it was the occasion of a strong arm being flung round Phoebe, to restrain that fluttering cloak. 'Storms shall only blow us nearer together, dearest,' he said, with recovered breath, as, with ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... clings about a deserted home, enveloped the place. A winding roadway under thick foliaged trees, led down the Heights to the "Long Bridge," crossing the Potomac. Near the house stood an old-fashioned "well sweep" which carried a moss-covered bucket on its trips down the well, to bring up the most sparkling of water. Instinctively a feeling of sadness took possession of the heart at the mournful contrast between the past and present of ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... morality. It is to make lies our refuge, and under falsehood to hide ourselves, so that we may escape the overflowing scourge. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." Moreover, "because ye trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon; therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... third gate was flung open and seven swordsmen came forth. They made themselves like a half circle and came towards the King of Ireland's Son. He dazzled their eyes with a wide sweep of his sword. He darted it swiftly at each of them and on the seven swordsmen too he ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... for this, Laura Belding!" pursued Hester, trembling with rage. She turned to sweep them all with her angry glance. "I'll fix you all! I won't have anything to do with any of you out of school—so there! And I won't act in your hateful ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison

... back to where the road curved a bit. He was out of the direct line of fire, but still in such position to make his demand for the surrender of the Germans without allowing them to pass the sweep ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... down to the right was Vesuvius, starting from which the eye took in the whole wide sweep of the shore, lined with white cities, with a background of mountains, till the land ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... I hated this Asylum. I've felt at times that I was just one of the numbers of the multiplication table, and in all my life I'd never be anything else. And I'd almost sweep the bricks up out of the yard, I'd be so mad to think I was nothing ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher

... sweep and dust the parlor to suit me, and I took her to task about it. She threw down her broom and said she would take no words from me. Then I told her to pack her trunk and leave the house. She grew more impertinent than ever, and said she would go, but I would have to pay her her wages ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... natural setting for a national event can be found in the world than that afforded by the crowning heights, the broad sweep of river, the ancient and towering fortress of Quebec. Upon this occasion the old-fashioned French city, nestling upon the sides of the cliff, was vivid with flags and the narrow streets filled with arches, while ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... sacred song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes; Where is that soul of freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead! Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies! Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death; Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep, Disturb ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... She had sworn not to marry, and at last her step-mother did not know what to do with her. One day, while she was cooking rice, Grandfather Du came and delivered her. She was still holding the rice-spoon in her hand as she ascended into the air. In the heavens she was appointed to sweep up the fallen flowers at ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... straight with a little pat, she came back breathless to give a hasty sweep before the altar. Every day the dust persistently settled between the disjoined boards of the platform. Her broom rummaged among the corners with an angry rumble. Then she lifted the altar cover and was sorely vexed to find that the large upper cloth, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... a clean sweep of everything, hosses, mules, cows, hogs, meat and 'lasses. Got so mad when they couldn't find any salt, they burn up everything. Pull Marse Joe's beard, just 'cause him name Beard. De one dat do dat was just a smart aleck and de cap'n of de crowd shame ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... Roman Empire is no more; No longer Roman eagles sweep the sky. The pampered luxury of Rome soon bore Its wonted fruit—gross immorality; And weakened thus, and by internal strife, Great Caesar's Empire yielded up ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... out the architectural balance of the buildings. The severe and mighty Palace of Machinery, impressive in its long sweep of line, at one side made a dramatic contrast with the delicately imagined and poetic Palace of Fine Arts on the other. In front of the walled city, between the long stretch of garden, stood two harmonious buildings, the Palace of Horticulture, with its glorious roof of glass, and the Festival ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... had kindled many people, Voltaire among the number, who is still intermittently in correspondence with Friedrich: "A magnificent Czarina about to revivify that true Temple of Mankind, or at least to sweep the blockhead Turks out of it; what a prospect!" Friedrich is quite cool on Greece; not too hot on any part of this subject, though intensely concerned about it. Besides his ingenious Count-Lynar Project, and many other businesses, Friedrich has just ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... angry words; then the enlisting of partisans, and then all the miseries of fierce and determined civil war. The capital was divided into hostile factions, and the whole country was ravaged by the sweep of armies. The populace of Vienna, espousing the cause of Albert, rose in insurrection, pillaged the houses of the adherents of Frederic, drove Frederic, with his wife and infant child, into the citadel, and invested the fortress. Albert placed himself at the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... forcing men to do the simple thing full of meaning rather than the disorganised ineffective things and he had an ever- present inclination to arise, to stretch himself, to run into the streets and with his great arms see if he could not sweep the people before him, starting them on the long purposeful march that was to be the beginning of the rebirth of the world and that was to fill with meaning the lives of men. Then when he had walked ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... wild to be at home again," she was saying, "fairly crazy for America! How I love her big, broad, majestic acres—the splendid sweep of her meadows—the massive grandeur of her mountain peaks—the glory of her open skies! You too, I believe, are a wanderer on strange seas. You can hardly fail to understand my longing for ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... I could," he said. "They might be up and sweep the house, and light the fire, and spread the table, and that sort of thing, before Father came down. Besides, they could see what was wanted. The Brownies did all that in Granny's mother's young days. And then they could tidy the room, and fetch the turf, and pick ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... was a young priest at St. Timothy's, Father David, hale and rosy, with a curl of black hair over his forehead, and an almost jaunty way of wearing his priestly hat, who came down the aisle Sundays sprinkling holy water with a definite, distinguished sweep of the hand, who took her fancy. He heard confessions and now and then she liked to whisper her strange thoughts to him while she actually speculated on what he might privately be thinking. She could not, if she tried, associate ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... while thus aiding to sweep away the former conception of our sacred books, has aided biblical criticism in making them far more precious; for it has shown them to be a part of that living growth of sacred literature whose roots are in all the great civilizations ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... born the tiny baby was christened. And the name his father and mother gave him was William. After this three months passed happily. Then one of the fearful plagues which used to sweep over the land, when people lived in dark and dirty houses in dark and dirty streets, attacked Stratford-on- Avon. Jolly John Shakespeare and Mary, his wife, must have been anxious of heart, fearful lest the plague ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... so hard in the way that the sword flew out of Bork's hand; then he sees Thorkel standing on his other hand within stroke of sword. Gunnar was standing with his body swayed a little on one side, and he makes a sweep with his sword, and caught Thorkel on the neck, and off flew ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... back to the house with her, and, for the second time that day, Hepsey came out to sweep ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... own to it," said Stratton after a pause; "one feels safe ashore after the perils of a mental wreck; but there are moments, old fellow, when I shrink and shiver, for it is as if a wave were noiselessly approaching to curl over and sweep one back ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... fundamental right, and the first and best use they can make of the ballot is in this direction. These laws were made by men and have been instruments of martyrdom and death for unnumbered thousands of women. Women now have the opportunity to sweep them into the trash heap. They will do it at once unless, like men, they use the ballot for those political honors which many years of experience have taught men ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... the death-dealing billows. They have battled with the elements; they have suffered dread diseases; they have been tormented with thirst; with a torrid sun and with strange weather; they have sorrowed and they have sinned in order to gain fame, fortune, and renown. On the wide sweep of the ocean, even as on the rolling plateau of the once uninhabited prairie, many a harrowing tragedy has been enacted. These dramas have often had no chronicler,—the battle was fought out in the silence of the watery waste, and there has been no tongue to tell ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... Miller did not play as well as usual this evening. Will's young wife, who had come out to look again at him in his band dress (for the band had a uniform), thought differently. Little boys broke out into imaginary polkas, having some distant reference to the music: not without grace though. The sweep was pre-eminent: as if he would say, "Dirty and sooty as I am I have a great deal of fun in me. Indeed, what would May-day be but for me?" Studious little boys of the free-school, all green grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys knowing something of Latin. Here and there went a couple of ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... that poor Meek used to ride—a child could manage it:—there's the butcher's fat mare, but she won't stir a step without the basket on her back, and it would be so troublesome for you to carry that all the way. Tomkins, the sweep, has got a little horse he'd let you have, I daresay, but it always comes off black on one's trousers: and the miller's cob is just as bad the other way with the flour. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... confound the innocent with the guilty. She informed me that Madame Lamberti had received orders to quit, as also a hunchbacked Venetian priest, who used to go and see the dancer but had never supped with her. In fact, there was a clean sweep of all the Venetians ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... have their being on its banks; if you doubt it, come and hear Smetana's work at the National Theatre reflected in the waters of Prague. The Vltava arrives at Prague reinforced by its tributary, the Berounka, and flows almost due north until it meets the Castle Hill. Then it makes a bold sweep due east, turns north and west again, and so makes a peninsula of Castle Hill; then it resumes, with many windings, its northward course. Nothing could have been better arranged than this bold sweep encircling the Hrad[vs]any and the wooded slopes of Letna; it ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... as round the turn they sweep, Just graze Tim Whiffler's flanks; Like the hunted deer that flies through the sheep, He strides through the beaten ranks. Daughter of Omen, prove your birth, The colt will take lots of choking; The hot breath steams at your saddle ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... fire. A part of the garden had been left to grow very weedy in the preceding summer, and they were shown how that by lighting the dry, dead material on the windward side, the flames, driven by a gentle western breeze, would sweep across the entire plot, leaving it bare and blackened, ready for the fertilizers and the plow. With merry cries they followed the sweeping line of fire, aiding it forward by catching up on iron rakes burning wisps and transferring them to spots in the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... more the hill of gardens across Arno, with the Belvedere just within the old walls, and S. Miniato, like a white and fragile ghost in the sunshine, and La Bella Villanella couched like a brown bird under the cypresses above the grey olives in the wind and the sun. And something in the gracious sweep of the hills, in the gentle nobility of that holy mountain which Michelangelo has loved and defended, which Dante Alighieri has spoken of, which Gianozzo Manetti has so often climbed, will bring the tears to my eyes, and I shall turn away towards Ponte Vecchio, the oldest and most beautiful ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... When the meat is over, clear the table: 1. cover the salt, 2. have a tray by you to carry things off on, 3. put the trenchers, &c., in one Voider, 4. sweep the crumbs into another, 5. set a clean trencher before every one, 6. put on Cheese, Fruit, Biscuits, and 7. serve Wine, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... the boat to the desired height, and which, being formed of a crooked and very irregular knee of wood, has two or three row-locks, one above the other, to suit the stature of different individuals, or to give a broader or a narrower sweep of the blade as the movement shall require. As there is frequent occasion to cast the oar from one of these row-locks to the other, and not unfrequently to change its side, it rests in a very open bed; and the instrument is kept in its place by great dexterity ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... evident that no means they had at their disposal were sufficient to repair her. Even a piece of canvas would have been of value, but they had no canvas and no nails. The sea, too, which had rapidly got up, now dashed furiously against the sides of the floe, threatening to sweep over it, and break it to pieces beneath their feet. Andrew looked around, and observing a large hummock at some distance, urged his companions to drag the ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston

... German, undertaken by Mendelssohn, was to deal the death blow to the Jewish-German (judisch-deutsch) jargon, and the Biur, the commentary on the Bible mentioned above, produced by the co-operation of a galaxy of scholars and men of culture, was expected to sweep aside all mystic and allegoric interpretations of the Scriptures and introduce the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... taken up until eleven. The first call of the morning was sounded at a quarter before six, when we must answer to reveille, followed by a drilling exercise of fifteen minutes. After breakfast every soldier had to sweep under his bunk and prepare it and himself for inspection, which took place after drill hour, which was from eight to ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman

... a distressing and alarming symptom. The person whose mental ear is strained to catch every little creaking of his internal machinery can always hear some kind of rumble. If he deliberately lowers his thresholds to the whole class of stimuli pertaining to himself, there is small wonder that they sweep over the boundaries into ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... Epidemics of terrific proportions sweep their recurring millions into the arms of death; diseases of stupendous mortality, such as tuberculosis, cancer, syphilis, diabetes, and the extensive array of so-called contagious diseases of children, are continually increasing, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... he had entered the flat. He disappeared in this and five minutes later came out upon a ridge above it. The distance was too great to observe whether he turned to look back. But just before he disappeared finally they saw him sweep his hat from his head. It was a derisive motion, and Miss Radford colored and shot ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... at last; Let be! Yet I fall fighting, fighting still! (He makes passes in the air, and stops, breathless): You strip from me the laurel and the rose! Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing I hold against you all, and when, to-night, I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed, Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue, One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch, I bear away ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... had bought was not precisely in the "bush," as the unbroken forest is called in those lands, for it had once been partly under cultivation; but it needs only a short season of neglect for the devouring jungle to sweep over and obliterate all traces of the handiwork of man. To all intents they began anew to clear out a place for their house and garden, in the midst of the great silent forest, "where one might hear the babbling ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... surges sweep back in their swell, Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along! Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell: They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, Roaring up to the cliff—roaring back, as before, But no wave ever brings the lost youth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... did not sweep away the superstitious fears that Sweyn despised. He was angry and anxious; eager that White Fell should return, and, merely by her bright gracious presence, reinstate herself in favour; but doubtful if all his authority and example could keep from her notice an ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... station and put into covered horse-boxes on straw, and have to wait till the train loads up and starts. You see everything has to be done with a view to sudden evacuation. We are so near to the firing-line that the Germans may sweep on our way at any time, and then every man has to be cleared out somehow (we have a heap of ambulances), and the staff is moved off to some safer place. We did a bolt of this sort to Poperinghe one day, but after being there two days ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... much sought for. Although Sarah was pretty in the face she had very rude ways; she would not speak kindly and politely; would not help her hard working mother; but was idle and quarrelsome, always wanted some one to wait on her; while Mary was the reverse; would pick up chips to make a fire, would sweep the yard and bring water, and was kind to all, especially to her mother. One day the well went dry and there was no water to make the tea for supper. Mary saw her mother crying and said: "Don't cry, mother; I will go and get ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... free! O hark to the cry from the lakes to the sea! Arm! arm! the invader is wasting our coasts, And tainting the air of our land with his hosts. Arise! then, arise! let us rally and form, And rush like the torrent, and sweep like the storm, On the foes of our King,—of our country adored, Of the flag that was ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... unsuspicious readers, or have you ever reckoned as you have made your calculation of society, how many most respectable husbands help to kill their wives—how many respectable wives aid in sending their husbands to Hades? The wife of a chimney-sweep or a journeyman butcher comes shuddering before a police magistrate—her head bound up—her body scarred and bleeding with wounds, which the drunken ruffian, her lord, has administered: a poor shopkeeper or mechanic is driven out of his home by the furious ill-temper of the shrill virago ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... trembled under that assaulting, and when the first cyclonic sweep of wind had rushed by the pelting of hail and rain was a roar as of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... Hudson River side, you cross a rough, rolling stretch of country, skirting the base of the Catskills, which from a point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive of a few hours you are within the shadow of a high, bold mountain, which forms a sort of butt-end to this part of the range, and which is simply called High Point. To the east and ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... cause a dearth, And with abundant wet so cool the ground, By adding cold to cold no fruit proves found. The Farmer and the Grasier do complain Of rotten sheep, lean kine, and mildew'd grain. And with my wasting floods and roaring torrent, Their cattel hay and corn I sweep down current. Nay many times my Ocean breaks his bounds, And with astonishment the world confounds, And swallows Countryes up, ne'er seen again, And that an island makes which once was main: Thus Britian fair ('tis thought) was cut from France ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... a sermon often has great effect upon good Catholics. Let a priest with his eyes concentric and introspective make deliberately the sign of the cross while solemnly uttering these words: "In-the-name-of-the-Father;" then let his glance sweep the audience. What do they think of him? This is no longer an ordinary man; he seems clothed with the majesty of God, whose orders he has just received, and in whose name he brings them. This idea gives him strength and assurance, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... must have taken some time to understand it," interposed Mrs. Tattle, "for he's the slowest creature breathing, and the deafest in company. Go on, Christopher. So the sweep did make him hear." ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... I stood for a moment listening to the lonely sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the castellated walls of La Cabana raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm brewing, or had some ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... in an exasperated tone, "a hundred times, no. Let the wind strike us and do its worst, let the storm sweep us away where it will—only let me see the glimmer of some coast—of some rocky cliffs, even if they dash our raft into a thousand pieces. No! keep up the sail—no ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... pen of a might poet, would I sing in epic verse the noble wrath of the archdeacon. The palace steps descend to a broad gravel sweep, from whence a small gate opens out into the street, very near the covered gateway leading to the close. The road from the palace door turns to the left, through the spacious gardens, and terminates on the London-road, half a mile from ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... hard and became rich. But they loved Elsa so much that they did not like to have her do any work; very foolishly, they let her play all the time. So when Elsa grew up, she did not know how to do anything; she could not make bread, she could not sweep a room, she could not sew a seam; she could only laugh and sing. But she was so sweet and merry that everybody loved her. And by and by, she married one of the people who loved her, and had a house of her ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... and outhouses hung in the darkness. Peter bent down under the top of the motor and pointed out his place. A minute later the machine came to a noisy halt and was choked into silence. At that moment, in the sweep of the head-light, Peter saw Viny Berry, one of Nan's younger sisters, coming up from Niggertown's public well, carrying two ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... always sane. Sometimes I feel I could march out and sweep into the sea one of the towns that dot the coast of this island. I have the bloody thirst, as said the great Spanish conquistador. I would like—yes, sometimes I would like to sweep to a watery grave one of the towns that are a glory to this island, as Savanna la Mar was swept to oblivion ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... or with that transcendent mountain region stretching up along Lochs Linnhe, Etive, and Leven—between the wild, torn ridges of Morven and Appin—uniting Ben Cruachan to Ben Nevis, and including in its sweep the lonely and magnificent Glencoe—a region unparalleled in wide Britain for its quantity and variety of desolate grandeur, where every shape is bold, every shape blasted, but all blasted at such different angles as to produce endless diversity, and yet where the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Giraud wore a mustache only, and this—oh! inconsistency of great minds—he laboriously twirled heavenwards in the French fashion. It was, in fact, the guileless Alphonse's chief tribulation that, however industriously he cultivated that devil-may-care upward sweep, the sparse ornament to his upper lip invariably drooped downwards again before long. In the sunny land of France it is held that the mustache worn "en croc" not only confers upon its possessor an air of distinction, but renders that happy ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... said that if God should commission two angels, one to sweep a street crossing, and the other to rule an empire, they could not be induced to exchange callings. Not less true is it that he who feels that God has given him a particular work to do can be happy only when ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... the value of the Ministry (which we think an enlightened one) is 490 pounds. What do they care for the country? Not a jot. We ought to sweep all this lot out, and the corresponding lot at Stamboul. It is hopeless and madness to think that with such material you can do anything. Good-bye. Kind regards to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... goodness to give her to me, I would be capable of doing anything agreeable to you. I would relieve you of all your little troublesome jobs; I would clean your retorts; I would put labels on your bottles and jars; I would sweep out your laboratory. I know German very well—I would read all the large German books it might please you to consult; I would read them, pen in hand; I would make extracts—written extracts—and such extracts! Grand Dieu! they would ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... Cornhill's square Exchange; There stood I still as any stock, Till Mopsa, with her puddle dock, Her compound or electuary, Made of old ling and young canary, Bloat-herring, cheese, and voided physic, Being somewhat troubled with a phthisic, Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep, As did her very bottom sweep: Whereby to all she did impart, How love lay rankling at her heart: Which, when I smelt, desire was slain, And they breathed forth perfumes in vain. Their angel voice surprised me now; But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo, Descending through ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... oval on a sheet of paper with one sweep of the compasses? It is one of the easiest things in the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... the other contestants were testing their engines at the same time the uproar was deafening. The sweep of the propellers created back draughts that swept off the spectators' hats and gave the men who were holding on to the struggling machines all they could do to keep them from getting away. They were like so many restive race-horses breathing blue ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... astonishing how human nature can adapt itself to circumstances, so that the thing which we must do we can do: little Margaret, who had ever been so tenderly nurtured, soon learned to make the fire, to sweep the rooms, and cook the meals. Not in the most scientific manner, truly; her cookery would scarcely have been approved by Kitchener, Glass, or Soyer, but it was done to the best of her slender ability. While poor Mrs. Jackson lived, Maggie had at least the satisfaction of feeling that ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... with satire whose prick was, somehow, delicious. He regarded the sweep of her handwriting with a lingering interest, studying the swift nervous strokes before he sent the note back with still ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind which blew savagely from the north-east; while the long, gray sweep of naked forests on their right betokened that winter was fast closing in. On the twenty-sixth, they reached the neighborhood of the Indian town of Taiaiagon, [Footnote: This place is laid down on a manuscript map sent to France by the Intendant Duchesneau, and now preserved in the Archives ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... poor and say all; they are born to labour, to misery, to carry burdens like juments, pistum stercus comedere with Ulysses' companions, and as Chremilus objected in Aristophanes, [2243] salem lingere, lick salt, to empty jakes, fay channels, [2244]carry out dirt and dunghills, sweep chimneys, rub horse-heels, &c. I say nothing of Turks, galley-slaves, which are bought [2245]and sold like juments, or those African Negroes, or poor [2246]Indian drudges, qui indies hinc inde deferendis oneribus occumbunt, nam quod apud nos boves et asini ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... circle about the heap thrice while the fairy-man chanted an incantation in the Irish language. At its conclusion all present would withdraw into the house, leaving the child where it had been placed, to howl and cry as it pleased. Says Mr. Kennedy: "They soon felt the air around them sweep this way and that, as if it was stirred by the motion of wings, but they remained quiet and silent for about ten minutes. Opening the door, they then looked out, and saw the bundle of straw on the heap, but neither child nor fairy. 'Go into your bedroom, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... produced, it seems unlikely that any one of them would have failed to record some large movement in his growth; and therefore it is perhaps to be regretted that his life could not have been made to solely serve his genius, so that we might have had the whole sweep of his imagination clearly exposed. As it is, he has not given us a large variety of characters; and Hester, Zenobia, and Miriam bear a certain general likeness one to another. Phoebe, however, is quite ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... artless fashion her own method of remembering the names and positions of the constellations. As their range of vision on the veranda was circumscribed, Ware suggested that they step down upon the lawn to get a wider sweep, a move which attracted ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... night deepened, hot and languorous, with a sweep of moths to the candle flames, with vagrant odours of flowering vines and vagrant sounds of distant laughter, voices, footsteps down the long street. Jacqueline sat very still, the letter in her lap. The curtains at the window ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... developed ones with considerable concern. The rapidly moving aircraft and its high altitude brought new factors into the design of these lights. It now became necessary to have the most intense beam and to be able to sweep the heavens with it by means of delicate controlling apparatus, for the targets were sometimes minute specks moving at high speed at altitudes as high as five miles. Furthermore, owing to the shifting battle areas, mobile apparatus ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... with his trunk under his arm,—out of breath,—and with a most disappointed and disconsolate air. The Captain determined to stop for him, but stopping an immense steamboat, moving swiftly through the water, is not to be done in a moment. So we took a grand sweep, wheeling majestically around an English ship, which was at anchor in the harbor. As we came towards the wharf again, we saw the man in a small boat, coming off from it. As the steamboat swept round, they barely succeeded in catching a rope from the stern, and then immediately the steam engine ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... please theirsels," said Dixon with the same studied mildness as before. Then, having at last made the logs burn, as he hoped, with some brightness, he proceeded to sweep up the wide stone hearth. "Is t' rooms ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... certainly what people used to do to us in our freshman year. Don't you remember how we were always getting caught with our kimonos on and our rooms fixed for sweep-day ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... fear. I may give Randal Leslie a triumph over his patron, but in the same hour I will unmask his villany, and sweep him forever from your path. What in the future is left to you?—your birthright and your native land; hope, joy, love, felicity. Could it be possible that in the soft but sunny fancy which plays round the heart of maiden youth, but still sends no warmth into its deeps,—could it be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Lois said it was wrong to wish her back again, or to wish for anything that God took away. And so I ceased to wish for anybody, but learned to put on my clothes and tie my strings and button, and do what Aunt Lois told me. I can wipe cups and saucers and make my bed and sweep my room and weed in the garden, and sew, and spin a little, but I cannot make very even thread yet. And to knit—I have knit a pair of stockings, Patty. Aunt Lois said those ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... luckless uplands are without water, the first essential for production. The mists which ought to fertilize the gray, dead soil by discharging oxygen upon it, sweep across it rapidly, driven by the wind, for want of trees which might arrest them and so obtain their nourishment. Merely to plant trees in such a region would be carrying a gospel to it. Separated from ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... in almost every gallery on the Continent. A native of Groningen (1831), he studied under Roelofs and while in Brussels lived with his relative, Alma-Tadema; the latter is a Frieslander. Mesdag excels in marines, painting great sweep of waters with breadth and simplicity. His palette is cool and restrained, his rhythmic sense well developed, and his feeling for outdoors truly Dutch. He belongs to the line of the classic Dutch marinists, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamor. We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... doorway calling out "goodbye" as they went down the path to the gate, Miss Prudence's "old man" had been there early to sweep off the piazzas and shovel paths; he was one of her beneficiaries with a history. Marjorie said they all had histories: she believed he had lost some money in a bank years ago, some that he had hoarded by day labor ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... our talk grew baudier; we had mostly been schoolfellows, and dare say we had all seen each other's doodles, but I cannot assert that positively. We finished by showing them to each other now, betting on their length and size, and finished up by a frigging sweep-stakes for him who ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... "Just look at the sweep of the planes," exclaimed Barney. "They were made for high altitude work—up where the air's thin. No one would be coming up here for a ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... and the best telescopes from aloft sweep the horizon, but not a speck can be seen on that desert sea. The sails are stripped from the vessel's masts, and she lies like a dead log, round which, at the unwonted spectacle, shoals of dolphins and porpoises come to gambol. It was pleasant to have something ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... free the earth, to free mankind, to sweep the whole two-legged, chattering tribe out of existence. Man—the man of to-day—is wise. He has come to his senses. He is ripe for liberty. But the past eats away his soul like a canker. It imprisons him within the iron circle of things already accomplished, ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... Lydia, which contains what to me is the most melancholy intelligence—the news of the death of Eugene Fowler,[10] who was killed on the 22d of August, in some battle or skirmish in Virginia. Poor Eugene!... Does it not seem that this war will sweep off all who are nearest and dearest, as well as most worthy of life, leaving only those you least ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... and despair he soon found that such a climb would be impossible in the darkness, and as a flood of terrible thoughts threatened to sweep away his reason, and he saw himself dying slowly there from starvation, it seemed to him that it was not quite so dark as he thought, and peering before him, he felt about with hand and foot, and changed his position slowly, finding that the stones beneath him were pretty level till he ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... rob my honor of its holiest pearl! Lorenzo, shallow fool—he does not guess The mischief was all done, and that it was The duke he saw departing—oh, brain—brain! How shall I hold this river of my wrath! It must not burst—no, rather it shall sweep A noiseless maelstrom, whirling to its center All thoughts and plans to further my revenge And rid me of this most ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!' ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... might this dreadful sweep of the imagination, tried to bring himself back into sanity and to devise schemes by which, although he was prohibited from writing to Madge, he might obtain news of her. Her injunction might not be final. There was but one hope for him, one possibility of extrication, one necessity—their ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... but modifications of the leaf, such modification implies a marvellous differentiation and development. To assert that a stamen is a metamorphosed leaf means, if it means anything, that in the long sweep of time the leaf has by slow or sudden gradations changed its character through successive generations, until the offspring, so to speak, of a true leaf has become a stamen. But if such a metamorphosis as this is possible—if the seemingly wide gap between leaf and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... in the cry "Destroy, destroy!" Who, even when a babe, as I've heard said, On Orange conserve was chiefly fed, And never, till now, a movement made That wasn't manfully retrograde! Only think—to sweep from the light of day Mayors, maces, criers and wigs away; To annihilate—never to rise again— A whole generation of aldermen, Nor leave them even the accustomed tolls, To keep together their bodies and souls!— At a time too when snug ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... couldn't sleep last night, and now it's light duties. I know what light duties are. You are to go into the orderly room and wash all the dishes: then you go and run messages, then you 'old the orficer's horse and then maybe when you're worryin' your own bit of grub they come and bundle you out to sweep up the orficers' mess, or run an errand for the 'ead cook and bottle-washer. Light duties ain't arf a job. I'm blowed if marchin' in full kit ain't ten times better, and I'm going to grease ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... The delegates from the Southern colonies were greatly distressed concerning the probable attitude of the slave element. They knew that if that ignorant mass of humanity were inflamed by some act of strategy of the enemy, they might sweep their homes and families from the face of the earth. The cruelties of the slave-code, the harsh treatment of Negro slaves, the lack of confidence in the whites everywhere manifested among the blacks,—as so many horrid dreams, harassed ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... was named after John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, who owned the ground (1711). The work of demolition is going on as far as Catherine Street, where the Gaiety theatre still stands, though not for long, for the second great scimitar sweep of the new street will join ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... she, "dost look for brooms and dusters in Heaven? Shall Bess and I sweep out the gold streets, thinkest, or fetch a pan to seethe the fruits of the ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... read To make the ignoramus turn his head. The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise. Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep, Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep. The little lacquered boxes in his hands Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands. From them doll-monsters come, we know not how: Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow. Some passing jugglers, smiling, ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... house, had tried his hand at the garden. Beautiful plants had been lifted from their pots and thrown onto the walk, the hose lay beside them, running a stream, the fountain had been set running, and an old broom, used by the gardener, to sweep the walks, lay in the ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks

... relief were open to Mr. Stout. He was worth seventeen thousand dollars, which he had earned by nights of toil, by economy, and by daily and earnest attention to business. To pay the notes would not only sweep away every penny that he had, but would leave him six thousand dollars in debt. He had never realized one cent from the money, and his name was used simply to accommodate the builder. Besides, he was not of age, though nobody ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... power of suggestion in tonal colour, and in it I believe we can see the tendency I allude to. This work stuns by its glorious magnificence of tonal texture; the suggestion, in the opening measures, of the rising sun is a mighty example of the overwhelming power of tone colour. The upward sweep of the music to the highest regions of light has much of splendour about it; and yet I remember once hearing in London, sung in the street at night, a song that seemed to me to contain a truer ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... his thirst was quenched, then sat down with his back against a tree and lit his pipe. He smoked contentedly and watched Badshah grazing. The elephant plucked the long grass with a scythe-like sweep of his trunk, tore down succulent creepers and broke off small branches from the trees, chewing the wood and leaves with equal enjoyment. From time to time he looked towards his master, but, receiving no signal to prepare to move on, continued ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... dazzle of the drift, a sky that laughed in azure, the green, snow-laden firs, a white and purple peak. She spread out her hands to feel the sun and found it warm. She held it like a friendly hand. She forced herself that day to shovel, to sweep, even to eat. Perhaps Cosme would be back before night. He and the parson would have waited for the storm to be over before they made their start. She believed in her own excuses for five uneasy days, and then she ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... been at Wampsocket? Well, the hills sweep around in a crescent on the northern side and four or five radiating glens descending from them unite just above the village. The central one leading to a waterfall (called "Minnehehe" by the irreverent young people, because there is so little of it), is the fashionable drive and promenade; ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... or so he paddled on through a darkness which was now almost total, wondering where on earth he was wending, for it was quite impossible to see. For all he knew to the contrary, he might be circling round and round. He had only one thing to direct him, the sweep of the continually rising wind and the wash of the gathering waves. So long as these struck the canoe, which now began to roll ominously, on the starboard side, he must, he thought, be keeping a right course. But in the turmoil of the rising gale and the confusion of the night, this ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... "why, they will sweep the walks—look! there they are now. What fun! I wish I had a broom, and a ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... ways of the jackass for a model. He saw plainly enough now. More than this, where there had been mere obstacles to overcome there were now steep mountains, perhaps inaccessible for all he knew. His jaw set, and the pressure of his lips broke the sweep of his mustache, converting it into ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... we came upon human dwellings for the first time after several days. There were barns and peasants' cabins to destroy, and pits full of potatoes and beetroot; the army had been without victual, and now it fairly ran riot, the first comers, as you might expect, making a clean sweep of everything. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... we took to the water, and, a photograph of the scene having been taken, shoved off from the Landing. The boats were furnished with long, cumbrous sweeps, yet not a whit too heavy, since numbers of them snapped with the vigorous strokes of the rowers during the trip. A small sweep, passed through a ring at the stern, served as a rudder, by far the best steering gear for the "sturgeons," but not for a York boat, which is built with a keel and can sail pretty close to the wind. Ordinarily the only sail in use is a lug, which has a great ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... imponderable medium through which the energy and the movement are supposed to circulate. But what can remain of matter when you take away everything that determines it, that is to say, just energy and movement themselves? The philosopher must go further than the scientist. Making a clean sweep of everything that is only an imaginative symbol, he will see the material world melt back into a simple flux, a continuity of flowing, a becoming. And he will thus be prepared to discover real duration ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... turned the corner out of sight, than there appeared, "snooping" up the street, that sheep in wolfs clothing, Long John Butterfield. Instantly Yetmore's resolution was taken. Seizing a broom, he stepped outside and made pretense to sweep the sidewalk, and as Long John, with a casual nod, sauntered past, the angry storekeeper caught his ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... into the purple sea. I could distinguish carriages and pedestrians coming and going on the chaussee between the promontory and Monte Carlo, but I was far too high for any sound to reach me. Away to the left the coast took a magnificent sweep, past the clustering houses of Roccabruna, past the mountains at whose base Mentone nestled unseen, past the Italian frontier, past the bight of Ventimiglia, to where the Capo di Bordighera stood faintly ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... they entered a boulevard, and the real sweep of the wind met their faces, both men fell strangely silent. To George it was the last word of the north which they were leaving, and his recent home-sickness came back and silenced him. But to Lewis, his mind already busy with his errand, this sting of wind was the harsh ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... meant that they should all be running away at the very instant when he expected them to brace up for review. But before he could give utterance to his thoughts eight glossy teams in almost simultaneous sweep to the left about came sharply around again. The black muzzles of the guns were pointed to the front, every axle exactly in the prolongation of his front rank, every little group of red-topped, red-trimmed cannoneers standing erect and square, the chiefs ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... Mahometan conquest was, in course of time, to sweep into India. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs were forcing their way to Cabul 664 A.D. At the beginning of the next century Sindh was overrun and Multan was captured; nevertheless, no extended conquest was as yet attempted. After the reign of the Calif Harun al Raschid at Bagdad the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... the shorter by an inch. The moment he was within reach therefore, and his blade touched the other's he rushed in, lunging fiercely at his opponent's breast and trusting to the vigour of his attack and the circular sweep of his point to protect himself. Not seldom has a man skilled in the subtleties of the art found himself confused and overcome by this mode of attack. But Payton had met his man too often on the green to be taken by surprise. He parried the first thrust, the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... longer exist without seeing Louisa, so he began to lie in wait for her in all sorts of holes and corners. Every hollow-tree was a good hiding-place from which he could watch for her coming, every ditch was of use in concealing his advance, every hill was a look-out from which he could sweep the country with his gaze, and every thicket served him for an ambush. He was so much in earnest that he could not fail to succeed in his attempts to see her, and he often gave Louisa a great fright by pouncing out upon her, when she least expected him, and when she was perhaps ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Flannery the key, and Flannery's face grew red with rage. He opened the door of the office, and for a moment he was sure the cat was not gone, but it was. Flannery could not see the box; it was gone. He threw open the back door and let the wind sweep through the office, and it blew a paper off the desk. Flannery picked it up and read it. ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler

... outweighed all other considerations. Almost at the moment of justification the good of life had crumbled in his fingers, the soil given beneath his feet, and with an absence of logic, a lack of justice unusual in him, he let resentment against Chilcote sweep ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... into the river, under no motive power excepting that of the current, the men arranged themselves for the long journey, each to suit himself, but under a loose sort of system of government. At the long steering-sweep, made from a spruce pole twenty feet in length, stood always the steersman, holding the scow straight in the current. The ten tons of luggage was piled high in each scow, and all covered with a great ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... the flag wrapping itself about the staff, stand facing the receiving station, with feet apart. Hold the staff with the left hand at butt and right hand 24 inches from end. In moving flag to the right, bring it down with an outward and inward sweep, and then return it to the vertical. When the tip is farthest down the staff inclines to the right front and as the flag is brought upward it is swept inward and upwards and as it approaches the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... had by this time prepared her currants, and Mrs. Troost paused from her story while she filled the kettle and attached the towel to the end of the well-sweep, where it waved as a signal for Peter ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... the master of his own life. The two men had been carried out in their struggle towards the open sea; and as the boat curved in, so as to be as close as the rocks would allow, the bodies of the men were brought within the sweep of the oars. He in the bow—for there were four pulling in the boat—had raised his oar as he neared the rocks,—had raised it high above the water; and now, as they passed close by the struggling men, he let it fall with all its force on the upturned face of the wretched ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope

... come to a standstill he could hear the rustle of her garments in the next compartment. Then he heard her sweep into the passage, greet her uncle and aunt, utter a few commands to the maid, and, while he was adjusting his collar and necktie, pass from the car. No man ever made quicker time in dressing than did Lorry. She could ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... wonder, says FATHER. When there is so much to be done, some things simply have to be left. Perhaps there will be time tomorrow morning. I'm leaving some things for tomorrow myself. For instance, I promised Mary I'd sweep out the kitchen here, after I'd brought in the wood; and it needs it, sure enough, for I see I've tracked in a lot of dirt. But I'm going to beg off for tonight. I'll do it first thing in the morning. I only hope that Santa ...
— The Christmas Dinner • Shepherd Knapp

... cometh to the knight, and smiteth him with his spear amidst the breast with such a thrust that it passeth half an ell beyond, and overthroweth him and his horse together. The other knight seeth his fellow wounded to the death, and cometh towards him with a great sweep and breaketh his spear upon his shield. Howbeit, Lancelot beareth him to the ground right over his horse-croup and maketh him fall so heavily that he breaketh one of his legs. The tidings are come to the Lady of the Castle that a knight hath come ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... the edge of a wide vley to the right of the road, and formed the horses in quarter-column under cover of the slope. The carts were formed up in rear and on both flanks, and five Maxims were placed along the front so as to sweep ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... much of a woman as you can, and soon such raff as this you may sweep away, like cobwebs, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... arch of the sky smiled; even the pool, reflecting day, seemed to have forgotten cold and dread. But for Glenfernie a dull, cold, sick horror overspread the place. He and Black Alan stood still upon the moor brow. Large against the long, clean, horizon sweep, they looked the sun-bathed, stone figures of horse and man, set there long ago, guarding the moor, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... here go into Ney's behaviour at Waterloo except to point out that too little importance is generally given to the fact of the English cavalry having, in a happy moment, fallen on and destroyed the artillery which was being brought up to sweep the English squares at close quarters. At Waterloo, as in so many other combats, the account of Ney's behaviour more resembles that of a Homeric hero than of a modern general. To the ideal commander of to-day, watching the fight at a distance, calmly weighing ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... liked this tall fellow who helped her through the fatigue of those long days, when there was only the unbroken sweep of the forest on either hand, with here and there a clearing where some outrageous soul was making a home for himself. The shores became duller, wilder, more uninteresting as they advanced, and then at last they entered the Mississippi, and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... attention on the double and mutually supplementing experience of Matter and Void; the one resisting movement, and giving the consciousness of resistance, or dead strain, the other permitting movement, and giving the consciousness of the unobstructed sweep of the limbs or members. Whatever else may be in space, this freedom to move, to soar, to expatiate (in contrast to being hemmed in, obstructed, held fast), is an essential part of the conception, and is formed out of our active or moving sensibilities. ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... and especially a singer,' she declared with a vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate! Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the conversation—(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege of ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... little distance, when he saw a large boat approaching, which he divined contained her he loved best on earth, with her uncle and his attendants. How could he resist the temptation of seeing and speaking to her once more? so, giving his boat a sweep, he pulled round to the other side of the Zodiac, from that on which the gangway ladder was shipped, and lay on his oars, trusting to the chance of seeing Ada on deck, while her uncle ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... Koran in praise of the swallows, and asked the guardians of the place whether they did not think themselves happy in having such swarms of sacred birds over their heads all day long. 'Not at all,' said they; 'they oblige us to sweep the gateway ten times a day; but there is no getting at their nests, or we should soon get rid of them.' They then told me that the sacred bird of the Koran was the 'ababil', or large black swallow, and not ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... through the streets all night on their way to the gate of Saint Lawrence, and the workmen count their numbers when they meet at dawn. But the bad days are not many, if only there be rain enough, for a little is worse than none. The nights lengthen and the September gales sweep away the poison-mists with kindly strength. Body and soul revive, as the ripe grapes appear in their vine-covered baskets at the street corners. Rich October is coming, the month in which the small ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... this business, I will not disguise that I have full confidence in the power which I possess, which is no less than to be the means, should I think proper, of giving to the world a system which must of necessity sweep all military marines from the ocean, by giving the weaker maritime powers advantages over the stronger, which the ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner

... still very unwell, and tormented between the longing for rest and lovely life, and the sense of this terrific call of human crime for resistance and of human misery for help, though it seems to me as the voice of a river of blood which can but sweep me down in the midst of its ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of withdrawal, and a momentary wave of antagonism seemed to sweep the two women apart. Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again addressed herself to the picture, she felt a sudden ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... there now?" I asked, and he answered with a sweep of his hand around the table. "Five or six more," he said. There were eighteen of them at table now. That meant twenty-three or ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... good sweep up the hut after breakfast, washes the mess traps, and generally tidies things. I think it a good thing that in these matters the officers need not wait on themselves; it gives long unbroken days of scientific work and must, therefore, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott



Words linked to "Sweep" :   triumph, manage, sweep over, sweep hand, bridge, drag in, cross, sweep up, orbit, small slam, tangle, chimneysweep, American football game, handle, American football, oar, cover, continue, brush, sweep off, chimneysweeper, broom, compass, rake, traverse, slam, run, swing, running game, sweep-second, span, range, running, sweep through, motion, drag, sweeping, sail, ambit, sweep under the rug, running play, grand slam, expanse, pass over, end run, sweep away, victory, extend, movement



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