"Backed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the lover deserts his betrothed. He has used his power to create strife and dissension in every household. Of course, Big Ingmar would have been pleased to death with that sort of thing! Doubtless he would have backed Hellgum up in all this! I can just ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... like a block of granite, covered with a faded green cloth and having huge carved legs, stood at one end of the court, and stretched almost from side to side. On a dais over this table sat the two judges in high-backed chairs, deeply carved and black. There was a stout rail at one end of the table, and behind it were steps leading to a chamber below. This was the bar, and an officer of the court stood at one side of it. Exactly opposite it were three ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... backed three paces when he bumped into some one. He was pushed violently forward, and, before he could recover, winced under a ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... ran to the dressing tent and began rummaging in his trunk for his working tights. These he quickly donned and hurried back to the paddock. There he found Dimples with her ring horse, petting the broad-backed beast while he nibbled at ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... receptacle, the loaf of bread quickly followed, and lastly, the dish of vegetables. Then, getting up from her chair, she turned towards us, saying, "Na-nas-koo-moo-wi-nah," which is the Cree for thanksgiving. She gracefully backed out of the dining-room, holding carefully onto her supplies. Mrs Young and I looked in astonishment, but said nothing till she had gone out. We could not help laughing at the queer sight, although the food which had disappeared ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... uses of them. Once when the keepers wished to lead him upon our large platform scales, the trembling of the platform frightened him. He conceived the idea that it was unsafe, and therefore that he must keep off. He backed away, halted, and refused to leave solid ground. The men pushed him. He backed, and trumpeted a shrill protest. The men pushed harder, and forced him forward. Trumpeting his wild alarm and his protest against what he regarded as murder, he fell upon his knees and drove his tusks into ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... done their supper they looked about for some place to sleep. But suddenly the door burst open, and the wizard entered the hall. He was old and hump-backed, with a bald head and a grey beard that fell to his knees. He wore a black robe, and instead of a belt three iron circlets clasped his waist. He led by the hand a lady of wonderful beauty, dressed in white, with a girdle of silver and a crown of pearls, but her face was ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... coastal plain backed by flat-topped hills and rugged mountains; dissected upland desert plains in center slope into the desert interior ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... course, been put in; or if it is stationary, guests have been invited according to its size.) The distance between places at the table must never be so short that guests have no elbow room, and that the servants can not pass the dishes properly; when the dining-room chairs are very high backed and are placed so close as to be almost touching, it is impossible for them not to risk spilling something over some one. On the other hand, to place people a yard or more apart so that conversation has to be shouted ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... along for half-a-cable's length towards a place where, under the ledge of the inner reef, both afulu sama sama and afulu lanu uli (yellow and purple mullet) are certain to be found; and, as the little craft slips along, a large gar—green-backed, silvery-sided, and more than a yard long—may dart after you like a gleaming, hiltless rapier skimming the surface of the water. If you put out a line with a hook—baited with almost anything—a bit of fish a strip of white or red rag—you will ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... backed her up. "About as early as I remember it. I don't know how much you got out here; we had a good foot ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... trend of the ranges; but most of the rivers have numerous forks, indicating transverse ridges. From an aeroplane the mountains of northern California would suggest an immense drove of sleeping razor-backed hogs nestling against one another to keep warm, most of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... stroll through the city, during which he carefully used his eyes, Johnnie asked himself how the ill-drilled, ill-equipped, loosely organized Insurrectos could hope to overthrow so solid a power as this, backed as it seemed to be by unlimited means and unlimited armies of trained troops. It looked like a hopeless undertaking. No seaport, no city, scarcely a hamlet, in fact, so far as O'Reilly knew, was held by the rebels; they lurked in the woods or rode ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the open country sloping slowly to the water; on her left was the stealthiness of the larch wood; over and about everything was the blue day. Straight ahead of her the track dipped to a lane, and beyond that the ground rose again in fields sprinkled with the drab and white of sheep and lambs and backed by the elm trees of Sales Hall. She could see the chimneys of the house and the rooks' nests in the elm tops and, as though the sight reminded her of something mildly amusing, the smoothness of her face was ruffled by a smile, the stillness of her pose by a quick glance about ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... that this battery's unfortunate condition is quite exceptional. Let me make a suggestion. Provoke Mohr to a quarrel! You'll be sure to be backed up. Every one knows he can't control himself when he is drunk. And you can go to Madelung, or, still better, come to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... will not be among the number." The King here made a slight but courteous inclination and turned round. The observant Bishop of Frejus, who had retired to a little distance and who knew that the King never liked talking more than he could help it, gave me a signal. I obeyed, and backed, with all due deference, out of the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man, for heaven's sake!" The Doctor backed hurriedly out of the room. "The last billet you cleaned your pipe in they complained to the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... On which hint King Ferdinand straightway informed the Duke of Liegnitz that the act was not justifiable, and must be revoked. The Duke of Liegnitz, grieved to the heart, had no means of resisting. Ferdinand, King of the Romans, backed by Kaiser Karl, with the States of Bohemia barking at his wink, were too strong for poor Duke Friedrich of Liegnitz. Great corresponding between Berlin, Liegnitz, Prag ensued on this matter: but the end was a summons to Duke Friedrich,—summons from King Ferdinand in March, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... not have their assistance to get hold of the Chink and recover my property, the least they could do was to send me their servant. It was Jones who said that, and Ricardo backed up the idea. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... here I heard the song of the olive-backed thrush down in the currant-bushes below me. Instantly I was transported to the deep woods and the trout brooks of my native Catskills. I heard the murmuring water and felt the woodsy coolness of those ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Mr. Harford. It will certainly be desirable that I should be backed up by your presence. The first thing I shall do will be to go down to Abchester to see Dr. Edwardes. I want to ascertain from him when he first knew of my father having heart-disease. That he did know it before his death I am aware, though, at ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... cheer of Christmas-night! Welcome the Christmas-pie, the pasty of venison, the pudding stuffed with plums, and the flagon of old wine. Love is a brave appetizer when backed by long fasting and a ten hours' ride, and Captain Breton brought all the vigor of youth and happiness and of a noble hunger to bear upon the viands. The glow of the cheerful room was infinitely comforting to the tired traveller; the sight of Annis's happy face put fresh ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... may, yet to organize and carry on a movement resulting in the release of a great people from such a soul-subduing tyranny, backed by an army of half a million highly trained soldiers, requires a leadership of most commanding and consummate genius. But this task, surpassingly great though it is, is not the measure of the greatness of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... other furnishings of the room were a large cupboard, the necessary articles for cooking, a long home-made dining-table in the center of the room with long benches on both sides, and a few old-fashioned straight-backed chairs. And here they met night after night ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... you thought better of it, and your mother had persuaded you that if he should ask you again, you had better accept him. Then it was that he backed out—in consequence of what I said to him ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... chances of success for the contestant on which it is laid. It is felt that substance and solicitude expended to this end can not go for naught in the issue. There is here a special manifestation of the instinct of workmanship, backed by an even more manifest sense that the animistic congruity of things must decide for a victorious outcome for the side in whose behalf the propensity inherent in events has been propitiated and fortified by so much of conative and kinetic urging. This incentive to the wager ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... well-thriving graces of art, there was such a comfortless and desolate appearance about the place, that it quite froze one to look at it; to be sure, a damp marsh on one side, and the skeleton rafters and beams of an old stable on the other, backed by a few dull and sulky-looking fir trees, might, in some measure, create, or at least considerably add to, the indescribable cheerlessness of the tout ensemble. While I was curiously surveying the various parts of this northern "Delices," and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... arrange her flowers. Major Maturin brought her the English papers and any news that was going. A quiet game of bridge was sometimes indulged in, but Marice spent much of her time reading and writing, and a straight-backed chair with a cushion before it and a beautifully bound book of devotions lying on it hinted at deeper things. A certain drooping trick of the eyelids lent her an air of subdued sadness and courage that was attractive. A pose was always dearer to Marice Hading than bread, and this one gave her special ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... thus anxiously preparing for their approaching meeting in the Queen's presence, even Elizabeth herself was not without apprehension of what might chance from the collision of two such fiery spirits, each backed by a strong and numerous body of followers, and dividing betwixt them, either openly or in secret, the hopes and wishes of most of her court. The band of Gentlemen Pensioners were all under arms, and a reinforcement of the yeomen of the guard ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not, fellow," rejoined my uncle. "Only, if this is a private room specially ordered for the occasion, I should think the public room must be a VERY comfortable one;" with this, my uncle sat himself down in a high-backed chair, and took such an accurate measure of the gentleman, with his eyes, that Tiggin and Welps could have supplied him with printed calico for a suit, and not an inch too much or too ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... memory of our childhood's hours! what is it but that enchanted lake of the Arabian tale, from whose quiet depths we are ever and anon drawing up in our nets some magic colored fish? Well, I reached the church. The children, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, were sitting in the high-backed pews in solemn silence, while a reverend gentleman was delivering a solemn exhortation to gratitude and goodness. Another followed. "Very well, gentlemen," thought I, "but now please to retire and give up the field to these children." But no. The superintendent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... indicate. Sometimes it was desire for the applause of his fellow citizens, or for posthumous fame, which influenced a donor; sometimes civic pride and affection. In many cases it was the compelling force of custom, backed up now and then, as we can see from the inscriptions, by the urgent demands of the populace. Out of this last sentiment there would naturally grow a sense of the obligation imposed by the possession of wealth, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... window, which was most elaborately decorated with velvet curtains, flags, and trophies, and which was surmounted by a device which was understood to be the Wallypug's coat-of-arms, a gorgeous, gilded, high-backed chair was placed as a throne for his Majesty, and comfortable seats were also provided for the ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... coloured paints which had accumulated during the two centuries of its existence. The fashion of it was rare, and had probably been evolved by some early American cabinet-maker, for while it had all and even more than the grace of the high-backed Chippendale patterns, it was better fitted to the rounded surfaces of the human body. It was a spindle chair with a slightly hollowed seat, the rim of the back rounded to a loop which was continued into arm-rests, which spread into thickened blades for hand-rests. Being very much in love ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... battle-axe, sword, and dagger, St. Mary Magdalene with the alabastrum, St. Barbara with the tower, St. Gudala with the lantern, and the four doctors of the Western Church. The ancient pulpit was of the same period as the screen, as were also the old-fashioned, straight-backed, oak pews. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... illustrated with so much success in Rienzi, so that, oppressed by a secret sense of shame, I had no serious rejoinder to offer to his candidly poisonous abuse. My line of defence was not yet sufficiently clear in my own mind to be available offhand, nor was it yet backed by so obvious a product of my own peculiar genius that I could venture to quote it. Moreover, my first impulse was only one of pity for the unlucky playwright, which I felt all the more constrained to express, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... ladder hesitated. Evidently he had not thought of the necessity of protecting his hands by rubber covering, in order that the electricity might be made harmless. He backed down ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... will." He sat down in a stiff, straight-backed chair; it may be he felt the need of holding in reserve all his physical force, of not refusing ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... confusion, backed across the road, and finally ran to the opposite pavement, where they were half hidden by a deep shadow. Without turning, Deulin backed towards Cartoner, who stood ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... this book when you were a little girl, Aunt Victoria, didn't you?" she said, looking up on the day of the first lesson. She was sitting on a high-backed chair at one end of the table, trying to hold herself as upright as Aunt Victoria, who sat at the other and opposite end to her, pondering over her knitting. "I suppose you ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... others,—what did I know of that?—but because I had in myself a strong love of the beautiful, a passion for grace of form and brilliancy of color which made doubly distasteful to me our bare, uncouth walls, with their ugly, straight-backed chairs, and their frightfully painted yellow or red ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... key, Caesar is able to subdue Gaul. Because they know it, the Normans force their sway upon the country and, from there, later, backed by that support, conquer the neighboring island, conquer Sicily, conquer the East, conquer ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Colorado was so extremely high that the water backed up into the Kanab Canyon, and it was there that we left the boats, each tied to an oar stuck in the ground.[36] We could not get all the goods on the horses of the pack-train, and left a portion to be brought ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... with sinister disapproval at the distant table, laden with fruit and flagons; at the Bishop and the Knight, now sitting nigh to one another; the Bishop in his chair of state facing the door, the Knight, on a high-backed seat at the Bishop's right ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... managed to answer calmly. "Excellent. My war record isn't half bad, and that was surely backed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... at that time in Washington. He had been superseded as Superintendent of Indian Affairs by T. B. Odeneal. Meacham wanted the place, and backed by the churches and humanitarians of New England, thought he could accomplish his purpose by means of a compromise with Jack and his band. He declared to President Grant that he knew Jack to be an honorable man and that he could easily effect ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... laboured. Although the whole tone of the volunteers was loyal, and although their principal leader, Lord Charlemont, was a man of the utmost tact and moderation, it was none the less clear that an appeal backed by 60,000 men in arms acquired a weight and momentum which no previous Irish appeal had ever ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... offers were fruitless, that the time for conciliation was past, while all hope of reducing America by force of arms had disappeared. In utter despair he pressed his resignation on the king. But George was as obstinate for war as ever; and the country, stung to the quick by the attack of France, backed passionately the obstinacy of the king. But unlike George the Third, it instinctively felt that if a hope still remained of retaining the friendship of the Colonies and of baffling the efforts of the Bourbons, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... there was not much, only an open cupboard, displaying two silver cups and tankards, a sauce-pan of the same metal, a few tall, slender, Venetian glasses, a little pewter, and some rare shells. A few high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there was a tall "armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of the room stood a large, solid-looking ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man's. Farrel nuzzled him and rubbed him lovingly between the ears before producing a lump of sugar. Upon command, Panchito squatted on his hind quarters like a dog and held his head out stiffly. Upon his nose Farrel balanced the lump of sugar, backed away, and stood in front of him. The horse did not move. Suddenly Farrel snapped his fingers. With a gentle toss of his head, Panchito threw the lump of sugar in the air and made a futile snap at it as it came down. Then he rose, picked the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... may not be sufficient to convict my father, the spy we had in our house will be ready to swear that he heard your father, and mine, and the others, making arrangements for the murder of William of Orange; and their own word to the contrary would count but little against such evidence, backed by those papers." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... nature. Conditions have varied slowly and the organisms best adapted in their whole course of life to the changed conditions have always been selected,—man selects small dog and afterwards gives it profusion of food,—selects a long-backed and short-legged breed and gives it no particular exercise to suit this function &c. &c. In ordinary cases nature has not allowed her race to be contaminated with a cross of another race, and agriculturists know how difficult they find always to prevent this,—effect ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... proceedings:—"Throughout the whole tract there have been occasional periods of agricultural distress, but it has always been in a mild form, and for a century famines such as have occurred in other parts of India have been unknown." In short, private enterprise, backed by a fair assessment fixed for ever, has driven famine from the tract in question, and this will occur in other parts of India if the Government will only grant tenures sufficiently safe to induce the people to invest their money in wells and permanent improvements. And if further proofs are needed, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... worry, Sis," he repeated as he backed out of the door; "you needn't be afraid; this here school board's at your back. We know it's a bad school, but, by ginger! we'll see that you're stood by. You jes' let me know if that there Jake Ransom tries ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... than that we have so often looked at together from the terrace at Saint-Germain. In the west the new part of Esbly climbs the hill, and from there to a hill at the northeast I have a wide view of the valley of the Marne, backed by a low line of hills which is the water-shed between the Marne and the Aisne. Low down in the valley, at the northwest, lies lie de Villenoy, like a toy town, where the big bridge spans the Marne to carry the railroad ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... army grows it must contain more and more peasants, end in the creation of an army with counter-revolutionary sympathies. 3. He objected to the Bolshevik criticism of the Berne, delegation (see page 156) on very curious grounds, saying that though Thomas, Henderson, etc., backed their own Imperialists during the war, all that was now over, and that union with them would help, not hinder, revolution in England and France. 4. He pointed out that "All power to the Soviets" ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... and laugh, and features, are strongly resembled by his brother Henry's, if Henry be he of King's College. His passion for boxing was so great, that he actually wanted me to match him with Dogherty (whom I had backed and made the match for against Tom Belcher), and I saw them spar together at my own lodgings with the gloves on. As he was bent upon it, I would have backed Dogherty to please him, but the match went off. It was of course to have been a private fight, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... periods in the lives of men, when a few kind words, backed by a friendly act or two, might save thousands of human beings from destruction. Such was the crisis in the fate of Clinch. He had almost given up hope, though it did occasionally revive in him whenever he got a cheering letter from ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... everything was bright and cheerful. I had now got my sea legs on, and was beginning to enter upon the regular duties of a sea life. About six bells, that is, three o'clock P.M., we saw a sail on our larboard bow. I was very desirous, like every new sailor, to speak her. She came down to us, backed her main-top-sail, and the two vessels stood "head on,'' bowing and curveting at each other like a couple of war-horses reined in by their riders. It was the first vessel that I had seen near, and I was surprised to find how much she rolled and pitched in so quiet a sea. She ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... knight-errant. Then for his sake the other gentlemen came and took away my good tail, and have returned it damaged, and now he breaks my wine-skins and spills the wine. I wish I may see as much of his blood spilt." And backed up by Maritornes, the good innkeeper's wife continued ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... world rises to life again in my vivid imagination. I return to the scriptural periods or ages of the world, conventionally called 'days,' long before the appearance of man, when the unfinished world was as yet unfitted for his support. Then mydream backed even farther still into the ages before the creation of living beings. The mammals disappear, then the birds vanish, then the reptiles of the secondary period, and finally the fish, the crustaceans, molluscs, and articulated beings. Then the zoophytes of the transition period also return ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Mississippi. The chief strategic point was at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers,—the present site of Pittsburg. The Ohio company were first on the ground, and in 1753 took steps to occupy this spot. They were backed up by orders issued by the British government to the governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland "to repel force by force whenever the French are found within the undoubted limits of their province." Thus the French and ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... I backed from the room, the whip behind me, carefully kept without Silvia's angle of vision. Before Ptolemy resumed his role of chief, he bestowed a knowing ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily under water. The report fell in at the same instant of time. This was the first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire's shot not having reached him. Where ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man is painting he should not be loth to hear every opinion: since we know well that a man, although he be not a painter, is cognizant of the forms of another man, and will be able to judge them, whether he is hump-backed or has a shoulder too high or too low, or whether he has a large mouth or nose, or other defects. And if we know that men are capable of giving a correct judgement on the works of nature, much more ought we to acknowledge their competence to judge our faults, ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... even glance at the official who had thus come to convey her to what was in all probability death, but followed through the gate into the street. The men backed their horses up to the block of stone used for mounting. Ned assisted the females to the pillions, and when they were seated mounted his own horse and led the way down the street. Many of the people as they passed along groaned ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... backed against another door, a closed one, as if it had fled for refuge to some aid it had expected and did not find. But as Sssuri moved, its long neck straightened until it was almost at right angles with its narrow shoulders, and from its snake's jaws ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... accomplished, and with considerable splashing a magnificent bronze-backed channel bass, weighing at least ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... grave butler, with many a deprecatory glance at the neighborhood, arrived at the door of Mrs. Brady, and delivered himself of the following message to that astonished lady, backed by her daughter and her granddaughter, with their ears stretched to the utmost to ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... he to me, apparently. For as I took him by the bridle he snorted and sidled about with great swiftness, and stood facing me with his feet planted firmly in front of him as if prepared to reject overtures of any kind soever. I tried to approach him with soothing words, but he persistently backed away until we stood looking at each other at the utmost distance of his outstretched neck and my outstretched arm. At this point Jack came to my assistance, got the pony by the other side of the bridle, and held him fast till I got into position to mount. ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... that number deeply impressed on his mind by the awful tragedy in the tower, (see Richard the Third,) where, it is remarkable, precisely that number of royal offspring suffered at the hands of the crook-backed tyrant. The citation from Niemand's Dictionary, by the Rev. Mr. Jones, tells as much in favor of two princes as of sixpence; for how could the miseries of a divided empire be more emphatically portrayed than in the striking, and, as it seems to me, touching phrase, HALF ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... up and the clouds lift a little. The downpour begins to let up. But the football field is already a young lake and water is backed up in the streets. It's going to be a grand afternoon for ducks and a splashing time for ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... pine wood, appeared to the west, towering over head; while across the narrow valley wilder and less wooded crags rose in broken ridges to the glaciers of Nango. Up the valley, the view was cut off by bluff cliffs; whilst down it, the scene was most remarkable: enormous black, round-backed moraines, rose, tier above tier, from a flat lake-bed, apparently hemming in the river between the lofty precipices on the east flank of the valley. These had all been deposited at the mouth of a lateral valley, opening ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... chestnut, and laurel. In going from a district of the Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the old Plutonic Rock, not fifty miles distant, I miss in the woods, the veery, the hermit thrush, the chestnut-sided warbler, the blue-backed warbler, the green-backed warbler, the black and yellow warbler, and many others, and find in their stead the wood thrush, the chewink, the redstart, the yellow-throat, the yellow-breasted flycatcher, the white-eyed flycatcher, the quail, and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... half a thousand Dutch artillerymen, whose guns frown menacingly upon the native town and the palace of the Sultan. Though its walls would crumble before modern artillery in half an hour, it stands as a visible symbol of Dutch authority and as a warning to the disloyal that that authority is backed up ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... are! That's just where it is!" said Smith, with some logic, but in a tone a wife uses in argument (which tone, by the way, especially if backed by logic or common sense, makes a man wild sooner than anything else ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... by raising a few sepulchral mounds, such as those which still, here and there, break the flowing contours of the Downs, man's hands had made no mark upon it; and the thin veil of vegetation which overspread the broad-backed heights and the shelving sides of the coombs was unaffected by his industry. The native grasses and weeds, the scattered patches of gorse, contended with one another for possession of the scanty ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... army linked up with a friendly Bulgaria, and backed by a strong Austro-German force led by General Mackensen, the conditions were changed to a state of hopelessness. An allied army operating on the European side against Constantinople would be dangerously flanked ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the merits of another 'Medical Infirmary,' under his own special supervision, at No. 110 Church street, Charleston. The doctor, after inveighing loudly against 'men totally ignorant of medical science,' who flood the country with quack nostrums backed up by 'fabricated proofs of miraculous cures,' proceeds to enumerate the diseases to which his 'Infirmary' is open, and to which his practice will be mainly confined. Appreciating the importance of 'interesting cases,' as a stock in trade, on which to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Then he backed toward the vessel, unrolling the coil of rope as he moved away from the pole. Evidently they were within the forty-foot limit from the pole, for Droop had some rope to spare when he at length reached under the machine ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... State? When men can be awed neither by painted fiends nor real cannon, what is to awe them? Indeed, we shrewdly suspect, that even now the fiends would count for little, were it not for the fiends incarnate, in the shape of Croats, by which the others are backed. The Lombards would boldly face the gridirons, cauldrons, and stinging creatures gathered in the one corner of the square at Milan, if they but knew how to muzzle the cannon which are assembled ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... says Jim. "I told her how we stood, and that I backed down from marrying. 'Are you tired of me?' says she: God bless her! Well, I explained the whole thing over again, the chance of smash, your absence unavoidable, the point I made of having you for the best man, and that. 'If you're not tired of me, I think I see one way to manage,' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stationary auxiliaries in every principal town in the kingdom, who frequented all places of public resort, and were always ready to denounce any man as a Jacobin and an enemy to his country, who dared to give utterance to an honest, candid thought. These fellows were so backed on by the local authorities, that the general feeling being also pretty much in their favour, their insolence was in many cases almost insufferable. Few men chose to enter the lists with them, because ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... race-course at two o'clock, and remained either there or in the town till nine. But Fanny's image, as it had appeared to him in the sombre shadows of that Saturday evening, returned to his mind, backed up by Bathsheba's reproaches. He vowed he would not bet, and he kept his vow, for on leaving the town at nine o'clock in the evening he had diminished his cash only to the extent ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... buzz! buzz! Hum-a-bum buzz! As I went over Tipple-tine I met a flock of bonny swine; Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed! They were the very bonniest swine That ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... pavement; tram-lines from two to three inches above street level; building materials scattered half across the street; lime, boards, cut stone, and ash-barrels generally and generously everywhere; wheeled traffic taking its chances, dray versus brougham, at cross roads; sway-backed poles whittled and unpainted; drunken lamp-posts with twisted irons; and, lastly, a generous scatter of filth and more mixed stinks than the winter wind can carry away, are matters which can be considered quite apart from the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales, swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomeric battles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the great Labrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals and walruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed to be feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberless animals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... mother were living quietly on the small fortune he had left them, in an old palm-shaded house backed by purple mountains, and sung to by the sea. The soul of old France seemed to haunt that old house like a perfume, taking on a richer colour and drawing a more ardent life from the passionate tropic soul that enfolded it. Both had mysteriously met and become ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... have reserved it to hear first what you had to say: and so far as I can make out you have nothing at all to say, only general things, disapproval in the general. What should you say if I told you that he disapproves too? He said himself that there had been too much of all that—that he had backed something—isn't that what you say?—backed it at odds, and stood to win what he calls a pot of money. But after that was decided—for he said he could not be off bets that were made—never any more. Now that I know you have nothing more to ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... with spears, and practised arms to use their spears. Astuteness is a poor weapon, when it is the only weapon, against men who are maddened with avarice: bravery, physical power, fortitude; the strong arm, backed by the quick eye, and the mind inured to danger—these, in such a time of need, will alone avail to protect our lives, our land, and our homes from ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... these relics are deeply eroded by the weather, others much less so; some are pebbles that have required only a slight chipping to adapt them to their owner's need, others sharp-edged, elaborately flaked, "turtle-backed" weapons, similar in shape to much of the more modern and finished work in flint. With few exceptions, however, these are made of argillite, and in many cases they have lost the fineness of edge and angle by weathering and by attrition against the gravel in which they were rolled under ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... condensed in a jar, it shows its own true color. So, looking into this inconceivable canon, the true color came out most beauteously. There was a background of red and yellowish rocks. These made the cold blue blush with warm color. The sapphire was backed with sardonyx, and the bluish white of the chalcedony was half pellucid to the gold chrysolite behind it. God was laying the foundation of his perfect city there, and the light of it seemed fit for the redeemed to walk in, and to have ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... took the whip. They had passed the drivers and were pushing into the herd. Sometimes a red-eyed brute turned with lowered horns and dripping mouth, then backed slowly out of the way of the team. Sometimes, in a thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and, stemming the current, sounded a protest. But the young horses, less playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... Bible, but a living faith which links all that was taught by the prophets and apostles, centuries ago, with what is happening in the child's own town and family at that very moment. It is a wide gap to bridge, and it cannot be bridged by a semi-historical review backed by picture cards, golden texts, and stars for good behavior. These things are merely the marks of an endeavor to fitly accomplish a great task, an endeavor almost absurdly out of proportion to this aim, rendered significant, however, because ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... everywhere they held high ground. On no other Front in this war have stronger positions been carried by assault than San Michele, Sabotino, Cucco, Vodice, Monte Nero, and, in the end, Monte Santo. No one who has not seen with his own eyes the heights which Italian Infantry have conquered, backed by no great Artillery support, can realise the astounding things which the Italians have performed. The Italian Infantry have died in masses, with high hearts and in the exaltation of delirium, crumpled, rent ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... months, official American experiments have confirmed this theory, although the practice in the construction of ships is divided. The Roanoke's plates are solid; those of the Monitor class are laminated. Solid plates, generally 4-1/2 inches thick and backed by 18 inches of teak, are exclusively used in Europe. Now the resistance of plates to punching in a machine is directly as the sheared area, that is to say, as the depth and the diameter of the hole. But, the argument is, in this case, and in the case of laminated armor, the hole ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the patriots in 1775, and from which a fine view over the city is afforded. King's Chapel, at the corner of Tremont and School streets, is a most interesting landmark, which was completed in 1753. Entering, you find a decidedly old-fashioned atmosphere in the high-backed, square pews and handsome decorations. George Washington's pew will be pointed out ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... it; but somehow, if you will press the question so closely, on reperusal, Tom and Jerry is not so brilliant as I had supposed it to be. The pictures are just as fine as ever; and I shook hands with broad-backed Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom with delight, after many year's absence. But the style of the writing, I own, was not pleasing to me; I even thought it a little vulgar — well! well! other writers have been considered ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... He backed against the wall as tightly as he could; the sputtering fuse frightened the voice out of him; his breath stood still; he stood gazing and impotent; in two seconds, three seconds, four he would be flying toward the sky ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... this region of its myriad houses, we should see a plain extending back to the higher ground from the site of the Temple Gardens—that is, to Clerkenwell. Ludgate, rising nearly fifty feet in a steep slope from the river's edge, would appear something great in such a landscape, backed, as it would have been, to the eastward by a still higher down, with the narrow stream of Walbrook rushing to the Thames, between them. No other height would stand so near the water's edge, or would be visible within a ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... been different, I should have called for volunteers and made an effort to induce a crew to undertake the navigation of her to, say, Batavia, with the idea of claiming salvage. But I had come to know by this time that no eloquence of mine, even though it were backed up by the prospect of a handsome sum of salvage money, would be powerful enough to wean the crew of the Mercury from their cherished idea of a life of ease and independence upon some fair tropic island, to say nothing of their ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... she yelled, as she backed off. "'I's a-gwine to tell yo' pappy, Jimmy Garner," as she recognized one of the culprits. "Pint dat ar ho'e 'way f'om me, 'fo' I make yo' ma spank yuh slabsided. I got to git home an' wash. ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... He backed away, his guns levelled at them. He laid down the right one, keeping the left one aimed, and moved some knobs on a dial and threw over a big switch. A muffled rumbling and whirring began somewhere; and then, slowly, a block of tables and apparatus ten ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... little village-green of Castlewood slopes down towards the river, which is spanned by an old bridge of a single broad arch, and from this the ground rises gradually towards the house, grey with many gables and buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old man sate at the wicket on a stone bench in front of the great arched entrance to the house, over which the earl's hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at the man's feet. Immediately above ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... infinitely more than it could have had if he had yielded to Mrs. Damer's and my opinion, who earnestly begged to have it placed within the enclosure of the home grounds. It now stands on the ridge of the high hill without, backed by the horizon, and with a grove on each side at a little distance; and, being exalted beyond and above the range of firs that climb up the sides of the hill from the valley, wears all the appearance of an ancient castle, whose towers are only shattered, not destroyed; and devout ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... o'clock.—The contest has begun! The struggle for the independence of Ballinafad has commenced! Griggles, the opposition candidate, is in the field, backed by a vile faction. The rank, wealth, and independence of Ballinafad are all ranged under the banner of Figsby and freedom. A party of Griggles' voters have just marched into the town, preceded by a piper and a blind fiddler, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... were gaining ground. He scoffed at them. He derided their hypocrisy. He laughed at their piebald character. Yet he saw a cunning plot in this presentation to the electorate of men who appealed so diversely: Taylor of the South, and of slavery; Fillmore of the North, and of free soil, backed by the powerful mercantilism of the North, like the bank and the tariff. Both were using Jefferson to win the mob, and Hamilton to satisfy ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... emerging from the more than usually inhospitable Bricklow scrub, the dark verdure of a swamp surrounding a small lake —with native companions (ARDEAANTIGONE) strutting round, and swarms of ducks playing on its still water, backed by an open forest, in which the noble palm tree was conspicuous—suddenly burst upon our view, were so great as to be quite indescribable. I joyfully returned to the camp, to bring forward my party; which was not, however, performed without ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Coming from the Lancasters' high city house, it did not seem as if we had to go up stairs at all there, for every step of the stairway is so broad and low, and you come half-way to a square landing with an old straight-backed chair in each farther corner; and between them a large, round-topped window, with a cushioned seat, looking out on the garden and the village, the hills far inland, and the sunset beyond all. Then ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... people. Of course the sailors here, as always, told their experiences to each other when they met, and incidentally their owners came in for a share of contumely such as "God-forsaken robber," or "scrape-backed thief who was not fit to carry guts to a bear," and other more or ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... time only one institution survived and that a Roman one—the Catholic Church. But, as soon as the laborious process of reconstruction was started with the constitution of the great national states backed by the Roman Church the Protestant Reformation set in followed by the individualistic currents of the XVII and XVIII centuries, and the process of disintegration was started anew. This anti-state tendency was the expression of the Germanic spirit and it therefore became predominant among the Germanic ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... set his face like steel to the work, and made the name of monitor a caution in Templeton. And, it is fair to say, he was well backed up. Cresswell, Cartwright, Swinstead, and others of their sort rallied round him, and, at the risk of their own popularity, and sometimes against their better judgment, took up the rule of iron. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... escaping from his clutches, he went at once to the Prince, and strongly represented to him the danger of allowing one so eloquent and so plausible to plead his cause before the King. These arguments were backed up by an offer to pay the Prince a sum of 400 (or, as others say, of 1000) tumāns on condition that Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus should be surrendered unconditionally into his hands. To this arrangement the Prince, whether moved by the arguments or the tumāns of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... that other one?" Mary asked, as she backed Saxon in a long slide across the far end of the pavilion. "That was Billy Roberts. Bert said he'd come. He'll take you to dinner, and Bert'll take me. It's goin' to be a swell day, you'll see. My! I only wish the music'll hold out till ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... this sort, backed perhaps by memories of the ringing appeal sounded three years before at Boston by the Bishop of Connecticut, that moved the Convention to interpret as something better than a bit of sentimentalism the invitation to look the times in ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... did it—or had anything to do with it," said Ben, when Nat backed away, having had enough of ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... wouldn't let him, Mister Pirate," said Dick Price, who, now that his difficult duties were over, was preparing to solace himself with a pipe; an example that was immediately followed by Bumpus, who backed his ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... mechanically on the bridle—as if to head him away from the spot. But this was impossible: another log, overlapping the first, formed an avenue, so narrow as to leave not the slightest chance of a horse being able to turn in it. Into this the animal had backed. There was no way of his getting from between the two trunks, but by going straight forward or backward. Forward he dared not go; and backward he was moving, as fast as the nature of the place would permit: now ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... doubt, true, that the Queen's council, by proclamation, feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of Ayr and in Galloway, who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction, the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... rearranging the furniture, making up the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose, already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... went across the carry slung upon a set of wheels. Jerrard rode in the low-backed middle seat ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... object in the road. Suddenly the mules caught sight of it, backed, and crushed the ten-gallon keg under the axle against a bowlder—a serious mishap, as our after experience will show. Walking on, we came to the mutilated bodies of two men, several yards apart, whom we had no difficulty in ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... hunting and fishing, which he described as the best in the world. About two miles from the bar, we emerged into the lagoon, a broad expanse of shallow water that lies parallel with the coast, separated from it by a narrow strip of sand, backed by a continuous series of islands and promontories, covered with a dense growth of mangrove and saw-palmetto. Pulling across this lagoon, in about three more miles we approached the lights of Fort Pierce. Reaching a small wharf, we landed, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... himself a Liberal. He's going baldheaded for some temperance fad and is backed by a score or so of Presbyterian ministers. We'll have ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... guarding treasures bought with gold; and the tall elm-trees looked over it as though they wanted to escape. The murmuring in their branches seemed to be of discontent, and the birds singing in them had a taunting note. The road mounted a little and the wall went with it, backed by the imprisoned trees. But at last, at the cross-roads, the wall turned and the road went on without it. There were open fields now on either hand, the property of Francis Sales, and another mile brought the carriage to the opening of the grassy track where Rose liked to think ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... regretted. His muse must be considered as at home in the salons find fashionable coteries of the great. Though his style is so facile, it is by no means simple. On the contrary, it is one of the most artificial ever created, and could never have bea attained at all but by a natural aptitude, backed by hard study, amid highly-polished surroundings from childhood. These Ovid had, and he wielded his brilliant instrument to perfection. What euphuism was to the Elizabethan courtiers, what the langue galante was to the court of Louis XIV., the mythological dialect ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... these Johnsons, Butlers, Phillipses, De Lanceys, and the rest, will not give up their estates without a hard fight for them. Of that you may be sure. They will come back, if their wives do not, and all that they can do, backed by England, to regain their positions, will be done. They may win, and if they do, it will be our necks that will be put into the yoke—or the halter. At all events, it has gone too far to be patched over now. We can only stand up and fight as stoutly as we may, and leave ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic |
