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Swirl   /swərl/   Listen
Swirl

noun
1.
The shape of something rotating rapidly.  Synonyms: convolution, vortex, whirl.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Swirl" Quotes from Famous Books



... fishes as they come. The red rock cod leaves his stony hollows and swims over the sandy places, looking for soft crabs, or for his favourite food, the luscious crass. Last of all comes the beautiful sea-trout, skirmishing forward with short rushes, and sometimes making a swirl near the surface of the water. The fishermen wait until they think the trout have had time to reach the inner rocks, and then softly paddle the coble away from the shore. The net is dexterously shot, and a good man ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... they kept together, but as the swirl of the battle tore them apart, Tom and Billy were lost sight of by Bart and Frank, who were laying about them right and left among ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... them, foretold the future, an exercise which brought them little joy. But as yet, however evil might be the omens, none came to molest their peaceful life, which ran quietly towards the great catastrophe as often deep waters swirl to the lip ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... Tower and the Custom House, encountered it to whip and ridge the flood against descending tug and long tail of stern-ajerk empty barges; with a steamer slowly noseing round off the wharf-cranes, preparing to swirl the screw; and half-bottom-upward boats dancing harpooner beside their whale; along an avenue, not fabulously golden, of the deputy masts of all nations, a wintry woodland, every rag aloft curling to volume; and here the spouts and the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... room in swarms, stately and gorgeous, dazzling with diamonds; flowers on their heads and breasts, in their hair, scattered over their dresses or lying in garlands at their feet. Light quiverings of the body, voluptuous movements, made the laces and gauzes and silks swirl about their graceful figures. Sparkling glances here and there eclipsed the lights and the blaze of the diamonds, and fanned the flame of hearts already burning too brightly. I detected also significant nods of the ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac

... Scoville moaning and sighing in the extremity of physical pain. Starting up, she saw it was broad day. She passed her hand confusedly over her brow and tried to recall what had occurred, to understand the sounds which had suggested her dream. Then in a flash, the strange swirl of events in which she was involved presented itself and she knew she had wakened to other experiences beyond even her imagination. The groans of wounded men brought pitiful tears to her eyes and steadied ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... for a glimpse at the great dam, extending for over a mile in length and built of masonry eighty-two feet thick at the bottom. This banks up the water, we have already seen, among the hills into a prodigious lake when the great swirl of the river comes down at flood-time, and thus much of it, which would have rushed away and been lost, is stored and let out gradually ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... distant from the Hall. To reach it they had to follow the course of the Swirl, which ran ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... The swirl of the tide caught them as they cleared Breniere Point, and Gard crawled forward to take an oar. Nance did the same, and so set Bernel free to scull and steer, the arrangement which dire experience has taught the Sark men as best adapted to their ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... lay, at the time, far out of my reach. In the spirit of my Father were then running, with furious velocity, two hostile streams of influence. I was standing, just now, thinking of these things, where the Cascine ends in the wooded point which is carved out sharply by the lion- coloured swirl of the Arno on the one side and by the pure flow of the Mugnone on the other. The rivers meet, and run parallel, but there comes a moment when the one or the other must conquer, and it is the yellow vehemence that drowns the ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... still more moved by the look of mingled inquiry and curiosity with which his eyes now began to wander over the walls and cupboards, she hurried to the window overlooking her nearest neighbour, and, lifting the shade, peered out. A swirl of snowflakes alone confronted her. She could neither see her neighbours, nor could she be seen by them. A shout from her to them would not be heard. She was as completely isolated as if the house stood in the centre of a ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... on the wind, holding to the tips of the Hoheria and their white gowns flutter and swirl, and their ringlets float and sway, and sometimes in the joy of the dance a Lovely Lady lets go of her branch and ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke

... matches—a host of little things that a boy who had never been lost might imagine he would need in an emergency. While thinking and planning I sat on the edge of the great hole where the spring was. Suddenly I saw a swirl in the water, and then a splendid spotted fish. It broke water twice. It was ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... northern blast; Above its roof the wild clouds leap And shriek as they hurtle past. The snow-waves hiss along the plain, Like spectral wolves they stretch and strain And race and ramp—with hissing beat, Like stealthy tread of myriad feet, I hear them pass; upon the roof The icy showers swirl and rattle; At times the moon, from storms aloof, Shines white and wan within the room— Then swift clouds drive across the light And all the plain is lost to sight, The cabin rocks, and on my palm The sifted ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... looked down, as he drove safely off the bridge, and shook his head at the swirl of water that rushed and eddied, dark and muddy, close up under the rotten planking; then he cracked his whip, and the horses ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... the tall forest trees; the clouds grew darker and heavier, and the damp air was growing rawer and colder every moment. The sunshine of yesterday was forgotten in the gloom of to-day. The fresh green leaves, torn by the rising storm from the tall, waving branches, fell in a swirl at the feet of the tall, dark man, who, with folded arms, leaned against an old tree, utterly oblivious to the tempest which was gathering ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... sensation and a fearful vertigo. The snapping animals faded. Ahead of them was the forest of vines, and they saw the safe hurled into it, crashing, plunging into the tangled mass. The whole view crumpled and moved upwards like a swirl of leaves in a wind, and then ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... That wouldn't be so unlikely, considering the errand he come on! But I'm not sure—I had just that moment's look at him through a swirl of smoke." ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... again; for almost with the first call of the birds sounded the hum and murmur of voices, and the brown people of Lela stepped out from their houses of thatch, and greeted each other as they hurried seaward for their morning bathe—the men among the swirl and wash of the breaking surf, and the women and children along the sandy beach in front of ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... the surging tide of driven waters. It reeled before the flaming weapons like rollers on a breakwater. There came the swirl and eddy. Then, in desperate defeat, it dropped back to gather fresh impetus ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... collapsed and was disintegrating. All of the children were drowned save the oldest boy, who caught a tree and was taken out almost unhurt near Blairsville. Miss Caddick clung to her fraction of the building, which was pushed into the water out of the swirl, and in an hour she was taken out safe. She said her agony in having to cut away from the children was greater than her fear after she got ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... have come for you," suddenly broke in Grace; and stood before me all radiance, dropping somebody's arm. Excusing myself, I took her in charge and we moved gaily off. Waltzing with her was so easy that it made me feel my own motion graceful; the swirl of mingled feelings impelled me to recognize how superior she was in other things, and to proudly set her off against each lovely or dignified or sprightly figure there; and when the music closed abruptly, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking, sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltale clouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, and Claribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they were on ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... "My dear and only love" it sang, as it had sung before; but then it had been a girl's hope, and now it was a woman's certainty. At the first note, the past came back to me like yesterday. I saw the moorland gables in the rain, I heard the swirl of the tempest, I saw the elfin face in the hood which had cheered the traveller on his way. In that dim light I could not see the singer, but I needed no vision. The strangeness of the thing clutched at my heart, for here was the voice which had never been out of my ears singing ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... small fish in the swirl of this more desperate venture. He knew Brad Steelman by sight and by reputation. The man's coffee-brown, hatchet face, his restless, black eyes, the high, narrow shoulders, the slope of nose and chin, combined somehow to give him the look of a ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... mouth and sent a cheerful hail ringing in response. Simultaneously the last, least, indefinite blur that stood for the boat in the darkness, vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was alone with the storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a check—would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the less proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... and energetic, almost fidgety, and her maid, Fadette, was compelled to move quickly. Fresh from her bath, a smooth, ivory Venus, she worked quickly through silken lingerie, stockings and shoes, to her hair. Fadette had an idea to suggest for the hair. Would Madame let her try a new swirl she had seen? Madame would—yes. So there were movings of her mass of rich glinting tresses this way and that. Somehow it would not do. A braided effect was then tried, and instantly discarded; finally ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... a swirl of smoke, with an occasional tongue of flame shooting through it from a shattered window. At the same moment they encountered a brass-helmeted fellow springing boldly up through the same ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... cut with the weight of wind— you shudder when it strikes, then lift, swelled with the blast— you sink as the tide sinks, you shrill under hail, and sound thunder when thunder sounds. You are useless— when the tides swirl your boulders cut and wreck ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle

... the river runs swifter now; The eddies circle about my bow. Swirl, swirl! How the ripples curl In ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... enthusiasm came sweeping down on me like a flood. What work you are in the midst of! What a life! What a purpose! While I—I am lying here like an old slipper thrown up oil the sea-beach. Oh, the pity oft, the pity oft! It must be glorious to be in the rush and swirl of all this splendid effort, whatever comes of it! One's soul is thrilled, one's heart expands! As for me, the garden of my mind is withering, and I am consuming the seed I ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... premiums on Peruvian bonds on secondary markets reached historically low levels in late 2003, reflecting investor optimism and the government's fiscal restraint. Despite the strong macroeconomic performance, political intrigue and allegations of corruption continued to swirl in 2003, with the TOLEDO administration growing increasingly unpopular, and local and foreign concern rising that the political turmoil could place the country's hard-won fiscal and financial stability at risk. Moreover, as of late 2003, unemployment had yet to respond to the strong growth ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... raise its two black paws to its head, take it off, and dash it at the second alligator, which seized it on the instant, a second head appearing just above the surface, closing upon the first with a snap, and then there was a tremendous swirl in the water, a tail appeared above the surface as the brute dived down, and as I swam on panting, the surface of the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... or the man's plight might have been more bearable, for the current of air would have carried the smoke and fire to one side. As it was, most of the smoke and flames went straight up, save now and then, when a draught created by the heat would swirl the black clouds down on the performer, hiding him from sight for a second or two. A breeze would have carried the sparks away instead of letting them ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... slope beyond the bridge. A grey stone seat had been placed beneath a shady laurel, and here he often sat without motion or gesture for many hours. Below him the tawny river swept round the town in a half circle; he could see the swirl of the yellow water, its eddies and miniature whirlpools, as the tide poured up from the south. And beyond the river the strong circuit of the walls, and within, the city glittered like a charming piece of mosaic. He freed himself from the obtuse modern view of towns as places where human beings ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... They stood at the mouth of a wide gully up which the car could not have traveled. The latter turned in a swirl of dust and pounded back toward the rear. When it was out of sight and the noise of it had died away, there did not seem to be any other ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... no effect on Jean's spirits, and to-day, happy in having David at home, she cared nothing for the depressing mist that shrouded the hills, or the dank drip from the trees on the carpet of sodden leaves, or the sullen swirl of Tweed coming down big with spate, foaming against ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... horse-bowed legs, walked over to the bunk-house for flash-mirror and gun, came back to his already caught-up and saddled horse, turned stirrup and set foot in it, caught hold of mane and horn, beat the quick swirl of his pony sidewise with the fling of leg over cantle and went streaming off for the Bald Butte in a cloud of dust. Sandy called to Buck Perches, oldest of his riders, whose exposed skin matched the leather ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... day. It will be remarked, also, that this portion of the Cite, crowded between the flank of Notre-Dame and the river, faces the north, and is always in the shadow of the cathedral. The east winds swirl through it unopposed, and the fogs of the Seine are caught and retained by the black walls of the old metropolitan church. No one will therefore be surprised at the sensations Godefroid felt when he found himself in this old dwelling, in presence of four ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... crested waves of recognisable form; the river its eddy and swirl and separate vortices; but the grass! The wind bloweth where it listeth and the grass bows as the wind blows— "thou canst not tell whither it goeth." It takes no pattern, it obeys no recognised law; it is like a beautiful creature of a thousand wayward moods, and its ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... and surely into a state of panic. At Broadway the swirl of the dinner-bound was already tightening. Lights began to pop out in the tall, narrow office and loft buildings of the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... dark river rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since—it was so cold—and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If so, recognition might ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis

... cat the man caught the woman in his arms, groped his way to the open, laid her prostrate body on the charred grass—sprang back into the swirl and choke of the deadly gas and smoke, and the next instant reappeared with the stunned and half-conscious Holcomb on his back, his hair singed, his clothes on fire; then he tripped ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... is rock-bound, or, more properly, clinker-bound; tumbled masses of blackish or greenish stuff like the dross of an iron-furnace, forming dark clefts and caves here and there, into which a ceaseless sea pours a fury of foam; overhanging them with a swirl of gray, haggard mist, amidst which sail screaming flights of unearthly birds heightening the dismal din. However calm the sea without, there is no rest for these swells and those rocks; they lash and are lashed, even when the outer ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... when you are going to have an important interview with a man you ought to look your very best," said the Story Girl, giving her skirt a lustrous swirl and enjoying ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... A sudden swirl of song in the bright sky— The little lark adoring his lord the sun; Across the corn the lazy ripples run; Under ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... fixed on Broadway. Only one other intermediate move did he make, which was to as near as he could get to the Ashland Park Tract, where every purchaser of land was legally pledged to put up no home that should cost less than four thousand dollars. After that came Broadway. A strange swirl had come in the tide of the crowd. The drift was to Washington Street, where real estate promptly soared while on Broadway it was as if the bottom had fallen out. One big store after another, as the ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... A sudden swirl of the wind threw a dense cloud of hot white smoke about them. They stood still with the flannel of their shirt-sleeves pressed over eyes and nostrils, waiting for ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... Thornton as the boom swung over and the swirl from the Idler's bow told us the wind had come. As I changed my place I caught Miss Brogden's eye, and felt satisfied that Donaldson ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... far and wide, and it is with no little difficulty that enough can be rescued to serve in the rebuilding of even the smallest of craft. The thought, therefore, that Gwen's intellectual flotsam was beginning at length to swirl about a definite object in a way to facilitate the rescue of her faculties was to me a decidedly reassuring one, and I noted with pleasure that the state of excited expectancy which she had tried in vain to conceal ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... did not move, but held the three fingers out for a full minute. Finally he dropped them and bent to pick up the case instruments. Again the little swirl in the air, and the instruments vanished. In their place lay three of the blue gems. My mouth twitched in the first amusement I had felt since we entered this uncanny place. Evidently bargaining with the Silent Ones was not a great deal ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... reached it. It was only on arrival in its lee that he discovered the frostbite. He must have waited there some time, then groped his way to the western end thinking he was near the Ramp. Then wandering away in a swirl of drift to clear some irregularities at the ice foot, he completely lost the island when he could only have been a few yards ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... had reference. Instead, he pounced upon a big yellow-throated beast weighing a pound and a half, and known colloquially as a "sockdolliger" or a "joogger-room." There followed a scuffling rush, a grunt, a startled yowl, and a swirl of water; then Omar Ben came up coughing, minus his frog, but plus an ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple

... nothing. We are still. There are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere, the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... submarine was preparing to execute some maneuver. Gathering speed the craft plunged ahead quickly leaving the schooner alone. Scarcely had the bow of the sailing vessel been passed ere the submarine was so far beneath the water as to show only the periscope. In a moment there was but a swirl to indicate where that had been. Presently it, too, disappeared. ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... I saw in front of me a blackness blocking the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that this blackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were not black, but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... the day, when all the canoes were ranged side by side, their gracefully curved bows came in line; dip, swirl, thud; dip, swirl, thud, sounded all the paddles together. The time was faultless. Then it was that the picturesque brigade appeared in wild perfection. Nearing a portage, spontaneously a race ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... swim. One by one we followed him, armed and clad as we were, into the angry surf. 'Twas a perilous voyage, and had not the tide been full and high above the rocks, we should not have come out of it, some of us, sound in limb or wind. Once or twice as I was flung upwards with a swirl almost upon the jagged cliff, I thought my last hour was come, and wondered whose eye would be dim at the news of my end. Then, when, with a like swirl I was heaved back into the safety of deep water, I thought what ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... in council, gazing at the powerful sweep of the level river, and then at the distant sand bar where their charges must win the shore or be swept into the whirlpool below. Ah, that whirlpool! Many a frightened ewe and weakling lamb in years past had drifted helplessly into its swirl and been sucked down, to come up below the point a water-logged carcass. And for each stinking corpse that littered the lower bar the boss sheep owner subtracted five dollars from the sum of his hard-earned wealth. Already on the flats below them the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... laboured on, and the dreams began where they had broken off. For we dreamed in these times, fitful and lurid, coloured dreams; flashes of horrible crises in one's life; Interminable precipices; a river skiff engulfed in a swirl of green sea-water; agonies of repentance; shameful failure, defeat, memories—and then the steady pulsing of the engine, and thick, impermeable darkness choking up the windows again. How I ached ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... incessant whirl, Rolled onward ever on their ponderous way: Gigantic marvels, deafening in their play, And swift, industrious, never-ending swirl. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... trying to read a newspaper which a kindly guard had given him. But his eyes persisted in boring through the white paper and the black type to scenes that were not in any paper. He saw a turbulent river tumbling through a savage world, and in the swirl of the water lay a little island. And he saw a man there upon the island, and a girl. The girl was teaching the man to speak the language of the cultured, and to view life as people of refinement ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... electric message sent through a mile of wire is not anything transmitted; matter is not transferred, but the particles are set to dancing in wavy motion from end to end. Particles are leaping within ordered limits and according to regular laws as really as the clouds swirl and the air trembles into song through the throat of a singer. When a wire is made sensitive by electricity the breath of a child can make it vibrate from end to end, ensouled with the child's laughter or fancies. Nay, more, and far more wonderful, the wire will be sensitive to the number ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... off from the windows looking south. As we opened the front door, we were confronted by a solid wall of snow reaching to the eaves of the house. There was no drift over the back door, looking north, but, as I opened it, I was blown almost from my feet by the swirl of the snow, which literally filled the air, so that it was impossible to see any of the surrounding ranch-buildings or even the fence, less than fifty feet distant. It was like a tornado of pure white dust or very fine sand, icy cold, and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... now recall the feeling of wondering how much longer it would be, ere all was over and I struck. Time seemed to stand still, and all the worlds seemed poised on their poles, as I fell, soul-becalmed, through the eddying whirl and swirl ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... honest, sonsie, baws'nt face Aye gat him friends in ilka place; His breast was white, his touzie back Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black; His gawsie tail, wi' upward curl, Hung owre his hurdie's wi' a swirl. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... and even fight: now and then one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy in its claws; but these interruptions of the pattern are only momentary. For the rest of the time they swirl and circle and never cease to watch. Bombay also has its predatory crows, who are so bold that it is unsafe to leave any bright article on the veranda table. Spectacles, for example, set up a longing in their hearts which they make no effort to control. But these birds are everywhere. ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... looked, the pink machine finished its last circuit and plunged through the paddock entrance, to come to a halt before its own tent in the "white city" of training camps. Simultaneously the girl in the upper rows of seats arose, catching up her swirl of pale silk and lace garments and hurrying precipitately down the stairway aisle. So great was her haste that, coming suddenly to the last step, one small, high-heeled suede shoe slipped from the iron edge and flung her violently ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... tumbles, plashing into the water. A new and fearful lift of the sea shatters the wreck, the fore part of the ship still holding fast to the sands; but all abaft the mainmast lifts, surges, reels, topples over; with the wreck, and in the angry swirl and torment of waters, Reuben ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... until an hour had gone that the flakes began to swirl in fitful flurries. By then the travellers were making better time, and Jim was convinced the blotted sun would soon again assert its mastery over clouds so abruptly accumulated in the sky. The wind, however, had veered about. It came directly in their ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... mankind, each leader forming a goal for the emulation of all below. And this condition is the legitimate outcome of war, which, terrible as it always has been, was the only agency that could rapidly break up the stagnancy of early communism and send man upward in a swirl toward the ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer. A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness Was in her eyes, so indescribable You might as well the color of the air Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress A stain upon the river, whose first swell Would swirl it to the deep. A calm, sweet soul, Where Love's celestial saints and ministers Did hold the earthly under such control Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod. Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers! One hour of sinlessness, that never more Can visit me ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... soldier outrider astride one of the leaders, and from time to time columns of reserves, older men for the most part, bound for guard duty, probably, shuffling along in loose order. Round and through these wagon-trains, in a swirl of dust, rumbled and swayed big motor-trucks, and once or twice, scattering everything with a lilting "Ta-te... Ta-da" the gray motor, the flash of scarlet, pale blue, and gold, and the bronzed, begoggled, imperial visage of ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... that she had but just fallen asleep when she was rudely awakened by the jar and grind of the Rosemary's wheels on snow-covered rails. Drawing the curtain, she found that a new day was come, gray and misty white in the gusty swirl ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... nearly, John lost his head. Maryllia had used the strongest weapon in all woman's armoury,—humility,—and he went down before it, completely overwhelmed and conquered. A swirl of emotion swept over him,—his brain grew dizzy, and for a moment he saw nothing in earth or heaven but the sweet upturned face, the soft caressing eyes, the graceful yielding form clad in its diaphanous draperies ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... and even the noise but we could see the constant flicker of the tongues of fire along the French front. Then a driving flurry of snow would hide everything except the dark red flashes in the white swirl. ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... been seen beneath the tree since the departure of the first stealthy visitor, and the hope was quite strong within the lad that in the hurry and swirl of the fight the red-skins had failed to note him in his hiding-place. If such were really the case, it would seem that there was a chance of his passing through the lines ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... feast, Sumptuous, of light, firing them as with wine; Of the old Moon's fitful solicitude And those mild messages the Stars Descend in silver silences and dews; Or what the buxom West, Wanton with wading in the swirl of the wheat, Said, and their leafage laughed; And how the wet-winged Angel of the Rain Came whispering . . . whispering; and the gifts of the Year— The sting of the stirring sap Under the wizardry of the young-eyed Spring, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley

... upward. Two sharp winged points were skimming through the air. He felt a thrill—the thrill of the unknown. He knew it must be one of the craft, foreign as yet to the hill country. In the distance he saw it swirl, loop and maneuver, spiral gracefully downward, skim the earth lightly, rise again and then descend from sight hidden by one ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... delved dewy soil arise; No storm-blue pall in state hangs hill or lea; No nightly seas swirl in grey agonies; Nor old Earth's sweet decays ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman

... storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth, — yea, thou with a storm for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright Than the eye of a man ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... of shells or birds, or a season ticket to some picture gallery. If you do nothing but play on one string of the bass viol, you will wear it out and get no healthy tune. Better take the bow and sweep it clear across in one grand swirl, bringing all four strings and all ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... fretwork all was blackness. Out of the dark came the breathing of the horses, fastened near the tobacco-cask, the croaking of frogs in a marshy place, and all the stealthy, indefinable stir of the forest at night. At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred and raised his head, then sank to dreams again. The tobacco-roller, weary from the long day's travel, wrapped himself ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... way you face it. If you were a son instead of a daughter, I should see I might have confidence in you. I could not confide to Wall Street what I will tell you—which is that in the midst of the drive and swirl and tumult of my life here, I like what you see in the thing, I like your idea of the lord of the land, who should love the land and the souls born on it, and be the friend and strength of them and give the best and get it back in fair exchange. There's a steadiness in the thought of such a life ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... such ecstasy of jubilation, such rapturous rapidity of flight, that we who strain our eyes from below, feel we are in the darkness of the grave which Mary left. A kind of controlling rhythm for the composition is gained by placing Gabriel, Madonna, and Christ at three points in the swirl of angels. Nevertheless, composition—the presiding all-controlling intellect—is just what makes itself felt by absence; and Correggio's special qualities of light and colour have now so far vanished from the cupola of the Duomo that the, constructive poverty is not disguised. Here if anywhere ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... she was I clung about her waist, nor ceas'd to pass Fleet as an arrow through unfathom'd brine, 630 Until there shone a fabric crystalline, Ribb'd and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl. Headlong I darted; at one eager swirl Gain'd its bright portal, enter'd, and behold! 'Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold; And all around—But wherefore this to thee Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?— I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled. My fever'd parchings up, my scathing dread ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... In the swirl and tumult of the hotel lobby I ran across Mr. Daly's comedian, the late James Lewis, of beloved memory, and I casually mentioned that I was going to call upon Mr. Daly in the evening at 8. He looked surprised, and said he reckoned not. For answer I handed him Mr. Daly's note. Its ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Swirl of the drift-cloud's shimm'ring sleet; Race of the spray-smoke's hurtling sheet Swelling trail of the streaming, sunbright foam, Wafting sinuous ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... April the British Columbian coast is a region of weeping skies, of intermittent frosts and fog, and bursts of sleety snow. The frosts, fogs, and snow squalls are the punctuation points, so to speak, of the eternal rain. Murky vapors eddy and swirl along the coast. The sun hides behind gray banks of cloud, the shining face of him a rare miracle bestowed upon the sight of men as a promise that bright days and blossoming flowers will come again. When they do come the coast is a pleasant country. The mountains reveal ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... periodicals, that the extravagant demands of female fashion are bringing distress into families, and making marriages impossible; and something of the same sort seems to have begun here. We are across the Atlantic, to be sure; but we feel the swirl and drift of the great whirlpool; only, fortunately, we are far enough off to be able to see whither things are tending, and to stop ourselves if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... crazy, fitful gleam at that—came from a rushing stream that took its source high up among the hills. This brook first seen off to the extreme left of the house, came dashing down the rocks until it reached a level. Then, swinging round with sudden swirl it engirdled the place, and after many a curious twist and turn got straight again and went onward far off among the neighboring fields and lost itself at last in the Oswegatchie. The interior of the house was just as wild and dreary as the exterior. The rooms, for the most part, were ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... was a tremendous detonation. The whole cloud mass collapsed like a pricked bubble, and a bottomless pit yawned underneath the ocean—and, next thing we knew, our raft was yanked from under our feet, plunging and bucking in a swirl of waters. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... of Devenham House. Electric lights sparkled from the ceiling, through the pillared way the ceaseless splashing of water from the fountains in the winter garden seemed like a soft undernote to the murmur of voices, the musical peals of laughter, the swirl of skirts, and the ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... has boundaries, to be sure, for we are finite, but we cannot measure them. Let it alone, now; leave it to itself. What follows? It is dowered simply with attraction. The vast mass begins to shrink, the outer portions are drawn inward. They rush and swirl in vast cyclones, thousands of miles in extent. The centre grows compact, heat is evolved by impact, as will be explained in Chapter II. Dull red light begins to look like coming dawn. Centuries go by; contraction goes on; light blazes in insufferable brightness; tornadoes, ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... chivalrous BURNABY lay slain, with a smile in the face of death, And for happy news from the hungry wastes men yearned with bated breath; When WILSON pushed his eager way past torrent-swirl and crag, Till they saw o'er GORDON's citadel wave ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various

... It grew in his ears. Over his head the black sky opened again, and a deluge of rain fell straight down. But above the sound of it the rush of the river drew nearer, and still nearer. He felt the first eddying swirl of it against the scow head, and powerful hands seemed to reach in out of the darkness. He knew that the nose of the current had caught him and was carrying him out on the breast of the stream. He shipped ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... was barely in time to see Lad swirl along the dock with express-train speed and spring ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... for the absence of speeches; it is a record of the continued intrigues which followed the Sicilian disaster. Upheavals in Asia Minor brought into the swirl of plots Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, anxious to recover control of Ionia hitherto saved by Athenian power. In 412 the Athenian subjects began to revolt, seventeen defections being recorded in all. At Samos a most important movement began; the democrats ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... a movement of the tail that caused the water to swirl and the dinghy to rock, turned upon his back and engulfed the head; then he slowly sank and vanished, just as if he had been dissolved. He had come off best in this their first ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... had not heard before—a sound so compelling, so nerve-shattering, that even he was arrested, entrapped as it were by a horror of crashing elements that made him wonder if all the fiends in hell were fighting for his soul. And, as he paused, the swirl of a great wave caught him in the darkness like the blow of a concrete thing, nearly flinging him backwards. He staggered, for the first time stricken with fear, and then in the howling uproar of that dreadful place there came to him like a searchlight wheeling inwards the thought of the girl. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... the kitchen. Van and Beth presently took breakfast together, while Elsa, with a borrowed needle and thread, was busied with some minor repairing of garments roughly used the day before. Other boarders and lodgers of the house had already eaten and gone, to resume their swirl in the maelstrom ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... buildings, would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important river-town could be stranded and left far inland, the happiness of the mischief-making giant was complete; and for many miles it would swirl and eddy and boil and ripple with exuberant glee over ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... Voltaire and Diderot, of Mirabeau and Danton, listen to this apologist of the faith you despised! Voltaire's face is wreathed with ineffable irony, Diderot contemplates the speaker as a new species for a psychological monograph, Mirabeau flings back his leonine head with a swirl of the black mane and a glare of the great eyes, and Danton roars a titanic laugh that shakes the very roof ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... came flying from the town, wringing their hands as if the horrors of the last judgment had surprised them in their sins. The guards of the Archbishop were scattered among them like chaff in the swirl of the wind: then his Grace came himself on Sir David Hamilton's fleet mare, with Sir David and divers of his household fast following. The wrath of heaven was behind them, and they rattled past my grandfather like the distempered phantoms that hurry through ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... the open air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mosquitoes; and so the evening wore away in alternate intervals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began to swirl the tide, and we rose to go,—not without having first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... factor in his existence—till some pain might make him aware it was there. His present forced awareness of the prosaic side of the notion "money" gave him somewhat of a sense of being caught amid a swirl of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... forged ahead, to the steady drum-beat of the engines, the broad swirl of water, churned into foam by the great propellers at the stern, marked their path as far back as the eye could reach. The weather was fitful, and the sky cleared somewhat toward sunset, but its light was cold, and threatening clouds hung close ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... above, where lay a score of other anxious boats, Kit and his companions went ahead on foot to investigate. They crept to the brink and gazed down at the swirl of water. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... to the two men. He knew the driving force which was sending him to the mountains was not only an impulse, but almost an inspirational thing born of necessity. Each step that he took, with his head and heart in a swirl of intoxicating madness, was an effort behind which he was putting a sheer weight of physical will. He wanted to go back. The urge was upon him to surrender utterly to the weakness of forgetting that Mary Standish was a wife. He had almost fallen a victim to his selfishness ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... Ian was in company with monseigneur and those who came to the villa; at times he sought or was sought by others that he knew in Rome, fared into carnival with them. Much more rarely he dipped into the swirl alone. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... no better result. He showed little interest: he was not a man capable of showing where nothing was, for he never meant to show anything; his expression was only the ripple of the unconscious pool to the sway and swirl of the fishes below. It seemed as if he had only a narrow entrance for the admission of music into his understanding—but a large outlet for the spring that rose within him, and was, therefore, a somewhat remarkable exception to the common run of mortals: in ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... over quickly to the stake on which the lantern hung. The wind was rushing through the tree-tops with increased fervor; the air was cool and wet with the signs of rain; a swirl of dust flew up into her face; the swish of leaves sounded like the splashing of water in the air. Holding her heart for minutes, she at last regained some of the lost composure. A hysterical laugh fell from her lips. "What a goose! It was an owl ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... a flowing tide occasionally (though not invariably) creates a gentle swirl in Brammo Bay, a swirl so placid as to be imperceptible in default of such indices as driftwood. Under such a condition Neptune makes playthings which possibly in some future age may puzzle men who happen ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... had cracked first; and as the smokes of both swirl up, the gambler is seen astretch upon the sward—the blood spurting from his breast, and spreading over ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... safety, and in floods of grateful tears, the rescuer bent over the side of the wharf once more, intent on saving the gallant ship from her fate; but at this moment came a strong swirl of tide, the log swung round once more and floated off, and the rescuer fell "all along" into the water. This was nothing unusual, and he came puffing and panting up the slippery logs, and sat down again, shaking himself ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... moment the two young men were lost to sight in a swirl of smoke that swept across the street. And while they are thus temporarily hidden may not this opportunity be taken of telling new readers something of ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... the ten yeomen of his escort. At the very edge of the platform sat the reporters, five of them—three locals and two all the way from London. But where was the all-important referee? There was no sign of him, unless he were in the centre of that angry swirl of ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of survivors waited in breathless anxiety while the canoe sped swiftly up the river, with a line of foam on either side of her, and a long forked swirl in the waters behind. They could see that she appeared to be very crowded, but they remembered that the wounded of the other boat were aboard her. On she shot and on, until as she came abreast of the fort she swung round, and the rowers raised their ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... open: all the moon's Chaste lustre in it; hues that only dwell With purity.... It takes me, like a spell, Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes, A barefoot boy I waded 'mid the rocks, Searching for shells deep in the creek's slow swirl, Unconscious of the pearls that 'round me lay: While, 'mid wild-roses,—all her tomboy locks Blond-blowing,—stood, unnoticed then, a girl, My sweetheart once, ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... surging curves, but dies away among the quick festal sounds, where the personal motive is still supreme, chasing its own ardent antics, and plunges headlong into the swirl of dance. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... investigating the matter of the larger cartridge his men had made so good practice with them and their rifles that the third junk was already in a sinking condition. Even as he looked she disappeared like her consorts to the bottom, in a swirl of broken water, dotted with ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... in sight, for the "Albanach," as they were termed in Gaelic, gave and got little mercy in Ireland. The saddles of the fallen were filled from the men in the wagons, and leaving the musketeers to hold off the unmounted men, Brian plunged into the swirl of ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... It may be a swirl of the wind acting on the dry sand of the desert—the first commencement of a regular whirlwind—a thing common on the table lands of New Mexico. But it has not the round pillar-like form of the molino, nor do they believe it to be ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... years old and much broken by exposure and disease; the prospect of spending the remainder of his days among his hospitable neighbors on the banks of the Cumberland yielded deep satisfaction. The home-loving Mrs. Jackson, too, earnestly desired that he should not again be drawn into the swirl of public life. "I do hope," she wrote plaintively to a niece soon after her return to the Hermitage, "they will leave Mr. Jackson alone. He is not a well man and never will be unless they allow him to rest. He has done his share for the country. How little time has he had ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... campaign at this time, so far as they can be determined from the official orders and from the manner in which the respective movements were carried out, were three-fold. The first of these movements was the order given to General von Kluck to swirl his forces to the southeast of Paris, swerving away from the capital in an attempt to cut the communications between it and the Fifth French Army under General d'Esperey. This plan evidently involved a feint attack upon the Sixth French Army ...
— 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

... Olimpia threw up her hands to clutch at this plank in the sea-swirl. Free! O God! ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... faintly floats Through the unmoving air and back to me. I am alone with the declining day And the declining forest where the notes Of all the happy minstrelsy, Birds and leaf-music and the rest, Sink separately in the hush of fall. The sun and clouds conflicting in the west Swirl into smoky light together and fade Under the unbroken shadow; Under the shadowed peace that is the night; Under the night's great quietude of shade. The sheep below me in the meadow Seem drifting on the haze, serene and white, Pale pastured ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... crawling out in the sun on that patch of sand, and—phew! what a whopper! a ten-pounder, if he's an ounce!" he cried, as, simultaneously with the flashing out of a shoal of little silvery fish from the black surface of the moat there was a rush, a swirl, a tremendous splash, and the green and gold of a large pike was seen as it threw itself out of the water in ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... burst into a sheaf of fire. Up past the lintel streamed the burning swirl. Mute and annihilated, his charred body dropped beside that ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... unexpectedly, I struck my big fish in the head of the lake. I was first advised of his approach by two or three trout jumping clear from the water to get out of his lordship's way. The water was not deep just there, and he swam so near the surface that his enormous back cut through. With a swirl he swept my fly under ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... came down, the creamy liquid in the dome above the cage began to swirl slowly, then to froth and boil and whip round and round, while thick, dropsical bubbles slid up from its heaving surface and burst, discharging a kind of grayish mist, under which the white substance sank, until there was nothing left in the dome but drab-colored vapor. On the completion of ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall

... clustered and combined to give me further support, to give me what I may call the note absolute. There it stands, accordingly, full in the tideway; driven in, with hard taps, like some strong stake for the noose of a cable, the swirl of the current roundabout it. What amplified the hint to more than the bulk of hints in general was the gift with it of the old Paris garden, for in that token were sealed up values infinitely precious. There was of course the seal to break and each ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... coal-house for some coal. Her husband passed her on the threshold. She could be heard breaking the bits of coal and placing them on the dustpan. The light from her candle fell faintly behind her. Then she went back, blown by a swirl of wind. But again she was at the door, hastily standing her iron shovel against the wall. Then she shut the back door with a bang. These noises seemed to scrape ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... not only upon her own pride, but upon the pride of her race; and it was a greater demand than her demand, just as the race was greater than she. So she put foot upon the log, and, with the eyes of the alien people upon her, walked down into the foam-white swirl. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... his care of them. Like a shepherd he herded his flock of golden specks so that not one should be lost. At last, of the pan of dirt nothing remained but his golden herd. He counted it, and then, after all his labor, sent it flying out of the pan with one final swirl of water. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... To go to bed now was hardly worth while. Jack took a towel from the willow bush upon which it was hanging, went down to the river, stripped, and from a rock ten feet above a deep pool dived straight as an arrow into the black water. The swirl of the current swept him into the shallower stream below. He waded ashore, beautiful in his supple slimness as an Apollo, climbed the rock a second time, and again knew the delightful shock of a dive into icy water ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... He and the other two took off their shoes and stockings; and went with squeals across the stubble, down a steep bank, to a pebbly point of sand, round which a sunny swirl of water chattered loudly, then went romping off into sparkling shallows. Edith's lifted skirt, as she stepped into the current, assured her against the wetting Eleanor had foreseen, and also showed her pretty legs—and Eleanor, on the bank, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... purple, or dull red, or a glistening apparition of black showed where the unintended victims of the explosion, the gay-hued open-sea fish of the warm waters, had succumbed to the force of the shock. Of the intended victim there was no sign save a few fragments of wood bobbing in a swirl ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... able to make his errand known, and appreciated. A group of riders swung in in a swirl of dust, dismounted, and, as if by magic, the yard was ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces and bare shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Uncle Nathan; "I felt of my eyes twice to make sure, and they were wide open." Presently the door opened; he was sensible of the draught upon his head, and a woman's form stepped heavily past him; he felt the "swirl" of her skirts as she went by. Then there was a loud noise in the room as if some one had fallen their whole length upon the floor. "It jarred the house," said he, "and woke everybody up. I asked old Mr. ——— if he heard that noise. 'Yes,' said he, 'it was thunder.' But it was not thunder, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... the pool a half submerged rock checked the current and caused a little ripple of the water. Several times Alfred had seen the dark shadow of a large fish followed by a swirl of the water, and the frantic leaping of little bright-sided minnows in all directions. As his hook, baited with a lively shiner, floated over the spot, a long, yellow object shot from out that shaded lair. There was a splash, not unlike that made by ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... is because they are for some other way of life which seems to them divinely right, and their first obligation is to incarnate that way of life. They cannot, therefore, stand apart in monastic seclusion and safely watch the swirl of forces which they silently disapprove. If in war-time they do not fight, they do something else. They accept and face the dangers incident to their way of life. They feel a compulsion to take up and in some ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle

... I saw a swirl in the brown water and perceived a huge crocodile. It rushed at Bes open-mouthed. Being a good swimmer he twisted his body in order to avoid it, but I heard the great teeth close with a snap on the short leathern garment which he wore about ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... of the stuff and the onward swirl of his verse we see that this man stood for truth and justice as against hypocrisy and oppression. Folly and freedom are better far than smugness and persecution. Byron stood for the rights of the individual, for the right of free speech and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... gone down, and he stood at his open window as he had done on the evening of his arrival, watching almost unconsciously for the first stars to shine out above the cathedral spire. The air was very quiet, disturbed by no sound but the swirl of the deep river against the stone piers of the bridge far down below the student's window. There was something melancholy in the ceaseless rush of the strong water, which reminded him of the sighing of the trees at home, on that last morning when he ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... time to see a lone man dancing excitedly on the rim and pointing into the water. Next, he saw the fur-clad body of a woman, face under, sinking in the midst of the driving mush-ice. A lane opening in the swirl of the current, it was a matter of seconds to drive the canoe to the spot, reach to the shoulder in the water, and draw the woman gingerly to the canoe's side. It was Freda. And all might yet have been well with him, had she not, later, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... and splash over the smooth surface of the face of the inland pond. Indeed it reflected like a glass at present, for no wind fretted it, neither did a drop of rain fall. Intense, watchful silence held that hour. The squash of men's feet in the mud, the soft swirl of the water, the cry of voices ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... throbbing beacon to the bars, A prisoned spirit vibrant in the stone That knew its empire of forgotten things. Then will the city know you for her own, And feel you meet to share her sufferings; While down a swirl of poignant memories, Herself shall find you in ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... not also climbed Porlock Hill, twelve miles northward. The surface of the road is loose, and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling down it like a miniature sandstorm. I have, indeed, seen even a car obliged to draw up to let the blinding red swirl go by; and from Lynton, on the opposite side of the valley, the whole headland has been blurred and obliterated by the dust, as if ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... his cap on one side, and threw a swagger into his walk, cleverly remindful of the swirl of tartan skirts, then turning upon ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Miggles caught her dripping oilskin hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that scattered a shower of raindrops over us; attempted to put back her hair; dropped two hairpins in the attempt; laughed and sat down beside Yuba Bill, with her hands crossed lightly ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... taken was on the sixth floor, and from the one narrow window she could look across the yellow swirl of Tiber towards Monte Mario. She had set up her household gods. The plaster bust of Dante, and her books, on the rickety wooden table by her bedside, and, such as it was, this ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... in the doorway talking to his reindeer, although they were far away in the mountains. He barred the wolf's way, and threatened the bear with spells; and then he opened his skin sack, so that the storm howled and piped, and there was a swirl of ashes into the hut. And when all grew quiet again, the air was thick with yellow humble-bees, which settled inside his furs, whilst he gabbled and mumbled and wagged his ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... harbour, jewelled and glittering with electric bulbs, moving in the distance without visible effort with the motion of swans, the throb of engines and the swirl of water lost in the distance. It was a symphony in light, each detached gleam on ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... minutes later, Hetty in the pickup disappeared behind a hot swirl of yellow dust. Barney ambled to the cool pump house beneath the towering windmill. An electric motor, powered either from the REA line or from direct current stored in a bank of wet cell batteries, bulked large in the small shed. To the left, a ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... moon would sing to me. And as I think, I seem to know How the music of the moon would go. It would be a mystic, murmuring strain Like the falling of far-away fairy rain. Just a soft and silvery song That would swing and swirl along; Not a word Could be heard But a lingering ding-a-dong. Just a melody low and sweet, Just a harmony faint and fleet, Just a croon Of a tune Is ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... inquisitive bright eyes still followed Barbara, drifting in the dance, like a great waterlily caught in the swirl of a mill pool; and the thought passed through that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... each episode, the textures sparkling with wit, information, and insight. Verne regards the sea from many angles: in the domain of marine biology, he gives us thumbnail sketches of fish, seashells, coral, sometimes in great catalogs that swirl past like musical cascades; in the realm of geology, he studies volcanoes literally inside and out; in the world of commerce, he celebrates the high-energy entrepreneurs who lay the Atlantic Cable or dig the Suez Canal. And Verne's marine engineering proves especially authoritative. His specifications ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... a bad one. The bronco was carried down into a swirl of deep, angry water. So swift was the undertow that Powder River was dragged from beneath its rider. Bob caught at the mane of the horse and clung desperately to it with one hand. A second or two, and this was torn ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... vainly sought for a bad cayuse and the swirl and swish of the flying noose, And the cowboy's yell as he roped a steer, but nothing of this fell on his ear. Not even a wide-brimmed hat he spied, but derbies flourished on every side, And the spurs and the "chaps" and the flannel shirts, the high-heeled boots and the guns and the ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... blue beyond the tumbled chaos of loose cloud so near the earth; the riot of the wind-swept trees fighting to keep a shred of their old green on their bareness, making new concessions to the blast, and beating their stripped limbs together in their despair; the endless swirl of leaves at liberty, free now at last to enjoy a short and merry life before becoming food for worms. She could see the face she had just parted from, but twenty years younger—the same bone-structure with its unscarred youth upon it, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan



Words linked to "Swirl" :   flow, course, rotate, go around, twiddle, whirl, revolve, feed, round shape, run



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