"Backwards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men," shouted Captain Erskine, recovering from his first and unavoidable, though but momentary, surprise. "First and fourth sections, on your right and left backwards wheel:—Quick, men, within the square, for your lives." As he spoke, he and Lieutenant Johnstone sprang hastily back, and in time to obtain admittance within the troops, who had rapidly executed the manoeuvre commanded. Not so ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... there arose a sudden bull-like roar and, glancing up, I beheld a man who reeled backwards out of the inn and who, after staggering a yard or so, thudded down into the road and so lay, staring vacantly up at the sky. Before I could reach him, however, he got upon his legs and, crossing unsteadily to the tree I have mentioned, leaned ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... or by going to London to attend the Museum, R. Society, the Tuesday Club, & Auctions of pictures. I mean to have a light chariot or post chaise by the month, that I may make use of it in London and run backwards and forwards to Merton or to Shepperton, &c. This is my plan, and we might go on very well, but I am fully determined not to have more of the very silly altercations that happen but too often between us and embitter the present moments exceedingly. If realy one cannot live comfortably ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... dying efforts of a hospital load of consumptives; to a robust and perfectly healthy lady the cost in nervous force must have been prodigious. Also, that no fear should live with them that her eyes had seen aught not intended for them, she would invariably enter backwards any room in which they might be, closing the door loudly and with difficulty before turning round: and through dark passages she would walk singing. No woman alive could have done more; yet—such is human nature!—neither ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... fell on his knees, then rose again, dropped the flag and fell backwards on the pavement, like a log, at full length, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... children and their thousands of cattle which, in execution of the plot, had travelled this path some days before. Either the impi had not yet arrived, or it had gone by some other road. Weary as she was, Noma followed the old spoor backwards. A mile or more away it crossed the crest of a hog-backed mountain, from whose summit she searched the plain beyond, and not in vain, for there far beneath her twinkled the watch-fires of the army ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... out to a level again, as I hoped against hope that it would, the road grew steeper with each quarter-mile, so steep that it seemed as if the car must take to running down hill backwards. But always it went forging steadily up on the strongest speed with a dependable, bumbling noise, never once faltering, though the Col di Tenda wasn't as steep a gradient as this. Certainly, after one's faith in the car has stopped wobbling, there was a kind of wild pleasure ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Academy, who now leaves us, took his dinner here. We had a long philological tete-a-tete. He is opinionative, as he has some title to be, but very learned, and with a juster view of his subject than is commonly entertained, for he traces words to the same source—not from sound but sense. He casts backwards thus to the root, while many compare the ends of the twigs without ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... land; the crookedness of the ditches, by keeping the water stagnant, added to, rather than relieved, the wetness of the soil. Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... Pergolese's music, is one of profoundest and yet sweetest sorrow. Luini's genius was not tragic. The nearest approach to a dramatic motive in his work is the figure of the Magdalen kneeling before the cross, with her long yellow hair streaming over her shoulders, and her arms thrown backwards in an ecstasy of grief.[393] He did well to choose moments that stir tender sympathy—the piety of deep and calm devotion. How truly he felt them—more truly, I think, than Perugino in his best period—is proved by the correspondence ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... was fine, and Owen walked backwards and forwards every day with Mr Fluke. One day a box arrived marked private, and addressed to S. Fluke, Esquire. On glancing at the contents, Mr Fluke had it again closed, and that evening he went away earlier than usual, a porter carrying the box to the nearest coach-stand. ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... flung herself on the floor, her feet tucked under her, her hands clasped round her knees, swaying backwards and forwards in a tempest of excited feeling, hardly knowing ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... laugh he grasped its roots and twisted it from the Very Young Man's hand. A second more and they came together again, and the Very Young Man felt his antagonist's powerful arms around his body, bending him backwards. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... but just begun. Good God! he was beaten! Good God! by this enemy who would not kill him or be killed. He uttered a sound which was a choking shriek and hurled himself forward. 'Twas his last stroke and he knew it, and my lord Duke struck his point aside and it flew in the air, and Sir John fell backwards broken, conquered, exhausted, but an unwounded man. And he fell full length and lay upon the heather, its purple blooms crushed against his cheek; and the sky was of a sweet pallor just about to glow, and the first bird of morning sprang ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this, as well as the amusements of our people, during the monotony of daily travelling: as, for instance, the captain rolling oranges along the ground, as prizes for running, or his mounting a camel himself, or riding backwards, etc.—anything ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... incapacity, who made the character of the school and left this man to pocket its profits—sent a thrill of the old Wentworth fire through him, so that his muscles hardened, his hands closed, and he took the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, to see if his head would strike the wall in case he went over backwards all of a sudden. This would not do, of course, and so the thrill passed off and the muscles softened again. Then came that state of tenderness in the heart, overlying wrath in the stomach, in which the eyes grow moist like a woman's, and there is also a great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the small-pox," she said with a jerk of her thumb towards the inside of her cart, "some say it's the plague! If it is, I sha'n't be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow." At the first mention of the word small-pox, Bibot had stepped hastily backwards, and when the old hag spoke of the plague, he retreated from her as ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the dogs were yelping and scratching; but the bipeds had gone more scientifically to work by countermining from above, sinking shafts downwards at various points, till at last they reached his inner chamber, when he scuttled out, and, charging backwards at the dogs with all his spines erected, he soon sent them flying, howling most piteously; but a Gondee axe hurled at his head soon put an end to his career, for a porcupine's ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... was exchanged between the father and son, as she went backwards, screaming, "Betty—I say, Betty, you idle slut, where are you?" as if determined to vent ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... these there is great plenty. The buffaloes differ very considerably from the horned cattle of Europe in several particulars; their ears are much larger, their skins are almost without hair, their horns are curved towards each other, but together bend directly backwards, and they have no dewlaps. We saw several that were as big as a well-grown European ox, and there must be some much larger; for Mr Banks saw a pair of horns which measured, from tip to tip, three feet nine inches and a half, across their widest diameter, four feet one ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... very few years ago we had no vehicle except a single horse chaise for me to go backwards and forwards to Calcutta. That was necessarily kept on the opposite side of the river; and if the strength of the horse would have borne it, could not have been used for the purposes of health. Sister Marshman was seized with a disease of the liver, a disease which proves fatal in three ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... often takes a delight in attacking those who have never done him any harm. There he was already, jumping over a ditch right into the middle of their path. He lowered his head and walked a few steps backwards. ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... bland as sunshine. "Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spects dar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour Old Marster in dat.—He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better come home—all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowder over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... true to its heedful winding up, left its post precisely at the given moment; along its well-oiled route, slid noiselessly towards its mark; and, aiming at the hand of Una, to ring one clangorous note, dully smote the intervening brain of Bannadonna, turned backwards to it; the manacled arms then instantly up-springing to their hovering poise. The falling body clogged the thing's return; so there it stood, still impending over Bannadonna, as if whispering some post-mortem terror. The chisel lay dropped from the hand, but beside the hand; the oil-flask ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... from the sea prospect and looked backwards over the lagoon to the island. She could make out the broad green glade beside which their little house lay, and a spot of yellow, which was the thatch of the house, just by the artu tree, and nearly hidden by the shadow of the breadfruit. Over woods the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... ad lib way they operated, remembering the courses, the tests, the procedures practiced until they could do them backwards blindfolded. When they tangled with a Red, the Solter co-ordinates went out the hatch. They navigated by the enemy. There were times during a fight when he had no more idea of his position than what the old ladies told ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... tell you? I shall lose all dignity in your eyes—if indeed I ever had any to lose—as I lost it in my own. The terrible sickness, you understand.... That, and the din of the bell, and being flung up and down, backwards and forwards. No rest, not for a moment. I prayed, I tried to fight my way out of the buoy, between the bars, to throw myself into the sea. The sea was rising visibly, and the spray of the waves broke over me, drenching me; the salt ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... been considered amazing that Protestantism having accomplished so much should have fallen backwards so soon, and yielded almost undisputed sway in vast regions to the long dominant church. But in truth there is nothing surprising about it. Catholicism was and remained a unit, while its opponents were eventually broken up into hundreds of warring and politically impotent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... death be caused by a vehicle through the breaking of the [animal's] nose-bridle, or through breaking of the yoke, or the like, or from its running backwards, the owner is ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... threads to twist in the allotted space was so great that if it had now to be done, I should probably not attempt its accomplishment." His next step was to provide thin metallic discs, to be used as bobbins for conducting the threads backwards and forwards through the warp. These discs, being arranged in carrier-frames placed on each side of the warp, were moved by suitable machinery so as to conduct the threads from side to side in forming the lace. He eventually succeeded in working out his principle with extraordinary skill and success; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... command, he repeated his desire of withdrawing, and took God to witness, that what he proposed was solely for the quiet of his honoured patron and beloved friend. "Enough," cried the unfortunate Renaldo, "the measure of my woes is now filled up." So saying, he fell backwards in a swoon, from which he was with difficulty recovered to the sensation of the most exquisite torments. During this paroxysm, our adventurer nursed him with infinite care and tenderness, he exhorted him to summon all his fortitude to his assistance, to remember ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... we begin, as it were, at the other end, and trace things backwards from the present, instead of forwards from the remote past, it cannot be denied that Darwin's investigations have made it exceedingly probable that the vast variety of plants and animals have sprung from a much smaller number of ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... coming out of the yard, and looking round on the envious chaps who were watching me—it was as bad as getting married—at least, I should think so, never having been in that predicament myself. I have escaped that dilemma, for," he concluded, "when a man is always going backwards and forwards between two points, what is the use of a wife, a coachman could never be much more than half married. Now, if the law—in the case of coachmen—allowed two wives, that would be quite another story, because he could then have the ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... as the most emotional would go, some even adding: "Charleston's a graun city, nae doot, an' I'm hopin' ye'll like it fine if you leave us," which last proved to me that such an one secretly prayed for my remaining. The true Scotchman is like the Hebrew language—to be understood, he must be read backwards. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... stranger in green, very deliberately putting his foot on the ladder, and descending, until no part of his person but his head was seen. "Here I go, literally cutting the waves with my taffrail," he added, as he descended backwards, and seeming to take great pleasure in laying particular emphasis on the words. "Adieu, my friend; if we do not meet again, I enjoin you never to forget the rats ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... is, as avengers of blood. I have nowhere else found this practice as to the shoes, which, after all, cannot conceal the direction of the spoor from a native tracker. {37b} The trick of driving the cattle backwards answers to the old legend that Bruce reversed the shoes of his horse when he fled from the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... oftener. Every time I leave you I count up the hours that must pass before I see you again. But I expect most, if not all, of the visitors will be off presently. Most of 'em have been there the regulation fortnight; a good many come backwards and forwards; they're the city men, the money men. My father is closeted with them for hours every day—that big scheme of his seems to be coming off satisfactorily. It's a railway to some place in Africa, and all these fellows—the Griffenbergs, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. When the ass had eaten his macaroon I pressed him to come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded, his legs seemed to tremble under him, he hung rather backwards, and as I pulled at his halter it broke short in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face. 'Don't thrash me with it; but if you will, you may.' 'If I do,' said ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... the broad and lofty chamber set apart for occasions of import, the Abbot himself was pacing impatiently backwards and forwards, with his long white nervous hands clasped in front of him. His thin, thought-worn features and sunken, haggard cheeks bespoke one who had indeed beaten down that inner foe whom every man must face, but had none the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not remained whole, for he was wounded in two places. So soon as Perceval espied them, he smiteth his horse of his spurs, lance in rest, and smiteth Aristor right through the breast with such force that he maketh him lose his stirrups and lie down backwards over the hinder bow of the saddle. After that saith he: "I am come to my sister's wedding, of right ought it not to ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... wriggling fish that gleamed like silver, and at eventide we would see at the brink an elk or doe, with head poised, watching us as we drifted. We passed here and there a lonely cabin, to set my thoughts wandering backwards to my youth, and here and there in the dimples of the hills little clusters of white and brown houses, one day to become ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by our owner's agent, and altogether we found Nassau very jolly: so much so, that we felt almost sorry when 'time' was called, and we had to prepare for another run. In fact, it was pleasanter in blockade-running to look backwards than forwards, especially if one had been so far ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... only some letters written to Justinian and Theodora by Theodahad and his wife, vaguely praising peace, and beseeching the Imperial pair to restore it to Italy; letters which, as it seems to me, may be applied with about equal fitness to any movement of the busy shuttle of diplomacy backwards and ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... was standing when struck, and fell backwards, his rifle falling at the same time and striking the shin. The ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... strike him on his thickly-covered body, the attacks are usually made about the head. A man who wantonly threw an axe at a male bear as he passed, wounded him, whereupon the beast rushed at him, the man fell backwards over a fallen tree, and, in so doing, tore off a sharp-pointed knob of wood, which he thrust down the bear's throat, and so killed him; not, however, before he had received his own death wound from the hind ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... therefore at the time off duty, strike, with his left hand, a young man who was on that side of him, with a blow which hit him on the face, and I suppose it was given with some force, for the young man who received it staggered backwards; and I observed that, as soon as he had recovered himself, another Austrian officer, who was the one at the head of the soldiers, and marching with them with his drawn sword, strike with it the same young man on the head, inflicting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... heard in the passage; a bolt was withdrawn, Katie drew quickly back, and next moment the door was thrown open. A flood of light streamed out, and two weird and startling figures were outlined sharply against it. Instinctively Dorothy shrank backwards with a sense of wonder and fear. Standing on its hind legs in the doorway was a bear, and by its side a dwarf with an immense head covered with a great crop of hair, and with long arms and a broad chest which ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's attempt to help him up the steep, narrow steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached the highest step a sudden giddiness came over him, so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards had the warder not ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... An' our Lodge was old an' bare, But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, An' we kep' 'em to a hair; An' lookin' on it backwards It often strikes me thus, There ain't such things as infidels, Excep', per'aps, ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... and I watched. One ran the point of his fork into the table-cloth; another balanced her spoon on the tea-cup; a third told backwards and forwards the rings on her fingers, as duly as a friar tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression—and ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... saw her spring to her feet and rush towards me. Escape was impossible, for behind me were high boulders that I could not climb. She came on with hoarse, coughing grunts, and with desperate courage I fired my remaining barrel. I missed her clean. I took one step backwards in the hope of getting a cartridge into my rifle, and fell, scarcely two lengths in front of the furious beast. She missed me. I owed my safety to that fall. And then suddenly I found that she had collapsed. I had hit her after all. My bullet went ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... Dupont agreed from the rear. "It was designed for the most abominable crime of making men and women go backwards instead of forwards. And last night it attained the ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... intention," Tallente remarked thoughtfully, "to kill the young man. A brawl in front of the windows was impossible, so I took him with me to the lookout. I suppose he was tactless and I lost my temper. I struck him on the chin and he went backwards, through that piece of rotten paling, you ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... impossible to forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any moment might steal out and encompass his darkening life? He sat there motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with his fist in the face of his intended victim; but the young officer parried it, and was about to follow up the movement with a blow, when Monsieur Rubempre rushed in between them, struck the assailant such a blow that he went over backwards. In fact, the man was too much intoxicated to stand ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... we go up, up, up, And here we go down, down, downy, And here we go backwards and forwards, And here ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness with which I ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... made no effort to stake. After a moment's hesitation she yielded up her place, and moving backwards, seated herself upon an empty divan. Rapidly the thoughts began to form themselves in her mind. Her delicate eyebrows drew closer together in a distinct frown. After that first shock, that queer turmoil of feeling, beyond analysis, yet having within ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rascal rapid ran; Peter Piper picked a peck of prickly pears from the prickly-pear trees on the pleasant prairies," and many others still in use traditionally among the school-children of to-day, together with linguistic exercises of nonsense-syllables and the like, pronouncing words backwards, etc. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... outstripped by the antelopes, which on gaining the other extremity of the circle were driven back and pursued by the fresh hunters. They turned and flew, rather than ran in another direction; but there too, they found new enemies. In this way they were alternately pursued backwards and forwards, till at length, notwithstanding the skill of the hunters, they all escaped, and the party after running for two hours returned without having caught any thing, and their horses foaming with sweat. This chase, the greater part of which was seen from the camp, formed a beautiful ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... anti-popular about it—nothing even tending to infringe the rights and liberties of the several States—while it was clearly a statesmanlike measure from the national standpoint, tending at once to restore the public credit and cement the Union. But Jefferson read backwards into this innocuous and beneficent stroke of policy the spirit which he justly perceived to inform the later and more dubious measures which ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... knew this song of TAMMAS'S. A shout of laughter went up from the whole gathering. The stranger fell backwards into the sty a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... Will now, indeed I'm afraid he will soon forget his Welsh, he is speaking English so easy and smooth. Come here, Ann," the old man called, as his daughter passed busily backwards and forwards spreading the snowy cloth and laying the tea-table. "The lady ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... soon, for the antelope was being dragged along, growing more helpless and its struggles more faint moment by moment, while the body of the crocodile was disappearing backwards down the slope of ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... thought was of the man crouching beside and clinging to him, the quick following instinct to free himself of this check to his movements. He was still on his knees, with the man on his left side; without attempting to rise he twisted round and backwards, and drove his fist full force in the other's face; the man's head crashed back against the trench wall, and his limp body collapsed and rolled sideways. His mind still running in the groove of his set purpose, before ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... listened,—because the language of the woman was not the language of a common woman, but the language of a lady of rank.(2) Then he determined at all hazards to get one glimpse of her face; and he crept round the house, backwards and forwards, peering through every crack and chink. And at last he was able to see;—but therewith an icy trembling seized him; and the hair of his head ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... new-born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Demara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the man....' According to ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... the subject that in order to demonstrate the action of the imagination upon us, you are going to ask him in a moment to think: "I am falling backwards, I am falling backwards. . . ." Tell him that he must have no thought but this in his mind, that he must not reflect or wonder if he is going to fall or not, or think that if he falls he may hurt himself, etc., or fall back purposely to please you, ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... round; grand rond to the left (four bars), then back again to the right (four bars), employing the second step of the Cellarius. Each couple does the petit tour forwards, and backwards, still using the second step, and repeating it three times to the right—then resting a bar; three times to the left—then resting another bar; which occupies eight bars of the music. These figures may be considered as preliminary. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... become very drunk and talkative, had offered to sing two or three songs, to make two or three speeches, and had ultimately fallen backwards, on his chair being drawn away, from which position he was unable to get up, and little Larry's brother was now amiably engaged painting his face with lampblack. Mrs. Keegan the while was sitting in her ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... they are fit for writing on they are subjected to a second process, called madema. A smooth plank of areca-palm is tied horizontally between two trees, each ola is then damped, and a weight being attached to one end of it, it is drawn backwards and forwards across the edge of the wood till the surface becomes perfectly smooth and polished; and during the process, as the moisture dries up, it is necessary to renew it till the effect is ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the second time. That upset the Marquis to such a point that he said "Damn," which is the only English word he knows, and when Victorine looked horribly surprised, he dived into his waistcoat pocket and fished out the ring. Then he took her hand, pulled off her glove backwards, and pushed it on to the first finger he came to, which happened to be the middle one! He just said he hoped she would wear it for his sake; and when she exclaimed, "Mais, monsieur! ce n'est pas sur ce doigt que vous devez mettre la bague!" he hardly ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... out yesterday has put him a little backwards. I called twice, and sent, for I am in pain for him. Ford caught me, and made me dine with him on his Opera-day; so I brought Mr. Lewis with me, and sat with him till six. I have not seen Mr. Addison these three weeks; all our friendship is over. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... contriver of this detestable invention, to bring him all the acknowledgments; and, when he showed himself unwilling to do so, he dealt him a violent blow in the face. Priscus, unable to resist the blow dealt by a man of such bodily strength, fell backwards upon the ground, trembling and affrighted. Believing that Longinus had discovered the whole affair, he confessed; and, the whole trick being thus brought to ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... required impetus to the car. The engine-room, being well provided with scuttles, was chosen as the scene of our operations. A brace of magazine rifles were fixed through two of the scuttles in such a way that the recoil of the shots would urge the car in an oblique direction backwards, so as to clear or almost clear the planet, allowance being made for the forward motion of the latter in its orbit. Needless to say, the barrel of each rifle was packed round so as to keep the air in the car from escaping ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... may be wafted nearer to their God. Whatsoever forces act upon us, if we put the helm right and trim the sails as we ought, they will carry us to our haven. And whatsoever forces act upon us, if we neglect the sailor's skill and duty, we shall be washed backwards and forwards in the trough of the sea, and make no progress in the voyage. 'Then had the Church rest'—and grew lazy? 'Then had the Church rest'—and grew worldly? Then was I happy and prosperous and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... non curat lex, our law-makers delight in very small jokes. When Mr. CECIL BECK, as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, delivered HIS MAJESTY's reply to the Address the House of Commons was chiefly interested in watching how he would accomplish the feat of walking backwards from the Table to the Bar. More than once in past history the task has proved too much for the man who essayed it, and the orderly retreat has degenerated into a shambling rout. But there was no such hitch to-day. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... it, when it moves slowly. A wave, but without wind! a current, but with no fall! all the body moving at the same instant, yet some of it to one side, some to another, or some forward, and the rest of the coil backwards, but all with the same calm will and equal way, no contraction, no extension; one soundless, causeless, march of sequent rings, and spectral processions of spotted dust, with dissolution in its fangs, dislocation in its coils. Startle it, the winding stream will ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... vast Hungarian plain. It is so utterly featureless as to be even without landmarks. Except for the signs of the heavenly bodies, a man might, in a fit of absence, turn round and fail to realise whether he was going backwards or forwards. Right or left, it is all the same monotonous dead level, with scarce an object on which to rest the eye. Here and there a row of acacia-trees may be seen marking the boundary of an estate, and near by the sure indication of a well in the form of a lofty pole balanced transversely; ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... wondering for what earthly purpose he could want them. The same afternoon I descried the venerable warrior approaching the house, with a slow, stately gait, ear-rings in ears, and spear in hand, with this highly ornamental pair of shoes suspended from his neck by a strip of bark, and swinging backwards and forwards on his capacious chest. In the gala costume of the tasteful Marheyo, these calf-skin pendants ever after ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Administration building they saw a man in the center of the court looking up through the building at the great dome which seemed to pierce the sky. He leaned farther and farther back until he fell backwards and lay there on his back still gazing intently upward. A number of people rushed up to him horror stricken, as if he had just fallen from the top of the dome and they expected to see him a crushed mass. As they began to close up around him he ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... that during the times of the Danish incursions St. Benedict travelled backwards and forwards through France and Italy, and brought with him during his seven journeys artificers in glass and stone, besides costly books and copies of the Scriptures. The chief end and aim of monastic life, both of monk and nun, in those early days was to embroider, paint, and illuminate ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... those grovelling instincts which we saw manifested in the lives of others. Each contributed his share of gas to inflate the painted balloon to which we all clung, in the expectation that it would presently soar with us to the stars. But it only went up over the out-houses, dodged backwards and forwards two or three times, and finally flopped down with us ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... says (chaps. ii.): "Your wives are your tillage: go in therefore unto your tillage in what manner so ever ye will." Usually this is understood as meaning in any posture, standing or sitting, lying, backwards or forwards. Yet there is a popular saying about the man whom the woman rides (vulg. St. George, in France, le Postillon); "Cursed be who maketh woman Heaven and himself earth!" Some hold the Koranic passage to have been revealed in confutation of the Jews, who pretended that if a man lay with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... with or without the aid of cramps or artificial pressure. If the joint is to be made without cramping, the two surfaces of the timber are warmed so as not to chill the glue. The surfaces are then glued and put together and rubbed backwards and forwards so as to get rid of the superfluous glue. They are then ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... Agni at the place pointed out by the parrot, and witnessing the curse denounced upon him, the gods, feeling a compassion for the poor creature, blessed him, saying, 'In consequence of thy being a parrot, thou shalt not be wholly deprived of the power of speech. Though thy tongue has been turned backwards, yet speech thou shalt have, confined to the letter K. Like that of a child or an old man, thy speech shall be sweet and indistinct and wonderful.' Having said these words unto the parrot, and beholding ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... extremely fine parallel ribs, which are quite absent in the female. In the females, however, of all three species of Oryctes, a slight grating or stridulating sound is produced, when the abdomen of a softened specimen is pushed backwards and forwards. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... composed of numerous separate plates, so jointed together that whilst the amount of movement between any two pieces must be very limited, the entire column acquires more or less flexibility, allowing the organism as a whole to wave backwards and forwards on its stalk. Into the exquisite minutioe of structure by which the innumerable parts entering into the composition of a single Crinoid are adapted for their proper purposes in the economy of ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... Puranic period (which name we employ loosely to cover such sects as are not clearly modern) we pause for a moment to cast a glance backwards over the long development of the trinity, to the units of which are devoted the individual Pur[a]nas. We have shown that the childhood-tales of Krishna are of late (Puranic) origin, and that most of the cow-boy exploits are post-epic. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... requite. rearrange, recombine. Adj. interchanged &c. v.; reciprocal, mutual, commutative, interchangeable, intercurrent[obs3]. combinatorial[Math, Statistics]. recombinant[Biology, Genetics]. Adv. in exchange, vice versa, mutatis mutandis[Lat], backwards and forwards, by turns, turn and turn about; each in his turn, everyone in his turn. Adj. substituted &c. v.; vicarious, subdititious[obs3]. Adv. instead; in place of, in lieu of, in the stead of, in the room ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... polished out of sight, like a machine-made sonnet too much gone over. The steps had been freshly sanded, and a little lemon-tree nodding in one of the windows made the rusty old house look quite inviting. A stout little woman with a big market-basket, bumped into me and apologized, for I had stepped backwards to get a better look at the upstairs windows. The stout little woman set down her basket on the steps, took a bunch of keys from a pocket under her big, white, starched apron, selected one, turned to me, smiled, and asked, "Mebbe, Sir, you wasn't looking for apartments, I dunno?" Then ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... door on the left opens and Madame Nerisse appears backwards, still talking to Monsieur Nerisse, who is invisible in ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... college appoints a crew of eight strong scull pullers or oarsmen and one small coxswain or steersman to pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke oar", because all the other oars watch him and match his stroke. The racing takes place on the river which runs through Oxford, and since because of the oars the river is ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Bigot stepped backwards. He was not sure but a poniard glittered in the clenched hand of Angelique. It was but the flash of her diamond rings as she lifted it suddenly. She almost ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... gentleman could have been there unless he also had run; but just in time to see him as he was coming on,—and also to see in the dark glimmering of the slight uncertain moonlight that the two men were behind him. He retreated a step backwards in the corner, resolving that when Mr. Kennedy came up, they two would go on together; for now it was clear that Mr. Kennedy was followed. But Mr. Kennedy did not reach the corner. When he was within two doors of it, one of the men had followed him up quickly, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... little inkstand is the very pest of my life; it keeps tumbling over backwards every minute, and pouring the ink all over, and making me swear (which is really a pity), and is, in short, invaluable; and I am so much more obliged to you than I was even at first for it, now that I know, I hope, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... fish, and which he kept in his drawing-room in order to insure an equable temperature. The additional weight of the maiden, combined with the impetus with which she hurled herself upon him, caused the precarious piece of furniture to give way, and the body of the unfortunate student was hurled backwards into the tank, in which his head and shoulders were firmly wedged, while his lower extremities flapped helplessly about in the air. This was the last straw. Extricating himself with some difficulty ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been tossed backwards and forwards between the two raging factions. His feelings, languid and unsteady as they always were, drew him to the Girondists; but he was awed by the vigor and determination of the Mountain. At one moment he held high and firm language, complained that the Convention was not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of something. The next thing that struck us was a tub of salt water, which came like a cannon ball and broke against the hood affair, and spattered on deck like a crockery shop. We climbed down again backwards, and sat on the floor with emphasis, in consequence of stepping down a last step that wasn't there, and cracked the back of our heads against the edge of the table. The Maori helped us up, and we had a drink with him at the expense of one of the half-casers mentioned in the beginning ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... whole tribes, and the need of them had become so urgent, that orders were issued to shoot any attempting to desert, while parties of the regiment were continually passing backwards and forwards between Dunquah and Mansu as guards over the convoys. To relieve the pressure, 94 men of G and C Companies left Dunquah on the 13th with ninety-four 50-lb. loads, and, reaching Mansu the same day, started next morning ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... what sort of satisfaction she could claim, unless she wants to punish me by the 'Lex talionis', which would be hardly practicable without a repetition of the original offence. If she had not liked the game, all she had to do was to give me a push which would have sent me backwards." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Frenchman: it happened I can't tell you how: And, Grandfather, hear, if you love me, and put aside prejudice now": He never says "Grandfather"—Tom don't—save it's a serious thing. "Well, there were some pits for the rifles, just dug on our French- leaning wing: And backwards, and forwards, and backwards we went, and at last I was vexed, And swore I would never surrender a foot when ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thinking the sun to have set were filled with delight at the prospect of Partha's laying down his life. Indeed, thy warriors, not seeing the sun, were filled with gladness. All of them stood, with heads thrown backwards. King Jayadratha also was in the same attitude. And while the ruler of the Sindhus was thus beholding the sun, Krishna, once more addressing Dhananjaya said these words, "Behold, the heroic ruler of the Sindhus is now looking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... (where nobody has now the spirit to get up any theatricals!), and the "Kennel" (as Jane Turton called it) where I used to get flags and rushes, and where Trouve, dear Trouve! will never swim again! And then the Iron Church from which I used to run backwards and forwards not to be late for dinner every evening, with the "tin" roof that used to shake to the "Tug of War Hymn,"—and then more dust, and (it must be confessed) dirt and squalor, and back views of ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... if we know better, it is only because other men, and those few and far between, have laboured amid disbelief, ridicule, and error; needing again and again to retrace their steps, and to unlearn more than they learnt, seeming to go backwards when they were really progressing most: and now we have entered into their labours, and find them, as I have just said, more wondrous than all the poetic dreams of a Bonnet or a Darwin. For who, after all, to take a ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... that the boasted excellence of all classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, Mrs O'D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the rule-of-three against Sophocles and "all his works." I simply replied, with that dignity which is natural to me, "I am proud of my knowledge of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture that ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... he stood with her, and on the spot. He was one of the first to leave the church; he made for the churchyard gate, and walked slowly backwards and forwards by it, with throbbing heart till she ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... vessels and nothing more. The sun set, a great illuminated bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark; after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel of the skies. Towards morning the boat stopped, and when I came on deck, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to the guest-room when he suddenly caught sight of the maid, gliding soundlessly before him along a corridor. He called to her, and hurried after her. Then she turned half-round, and flattened herself against the wall like a spider; and as he reached her she sank backwards into the wall, so that there remained of her nothing visible but a colored shadow,—level like a picture painted on the plaster. But the shadow moved its lips and eyes, and spoke to ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... oars hard, missed the water with his right and fell backwards to the bottom of the boat. His two feet stuck up ridiculously. Priscilla laughed. The boat, swept forward by the tide, grounded softly on the sea wrack which covered ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the Aztecs strive to climb the walls. These were of no great height but, as they showed their heads above the parapet, they were shot down by the Spanish arquebus men, or struck backwards by the weapons of the Tlascalans. Failing to scale the walls, they tried to batter down the parapet with heavy pieces of timber. But the stonework was too strong, and they then shot burning arrows into the palace, and hurled blazing torches over ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... hay, bags of corn, and loads of firewood. The soldiers were in hourly expectation of an attack, and for four successive nights they slept fully accoutred, and with their loaded muskets beside them. All night long lights were seen to move busily backwards and forwards among the diggers' tents, and the solid tread of great bodies of men could be heard amid the darkness. Lalor was marshalling his forces on the slopes of Ballarat, and drilling them to use such arms as they possessed—whether ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... the brain of a young Chimpanzee, which he had dissected immediately after its death, gave a series of photographic drawings, showing that when the parts are all in a fresh state, the posterior lobe of the cerebrum, instead of simply covering the cerebellum, is prolonged backwards beyond it even to a greater extent than in Gratiolet's figure, 56, and, what is more in point, in a greater degree relatively speaking (at least in the young state of the animal) than in Man. In fact, "the projection is to the extent of about one-ninth of the total length of ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... and troth I'm glad of it; and so I have: that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck. Nay, I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those: some bad, some good, our lives are chequered. Mirth and sorrow, want ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... of Clermont Ferrand,[391] says that some foreign tapestries are "pictured" with the summits of Ctesiphon and Nephates, "wild beasts running rapidly across void canvas, and also by a miracle of art, the Parthian of wild aspect with his head turned backwards." This might be a description of a Chinese composition, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... conducting such bargains. A Circassian maiden, eighteen years old, was the first who presented herself; she was well dressed, and her face was covered with a vail. She advanced towards the German, bowed down, and kissed his hand: by order of her master, she walked backwards and forwards in the chamber to show her shape, and the easiness of her gait and carriage: her foot was small, and her gesture agreeable. When she took off her vail, she displayed a bust of the most attractive ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... let it go at that. Robert was a man of different mould. In his hands, the slender supposition had been turned into certainty. By immense labour and research he built a bridge from the first Turold of whom any record existed, backwards across the dark gap of the past. He traced the wanderings of his ancestors through different generations and different counties to Robert Turold, who established himself in Suffolk forty years after the last Lord Turrald ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Chesapeake bay and its tributaries, where the canvass-back and red-heads resort in such numerous quantities every fall. A species of mongrel water-dog, or often any common cur, is taught to run backwards and forwards after stones, sticks, or other missiles thrown from one side to the other. In his activity and industry in this simple branch of education, within the comprehension of any dog, consists the almost incredible art of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... for these two little children as they trudge along over the prairie, so troubled and so cold. My dear brother being older than I, and the chief party interested, generously took most of the blame to himself, and comforted me as well as he could, running backwards in front of me to shelter me from the wind, and assuring me he would tell father all about it, and he would forgive us. I have carried in my heart of hearts for sixty years the image of that beautiful, ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... that an ape-like ancestor developed into man, on the principles of natural selection; then his development has taken place in a manner directly contrary to the acknowledged law of natural selection. He has developed backwards; his frame is in every way weaker; he is wanting in agility; he has lost the prehensile feet; he has lost teeth fitted for fighting or crushing or tearing; he has but little sense of smell; he has lost the hairy covering, and is obliged to help himself ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... were built by Larboard Starboard, Esq.; and the engines, as a matter of course, were put on board by Messrs Boiler & Rodd; Erebus Carbon, Esq., supplied, at the current rates, the necessary fuel; and at all hours of the day the vessels ran backwards and forwards, carrying customers to Mr Montague Whalebone's hotel, and lodgers to the new tenements, which soon began to rise around it in all directions. Lowriver took amazingly, and rose rapidly in public estimation; the boats filled well, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... by the moonlight, and perhaps a little by the fears of those who looked upon it, the quadruped was quite quadrupled in size. Disputing their passage too; for its movements made it manifest that such was its design. Backwards and forwards, up and down that curving crest, did it glide, with a nervous quickness, that hindered any hope of being able to rush past it—either before or behind—its own crest all the while erected, like that of the dragon ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... across the forms, but it has been effectively used in that way, following always the lines of the warp and weft of the stuff. Even in that case the successive lines of stitching should be all in one direction—not running backwards and forwards—or it will result in a sort of pattern of braided lines. The reason for the more usual practice of following the outline of the design is obvious. The stitch lends itself to sweeping, even to perfectly spiral, lines—such as occur in Greek wave ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... sorting table was set up and they went to work with a will that was backed with enthusiasm and hope. The result of their digging was turned into the sieve, which was suspended by a rope from a cross bar, with handles on one side. The digger would swing it backwards and forwards until all the loose fragments of earth were broken off and nothing remained but the small stones like line gravel. These were then carried over and dumped on the sorter's table, who examined them carefully and placed anything promising to one side. But for three weeks ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Insarov: 'I'm dying... Good-bye, my poor girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... gradually down, or a bad man drawn gradually up, he set forth, with a great deal of detail, a great deal of vividness, a modern wobbler, a human pendulum, and simply noted down, as it were, his slow swinging backwards and forwards. His hero, an evil liver, a modern man of wrath in the first act, dominated by a particular vice, was drawn, by an outside personal influence, from the mire in which he was wallowing, to purity, to real elevation. But his ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the wall ten feet thick? He looked again. It was not a vaulting, that was clear; and it could not be anything but a wall. There was some comfort in that. He drew back a little, put the lamp into the lantern again and got out backwards. The passage was bright; he ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... sun, but rather made more hard and sad therewith. Also their philosophers that they call Gymnosophists stand in most hot gravel from the morning till evening, and behold the sun without blemishing of their eyes. Also there, in some mountains be men with soles of the feet turned backwards, and the foot also with viii toes on one foot. Also there be some with hounds' heads, and be clothed in skins of wild beasts, and they bark as hounds, and speak none other wise: and they live by hunting and fowling: ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... table of boards and trestles stood by the foot track, and the stretchers were laid on it as they came in, and the wounded had their first bandaging and dressings there. McClane took up his place by this table, and the stretcher bearers went backwards and forwards between the ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... and you do seem to know," responded the boy, trying the bow to make sure it would not shoot backwards. "Well, sis, you're a brick and Tavia, well, she is brick-dust, at any rate, but Jack—well he is Jack, and that is all there is to it. I'm going to ask father to let him carry Bugles next week. What little he could earn would do something ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... with nature, in which if anything goes wrong through any distortion or depravity, either by any irregular motion or disordered condition,—as if, for instance, a person were to walk on his hands, or to walk not forwards but backwards,—then he would evidently appear to be flying from himself, and to be putting off his manhood, and to hate his own nature. On which account, also, some ways of sitting down, and some contorted and abrupt movements, such as wanton or effeminate men at times indulge in, are contrary to nature. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... a king. His head was quite turned. He shouted aloud for joy, and swung his legs backwards and forwards as he ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... desiring "to come forward." It was to many an impressive sight to see Straight Rory rise in the precentor's box, feel round, with much facial contortion, for the pitch—he despised a tuning-fork—and then, straightening himself up till he bent over backwards, raise the chant that introduced the tune to the congregation. But to the young men under the gallery he was more humorous than impressive, and it is to be feared that they waited for the precentor's weekly performance with a delighted expectation ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... the lieutenant roared at the corporal. Wims, misunderstanding, released the cylinder a fraction of a second before the corporal did and the corporal went tumbling backwards, knocking the lieutenant off the platform and ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... Life of Arnold: 'We are all in the midst of confusion,' Arnold writes from Laleham, 'the books all packed and half the furniture; and on Tuesday, if God will, we shall leave this dear place, this nine-years' home of such exceeding happiness. But it boots not to look backwards. Forward, forward, forward, should be one's motto.' And thus Arnold moved to Rugby, and made history! There are times when the landlord's gate ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... see me back. Good people, mind you, one and all, according to their lights; God-fearing, law-abiding, nothing questioning, one and all. I shall soon expect to see the earth stand still and roll backwards. Yes; there they trot upon life's highway, chained together, dragging each other along; not one of them dares stop to pick a flower lest the others should tread on his fingers and toes. And they are so swaddled up in customs and conventions, baby-learned ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... fetched in, that the little Victims had to wait; and that was the DINNER misery I spoke about, and a very grievous affair it was. Sometimes they had actually to wait several minutes, with nothing to do but to fidget on their chairs, lean backwards till they toppled over, or forward till some accident occurred at the table. And then, poor little things, if they ventured to get out their knuckle-bones for a game, or took to a little boxing amusement among themselves, or to throwing ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... long time ago, and if I mistake not, it was in the month of August, 1354, that the valiant Genoese captain, Paganino Doria[6] by name, utterly routed the Venetians and took their town of Parenzo. And his well-manned galleys were now cruising backwards and forwards in the Lagune, close in front of Venice, like ravenous beasts of prey which, goaded by hunger, roam restlessly up and down spying out where they may most safely pounce upon their victims; and both people and seignory were panic-stricken with fear. All the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... The little foot moved backwards and forwards a good while, and when Nannie did speak, she spoke almost as if she were ...
— Nanny Merry - or, What Made the Difference • Anonymous
... over again. He did, it is true, make some progress in natural science. He studied physics and rushed rapidly backwards from forces to molecules, and from molecules to atoms, and from atoms to electrons, and then his whole studies exploded backward into the infinities of space, still searching ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... occult investigator wishes to study an event in the past history of man, he may most readily call up the picture from the memory of nature, but if he desires to fix the time of the incident, he will be obliged to count backwards by the motion of the heavenly bodies. For that purpose he generally uses the measure provided by the sun's precession: Each year the sun crosses the earth's equator about the twenty-first of March. ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... who often went backwards and forwards between Venona and San Bonifacio, and who served both him and the Good Knight; but those treacherous spies always serve one better than the other, and this one hoped for the ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... a question! Know the trail? Haven't I climbed that mountain so many times that I could go up it backwards ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... who dwelt at Gaza. It was his business to go with caravans, backwards and forwards, across the desert to Suez, to take care of the camels. He had a wife and one young son, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... who beholds the beloved with awe, falls back in adoration, and forces both the steeds on their haunches; again the evil steed rushes forwards and pulls shamelessly. The conflict grows more and more severe; and at last the charioteer, throwing himself backwards, forces the bit out of the clenched teeth of the brute, and pulling harder than ever at the reins, covers his tongue and jaws with blood, and forces him to rest his legs and haunches with pain upon the ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... from round her, and, pushing her slender, white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly into her calm ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... we can bear, that ordinary conditions are slipping away from under us, that in another moment reason or life itself must snap with the strain; and all these feelings I then underwent. At last I moved, moved backwards from the figure. I dared not attempt to pass her. Yet I could not at first turn away from her. I stepped backwards, facing her still as I did so, till I was close to the fireplace. Then I turned sharply from her, sat down ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... there are the rowing boats, which carry passengers incessantly backwards and forwards between the river-banks. So long as the season remains at its height they are bedecked with a number of little flags of red cotton-cloth, or even of simple paper. The rowers, moreover, have been instructed to sing all the time the native songs which are accompanied by a ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... in time. I think they used to get quite excited themselves at last. Our old gardener, who used to watch the races with great interest, told me once that he "'ad seen one of the little dawgs a'jumpin' backwards and forwards over that 'ere bit of wood (the highest and most perilous jump), and a'practisin' by hisself!" He was a very clever "little dawg," but I don't think he ever reached such a pitch of intelligence as to ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... threateningly, and one of Ben's supporters gave her a gentle push backwards. In three minutes the bar was in a complete state of pandemonium. The three members of "The Gallows Ring" fought two men and a woman, for Mr. Dawes merely stood in a corner ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... you go back?" he asked of the trusty messenger, the man who spent his days, year in and year out, speeding backwards and forwards across Europe, carrying instructions to ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... seemed in a great state about our safety, and said, 'Keep together, old man.' 'All right,' I said; but the next moment Crewdson had turned to try and walk on. I felt to separate, or take our eyes off it, meant an attack, so walked backwards; but it no sooner saw that I was a pace or two nearer it than Crewdson than it came on me like a very whirlwind. I had been reading Psalm xci. in the rain that morning, and how grandly it was fulfilled! By a God-given instinct I dropped my haversack and your fieldglasses, ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... bottom boards, the rattle of the check, the strong curve of the rod. It all takes place in a swift moment. You are on your feet and playing your fish as if by instinct. The Jock Scott had attracted this fish, and the familiar process was followed—the stepping ashore, the retreat up the bank backwards, the rod well curved all the while, and the fish held hard, since there was doubly rapid water below, and it must be kept sternly in hand. The gillie did not take up the gaff now, and my hopes were dashed, for it meant that he ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... lifted his head and stared at them. Eileen had slipped behind Stella and had begun to retreat backwards. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, and one carried ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... of extraordinary strength and dexterity. He could throw over the Loulle gate a 48-pound cannon ball as easily as a child could throw its ball. He could fling a stone from one bank of the Rhone to the other where it was two hundred yards wide. And lastly, he could throw a knife backwards while running at full speed with such strength and precision of aim that this new kind of Parthian arrow would go whistling through the air to hide two inches of its iron head in a tree trunk no thicker than a man's thigh. When to these accomplishments ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... between her hands, bent it gently backwards, looked at me gravely, and said: "You have been ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... fell, and their force wavered, as a man stops to get his breath; but the forces behind them came leaping over their falling brethren, and came charging straight into our ranks. I was at that instant inside the square, when I noticed our men shuffling backwards. Some say Colonel Burnaby issued an order for the men to fall back, but I did not hear it. Burnaby rode out apparently to assist our skirmishers, who were running in, hard pressed: all but one succeeding in getting ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... beings. Flaming gas-jets threw it all into strong satanic light and shade. At the corner of a dingy alley Rose could see a fight going on; the begrimed ragged children, regardless of the April rain, swooped backwards and forwards under the very hoofs of the horses, or flattened their noses against the windows whenever the horses ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... come back as a peal of laughter. There is an echo in Woodstock Park which repeats the word twenty times. Again sometimes, as in the Alps, the sound-waves coming back rebound from mountain to mountain and are driven backwards and forwards, becoming fainter and fainter till they die away; ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... There's another way!" Now he has climbed to the top of a pine, Fastened the reins to the summit, and crossed himself, Turning his face to the sun's bright decline. Thrusting his head in the noose ... he has hanged himself! 210 Horrible! Horrible! See, how he sways Backwards and forwards.... The Barin, unfortunate, Shouts for assistance, and struggles and prays. Twisting his head he is jerking convulsively, Straining his voice to the utmost he cries, All is in vain, there is no one to rescue him, Only ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... stones at the bottom could not be seen, except just at the edges: I do not know how I got over. I remember going in, and thinking that the horse was lifting his legs up and putting them down in the same place again, and that the river was flowing backwards. In fact I grew dizzy directly, but by fixing my eyes on the opposite bank, and leaving Doctor to manage matters as he chose, somehow or other, and much to my relief, I got to the other side. It was really nothing at all. I was wet only a little above the ankle; but it is the ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... employed in drawing little carts with fish, vegetables, &c., to market. Previous to the year 1795, such dogs were also employed in smuggling; which was the more easy, as they are exceedingly docile. The dogs were trained to go backwards and forwards between two places on the frontiers, without any person to attend them. Being loaded with little parcels of goods, lace, &c., like mules, they set out at midnight, and only went when it was perfectly ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst |
