"Backwards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me Wagner had been browsing on Bach; on this particular prelude had, in fact, got a starting point for the Norn music. The more I studied Wagner, the more I found Bach, and the more Bach, the better the music. Chopin knew his Bach backwards, hence the surprisingly fresh, vital quality of his music, despite its pessimistic coloring. Schumann loved Bach and built his best music on him, Mendelssohn re-discovered him, whilst Beethoven played the Well-tempered Clavichord every ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... disappeared, and Mrs. Somers shut herself up in her room, where she walked backwards and forwards for above an hour, then threw herself upon a sofa, and remained nearly another hour, till Mrs. Masham came to say that it was time to dress for dinner. She then started up, saying aloud, "I will think no more ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... string a little below the level of the crest of the hip bone; it reaches almost to the ankle, but is open at the left side along its whole depth. It is thus a large apron rather than a skirt. When the woman is at work in the house or elsewhere, she tucks up the apron by drawing the front flap backwards between her legs, and tucking it tightly into the band behind, thus reducing it to the proportions and appearance of a small pair of bathing-drawers. Each woman possesses also a long-sleeved, long-bodied jacket of white cotton similar ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Remove leaf by leaf from the stalk, examining for insects. Pass the leaves backwards and forwards through clean water until all sand is removed. Fold in a wet cloth and keep in the ice-box until it is used. The lettuce leaves should be dried ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke-street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair of stairs backwards, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but lodg'd abroad. After sending to inquire my character at the house where I last lodg'd she agreed to take me in at ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... to strike harder, and this double flogging continued, till a lass of Silver-End, pitying the pitiful beadle thus suffering under the hands of the pitiless constable, joined the procession, and placing herself immediately behind the latter, seized him by his capillary club, and pulling him backwards by the same, slapped his face with a most Amazon fury. This concatenation of events has taken up more of my paper than I intended it should, but I could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the constable the beadle, and the ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... staff, the blade of the knife should lie neither vertical nor horizontal, but midway between the two, so as to make the section of the left lobe of the prostate in its longest diameter, that is, in a direction downwards and backwards (Fig. XXXIV. L). ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... footsteps of the murderers going backwards to the hall, and, filled with joy, he pressed forward. His head was dizzy, he felt as if every moment he must sink in a swoon; but at length he reached the door, turned the handle ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... was, she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she touched ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... hospitable cavern, but it was not without difficulty we crossed the precipices which frowned before us, and for the first time had to employ our long ladder. We supported it against the side of a chasm, the opposite brink of which lay several hundred feet below. We descended backwards the close and narrow steps, strictly forbidden to cast a downward glance. Day advanced rapidly. The masses of snow which rose around us resembled so many mountains piled upon other mountains. We were in the heart of the vast solitudes of the Eiger, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... into the streets meant arrest for the elders, but not always for the children. You have heard the story, which is true, of how some gamins put carrots in old bowler hats to represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader's command of "On to Paris!" did a goose-step backwards. There is another which you may not have heard of a small boy who put on grandfather's spectacles, a pillow under his coat, and a card on his cap, 'Officer of the Landsturm.' The conquerors had enough sense not to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the bed beside her. She started up in an agony of terror; but it was soon allayed, though not removed. She saw Euphra on her knees at the foot of the bed, an old-fashioned four-post one. She had her arms twined round one of the bed-posts, and her head thrown back, as if some one were pulling her backwards by her hair, which fell over her night-dress to the floor in thick, black masses. Her eyes were closed; her face was death-like, almost livid; and the cold dews of torture were rolling down from brow to chin. Her lips were moving convulsively, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Niagara is supposed to have commenced on the heights of Queenstown, and to have gradually receded, or worn its way backwards to its present site, seven miles above, near Chippewa, the banks of the river on both sides between the two spots being perpendicular, 2 to 300 feet in height, chiefly of solid rock, and of the same level as ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... ago he would have been satisfied with the self-same impulse—but now he must have increasing might; and indeed he would require all his might to accomplish his object of fleeing forward, that is, going backwards and forwards at the same time. Perhaps he uses the word flee for flow; which latter he could not well employ in this place, it being, as we shall see, essentially necessary to rhyme to Mexico towards the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... the ball all the time it is in the air will not cover nearly so much ground as the one who is able to put down his head and run until near the ball. Particularly is this true of a fly hit over the fielder's head. The player who attempts to run backwards or sideways for the ball, or who turns his back to the ball but keeps his head twisted around so as to see it, will not begin to get the hits that a man will who is able to locate the hit exactly and ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... came near to this castle, which looked as if it was of pure glass, the youth ran on in front as the king's fool. Heran sometimes facing forwards, sometimes backwards, stood sometimes on his head, and sometimes on his feet, and he dashed in pieces so many of the troll's big glass windows and doors that it was something awful to see, and overturned everything he could, and ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... fiendishly confident, was steadily and surely closing upon him, narrowing the limit of his retreat after each blow. Finally he retreated no more, but began pressing his adversary backwards towards the chestnut grove, the while delivering blow after blow. Then he suddenly gave his wrist a dextrous twirl and Giovanni's knife was torn from his grasp, falling about ten feet away. Instantly the young man was forced to the ground and old Pasquale stood over him with his legs wide ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... have the same respect for him as ever, and have been coming several times to kiss his royal paw, but I am so terribly frightened at the mouth of his cave, to see the print of my fellow-subjects' feet all pointing forwards, and none backwards, that I had not resolution enough ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... apparatus, made of peeled willow sticks, covered with cotton shirting, weighed less than forty pounds. He was supported in it wholly on his forearms, which passed through padded tubes, while his hands grasped a cross-bar. He guided the machine and preserved its balance by shifting his weight, backwards or forwards or sideways. In this apparatus, altered and improved from time to time, Lilienthal, during the next five years, made more than two thousand successful glides. At first he used to jump off a spring-board; then he practised on some ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... round with her, but she was not of the fainting order. She took three steps backwards and leant against the wall of the cave. She also was trying to think how she might best fight her battle. Was there no chance for her? Could no eloquence, no love prevail? On her own beauty she counted but little; but might not prayers do something, and a reference to those old vows ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... loose buskins, thickly set with dog's teeth, the rattle of which, during the dance, kept time with the music of the calabash drum. A beautiful yellow tapa was tastefully fastened round his loins, reaching to his knees. He began his dance in front of the musicians, and moved forward and backwards, across the area, occasionally chanting the achievements of former kings of Hawaii. The governor sat at the end of the ring, opposite to the musicians, and appeared gratified with the performance, which continued until the evening. (Vol. IV, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... be the hostess, has a spelling book from which she selects the words which the players must spell backwards. Words of one or two syllables may be chosen, and if, when spelt backwards, they spell other ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... brow, so! drew the strands Loose and rich of her tawny hair, Once through her fingers, standing there; Then again to the rail she passed. One more look to the West she cast, And into the East she drew away: Backwards and forwards her brown arms play, Forwards and backwards, till far and dim, She grew one with the night's dun rim; Backwards and forwards, and then, was gone Into I know not what . . . alone. She came not back, she may never come; But a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... semicircle in such a manner that the eye under examination is exactly in the centre, and looks directly at the middle point of the semicircle, corresponding to 0 in the scale: the testing object, a small ball, is passed backwards or forwards along the semicircle. A graduated scale, placed on the semicircle, marks the point limiting the field of vision, and the result is registered on a diagram. The average limit of the normal field of vision is 90 mm. on the ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... is a holy man; he has not even that manner at once caressing and reserved of other priests. Apart from certain gestures, his habit of rolling his arms in his cincture, of wrapping his hands in his sleeves, of liking to walk backwards when in conversation; apart from his innocent mania of interlarding his phrases with Latin, he does not recall either the attitude or the unfashionable speech of his brethren. He loves mysticism and plain song; he is exceptional, and therefore he must have been also carefully ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... animosities and strifes. Churches are raised into ferment and divisions. Political parties are brought into rivalry and contention. The passions are kindled into fury, and blood for blood, tooth for tooth, eye for eye, are the precepts of mutual action. Fame is arrested in its course and turned backwards. Honour is thrown into the dust. Worth is cast into the streets; usefulness is perverted into mischievousness. Noble aspiration is said to be selfishness. Whatever slander touches, it leaves upon it the slimy trail of the old serpent, and infuses its poisonous venom; and were ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... the bees after their removal. There are however, weighty objections to such an arrangement, which will prevent it, at least for some time, from being extensively adopted. The labor of removing the bees backwards and forwards, is a serious objection to the whole plan; and in addition to this, the necessity of having a skillful Apiarian at each establishment, puts its adoption out of the question, with most persons who keep bees. It might ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... betokened the high courage of France. M. de Narbonne personified it in the council. His colleagues, MM. de Lessart and Bertrand de Molleville, saw in him the total overthrow of all their plans. The king, as usual, was all indecision; one step forward and one backwards; surprised by the event in his hesitation, and thus unable to resist a shock, or himself ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of a bird—say a large bird, such as the crow—we shall find it curved or arched from front to back. This curve, however, is somewhat irregular. At the front edge of the wing it is sharpest, and there is a gradual dip or slope backwards and downwards. There is a special reason for this peculiar structure, as we shall ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... standing on the western side of King Street, and nearly opposite to what is now the entrance to New Palace Yard. They were a little larger and more pretentious than most of the houses in this street, and a goodsized garden ran backwards from each towards Saint James's Park. As every house had then its name and a signboard to exhibit it—numbers being not yet applied to houses—these were no exception to the rule. That one of the trio nearest to the Abbey displayed a golden fish upon its signboard; the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... showed no inclination. "He passed among his school-fellows as a strange and unsocial being; for when a holiday relieved us from our tasks, and the other boys were engaged in such sports as the narrow limits of our prison-court allowed, Shelley, who entered into none of them, would pace backwards and forwards—I think I see him now—along the southern wall, indulging in various vague and undefined ideas, the chaotic elements, if I may say so, of what afterwards produced so beautiful ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... the room backwards and forwards for a few minutes in an agitated way, as if trying to stifle some ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... can I bear it?" he said, rising up, and pacing the floor backwards and forwards, after reading her letter for the tenth time. On the next day, the seventh of his lonely state, Mr. Gray sat down to write again to Lucy. Several times he wrote the words, as he proceeded in the letter—"Come home soon,"—but as often obliterated them. He did not wish ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... pick our way through the crowds of strange people who were moving backwards and forwards in every direction. Carts were passing to and fro; groups of Indians squatting on their haunches were chattering together, and displaying to one another the flaring red and yellow handkerchiefs, the scarlet blankets, and muskets of the most worthless ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... taking him to be another silversmith, struck him across the face with his stick. Dhokul drew his sword, and made a cut at the sipahee, which would have severed his head from his body had he not fallen backwards. As it was, he got a severe cut in the chest, and ran off to his companions. Dhokul went out of the town with his drawn sword, and no one dared to pursue him. At night he returned, took off his ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... coming back all in one heap to the treasury! It is the act of a faithful subject and a good Christian." And having once more cast her eyes over the act, she restored it to Louis XIV., whom the announcement of the sum greatly agitated. Fouquet had taken some steps backwards and remained silent. The king looked at him, and held the paper out to him, in turn. The superintendent only bestowed a haughty look of a second upon it; then bowing,—"Yes, sire," said he, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... took his seat under the shade of another tree opposite to the chief, while the spokesman of the party, who had accompanied them, in a loud voice, walking backwards and forwards, gave an account of the doctor and his connection ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... offered to seize her hand, but she drew it away sharply. With a laugh he stepped nearer to her. A slight sound caught my ear, and, turning my head, I saw Carford on the lowest step of the stairs; he was looking at the pair, and a moment later stepped backwards, till he was almost hidden from my sight, though I could still make out the shape of his figure. A cry of triumph from Monmouth echoed low but intense through the hall; he had caught the elusive hand and was kissing it passionately. Barbara stood still and stiff. The ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... shown by the finishing strokes being turned backwards, and inwards; by a cramped hand, a disposition to curtail strokes, particularly the endings of letters, as if the ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... which we saw manifested in the lives of others. Each contributed his share of gas to inflate the painted balloon to which we all clung, in the expectation that it would presently soar with us to the stars. But it only went up over the out-houses, dodged backwards and forwards two or three times, and finally flopped down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... conqueror, argues some essential defect of system. Under our modern policy, military power—though it may be the growth of one man's life—soon takes root; a succession of campaigns is required for its extirpation; and it revolves backwards to its final extinction through all the stages by which originally it grew. On the Roman system this was mainly impossible from the solitariness of the Roman power; co-rival nations who might balance the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... could see the bottom of her petticoats as she turned the corner, and also that she came to a sudden stop, which must have been at the moment she caught sight of the noble proportions before her. I took care to pass my hand once or twice backwards or forwards while pissing, and then shook my prick deliberately, and exposed the whole length and breadth of it for a minute or two before buttoning it up, during which I could see she stood perfectly still, rooted to where she had first stopped. After I had buttoned up, I stooped down, apparently ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... backwards, he held out one hand the hand that had proved all kindness and comfort and, snapping a finger and thumb, clicked his tongue ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... her with eyes full of terror, she flung herself backwards, turned pale, and uttered a shrill scream. Then her eyelids fluttered, and she murmured ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... pause. Against the head, which innocence secures, Insidious malice aims her darts in vain, Turn'd backwards by the pow'rful breath of heav'n. Perhaps, e'en now the lovers, unpursu'd, Bound o'er the sparkling waves. Go, happy bark, Thy sacred freight shall still the raging main. To guide thy passage shall th' ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Displacement Backwards.—The uterus may be tipped backward, in which case it will rest against the lower bowel. The principal symptom here is pain in the lower part of the back, as if a movement of the bowels were necessary. ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... won't come true unless you wait till midnight to do 'em. I found a long list of 'em in an old book at home and gave them to Jennie. I think she might have asked me. I'd love to try my fate walking down cellar backwards with a looking-glass in one hand and a candle in the other. They say that you can see the reflection of the man you're going to marry looking over your shoulder ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... continued in prison, and whose feet were so dreadfully mangled, that for several days he was unable to move. I knew not what to do, for I could procure no assistance from the neighbourhood, or medicine for the sufferers, but was all day long going backwards and forwards from the house to the prison, with little Maria in my arms. Sometimes I was greatly relieved by leaving her, for an hour, when asleep, by the side of her father, while I returned to the house ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... entirely to conceal his identity, Vere de Lancy is travelling under the assumed name of Lancy de Vere. In order the better to hide the object of his journey, Lancy de Vere (as we shall now call him, though our readers will be able at any moment to turn his name backwards) has given it to be understood that he is travelling merely as a gentleman anxious to see America. This naturally baffles all ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... irregular intervals at which the Council held its actual sittings. Either they had to waste their time at Calcutta during the intervals, to the detriment of their interests at home, or they had to spend days in railway carriages rushing backwards and forwards from their homes to the capital, for in a country of such magnificent distances there are few journeys that take less than 24 hours, and from Calcutta, for instance, either to Madras or to Bombay takes the best part of 48 hours. Unless arrangements are remodelled so as to enable the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the median line, in the space between the labia minora, we see two apertures: the anterior of these is the urethral orifice (meatus), from which the comparatively short and almost straight urethra of the female passes upwards and backwards to the bladder; the posterior aperture is the vaginal orifice. The labia minora, divergent posteriorly, converge as they pass forwards like the limbs of a V; at the apex of the V is the clitoris; in shape and structure this resembles the penis of the male, but ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... dragon, strong as a lion, advancing against Ferdiad through clouds of dust, and forcing himself upon his shield, to strike at him from above. Yet even then Ferdiad shook him off, driving him backwards ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... of Canada. I know of nothing in this world capable of exciting emotions of wonder and adoration more directly, than to travel alone through its forests. Pines, lifting their hoary tops beyond man's vision, unless he inclines his head so far backwards as to be painful to his organization, with trunks which require fathoms of line to span them; oaks, of the most gigantic form; the immense and graceful weeping elm; enormous poplars, whose magnitude must be seen to be conceived; lindens, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... little more patience. Your face reminds me more and more of our early years; I should be glad to see Arsinoe once more. I feel at this moment as if time had moved backwards a good piece. Have you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not seen it with two eyes, as we know, till it was pointed out to her; but her imagination worked with equal liveliness backwards or forwards. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... compartment to the further window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There was a jerk—a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as the carriage in which he was seated itself began to move backwards. ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... a spring backwards, he broke his sword across his knee, in order not to yield it up, threw the pieces over the convent wall, and, crossing his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... flint throwing-stone with deadly aim. It struck the female a glancing blow on the face, tearing the flesh from one of the prominent brow ridges. She stopped, momentarily blinded. Invar raised a rock high above his head with both hands and cast it at her. It struck her on the chest and she fell backwards. Again Anak's strategy was successful and an avalanche of rolled rocks overwhelmed her. The boy turned to fly, but the fleet-footed Invar overtook him and the knives of the two hunters quickly put an end ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... The lay missionaries he intended to send were to be workmen, who would receive a small salary, if necessary, but were supposed to support themselves by their work: they were also to open schools, and seize every opportunity to preach the Word of God. Mr. Flad made several journeys backwards and forwards, and, at the time of the first trouble that befell the Europeans since the beginning of Theodore's reign, the lay missionaries, who had been joined by a few adventurers,—the whole of them ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... child, to save her "Boy." She felt in every fiber of her body the strain of that feat—the clinging, creeping progress up the perpendicular wall over the canon. Those around groaned as they watched, expecting each moment to see the man's body fall backwards ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... from whose crest Vixen took one last backwards look at the wide wild land that lay behind them—a look of ineffable love and longing. And then she threw herself back in the carriage, and gave herself up to gloomy thought. There was nothing more that she cared to see. They had entered the tame dull ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... at the edges: I do not know how I got over. I remember going in, and thinking that the horse was lifting his legs up and putting them down in the same place again, and that the river was flowing backwards. In fact I grew dizzy directly, but by fixing my eyes on the opposite bank, and leaving Doctor to manage matters as he chose, somehow or other, and much to my relief, I got to the other side. It was really nothing at all. I was wet only a little ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... of vapor, Throw a silver cloud around me, That I may in its protection Hasten to my native country, To my mother's Island-dwelling, Fly to her that waits my coming, With a mother's grave forebodings." Farther, farther, Lemminkainen Flew and soared on eagle-pinions, Looked about him, backwards, forwards, Spied a gray-hawk soaring near him, In his eyes the fire of splendor, Like the eyes of Pohyalanders, Like the eyes of Pohya's spearmen, And the gray-hawk thus addressed him: "Ho! There! hero, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... full tide of life and happiness. Every morning she rose with the sun, and as she opened the door and let in the scent of the furze and the dewy grass, her whole being responded to the voice of Nature around her. She was constantly running backwards and forwards between Garthowen and the cottage. Nothing went well at the farm without her, and in the cottage there were a score of things which she loved to do for Sara. There were the fowls to be fed, the eggs to be hunted ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... to his hinder parts. And the boar made away headlong down the hill, but he could not rid himself of Diarmuid; and he went on after that to Ess Ruadh, and when he came to the red stream he gave three high leaps over it, backwards and forwards, but he could not put him from his back, and he went back by the same path till he went up the height of the mountain again. And at last on the top of the mountain he freed himself, and Diarmuid fell on the ground. And then the boar made a rush at ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... MORAG is restlessly moving backwards and forwards. The old woman is seated on a low stool beside the peat fire in the centre of ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Mercury, entirely nude, is almost a figure by Rubens, but of a more gross sensuality. A gigantic Neptune urges before him his sea-horses which plash through the waves; his foot presses the edge of his chariot; his enormous and ruddy body is turned backwards; he raises his conch with the joy of a bestial god; the salt wind blows through his scarf, his hair, and his beard; one could never imagine, without seeing it, such a furious elan, such an overflowing of animal spirit, such a joy of pagan flesh, such ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... in the haggard are dripping heavily with damp, and the hens and geese, bewildered with the noise and gloom, are cackling with uneasy dread. All one's senses are disturbed. As I walk backwards and forwards, a few yards above and below the door, the little stream I do not see seems to roar ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... returning to the guest-room when he suddenly caught sight of the maid, gliding soundlessly before him along a corridor. He called to her, and hurried after her. Then she turned half-round, and flattened herself against the wall like a spider; and as he reached her she sank backwards into the wall, so that there remained of her nothing visible but a colored shadow,—level like a picture painted on the plaster. But the shadow moved its lips and eyes, and spoke to him ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... his hat gravely. "He was pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off the pier." ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering (leidend und schwitzend, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... comforted, and even elated, with the visitation she had witnessed, the maiden repeated again and again the orisons which she thought most grateful to the ear of her benefactress; and rising at length, retired backwards, as from the presence of a sovereign, until she ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... answer, he only evoked a passion of frightened tears, so piteous, that he spoke more gently, and stretched out his hand; but his son shook his frock at him in terror, and retreated out of reach, backwards into a corner, replying to his calls and assurances with violent sobs, and broken entreaties to go back ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... take her hand, when he heard a shuffle and a rush behind him. He rose, turned swiftly, saw a bottle swinging, threw up his hand . . . and fell backwards against the bed. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of stepping backwards and downwards, dragging her after him. But it was not this betrayed him. It was his face, which in an instant told her all, and that he sought not death, but life! She struggled upright and strove to free herself. But he ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... gentleman descended from his elevation, and walked about the "church," backwards and forwards, whispering a few words to one, and then to another, in a very bustling manner. As I looked down the aisle, I saw on one side of it, near the pulpit end, a leg projecting about eighteen inches, in a pendent position, at an angle of about ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... nearly related animals.[1] Buffaloes are heavily built oxen, with sparsely haired skin, large ears, long, tufted tails, broad muzzles and massive angulated horns. In having only 13 pairs of ribs they resemble the typical oxen. African buffaloes all have the hair of the back directed backwards. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... have to bear in mind is that the planets move about amongst the stars. Just think! They go round the sun, and so do we. The times of their revolution are not coincident with ours, and their path is sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards. Suppose we were in the centre of the planetary system, all these irregularities would disappear; but we are outside, and therefore it ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... moment the horse rose almost upright with two men clinging to it; one of them, whose sallow cheeks were livid now, swaying in the saddle. Then Grant grasped the bridle that fell from the rider's hands, and hurled his comrade backwards, while some of the stockriders pushed their horses nearer, and the axe-men closed in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... ago we had no vehicle except a single horse chaise for me to go backwards and forwards to Calcutta. That was necessarily kept on the opposite side of the river; and if the strength of the horse would have borne it, could not have been used for the purposes of health. Sister Marshman was seized ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... is then so far busied, that a few intervals of silence may be borne with. What is most disgusting and ridiculous, during these intermissions of conversation, is to see, perhaps, a dozen over-grown fellows, get up, sit down again, walk backwards and forwards, turn on their heels, play with the chimney ornaments, and rack their brains to maintain an inexhaustible chain of words: what a charming occupation! Such people, wherever they go, must be troublesome both to others and themselves. When I was at Motiers, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... that women and children and sweaty breadwinners have furnished the money for all these things we're so proud of having built, including the Mt. Desert cottages and the Wyoming hunting-lodge. It means that we've got to be able to read our book of the Black Art backwards as well as forwards, or the Powers we've conjured up will tear piecemeal both them and us. God! it makes me crawl to think of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... pronounced these words when they heard the noise of water falling from a neighbouring rock. They ran thither and having quenched their thirst at this crystal spring, they gathered and ate a few cresses which grew on the border of the stream. Soon afterwards while they were wandering backwards and forwards in search of more solid nourishment, Virginia perceived in the thickest part of the forest, a young palm-tree. The kind of cabbage which is found at the top of the palm, enfolded within its leaves, is well adapted ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... scribbled a thousand brutalities, in the buildings, upon his religion. I myself, at Canons, saw a beautiful table of oriental alabaster that had been split in two by a buck in boots jumping up backwards to sit ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... so?" he said, as though I had made an interesting statement, and limped away, looking backwards at me. I suppose he wants ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... where our reason will inform us? Why, like the waggoner, apply to Jupiter, when we may remove the difficulty by putting our own shoulders to the wheels? If we are reasonable creatures, we can generally tell, whether we ought to go forwards or backwards, or to begin, or to postpone, whether our actions are likely to be innocent or hurtful, or whether we are going on an errand of benevolence or of evil. In fact, there can be no necessity for this constant appeal to the Spirit in all our worldly concerns, while we ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... the sobriquet of "Uncle Jimmy Morgan." He was odd and peculiar in his manner; he stood in a position inclining forward, and when he walked he held his hands behind him, his eyes striking the ground at an angle of forty-five degrees. In conversation with others, he walked rapidly backwards and forwards as if in great mental excitement, doubtless, as Artemus Ward would say, "a way he has." He was plain and unostentatious in his dress, wearing a soldier's blouse, a soldier's hat, and soldier's shoes, being a private soldier out and out, the only distinction consisting in ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... again, "he has him." The thrush had seized the worm who had come up to investigate the noise, and was now staggering backwards, bracing himself, and tugging at the poor worm, who, in a moment more ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... this taking place in seconds? One moment of clear reasoning had just told me that this cold dampness, moving along my knee, was the soaking blood of one of my victims, when a Turkish officer ran into the trench-bay, firing backwards and blindly at my sergeant-major. Seeing me, he whipped round his revolver to shoot me. My fist shot out towards his chin in an automatic action of self-defence, and the bayonet, which it held, passed ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... which gems of poetry and pathos and spiritual fervor glittered and pitiful records of ancient persecution lay petrified. And the method of praying these things was equally complex and uncouth, equally the bond-slave of tradition; here a rising and there a bow, now three steps backwards and now a beating of the breast, this bit for the congregation and that for the minister, variants of a page, a word, a syllable, even a vowel, ready for every possible contingency. Their religious consciousness was largely a musical box—the thrill of the ram's ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... unless she wants to punish me by the 'Lex talionis', which would be hardly practicable without a repetition of the original offence. If she had not liked the game, all she had to do was to give me a push which would have sent me backwards." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... men as nat'rally as in charcoals, Which sooty chymists stop in holes 425 When out of wood they extract coals: So lovers should their passions choak, That, tho' they burn, they may not smoak. 'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole And dragg'd beasts backwards into's hole: 430 So Love does lovers, and us men Draws by the tails into his den, That no impression may discover, And trace t' his cave, the wary lover, But if you doubt I should reveal 435 What you entrust me under seal. I'll prove myself as close ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... have you of God's mercy?" She handed him a book. "If you repent of your folly, read the first four lines in the seventh page backwards." She vanished. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... boy walked slowly backwards, followed by the old man with his fiery eyes fixed upon his face, till at last concussion against the trunk of a great tree prevented further retreat. Here he stood for about thirty seconds, writhing under the glance that seemed to pierce him through and through, till at ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... at Barbara's bathrobe until that young woman nearly tumbled backwards down the steps, "there is a light in Uncle's study! I suppose it is Harriet who is ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... he fell, and his sister stopped short. A shock of terror blanched her cheek and caused her heart to stand still. She could not move or cry for a few seconds, then she uttered a loud shriek and shrank backwards. ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... eleven at night, and the athletic gentlemen who came there not only ordered him about without ceremony, but varied the monotony of being set at naught by the invincible Skene by practising what he taught them on the person of his apprentice, whom they pounded with great relish, and threw backwards, forwards, and over their shoulders as though he had been but a senseless effigy, provided for that purpose. Meanwhile the champion looked on and laughed, being too lazy to redeem his promise of teaching the novice to defend himself. The latter, however, watched the lessons which he saw ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... spirit that I have always been proud of. Hogan was almost irresistible. You could hardly stop him when he had the ball. He scored between Harold Short and myself and jammed through for about 12 yards to a touchdown. If you tackled Jim Hogan head on he would pull you right over backwards. He was the strongest tackle I ever saw. He seemed to have overpowering strength in his legs. He was a regular player. He never gave up until the whistle blew, but after the Princeton team got its scoring machine at work, the Princeton line ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... on the floor, her feet tucked under her, her hands clasped round her knees, swaying backwards and forwards in a tempest of excited feeling, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... contents on to the carpet. The waiter himself—a small, undersized person with black, startled eyes set at that moment in a fixed and unnatural stare—made one desperate effort to save himself and then fell backwards. Every one turned around, attracted by the noise of the falling cups and the sharp, half-stifled groan which broke from the man's lips. Captain ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... passed, nevertheless; and "The Conquest" had been out three months, when one afternoon, as Daniel was superintending a difficult manoeuvre, he was suddenly seen to stagger, raise his arms on high, and fall backwards on ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... of the stairs, he let go again. He was in that rosy condition when united-we-stand. But unfortunately it is a complicated job to climb the stairs in unison. The whole lot tends to fall backwards. Arthur, therefore, rosy, plump, looking so good to eat, stood still a moment in order to find his own neatly-slippered feet. Having found them, he proceeded to put them carefully one before the other, and to his enchantment found that this procedure was carrying ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... the Square. Jones meets Smith, and they both go at it—that is, blackguarding each other. One called the other a thief, and the other said he was a liar, and then they got to swearing backwards and forwards pretty generally, as you might say, and finally one struck the other over the head with a cane, and then they closed and fell, and after that they made such a dust and the gravel flew so thick that I couldn't rightly tell which ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... the explosion of the bomb, which luckily landed in their trench, I saw one big Boche throw up his arms and fall backwards, white his rifle flew into the air. Another one wilted and fell ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... run or stay, but I stayed, and as soon as the old woman got in sight, I sat on the ground and began to rock my body backwards and forwards, crying,— ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... but could discover nothing, for, as is common in Mexico at the hour of dawn, the gulf was absolutely filled with dense vapours. Then I made up my mind that I would risk it and began to shuffle slowly backwards. Already I was near the edge when I remembered Emma Becker and paused to reflect. If I took her with me it would considerably lessen my chances of escape, and at any rate her life was not threatened. But I had not given her the pistol, and at that moment even in my ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... the eccentric Hosier, generally places a loom near the door of his shops decorated with small busts; some of which being attached to the upper movements of the machinery, and grotesquely attired in patchwork and feathers, bend backwards and forwards with the motion of the works, apparently to salute the spectators, and present to the idea persons dancing; while every passing of the shuttle produces a noise which may be assimilated to that of the Rattlesnake, accompanied with sounds ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... it from my grasp. In any case I could not have prevented him. He shoved me backwards against the rusty bulkhead with a clang. He pushed the nozzle of the syringe down into the retort and withdrew it filled with Moon Glow. He opened an inspection plate in his ventral region and squirted ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... in the country than I have been. You seen some good riding, I bet. Maybe you see some men ride backwards ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... run, as if they would let him know by their fury, by the motion of head and eyes, by rapid changes of gait and gesture, (16) now casting a glance back and now fixing their gaze steadily forward to the creature's hiding-place, (17) by twistings and turnings of the body, flinging themselves backwards, forwards, and sideways, and lastly, by the genuine exaltation of spirits, visible enough now, and the ecstasy of their pleasure, that they are close ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... in politics will be apt to think he could have done the same. But, on the other hand, a man who proposes no such object, who substitutes artifice in the place of ability, who, instead of leading parties and governing accidents, is eternally agitated backwards and forwards by both, who begins every day something new, and carries nothing on to perfection, may impose awhile on the world; but a little sooner or a little later the mystery will be revealed, and nothing ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... of the courtyard stood Martha, moving her right hand backwards and forwards in the air. The cook was stooping down and moving her hands, also in a very curious way. But. the oddest and at the same time most terrible thing was the Lamb, who was sitting on nothing, about three feet ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... curse he flung her hand away, and then in a twinkling he gave her a push, and before she could recover herself she had gone backwards over the edge of the dock. With a frightened cry she disappeared, and the man, instead of trying to rescue her, leaped aside and vanished into ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... withdrawn, sir," John repeated. As he spoke he saw the Colonel stagger backwards and sink into his chair; his face became white and twitched; his head fell to one side; he breathed stertorously, flushed slightly, and was instantly as ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... effects which go on in the finely-divided materials of the soils may be observed in the laboratory. They proceed faster than would be anticipated. The observation is made by passing a measured quantity of water backwards and forwards for some months through a tube containing a few grammes of powdered rock. Finally the water is analysed, and in this manner the amount of dissolved matter it has taken up is estimated. The rock powder is examined under the microscope in order ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... found not to be wanting in the least, in the generation of Metals, as likewise no one Spirit of all the Metals can be set backwards, because of necessity they accord together from the lowest to the highest degree, and must agree together, as a Metal is perfect in the great Earth, so should the transmutation & augmentation succeed in the little world; understand it after this ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... the torch blows harder than at first, and there is enough air to waft it backwards, so there will be an opening at the end, I am sure. That is what I must ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... and in a Christian journal very edifying. But if our pious contemporary only applied this criticism backwards, what havoc it would make with the records of early Christianity! Mrs. Booth-Tucker is not in all points like Mary Magdalene, but she resembles her in fervor of disposition. Out of Mary Magdalene we are told that Jesus cast "seven devils," which implies, rationalistically, that ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... rond to the left (four bars), then back again to the right (four bars), employing the second step of the Cellarius. Each couple does the petit tour forwards, and backwards, still using the second step, and repeating it three times to the right—then resting a bar; three times to the left—then resting another bar; which occupies eight bars of the music. These figures may be considered as preliminary. We find the quadrille itself so well ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... I believe so, but it was the Lord's-Prayer backwards then. Pray, what was that you were ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the carriage, perched on a kind of bar and holding on tightly to the springs, was Bland. Barefooted urchins often ride in this way, and appear to enjoy themselves until the coachman lashes backwards at them with his whip. I never saw a grown man do it before, and I should have supposed that it would be most uncomfortable. Bland, however, seemed quite cheerful, and I admired the instinct which led him to ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himself and was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeated the name a second time, and a third. From that time men have never ceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, I suppose, that there was some one in the country who ventured to oppose his pleasure, that the case was being pleaded otherwise than as he imagined it would be; that the sham sale of goods was ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... our guns were swung by straps over our backs, so that we might use our hands, and we were clinging to the face of the big rock while our toes were seeking foothold in the treacherous shale of the trail. To loosen our hands was to fall backwards into the bluish white sea of unknown depths, and to retrace our steps was ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... prefer to ride backwards, and as an American prefers to face the engine, it works out beautifully. It is not etiquette to talk with fellow passengers, in fact it is very middle-class. If you are in a smoking carriage (all European carriages are smoking unless marked "Ladies alone" ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... was too weak to walk alone. The other two held her up between them or carried her on their backs. Troloo had gone on without faltering as yet, but now they reached some hard, stony ground, and after going backwards and forwards several times he shook his head and said that he could not find the track of the children. They must go across it. Perhaps it might be found on the other side. Mr Harlow and his party went across the stony ground, but they looked ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... he chose out to do his bidding; and while the gates were cleared of the throng, and trumpets were sounding, and church bells were rung backwards, for an alarm, I was dragged, with many a kick and blow, over the drawbridge, up the stairs of the tower, and so was thrown into a strong room beneath the battlements. There they put me in bonds, gave me of their courtesy a jug of water and a loaf of black bread ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... down without even changing his grip; Marcus and the harness-maker struggled together for a few moments till Heise all at once slipped on a bit of turf and fell backwards. As they toppled over together, Marcus writhed himself from under his opponent, and, as they reached the ground, forced down first one shoulder and ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... cripple, who cannot leave the car when the customs officers search it. Now, signore, let's be off and trust to our good fortune in getting away. I will tell the officers of the dogana at Ventimiglia a good story—trust me! I haven't been smuggling backwards and forwards for ten years without knowing ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... of force which was sent into their country last year. The newspapers that circulate among them had informed them that Great Britain had no troops to send out; that in order to produce an impression on the minds of the country-people, the same regiments were marched backwards and forwards in different directions, and represented as additional arrivals from home. This explanation was promulgated among the people by the agitators of each village; and I have no doubt that the mass of the inhabitants really ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near to the top, but not reaching it. So I get out to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... cooler of the two, I did so with tolerable success. He struck and thrust furiously with his weapon, till he was out of breath; and I was also, besides having had two or three hard raps on the head and arms with his weapon. A desperate lunge knocked me over backwards, and I fell over the bow of the boat upon the beach. I felt that I was defeated, and that I had promised Miss Collingsby more than I had thus far been able to perform. With this advantage over me, Mr. Waterford pushed me back with the oar, and ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... ourselves to suppose that because that age knew less than ours, because its bounds were narrower and the undispelled clouds lower down, it therefore thought itself feeble and purblind. By contrast with the strenuous hurry-push of modern life such movement as we can see, looking backwards, seems slow and uncertain of its aim; before the power of modern armaments how helpless all the might of Rome! It is easy to fall into the idea that our mediaeval forefathers moved in the awkward attitudes ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... pointsman with respect to every linear yard of the platform edge, whether her train is going to come up there; and they ask each other questions, and give prismatic information; and then the train for Paradise (let us say) comes reluctantly backwards into the station with friends standing on its margin, and prudence seizes her valise and goes at a hand-gallop to the other end, where the nth class is, and is only just in time to get a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... portion of our life it is that we really enjoy! In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day when ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... He groaned, and sank backwards, and her hand was upon the dagger, while she cast such a look as the fabled vampire might cast upon her destined victim, loving gold much, but perhaps blood most, when all at ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... figure rose into view, holding in its arms a white-robed woman. With a sort of nervous shock, I saw that the man was Swain, and the woman Marjorie Vaughan. A thrill of fear ran through me as I saw how her head fell backwards against his shoulder, ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... lurid anathema, answered him, and in a couple of seconds Kelly himself lurched into him, nearly hurling him backwards. "And is it yourself?" cried the Irishman. "Then help me to hold the damned young scoundrel, for he's fighting like the devils in hell! Here he is! ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... impossible to forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any moment might steal out and encompass his darkening life? He sat there motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude which time had never for ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out backwards, to keep his promise. The brown woodland was gay with him for a day and a night; for he sang nearly all the time with unflagging spirits. But Jehane spent part of the interval in the chapel, with her hands crossed ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... shot either flew overhead or passed wide of the galley. Excited as the young knights were, and eager for the fray, a general laugh broke out as the galley swept along by the pirate ship, breaking many of her oars, and hurling all the slaves who manned them backwards off their benches. A moment later the guns poured their iron contents among the pirates who clustered thickly on the forecastle and poop, and as the vessels grated together the knights sprang on board ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... drum. This membrane is stretched over a cavity in the bone, called the os petrosum, which cavity is called the tympanum, or drum of the ear, which is of a rounded figure, divided in its middle by a promontory, and continued backwards to the cells of the mastoid bone. Besides this continuation of the tympanum into the mastoid cells, it has a free communication with the mouth, by means of a tube ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... up, put my arm round her waist, and told her that we would be off to Naples. I'm blest if she didn't give me a knock in the ribs that nearly sent me backwards. She took my breath away, so that I couldn't speak ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... grinding tooth of the upper jaw has an outer wall so shaped that, on the worn crown, it exhibits the form of two crescents, one in front and one behind, with their concave sides turned outwards. From the inner side of the front crescent, a crescentic front ridge passes inwards and backwards, and its inner face enlarges into a strong longitudinal fold or pillar. From the front part of the hinder crescent, a back ridge takes a like direction, and also has ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... sea now; I can see nothing of it in a day; why, I do but get a breath of it, and the sun sinks before I have well begun to think. Life is so little and so mean. I dream sometimes backwards of the ancient times. If I could have the bow of Ninus, and the earth full of wild bulls and lions, to hunt them down, there would be rest in that. To shoot with a gun is nothing; a mere touch discharges it. Give me a bow, that I may enjoy the delight of feeling myself ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... afternoon of the fourth day, we broke one wheel of the ox cart and hay rack, while "coasting" in it. There was a long slope in the east field; and we coasted there, all getting into the cart and letting it run down backwards, dragging the "tongue" on the ground behind it: not the proper manner of using ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... their hands, it swerved aside. Then as this mass ran into the regular line of soldiers, who were rapidly coming to meet them, their rifles carried at charge, it threw itself to one side, then to the other, then backwards and forwards and finally scattered over the fields, filling the air with mad outcries and disorderly shooting. It was at that very time that the second platoon of the third squad strayed from its regiment and its ...
— The Shield • Various
... of this region are giving attention to sheep-raising, wine-making, and the raising of olives, just enough to keep the town from going backwards. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... who went to the asylum to see him he pointed his finger and said: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom, of God and His Righteousness.' When I went back to my native village, after that, I was told he was still out of his mind, but at home. I went to see him, and asked him did he know me. He was rocking backwards and forwards in his rocking chair, and he gave me that vacant stare and pointed to me as he said, 'Young man, seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.' When, last month, I laid down my younger brother in his grave, I could not help but think ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... middle of an enthusiastic "Oh!" when the urchin's head appeared. Instead of expressing his passionate desire for a "draught of the howling blast," he prolonged the "Oh!" into a hideous yell, and thrust his blazing face close to the window so suddenly that the boy let go his hold, fell backwards, and rolled head over heels into a ditch, out of which he scrambled with violent haste, and ran with the utmost possible precipitancy to his ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... consist of the edge of a bed of rock, sharply fractured, in the manner already explained in Chap. XII., and are represented, in their connection with aiguilles and crests, by c, in Fig. 42, p. 195. When the bed of rock slopes backwards from the edge, as a, Fig. 73, a condition of precipice is obtained more or less peaked, very safe, and very grand.[80] When the beds are horizontal, b, the precipice is steeper, more dangerous, but much less impressive. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... was aiming the gun clapped his hand to his forehead and fell backwards. Jimmie was at his side, and the gun was shooting—so what more natural than for Jimmie to move into position and look along the sights? It was a fact that he had never aimed any sort of gun in his life before; but he was apt with machinery—and disposed ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... bumped into him, but managed to come to a standstill, before precipitating that catastrophe. They lurched back upon their heels, nearly toppling backwards, too surprised for the moment to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... about half a dozen of us standing there," he continued, "and, of course, I am not experienced. The thing started suddenly, and that jerked me backwards. I fell against a stout gentleman, just behind me. He could not have been standing very firmly himself, and he, in his turn, fell back against a boy who was carrying a trumpet in a green baize case. They never smiled, neither the man nor the boy with the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... hear it calling, calling when the haggard sky Takes the darks and damps of Winter with the mournful marsh-fowl's cry; Even while the strong, swift torrents from the rainy ridges come Leaping down and breaking backwards—million-coloured shapes of foam! Then, and then, the sea out yonder chiefly looketh for the boon Portioned to the pleasant valleys and the grave sweet summer moon: Boon of Peace, the still, the saintly spirit of the dew-dells deep— Yellow dells and hollows ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... itself down to the edge of the pool, and looked backwards to the Kangaroo and Dot, who called out "Good-bye" to it. Its eyes were dim with tears, for it was still thinking of the Iguanodon and Ichthyosaurus, and of the good ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley |
