"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be turned loose, old Frank was dragged backward across the cement floor. In the door of a glass-enclosed office the big man, holding tight to ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... through the goodness of God, from this blinding cloud of rationalism, let us take a backward look at it and its chief product—Unitarianism—and let us see what lesson God would teach us through it. Unitarianism, as a church movement, started near the beginning of the last century. It enlisted ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... had found that coffee had thriven well in the pink soil which had evidently been formed from the rock in question, but the manurial value was so small that Dr. Voelcker thought that it might merely be of use in improving the physical condition of the soil. I however applied it to some backward coffee, and also applied some of the best top soil to a contiguous piece of backward coffee, and was much surprised to find that the pink soil, to which little direct manurial value was attached by Dr. Voelcker, showed results superior to the best top soil ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... well," I would say to thee; and again I check my voice and rein it backward, and again I stay beside thee; for I shrink from the terrible separation from thee as from the bitter night of Acheron; for the light of thee is like the day. Yet that, I think, is voiceless, but thou bringest me also that murmuring talk of thine, sweeter than the Sirens', whereon all my ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... highest number of marks, but to the one who, in their opinion, was most likely to benefit by the school course. It was a matter to be settled entirely at their discretion. I have carefully re-read your papers, and compared them with your form record, and I come to the conclusion that you are backward and ill-instructed in many subjects, but that you are not idle or stupid. I shall make arrangements for you to have special coaching in mathematics, Latin and chemistry until you can keep up with the rest of the Form. I find your ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... herself backward and forward in a manner truly maternal and singing her version of "Jesus ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... in the shadow of pine and wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side, for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... not yet made another holiday to visit it. Whether or no the market-women and the local policeman had beheld, I know not. I hope not, but now shall never know. . . . The engine-driver, leaning in converse with the station-master, and jerking a thumb backward, had certainly beheld. But I passed him with averted eyes, gave up my ticket, and struck straight across ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and effective spread of such movements was infinitely greater in the Middle Ages than in modern times. The same phenomenon presents itself to-day in backward and semi-barbaric communities. At first sight one is inclined to think that there has been no period in the world's history when it was so easy to stir up a population as the present, with our newspapers, our ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... of the sleeve will represent the anal tube if drawn into a pucker and turned slightly backward from the direction of the sleeve of which it is ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... were exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled the hospitals and the poor; credit was used up, the payments of the State were backward; the discount-bank (caisse d'escompte) was authorized to refuse to give coin. To divert the public mind from this painful situation, Brienne proposed to the king to yield to the requests of the members of Parliament, of the clergy, and of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... it again, and I fell back on the landing-place. By my exertions I should have saved myself but for a large stone which I struck against just under my crown and unfortunately in the very same place which had been contused at Melton (sic) when I fell backward after learning suddenly and most abruptly of Captain Wordsworth's fate in the Abergavenny, a most dear friend of mine. Since that time any great agitation has occasioned a feeling of, as it were, a shuttle moving from that part of the back of my head horizontally ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... and subjected to the process of rolling. "The rolls" are heavy cylinders of cast iron placed almost in contact, and revolving rapidly by steam-power. The bloom is caught between these rollers, and passed backward and forward until it is pressed into a flat bar, averaging from four to six inches in width, and about an inch and a half thick. These bars are then cut into short lengths, piled, heated again in a furnace, and re-rolled. After going through this process they form the bar iron of commerce. From ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... mightiest pass uncalendared, And when the Absolute In backward Time outgave the deedful word Whereby all life is stirred: "Let one be born and throned whose mould shall constitute The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute," No mortal knew or heard. But in due days the purposed Life outshone - Serene, sagacious, ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... spelled backward. His last years were spent near New Berlin, beside a lonely waterfall, where he had a flower garden, and kept bees. His grave was four miles south of New Berlin, until relatives came and removed ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... What, have you let the false enchanter scape? O ye mistook, ye should have snatcht his wand And bound him fast; without his rod revers't, And backward mutters of dissevering power, We cannot free the Lady that sits here In stony fetters fixt, and motionless; Yet stay, be not disturb'd, now I bethink me 820 Som other means I have which may he us'd Which once of Meliboeus ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... toward her. Jaws dripping red with blood, a broad white flat face with bulging brow, two tiny piercing dots flashing from amid the thick swollen eyelids, it was the face of O'Iwa glowering at her. "Kiya!" The scream resounded far and wide. Incontinently the old woman tumbled backward down the steep steps, to land ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... not reach him, for half-a-dozen shots rang out, and the true firing of the boy-regiment was again proved, the two Ghazis leaping high in the air, and falling backward on to the bayonets of the men below. There was another cheer at this, but it was dominated directly after by a renewal of the howl of execration which had ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... easy, that backward tramp through the jungle, especially as night had fallen. But the new Indian guide could see like a cat, and led the party along paths they never could have found by themselves. The use of their pocket electric lights was a great help, and possibly served to ward off the attacks of ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... her on the side of France, which she had refused to hearken to, till she had consulted with those, her good friends and confederates, and heard their opinion on that subject: but the Dutch, who apprehended nothing more than to see Britain at the head of a treaty, were backward and sullen, disliked all proposals by the Queen's intervention, and said it was a piece of artifice of France to divide the allies; besides, they knew the ministry was young, and the opposite faction had ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... been discharged, and he supposed that nothing was to be feared from it. But he reckoned without his host. As he put one leg over, and had all but succeeded in getting in, Herbert fired once more, this time hitting him in the shoulder. He uttered a shriek of pain, and, losing his hold, tumbled backward to ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... seen a great deal of Life; i.e., of death and trouble. This had not hardened him, but, encountering a sturdy, valiant, self-protecting nature, had made him terribly tough and elastic; it was now his way never to go forward or backward a single step after sorrow. He seldom mentioned a dead friend or relation; and, if others forced the dreary topic on him, they could never hold him to it; he was away directly to something pleasant or useful, like ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... God is not to be believed in! Deny him all you can. But because there cannot be an evil God, what right have you to say there cannot be a good one? That is to reason backward! The very notion of a night like this having no meaning in it—no God in it who intends it to look just so, is enough to make me miserable. But I will not believe it! I shall hate you if ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... I began to cry loudly, but father ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. He lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old body into the house without a glance backward at me. But when I crawled down to the ground, sobbing and digging my fists into my eyes, I felt ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... merely, but imply a substance somewhere, and will love to set forth the beauty of the visible image because it suggests the ineffably higher charm of the unseen original. Dante's ideal of life, the enlightening and strengthening of that native instinct of the soul which leads it to strive backward toward its divine source, may sublimate the senses till each becomes a window for the light of truth and the splendor of God to shine through. In him as in Calderon the perpetual presence of imagination not only glorifies the philosophy of life and the science of theology, but idealizes both ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a step backward. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... against one in every 3.04 for the whites. There were 1,288,736 pupils in the common schools and 34,129 in the higher schools, colleges, and universities. Ordinarily these facts are regarded as the most wonderful evidences of progress which the world has ever witnessed on the part of a backward people. But not so with Mr. Hoffman; the necessities of his theories compel him to explain away every apparent advantage in favor of the Negro. The author announces with an implied negative response to the suppressed question: "It remains to be shown whether the educational process which the race ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... Storri, nothing backward when assured that no one was playing eavesdropper, began to talk, carefully avoiding his usual jerky Russian mannerisms. You have been told of Storri's graphic clearness of statement, once he had fully perfected the outlines of some enterprise. In fifteen ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to procure me. They are called Burton's Books[803]; the title of one is Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England. I believe there are about five or six of them; they seem very proper to allure backward readers; be so kind as to get them for me, and send me them with the best printed edition of Baxter's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... foot was a profusion of wild flowers. Not June flowers, but those found with us in May, so backward was the season at that altitude. The red and white trillium, the sarsaparilla, Solomon's seal, "moose-missy" and black-berry bushes, and, farther up, the blue-berry bushes, all hung full of blossoms, a small Alpine flower of seven ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... last turn his head the other way. I was about twelve feet distant from the door. I rose quietly, made two steps, and then gave a sudden spring. I came with great violence against the door, but it resisted me, and of course, I fell backward. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... from a straight line. Do you say the cause is in the influence of other planets? Well, suppose, for the sake of the argument, we admit it, are we then through with the problem? No. We have only moved the difficulty one step backward. We can see how one billiard ball may set another in motion, but it is only thinkable upon the supposition that there was an agent behind the ball which put the second ball in motion. What put the first ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames incline to the north or to the south. In the former case, the spring will be cold and backward; in the latter, it will be mild and genial. In Bohemia, on the eve of May Day, young people kindle fires on hills and eminences, at crossways, and in pastures, and dance round them. They leap over the glowing embers or even through the flames. The ceremony ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set, But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, When the English measur'd backward their own ground In faint retire. O, bravely came we off, When with a volley of our needless shot, After such bloody toil, we bid good night; And wound our tattrring colours clearly up, Last in the field, and ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... now I think I had better join my friends. What a horrible place this is!" she added, with a backward look ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... Hawk dryly. He took a few steps backward, eyes not moving. "Go to that locker," he said to the shorter of the men, indicating with a curt nod the place where space suits were stowed. "First draw your gun and lay it on ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... Backward again and again they were driven, Shrinking to close with the lost little band; Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand. Closer and closer the death-circle growing, Even the leader's voice, clarion clear, Rang out his ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... ancesthors iv th' prisint king, bein' hard up, was used to pick a jool out iv th' hat iv a Saturdah night an' go down to Mose at th' corner an' get something on it. An' whin times was slack an' th' ponies backward, they cudden't get th' jools out, so they cut a piece fr'm th' window an' pasted it in. It looked f'r awhile as though th' king wud have to be cawrnated be a glazier. They cudden't find th' tickets high or low. It wudden't do to cawrnate ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... the two leaves of the door, when pushed, merely shut still closer. It would be easy for him to pull one of them towards him with his paw, which would make the passage wider; but this would be a movement backward, contrary to his natural impulse; and so he does not think of it. Yet another ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Therefore I saie unto you, how it importeth more then any thyng, to have the souldiours to know how to set themselves in araie quickly, and it is necessarie to keepe theim in this battaile, to exercise theim therin, and to make them to go apace, either forward or backward, to passe through difficulte places, without troublyng thorder: for asmoche as the souldiours, whiche can doe this well, be expert souldiours, and although thei have never seen enemies in the face, thei maie be called old souldiours, and contrariwise, those whiche cannot ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... his home came to him like distant music. He saw himself opening his door; he saw a small ball of white coming down the stairs backward in a terrifying fury of speed, the little, fat, half-bare legs and a swirl of tiny skirts all that was visible of his wee daughter coming to greet him. He saw himself catch her off the last step and lift her in his arms, burying his face against ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... always loyal to the English cause, and Bordeaux too well knew what she owed to the English trade ever to be backward when called upon by the English King. Speedily a fine band of soldiers was assembled, and at dawn one day the march ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... outside of the shelter had reached his ears. Bill Harney had been standing close to some firewood, and without warning Sam had rushed at the big guide and sent him sprawling backward. ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... Howards. Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? "Where, but among the heroes and the wise?" Heroes are much the same, the points agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make, an enemy of all mankind? Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes; Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... had gone to the East Side of his home city with all his anchors cast in a familiar harbour; he was on the open sea now. There had been his mother and Kathryn before; the reliefs of home comforts, "fumigations" Kathryn termed them; now he was part of his environment, determined to cast no backward look until his appointed task ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... property on the Cladich side of the lake. I ought to have gone to Taymouth to thank Lord Breadalbane and accept the hospitality he had offered, but it happened that he had not fixed a date, so I avoided Taymouth. This was wrong, but young men are generally either forward or backward. The Marquis afterwards expressed himself, to a third person, as rather hurt that I had not been to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... on tiptoe along the coping-stone—for I wished to surprise her—but on getting to the opening of the arbour, a sight met my eyes that made me lose my balance all of a sudden; and with a start of rage and indignation, I stept backward into the pond, and was forced to battle among the water-lilies for my life. Martha rushed from the arbour and held out her hands in vain; but the person with her—a tall young man, with bushy whiskers and an enormous pair of mustaches—leapt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... impossible, we may repeat, to make wholly safe judgments now about the future, but still something must in the meantime be done. We must either stand still or go forward—or backward; we must act either with a theory or without one. The school is involved in this necessity. There is a new content of history that we cannot ignore, but must in some way teach. We must say something about the war; current events can hardly ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... a controversy has arisen between friends, both parties look backward and read into former words and deeds a meaning they did not have at the time they transpired, and most probably this is what has happened in regard to the trip to Germany and its ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... pointed at him as I pressed the trigger. There was a bright flash, lighting up the whole cabin as though by a gleam of lightning, and glancing vividly from the rolling eyeballs of my antagonist, a sharp explosion, and the Spaniard went reeling backward with a crash upon one of the sofas as the captain entered the cabin at ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... fights the heavens, and is blown beyond the shore, Would you leave your flight and danger for a cage to fight no more? No more the cold of winter, or the hunger of the snow, Nor the winds that blow you backward from the path you wish to go? Would you leave your world of passion for a home that knows no riot? Would I change my vagrant longings for a heart more full of quiet? No!—for all its dangers, there is joy in danger too: On, bird, and fight your tempests, and this ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... loving with his daughter, but I was too much a partisan of Mr. Henry's to be anything but wroth at his exclusion. Many's the time I have seen him make an obvious resolve, quit the table, and go and join himself to his wife and my Lord Durrisdeer; and on their part, they were never backward to make him welcome, turned to him smilingly as to an intruding child, and took him into their talk with an effort so ill-concealed that he was soon back again beside me at the table, whence (so great is the hall of Durrisdeer) we could but hear the murmur of voices at the chimney. There he would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the way!" cries Mr. Warrington, ferociously, and driving Mr. Ruff backward to the wall, sending him almost topsy-turvy down his own landing, he tramps down the stair, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... easily done. They had both seen the same two men walking backward and forward, opposite the front gate of the cottage. Before the advancing fog made it impossible to identify him, Mr. Sarrazin had recognized in one of the men his agreeable fellow-traveler on the journey from ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... was whispered from one to another; the junction agent, hand over mouth, bowed himself backward in mirth. "They say it's all from her home, and this is the dinin'-room table. My! My! My! ain't it awful, all them ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... each other for joy. Slowly, then faster, then faster still, and finally at full speed backward. The gallant tug had torn herself loose from the grip of ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... terrible struggle continued, and Zbyszko finally felt that his strength would soon be exhausted. If he fell, then he would be lost; therefore, he gathered all his strength, strained his arms to the utmost, set his feet firmly and bent his back like a bow, so as not to be thrown backward; and in his enthusiasm he repeated ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and shoved out into the lake; the wind caught the sails, and away went the canoe like a bird. It was wonderful going with the wind, but when they decided it was time to turn around and come home they found that the sails absolutely refused to work backward, so they lowered them and paddled. As the canoe leaped forward under the steady, even strokes, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... entered the military zone by mistake, that he would not have been treated that way in England, needed a little more coaching in preserving his mask of neutrality. For I must say that nine out of ten of these young men, leaning over backward to be neutral, were pro- Ally, including some with German names. But publicly you could hardly get an admission out of them that there was any war. As for Harvard, 1914, hang a passport carrier around the Sphinx's neck and you have him done ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... but perhaps you don't know who Dando was. He was an oyster-eater, my dear Felton. He used to go into oyster-shops, without a farthing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives, until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with his open hand, and cried, "You are Dando!!!" He has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. For these offences ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... step forward until she is sure of her ground, but then she stands firm. Her actions are the results of deliberate thought based on adequate data gathered from actual experiments and not to be shaken. Democracy would not give up universal education nor take one step backward in the matter of compulsory attendance to secure it. She would not part with her elementary normal schools for anything in the world. And when once she sees her duty clear she will add to her school ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... in the various papers of our country. "He is looking ahead, and he knows exactly what this country wants and needs. We are prosperous now, and if we want to continue so, we must keep our hands on the plough, and not look backward." ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... a wild animal. It springs upward, it rolls, it flounders. It is like a wild bronco newly haltered. How can these many heads hope to get upon so spirited a steed? See it leap backward and on end! Now up, now sidewise, ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... diverting attention from their real causes. A not unnatural reluctance to discuss or reflect on matters of this delicate character, combined with the survival of maxims and sentiments derived from an entirely different condition of society, are, doubtless, to a great extent, the reasons of the backward condition ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... dropped him. It was the first intimation of her father's marriage which she had received, and reeling backward, she would have fallen had not Walter supported her. Quickly rallying, she advanced toward her father, who came to meet her, and whose hand trembled in her grasp. After greeting each of his children he turned to present them to his wife, wisely taking Carrie first. She ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... the summer solstice. According to Grecian fable, the crab was transported to heaven at the request of Juno, after it had been slain by Hercules during his battle with the serpent Python, but the evident design of the name is to represent the apparent backward motion of the sun in June, which is said to resemble the ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... horror written on his face, the tall shape of Kaku was seen reeling backward, like to a drunken man. Indeed, had not Abi caught him he would have fallen over the edge of ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... it," she murmured. She lifted one ringless hand and still without looking at him, pressed the third finger backward against his lips. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... tested by starting the disc, and without vibrating the diaphragm stopping the disc; the stylus is now in its forward position; speak into the apparatus and vibrate the diaphragm, and the stylus will run backward to its original position, giving an effect in the line like a (Fig. 4). If the error is eliminated, the stylus will remain in position throughout, and the trial record will give a sharp line across the track of the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... of whys and wherefores, as they make poor story-telling, and leave me, Basdel Morris, overlong in quitting the thicket about my tree. And yet the wise man always looks backward as well as forward when entering on a trail, and children yet unborn may blaze a better trace if they ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... uttered as they followed their guide. Mrs Franklin lifted up her heart in silent praise for their preservation, and in prayer for present direction. Backward and forward swayed the lantern, just revealing snatches of hedge and miry path. At last the deep barking of a dog told that they were not far off from a dwelling: the next minute Mr Tankardew exclaimed, "Here we are;" ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... But he was steering nicely and they would probably have had a fine coast if Ruth had not grown more frightened and thrown her arms around his neck. Her elbow knocked Sunny Boy's cap over his eye and he felt himself being pulled over backward. The sled went zigzagging down the hill for a moment, then a big sled tore past it and knocked it to one side. Ruth fell off and dragged Sunny Boy with her and the sled went ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... darkness, on the deck A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, The lean Destroyers, level with our track, Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way Through backward racing seas and caverns ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... fortunately we escaped with only the loss of an oar; after contending for some time against the tide, which was ebbing with great strength, we landed on the south side; when we were met by five natives, who had been watching us all the morning, and had not been backward in their invitations and entreaties for us to land. At first they kept aloof until approached by Lieutenant Oxley, whom they soon recognised: after a short interview in which they appeared to place the greatest confidence in all our movements, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... ineffectually to free himself, when the settler, suddenly collecting all his energy into a final and desparate effort, raised the unfortunate Grantham from the ground, and with a loud and exulting laugh, dashed his foot violently against the edge of the crag, and threw himself backward ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... sensed the forward movement of the train in which he so strangely found himself, he had fits of impulse to leap out and take the next train back. But, back where? He had the assurance of his colored friend and brother that forward was New York. Backward was the void conjectural. Slowly the dawn whitened at the window. He raised the curtain and saw the rocks and fences and snow of a winter's landscape—saw them with a shock which, lying prone as he was, gave him the sensation of staggering. It was true, then: the thing he had still suspected ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... treaty stipulations. The 5,000 New York Indians, although among those longest in contact with civilization, yet because of state treaties and the claims of the Ogden Land Company, still hold their lands in common, and are backward morally and socially. It is likely that the United States will eventually pay the company's claim of $200,000 to free these people. A few of them are well educated and have attained citizenship as individuals by separating themselves from their tribe. ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... both hands flat upon the stomach, keeping the body extended and expanded, breathing full and free, manipulate in a circular, triple rhythm or backward and forward, in dual rhythm, all the vital organs. The thumbs may be placed up under ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... necessity of more spiritual power and life. We were shown by the Holy Spirit that there is but one route to the promised land and that is by crossing the Jordan. Death was inevitable if we would come into this abundant life. We paused and reflected, looked backward and forward, but there was no alternative—death was our doom. One day while I was absent from home, and dear companion was left alone, the Lord spoke to her so plainly that she had one cherished idol that must necessarily be sacrificed. It ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... in the throat, we will take the opportunity of trying whether my statement can be verified. Let the reader, therefore, do as follows:—(1) Place the finger on the shield cartilage, and press it vigorously backward. (2) Sing loudly any high tone that is well within your compass. Hold this tone steadily, and be quite sure you do not alter its pitch. (3) Now suddenly remove your finger, continuing to sing as before. What is the result? Your tone is raised by a third, or even more, according to the amount of ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... a melancholy picture of backward progress, and a family posting towards extinction. But the law (however administered, and I am bound to aver that, in Scotland, 'it couldna weel be waur') acts as a kind of dredge, and with dispassionate impartiality brings up into the light ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its foundations, was in fact the precursor of the mule and power loom, and of the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century. It enabled a totally inexperienced boy to set the whole loom, with all its shuttles, in motion by simply moving a rod backward and forward, and in its improved form produced from forty to fifty pieces ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... classical, on the lines of the best Public Schools, combined with Home Comforts under the personal supervision of Mrs. Stimcoe (niece of the late Hon. Sir Alexander O'Brien, R.N., Admiral of the White, and K.C.B.). Backward and delicate boys a speciality. Separate beds. Commodious playground in a climate unrivalled for pulmonary ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... neatly balanced his own account, he might close it now before he found himself in danger. Driving fast, he was aware that Tenney, behind him, was also coming on. But he would not look until he had passed Tenney's house, and then he did give one backward glance. Tenney had turned into the yard, and Martin relaxed, satisfied with the day's job. Perhaps it was really finished, and he and Tira ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... they mean? Idly I began to read them backward, when—But try for yourself, reader, and judge of my surprise! Elate at the discovery thus made, I sat down to write my letters. I had barely finished them, when Mrs. Belden came in with the announcement that supper was ready. "As for your ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... provoke me, I, a desperate man, desperate and crazed with drink,—don't ye, don't ye do it! For God's sake, take your hands off me! Ye don't know what ye do. Ah! (Wildly, holding STARBOTTLE firmly, and forcing him backward to precipice beyond ledge of rocks.) Hear me. Three years ago, in a moment like this, I dragged a man—my friend—to this precipice. I—I—no! no!—don't anger me now! (Sandy's grip on STARBOTTLE relaxes slightly, and ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... were the most backward among nations. And indeed it is in spite of appearances essentially feudal. There is perhaps a German culture, but there is ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... went, and they started. They were old hunting companions, having confidence in each other's sense and shooting. They ploughed through the snow, deeper and deeper into the pines, then on down a canon where the light was failing. The sergeant was sweating freely; he raised his hand to press his fur cap backward from his forehead. He drew it quickly away; he stopped and started, caught Otto by the sleeve, and drew a long breath. Still holding his companion, he put his glove again to his nose, sniffed at it again, and with a mighty tug ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... silk stockings, for more than once on the bivouac I shared with him a bundle of straw, which I had been fortunate enough to procure. In such cases I must avow the sacrifice was much greater on my part than when I had shared my wardrobe with him. The king was not backward in expressing his gratitude; and I thought it a most remarkable thing to see a sovereign, whose palace was filled with all that luxury can invent to add to comfort, and all that art can create which is splendid and magnificent, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... eyes were affected with almost instantaneous blindness before becoming accustomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries.... And when the first images began to be vaguely outlined on his retina, he stepped hastily backward, so ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to a good and brave man, General Palmer, who himself drew his sword in the cause. They are profitable reading in a quiet afternoon, and in a mood withdrawn from too intimate relation with the present time; so that we can glide backward some three quarters of a century, and surround ourselves with the ominous sublimity of circumstances that then frowned upon the writers. To give them their full effect, we should imagine that these letters have this moment ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sheet of fire, and retreating backward every hour, were most of the people of the city, forced toward the Pacific by the advance of the flames. The open space of the Presidio and Golden Gate park was their only haven and so the night of the second ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... Flutes, sounded not as thei sounde theim now but as thei use to sounde theim at feastes. The capitaine then with the Trompet, should shewe when thei must stande still, and go forward, or tourne backward, when the artillerie must shoote, when the extraordinarie Veliti must move, and with the varietie or distinccion of soche soundes, to shewe unto the armie all those mocions, whiche generally maie bee shewed, the whiche Trompettes, should bee after followed of the Drummes, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... principal chiefs to the establishment of a protectorate—the Niger Coast Protectorate. In 1891 Sir Claude Macdonald, who had carried out the negotiations, was appointed Consul—General. No man was better fitted to lay the foundations of British authority in so backward a territory. The period of transition from native to civilised rule brought to the surface many delicate and perplexing problems requiring tact, skill, and unwearied patience, but the task was successfully accomplished, though not without an occasional display of ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... some laughing allusion to pig-headed customers, and the clerk at once opened up on the "fool" who thought one cartridge was better than another. When the young man was back at his stove I started out to sell Tucker a bill. He was backward about buying; didn't know our house; always bought of Simmons; did not like to have so many bills; always got favors from Simmons, and despised ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... gain the hearts of his fighting men. Vidura also will make use of those words of yours and will thus alienate the hearts of Bhishma, and Drona, and Kripa, and others. When the officers of state are alienated and fighting men are backward, the task of the enemy will be to gain back their hearts. In the meantime, the Pandavas will, with ease and with their whole hearts, address themselves in preparing the army and in collecting stores. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... up, showing the whites. Her body stretched backward like a bow, and, when it had recovered its suppleness, she fell as ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... I would not think it was fun to trip a lame boy up. I would not think it fun to see him splash down backward into a pool, and when he soused under and wet his lame back ice-cold, I would ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... astronomy and geometry, but for that peculiar studiousness 'which exercises itself less on things than on books; whose strength lies less in producing and discovering, than in collecting and comparing and estimating what has been produced and discovered; which does not press forward, but gazes backward along the road that has already been traversed. The studies that require most genius, are not always those which imply most progress in the mass of men. There are minds to which nature has given a memory capable of comparing truths, of suggesting ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... them suddenly to catch her—and not too soon, for Annet alighted on a rock that sloped back towards the gulf, and had measured her powers against the leap so narrowly that her heels overhung the water and her body was bending backward when Vashti gripped, and, dragging her up to firm ground, took ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and make a sharp report, which, if handled with dexterity, and rightly applied, accompanied with a sharp, fierce word, will be sufficient to enliven the spirits of any horse. With this whip in your right hand, with the lash pointing backward, enter the stable alone. It is a great disadvantage in training a horse, to have any one in the stable with you; you should be entirely alone, so as not to have nothing but yourself to attract his attention. ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... moody, but he laid the blame of it on Colin. Oh, if the lad would only write, he would go himself and bring him back to his father, though he should have to seek him at the ends of the earth. But four years passed away, and the prodigal sent no backward, homeward sign. Every night, then, the laird looked a moment into the dominie's face, and always the dominie shook his head. Ah, life has silences that are far more ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... that came with the protection of her kindred, under the social organisation of the clan. Looking back through the lengthening record, we find that another step has been taken in the history of the family. This time is it a step forward, or a step backward? This is a question I shall not try to answer, for, indeed, I ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... well fed, was always fat, and Charley's was ever lean and hungry. Amy was obliging, and Charley not backward in asking favors, so the lean and hungry purse often brought its pressing needs to the ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... with a rush. He struck furiously, and Leonard avoided the blow, springing backwards out of his reach. Twice more he rushed on thus and twice he smote, but each time Leonard ran backward towards the drawbridge, that now was not more than twenty yards away. A fourth time the Portugee came on, and the Englishman could not repeat his tactics, for the mob hemmed him in behind. On sped Xavier and smote his hardest: Leonard saw the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand—at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... they swayed and fought, then again Herne was conscious of that deadly point piercing his shoulder. With a sharp exclamation, he shifted his ground, trod on a loose stone, and sprawled headlong backward. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... people's lot. Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood. An immemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety. It is a country wearied and regretful, looking ever backward to the things of old; trivial in its latter life, and unable to hope sincerely for the future. Moved by these voices singing over the dust of Croton, I asked pardon for all my foolish irritation, my impertinent fault-finding. Why had I come hither, if it was not that I loved land and people? And ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... can be got hold of," Irons remarked, reflectively, "he will carry the whole thing through. They'd believe him up at Feltonville if he told them it was right to walk backward and vote to give their ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the beauty of the cattle, desired to carry them off as booty; but because, if he had driven the herd in front of him to the cave, their tracks must have conducted their owner thither in his search, he dragged the most beautiful of them by their tails backward into a cave. Hercules, aroused from sleep at dawn, having looked over his herd and observed that some of their number were missing, went straight to the nearest cave, to see whether perchance their tracks led thither. When he saw that they were all turned away from it and led in no other direction, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... without self-respect, who can calmly submit to an insult like this. Certainly Mr. Donald Ferguson was not one of them. The color mantled his high cheek-bones, and anger gained dominion over him. He sprang to his feet, grasped the bully in his strong arms, dashed him backward upon the floor of the barroom, and, turning to the companions of the fallen man, he said, "Now come on, if you want to fight. I'll take you one by one, and fight the whole ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... In backward Russia they are becoming alarmed about the inroads of vodka, and are trying to decrease its consumption. France is trying to teach total abstinence to its young men because it disqualifies so many of them from ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... period, which has left abundant and imperishable traces everywhere among our hills and valleys, writing a large history in massive stone, yet a history which, even now, is dim as the dawn it belongs to. What can be called forth from that Archaic Darkness, in the backward and abysm of Time, we shall try to evoke; drawing the outlines of a people who, with large energies in our visible world, toiled yet more for the world invisible; a people uniform through the whole land and beyond it, along ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... almost positive that the spirit of this question was satirical; but he was unable to reply, except by a feeble shake of the head—though ten minutes later, as he plodded forlornly his homeward way, he looked over his shoulder and sent backward a few words of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Bob's nerves were steady with youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion. His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and forward, dancing from side to side. The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all about them, from the substance of the murk in ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... likelihood, originally fixed in their present tracks; and by their influence, exerted in an opposite sense, they may, in some cases, be eventually ejected from them. Careers so varied, as can easily be imagined, are apt to prove instructive, and astronomers have not been backward in extracting from them the lessons they are fitted to convey. Encke's comet, above all, has served as an index to much curious information, and it may be hoped that its function in that respect is by ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... the back of the half dark room, sat the concierge, whom I had known for nearly twenty years, a brave, intelligent, fragile woman. She was sitting there in her black frock, gently rocking herself backward and forward in her chair. I did not need to put a question. One knows in these days what the unaccustomed black dress means, and I knew that the one son I had seen grow from childhood, for whom she and the father had sacrificed everything that he might be educated, for whom they ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... Berserkers, bade him take his place. The stalwart giant strode forward, but instead of kneeling, he grasped the king's foot and raised it to his lips. As the king did not expect such a jerk, he lost his balance and fell heavily backward. All the Frenchmen present were, of course, scandalized; but the barbarian refused to make any apology, and strode haughtily out of the place, vowing he would never ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... swift, though they move diversely in divers circles. Also in these circles the manner moving of planets is full wisely found of astronomers, that are called Direct, Stationary, and Retrograde Motion. Forthright moving is in the over part of the circle that is called Epicycle, backward is in the nether part, and stinting and abiding or hoving ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... concluded, all the company, whilst they expressed their admiration at his doctrine, looked at me to see if I was not struck with amazement. I was not backward in making the necessary exclamations, and acted my part so true to the life, that the impression ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the valley. Grimshaw stood on the brink of the "wall." He turned, and saw Doctor Waram walking quickly away across the plateau without a backward glance. They had agreed that Waram was to return at once to the village and report the death of "his friend, Mr. Grimshaw." The body, they knew, would be crushed beyond recognition—a bruised and broken fragment, like enough to Cecil Grimshaw to pass whatever ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... years older than I. 'Twas in India I knew him first. He's one of the Black Dulanys of the North, and we fought side by side at Ramazan. What a time! What a time! In the famous charge up the river, when we turned, I lost my horse, and in that backward plunge my life was not worth taking. While I was lying there half dead and helpless, this Dulany got from his old gray, flung me across his saddle, and carried me nine miles back to the camp. Judge ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... going nicely, and of course they must have light and air to any extent commensurate with safety. When about three weeks old, it will be advisable to prick these out into a bed of light rich earth in frames; or if the season is backward, and they need a little more nursing, prick them into large shallow boxes, containing two or three inches of soil, which will be sufficient provided it consists in great part of decayed manure, kept always moist enough for healthy ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... laughter. The style in which she expressed 'Hoyden's' rustic arithmetic, 'Now, 'Nursey', if he gives me 'six hundred pounds' a-year to buy 'pins', what will he give me to buy petticoats?' was uncommonly fine. The frock waving in her hand, the backward bound of two or three steps, the gravity of countenance, induced by a mental glance at the magnitude of the sum, all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron |
