"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ways to discover these Cheats. First for sweet-scented Chymical Oyls, viz. those of Cloves, Cinnamon and Sassaphras. Only drop a little of them into fair water, and that part which is true good will sink under the water, but the adulterated part will swim on the top of it. Some others draw deep tinctures from the said Spices with Spirit of Wine highly rectified, and sell them for the Oyls; but these mix with the water throughout, neither swimming, ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... me," still meekly. "And I didn't come to swim. I came for you. Honour bright! The Button ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the long winter evenings set in. The studious young ladies at Alton College, elbows on desk and hands over ears, shuddered chillily in fur tippets whilst they loaded their memories with the statements of writers on moral science, or, like men who swim upon corks, reasoned out mathematical problems upon postulates. Whence it sometimes happened that the more reasonable a student was in mathematics, the more unreasonable she was in the affairs of real life, concerning which few trustworthy ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... to roam in, what a sea to swim in is this God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is eternal, which means that He antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time began in Him and will end in Him. To it He pays no tribute and from it He suffers no change. He is immutable, ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... welcome, but young mermen were allowed to call only once a month, during the week when the moon was full. Then the evenings were usually clear, so that when the party broke up, the mermen could see their way in the moonlight to swim home safely with their mermaid friends. For, there were sea monsters that loved to plague the merefolk, and even threatened to eat them up! The mermaids, dear creatures, had to be escorted home, but they felt ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... and the lower boughs are dead and leafless. On these there are always swallows twittering over the water. Grey and yellow wagtails run along the verge. In the morning the flock of goslings who began to swim in the pond, now grown large and grey, arrange themselves in a double row, some twenty or thirty of them, in loose order, tuck their bills under their wings and sleep. Two old birds stand in the rear as ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... unto thine, Wi' three young flowers baith fair and fine:— The pink, the rose, and the gillyflower, And as they here do stand, Whilk will ye sink, whilk will ye swim, And whilk bring hame ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... thou singly art, and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature, and live but ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... ever to persuade them that they are beaten; and, as they don't care for the Saints, and don't fear the devil—heretics that they are—they trust to their own right arm, their cutlasses, and big guns; and by Achilles, if you do manage to throw them overboard, they will swim about in the hopes of getting a cut at you. Now, where we cannot succeed by force, we must employ stratagem; and I intend to go on board and to inform them that the Sea Hawk is an Austrian ship-of-war, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Still, they had so much confidence in the judgment displayed by white men on the coast, that I had little difficulty in engaging the boat and services of a couple of sturdy chaps; and, stripping to my drawers, so as to be ready to swim in the last emergency, I committed ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... better make a short detour around the cove," said Deck. "I will watch from this point, to see that he doesn't enter the water and swim away on the sly. Are you ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... conceived. If the rope breaks, an accident of no unfrequent occurrence, the hapless traveller has no chance of escaping with life, for being fastened, he can make no effort to save himself. Horses and mules are driven by the Indians into the river, and are made to swim across it, in doing which they frequently perish, especially when being exhausted by a long journey, they have not strength to contend against ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... went up the river with their goods on a horse. The horse slipped down a steep bank into the river. He got safe to the bank across the river. An Indian made him swim back to the two soldiers. On the way, most of the goods were lost. The paint melted, and the horse's back was all red. The Indians on the bank across the river saw what the soldiers wanted. They loaded some roots and bread on a raft. They tried to cross to the soldiers. A high wind sent ...
— The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition • Katherine Chandler
... to the west of us had kept it full. I crossed the bridge and went upstream along the wooded shore to a pleasant dressing-room I knew among the dogwood bushes, all overgrown with wild grapevines. I began to undress for a swim. The girls would not be along yet. For the first time it occurred to me that I should be homesick for that river after I left it. The sandbars, with their clean white beaches and their little groves of willows and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... for beams of foundering ships From this, from that side battered out their lives, And crushed were all their bodies wretchedly. Some in the ships fell down, and like dead men Lay there; some, in the grip of destiny, Clinging to oars smooth-shaven, tried to swim; Some upon planks were tossing. Roared the surge From fathomless depths: it seemed as though sea, sky, And land were blended ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... fool away his time. She doubtless can act and sing. Little has been said about the venture in the papers, and I'm glad. We may prove a perfect fizzle, and the less said the better. As we can't walk back, I must learn to swim.... Lunch ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... saying, the first time he passed over this water it was up but to his ankles; the second time he passed through, it proceeded to his knees; the third time, to his loins; and last of all, became a river to swim in (Eze 47:1-3). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Henry Jackson, Jr., was drowned two days ago, up in Crooked River. He and one of his friends were trying which could swim the faster. Jackson was behind but gaining; his friend kicked at him in fun, thinking to hit his shoulder and push him back, but missed, and hit his chin, which caused him to take in water and ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... a barque—went like a carrot the second day. We hove to, trying to rig a jury mast, when up popped a Fritz."[1] The speaker laughed, a pleasant, deep laugh of complete enjoyment. "I thought we were in for a swim that would knock the cross-Channel record silly! However, I borrowed a suit from the skipper—and he wasn't what you'd call fastidious in his ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... and swim, and drag us behind you, Heavy," suggested one of the girls. "You're so anxious to get over to ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... only serve to add a few more scalps to our girdles. However, we are safe for to-night, at all events; for if they reach the river, as I said before, they won't be able to cross, unless they make a raft or swim it; and you may rest assured, Peshewa, they will sleep on the other side, if for nothing ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Javariveni (I name here only the principal falls) we come to the Raudal of Canucari, formed by a ledge of rocks uniting the islands of Surupamana and Uirapuri. When the dikes, or natural dams, are only two or three feet high, the Indians venture to descend them in boats. In going up the river, they swim on before, and if, after many vain efforts, they succeed in fixing a rope to one of the points of rock that crown the dike, they then, by means of that rope, draw the bark to the top of the raudal. The bark, during this arduous task, often ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... get away—if you can," rejoined Captain Langless. "If you go overboard you'll be in for a long swim, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... me that I should do well to drown as quickly as possible, and I thought to myself that I would not try to swim, but would sink at once. Yet love of life was too strong for me, and so soon as I touched the water, I struck out and began to swim along the side of the ship, keeping myself in her shadow, for I feared lest de Garcia should cause me to be ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... together in a boat on Lake Bourget—it is a real lake, that lake, not like the little fishpond 'ere. A storm came on, and the boat upset. Fritz did his best to save the unfortunate one, but 'e could not swim. You can imagine my sensations? I was in a summer-'ouse, trembling with fright. Thunder, lightning, rain, storm, all round! Suddenly I see Fritz, pale as death, wet through, totter up the path from the lake. 'Where is Sasha?' I shriek out to 'im. And 'e shake 'is 'ead despairingly—Sasha ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... take a swim," he added, abruptly changing the subject to one more agreeable. "Can ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... lens level with the surface of the water. It is impossible to understand in this case, firstly, how a mutation could cause the eyes to be divided and doubly adapted to two different optic conditions, and, secondly, how at the same time a convenient 'tropism' should occur which caused the animal to swim with its eyes half in and half out of water. Are we to suppose that the upper half of the body or eye had a positive heliotropism and the lower half a negative heliotropism? The fact is that the fish ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... looking so lovely after a wild time in the pool, and a girl who can look well after a swim is surely very pretty. But Jane's hair loved the water, and a flash of sunshine after it just whipped the little ringlets into flossy tangles. Then her eyes always danced from excitement, and her agile form just vibrated energy. Don't blame Jane for this description—it is given through ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers on a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim, And the sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim, And on the very sun's face ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... wreck, it isn't necessary to wave your arms about like a windmill. You say he's swimming, and that's enough. And if a floating spar knocked him senseless before he got to the wreck, I don't believe he could take them both in his arms and swim back ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... we take out the raft, and try the depth. If we find the animals will have to swim, we had better ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... a moment when, inapprehensive as he was, Doll had remembered, with a qualm, that Lord Newhaven could not swim. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and air castles—the kind of atmosphere that sometimes nourishes a genius, more often men unfitted for the practical struggles of life. I never played a game of ball, never went fishing or learned to swim; in fact, the only outdoor exercise in which I took any interest was skating. Nevertheless, though slender, I grew well formed and in perfect health. After I entered the high school, I began to notice the change ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... brilliant, save that the Rakaia was said to be very heavily freshed. Fearing I might have to swim for it, I left my watch at M-'s, and went on with the satisfactory reflection that, at any rate, if I could not cross, G- could not do so either. To my delight, however, the river was very low, and I forded ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... me out of my work, the man I kill. He pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call—tete de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... end of July, when the westering sun was hotter than at midday, he went down to the lower end of the field, where the river was confined by a dam, and plunged from the bank into deep water. After a swim of half-an-hour, he ascended the higher part of the field, and lay down upon a broad web to bask in the sun. In his ears was the hush rather than rush of the water over the dam, the occasional murmur of a belt of trees that skirted the border of the field, and the dull continuous sound of the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... stream the salmon swim about as if playing: they always head toward the current, and this "playing" may be simply due to facing the flood tide. Afterwards they enter the deepest parts of the stream and swim straight up, with few interruptions. Their rate of travel on the Sacramento is estimated ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... in the conduct of the affairs of the great, and when discretion is the quality required, a man who knows nothing can safely say nothing, and take refuge in a mysterious shake of the head; in fact; the cleverest practitioner is he who can swim with the current and keep his head well above the stream of events which he appears to control, a man's fitness for this business varying inversely as his specific gravity. But in this particular art ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... upon the belly on the back and between two waters. I am not so dexte rous that you. Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... Mahdi rushed upon them with his scanty following and destroyed them impartially. A few soldiers succeeded in reaching the bank of the river. But the captain of the steamer would run no risks, and those who could not swim out to the vessel were left to their fate. With such tidings the expedition returned ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... live forever an' then turn into a hickory post. I've just crept out o' the ma'shes of ol' Kentuck. I'm only a yearlin', but cuss me if I don't think I can whip anybody in this part o' the country. I'm the chap that towed the Broadhorn up Salt River where the snags was so thick a fish couldn't swim without rubbin' his scales off. Cock a doodle doo! I'm the infant that refused his milk before his eyes was open an' called for a bottle o' rum. Talk about grinnin' the bark off a tree—that ain't nothin'. One look o' mine would raise a blister ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... swim, boy. I can swim like a starfish, but I can't wif ten thousand tons of a subicecream ship ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... of de dozen er so of us eber got a whuppin', case we ain't desarved no whuppin'; why, dar wusn't eben a cowhide whup anywhar on de place. We wucked in de fie'ls from sunup ter sundown mos' o' de time, but we had a couple of hours at dinner time ter swim or lay on de banks uv de little crick an' sleep. Ober 'bout sundown marster let us go swim ag'in iff'en we wanted ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... quarantine doctor was inspecting the ship, and after I had watched him examine the emigrants, and had gotten my feelings wrought up over the poor miserable little children swarming below, I found a nice quiet nook on the shelter deck where I snuggled down and amused myself watching the native boys swim. The water on their bronze bodies made them shine in the sunlight, and they played about like a shoal of young porpoises. I must have stayed there an hour, for when I came down there was considerable stir on board. A passenger was missing and we were ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... below: Hear, ye taskers of the dead. 2. You that boiling cauldrons blow, You that scum the molten lead. 3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs; 1. You that drive the trembling hosts Of poor, poor ghosts, With your sharpened prongs; 2. You that thrust them off the brim; 3. You that plunge them when they swim: 1. Till they drown; Till they go On a row, Down, down, down: Ten thousand, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... suddenly between steep sides we halted in black shadow. A gleam of pale sand, a whisper of deep flowing waters, and a farther glimmer of more sands beyond them challenged our advance. We had come to a "grapevine ferry." The scow was on the other side, the water too shoal for the horses to swim, and the bottom, most likely, quicksand. Out of the blackness of the opposite shore came a soft, high-pitched, quavering, long-drawn, smothered moan of woe, the call of that snivelling little sinner the screech-owl. Ferry murmured to me to answer it and I sent the same faint horror-stricken ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... about ten minutes," said Mona, laughing at his impatience. "Do you want to go now, alone, or will you wait until later? Some men are coming soon who would probably join you for a swim. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... cavalry in force early next morning, 1000 infantry marching on Muannis. The Hadrah force was driven back across the Auja and the two companies of infantry covering the crossing suffered heavily, having no support from artillery, which had been sent into bivouac. Some of the men had to swim the river. A bridge of boats had been built at Jerisheh mill during the night, and by this means men crossed until Muannis was occupied by the enemy later in the morning. The cavalry crossed the ford at the mouth of the ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... explained. The man she was to have married has married another woman. For a long time he mourned Nancy. He has always held the theory that she was drowned while bathing, and the rest of Nancy's world agrees with him. She had left the house one morning for her usual swim. The fog was coming in, and the last person to see her was a fisherman returning from his nets. He had stopped and watched her flitting wraith-like through the mist. He reported later that Nancy wore a gray bathing suit and cap and carried ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... the problems they will meet in life, and more emphasis is laid on character building than on the dead languages. The children of both sexes are taught useful trades. All school children are taught to swim. The idle are employed in the construction of roads, canals and irrigation works. The problems of distribution are so arranged that the worker receives a more equitable reward ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... see," he continued, "that education of the masses was to be our only preserver, that we should have to sink or swim by that. I began to see, dimly, that this was true for other movements going on to-day. Now comes Hodder with what I sincerely believe is the key. He compels men like me to recognize that our movements are not merely ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... about Mabel's friend Carlo. He is a large shaggy dog, owned by a gentleman who lives near. Although quite a young dog, he knows a great deal. He is very fond of water, and is wild with delight at the prospect of a swim. ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... drink of the wine and deep In its stainless waves my senses steep; All night my peaceful soul lies drowned In hollows of the cup profound; Again each morn I clamber up The emerald crater of the cup, On massive knobs of jasper stand And view the azure ring expand: I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swim In the wine that o'erruns the jewelled rim, Edges of chrysolite emerge, Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge; My thrilled, uncovered front I lave, My eager senses kiss the wave, And drain, with its viewless draught, the lore That warmeth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... scattered on the matting, where they quickly collected themselves again under some sketches and a folio on the floor. Then I took up another paper, and in vexation shook ants and cocoons into a bowl of painting water which was on the floor, and the poor little devils who were able to swim, after their first surprise, began pulling the cocoons together in the centre of the bowl and piled one on the top of the other in a heap till the lowest became submerged. So I said, "here is honest endeavour, and help those who help themselves"—and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... He taught the boy to read, and instructed him also in the Roman law and in bodily exercises; not confining himself to teaching him to hurl the javelin, to fight in complete armour, and to ride, but also to use his fists in boxing, to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and to swim through swiftly-flowing and eddying rivers. He tells us that he himself wrote books on history with his own hands in large letters, that the boy might start in life with a useful knowledge of what his forefathers had done, and he was as careful not to use ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... leave their children to sink or swim in this sea of race prejudice. They neither shield nor explain, but thrust them forth grimly into school or street and let them learn as they may from brutal fact. Out of this may come strength, poise, self-dependence, and out of it, too, may come bewilderment, cringing deception, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... yes; that I can easily believe. But he simply cannot do it. His head would swim round, long, long before he got half-way. He would have to crawl down again ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... informed me. According to the Dayaks, it will wrest the spear from its attacker and use it on him. They also maintain, as stated elsewhere, that orang-utans, contrary to the generally accepted belief, are able to swim. Mr. B. Brouers, of Bandjermasin, has seen monkeys swim; the red, the gray, and the black are all ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... One thing alone: warn Umslopogaas. Yet how? For him who could swim a rushing river, there was, indeed, a swifter way to the place of the People of the Axe—a way that was to the path of the impi as is the bow-string to the strung bow. And yet they had travelled well-nigh half ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... the shores of the vast lakes of Central Africa, and the English people living in those parts do not seem to mind them much. One lady wrote home a few weeks ago: 'We went for a swim in Lake Nyasa yesterday. The water was beautifully blue and warm. We took three of our native school-girls to ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... that if you placed a pig in the middle of a lake it always cut its throat when it tried to swim out. But the man hadn't got a lake, he had only got an ornamental fountain, and the pig had already scratched that over with its back. The pig seemed very uneasy about its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... seemed a little flurried by the question. "My dear," she said, and hesitated,—"my dear, have you—do your parents allow you to go on the water? Can you swim?" ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... she was bidden, and bent down to look at what seemed a golden arrowhead darting through the water. It was a water snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer; she must see it too, though it was bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware of her approach, but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... literature, where all profane literature begins—with Homer himself. It was thus, not with grammars in vacuo, that the great scholars of the Renaissance began. It was thus that Ascham and Rabelais began, by jumping into Greek and splashing about till they learned to swim. First, of course, a person must learn the Greek characters. Then his or her tutor may make him read a dozen lines of Homer, marking the cadence, the surge and thunder of the hexameters—a music which, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... but not in a boat," said Bud. "I don't see how they could do it if they didn't swim. There isn't the sign ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... trying combination. His tie and socks were en suite and his gouty feet were martyrized to this scheme of camouflage by being pressed into a pair of tight brown and white shoes. Having been deprived of his swim for fear that his youthfulness might come off in the water and with the rather cruel badinage of his old friend Hosack still rankling in his soul, the poor little old gentleman was not in the best of tempers. Also he had spent most of the morning exercising Pinkie-Winkie ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... neither man nor horse. Both ventured; but the noble steed, That saved from robbers by his speed, From that deep water could not save; Both went to drink the Stygian wave; Both went to cross, (but not to swim,) Where reigns a monarch stern and grim, Far other streams ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... know—and I can believe it—that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim. ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... into the smoke, as a green ham is thrust into a chimney. The warm vapour struck against my face like fog, or rather steam, but without causing me to choke or my eyes to smart. I drew it down my throat with a deep inhalation—once, twice, thrice, then as my brain began to swim, threw myself back as I had been instructed to do. A deep and happy drowsiness stole over me, and the last thing I remember was hearing the clock strike the first two strokes of the hour of ten. The third ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... water, gave way under him, brother, and he was drowned; for, like most of our people, he could not swim, or only a little. The body, after it had been in the water a long time, came up of itself, and was found floating. Well, brother, when the people of the neighbourhood found that I was the wife of the drowned man, they were very kind to me, and made a subscription ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... heard what you were talking about I thought it would be no harm to listen. It would save your telling me afterward. I don't feel one bit worse than I did. Rats leave sinking ships, don't they? I always thought it stupid of them, because they might have to swim miles with waves mountains high. I shan't desert the ship! You've both been angels to me, but now I know that Larry isn't at Kidd's Pines just oversleeping himself. I want to go there at once to wait for ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... our planet Earth. It is our capital equipment. It is the success with which we apply our know-how to the earth, using our capital equipment and our skills, producing the goods and services upon which our physical existence depends. We rise or fall, sink or swim in terms of our own capacities, our own abilities to adapt ourselves to historical circumstances which will determine the conditions of life on the earth. Indeed, our decisions and consequent actions may determine our own extinction ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... the shoulder and torn from the davit to which he held. Confusedly he heard Tim yelling: "Swim off as far as ye can, lad!" and the next instant he was plunging downward, striking the ship's side and sliding, bounding off, turning, striking again and sliding, till he splashed into ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... broadening along the horizon. As he passed the stile with his head bent, and his eyes on the ground, something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge, and in the strange twilight, now tinged with a flush from the west, a figure seemed to swim past him and disappear. For a moment he wondered who it could be, the light was so flickering and unsteady, so unlike the real atmosphere of the day, when he recollected it was only Annie Morgan, old Morgan's daughter at the White House. She was three years older than he, and it annoyed him to find ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... really admiring her spirit and resolution, "they shall finish their carouse without seeing you. The wine has flowed to-night in rivers, but they shall swim ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... buttress itself, and cried loudly for assistance. They asked anxiously after each other, but their anxiety appeared to subside in an hour or two, when they found there was nobody missing but Richard Martin. Robert told the police it was all right, Dick could swim like a cork. However, next morning he came with a sorrowful face to say his brother had not reappeared, and begged them to drag the river. This was done, and a body found, which the survivors and Mrs. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... that," he said, "and here it is: Men and things are so made that they have different likes. A rabbit likes a vegetarian diet. A lynx likes meat. Ducks swim; chickens are scairt of water. One man collects postage stamps, another man collects butterflies. This man goes in for paintings, that man goes in for yachts, and some other fellow for hunting big game. One man thinks ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... divided into about sixty pairs of muscle-segments (myotomes) by means of comma-shaped dissepiments, the myocommas, which stretch between the skin and the central skeletal axis of the body. These myotomes enable it to swim rapidly with characteristic serpentine undulations of the body, the movements being effected by the alternate contraction and relaxation of the longitudinal muscles on both sides. Apparently correlated with this peculiar locomotion ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... invade Greece, only to meet disaster at Thermopylae, and here Alexander of Macedonia crossed over to begin his march of conquest which was to extend his power as far as India. And about this narrow strait is centered the ancient Greek myth about Hero and Leander, which inspired Byron to swim ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... our cry, Though all around looked dim,— No cowards we who fear the storm, 'Twas either "sink or swim." ...
— Silver Links • Various
... if I hadn't hauled it there, where I knew you could lay your hand right on it. I rather thought it would be just like you to arrive by the light of the moon and try to swim over." ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... they ran upstairs eagerly to get ready. They all had black suits, and all but Grace wore snug-fitting rubber caps, designed more for use than looks. Grace wore a rakish little Scottish cap affair that was immensely becoming but not at all comfortable to swim in. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... of his shipmates sounded in his ears, and he felt himself borne onward into smoother water. He clung tightly to the shattered plank, and thought that he saw trees rising before him. It was not fancy. The dawn had broken, and he was drifting along the shore. He could swim well, and felt sure that he could reach it. A few vigorous strokes, and his feet touched the firm sand. He waded up, and sank exhausted on the ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... stood the chances of escape by sea? Could he stow himself on board a grab or gallivat, and try to swim ashore when near some friendly port? He put the suggestion from him as absurd. Supposing he succeeded in stowing himself on an outgoing vessel, how could he know when he was near a friendly port without risking almost certain discovery? ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... she got into it, she recovered the natural right of which she had been so wickedly deprived—namely, gravity. Whether this was owing to the fact that water had been employed as the means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The way that this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered, was as follows. One summer evening, during the carnival of the country, she had been taken upon the lake, by the king and queen, in the royal barge. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... at. They discovered that the island was about three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and then threw themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon began to drag, and then died. The stillness, the solemnity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his pole again and again into the water. As the afternoon waned, and night drew near, the limit of his endurance was reached, and he knew that he could do no more. He had struggled for life, but to no purpose. Rest was all that he cared for now. His head began to swim, and he sank exhausted upon the raft. And there he lay, face downward, while the raft drifted at its own sweet will. Presently a breeze sprang up and cooled the air. But it did not affect Reynolds in the ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... bird of golden plumage, who has been swimming for the last four years in the auditor's pond at 5000 dollars a year. I am for rotation. I want to rotate him out, and to rotate myself in. There's a plenty of room for him to swim outside of that pond; therefore pop in your votes for me—I'll pop him out, and pop ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... I ask in turn,—Why do you play at cards? Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I 've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery; And what I write I cast upon the stream, To swim or sink—I have had ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after a moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You have to float, and do what every one expects you to do—your children and your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. All the world is in a ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... was extremely fine. They stood threatening us, and making a great noise, for a considerable time, but, finding that we took no notice of them, they, at length, became quiet. I then walked to some little distance from the party, and taking a branch in my hand, as a sign of peace, beckoned them to swim to our side of the river, which, after some time, two or three of them did. But they approached me with great caution, hesitating at every step. They soon, however, gained confidence, and were ultimately joined ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... myself up by the reeds, and keeping my mouth to the air. Piece by piece I freed myself of my clothing and let it drop. The cut in my shoulder was raw and made me faint. It was not dangerous, but deep enough to give me trouble, and would make my swimming slow, if, indeed, I could swim at all. I felt the water swash against me and knew the Indian was swimming back. There was only a thin wall of reeds between us, and in a moment he would come to where the channels joined and see my floating garments. I could not stop to secure them, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... up, about to run, but suddenly her head began to swim terribly and she fell to the ground. The icy path was wet and slippery, and she could not rise. She turned about, lifted herself on her elbows and knelt, then fell back on her side. The black kerchief had slipped down, baring upon the back of her head a bald spot ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... reached the bank they flung her in, and watched her sink, after which they left her. But Renelde rose to the surface, and though she could not swim she struggled to land. ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... forced back a second time by the angry waves. Then despair seized on them all; they trembled for the general safety, and for the illustrious personage on board. He alone showed no emotion; but calmly said to his doctor, who, in great alarm, was about to swim for the shore: "Do not leave the vessel while we have sufficient strength to guide her; only when the water covers us entirely, then throw yourself into the sea, and I will ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... River at Yonkers on Tuesday evening, the 6th instant, about seven o'clock. The deceased had gone into the water to bathe in company with several others, and was carried by the rising tide into deep water, where, as he could swim but little, he sunk to rise no more, before help could reach him. This premature and sudden death has overwhelmed his parents and friends in the deepest distress. He was twenty-five ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... asked Anne; "he hasn't any oars, and see what a long way it is across the water to Long Point. He couldn't swim that far." ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... a fair, he assembled the mangled masterpieces of Bach, Gluck, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, and to a gullible public sold the songs of these music-lords—songs that should swim on high like great swan-clouds cleaving skies blue and inaccessible. And his music was operatic, after all, grand opera saccharine with commonplace melodies gorgeously attired—nothing more. Wagner, declared the indignant critic, was not original. He popularized the noble ideas of the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... her with a gesture of his hand. "I may be one of the first to leave. But I'll not rob any one else of his place in a boat or his space on one of those rafts. I'll swim ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... variable climates you would do well to have an enclosed place, a kind of conservatory covered over with glass, arranged so as to be opened in warm weather, particularly when the sun shines, and closed during the greater part of the winter, at which time the water, in which the beasts swim, should be warmed by a genial heat diffused through the building. This plan would be much more profitable than your ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... departments of military science; so that many a soldier was there fitted for the position he afterwards acquired, of officer, colonel, or general. To fence with the mounted bayonet, to wrestle, to leap, to climb, to run for miles, to swim, to make and to destroy temporary bridges, to throw up earth-walls, to carry great weights, to do, in short, what Indians learn to do, and much that they do not learn,—these served as the relaxations of the unwearied Zouaves. To vary the monotony of such a life, there was enough adventure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... forestalls the appreciation of the public, volunteered liberal offers. "Be fully successful this time," said Norreys; "think not of models nor of style. Strike at once at the common human heart,—throw away the corks, swim out boldly. One word more,—never write a page till you have walked from your room to Temple Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, learn why great poets have mostly passed ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could swim that way!" murmured the Babe, trying to do the movement, as he imagined ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Madame de Valentinois still continued to swim in the pleasures of the Court under the shelter of her family, her husband redemanded her; and though he was laughed at at first, she was at last given up ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to go down to swim in the little bay-like semicircle of the harbour. The water was always warm and very salt. Here were tiny shoals of tiny fish. The water was clear and glassy. There were pinky sea-urchins with spikey spines which jabbed your feet. The sandy bed of the bay was ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... and he joined in the laughter; but his face instantly changed when he beheld Hugh sputtering in deep water, and heard some one say that he could not swim. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... lad. You had much better stay where you are. I don't say I mightn't anchor off Harwich, and that if you fell overboard you couldn't manage to swim ashore, but I tell you I would not give twopence for your life when you got back to London. It is to the interest of a score of men to keep Marner's mouth shut. They have shown their willingness to help him as far as they could, by ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... the Prophet's brain began to swim. Sparks seemed to float before his eyes, and amid these sparks, nebulous and fragmentary visions appeared, visions of his beloved grandmother companioned by scorpions and serpents, in close touch with camelopards and bovine monsters, and, in the last stress of terror and dismay, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... then, Princess," said I, "while I swim out to the nearest:" and wading out till the dark water reached to my breast, I chose out my boat, swam to her—it was but a few strokes—clambered on board, caught up a sweep, and worked her back to the beach. The Princess, holding our ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... nickel. That whale was my discovery, and the personal discomfort I endured in perfecting my experience was such that I resolved to rest my reputation upon his broad proportions only—to sink or swim with him—and I cannot at this late day permit another to crowd me out of ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... the canal. It was a nasty dark spot just underneath the bridge. I expect I was stunned for a moment, but it was only for a moment. I came to long before I choked, and when I remembered your grip upon my throat, I decided I was safer where I was. I could swim like a duck, you know, and though it was filthy water I took a long dive. When I came up again—gad, what disgusting water it was!—you were tearing off like a creature possessed. That's the true history of our ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but for my part I like it. Farmers and carpenters have their own laws, as the light serves and the seasons. Dinner is seven hours after breakfast began; always an hour long, as breakfast was. Then every human being sleeps for an hour. Big gong again, and we ride, walk, swim, telegraph, or what not, as the case may be. We have no horses yet, but the Shanghaes are coming up into very good dodos and ostriches, quite big enough for a trot for ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... understand the gentleman's definition of what is natural. But this I do know, that when God made the human soul and gave it certain capacities, He meant these capacities should be exercised. The wing of the bird indicates its right to fly; and the fin of the fish the right to swim. So in human beings, the existence of a power, presupposes the right to its use, subject to the law of benevolence. The gentleman says the voice of woman can not be heard. I am not aware that the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... courage; the Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the whole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's making; it is alone strong. How many pented bredds, pretending to be real, are fitter to swim than to be worshipped! This Knox cannot live but by facts: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He is an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic; it is the grand gift he has. We find in Knox ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... by his own passion, maddened by her lack of response—blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... all doubt—and nobody in it! The empty inside of the boat was perfectly visible to me. Even if I had felt inclined to do so, it would have been useless to jump into the water and swim to the boat. There were no oars in it, and therefore no means of taking it back to the mill. The one thing I could do was to run to old Toller and tell him that his ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... never be forgotten that when the Negro made the transition from the artificial and quasi-social status of the slave to a free democratic order, where individual worth and social efficiency determine one's place in society, he was like a child taught to swim with bladders ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... pursuers, but the loss of blood, occasioned by his wound, so weakened him that very soon he found his determined enemies were fast gaining on him. Like an infuriated wolf he hesitated whether to await the undivided attack of the Mackenzies or plunge into Loch Ness and attempt to swim across its waters. The shouts of his approaching enemies soon decided him, and he sprung into its deep and dark wave. Refreshed by its invigorating coolness he soon swam beyond the reach of their muskets; but in his weak and wounded state it is more ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... tinged with blood on the spot where the unfortunate man disappeared. These ravenous man-eaters scent blood from an enormous distance, and their prominent upper fin, which is generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a minute. A shark somewhat reminds me of the torpedo of the present day, and in my humble opinion ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... sounded, but the delicate lips quivered and parted; the eyes were cast down, and seemed to swim in a soft mist of brightness; the queenly head bent, and the roseate tint on the cheek deepened and spread, while something came over the face that caused the low glad exclamation, 'You sweetest, I do believe you can ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boy in the water brought the melancholy news that he could not swim! His boat drifted off as quickly as it was freed from his weight, and the girls were not quite near enough ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... the Big River. He knew just where to go, because he knew that Honker and his friends would rest and spend the night in the same place they had stopped at the year before. He knew that they would remain out in the middle of the Big River until the Black Shadows had made it quite safe for them to swim in. He reached the bank of the Big River just as sweet Mistress Moon was beginning to throw her silvery light over the Great World. There was a sandy bar in the Great River at this point, and Peter squatted on the bank just where this sandy ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... at six. She gave herself one more day; for what she could not have said. A lightness of head seemed to swim over her, and a loss of breath, when she tried to see more clearly the goal, or what might still capture and keep ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... men would need. It must, indeed, have been a stupid and ugly earth in those days, with no chance for swimming or sailing, rowing or fishing. But as yet there was no one to think anything about it, no one who would long to swim, sail, row, and fish. For this was long before men ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Canal. This was now, in effect, a deep nulla, and had silted in, so that its bottom was above the Adhaim bank. Its cliffs were tenanted with blue rock-pigeon, with hedgehogs and porcupines. Shoals of mackerel-like fish used to swim up the Tigris, with fins skimming the surface. Erskine showed me how to shoot these; as, in later days, when we were in the Palestine line at Arsuf, I have seen Diggins stunning fish with rifle-shots in the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... Ernest the crew; that cord is hardly long enough to permit the Chicken Little to float off in style, and we don't want to have to swim, to bring her back. Jump in, Ernest; you know how to handle an oar in ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... fish to swim in the waters, and birds to fly in the skies, and creatures to live in the forests, and beings to live on the land, to be found in this house when it is opened. And they will all be perfect, lovely, and good, to live with this creation ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... '"Swim to England or France," said Witta. "We are midway between the two. Unless ye choose to drown yourselves no hair of your head will be harmed here aboard. We think ye bring us luck, and I myself know the runes on that Sword ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... cry, he sprang from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came to him—that he might be able to get the shore, as he heard the cries of people on the bank. It was a hope that died at the moment of its birth, however, for he was struck by a falling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the prisoner, consulted his own safety. As for Hackabout, to whom that element was quite familiar, he mounted astride upon the keel of the boat, which was uppermost, and exhorted the bailiffs to swim for their lives; protesting before God, that they had no ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... his horse into a steady gallop, he took the road towards the left bank of the Obi, which was still forty versts distant. Would there be a ferry boat there, or should he, finding that the Tartars had destroyed all the boats, be obliged to swim across? ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... feather gallants, who came down that day To be spectators safe of the new play, Leave him alone when first they hear the gun, (Cornbury,[131:1] the fleetest) and to London run. Our seamen, whom no danger's shape could fright, Unpaid, refuse to mount their ships for spite, Or to their fellows swim on board the Dutch, Who show the tempting ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Elaine? Why does everything seem to swim and grow misty as his eye meets yours? And why does he look at you so, and deeply flush to the very rim of his curly hair? And as his glance grows steadier and more intent upon your eyes that keep stealing ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... of the grey cliffs, the Crab-boy unfolded a pair of fin-like wings from his elbows, and began to swim upwards—leaving the little Princess with her arms stretched out imploringly ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he. For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me, into this angry flood And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word, Accoutered as I was, I plunged in And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did. The torrent roared and we did buffet it With lusty sinews; throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... with all his criticisms and censures, never does any good, as none heed him but those who do not know him. His criticisms have no influence with the wise and judicious. Though he may swim against the stream of general opinion, he can never turn the stream of general opinion to run with him. Though he may talk contrary to others, he cannot persuade or constrain others to talk as he does. He may dissent in judgment from them, but he cannot bring them over to coincide with him; and ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... silent cottage became unendurable, and Saxon would throw a shawl about her head and walk out the Oakland Mole, or cross the railroad yards and the marshes to Sandy Beach where Billy had said he used to swim. Also, by going out the Transit slip, by climbing down the piles on a precarious ladder of iron spikes, and by crossing a boom of logs, she won access to the Rock Wall that extended far out into the bay and that served as a barrier between the mudflats and the tide-scoured ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... healed by instruction, as is the case with certain forms of acquired aphasia. A set of other accomplishments, such as swimming, riding, fencing, piano-playing, the acquirement of which is physiological, are learned like articulate speech, and nobody calls the person that can not swim an anomaly on that account. The inability to appropriate to one's self these and other co-ordinated muscular movements, this alone is abnormal. But we can not tell in advance in the case of any new-born child whether he will learn to speak or not, just as ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... was the very devil of a swim; but I defy you to sink in the Mediterranean. That sunset saved me. The sea was on fire. I hardly swam under water at all, but went all I knew for the sun itself; when it set I must have been a mile ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... the power that lay in the ring being again in the hands of the innocent Rhine-maidens, there is nothing to control Loge, who blazes up in sheets of fire, and Valhalla is consumed, while the Rhine maidens swim joyfully about in the bubbling, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... who had started up half awake and who could swim like a duck, was just about to plunge after Dud, when he caught the word that chilled even his young blood to ice—sharks! Jim knew what sharks meant. He had seen a big colored man in his own Southern waters do battle ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... and islands, and the soft, warm colors of the houses, all belonged to the south. Only the air, fresh without being cold, elastic, and exciting, not a delicious opiate, was wholly northern, and when I took a swim under the castle walls, I found that the water was northern too. It was the height of summer, and the showers of roses in the gardens, the strawberries and cherries in the market, show that the summer's best gifts ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... "Will a duck swim?" chuckled out Jack Horan, an oily veteran, who seldom opened his mouth but to put something into it, and spared his words as if they were of value; and to make them appear so, he spoke ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... through the air at once. He was the best shot with the bow of all men, and never missed his mark. He could leap more than his own height, with all his war-gear, and as far backwards as forwards. He could swim like a seal, and there was no game in which it was any good for anyone to strive with him; and so it has been said that no man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair skinned. His nose was straight, and a little turned up at ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... gentleman, and was reputed for no vices. Nor did she quarrel with her fate in that he himself was not addicted to any pleasures. She herself did not care much for pleasure. But she did care to be a great lady,—one who would be allowed to swim out of rooms before others, one who could snub others, one who could show real diamonds when others wore paste, one who might be sure to be asked everywhere even by the people who hated her. She rather liked being hated by women and did not want any man to be in love with her,—except ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... been an apt pupil, and had done justice to the pains which his father had bestowed upon him and to the training he had undergone. He could wield the arms of a man, could swim the coldest river, endure hardship and want of food, traverse long distances at the top of his speed, could throw a javelin with unerring aim, and send an arrow to the mark as truly as the best ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... where all the conditions of life are reversed, where walls fall and waters stand, towers flow down and ships squat, invalids walk about and their doctors take to bed, baths freeze and houses burn, the living perish with thirst and the dead swim about on the surface of the water, thieves watch and magistrates sleep, priests lend at usury and Syrians sing psalms, merchants shoulder arms and soldiers haggle like hucksters, greybeards play at ball and striplings at dice, and eunuchs study the art of war and the ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... heard that no sharks ever came into the long, narrow bay, were able to enjoy, in perfect peace of mind, the luxury of a bath overboard. It is a great pity that in the tropics, where bathing is such a delightful occupation, and where one might swim and paddle about for hours without fear of getting cold, it is often impossible even to enter the water for fear of the sharks. The natives are such expert swimmers that they do not seem to think much of this danger. As the shark turns on his back to take ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the ice was floating thick upon it. If we swam the Potomac, we usually took off our clothes. I remember one such occasion when the French Ambassador, Jusserand, who was a member of the Tennis Cabinet, was along, and, just as we were about to get in to swim, somebody said, "Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Ambassador, you haven't taken off your gloves," to which he promptly responded, "I think I will leave them on; we ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... have ventured Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders This many summers in ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... 3 the Resolution approached another island, and anchored about a mile from the shore, when several natives attempted to swim off to her, but a boat being lowered they returned. The next morning the captain went off to the shore in search of wood and water, with presents which he distributed among some people who appeared on the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... where the people have not been put together by the only bond of matrimony which the church can allow? But these are painful subjects, and I feel myself wading in deeper water than will be good for one who can't swim without corks, though he be levior cortice; and lighter than cork, too, will be the obligation on the man's side, who has taken trusting woman to one of these registry houses, leaped over a broomstick and called it a marriage. It will soon come to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... visitor, heedless for the moment of this attenuation, had found the way to put it. "It's the old story. You can't go into the water till you swim, and you can't swim till you go into the water. I can't be spoken to till I'm seen, but I can't be ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James |
