"Fall back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Green, "this postpones the mortgaging or selling for a time at least, and you always have it to fall back on if you can't make your new undertaking pay. I believe you can. I advise you to accept. Your other creditors feel ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and his horse while he lay asleep under a tree. Her reason for this was that she felt persuaded that, finding himself suddenly alone and robbed of everything, the king would hide his real birth, and would have to fall back on his powers of pleasing, like other men, which would be much better ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... "Fall back, my good friend—fall back," said the military lady, as soon as he had delivered the bow to Hal; "I mean, stand out of the way, for your great patch cuts no figure amongst us. Don't follow so close, now, as if you ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... to think that this, the king of fish should struggle up the rapid tumbling streams for many miles, against strong currents, over falls where the water breaks the least, perchance to fall within the wicker purse of Indian traps placed there so cunningly to catch them if they should fall back; and even if they escape the Indian traps and find the gravel bar where they four years before, began their life, and having spent themselves in giving life, sicken and die, their bodies even in death give sustenance ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... can fall back upon our main thought. The animal matter is essentially self-regarding. This is not (a) the same thing as to say that all actions of all animals are self-regarding. I see no difficulty in believing that there may be adumbrations of the moral and spiritual ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... kingdom, under the name of Aquitaine, of which Eude was king. But now Charles became convinced of the danger, and prepared to encounter it. Abdalrahman was advancing toward Tours, when intelligence of the approach of Charles, at the head of an army of Franks, compelled him to fall back upon Poitiers, in order to seize an advantageous ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... presented itself to him; but, unfortunately, they were men who had seldom or never come in contact with white people, and he soon saw that they did not understand a word he was saying. He was compelled, therefore, to fall back upon signs; and after a time they began to comprehend dimly what it was that their leader was trying to ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... camelry under Major Tudway, making a wide detour, got close to the dervish left, and engaged the enemy occasionally with rifles and Maxims. But the enemy's horse came out in strength, supported by footmen, and threatened them, so Broadwood's men had to fall back. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... talked she would feel my cock, every now and then raise her head to look at it, fall back again as if satisfied, and go on feeling ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... but they have millions of pennies; and millions of pennies make tens of thousands of dollars. By clubbing together and lumping their pennies, a fund might be raised in the cities of the South that the poorer classes might fall back upon while their crops are growing; or else, by the opening of co-operative stores, become their own creditors and so effectually rid themselves of their merciless extortioners. "Oh, they won't do anything; you can't get them united on anything!" is ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... martyrs, confessors. They swept along in silence. I could just see them as a dim majestic crowd. Presently, a form detached itself from the crowd—to my amazement, I saw you distinctly—there seemed to be a special light upon your face. And the rest appeared to fall back. Soon I only saw the Form toiling in front, and you following. Then at the brow of the hill the Lord turned—and you, who were half-way up the last steep, paused also. The Lord beckoned to you. His Divine face was full of sweetness and encouragement—and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thought and feeling were involved; and having once been a grand and beautiful work, it continues grand and beautiful through all the successive stages of its decay. But a castle is rudely piled together for strength and other material conveniences; and, having served these ends, it has nothing left to fall back upon, but crumbles into shapeless masses, which are often as little picturesque as a pile of bricks. Without the ivy and the shrubbery, this huge Kenilworth would not be a pleasant object, except ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fish that had yielded to the temptation of my bait. Here I lay in the cool shade while a singular sort of heart sickness came over me. A wild partridge was beating his gong in the near woods all the afternoon. The sound of the water seemed to break in the tree-tops and fall back upon me. I had lain there thinking an hour or more when I caught the jar of approaching footsteps. Looking up I saw Jed Feary coming through the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... two pounds of rice, and two pounds of sato. This we gave to the four men who were to attempt to enter Taklakot, for their road would be long and fatiguing. For us, there were plenty of nettles to fall back upon. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling, shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated, desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place. Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all and show them that ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... to be a matter of public curiosity and private speculation, as frequently happens, during the busier months of the year, in considerable commercial centres like Salem. They both have grand old recollections to fall back upon,—times when they looked forward to commercial greatness, and when the portly gentlemen in cocked hats, who built their now decaying wharves and sent out their ships all over the world, dreamed that their fast-growing port was to be the Tyre or the Carthage of the rich British Colony. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 'sooth is that; and Face-of-god is wise to think of it and of other matters. Yet one thing we must bear in mind, that all may not go smoothly in our day's work in Silver-dale; so we must have force there to fall back on, in case we miss our stroke at first. Therefore, I say, send we no man to Rose-dale, and leave we no able man-at-arms behind in the Burg, so that we have with us every ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... scarcely issued and obeyed when the door fell in with a loud crash, and a hideous horned head appeared in the opening; but only to receive three ladles-full of the boiling soap full in its face, and fall back with a terrible, unearthly yell of agony and rage, into the arms of its companions, who quickly ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... their necessities; where new opportunities are offered to them; where their opinions are broken in upon by new ideas; where pleasures tempt them on every side, and they have but to stretch out their hand to take them—moral habits yield under the strain, and they have no other resource to fall back upon. Intellectual cultivation brings with it rational interests. Knowledge, which looks before and after, acts as a restraining power, to help conscience when it flags. The sober and wholesome manners of life ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... against them, and some squadrons of gendarmerie, drawn up in a line of battle. Saint Prix, who commanded the artillery, separated from his guns by a movement of the crowd, sent to the second in command an order to let them fall back in the door of the Chateau. He refused to obey: "The Carrousel is forced," he said in a loud voice, "and so must be the Chateau. Here, artillery men, here is the enemy!" And he pointed to the king's windows, turned his guns, and levelled them at the palace. The ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... let us fight with bared breasts, and load all your arms with gold. Let your right hands receive the bracelets, that they may swing their blows the more heavily and plant the grievous wound. Let none fall back! Let each zealously strive to meet the swords of the enemy and the threatening spears, that we may avenge our beloved master. Happy beyond all things is he who can mete out revenge for such a crime, and with righteous steel punish ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... colors of the rainbow, put on in the most grotesque figures imaginable. They would sing and dance to their music, pick up the money that had been thrown them, give their Indian war-whoops and yells, then fall back to form the semi-circle and dance up again. This was an exciting scene with the side and back scenery made up of hundreds of live ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... his rapid and skillful marches the Federal officers were completely bewildered. He was absent from his army 24 days, in which time he traveled 1,000 miles, capturing 17 towns and destroying all the government supplies and arms. In a second raid he forced the Federal army to fall back by taking possession of the railway in its rear which brought it supplies. In October, 1862, Stuart made his greatest raid through Pennsylvania, around the Northern army. He set out with 1,800 cavalry and four pieces of horse artillery, and crossed the Potomac. The telegraph ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... greater mark on the history of his country than even the pious founder of university scholarships and chairs. And even if individuals fail us, we have the common purse of the public or the nation to fall back upon. ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... was up and had turned, for all that he was half-stunned by his fall and weakened by the loss of blood from a pike-thrust in the shoulder—of which he had hitherto remained unconscious in the heat of battle. Two mercenaries were bearing down upon him—the same two that had been the last to fall back before him. He braced himself to meet them, thinking that his last hour was indeed come, when Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, who had followed him closely through the press, now descended upon his assailants from behind, and rode them down. Beside the Count he reined ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... thought, now with this current, now with that, but always in movement, never left behind. She has the usual literary and artistic topics at her fingers' end, and as she knows everybody, whenever the more abstract sides of a subject begin to bore her, she can fall back upon an endless store of gossip as lively, as brightly-coloured, and, on the whole, as harmless as she herself is. Miss Bretherton had till a week or two ago but two subjects—Jamaica and the stage—the ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about a week before Robert had occasion to use any of his gold. By that time he had spent the balance of the money given him by Mr. Lawrence Tudor and was forced to fall back upon his gold, having as yet received nothing from the hermit, who knew that he was not in immediate want ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... and waved hats and hands for a long time after the train had left. It was getting rather late when they reached the little inn once more, and Barbara was thankful that she had the excuse of a substantial dinner to fall back upon when she was offered more of the ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... avoided first by keeping the whole length of pipe perfectly air-tight, and attaching it in such a way as to be readily removed for inspection; and, secondly, by placing the outward vent in such a position that the gentle current must mount upwards, and any dust must fall back again into a wide funnel-shaped orifice, and by covering the latter with fine wire gauze. An apparatus of this kind acts as a remover of dust from the room instead of adding any to it. One necessity, however, is the provision of motive power, very ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... found himself involved in serious difficulties with the many customers who bought his lebkuchen; for with the departure of Hans he had been compelled to fall back upon his own resources, and with the most lamentable results. Great quantities of his first baking were returned to him, with comments in both High German and Low German of a very uncomplimentary sort. His second baking—saving the relatively inconsiderable quantities ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... great collection of people already before the place, and they immediately planted a flag of truce, which was answered by a like flag hoisted on the parapet. The deputation prevailed on the people to fall back a little, advanced themselves to make their demand of the Governor, and in that instant a discharge from the Bastile killed four persons of those nearest to the deputies. The deputies retired. I happened to be at the house of M. de Corny, when he returned to it, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... tobes: this is the grand grace of the dance. Then there are parties of men and women dancing together; but the men with men, and women with women. The women trip up awkwardly, but modestly, to where the men are placed, and then fall back; upon which the men pursue them violently, overtaking them before they get to their places, and throwing their tobes around them: but there is nothing indelicate in all this. On the contrary, the whole dance is quite a pattern of modesty to the Europeans, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... however, must be the woman's case. If anything should interfere with the development and dominance of the femaleness factor in her, there is not another "dose" of femaleness, so to speak, to fall back upon; but a dose of maleness. We may be right in thus seeking to explain certain familiar phenomena, observed in women under various conditions—as, for instance, the growth of hair upon the face in elderly women, the assumption of a masculine voice ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... was variously written Sin-sing, Sing Sing, Sin Sinck and Sink Sink. Spelling was an incident in those days, not an art. Here again we must fall back on Irving for our facts. He says: "A corruption of the old Indian name O-sin-sing. Some have rendered it O-sin-sing, or O-sing-song, in token of its being a great market town, where anything may be had for a mere song. Its present melodious alteration to Sing Sing is said to have been made ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... would bend his back to thrust forward—and upwards so to clear the shoulders of the groaning, sweating slaves in front of him—then he would lift the end so as to bring the blade down to the water, and having gripped he would rise from his seat to throw his full weight into the pull, and so fall back with clank of chain upon the groaning bench to swing forward once more, and so on until his senses reeled, his sight became blurred, his mouth parched and his whole body a living, straining ache. Then would come the sharp fierce cut of the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the main body of our riflemen delivered their fire, killing the brave Lieutenant-Colonel Williams of the British army. But the others presently recovered from their panic and pushed forward, while our riflemen, being so few in number, were compelled to fall back. ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... round with her stick at the seamen's feet, compelling them to fall back, and to make a ring for the dancer in the centre; and I saw with no satisfaction that the foul-mouthed villain who was called the "Ranter" came to give her his help to ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... shouted; "fall back on your front line and give the artillery a chanst at 'em. I reckon a dose o' broken pot-iron'll carry fu'ther than that saber o' yourn. Buddy, hunt me a punk match, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... venerable superior of St. Sulpice de Montreal, M. Dollier de Casson, wrote in 1691: "I have been twenty-six years in this country, and I have seen our numerous and flourishing Algonquin missions all destroyed by drunkenness." Accordingly, it became necessary later to fall back upon the former rigorous regulations against the sale of intoxicating ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... who were invited to take refuge within its walls, would bring more than enough food with them for themselves and their families, but they preferred to bring their old beds and their furniture. Besides our stores of flour, of sheep, and of oxen, we have twenty-two million pounds of horse-flesh to fall back upon, so that I do not think that we shall be starved out for some time; still the misery among those who have no money to buy food will, unless Government boldly faces the question, be very great. Everything, except beef, mutton, and bread, is already at a fancy price. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... have been a brave jest if I had told her, wouldn't it? She was young, you see, and wealthy, and—ah, well, I won't deceive you by exaggerating her personal attractions! I will serve up to you no praises of her sauced with lies. And I scorn to fall back on the stock-in-trade of the poets,—all their silly metaphors and similes and suchlike nonsense. I won't tell you that her complexion reminded me of roses swimming in milk, for it did nothing of the sort. Nor am I going to insist that her eyes had a fire like that of stars, or proclaim ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... mind-stuff it has expressed. The Great Artist who is the whole of Everything, is ever in fresh effort to achieve new things. He is as a fountain who throws up new drops, no two ever alike, which fall back into the water, flow into the pipe, and so are thrown up again in fresh-shaped drops. But I cannot explain why there should be this Eternal Energy, ever expressing itself in fresh individual shapes, this ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is a popular anxiety to borrow from a man who earns money by writing. The earnings of a successful writer are, to the common intelligence, something he ought not really to have. And anyone, in default of abstracting his income, may fall back ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the Brandywine, when he was set to watch the enemy, he was surprised at night by the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a number of his men, and forced him to fall back some distance from the field of action. This mortifying experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he had learned ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... they have seen the world; but since they have not the power to make any one fall in love with them, they are on the outside of the discussion now before us. If they are unhappy enough to receive no attention for the sake of amiability, they are soon seized with ennui; they fall back upon religion, upon the cultivation of pets, cats, lap-dogs, and other fancies which are no ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... resort that no one will resort to is a dull place at best and a poor dependence for merchandising, so that the little town of Hot Springs is fortunate in having some mining country around it to fall back upon for its trade. We lay an extra day there, waiting for the stage from Fairbanks to break trail for us through the heavy, drifted snow, having had enough of trail breaking for a while. At midnight the stage came, two days late, and ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Fine audience, very nearly filling the church. Commenced with a new interpreter, a student—execrable! I soon had to fall back on one ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... the wedge gets the worst of it; they cut the wind. They can only stand it there a little while—half an hour, maybe. Then they fall back and the wedge splits a little, while the rear ones come up the middle to the front. Then it closes up and they fly on, with a new edge. They are always changing like that, up in the air. Never any confusion; just like soldiers ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... and was found to answer extremely well. But at that period the mechanical skill of the country was not equal to forging cranked axles of the soundness and strength necessary to stand the jars incident to locomotive work. Stephenson was accordingly compelled to fall back upon a substitute, which, although less simple and efficient, was within the mechanical capabilities of the workmen of that day, in respect of construction as well as repair. He adopted a chain which rolled over indented wheels placed ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... account. At forty, or near it, a man who is happily married gets used to his slippers and his pipe—especially if comfort, and all the rest of it, have come after half a lifetime of homelessness. I might often say to myself that I was wasting time, rusting, and so on; but the next day I should fall back into the easy-chair again, and hate the thought of changes. But you, with thirty still far ahead, slippers and pipe have no particular ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... we will have no argument. You have the best of it there, and I fall back upon authority. My father, the colonel, is for the king; yours for the Parliament. He says that there are faults on both sides, and indeed, for years he favored the Commons. The king's acts were unconstitutional ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... importance to mere metaphysical divinity that led to such a revulsion from his peculiar system in after times. It was the great wisdom of the English reformers, like Cranmer, to leave all those metaphysical questions open, as matters of comparatively little consequence, and fall back on unquestioned doctrines of primitive faith, that have given so great vitality to the English Church, and made it so broad and catholic. The Puritans as a body, more intellectual than the mass of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is nine points of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is not the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what seems valuable for what is valuable and then fall back on the adage, "A fair exchange ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... there may be a fine career for him, if he will dare consequences; but David was too timid to be a sharper, or venture in any way among the mantraps of the law. He dared rob nobody but his mother. And so he had to fall back on the genuine value there was in him—to be content to pass as a good halfpenny, or, to speak more accurately, as a good confectioner. For in spite of some additional reading and observation, there was ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... would undertake to defend Freiberg against the troops which might be expected to attack at any moment, he declared that this was an experienced officer's job, and that he himself was no soldier and knew nothing of strategy. Under these circumstances it seemed better, if only to gain time, to fall back on the more thickly populated town of Chemnitz. The first thing to be done, however, was to see that the revolutionaries, who were assembled in large numbers at Freiberg, were properly cared for, and Born went off immediately to make preliminary ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... "but in the wilderness amongst the devils, what was to be done by manly might or valiancy? There hadst thou to fall back upon the guile and wizardry which I had filched from my very foes. But when we come down yonder, then shall thy valiancy prevail to cleave the tangle for us. Or at the least, it shall leave a tale of thee behind, and I ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... I defend has to fall back on a certain ultimate hardihood, a certain willingness to live without assurances or guarantees. To minds thus willing to live on possibilities that are not certainties, quietistic religion, sure of salvation ANY HOW, has a slight flavor of fatty degeneration about it which has caused ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... rupture there is still something to fall back on; the world has known nothing. But with a more or less famous man the public is thoroughly informed. Why look there! What an example you have close at hand! You are sitting back to back with the Comtesse Marie Vandenesse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... nondescripts! Her senses imagined the impressions agitating Beauchamp's, and exaggerated them beyond limit; and when he amazed her with a straight look into her eyes, and the words, 'Better let it be a youth—and live, than fall back to that!' she understood him immediately; and, together with her old fear of his impetuosity and downrightness, came the vivid recollection, like a bright finger pointing upon darkness, of what foul destiny, magnified ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and silently made away with all such people through terror, whom has he to fall back upon to be of use to him, save only the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish-natured? (3) Of these, the unjust can be trusted as sharing the tyrant's terror lest the cities should some day win their freedom and lay strong hands upon ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little stock of reputation for courage to fall back upon; and also, I daresay, desirous of proving ourselves superior to men (videlicet Mr Hoggins) in the article of candour, we began to relate our individual fears, and the private precautions we each of us took. I owned that ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a cruel fate, Dared through her folly, feared too late, The light of Daisy's lost love made The past fall back in deepest shade. ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... lieutenant's voice trembled slightly, and the shrug of his shoulders betrayed his despair—"I have orders to evacuate the station, with all my men and my papers, so soon as the last train has been unloaded. I am to fall back towards L. How is one to understand what ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... bolus of unmasticated food becomes impacted in the pharynx, it blocks the openings of both the oesophagus and the larynx, and the patient may, without manifesting the usual signs of suffocation, suddenly fall back dead, and if he happens to be alone at the time of the accident, the cause of death is liable to be overlooked unless the pharynx is examined at the post-mortem examination. Most surgical museums contain specimens illustrating the impaction of a bolus of meat in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... armor, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows; others flung them on the ground and all turned about and retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The King of France seeing them thus fall back cried out, "Kill me those scoundrels, for they stop up our road without any reason." You would then have seen the above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... please?—though to specify would perhaps be ungallant to both. Besides, I haven't dropped either of them. If Phyllis is lost to me, I may still be able to fall back on Nell, whom nobody else seems to claim ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... had him to fall back on. But even with him, I don't think we ought to wait till I get back my sight. We might have other delays, and perhaps another softening of the crust. It will be pretty annoying—traveling on grizzly flesh—and pretty awkward to have a blind man in the party, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... had expected to be thwarted, to have to force the gates, to overturn the guards. The gates had opened of themselves, and the king, ostensibly at least, had no other guard at his bed-head but his mother. The foremost of them stammered and attempted to fall back. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not answer. She stares at me with wide-open eyes; and my impulsive phrases strike with such force against her stupefaction that each one of them seems by degrees to fall back upon myself. I in my turn am left utterly dumfounded; she is so ill at ease that I myself become nervous; her astonishment embarrasses me; I secretly laugh at my own discomfiture; and I end ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... a compensation for the present life. Those who do not accept the definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the Deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction with physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final reparation, which under an unknown form shall satisfy the wants of the heart of man. Who knows if the highest term of progress after millions of ages may not evoke the absolute conscience of the universe, and in this conscience the awakening of all that has lived? ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... is Canaan cursed and not Ham? For an answer to this question, we are at liberty neither to fall back upon the sovereign decree of God, as Calvin does, nor to say with Hofmann: "Canaan is the youngest son of Ham (Gen. x. 6); and because Ham, the youngest son of Noah, had caused so much grief to the father, he, in return, is to experience great grief from his youngest son." This ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can run down now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poor ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... body. You let your wrists in too soon, Miss Lawrence. Do not start them to work until you are well down on your stroke. That shoulder dropped again! Don't look up as your club goes through; that is a fatal fault. Fall back on those heels! Keep the back straight, or curved back, if at all. Now we will try it ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... together, and loved each other with constant affection, healthy in mind and in body, enlightened, sufficiently rich, similar in tastes, in disposition, and in temperament. Happy are those lovers who, when their senses require rest, can fall back upon the intellectual enjoyments afforded by the mind! Sweet sleep then comes, and lasts until the body has recovered its general harmony. On awaking, the senses are again active and always ready ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the whole affair, which ended in failure, was of the comic order. His indifference and want of familiarity with the small talk of politics probably diminished the effect of his articles in so far as it implied a tendency to fall back upon principles too general for the average reader. But there was no want of decided convictions. The death of Palmerston marked the end of the old era, and was soon succeeded by the discussions over parliamentary reform ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... died away, they witnessed a curious sight. The heavy wooden box seemed to dissolve, to collapse and to crumple up like one of paper, and ere the last rays of the illuminating bullet faded, the watchers saw the splinters of wood fall back with a clatter in a little heap on the spot where ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... and they came east, Twenty-four Emirs and Sheiks at the least, And they hammer'd away At Sir Ingoldsby Bray, Fall back, fall edge, cut, thrust, and point,— But he topp'd off head, and he lopp'd off joint; Twenty and three, Of high degree, Lay stark and stiff on the crimson'd lea, All—all save one—and he ran ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the pleasure he had taken in such remnants of other people's work in the way of preaching as had fallen to him as a student; and the encouragement which had been given to him as to his gifts and talents, as so many temptations of Satan. It was this sense of unfitness for his work that made him fall back at first on the sermons of his student days, and which made the pulpit services, praised by his hearers, seem to him like a mockery. It was a miserable time to him. He distrusted himself utterly, and at all points; ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... afraid there is organic disease, but I think it may be kept quiet a good while yet, and he may have a pleasant life for some time to come, arranging his prints, and petting his pretty daughter. He has plenty to fall back upon." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... remembered dreams from one in two or three nights to five, ten, or even fourteen in a single night. Even at this maximum of remembrance one feels that but a fraction of the mind's nocturnal activity is recalled. Images emerge in consciousness and fall back into obscurity before the waking thought can grasp them. Or it may be more accurate to say that upon awakening consciousness rises from level to level. It sometimes happens that when first awake I recall several dreams which vanish ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... directions given; but when every fourth word had to be spelt, it was rather hopeless work, especially as all these words were unintelligible to the open-mouthed listener, however intent he might be. He had generally to fall back on his own experience; and, guided by that, things were not doing badly in his estimation, when, one day, Sylvia said to him, as they were in the hay-field, heaping up the hay into ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... from this point, the company was rallied on the wagon-train. Major Thornburgh then gave orders to Cherry to hold his position and cover the retreat of Lieutenant Lawson, who was ordered to fall back slowly with the company horses ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... open country you saw on your way from Castletown to this place But we have no pools or lakes hereabouts; and you can have seen none recently elsewhere, for you came here after a cruise at sea. Must we fall back on a picture, or a book, or a ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... control.... God has abandoned me.... I am the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, its mankind and its godkind—surely it is nearer to life! Or go into the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... clouded. "I want her to leave newspaper work and try literature," he said, "but Jeanne's afraid to cut loose. She's earning her living ... and she's alone in the world. No one to fall back on, you know." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... morning we made arrangements with a boatman for the hire of his punt during the short time that we intended to remain in Weymouth, as we wished our tubular boat to come into use only when we had no other to fall back upon. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... hurry on west and be present at Paul's delivery at Fort Washakie. So you see I'll have to depend on two of you boys going up to Glendive and Miles and seeing that those cow-towns take the proper view of this quarantine matter. After dinner you'll fall back and bring up your herds, and after crossing the railroad here, the outfits will graze over to Buford. We'll leave four of our best saddle horses here in a pasture, so as to be independent on our return. Since things have changed so, ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... animal acted as though he had been told of my promotion, but it was plain to me that he acted proud, because he had been resting during my sickness. It was all I could do to keep Jim alongside of me. He would fall back every little while and try to act like an orderly riding behind an officer. I had to discipline him before he would come up alongside like a "partner." I mention this Thanksgiving dinner in the army, in order to bring in a little advice the rebel girl gave me, which ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... maintained, property would sink to half its value—(hear, hear)—and instead of prosperity and progress we should have collapse and retrogression on all sides. (Cheers.) What would Newcastle be if it ceased to be a focus of railways? How would London be supplied if it had to fall back upon turnpike roads and horse traffic? In short, England as it is could not exist without railways and locomotives; and it is only our familiarity with them that blunts our sense of their prodigious importance. As to the future effects of railways, it is easy to see ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... hardly believe that Conde and the Admiral will really lead us against that huge mass. I should think that they can but be going to manoeuvre so as to fall back in good order, and show a firm face to the enemy. Their footmen would then be of no use to them and, as I do not think their horse are more than twice our strength, we might turn upon them when we ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... directing its march all along to the rising grounds with which the whole Prussian camp, that lay in a bottom between the villages of Eederow and Rosbach, was surrounded within the reach of large cannon. Soon after that the cavalry were seen to halt, and afterwards to fall back to the right; though some of them still remained where they were, whilst the rest marched back. About two in the afternoon the doubts of the Prussians were cleared up; it plainly appearing then that the enemy intended to attack them, and that their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... heard, and the videttes fall back upon the detachment, calling to arms. "To horse!" cries the captain, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... this time the cavalry, under Captain Howland, were held in reserve, never moving except to fall back and keep out of danger, with the exception of Captain Cook's men, who dismounted and fought as infantry. From the opening of the battle to its close the odds were against Colonel Slough and his forces; the enemy being greatly superior in ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... grazier or breeder. They buy their weekly supply at their weekly markets; but many of the chief Aberdeen butchers do not depend upon the market for their supplies, but feed large lots of fine cattle and sheep themselves to meet emergencies, upon which they can fall back. They do more than this; they are the largest and most successful exhibitors at our great annual fat shows. They are not only great purveyors themselves, but they supply a good proportion of the Christmas prize animals to the chief butchers of London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... blustered Adolph, "a child of sin like him!" And once again he called out sharply and scornfully, "Cain!" Suddenly he saw the others fall back from something, that passed before his eyes like a great black shadow. He had no time to see what it was; for some one seized him by the clothes over his chest and lifted him, heavy as he was, high in the air and shook him, so that his shirt ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... will put in the young men who come along for the lower grades of places and bar out the lazy fellows that want to fall back on a living they are not energetic enough to get for themselves. And when we have seen how the young fellows work in the lower places we will pick out the men here and there who are born consuls and put them into the ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves much worse than the Spanish foot; but they saw that the Spaniards outnumbered them by more than two to one, and they recognised the advantage they had in having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers were worn with the long march, and in poor case for fighting. They halted at this point, while Morgan formed them into a tertia, or division of three battalions or troops, of which he commanded the right wing. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... the mass plod along in the beaten track with little thought about the future and no sort of feeling of responsibility. They feel a sense of relief that no one stands to force them to labor, and they fall back with a feeling of indifference as to whether they exert themselves beyond what is necessary to supply the demands of necessity. No better result can be hoped for till the time comes for each to see the reward ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... driven back, and taken to pounds in villages in safer regions. Several more mines had to cease work, and the French miners thus thrown out of employment were mostly set to work in digging line upon line of additional trenches about Fouquieres and Drouvin, for us to fall back on in case of a break through, as it was determined to contest every bit of the ground to the very utmost. Right well they worked, and in an incredibly short time, they had dug miles of trenches, and well wired them in front with substantial ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... their white-winged birds: You can't do that way when you're flying words. "Careful with fire," is good advice we know: "Careful with words," is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead, But God himself can't kill them when they're said! Yon have my life-grief: do not think a minute 'Twas told to take up time. There's business in it. It sheds advice: whoe'er will take and live it, Is welcome to the pain ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... a struggle. Place where, proves also at length discoverable in Dryasdust,—not too far across the north Polish frontier, always with "Masovia" (the now Warsaw region) to fall back upon. But in what number; how; nay almost when, to a year,—do not ask poor Dryasdust, who overwhelms himself with idle details, and by reason of the trees is unable to see the wood. [Voigt, ii. 177, 184, 192.]—The ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... Gert. And when you haven't any of the greenback boys around to fill in, you can always fall back on me." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... major. As soon as the enemy arrives, we will fall back, keeping in touch with them as ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... a second assault, sweeping over it with consummate dash and skill. This division then repulsed strong counter-attacks before the village and cemetery of Ste. Etienne and took the town, forcing the Germans to fall back from before Rheims and yield positions they had held since September, 1914. On October 9 the Thirty-sixth Division relieved the Second and, in its first experience under fire, withstood very severe artillery bombardment and rapidly took up the pursuit of the enemy, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... old a day of ills. The charwoman was in the house, and Mrs. Hood went about in a fatigued way, coming now and then to the sitting-room, sinking into a chair, letting her head fall back with closed eyes. Emily had, of course, begged to be allowed to give assistance, but her mother declared that there was nothing whatever ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... firm, dignified, and self-respecting protest against the injustice of which you have so much reason to complain, and of serene confidence which is not discouraged by temporary checks, nor embittered by hostile criticism, nor provoked to use any weapons of retort, which, like the boomerang, fall back on the heads of those who use them. You can afford in your consciousness of right to be as calm and courteous as the archangel Michael, who, we are told in Scripture in his controversy with Satan himself, did not bring a railing ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... drunk till they could no longer, threw what was left in their glasses up to the roof, and let it fall back in cascades. Women dyed their children's garments in the wine, and fed them on it till their tiny mouths were red. Sometimes, as the dancers whirled, they overturned a vessel, and their garments were bespattered. Children sat upon ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner
... determined quite as bravely to wait the course of events, and let him have them, if convenient. On the other hand, if the kingdom should succeed in keeping the king in order—which was the utmost then intended—Aubyn Auberley might be only too glad to fall back upon Frida. ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... not in straight rows. They zig-zagged to make attacks on them more difficult. There were several rows of trenches on both sides of No Man's Land. This was so that in the event of an attack the men could fall back from one line of trenches to the other, fighting meanwhile to ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... thirsty shallows of the then unknown Lake Eyre. There was neither sign nor clue afforded him; his men were sick, and any further progress would jeopardise his retreat. There was nothing for it but to fall back once more; and, after a toilsome journey, they reached Fort Grey on the ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... historical testimony, but only by a priori inference, and whose nationality cannot be shown to have undergone any radical change from external causes. To establish the national individuality of these is the first aim of our inquiry. In such an inquiry, had we nothing to fall back upon but the chaotic mass of names of tribes and the confusion of what professes to be historical tradition, the task might well be abandoned as hopeless. The conventionally received tradition, which assumes the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the happy light in his eyes Hugh knew the die was cast, once and for all. Having tasted of the sweets of popularity and honest praise, nothing on earth could now tempt Nick to fall back again to his former ignoble ways. His foot was firmly planted on the second round of the ladder, and he had his aspiring eye on the better things ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust; And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breast Of its mother, dead and cold. I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky, And fall back upon an earth of ashes; But, heedless, I have gone on with my work. 'Tis thus, O, Prince, that ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... the utter unworthiness of the man to whom she has given her heart, yet loving him still and hoping he may in time win forgiveness for his sin, she pleads so eloquently for him that all fall back. The Landgrave, addressing him, then solemnly bids him repent, and join the pilgrims on their way to Rome, where perchance the Pope may grant him ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... muscles, nerves and bones of the whole anterior half of the animal, if their mass was not to weigh down the animal altogether. It is inconceivable, he says, that so many processes of selection should take place simultaneously, and we are therefore forced to fall back on the Lamarckian factor of the use and disuse of functional parts. And how, he asks, could natural selection follow two opposite directions of evolution in different parts of the body at the same time, as for instance in the case of the kangaroo, in which ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... send the letter to Hillard House by hand," Aline insisted. "If I didn't do that I should not be able to sleep." She spoke with fervour, for she felt that she must have two strings to her bow. If "Mother" failed, she must be able to fall back on "Grandma." ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... short. If you would induce a fierce mountain tribe to come down from its fortress and settle in the plain, you do not bid it destroy the fortress. You bid it enjoy life in the city, and remember that it runs no risk in doing so, because it has its fortress to fall back upon at the first hint of danger. And the time will come when it can hear with equanimity that the fortress has gone to ruin, and that fighting is no longer in fashion. The mountain tribe will have learned ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... to fall back in amazement. Marie Louise was not in bed. The bed had not been slept in. Marie Louise was all dressed, and she had been crying. And in a chair sat a strange, formidable old gentleman who looked ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... is incomprehensible, so much that requires explanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies, why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general texture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the text. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your thoughts best about and towards eternity, you ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism worse than ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... purpose, and the minister, having failed to control them, was dismissed. Necker, his rival and obvious successor, was sent out of the way, and the Archbishop of Toulouse, afterwards of Sens, who was appointed in his place, got rid of the Assembly. There was nothing left to fall back upon but the dreaded States-General. Lafayette had demanded them at the meeting of the Notables, and the demand was now repeated ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... particular spot I wish to describe, the hills fall back from the Hudson, north and south, far enough to leave a charming little valley of some two or three hundred acres cradled in their wildness and opening greenly to the river, which is sure to catch a ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... had now dismounted, ordered the men to fall back a pace, and, as they did so, he went through the line with his sword in one hand and a revolver in the other, ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... through the range of hills intervening between themselves and the eastern edge of the Monastir Plain. For a day there was a lull, and then the Serbians and French resumed their attacks. Northeast of Iven the Bulgarians and Germans were compelled to fall back, close pressed by the Serbians, who occupied the village of Cegal. North of Velyeselo the French and Serbians also advanced; the fighting spread westward as far as Kenali. The prisoners taken during the past few days now numbered 2,200, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... fall back to its normal position and turned to get himself into a comfortable attitude, his hand touched something soft and yielding. For a moment he was startled, but the sound of a throaty purr, and the realization that ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... which, provided I do not say it myself. He will certainly never forget this day's lesson as long as he lives, while if I had only led him to think of all this at home, my lecture would have been forgotten the next day. Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing is ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... that in reading dictionaries, statistics, or mere poets or mere scientists it was necessary to have a purpose to fall back upon to justify one's self. And there was no denying that reading for results was a necessary and natural thing. The trouble seemed to be, that very few people could be depended on to pick out the right results. ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... obtained from advertising and judicious expenditure, than Aix-les-Bains, which twenty years ago was but a tiny mountain village, and to-day ranks among the wealthiest and most brilliant eaux in Europe. In this case, it is true, they had tradition to fall back on, for Aquæ Gratinæ was already a favorite watering-place in the year 30 B.C., when Cæsar took ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... to the Count. She took him apart, and bidding the Saracens fall back, she inquired ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... the moral in human behavior, what marks out right or wrong conduct from conduct ethically indifferent, we have not yet considered. But no man is wholly without information in the field of morals, and we may here fall back upon such conceptions as men generally possess before they have evolved a science of morals. In the light of such conceptions a simple and comparatively undeveloped culture may compare very favorably with one much higher in the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, was gone." Man is a peculiar animal. No matter what the fire and force of his passion, it falters eventually, and forever after smoulders or goes out. He has nothing to fall back upon, no substitute; but a woman always has the mother love. When the disillusion comes, when the fairy story ends, if she is blessed with children, she doesn't mind. If she has no children, she goes on loving her husband; but he is no longer a ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... demonstrates the truth of what I say. And if it's truth about you after all the years you've lived in this country, it is, of course, much more true about this judge. Therefore, to get back to what I was saying a minute ago—having failed in my appeal to his intellect—I fall back upon the one vulnerable part of him and try if I ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... lifts her head and opens her mouth, whereupon he seizes the sword and cuts her head off. As is usual in the stories of this class, his comrades, after hoisting the maidens aloft, cut the cord and let him fall back into the abyss. But he escapes, and eventually "he slays all the three heroes, and flings their bodies on the plain for wild beasts to devour." This Skazka is one of the many versions of a widespread tale, which tells how the youngest of a party, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston |
