"Backed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bow and backed awkwardly down the steps. When the door was closed she turned quickly and literally ran back to the Elberta Inn. She got safely to her room without being seen by ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... is near by, the preference for manly beauty in age. With Mr. Chase are other justices of the Supreme Court and to their left, near the feet of the corpse, are the reverend senators, representing the oldest and the newest states—splendid faces, a little worn with early and later toils, backed up by the high, classical features of Colonel Forney, their secretary. Beyond are the representatives and leading officials of the various departments, with a few odd folks like George Francis Train, exquisite ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... and merry of heart are they when they swing into port once more, When, with more than enough of the "green-backed stuff," they start for their leave-o'-shore; And you'd think, perhaps, that the blue-bloused chaps who loll along the street Are a tender bit, with salt on it, for some fierce "mustache" to eat— ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... this hate was not of the dry, dull, and inactive sort. Dthemetri was in his sphere a true Crusader, and whenever there appeared a fair opening in the defences of Islam, he was ready and eager to make the assault. These sentiments, backed by a consciousness of understanding the people with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri not only firm and resolute in his constant interviews with men in authority, but sometimes also (as you may know ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... young man, nastily. And he extended a large, freckled face toward Archie's. It seemed to the latter, as he backed against the wall, that the young man's neck must be composed of india-rubber. It appeared to be growing longer every moment. His face, besides being freckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his lips curled ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... alertly, but Drew did not need that signal of someone's approaching. He backed into the shadow-shade of a tree and sat tense, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... all the way from Rezpatak, appeared at the fair at the same time, with twelve high-backed horses and six Gipsy musicians, ribbons and coloured kerchiefs fluttering from every horse and every cap. The comrades drank together and then had a little rumpus also. Tobicza broke the heads of a few of the more uproarious spirits, and then ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... with the air of having suddenly materialized out of the atmosphere. He came close, made out that one of the three was Zoraida and backed away, sweeping off his hat. They came to the gates which the newly risen figure threw open; they went through, Kendric having the air of a man lending his arm to a lady, Betty with the cloak drawn close about her, following. They were out! Now nearer than ever came the friendly ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... has rejected the path of ascent, or has failed in it, cannot claim to fulfil those duties. Any one who has no faculty but that of a glib tongue will find in the multiplicity of callings some field for his activity; but the rule of the talker, backed by force or not, will at any rate ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... ever shot swifter, deeper into the abyss of mortal terror than followed with my turning to descend. I looked down into empty air. Feet foremost I backed over the rim, clutching the loose sticks and feeling for a foothold. They snapped with the least pressure; slipped and fell if I pushed them, or stuck out into my clothing. Suddenly the sticks in my hands pulled ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... mind their own business, and keep themselves clear, they'd get served the same," was the promise held out in reply to their remonstrances; and the lawyer, who was short and fat, and could not have knocked a man down, had it been to save his life, backed out of the melee, and contented himself with issuing forth confused threatenings of the terrors of the law. Miss Carlyle stood her ground majestically, and looked on with a grim countenance. Had she interfered for his protection, she could not have been heard; and if she could ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... This consideration was backed by another,—a lingering belief or hope that the tide might already have reached its highest, and would soon be on the "turn." This hope, though faint, exerted an influence on the waders,—as yet sufficient to restrain ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... gamekeeper on the Shepherd estate had been attacked by a gang of poachers in the winter of 1866. He had been shot in one of the woods, and though mortally wounded had been able to drag himself to the outskirts of the farm where his strength had failed him. He was found dead under the cart-shed which backed on the stables, and the traces of blood on the hill marked the stages of his struggle for life. Two men were suspected, one of them a labourer on the Great End Farm; but there was no evidence. The suspected labourer had gone to ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Public Analysts declares that it is impossible to tell what animal or what part of it is contained in a sausage. We gather that it all depends on whether the beast is backed into the machine or enticed into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... was a man of resource, for having considered for a moment, he backed the horse close against the gate, stood on the top and lowered the horse's nosebag by means of a long rope which he kept by him in ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... he backed toward the door. The canvas was hugged under his arm. At the door he paused, looking back over the room. His small eyes winked fast, ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... perverse; resty[obs3], restive, restiff|; pervicacious[obs3], wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete[Fr]; contumacious; crossgrained[obs3]. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c. 481; creed- bound; prepossessed, infatuated; stiff-backed, stiff necked, stiff hearted; hard-mouthed, hidebound; unyielding; impervious, impracticable, inpersuasible[obs3]; unpersuadable; intractable, untractable[obs3]; incorrigible, deaf to advice, impervious ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... shall not be far wrong if we say that government was the Law-Courts, backed up by the executive, which handled the brute force that the deluded people allowed them to use for their own purposes; I mean the army, navy, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... awake, Vere backed to fight for heavy stake; But in the mean time, so it vos, Both kids agreed to play a cross; Bold came each buffer to the scratch, [3] To make it look a tightish match; They peeled in style, and bets were making, [4] 'Tvos six to four, but few were ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... so shrewd that he had the ability to simulate an affection and practise a gallantry which he did not feel, or, rather, that was not backed by real passion. He was the soul of attention; he would buy her flowers, jewels, knickknacks, and ornaments; he would see that her comfort was looked after to the last detail; and yet, at the very same moment, perhaps, he would be looking cautiously about to see ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... feeling very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There could not, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... urging that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on? to which his answer was, a great tortoise. But being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise I replied, something, he knew not what. And thus here, as in all other cases when we use words without having clear and distinct ideas, we talk like children, who, being questioned what such a thing is, readily give this ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... beneath the bronze imparted to his well-nourished face by the suns of Portugal (or Goa), drew his sword, dropped it, picked it up, saluted with his left hand and backed into Lieutenant Xenophontis of "F" Company, who asked him vare the devil he was ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... house of a clergyman off Madison avenue and presented a forged letter of introduction that holily purported to issue from a pastorate in Indiana. This netted him $5 when backed up by a realistic ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... tea the floor rose beneath their feet and pitched too low again, and at dinner the ship seemed to groan and strain as though a lash were descending. She who had been a broad-backed dray-horse, upon whose hind-quarters pierrots might waltz, became a colt in a field. The plates slanted away from the knives, and Mrs. Dalloway's face blanched for a second as she helped herself and saw the potatoes roll this way and that. Willoughby, of course, extolled the virtues ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... was but just large enough to allow its head to enter. Frank at once sprang forward, and placing himself behind the dog kept a strain upon the stick, so retaining the mouth of the net tightly on his neck. The animal at first rushed forward dragging Frank after him. Then he stopped, backed, and tried to withdraw his head from the encumbrance which blinded him. Frank, however, had no difficulty in retaining the canvas net in its place, until the men, who were armed with pitchforks, ran up and speedily despatched ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... of Burma, forms a long coastal strip facing the Bay of Bengal and backed by the mountain barrier of Siam; acquired by ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... their commercial success, they have been in the van of progress. That they have never produced a great leader of men or framer of policy is a remarkable fact, and to every demand of their fellow-countrymen they have answered with a reiterated non possumus, backed by threats of their intentions in case they are ignored, which, in point of fact, they ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... more than seven or eight inches tall—not by any means the usual big, sprawling, moon-faced rag baby with its arms standing out at right angles with its body. It was tiny and genteel in figure, slim-waisted, and straight-backed. It was made of, not common cotton cloth, but linen—real glossy white linen—which Sarah Jane's mother, and consequently the doll's grandmother, had spun and wove. Its face was colored after a fashion which was real high art to Sarah Jane. The little cheeks and mouth were sparingly flushed with ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... diplomacy was backed by formidable demonstrations. The whole country west of the River Sorel, or Richelieu, was occupied by a savage host, and the distant fort of Cataracouy, on the Ontario shore, was with difficulty held against 800 Iroquois, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... island, and with them procure English manufactures, which when piracy is abolished they will do, the commercial opening to this country will be great indeed. The scenery in the bay of Ambong varies from that of the Borneo coast in general. The bay is backed by a series of small hills, cleared away and partially cultivated, instead of the low jungle which is ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... were as eager as the General, and looking upon the interior as a land of mystery and romance, they readily backed up ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... the new Labour daily is substantially backed by a nobleman of pronounced democratic ideals. From his Lordship down to the humblest employee there exists among the staff a beautiful spirit of fellowship unmarked by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... hurt, while half a dozen bushmen had been killed. These alone remained, the wounded having been carried off. The Tahitians and Poonga-Poonga men had warmed up and were for pursuit, but this Sheldon would not permit. To his pleased surprise, Joan backed him up in the decision; for, glancing at her once during the firing, he had seen her white face, like a glittering sword in its fighting intensity, the nostrils dilated, the eyes ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... popular from the start. There were about fifty boys in Carleton and Winterby, and they all patronized the rink freely. At first Ned had some trouble with two or three rowdies, who tried to evade his rules. He was backed up, however, by Old Dutcher's reputation and by the public opinion of the other boys, as well as by his own undoubted muscle, and soon had everything going smoothly. The rink flourished amain, and everybody, even Old Dutcher, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of a two-part country with its territorial units separated by 1,600 km left the Bengalis marginalized and dissatisfied. East Pakistan seceded from its union with West Pakistan in 1971 and was renamed Bangladesh. A military-backed caretaker regime suspended planned parliamentary elections in January 2007 in an effort to reform the political system and root out corruption; the regime has pledged new democratic elections by the end of 2008. About a third of this extremely ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Wilson!" he said. "I've backed out on the other deal. Sent for you on—on another ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... patch about two hundred yards wide and perhaps half a mile long, with what looked like a by-wash channel of about one hundred yards wide flowing between it and the mainland, the latter being a sandy beach backed by sand dunes clothed with a rank creeper-like vegetation, and a few stunted tree tops showing behind them. As the ship then lay with her head pointing toward the south-east, I was able, with some effort, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... who is appointed by the King, the Council and House of Representatives. The legislative of any commonwealth must be the supreme power. But if any edict or instruction of any body else, in what form soever conceiv'd, or by what power soever backed, can have the force and obligation of a law in the province which has not its sanction from that legislative, it cannot be the supreme power. Its laws however salutary, are liable at any time to be abrogated at ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... characterised by a hectic hopefulness. Nothing damps them. They rise from the ruins of one abortive sentence, to launch forth into another with unabated vigour. They have all the manner of an orator. From the tone of their voice, you would expect a splendid period—and lo! a string of broken-backed, disjointed clauses, eked out with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a single syllable—of striking a balance in a top-heavy period by lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could have nothing to say; their importance is that while the negotiations were pending, Austria, Prussia, and Russia all had a strong motive for standing well with France. Bonaparte's attitude towards Switzerland was, in so far as it was backed by force, an infringement of the treaty of Luneville, to which, however, Great Britain was not a party. The neutrality of Piedmont had not been safeguarded either at Luneville or at Amiens; it had already been occupied by France before the treaty was signed, and Napoleon claimed to ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the other prisoners, had a companion attached to him. He was fastened by the arm to a peasant of Poujols named Mourgue, a man about fifty, who had been brutified by the scorching sun and the hard labour of tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... an imperious little nod of her head to the door. And then, following the other, she backed to the door herself, and halted an ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... at last we bought a house; we had no money, but we were rich in friends, who are still alive to shrink from the story of their constant faith in a financial future which we sometimes doubted, and who backed their credulity with their credit. It is sufficient for the present record, which professes to be strictly literary, to notify the fact that on the first day of May, 1866, we went out to Cambridge and began to live in a house which we owned in fee if not in ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... grim within, save as the mellowing seasons toned down its ruder aspects, and green grass and waving boughs framed it as if it were a picture. Within, the high pulpit, surmounted by a sounding-board, towered over the square-backed pews, facing a congregation kept orderly by stern tithing-man and sterner tradition. There was at first neither organ nor stove nor clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as best it might by the aid of foot-stoves; the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... and feeling that I had done all that was necessary, I backed away and went up on deck, from whence I saw my messmate come out of the cabin about ten minutes after, and as the captain signed to him to come near, I slipped down out of curiosity, hurried to the cabin, and found that the basin was emptied ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... counsellor, Mr. Ruskin, who is the most virulent enemy of usury, is nevertheless very glad that his father bought Bank of England shares, which have now been converted into Stock, and stand at over 300; Ruskin senior was a shrewd speculator, who backed his fancy; and a bookmaker does the same in a safer way. Bookmaking is a business which is carried out in its higher branches with perfect sobriety, discretion, mid probity; the gambling element does not come in on the bookmaker's ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to ride those horrid knife-backed ponies!" half groaned Rosemary, as she saw led out for the use of herself and her brother the steeds on which they had been carried thus far into the mountains. "They're so bony I'm afraid their backbones ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... "or her ghost! Cross her, father. Cross her!" And when Cherry, taking no notice of her screams, advanced into the kitchen, they all backed away from her, one on top of another, each trying to get behind someone else, for they had long since made up their minds that Cherry was dead, and never for a moment dreamed that this apparition was Cherry herself, ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... a boat is it?" said the other man. I had succeeded at last in getting the tall man to let go of my hand, and I backed a little away from him. I described the "Hoppergrass" as well as I could, and told about the Captain's ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... him from the necessity of giving proofs of his ferocity, in fact, like all other men who are backed by public opinion of one kind or another, Socquard never displayed his extraordinary muscular force unless asked to do so by friends. He now took the horse as the usurer drew up at the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... white cretonnes and chintzes met his unaccustomed eyes; straight chairs, easy-chairs, and deep, low comfy chairs; airy tables, the preposterously slender legs of which looked frail and were not; books, paper-backed, and gay magazines; ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... Roberts, the coxswain, to direct the course of action on the Sands, while Hanger, the second coxswain, went on board with seven lifeboatmen to direct operations there, and to heave on the warp, in order to move the vessel. Just then a tug-boat hove in sight, and as the sea was calm, she backed in and made fast her hawser to the Mandalay, at the captain's desire. Though all on board heaved their best on the warp, and the tug-boat Bantam Cock made every effort, they were unable to move the Mandalay from her perilous position, and the tug-boat then gave ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... me that we could not get the trains up to the pontoon-bridge, for of course Hampton would now throw all his cavalry in my front, on the river road, where it could be backed up by Lee's infantry. Meanwhile, General Meade had become assured of the same thing, and as he was now growing anxious about the fate of Wilson's division—which, during my absence, had been sent out to break the enemy's communications south of Petersburg, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... her feet, the surprised lady cast a startled glance over the manger into the stall. Her husband had old Peggy backed up against the partition and was preparing to deliver a third blow with the spade when she called out to him: ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... invention was backed by great energy and a large fund of common sense—qualities not often found united. These proved of much service to the concern of which he was the head, and indeed constituted the vital force. The firm prospered as it deserved; and they executed orders not only for England, but ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the three brethren who had followed St. Brendan sprang out of the ship, and waded to the cliff foot, groaning, and crying, "Woe to me, father, for I am carried away from you; and cannot turn back." Then the brethren backed the ship, and cried to the Lord for mercy. But the blessed Father Brendan saw how that wretch was carried off by a multitude of devils, and all on fire among them. Then a fair wind blew them away southward; and when they looked back they saw the peak of the isle uncovered, and flame spouting ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... dark-eyed girl, who had all this while been crouching back in her high-backed chair in an attitude of shrinking terror, now sprang suddenly towards her brother, crying: "O Cuthbert, Cuthbert! prithee ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... doctor ceased his visits. She was able to get on her feet again. She took over their pinched housekeeping. But her step was heavy; the gaunt, grim straight- backed woman, with her thin grey hair and set mouth, was no more than a spectre of her former self. The doctor was right. There was nothing before ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... used to call their own wonderful story-telling passion, which rendered this historical work so enthralling to me. Those far-off centuries became veritably alive to me—the Arian kings fighting an ever-losing battle against the ever-encroaching power of the Catholic Church, backed by the still lingering and still potent ghost of the Roman Empire; the Catholic Bishops gathering, sometimes through winter snow, to their Councils at Seville and Toledo; the centers of culture in remote corners of the peninsula, where men lived with ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... curtain rises upon a corner of Balthazar Valori's garden near the northern border of Tuscany. The garden is walled. There is a shrine in the wall: the tortured figure upon the crucifix is conspicuous. To the right stands a rather high-backed stone bench: by mounting from the seat to the top of the bench it is possible to scale the wall. To the left a crimson pennant on a pole shows against the sky. The period is 1533, and a few miles southward the Florentines, after three years ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... national characteristics of our people and the tactical necessities of the day, the latter requiring individual initiative. According to the old system, the company commander imposed his will upon a body of submissive units; under the new system the company commander, backed by authority and greater knowledge, leads obedient, willing units, exacting ready obedience and loyal cooeperation. The company commander used ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... of them, who sets out on the long drive to his father's seat in the country, spends an hour in "yawning, picking his teeth and damning his journey" and when once on the way drives with such fury that the route is marked by "yelping dogs, broken-backed pigs and dismembered geese." ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... heavy blows at the masts of the galiot, while the crew of the gig and first cutter were clearing away the standing rigging. By the time the schooner reached the position to windward of the wreck, the work had been accomplished. The two boats had backed away from the wreck, and suddenly the hull righted. A few more strokes of the axes severed the shrouds, which could not be reached while the vessel lay upon ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... back, especially up- hill. About two hundred yards down the hill was a spot where we could pass. The driver of the buggy said she didn't dare back down because she was not sure of the brake. And as I didn't know how to tackle one horse, I didn't try it. So we unhitched her horse and backed down by hand. Which was very well, till it came to hitching the horse to the buggy again. She didn't know how. I didn't either, and I had depended on her knowledge. It took us about half an hour, with frequent debates and consultations, though it is an absolute certainty that never in its life ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... you can't manage that I ere fine hanimal," cried the liveryman. "Ah! he's a lamb, sir, if he were backed properly. But I has not a man in the yard as can ride since Will died. Come ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... overlooking the valley and the river, and the square-towered church, stood Barracombe House, backed by Barracombe Woods, and owned by Sir ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... keeping house on the smallest possible means, yet always managing to maintain a servant. And this servant was invariably chosen because she had some infirmity that made her undesirable to every one else. I believe Miss Galindo had had lame and blind and hump-backed maids. She had even at one time taken in a girl hopelessly gone in consumption, because if not she would have had to go to the workhouse, and not have had enough to eat. Of course the poor creature could not perform a single duty usually required ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... after spur illumined a dim confusion in the cargo well. The stern of the junk was backed against the rail. Oars flashed faintly as the crew of the junk strove to keep her fast against the steamer's side. But where was the crew of the Vandalia? Had Captain Jones consented to and perhaps aided in ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... than to the feeble in body and mind whom we support for nothing in almshouse or asylum? Are cold and exposure less disagreeable to him than to them? Is not his claim to the right to live as valid as theirs if backed by the will to pay for life with work? And in denial of his claim is there not latent a far greater peril to society than inheres in denial of theirs? So unfortunate and dangerous a creature as a man willing to work, yet having ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... assailant called to his comrades in the bush to fire upon the first man who showed fight; this threat induced a wise resignation to the inevitable. Having possessed himself in an incredibly short time of his booty, the highwayman backed into the thicket and quickly made off. The procedure from first to last occupied hardly more than ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... converted into cartridges, had made more noise in the world at their final exit, than during the space which had intervened betwixt that and their first publication. The Doctor seated himself in a high-backed leathern easy-chair, and signed to Alice to fetch a stool ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... a French expedition, under Monsieur Lozier Bouvet, had been sent out in search of it. On January 1, 1739, he got sight of land, in latitude 45 degrees 20 minutes, and longitude 25 degrees 47 minutes East from Teneriffe. It was, according to his description, a lofty and steep cape, backed by mountains mostly covered with snow, while the coast had so broad a fringe of ice that it was impossible to approach it near enough to make any thorough examination. In remembrance of the day of discovery, the cape, which was supposed to be part of the southern continent, was ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... boozing ken in Whitefriars. Seasoned toper as he was he could carry his liquor without it interfering with his head. About the effect on his legs he was not quite so sure and at that moment his body was swaying ominously, but thanks to his clutching a high backed chair he maintained his ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... the front of the stable the white goat backed painfully from the place. The Herd was puzzled for a moment. Then he saw the little pool of water in a faint glimmer before their feet. He brought the animal to one side, avoiding it, and she followed the pressure of his ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... sea-going submarines in numbers sufficient to balance the capital fleet. It was voted that we have an aerial fleet second to none in the world. It was voted that we have a standing army of 200,000 men with 45,000 officers, backed by a national force of citizens trained in arms under a universal and obligatory one-year military system. It was voted, finally, that we have adequate munition plants in various parts of the country, all under government ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... in the use of waste materials has been the work of the Glove Waistcoat Society, to which American women have kindly sent old gloves. Old gloves are cleaned, the fingers are cut off, the other big pieces stitched together and cut into waistcoats and backed by linenette. These are sold to the soldiers and sailors for wear under their tunics and are most beautifully light and windproof. The fingers of kid gloves are made into glue, of wash leather gloves into rubbers for household use. The big pieces of linenette over ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... park, and on the other side the palace, surrounded by laurel hedges and backed by a very high wooded ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... scared. Well, the serpents glared around at all of us. As soon as they spied the boys they made for the cradles like a flash. I backed away, fearful for the boys and frightened for myself, pulling and hauling the cradles along after me with the serpents a-chasing us all the angrier. The minute that boy I was telling of sets eyes on the serpents he's up and out of that cradle in a trice, rushing straight ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... stunning report that followed, he rolled backward into the cabin and sprang to his feet. A frightful scream of blended rage and agony echoed through the tunnel, and the startled boys hastily pushed the sled against the door. Then they backed off, and waited. Jerry disengaged the still burning lantern from his belt, and placed it on ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... exchanged for horror. At the corner of a lane the procession stopped, and, as the torches ranged themselves along the hedgerow-side, I became aware of a grave dug in the midst of the thoroughfare, and a provision of quicklime piled in the ditch. The cart was backed to the margin, the body slung off the platform and dumped into the grave with an irreverent roughness. A sharpened stake had hitherto served it for a pillow. It was now withdrawn, held in its place ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rooms, murmuring that Alvan was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where three gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours of tobacco. They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was of good stature. One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly Jewish. The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter signs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... War. Five years later, Japan formally annexed the entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was split with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist domination. After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the US-backed Republic of Korea (ROK) in the southern portion by force, North Korea (DPRK), under its founder President KIM Il-so'ng, adopted a policy of ostensible diplomatic and economic "self-reliance" as a check against excessive Soviet ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... foot and on horseback, and talking. He threw on his Circassian coat and hastened out into the porch. His hosts were not yet up. Five Cossacks were riding past and talking loudly together. In front rode Lukashka on his broad-backed ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... made all these appear when he declared the national bankruptcy. Could anything be more absurd than the assumption, by the individual, of a personal instead of a national guarantee of part of a national debt?—an undertaking too hazardous and by far too ambiguous, even for a monarch who is not backed by his kingdom—flow doubly frantic, then, for a subject! Necker imagined that the above declaration and his own Quixotic generosity would have opened the coffers of the great body of rich proprietors, and brought them ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... missionaries as Ansgar, Rembert, and Poppo, had worked for 150 years and more among the heathens of Denmark. But the patriotism of the Norseman always recoiled, even though in secret, from the fact that they were German monks, backed by the authority of the German emperor; and many a man, like Svend Fork-beard, father of the great Canute, though he had the Kaiser himself for godfather, turned heathen once more, the moment he was free, because his baptism was the badge of ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... he is, Miss Constance, though he looks like he was bad hurt. An', indeed, Miss Constance, it wasn't Murdock's fault. The coup backed right ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... it is left, as it should be, entirely optional with you." This is in singular contrast to the words heretofore quoted from the agent, and altogether different from his assurance to one of the chiefs: "The President, backed by the Secretary of War" (the Indian Bureau was then under the jurisdiction of the War Department) "and the whole Congress, never should compel me to act so dishonorably as to violate the treaty [of Camp Moultrie] made with your people. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... mixed up with objectionable thought forms of the stronger kind, such as those brought about by practicing black magic, there this particular form of the dweller will be much stronger and more dangerous, and often desperate is the struggle between the neophyte and these dwellers from his past backed up by the ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... mid-channel stopped her way, and the forward canvas was hauled down. A pull to windward on the mainsheet backed the big mainsail and drove the stern towards the dock, whereon a mob of naked brown men awaited the casting of shore lines. The starboard quarter grated against the piling, and the open stern windows overhung the stringpiece for a moment. Barry was deeply interested in the probable location ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... and delightful companion and friend. Amelia perhaps is not a better story than Tom Jones, but it has the better ethics; the prodigal repents at least, before forgiveness,—whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings; and is not half punished enough before the great prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum-cake and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Suddenly the cab stopped, backed down a side lane, and turned in the direction from whence they had come. When he had got his car's head right, Sam Stay shut off his engine, descended from his seat, and opened ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Church regarded as heretical by four-fifths of the nation committed to its care, a Church established and maintained by the sword, a Church producing twice as many riots as conversions, a Church which, though possessing great wealth and power, and though long backed by persecuting laws, had, in the course of many generations, been found unable to propagate its doctrines, and barely able to maintain its ground, a Church so odious, that fraud and violence, when used against its clear rights of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... exists as the Duke left it, is on an upper floor of the castle, commanding from its balcony, which faces the south, an extensive view of the approach to the Castle, the city, and the country beyond, backed by the Apennines. It is of small size, measuring only 11 ft. 6 in. by 13 ft. 4 in., and is somewhat irregular in shape. It is entered by a door from the Duke's private apartment. The floor is paved with rough tiles set ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... spiritual brine in which he was cured. In its second half, the originality of Jewish history consists indeed, in the circumstance that it is the only history stripped of every active political element. There are no diplomatic artifices, no wars, no campaigns, no unwarranted encroachments backed by armed force upon the rights of other nations, nothing of all that constitutes the chief content—the monotonous and for the most part idea-less content—of many other chapters in the history of the world. ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... best serve her. Howard thought of a sea chair, in which his uncle had crossed the ocean. He had found it covered with dust in the attic, and brought it to his room to lounge in. It would be far more comfortable for Eloise than that stiff, straight-backed, hair-cloth rocker in which she had to sit so upright. He would send it to her with Amy's compliments, if he could manage it without the knowledge of Jack, who he would rather should not know how much he was really interested in Eloise. Jack was also planning what he could do, and thought of a wheel ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... labor conflict—on an ever vaster and vaster scale, between nationally organized employers, using the power of the police, the courts and, where necessary, the army; and the nationally organized workers, backed by some show of public sentiment, and armed with the strength of numbers. Although the bulk of the workers was still unorganized, and although those who were organized thought and acted within the lines of their crafts, considering themselves as railway trainmen or as carpenters first, ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... vaultlike doors would be fitted into the stairwells leading up to the towers at Mike's expense. They were to have facings of bronze so that they could be decorated to blend with the Gothic decor of the church, but the bronze would be backed by heavy steel. Nobody would blow ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... besieged in his castle by the Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary, the negotiation with the Porte for aid was renewed, and being backed by the diplomatic influence of France, then at war with the empire, was more favourably received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia, however, prevented the Turks for the present from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... feet in an instant, and a dagger flashed at Gaillon's throat. The man was prepared, however, and backed quickly towards the door, where the light from the passage shone full upon his face. Roberval uttered an oath when ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... the realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown. The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise (comparatively speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical happenings, ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... more beautiful than that we have so often looked at together from the terrace at Saint-Germain. In the west the new part of Esbly climbs the hill, and from there to a hill at the northeast I have a wide view of the valley of the Marne, backed by a low line of hills which is the water-shed between the Marne and the Aisne. Low down in the valley, at the northwest, lies lie de Villenoy, like a toy town, where the big bridge spans the Marne to carry the railroad into Meaux. On the horizon line to the west the tall ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... some more wood upon the fire, and as the smoke and blaze arose in the beast's face, it backed away, growling most frightfully; but I still could see two ugly points of light blazing in the outer darkness and hear its growls rumbling terrifically without. For some time the creature stood there watching the entrance to our frail sanctuary ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Bob backed her sturdy cob out from between two restless companions, and with much laughter and whispering and many injunctions to hurry and to be "awfully still," the three conspirators mounted and walked their ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... ever more suggestive of the pastoral pipe than of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, biographer, novelist, he is always intent to smooth away the asperities of his subject, and, like some stately grandame enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers that his simple auditors are to be not merely entertained by the matter of his discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and high-bred prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... shore was beautifully backed by green slopes rising to wooded heights. In the select inclosure, for the privilege of entering which a franc was charged, the elite of Morlaix walked to and fro, or sat upon long rows of chairs placed just above the beach. We did not think very much of them and were ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... invisible band of music played during the intervals of the deep-rolling organ. All the monks of San Augustin, with their white hoods and sandalled feet, and carrying lighted tapers, were ranged near the altar. All the male relatives of the family, dressed in deep mourning, occupied the high-backed chairs placed along one side of the church, the floor of which was covered with a carpet, on which various veiled and mourning figures were kneeling, whom I joined. The whole service, the chanting, the solemn music, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Martinon backed up all he said with expressions of approval; and likewise was of his opinion that it was necessary to rally boldly to the side of the Republic. And he talked about the husbandman, his father, and assumed the part of the peasant, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... disinterested devotion. He let go the hand of Alice with as much respect as he could have paid to that of a princess; and when she seated herself upon a rocky fragment, over which nature had stretched a cushion of moss and lichen, interspersed with wild flowers, backed with a bush of copsewood, he took his place beside her, indeed, but at such distance as to intimate the duty of an attendant, who was there only to hear and to obey. Alice Bridgenorth became more assured as she observed the power which she possessed ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... reader, if the day is dull, and you feel inclined to moralize— for whatever may be said to the contrary, there are less useful occupations—and look at your village churchyard. What do you see before you? A plot of enclosed ground backed by a grey old church, a number of tombstones more or less decrepit, and a great quantity of little oblong mounds covered with rank grass. If you have any imagination, any power of thought, you will see more than that. First, with the instinctive ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and then Jud lent her his jack-knife and showed her how to take it up so that the roots would not be injured. Then he left her for a minute while he went back to get a paper cup from Linda to plant it in, and when he came back he found her backed up against ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... Art patron line. Lost his heart at first sight. But evidently on closer acquaintance found her rather a handful, and too much of a Bohemian to suit his British taste! At all events there was a flare-up over something about three months ago, and Sir Roger backed out, politely but definitely. It seems that Miss Maurice was a good deal cut up. Went off to Zermatt with her brother. And now rumour has it that she is engaged, if not married, to some other chap out there, I suppose by way of a gentle intimation ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... high-backed chair, her head resting against the carved woodwork. The folds of her simple gown hung primly round her well-shaped figure. Undoubtedly she was still a very good-looking woman, though past the hey-day of her youth and beauty. The half-light ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... versification took the place of higher poetry. Callimachus (fl. 260 B.C.) was the type of an Alexandrian man of letters, distinguished by skill rather than genius, the most finished specimen of what might be effected by talent, learning, and ambition, backed by the patronage of a court. He was a living representative of the great library over which he presided; he was not only a writer of all kinds of poetry, but a critic, grammarian, historian, and geographer. Of his writings, a few poems only are extant. Next to Callimachus, as a representative of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the towering dreadnought in the foreground began to move! Slowly, the water swirling about her, she backed away from her anchor, tightening the curve of the anchor chain! Water quivered about the point of the chain's contact ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... apprised the Emperor, that a woody country on his left might favour attempts against his flank and rear; that his first line, backed against a ravine, might be precipitated into it; that in short the position which he occupied, in advance of a defile, was dangerous, and rendered a retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... the ground. The men wouldn't enlist fer more'n six months an' as soon as they'd learnt suthin', they put fer hum. An' with that kind o' an army, he druv the British out o' Boston. With a leetle bunch o' five thousand unpaid, barefoot, ragged backed devils, he druv the British out o' Jersey an' they had twelve thousan' men in that neighborhood. He's had to dodge eround an' has kep' his army from bein' et up, hide, horns an' taller, by the power o' his brain. He's managed to take keer o' himself down thar in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... his diocese. Now, there are many such women in convents, for the religious life leads not, as people think, to a renunciation of your own self-dependence, but on the contrary to the highest kind of confidence in your own power when backed by the help of Almighty God. Saint Teresa of Spain once said these memorable words: "Teresa and tenpence are nothing: Teresa, tenpence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... state, unattended or unassisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by, say, 30 passenger carriages, each weighing on an average 5.5 tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed in its path, it would, passengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of butter; ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... spoke to him for a moment, he raised the goggles which habitually he wore and I saw his face. A theory which I had formed on the previous night proved correct. The chauffeur was the Hindu, Chunda Lal! As Zara el-Khala walked up the steps he backed the car into the narrow lane and I watched him constantly. Yet, watch as closely as I might, I could not see where he concealed himself in order to command a ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... be that there was a cruiser off there bearing down upon them? He looked at Captain Beardsley again, and came to the conclusion that there must be something suspicious about the stranger, for the captain, after gazing at the smoke through his glass, squared around and backed down from aloft with much more celerity than Marcy ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... backed by Hiram, who volunteered his assistance in making the investigation. And in the end, Cap'n Sproul, as first selectman of Smyrna, consented to visit the scene of alleged enchantment in "Purgatory," though ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... eleven o'clock one April morning. The sun was shining brightly outside, and at the curbing in front of the store were several handsome private carriages, with stiff-backed, motionless coachmen, in bottle-green livery, perched on their boxes, all of which plainly indicated the very desirable patronage ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... had backed through the doorway, the girl still faced toward the inner vestibule, and it was well she did so, for scarcely was she out of his sight before the black giant was after her, taking the chance that she would have turned to run. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Europe for so long that they had become warped. They refused communion. The peaceful Roman Mission coming just at the moment when the Empire had recovered Italy and was fully restoring itself, was thrown back on the Eastern courts. It used them. It backed their tongue, their arms, their tradition. The terms of Roman things were carefully translated by the priests into the Teutonic dialects of these courts; the advance of civilization under the missionaries, ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... got home, she found Steenie engrossed in a young horse their father had just bought. She would fain have mounted him at once, for she would ride any kind of animal able to carry her; but, as he had never yet been backed, her father would not ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... different, I should have called for volunteers and made an effort to induce a crew to undertake the navigation of her to, say, Batavia, with the idea of claiming salvage. But I had come to know by this time that no eloquence of mine, even though it were backed up by the prospect of a handsome sum of salvage money, would be powerful enough to wean the crew of the Mercury from their cherished idea of a life of ease and independence upon some fair tropic island, to say nothing of their fear of what would follow ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... pride of) king Sumitra of Sauvira, also known by the name of Dattamitra who had resolutely sought an encounter with him. The third of the Pandava princes, assisted by Bhima, on only a single car subjugated all the kings of the East backed by ten thousand cars. In the same way, having conquered on a single car the whole of the south, Dhananjaya sent unto the kingdom of the Kurus ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... of Anglo-Saxon travel had not set toward the lakes, and with the exception of an Italian family or two, and a hump-backed youth with an abbe, Danyers and the lady had the marble halls of the ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... his mind, and I sailed alone as many days as possible in advance of the ship, as had been intended from the first; but it went sorely against the grain when the time came. I would have given anything to have backed out of the enterprise. Honest I might be no longer; I was honestly in love with Eva Denison. Yet to have backed out would have been one way of losing her for ever. Besides, it was not the first time I had run counter ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Mathematics are opposed to religion, and cultivate an incredulous spirit,—such as would never for a moment listen, let us hope, to any theory which proclaims this green earth and all the universe "such stuff as dreams are made of," even though the doctrine be ecclesiastically sustained and backed with abundant wealth of learning. Numerous were the defenders, called out rather by the acknowledged metaphysical ability of Bishop Berkeley than by any transcendent merit in these two tracts; and among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... muttered Noll, "is why the government doesn't send troops enough here to wind up the thing in short order. The whole of our first battalion of the Thirty-fourth, for instance, ought to take the field at once, backed by a platoon of light artillery. We ought to be sent to chase Hakkut clean across the island and into the ocean on ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... backed close in to the south side and the Sword was about to stop, but alas, for our hopes! Captain Spade had seen that another submarine boat was about to issue through the tunnel, and he was making preparations to chase us. How could a frail craft like the Sword defend itself against the attacks ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... Backed by Miss Daphne's approval and interest, Kit had called at several homes where lived the descendants of other founders, and the results were manifest. Mrs. Peter Bradbury had contributed two Indian blankets ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the local community. Civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the military community itself. Lacking what many of them considered an effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black servicemen usually passed on their grievances ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... man plunged straight through these pitiful cobwebs. "Why, come on, Lydia," he cried with a good-humored pointedness, "I've been all over town looking for you." She backed away, looking over her shoulder, as if for a lane of escape, flushing, paling. "Oh, no, no thank you, Paul. Not this afternoon!" she cried imploringly, with a soft fury of protest, "I'm on my way to Father's office. I want to ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... He backed out of the big ship and consulted the charts of the lifeboat. They had been consulted before, of course, to locate the landing grid which did not answer calls. He found its position. He began to ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... least, you felt an involuntary shiver, as of warm, human, daily life brought suddenly into contact with the pale ghosts of the past. You could not escape the haunting thought that these oaken tables were dined at, these high-backed chairs sat upon, these black-framed, dirt-obscured portraits gazed at and admired by people, once flesh and blood like yourself, who had become skeletons—nay, mere dust, centuries before you were ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the prospect refuses to make the loan to you because he has been imposed upon before by some one he has backed. He may really want to lend you the money, but his heart has been so embittered by his previous experience that he turns a deaf ear to your proposition. His opposition is based chiefly on feeling. His heart, not his mind, ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... gentleman wants to see her?" said I, putting my foot inside the door as I spoke. The room, I saw, was plainly, but neatly furnished. A rag-carpet covered the floor; green rush-bottomed chairs, a settee with chintz cover, and a straight-backed rocking-chair were distributed around the walls; and for ornament there was an alphabetical sampler in a frame, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... the barrel. But there was no resistance, the keg revolved as the sword struck it, and the swordfish shot into the air. Again and again he charged, and Colin realized what danger lay behind that ton and a half of muscle backed by a power that could drive such a weight at sixty miles ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... when his brain is nosing about like this; it is better to keep still and let him ferret it out. So I sat down outside the curved rail with its wooden slats backed by faded green curtains, close to the big stove screened off at the end of the long room, fixed one eye on the moon-face and the other on ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... We backed out of the Bay by means of a current to the eastward, which always runs thence, admiring in our retreat the lighting up the windows in the town and the various barracks or country seats visible ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the wall, he moved with the crowd until he reached the rounded niche that marked an escape chamber. As if pushed by the hurrying throng, he backed into it, the automatic doors opening ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... I backed away with all my hair astir, and then shot up the ladder as if the devil had been behind me; and when I reached the deck I was trembling so violently that I had to lean against the companion lest my knees should give way. Never ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them took his ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... made no impression on Brian, for the simple reason that he did not see why fog and wind should not come together. After he understood their fears better he shamed them into savage energy by his laughter, and since the broken-backed man had gone overboard, took his sweep and set ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... through," Wharton replied, with emphasis—"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I now hand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches have been skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. There are two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quite to the worst ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... put up bars at their doors to keep 'em out. And menny and menny a time has he seen a reel live Bullock march into his Master's Counting 'Ouse, with his two wild horns a sticking out, and as it was to narrer for him to turn hisself round, he used to have to be backed out tale foremost, with a fierce dog ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... spring wash, and her housewifely mind was as much exercised as to the effects of her desertion, as was her maternal prudence at the plunge which her unconscious adopted child was about to make. However, there was no denying the request, backed as it was by her husband, looking at her proudly, and declaring she was by general consent the only discreet woman in Sheffield. She was very sorry for the Earl's perplexity, and had a loyal pity for the Countess's ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The other neighbor backed entirely out of the room, then turned and fled across the yard, her calico wrapper blowing wildly and lashing about her slender legs, to her own house, the doors of which she locked. Presently the other woman followed her, stepping ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Pariou, to the north of Clermont, there exists a perfect crater, quite round, and about two hundred and fifty feet deep, whence there has flowed a stream of lava, whose course can be distinctly traced. The summit of Puy Graveniere, a long round- backed hill also near Clermont, consists almost entirely of a heap of volcanic cinders, which have obliterated all traces of a crater; but two streams of lava appear to have flowed from the sides of the mountain. The Puy de Dome, and the mountains in its neighbourhood, likewise appear to be of volcanic ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... heavy fall of snow. The quantity which lodged on our sails was so great, that we were frequently obliged to throw the ship up in the wind to shake it out of them, otherwise neither they nor the ship could have supported the weight. In the evening it ceased to snow; the weather cleared up, the wind backed to the west, and we spent the night in making two short boards, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... assure his fortune and his glory for ever. For it happened that she saw passing in the twilight a neatherd from Belmont, who was goading on his oxen, and she fell more deeply in love with him than she had ever been with the shepherd Marcel. He was hunch-backed; his shoulders were higher than his ears; his body was supported by legs of different lengths; his rolling eyes flashed, from beneath his matted hair. From his throat issued a hoarse voice and strident laughter; he smelt ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... The boys have been riding me, stronger and stronger, to get up a posse and come over here. In fact, they got so strong that I suspected they had something up their sleeves. When I sort o' backed up on the proposition, a lot of them began pulling wires at Washington, so's to make you get orders that'd let us come on the reservation and get ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... Mr. Dunn backed it out of the drift. The front wheels and the radiator, where the water is, were covered with masses of white flakes, but aside from the broken window no damage ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... make in that article," said Clinch, rising, but still directing his face and his conversation to the fire, "ez far ez I ken see ez that no three men kin back down six unless they be cowards, or are willing to be backed down." ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... were, he was told, very good poems. He knew good judges that thought so; and unprovoked remarks on them, such as those of the lecturer, ought not to be permitted." The lecturer replied, and in glibness and fluency would have been greatly an overmatch for the worthy captain; but a storm of hisses backed the old veteran, and the critic gave way. As his remarks were, he said, not to the taste of the audience—though he was taking only the ordinary critical liberty—he would go on to the readings. And with a few extracts, read without note or comment, the entertainment of the evening concluded. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... said that was what the matter. In spite of that they come down there and ordered us up to the house. All the niggers scared to death not to go. There lay old Moster Jim stretched dead in his chair. They was backed up to the smoke house door and the horses makin' splinters of the door. It was three planks thick, crossed one another and bradded together wid iron nails. They throwed the stuff out an' say, 'Come an' git it. Take it to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... 'is sword 'n' ripped it t' the collar. Scairt me so I bit my tongue watchin' uv 'em. They got locked, 'n' both swords came up t' the hilts t'gether with a swish 'n' a bang luk thet. The blades clung, 'n' they backed off. Then Ray he begun t' feint 'n' lunge 'n' hustle 'im. Quicker 'n scat he gin 'im an awful prick 'n the shoulder. I c'u'd see the blood come, but they kep' a-goin' back 'n' forth 'n' up 'n' down desperit. The red streak on thet air feller's shirt kep' a-growin'. Purty quick one ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... still deeper in his collar, backed into the crowd. In the present and past campaigns, from carts and automobiles he had made many speeches in Harlem, and on the West Side, lithographs of his stern, resolute features hung in every delicatessen shop, and that he might be recognized, ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... camp is already arranged, and the whole force is under canvas. A few days ago this was a wilderness; now there are some hundred new tents arranged in perfectly straight rows so as to form streets. This extensive plot of white tents, occupying a frontage of four hundred yards, and backed by the bright green forest, looks very imposing from ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker |
