"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have sunk yet further backward, had not Azul and my Angel-guide held me with their light yet forcible clasp. My heart fails me now as I try to write of that tremendous, that sublime scene—the Centre of the Universe—the Cause of all Creation. How unlike Heaven such as we in ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but mine and the light ...
— Different Girls • Various
... rotating the whole body backward through forty-five and ninety degrees are given ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... answer is that when they seek, according to such an assumption, to visualize the universe as it was before personality appeared, they really, only in a surreptitious and illegitimate manner, project their own conscious personality into "the vast backward and abysm of time," to be the invisible witness of this ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... I say that! how could I say that! Oh what would John have thought of me if he had heard it. Am I beginning already to lose my truth? am I going backward already? Oh what shall I do! what will become of me if I do not watch over myself—there is no one to help me or lead me right—not a single one—all to lead me wrong! what will become of me? But there is One who has promised to keep those that follow Him—He ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Ye should have snatch'd his wand And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, And backward mutters of dissevering power, We cannot free the lady that sits here Bound in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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. ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... discovery. Had Holloway or Lyte been concerned with any of the other defendants on the record, I submit there is the strongest reason to believe, that when he confessed his own guilt, he would not have been backward in speaking of theirs. He was not aware of the effect I am giving to his defence when he made it; and if he has done no more than that which he has stated, I submit to you, under his Lordship's correction, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... to win over the United States. There the people showed the usual indifference of a big and prosperous country to the needs or opportunities of a small and backward neighbor. The division of power between President and Congress made it difficult to carry any negotiation through to success. Yet these obstacles were overcome. The depletion of the fisheries along the Atlantic coast of the United States made it ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage, smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; John Willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with none of The Maypole customers at ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... nothing less than shipwreck was expected, they all implored the aid of the apostle of the Indies, Francis Xavier. At the same instant, a wave, which was rolling on, and ready to break over the ship, like some vast mountain, went backward on the sudden, and dissipated into foam. The seamen and passengers, at the sight of so manifest a miracle, invoked the saint with loud voices, still as the tempest grew upon them; and the billows failed not ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... arm drop, and sent her darting backward to the opposite side of the room. Woburn had broken down the door, and stood torn and breathless ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... crutches, and while I looked and talked, holding my body motionless, I was planting my crutches and throwing my weight on my well foot. I heard the girl coming out of the house and knew the time had come. With all my strength I swung myself backward as he made the leap. His hot breath rushed into my face, his fiery eyes glared close to mine, but his chain was too short. Then I knew I had no mission for taming panthers. From the first I had feared that ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... meeting is arranged in the temple of Hecate. She gets there first, and while waiting every sound of footsteps makes her bosom heave. At last he comes and at sight of him her cheek flames red, her eyes grow dim, consciousness seems to leave her, and she is fixed to the ground unable to move forward or backward. After Jason has spoken to her, assuring her that the gods themselves would reward her for saving the lives of so many brave men, she takes the salve from her bosom, and she would have plucked her heart from it to give him had he asked for ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Holoptychius, before mentioned (see Figure 498). In the genera Dipterus and Diplopterus, as Hugh Miller pointed out, and in several other of the fringe-finned genera, as in Gyroptychius and Glyptolepis, the two dorsals are placed far backward, or directly over the ventral and anal fins. The Asterolepis was a ganoid fish of gigantic dimensions. A. Asmusii, Eichwald, a species characteristic of the Old Red Sandstone of Russia, as well as that of Scotland, attained the length ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... rapidly as possible, with many a backward glance at the book-covered washbowl, then she went downstairs and shook and brushed herself ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... international finance had lent money to a potentate ruling an economically backward people, without taking much trouble to consider how the money was to be spent, or whether the country could stand the charge on its revenues that the loans would involve. The fact that it did so was from one point of view a blunder and from ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... looked more like thousand-legs or centipedes, and here head and thorax are much less distinct. But in the annelid the mouth is on the second segment; here it is on the fourth. It has evidently travelled backward. That the mouth of an animal can migrate seems at first impossible, but if we had time to examine the embryology of annelids and insects, it would no longer appear inconceivable or improbable. And its backward migration brought it among the legs which were grasping and chewing the food. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... solely responsible for the plot, or rather "the argument." It runs as follows:—"Dr. Burch, newly arrived in London with his pupils, wishes to show them the sights. What better to begin with than Covent Garden Market in the early morning?" Quite so, the more especially as the lads must be very backward boys. There are six of them, and the youngest seems about thirty, and the oldest about double that age. The Doctor must have rescued them from Epsom Race Course, and apparently is attempting to give them an education fitting them to follow what seems to be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... Jackanapeses. There were no Jackanapeses when I was a boy, Mr. Hood. England was Old England when I was young. I little thought it would ever come to be Young England when I was old. But everything is going backward. ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... with the merchants of Milan, for a great number of mules to transport his provisions and ammunition. His Royal Highness has ordered the train of artillery to be conveyed to Susa before the 20th of the next month. In the meantime, all accounts agree, that the enemy are very backward in their preparations, and almost incapable of defending themselves against an invasion, by reason of the general murmurs of their own people; which, they find, are no way to be quieted, but by giving them hopes ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... incidents occur among Egyptians and the Central Australian tribes, or among the frosty Samoyeds and Eskimo, the Samoans, the Andamanese, the Zulus, and the Japanese, as well as among Celts and ancient Greeks—can we be absolutely certain that the story has not been diffused and borrowed, in the backward of time. Thus the date and place of origin of these eternal stories, the groundwork of ballads and popular tales, can never be ascertained. The oldest known version may be found in the literature of Egypt or Chaldaea, but it is an obvious fallacy to argue that the place of ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... Ralph," said Jack, pressing me gently backward, "lie down, my boy; you're not right yet. Wet your lips with this water; it's cool and clear as crystal. I got it from a spring close at hand. There now, don't say a word, hold your tongue," he said, seeing me about to speak. "I'll tell you all about it, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Employment Practices Committee to consider the case.[3-15] Committee chairman Mark Ethridge conferred with Assistant Secretary Bard, pointing out that since Negroes had been eligible for general duty in World War I, the Navy had actually taken a step backward when it restricted them to the Messman's Branch. The committee was even willing to pay the price of segregation to insure the Negro's return to general duty. Ethridge recommended that the Navy amend its policy and accept Negroes for use ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... politics. They interfered with public measures, rebuked the despotism of the kings and the political errors of the people. Moreover, they were the constitutional lawyers and publicists of the Hebrews, inspired to look backward and explain the meaning of the Mosaic law as well as to look forward to its spiritual development in the reign of the Messiah. Prediction, therefore, of future events, was a very small part of the work of the Prophets. Their main duty was to warn, rebuke, teach, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein' with us the best that ever wuz. Instead of makin' work she helped, though I told her not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the dishes in no time. She hunted round ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... delivered God's message, Hezekiah asked for a sign that these things should be done, and Isaiah said that he might decide whether the shadow upon the sundial should go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees. ...
— The Man Who Did Not Die - The Story of Elijah • J. H. Willard
... This is held by the statesmen of to-day to be a vast improvement on the old social system. Medieval barbarism, as they term it, has, according to them, met with just condemnation; and to return to it now, would be to drag an advanced age centuries backward, a horror which no sane ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... chapters of The Master of Ballantrae "shame, and perhaps degrade, the beginning." He himself came to see then the great error; but, alas! it was too late to remedy it—he could but go forward to essay new tales, not backward to put right errors ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... wet and glistening body half-way up the bank where Van Cheele was standing. In an otter the movement would not have been remarkable; in a boy Van Cheele found it sufficiently startling. His foot slipped as he made an involuntarily backward movement, and he found himself almost prostrate on the slippery weed-grown bank, with those tigerish yellow eyes not very far from his own. Almost instinctively he half raised his hand to his throat. They boy ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... permanence of its joy, so she KNEW that the end had come. Only the wisdom of the occult would dare to suggest that from her child mate, squaring his sturdy young shoulders against the world as the flying train sped on its way, some wave of desperate, inchoate thinking rushed backward. There was nothing more. He would not come back ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stepped backward, but almost instantly resumed her firm and upright position and ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... are set down between projections, in which case both armature and field poles are laminated or subdivided. As each projection leaves the edge of field pole, N, the lines which it had concentrated on and through it snap backward at an enormous speed, and cross the gap to the next succeeding projection on the armature, cutting the whole section of the heavy armature conductor at practically the same instant. This brisk transfer of lines goes on from each projection to the succeeding one in front of the field pole, leaving ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... none. Then again I called, "Hi!" but this time with a sickening sense of failure and of doom. She replied only by a complex gesture, decisive in import if not easily described. A petulant toss of the head, a jerk of the left shoulder, and a backward kick of the left foot, all delivered at once—that was all, and that was enough. The red-headed boy never even condescended to glance my way. Why, indeed, should he? I dropped from the fence without another effort, and took my way homewards ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... improperly, a tale, a novel. But the intention of the poet is to show forth the richness and variety of the Arabic language; and his own power over this great mass brings the descriptive—one might almost say the lexicographic—side too much to the front. A poem that can be read either backward or forward, or which contains all the words in the language beginning with a certain letter, may be a wonderful mosaic, but is nothing more. The merit of Hariri lies just in this: that working in such cramped quarters, with such intent and design continually guiding his pen, he has often really ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... man must indeed have lived radically wrong when he looks backward for the best of his life. Gray-haired Mr. Walton was looking forward. Gregory's habit of self-pleasing—of acting according to his mood—was too deeply seated to permit even the thought of returning the hospitality he hoped to enjoy by a cordial effort ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... politeness, and hospitable manner I was received by his son: yet, my only recommendation to either, was my being a stranger; and being a stranger is, in general, a good recommendation to a Frenchman, for, upon all such occasions, they are never shy, or backward in communicating what they know, or of gratifying the curiosity of an inquisitive traveller; their houses, cabinets, and gardens, are always open; and they seem rather to think they receive, than grant a favour, to those who ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... supported by the convergence of the two walls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable. Penrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed words and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise he moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to insincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... Albania Poor and backward by European standards, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to spur economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... out of the hold and onto the dock. That day, going out again, the skipper made all but the watch and himself turn in. That afternoon, when everybody had had a little kink, the skipper himself, who had been under a heavier strain than any of us, suddenly fell backward over the house and sound asleep. And there he lay all the rest of that day ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Soft Palate.—The air finds its way to the lungs through the mouth or through the two openings in the nose called the nostrils. From each nostril, three small passages lead backward through the nose. At the back part of the nasal cavity the passages of the two sides of the nose come together in an open space, just behind the soft curtain which hangs down at the back part of the mouth. This curtain is called the soft palate. Through the ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... boulevards and public gardens, where people do their family living in common. Mr. A. is breakfasting under one tree, with wife and children around, and Mr. B. is breakfasting under another tree, hard by; and messages, nods, and smiles pass backward and forward. Families see each other daily in these public resorts, and exchange mutual offices of good will. Perhaps from these customs of society come that naive simplicity and abandon which one remarks in the Continental, in opposition ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which had only been stunned by the bolt, suddenly sprang to its feet and, no doubt crazed by fear, began striking out with its hind hoofs. As ill luck would have it, poor Juan came within direct range of the first kick, and was sent flying backward by its force. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... did he know about it? And when could he have told Mr Fraser?—But Kate entered, and Alec forgot Beauchamp. She hesitated, but advanced and held out her hand. Alec took it, but felt it tremble in his with a backward motion as of reluctance, and he knew that another thickness of the parting veil had fallen between ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the edge of the right-of-way, but not before one of them hurriedly stooped and placed something on the track, A hundred eyes were on him, and as many rifles were instantly raised to fire, but Daly was the first to pull the trigger, and the man fell backward down the enbankment, bearing with him that which he had endeavored to place on ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... who had been pressed thus far, after crossing the Transit road, gave over all design of returning. The bonds which drew us back were not strong, and the danger of return was considerable. We had heard that the enemy was at Virgin Bay, and that their lancers frequently passed backward and forward on the Transit road, and between San Jorge and Virgin Bay. If we returned, we should be confined to the path nearly all the way to Rivas by the impenetrable forest, and easily taken, should we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... something more about Secretary Bryan's proposed visit here in the spring. He's coming to talk his peace plan which, you know, is a sort of grape-juice arbitration—a distinct step backward from a real arbitration treaty. Well, if he comes with that, when you come to talk about reducing armaments, you'll wish you'd never been born. Get your ingenuity together, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... ran into the Mission leading her little son. She was chased to the very door of the Mission, but kept her pursuers at bay, by means of a policeman's whistle which she held in her mouth, walking backward and threatening to blow it if they dared touch her child. She was a widow with this only child, and her relatives were bound to sell her into an immoral life and take the boy away. After being in the Mission a few months she became a Christian. Her little boy was placed in an ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... of a statesman is to choose the better cause and to stand by it, in spite of those excesses by which every cause, however good in itself, will be disgraced. The present evil always seemed to him the worst. He was always going backward and forward; but it should be remembered to his honour that it was always from the stronger to the weaker side that he deserted. While Charles was oppressing the people, Falkland was a resolute champion of liberty. He attacked Strafford. He even concurred in strong measures against Episcopacy. But ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is only the wind and the brook you hear, and which, at this hour of the night, sounds very like the talking of conspiring men," interupted the woman, as if to encourage the major, who shrugged his shoulders, and began to show signs of fear in the backward and cautious movement of his steps. "As I hope to be saved, wife," returned our hero, in a modified tone of voice, "though it takes more than a trifle to alarm me, who has seen much service in Mexico, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... emergencies was not a failing of hers. She made one dart to the rear of Josephine. Josephine wore her hair in a braided loop, tied with a bow of black ribbon. Maria seized upon this loop of brown braids, and hung. She was enough shorter than Josephine to render it effectual. Josephine's head was bent backward and she was helpless, unless she let go of the baby-carriage. Josephine, however, had good lungs, and she screamed, as she was pulled backward, still holding to the little carriage, which was also somewhat tilted ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... LAURA [Moving backward toward the door left]. Yours! Your declaration to the doctor that you are insane. [The Captain stares at her in silence.] Now you have fulfilled your function as an unfortunately necessary father and ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... The persons who were in the parlor agree substantially as to what occurred. They had happened to be looking towards the door when the man—Col. Selby—entered with his cane, and they looked at him, because he stopped as if surprised and frightened, and made a backward movement. At the same moment the lady in the bonnet advanced towards him and said something like, "George, will you go with me?" He replied, throwing up his hand and retreating, "My God I can't, don't fire," and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... advanced, holding the musket. Already, if he was to stretch out one of his long arms, he might again grasp Oliver and draw him towards him. Oh, what would I not have given for a loaded gun at that moment! In vain I attempted to load mine while I stepped backward. Oliver was attempting to escape; but just then his heel caught in the root of a tree, which grew at the base of the cliff, and down he fell, rolling in the sand. His fate appeared to be sealed. I cried out in terror ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Door, should pierce thee through, Or backward upon soundless hinges turn. The curses my mad rhymes upon thee threw,— Forgive them!—Ah! in my own breast ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... of his inclination; for consulting the god of Delphi how he should attain most glory, the Pythoness answered, "By making your own genius and not the opinion of the people the guide of your life;" and therefore at first he passed his time in Rome cautiously, and was very backward in pretending to public offices, so that he was at that time in little esteem, and had got the names, so readily given by low and ignorant people in Rome, of Greek and Scholar. But when his own desire of fame and the eagerness of his father and relations had made him take in ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... only the speaker's thumb, and not his tongue, that lied, by pointing backward to the mill just passed, instead of forward to the other mill at the upper end of ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... eyes upon the backward view, Let us look forward into sunny days, Welcome with joyous heart the victory, Forget what it has cost thee. Not to-day, For the first time, thy friend was to thee dead; To thee he died when ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... heard that voice before? A shiver of fear ran through him. Every sense and emotion in him was arrested. His life seemed to reel backward. Curtain after curtain of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... spoken when there was a flash of red fire, a sound as of a bursting bomb, and everyone was knocked from his feet, over backward, while Professor Roumann was hurled the entire length of the ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... Ascanius' distant sons, Their wars in order, and each hard-fought fray. There, in the cave of Mars all verdurous, lay The fostering she-wolf with the twins; they hung About her teats, and licked in careless play Their mother. She, with slim neck backward flung, In turn caressed them both, and shaped them with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... man, would do more wisely to hold your tongue and remember that the high-priest is your master as well as mine. Get into the house as quick as you can, or to-morrow we shall have to drag you off as we did the chest to-day!" So saying, he slammed the heavy door, the old man was flung backward into the house and the crowd ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gloom, one loses to some extent the idea of progression. Here he can get no look ahead, no backward view. He is the centre of a little circle of light, beyond which is immeasurable darkness, whence objects seem to come to him like apparitions, changing form as the first and last rays of light fall upon them, as though the shape in which they appear under the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... blown backward when the big shell exploded, and he seemed to be falling toward some sort of shell crater. If we're going to be held here long, I'd like to go to his rescue—to see if ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... half-past nine in the evening, and met our question whether he had anything satisfactory to report, with the remark that he saw his way less than ever, and that matters had rather gone backward since he had been here in the morning. He had been in the afternoon at Sir James Graham's bedside, who had had a consultation with Mr Gladstone, and declared to him that the country was tired of Coalitions, and wanted a united Cabinet; that they (the Peelites) could not possibly ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... regularly prepared. Civilization, with its diversified industries, its multiplied products, and its monogamian family, affords a breakfast and supper in addition to a dinner. It is doubtful whether they are older than civilization; and even if they can be definitely traced backward into the older period of barbarism, there is little probability of their being found in the Middle period. Clavigero attempts to invest the Aztecs with a breakfast, but he was unable to find any evidence of a supper. "After a few hours of labor in the morning," he observes, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... withdrew in good order, keeping up a rear-guard action that kept the enemy at a respectful distance. When night fell the Americans had reached the position assigned to them, and the backward movement was halted. The troops entrenched, and with the Allied line straightened out once more, faced the foe that it had decisively defeated ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... These young specimens were flat, grey, six-legged creatures about the size of a small lady-bird, covered with hairs, and possessing two strong forceps projecting from their heads. They are so formed that they cannot go forward, but move always backward by a series of jerks. As they live upon ants and are so strangely formed, they have to resort to stratagem in order to entrap their prey, and this they do by means of pits formed in the sand in which they ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... aside their state, and all the good that in my day I may have done, and all the evil that I have certainly destroyed,—all this seems trivial as set against the producing of this tousled brat. No, to be sure, she is backward as compared with Emmerick, or even Dorothy, and she is not, as you say, an at all remarkable child, though very often, I can assure you, she does things that would astonish you. ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... is suffering from Opisthotonos?' whereupon the first physician stood as one dazed, as if I were trying to trouble his wits by my hard words. But Della Croce at once swept aside all uncertainty by saying, 'He means the backward contraction of the muscles.' I confirmed his words, and added, 'I will show you what I mean.' Whereupon I raised the boy's head, which the doctors and all the rest believed was hanging down through ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... with greenish spots on each lobe; about 1/2 in. broad, clustered in slender, drooping cymes. Calyx 5-lobed, oblong, persistent on the berry; corolla deeply, sharply 5-cleft, wheel-shaped, or points curved backward; 5 stamens inserted on throat, yellow, protruding, the anthers united to form a cone; stigma small. Stem: Climbing or straggling, woody below, branched, 2 to 8 ft. long. Leaves: Alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, 1 to 2 1/2 in. wide, pointed at the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... stranger clapped her hands. Up went six pairs of legs. Two remained in mid-air, Mrs. Geary's and Mrs. Brannan's having met an immovable obstacle shortly above the hip-joints. Three bent backward slowly but surely until they approached the region of the neck. Maria's flew unerringly, effortlessly, up, back, until they tapped the floor behind her head. Alexina almost shouted "Bravo." Maria was ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... but she was too quick for me and the chase ended in the lower hall in a group of people—her parents, my father, visitors and servants—and I saw her disappear with a backward glance, in which, I could swear, I saw two ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... preceeding winter had established a sort of night-school in my dining-room, for all the hands employed on the station, and these two men had been amongst my most constant pupils. One of them, a big Yorkshire-man, was very backward in his "larning," and though he plodded on diligently, never got beyond the simplest words in the largest type. Small print puzzled him at once, and he had a habit of standing or sitting with his back to me whilst repeating his lessons. Nothing would induce him to face me. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... disadvantage when attacking forts on land. The badly served cannon of Alexandria fell, indeed, before a British fleet, but Gallipoli had been fortified by German engineers, and its guns were the Krupp cannon. The British fleet found itself opposed by unsurmountable obstacles. Looking backward it seems possible, that if at the very start Lord Kitchener had permitted a detachment of troops to accompany the fleet, success might have been attained, but without the army the navy ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her face, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood were turned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before the tide. Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about one spot; but now, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... eagerly; "that's just my ambition. What a pity it's looking backward instead of forward. But I would love to live in a great stone castle, all my own, with a moat and drawbridge and outriders, and go around in a damask gown with a pointed bodice and big puffy sleeves and a ruff and a little cap with pearls on it, and a bunch ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... or four years old, they will improve every opportunity to run away, to the danger and damage of proprietor and driver. It is quite an art to learn oxen to back a load. Place them before a vehicle, in a locality descending in the rear. As it rolls down hill, they will easily learn to follow, backward. Then try them on level ground. Then accustom them to back up hill, and finally to back a load, almost as heavy ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... was in her close proximity to our noisy race, she darted off like a flash, forward or backward, upward or downward, never turning, but dashing in any direction opposite to the quarter from which the disturbance came. On the rare occasions when she was not frightened, she seemed unable to tear herself away. She would hover about her nest, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... unmanageable weapon. I was not therefore at all surprised to see that both shots missed, or only very slightly grazed the pig; but what I confess to being perfectly unprepared for was the boar charging violently down-hill on poor unoffending me, with his head on one side ready for the fatal backward jerk, champing and foaming as he came, with what Mr. Weller would call his "vicked old eye" twinkling with rage. Helen could not realize the situation at all. I tried to turn her, and so get out of the infuriated brute's way; but no, she would ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... shook and he slid backward as if to avoid the white boy's reach. "Ah ain' a-goin' in dere," he repeated stubbornly. "Effen yo'all wants to go in dere—Looky, Mistuh Val, Ah tells yo'all de way an' yo'all goes." He brightened at this solution. "Yo'all kin take pappy's ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... of wind, a scuffling, and an oath brought her head about. She saw Flint go balancing and stumbling backward, finally to sprawl on his hands and knees, and following him, in an unmistakable attitude, was Dennison. Jane was beginning to understand these Cleighs; their rage was terrible because it was ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... doctor's arm, on the right by the executioner's assistant. Thus proceeding, she first felt embarrassment and confusion. Ten or twelve people were waiting outside, and as she suddenly confronted them, she made a step backward, and with her hands, bound though they were, pulled the headdress down to cover half her face. She passed through a small door, which was closed behind her, and then found herself between the two doors alone, with the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Robert Sadler, a baker, in the sum of five pounds, and his being under the necessity of bringing a friend as security for the payment, proves nothing at all. There is not a town in Europe, in which opulent men cannot be found that are backward in the payment of their debts. And the probability is, that Master Sadler acted like most people who, when they suppose a man to be going down in the world, feel their respect for him sensibly decaying, and think it wise to trample him under foot, provided ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... We can take turns carrying it." The girls hurriedly donned their outer wraps. Then, without one backward glance, they tiptoed down the narrow stair. But, to their amazement, the panel at the foot of the stair would not budge. Vainly they shoved, and pressed their shoulders against the solid oak. Breathless, Gyp sat ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... sometimes instructive to look back and see hour Destiny gave us a kick here, and Fate a shove there, that sent us in the right direction at the proper time. And when Stephen Brice looks backward now, he laughs to think that he did not suspect the Judge of being an ally of the two who are mentioned above. The sum total of Mr. Whipple's words and advices to him that summer had been these. Stephen was dressed more carefully than usual, in view of a visit to Bellefontaine Road. Whereupon ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not confine itself to dealing with contagious disease. Its aid has been invoked to help the child who is backward in his school studies. With the recent extensions in the length of the school term and the increase in the number of years of schooling demanded of the child, has come a great advance in the standards of the ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... becomes a bull, Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: She turns toward the shore that disappears, With frightened gesture; and the wonderful Gold curls about her bosom and her ears Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; This hand still clasps his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... undone," said Varney. "She has of late been casting many a backward look to her father's halls, whenever her lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her back to her old perch, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... lightly on to the parapet of the verandah. Then, with one hand held behind him to poise himself, palm open backward, he leapt with a bound to the road, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... The pebble in the road Would straight explode, And fill the ghastly boundlessness of space. The furious power, To soft growth twice constrain'd in leaf and flower, Protests, and longs to flash its faint self far Beyond the dimmest star. The same Seditious flame, Beat backward with reduplicated might, Struggles alive within its stricter term, And is the worm. And the just Man does on himself affirm God's limits, and is conscious of delight, Freedom and right; And so His Semblance is, Who, every ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... ain't done a danged thing to that there squaw! She ain't got any call to go around givin' me the bad eye." He looked at the breakfasting company and then again at Luck, and gave an almost imperceptible backward jerk of his head as he got awkwardly to his feet and strolled away toward the milling horses in ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the novelist, which is to create character not only out of certain well-known facts of heredity, but out of understood conditions. In this case I had, in addition, an extensive knowledge of Hamilton's character to work backward from, as well as his estimate of the friends of his youth and of his mother. Therefore I feel confident that I have held my romancing propensity well within the horizon of the probabilities; at all events, I have depicted nothing ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... movement previously described, but this time reverse it, commencing in the right groin, up, across and down to the left groin. These movements have a three-fold object: they assist the water in its passage backward and forward, thus shortening the time of the treatment; they force along the accumulated matter in the colon with the current of water, and help to dislodge adherent matter from ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... back buildings, springing over a dye kettle in her way, and cleared a board fence at a bound. On her way to a place of safety she looked back to see, with keen enjoyment, "Mort Cunningham" falling backward from the fence she had leaped. Secure in a garret, she looked down into the streets below, to see his vacant, dazed look as he sought, unable to find her. Her rendering of the expression of his face at this time, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... in the Gallery sweetly smiling; Garter King-at-Arms totting off the number of salutes; and Black Rod thanking his stars that presently, when they left the House, he could walk face forward, not as when he visited the Commons, walking backward like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... to tell the patricians that this would be the ruin of their greatness, when Servius came in and, standing on the steps of the doorway, ordered him to come down. Tarquin sprang on the old man and hurled him backward, so that the fall killed him, and his body was left in the street. The wicked Tullia, wanting to know how her husband had sped, came out in her chariot on that road. The horses gave back before the corpse. She asked what was in their way; the slave who drove her told her it was ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... good pastry lies in lightly mixing with a cool hand. If a spoon must be used, let it be a wooden one. Roll in one direction only, away from the person. If you must give a backward roll, let it be only once. Above all, roll lightly and little. The quicker the ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... retaining. Those of the legs and whip are also of two sorts, guiding and urging. Suppose a horse standing still with full liberty and fully extended. If the retaining indication of the hands only are given, he will go backward in a loose and extended form. If, on the contrary, the urging indication of the legs or whip only are given, he will move forward in a loose and extended form. If these two opposite indications (that is, retaining and urging) ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... her schemes of aggrandizement Austria, not France, is dangerous to us; the latter is our natural ally, and the former our natural adversary. Every step forward made by Austria in Germany, forces Prussia a step backward. Let Austria enlarge her territory in the south, toward Italy, but never shall I permit her to extend her northern and western frontiers farther into Germany. The peace of Campo Formio has given Venice to the Austrians but ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... without one backward glance, like the good gentleman he is; and the Doweys are left together, with nearly the whole room between them. He is a great rough chunk of Scotland, howked out of her not so much neatly as liberally; and in his Black Watch uniform, all caked with mud, his kit and nearly ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... wipe out with the officer Arden, and should be glad of a chance to do so;" then with a backward jerk of the head, in the direction of the guide riding behind, "You do not know that we have a man with us who is the greatest renowned fighter in the Egyptian army. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... opponents. Their own men fell or rolled over on every side, shot down by an invisible enemy, with no one upon whom they could retaliate, with no sign that the attack might not go on indefinitely. Yet they never once took a step backward, but advanced grimly, cleaning a bush or thicket of its occupants before charging it, and securing its cover for themselves, and answering each volley with one that sounded like an echo of the first. The men were ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... of light along the backward vista of her life with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... living world and not in the documents of tradition, it is also to America that I look for this hope to be realised. The work of William James, Morton Prince, and Kirsopp Lake encourages me in this conviction; but most of all I am encouraged by that youthful spirit of the American nation which looks backward as seldom as possible, forward with exhilaration and confidence, that manful spirit of hope and longing which is ever ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... teeth with longer ones, like a dog's fangs, at the corners. And say, he was quicker than a cat! The Captain didn't have a chance to pull his gun. Louie had him by the arms, and was trying to break him in two backward. A couple of other men ran to help the Captain, and that Louie just kicked out back, and doubled them both up, one after the other, in a corner. Nobody else interfered. I suppose Louie knew, if he knew anything, that he was a gone goose anyhow, ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... 8th of June, and not an ash-tree in leaf yet. The country cruelly backward, and whole fields destroyed by the grub. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the Indians, found themselves pressed ever backward from the coast. They resisted, and in 1675 there arose in New England, King Philip's war, which for that section at least settled the Indian question forever. The red men of New England were practically exterminated.[3] Those of New York, the Iroquois, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... that upon which he stood, and on which his foot was set, and above him he saw naught. And it seemed to him that the door was distant from the step as high as one might shoot with a bow. Thus might he go neither forward nor backward. Then he beheld, and on the ground beneath were serpents and wild bears, even as if they would tear him; they gnashed their teeth as if they would seize him, and gaped with their jaws as they would swallow him. It seemed to him as if they were even at his heels, and he ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... for their weary backward journey, though their minds were too full to spare a thought upon the leagues which lay behind them or those which were before. Old Ephraim, less accustomed to walking than his younger comrades, was already limping and footsore, but, for all his age, he was as tough ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not severely haunted by the spectre of any neglected duty. The simple regular routine of the household could not be changed under her charge; each thing had its appropriate order of performance, must be done, and WAS done. If the season were backward, at the time appointed for whitewashing or soap-making, so much the worse for the season; if the unhatched goslings were slain by thunder, she laid the blame on the thunder. And if—but no, it is quite impossible to suppose that, outside of those two inevitable, fearful house-cleaning ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... to get down with the others. Let me hold him for you. Whoa, there!" He put a hand upon the bridle, a familiarity Goldie resented. He snorted and dodged backward, to the ruin of the picture ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... together by a species of vines or vegetable cords, which are common in the woods of the tropical districts of America. When this raft was completed, one of the Indians swam over the river, having in his mouth the end of a long vine attached to it; and, by hauling the raft backward and forward, all the goods were safely landed on the opposite side: the men ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... She encountered a text replete with hideous examples of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... head. On the leaves, that bend so lowly, Drops of crystal water gleam; Yawning wide, the peasant slowly Drives afield his sluggish team. Dreary looks the forest, lacking Song of birds that slumber mute; No rough swain is yet attacking, With his bill, the beech's root. Night's terrific ghostly hour Backward through time's circle flies; No shrill clock from moss-grown tower Bids the dead men wake and rise. Wearied out with midnight riot Mystic Nature slumbers now; Mouldering bodies rest in quiet, 'Neath ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... black understood, and like other bears in Thor's domain, he should have slunk a little backward, turned about and made his exit. Thor gave him ample time. But the black was a new bear in the valley—and he was not only that: he was a powerful bear, and unwhipped; and he had overlorded a range of his own. He ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... all faithful people the good and right way to Thine eternal kingdom, for Thy way is our way, and by holy patience we walk to Thee who art our Crown. If Thou hadst not gone before and taught us, who would care to follow? Oh, how far would they have gone backward if they had not beheld Thy glorious example! Behold we are still lukewarm, though we have heard of Thy many signs and discourses; what would become of us if we had not such a light to help ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... men went over to the abandoned roadway, a mere trail of ruts, where, in years before, ox-teams had hauled salt hay. Up and down the long strip of narrow grass that bordered it, they went backward and forward, hunting for traces of men's feet, for they knew by this time, almost beyond doubt, that the child was in the hands of tramps. The "tramp-hole" is an institution in all suburban regions which are bordered by stretches of wild and unfrequented country. These tramp-holes ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... softly backwards with the grave stateliness of a vanishing yet beckoning goddess, until she reached the sumach-bush from which she had emerged. He followed. Another backward step, and it yielded to let her through; but even as it did so she caught him in her arms, and for a single moment it closed upon them both, and hid them in its glory. A still lingering song-bird, possibly convinced that he had mistaken the season, and that spring had really come, flew ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... Asia, profound changes are taking place in free nations which are demonstrating their ability to progress through democratic methods. They provide an inspiring contrast to the dictatorial methods and backward course of events in Communist China. In these continuing efforts, the free peoples of South Asia can be assured of the support of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... invisible people are their own images in the water. Their gods may have been much besides this, for we know them from fragments of mythology picked out with trouble from a fantastic history running backward to Adam and Eve, and many things that may have seemed wicked to the monks who imagined that history, may have been altered or left out; but this they must have been essentially, for the old stories are confirmed by apparitions ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... dwelt on his with a sad smile. She had closed the gates of her paradise, and there was to be no faint hearted looking backward. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... height of the hill from which it has descended, then we can see that God has set His seal upon that life by that resurrection and ascension; and as we gaze on Him swept up heavenward by His own calm power, a light falls backward upon all His earthly life, upon His claims to purity, and to union with the Father, and we say, 'Surely this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... their weapons, and return the way they had come, with fearful backward glances, lest their boy foe should be following them. But he had no wish to do that. He was spent and exhausted and maimed. He turned backwards towards the safer shelter of the little alcove, and sank down beside the trembling child, ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... something more, apart and beyond these, surpassing all similitude or analogy.-Italian he was through blood and lineage; first, through his paternal family, which is Tuscan,[1105] and which we can follow down from the twelfth century, at Florence, then at San Miniato; next at Sarzana, a small, backward, remote town in the state of Genoa, where, from father to son, it vegetates obscurely in provincial isolation, through a long line of notaries and municipal syndics. "My origin," says Napoleon himself,[1106] "has made all Italians regard me as a compatriot.... When the question ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... no less desirous of the return of good weather than those afloat, who were continually tossed with the agitation of the sea. The writer, in particular, felt himself almost as much fatigued and worn-out as he had been at any period since the commencement of the work. The very backward state of the weather at so advanced a period of the season unavoidably created some alarm, lest he should be overtaken with bad weather at a late period of the season, with the building operations in an unfinished ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deliberation. I was unwilling to have his blood on my head, but had I even ventured to speak my life would have been sacrificed. Suddenly lifting my pistol, I fired. The shot took effect. Raising his hand to his head, and dropping his sword, the black fell backward ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... not grieved: nay, though he hath consumed us, we have refused to receive correction. We have not remembered to render unto the Lord according to his goodness, and according to our vows and promises; but have gone away backward, by a perpetual backsliding, and have most sinfully and shamefully broken the National Covenant, and all the articles of the Solemn League and Covenant, which our fathers sware before God, angels and men.'" Albeit there has been in the land, ever since ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... lane leading to her house, walking at a smart pace, with her dress trailing and catching on the brambles, from which with a backward sweep of the hand and a rough pull she would twitch ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Boy!" she urged at the top of her voice, crying above the clamor of the racing dogs. "We're playfellows to-day, and I can't fall in love till to-morrow!" The last words she lilted mockingly, flashing a look backward at Dennis Kavanagh. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... well; and I think M. de Keralio's report of him was exceedingly just, except, perhaps, that he might have said he was very well as to his progress in history and geography, and very backward in Latin; but certainly nothing indicated the probability of his being an excellent seaman. He himself had no thought of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... reaching backward through the distance, Most earnest child of God, Exposing all the secrets of existence, With thy divining rod, I bid thee speed up to the heights supernal, Clear thinker, ne'er sufficed; Go seek and bind the laws and truths eternal, But ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Backward springs are a great drawback in the cultivation of this crop, and cause many farmers to delay planting until it is certain warm weather cannot be many days off. If the planter could always be sure of his seed, this would ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... and by coach to St. James's, and with Sir W. Coventry a great while talking about several businesses, but especially about accounts, and how backward our Treasurer is in giving them satisfaction, and the truth is I do doubt he cannot do better, but it is strange to say that being conscious of our doing little at this day, nor for some time past in our office for want of money, I do hang my head to him, and cannot be so free with him as I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Gorham said, firmly. "Your concern had been standing still for six years when we took hold of it—the business had even gone backward the last year—yet in two years' time, under our administration, it shows a gross gain of thirty-three and one-third per cent. and a net gain of twenty-five. I am enlarging on Mr. Litchfield's case because, in a measure, it is an answer to you all, and a full justification of ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... looked backward, and it seemed to her that the eighteen years were all made up of the Sunday nights on which Richard Alger had come to see her, as if they were all that made them immortal and redeemed them from the dead past. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Something thick and hot like blood, and when he could see again, the two had parted. The man stood with bared head watching the slim, drooping figure as it retraced its steps with never a backward turn. When it was gone he replaced his hat and took his way—this time, toward ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... lent their aid to the formation of the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments from the belief in ghosts ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... are the colours of life as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.... One generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the notions ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... They tried to keep the position of the nest secret by coming from the back, gliding around on the trunk, and stealing in at the door, or by alighting quietly high up in the body of the tree, and coming down backward,—that is, tail first. But by remaining absolutely without motion or sound while they were present, I gradually won their toleration, and had my reward. The birds ceased to regard me as an enemy, and, though they always looked ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... one more to the purpose. Frankly, I believe you suspect me to have some latent and unowned inclination for you—that you think speaking is the only point upon which I am backward.... There now, it is raining; what shall we do? I ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... was buzzing motion-less in the wide entry by the side of the shop. It very slowly moved forward, crossed the footpath and half the street opposite the Town Hall, impeding a tram-car, and then curved backward into a position by the kerbstone. John's Ernest was at the steering-wheel. Councillor Batchgrew stood still with his mouth ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... we are all prone to stare backward. Who lives in the present? Do you? When we are young we pant for the future, that pitches painted tents before us. When we are older, we live in the past, that wraps itself in a sacred gilding glamour, and is vocal with the happy echoes which alone survive. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... rocking herself backward and forward in a manner truly maternal and singing her version of "Jesus Tender" to her ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... and booths now erected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair, rather than the established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most of the shopkeepers of note, and David Ramsay amongst others, had their booth connected with a small apartment which opened backward from it, and bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's cavern did to the tent which ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... driver promised to get him into it soon enough—a suggestion that turned him away in search of other scenes and thoughts. Off to the right two lines of snags marked what had once been graceful poplars edging a famous route national, but now——! He glanced quickly backward along the direction from which he came. Here, at first, a brighter prospect met his eyes: the far-off rolling slopes were green, the far-off woods had not been stripped of leaves; but never could the grim story be quite ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Besides, the people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... said, forth spurred they both, both high advance Their swords aloft, both struck at once, both hit, His left arm wounded had the knight of France, His shield was pierced, his vantbrace cleft and split, The Pagan backward fell, half in a trance, On his left ear his foe so hugely smit, And as he sought to rise, Godfredo's sword Pierced him through, so died ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... carrying so carefully under their umbrellas, when she suddenly noticed that the toes of the Admiral's shoes were turned sideways on his pedestal, and looking up at him she saw that he had tucked his spy-glass under his arm, and was gazing down backward at his legs with ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... not a fire-arm aboard that we could get at. Halyard's hand crept backward where a steel-shod boat-hook lay, and I also made a clutch at it. The next moment I had it in my hand, and staggered forward, but the boat was already tumbling shoreward among the breakers, and the next I knew the harbor-master ran at me like ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... should now be used carefully with the run of the fingerboard, or the strings when wound up will look as if pulled aside out of the straight line. The file must be placed exactly on the spot that has been pricked and worked backward and forward as indicated. The ruts must be examined frequently for ascertaining whether they are sufficiently deep. The height of each rut above the fingerboard cannot well be given in fractions of an inch, as they must be regulated to the convenience of the performer. A hard, rasping, orchestral ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... Pride in Literary "Lions" Seaside Piers Visitors The Unimpassioned English Relations Polite Conversation Awful Warnings It's oh, to be out of England—now that Spring is here Bad-tempered People Polite Masks The Might-have-been Autumn Sowing What You Really Reap Autumn Determination Two Lives Backward and Forward When? The Futile Thought The London Season Christmas The New Year February Tub-thumpers I Wonder If . . . Types of Tub-thumpers If Age only Practised what it Preached! Beginnings Unlucky in Little Things Wallpapers Our Irritating Habits Away—Far Away! "Family Skeletons" The ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... far as the inculcation of principles, the instruction of the national mind, the calling out of enthusiasm and courage, of hope and heroism, demand publicity, of course Association must not be backward. It must no more be behind than before the time. But the special call to-day is, in practical endeavor to prepare the way for a future gospel preaching. We need complete science, clear understanding, solid judgment. We need to solve innumerable problems, to comprehend principles ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... nervously. "Yes, I always knew what I wanted to be. I told him," with a backward jerk of ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... his head in a backward direction, and nodded in a satisfied way as he saw a light, ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... her girlhood she had been a famous beauty; and she was still as fine and delicately tinted as a carving in old ivory, with a skin like a faded microphylla rose-leaf, and stiff yellowish white hair, worn a la Pompadour. Her mind was thin but firm, and having received a backward twist in its youth, it had remained inflexibly bent for more than sixty years. Unlike her husband she was gifted with an active, though perfectly concrete imagination—a kind of superior magic lantern that shot out images in black and white on a sheet—and a sense of humour which, in spite ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... If, for example, we decide to build a bridge, it is of importance that we know all that men have in the past discovered of mechanical relations and industrial art which will enable us to build a bridge well. If we want to establish an educational system in some backward portion of the world, it is useful for us to know what methods men have used in similar situations. Whatever we decide to do, we are so much the better off, if we know all that men before us have learned ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... it, the "problem of discovering the needs and capacities of collective human nature as we find it aggregated in racial or national groups on the surface of the globe." The distinction between Hobhouse and Dewey is less in substance than in point of view. Hobhouse, looking backward, is interested in progress itself rather than in its methods and processes. Dewey, on the other hand, looking forward, is interested in a present program and in the application of scientific method to the problems of social welfare ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... deep-sea rules too often to be squeamish now. So he kicked Herr von Staden again, after which a glimmer of reason penetrated his hot head and he walked to pick up the supercargo's automatic pistol. Then something landed on him from above and he went down backward. His head struck the deck with a resounding thump, and Michael J. Murphy had a through ticket to the Land of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... when I was out on the St. John lumbering, missing my comrades, and I was well-nigh starving, when I chanced to come back to the spot where we parted; and I verily believe I had not been two miles distant the whole eight days that I was moving round and round, and backward and forward, just in a circle, because, d'ye see, I followed the sun, and that led ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... Both moved backward through the gate, and before it closed there came a fling of claws on the floor. A black ball, bound hard with tightened sinew, rose in the air and shot across the arena and shook the gate which had closed in time ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... backward amongst the throng; and, leaning against the wall of one of the houses, contemplated ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sponsor! Thus Slavophilism, under the leadership of Aksakoff, instead of leading forward with the great liberal movement that came after the Crimean War, resulting finally in the emancipation of the serfs, would lead backward to the stagnant hours of medieval Russia. Then there were no German words to disfigure the Russian language! Then there were no German divisions of rank among the officials to strangle life by their formality. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... inclined downward from 10 deg. to 15 deg. to the horizontal, and were spaced to converge at the location of the drainage ditches. The heading was usually driven from 10 to 20 ft. in advance of the bench. At this distance a large part of the muck from the heading was shot backward over the bench. In the single tunnels the muck was ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... desperate. He had apparently gone mad. He had started to use his own teeth. He had set his jaw on the yeggman's hand as it groped for his throat. He had caught the index finger of the other blackened hand and levered it savagely backward, backward until the bone broke and it hung limp on the tortured tendon. He had sent the relaxed head skidding against the tunnel wall, once, twice, three times, until the sweat-stained arms fell away and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine |
