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Backward   /bˈækwərd/   Listen
Backward

adverb
1.
At or to or toward the back or rear.  Synonyms: back, backwards, rearward, rearwards.  "Tripped when he stepped backward" , "She looked rearward out the window of the car"
2.
In a manner or order or direction the reverse of normal.  Synonym: backwards.  "The child put her jersey on backward"
3.
In or to or toward a past time.  Synonym: back.  "Never look back" , "Lovers of the past looking fondly backward"



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"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books



... speak to Miss March, it may well be supposed that Lawrence Croft, shut up in his little room at the end of the yard, would be more so. He had sat at his window, waiting, and waiting. He had occasionally seen Mr Keswick come out on the porch, and with long strides pace backward and forward, and he knew by that sign that he had yet no message to bring him. He had seen the Midbranch carriage drive into the yard; he had seen Miss March come out on the porch, and speak to the driver, and then go in ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... stillness and by the growing light, I took my courage in both hands and stole back along the path which I had come. Some distance down it I picked up my gun, and shortly afterwards struck the brook which was my guide. So, with many a frightened backward glance, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thoughts are mutinous and cry For liberty, Unwilling to obey me duly As once they would. 71 O help me, lady innkeeper, For Satan even now his hand Doth on me lay, And so grievously I err In my despair That I know not if I go or stand Or backward stray. 72 Succour thou my helplessness And strengthen me with holy fare, For I perish, Of thy noble saintliness Liberal to bless, For knowing my deserts I dare No hope to cherish. 73 I acknowledge all my sin And before thee meekly thus Forgiveness crave. O Lady, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... statue of St. Anne as near as they could go to the flowing lava, imploring a miracle to stay the advance of the consuming stream. As the fiery tide persisted in advancing the statue had to be frequently moved backward. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... their allies; backward went the Turks. The remaining intrenchments were stubbornly defended, but that storm of iron flails, those pikes and pitchforks, wielded by the zeal of enthusiasts, were not to be resisted, and in the end all that remained of the Turkish army broke into panic flight, the sultan himself being ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... Orange, who had sought nothing but to spread desolation over the land, and to shed the blood of the innocent. He now wrote once more, and for the last time, in all fervour and earnestness, to implore them to take compassion on their own wives and children and forlorn fatherland, to turn their eyes backward on the peace and prosperity which they had formerly enjoyed when obedient to his Majesty, and to cast a glance around them upon the miseries which were so universal since the rebellion. He exhorted them to close their ears to the insidious tongues of those who were leading them into ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... backward step, one relinquishment of right in an evil [1] hour, one faithless tarrying, has torn the laurel from many a brow and repose from many a heart. Good is never the reward of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... and the shield, and draw ye near to battle; Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; Furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines. Wherefore have I seen them dismayed, and turned away backward? And their mighty ones are beaten down, and fled apace, and look not behind them; For fear is round about, saith Jehovah. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty men escape; They shall stumble and fall toward the north ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... A glance backward brought a thrill of hope. The distance between him and his pursuers had perceptibly increased. Queenie was showing her heels to those who dared dispute with her the supremacy of fleetness. She would soon leave them ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... the stair without one backward glance, like the good gentleman he is; and the Doweys are left together, with nearly the whole room between them. He is a great rough chunk of Scotland, howked out of her not so much neatly as liberally; and in his Black Watch uniform, all caked with mud, his kit and nearly all his worldly possessions ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... they informed me, adding an expression of surprise at my putting such a question. Was their master at home? He was. And could I see him? They would let me know directly. On this I was conducted to a small room, and left there, The roughs paced backward and forward before the door, casting glances at me which I fancied to be sinister. In a few minutes their chief, a stalwart, brawny biped, swaggered in, twirling his moustaches, clanking his sword, and studying to seem truculent. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... written in the East. It has smacked strongly of a local flavor. It has concerned itself too exclusively with the origins and Old-World derivations of our story. Our historians have made their march from the sea with their heads over shoulder, their gaze always backward upon the landing-places and homes of the first settlers. In spite of the steady immigration, with its persistent tide of foreign blood, they have chosen to speak often and to think always of our people as sprung after all from a common stock, bearing a family likeness in every ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... it can be in the building." S. O.—"I know of no use for it." J. O.—"I know of no use for it." M. O.—"Brother Senior, what shall we do with it?" S. O.—"Heave it over among the rubbish." The Master and Senior Overseers then take the stone between them, and after waving it backward and forward four times, they heave it over in such a manner that the one letting go while the stone is arriving at the highest point, it brings the stone in a quarterly direction over the other's left shoulder; the Junior Overseer, being stationed ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... talk he had sat in a low chair sometimes tilting it backward as he swayed with the vehemency of his words. Suddenly he became still. He turned his head and looked dreamily out the window at his left where he could see the throng of Whitehall as it swept back and forth ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... are very fastidious about removing their dead companions. I buried one about half an inch beneath the soil. Very soon several congregated about the spot and commenced digging with their fore feet, after the manner of digger-wasps, throwing the earth backward. They soon unearthed and pulled the body out, when one seized and tried to remove it, climbing up the side of the jar, and falling back until I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... the farmhouse and stopped near the piazza. He was gazing upwards and measuring the height of the roof with his eye when all at once a loud "Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!" almost tipped him over backward. ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... mail bag and took a step backward in the direction he had come. The other moved between him ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... I don't know how it was instead of climbing up, I pushed him backward by mistake, and he went down with an awful crash into the next garden. We knew it was the garden belonging to No. 16 quite a large one it is for the hospital hasn't any. And when at last I managed to scramble on to the wall, there was ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... juncture, fortunately for the under man, a champion appeared in the person of an Irishman, who with one blow knocked the largest of the assailants so violently backward that he turned a complete reverse somersault, and then lay still several minutes to try ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... it have been for all of them if Ball had never been placed in Number 7; happier still if he had never come to Roslyn School. Backward in work, overflowing with vanity at his supposed good looks, of mean disposition and feeble intellect, he was the very worst specimen of a boy that Eric had ever seen. Not even Barker so deeply excited Eric's repulsion and contempt. And yet, since the affair of Upton, Barker and Eric were declared ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... now lain a long time in sight of one another, and daily skirmishes had considerably weakened them; and the king, beginning to be impatient, hastened the advancement of his friends to join him, in which also they were not backward; but having drawn together their forces from several parts, and all joined the chancellor Oxenstiern, news came, the 15th of August, that they were in full march to join us; and being come to a small town called Brock, the king ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... moved not. Then farther on he planted the red wand, and bending low, without breathing, watched it closely. The soft down plumes began to wave as though blown by the breath of some small creature. Backward and forward, northward and southward they swayed, as if in time to the breath of ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... his visits to Philadelphia brought to his attention problems which he would never suffer to go unanswered or unsolved because of his interest in so many other things quite foreign to them. However, a backward look may be taken before resuming the story ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... made her way with little leaps through the thick scrub. She peeped out carefully before each movement. Her long, soft ears kept moving to catch every sound, and her black sensitive little nose was constantly lifted, sniffing the air. Every now and then she gave little backward starts, as if she were going to retreat by the way she had come, and Dot, with her face pressed against the Kangaroo's soft furry coat, could hear her heart beating so fast that she knew she was ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... noise he made being drowned by the clatter of the dishes and the rattling of the chairs. Stealing up behind Baker, who was intent only on beefsteak and coffee, he slipped the hangman's noose over his head, and hauled it tight. The robber attempted to spring to his feet, but Ethan hauled him over backward on the floor. At the same time Lawry threw the end of the line over a deck beam, extended across the skylight, and began to "haul ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... possessed to adorn it, his subjects were induced to expect that his reign would be long and happy. His figure was pleasing and majestic; but when he was angry one of his eyes became so terrible that no person could bear it, and the wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired. For fear, however, of depopulating his dominions and making his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... history is more obscure or uncertain, than that of the first kings of Egypt. This proud nation, fondly conceited of its antiquity and nobility, thought it glorious to lose itself in an abyss of infinite ages, which seemed to carry its pretensions backward to eternity. According to its own historians,(400) first, gods, and afterwards demigods or heroes, governed it successively, through a series of more than twenty thousand years. But the absurdity of this vain and fabulous claim ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... of the tent toward which both of their backs had been turned had been suddenly drawn aside and in one quick, backward glance Harry made out the smiling figure of de Barros standing in the doorway. It might have been fancy, but he thought for a minute that the Portuguese had a peculiarly villainous expression on his ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and reached out for the paper, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... prevalent in the Guadiana valley. The rainfall is scanty in average years, and only an insignificant proportion of the land is irrigated, while the rest is devoted to pasture, or covered with thin bush and forest. Agriculture, and the cultivation of fruit, including the vine and olive, are thus in a very backward condition; but Badajoz possesses more livestock than any other Spanish province. Its acorn-fed swine are celebrated throughout Spain for their hams and bacon, and large herds of sheep and goats thrive where the pasture is too meagre for cattle. The exploitation of the mineral resources ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... of the schooner have climbed into the tops, and from that point of vantage pour down on the attacking party a murderous fire. Horrid yells go up from the enraged combatants, and the roar of the musketry is deafening. The crew of the schooner are forced backward, step by step, until at last they are driven off the vessel altogether, and stand on the wharf delivering a rapid fire. The men from the navy-yard are beginning to pour down to the wharf to take a hand in the fight. But now a column of smoke begins to arise from the open companionway; ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... into his garden, where he had a good view of what took place in the road; he saw a man go from the box of the carriage which had driven by to the one standing in the street and open the door; some one got out backward with the assistance of two men in the carriage. The person who was taken out had no hat, but a handkerchief on his head, and appeared to be intoxicated and helpless. They took him to the other carriage and all ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... party as small as ours may live for months without a red-skin happening to light on us, but if there were many more they would be certain to find us. There would be too much noise going on, too much shooting and driving backward and forward with food and necessaries. We want it kept dark till we thoroughly prove the place. So I made them all take an oath this morning that they would keep their heads cool, and I told them that if one of them got drunk, or said a word about our going after gold, I would ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... Benefit of Nature only, being entirely ignorant of the officious Deceit which I made use of for their sakes. What Advantages may not there be drawn from this Method of Purging apply'd to Children, who are so backward to take any thing that has the least ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... midnight is steeping The hillside and the lawn, But still I lie unsleeping, With curtains backward drawn, To catch the earliest peeping Of ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... will appoint me to muster into the service of the State, when I presume my services may end. I might have obtained the colonelcy of a regiment possibly, but I was perfectly sickened at the political wire-pulling for all these commissions, and would not engage in it. I shall be in no ways backward in offering my services when and where they are required, but I feel that I have done more now than I could do serving as a captain under a green colonel, and if this thing continues they will want more men at ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... Austria, Italy, little ones like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Denmark—were increasingly dependent upon outside sources for their livelihood. It is true that there remained a very few great backward countries, such as Russia and China, where a life of economic isolation was possible had they been willing to dispense with the higher products of civilized industry and with the fertilizing streams of capital without which progress is impossible. No civilized European country was self-sufficing ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson

... for it,' the other answered. 'He has every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... repair the road from Latron to Beit Sara. At the same time Captain Andrew was busy with a large class teaching the Lewis gun to officers and men, Mr Scott's flags "spoke" from every knoll, and Mr Gall smartened the backward squad on the drill-ground below. We had quite a good rifle range, and quite a fair football field, and life ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... bridge, it is of importance that we know all that men have in the past discovered of mechanical relations and industrial art which will enable us to build a bridge well. If we want to establish an educational system in some backward portion of the world, it is useful for us to know what methods men have used in similar situations. Whatever we decide to do, we are so much the better off, if we know all that men before us have ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... they mean? Idly I began to read them backward, when—But try for yourself, reader, and judge of my surprise! Elate at the discovery thus made, I sat down to write my letters. I had barely finished them, when Mrs. Belden came in with the announcement ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... discouragements had been encountered, his cheerfulness was perennial and unfailing. Mirth and good cheer were apparently inborn and organic with him. He could no more suppress them than a fountain could cease bubbling up, or a river turn backward in its course. And what men and women he has had, first and last, at his table; it is impossible to exhaust the list or exaggerate its quality. Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, E. H. Chapin, Bayard ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... his hand toward Theseus and gave him a rough knock in the chest. Then Theseus, who had no weapon at hand, seized an iron jug of embossed workmanship which stood near by and flung it into the face of his opponent with such force that the Centaur fell backward on the ground, while brains and blood oozed from the wound in ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... the judgment, heaven and hell, are the decisive objects. But that shews that the moral character of Christianity as a religion is seen and adhered to. The fearful idea of hell, far from signifying a backward step in the history of the religious spirit, is rather a proof of its having rejected the morally indifferent point of view, and of its having become sovereign in ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... opening is obstructed, a door held fast, etc. A bar may be movable or permanent; a bolt is a movable rod or pin of metal, sliding in a socket and adapted for securing a door or window. A lock is an arrangement by which an enclosed bolt is shot forward or backward by a key, or other device; the bolt is the essential part of the lock. A latch or catch is an accessible fastening designed to be easily movable, and simply to secure against accidental opening of the door, cover, etc. A hasp is a metallic strap that fits over a staple, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... obeyed by any but those whom we would desire to have the peopling of the earth, viz. the people of most intellect. If the highly intelligent and conscientious obey John Mill, we evidently must look forward to the peopling of every land by the most backward and least intelligent part of the nation.... Malthus was shocked by the system of encouraging very early marriage and large families for the mere sake of getting men as food for gunpowder: but if people marry (say ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... rushed forward to aid the hard-pressed men in the first line trenches. More Germans poured in. The struggling mass surged backward and forward. Then the French broke and fled, and Hal found himself among a panic-stricken mass of humanity, running for life for the protection of the second line trenches. From behind, the victorious Germans fell to their knees ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... man with the magic arrow!" laughed Iktomi. And when the bird with the yellow breast sang loud again—"Koda Ni Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!" Iktomi put his hand over his mouth as he threw his head far backward, laughing at both ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... in which were about 800 prisoners taken in said Fort. He inquired into their treatment, and they told him they fared hard on account both of provisions and lodging, for they were not allowed any bedding, or blankets, and the provisions had not been regularly dealt out, so that the modest or backward could get little or none, nor had they been allowed any fuel to dress their victuals. The prisoners in New York were very sickly, and died in ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... battle, and he did send a very long account of this encounter to Mr. Van Bunting. It was written in his boyish way, but one of the officers who read it said that it was the best thing of its kind he had ever read, so he wasn't at all backward about mailing it. All the other newspaper correspondents in Manila were wishing they had gone with the regiment and witnessed the battle, but they had stayed in Manila, thinking that this would be like the other expeditions ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison

... were now in the hands of Lord Roberts, but the Western line joining them to Capetown was not yet secure. The districts of Cape Colony west of De Aar and Hopetown were remote and backward, and sparsely inhabited by discontented and unprosperous Dutch farmers. Nearly a year before, while the Cape Government was placidly blinking under the shadow of Table Mountain and only taking action that ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... once in eighteen months was he even partly successful. Then he saw the haze, saw the familiar streets, saw her far, far ahead of him, and hurrying onward, saw her turn a sharp corner, caught one backward look from her dear brown eyes as she vanished—and awoke! He gave much thought to that look in the months which followed. He was a modest youth, singularly unconscious of his own charms; but the eloquent glance had conveyed to him a sense ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... looked upon as a race of useless and disreputable fellows. Their course is usually erratic. They fly upward, downward, forward, and backward—here, there, and everywhere. You never know when you have them, or what will be their next flight. They often create a good deal of alarm, sometimes much surprise; they seldom do any good, and frequently cause irreparable damage. Only when ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... Rasmunsen knew nothing. The day after the wreck he patched up the Alma and pulled out. A cruel east wind blew in his teeth from Tagish, but he got the oars over the side and bucked manfully into it, though half the time he was drifting backward and chopping ice from the blades. According to the custom of the country, he was driven ashore at Windy Arm; three times on Tagish saw him swamped and beached; and Lake Marsh held him at the freeze-up. The Alma was crushed in the jamming of the floes, but the eggs were intact. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... years ago! Well, I suppose parts of England are very backward. You've got such a miserable system of education. What sort of magic ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... he had made mirth for great lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he devoted himself to the viands [Footnote: Viands: food.] with a ravenous gusto, while the old man, leaning backward, watched him with ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... his hands to take her, but she turned perversely from him, and hid her face in Annie's neck, pushing his hands away with a backward reach of her ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... he said desperately. "Everything can be explained. There is no need to make such charges. I don't know what papers you have there, so I wouldn't attempt to say they are all forgeries. I have many enemies you know. If the League knew the difficulties faced on a backward planet like this...." ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... by train for Navasoto at 10 A.M. A Captain Andrews accompanied me thus far: he was going with a troop of cavalry to impress one-fourth of the negroes on the plantations for the Government works at Galveston, the planters having been backward in coming forward with ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... cactus could find sustenance. This was our first glimpse of the Mauvaises Terres, the alkali-lands, which turn up their white linings here and there, but do not quite prevail on this side the Platte. The Black Hills of Wyoming, with their dark jagged outlines, gave life to the backward view, and when they were concealed Laramie Peak appeared on the left—a mountain of noble form and color. At Eagle's Nest the yellow bluffs again started up, opening with a striking gateway, through which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... willows where I have been trying to hide myself from the all-searching, all-burning sun. I go on board and take a delicious rest under an awning for two or three hours, while the vine-covered hills on either side glide backward with their ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... fled to Canada.... She follows this week with Betty Austin, that black-eyed little mischief-maker on Sir John's right, who owes her diamonds to Guy Johnson. La! What a gossip I grow! But it's county talk, and all know it, and nobody cares save the Albany blue-noses and the Van Cortlandts, who fall backward with standing ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... seemed transfixed with terror. She threw up her hands stiffly and toppled over backward. She fell just as though she had not a joint in her body, and she fell so hard that her feet sprang up into the air when her shoulders and the back of her head ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... off by the current of assimilation, culminating in baptism. Others stood at the cross-roads, wavering between assimilation and Jewish nationalism. Still others were so stunned by the blow they had received that they reeled violently backward, and proclaimed as their slogan the return "home," in the sense of a complete renunciation of free criticism and of all strivings for ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... our fellow-folk furl sail and shoreward turn the prows. Bow-wise the bight is hollowed out by eastward-setting flood, But over-foamed by salt-sea spray thrust out its twin horns stood, While it lay hidden; tower-like rocks let down on either hand Twin arms of rock-wall, and the fane lies backward from ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... departure. Above the mud houses of the fellah villages rise slender columns of smoke, which are of a periwinkle-blue in the midst of the still yellow atmosphere. They tell of the humble life of these little homesteads, subsisting here, where in the backward of the ages were so many palaces ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... Lucy Gray, for instance, he says,—"It was founded on a circumstance told me by my sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax, in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snowstorm. Her footsteps were tracked by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The body, however, was found in the canal. The way in which the incident was treated, and the spiritualizing of the character, might furnish hints for contrasting the imaginative influences which I have endeavoured to throw over common life, with Crabbe's ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... sounds are emitted which are of a definite type in healthy animals. The first is produced by the contraction of the heart and the flow of blood out of it; the second is caused by the rebound of blood in the aorta and the closure of the valves that prevent it from flowing backward into the heart, whence it came. The first sound is the longer and louder of the two, though of low pitch. The second sound is sharper and shorter, and is not always easy to hear. There is ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... the peasant of Eastern Europe was ahead of the country Chinaman? But the last few years have shown how swiftly modern civilization spreads, both in Europe and America, from the comparatively small group of nations which in the main have worked it out to the others, till lately considered backward and semi-barbarous. And this is the case not merely with the material products of civilization, the railway and the telegraph, but also as regards its divers manifestations in all that concerns the life of the people—constitutional ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... be excited. The gratification even of curiosity alone might have formed a sufficient apology for the author; but he has seen too much of virtue even among the vicious to be indifferent to the sufferings, or backward in promoting the felicities of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... He'll be found. It can be published that Peter Junior has returned, and that will bring him after a while. Peter's physique seems to have changed as well as his face. Did you notice that backward swing of the shoulders, so like his cousin's, when he said, 'I could sing and shout here in this cell'? And the way he lifted his head and smiled? That beard is a horrible disguise. I must send a barber to him. He must ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... young officers, staff swells, in the handsomest Federal blue. The moonlight lay in a broad flood between them and me. It silvered Miss Rothvelt from the crown of her hat to the floor, and brightened the earnest animation of her lovely face as she daintily tiptoed backward with one hand delicately poised in the air behind her, and the other still in the last pose of withdrawing ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... who seemed to be relating or expounding something, whether gossip or doctrine I could not tell, but I should judge the former from their expressions. They paid little attention to us, nor did others strolling about the yard, but the big dogs roaming loose were not backward in their greeting, although to my surprise they did not seem at all ferocious, and treated my imperturbable little dog with distant respect. Earlier travellers recount unpleasant experiences, but perhaps the lamas have learned ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... rage, striding backward and forward in furious excitement, while Leberecht watched him, sardonically smiling. "Let us come to an end with this business," said Ebenstreit, stopping before his servant. "You know where Fraulein can be found, and you wish to sell ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... alleys, with which the beggar seemed perfectly familiar, we emerged on a large street and soon took a corner elevator up to one of the railroads in the air which I have described. After traveling for two or three miles we exchanged to another train, and from that to still another, threading our way backward and forward over the top of the great city. At length, as if the beggar thought we had gone far enough to baffle pursuit, we descended upon a bustling business street, and paused at a corner; and the beggar appeared ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... more profusely at that one spot than at any other? There could be but one answer: because here a surprise met him—a surprise so startling to him in his present state of mind, that he gave a quick spring backward, with the result that his wounded foot came down suddenly and forcibly instead of easily as in his previous wary tread. And what was the surprise? I made it my business to find out, and now I can tell you that it was the sight of a woman's face staring ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... the wilderness, having their mental faculties put to but few uses, and all are concentrated on the object of obtaining food for themselves and their offspring. Whatever ideas they possess, and they are by no means dull or backward in learning new ones, are ever keen and young, and Nature has endowed them with an undying mental youth, until their career on earth is ended. As says a poet, speaking of savages or men in a ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... find a place in the sun. At home he has suffered from political oppression and poverty; he has had little education of body or mind; he is subject to his primitive impulses as the west European long ago ceased to be. It is not easy for America to assimilate large numbers of such backward peoples, but the Slav is coming at the rate of three hundred thousand a year. The Slav is depended upon for the hard labor of mine and foundry, of sugar and oil refineries, and of meat-packing establishments. Hundreds and thousands ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone! grey plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. I might go on; ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... Wave-Flame on to you, as doubtless his women folk did on to Thorgrimmer, your ancestor. My blessing on you, Hubert. Be you such a one as Thorgrimmer was, for we of the Norse blood desire that our loves and sons should prove not backward when swords are aloft and arrows fly. But be you more than he, be you a Christian also, remembering that however long you live, and the Battle-maidens have not marked you yet, at last you must die and ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... While ascending this last section, the last canoe, the one in which the old grandmother was wielding the paddle, broke away from Oo-koo-hoo, the strain severing his well-worn line, and away Grandmother went, racing backward down through the turbulent foam. With her usual presence of mind she exercised such skill in guiding her canoe that it never for a moment swerved out of the true line of the current, and thus she saved herself and all her precious cargo. Then, the moment ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept running up to Meg and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing it, going from her backward not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in this chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment, being—that's the ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... lurching forward or back, with a grinding and screeching of wheels and a puffing and coughing from engines ahead. Sam taught me how to climb on the cars and how to swing off while they were going. He had learned from watching the brakemen that dangerous backward left-hand swing that lands you stock-still in your tracks. It is a splendid feeling. Only once Sam's left hand caught, I heard a low cry, and after I jumped I found him standing there with a white face. His left hand hung straight ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... one. Possibly I had unwittingly stepped into a net of subtle intrigue, of the extent of whose boundaries and ramifications I had not the slightest idea. Like one set in the blackness of an unfamiliar chamber, I feared to step forward or backward lest I might encounter some ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... not answer him. Indeed, she scarcely knew what he was saying, for a nameless fascination chained her to the spot, a feeling as if she were beholding her other self, as if she had leaped backward many years, and was seated again upon the nursery floor like the child before her. Like gleams of lightning, confused memories of the past came rushing over her only to pass away, leaving her in deeper darkness. One thought, however, like a blinding flash caused her brain to reel, while she ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince, or state. Therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it, so as they be still progressive and not retrograde; which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a shy form. Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced backward to see whether any one was following her. But all was silent and gloomy enough about her. A pale light issued from one of the windows of the synagogue; it came from the "eternal lamp" hanging in front of the ark of the covenant. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... the hearthrug, tailor fashion, before the fire, and she gave a little swaying movement backward and forward, to signify the affirmative. He looked at her a moment as if to make sure she was not joking, and then said, with ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... to gather daisies in her childhood! It takes a great deal of love to keep down the 'climbing sorrow' that swells up in a woman's throat when such memories seize upon her, in her moments of desolation. But if a foreign-born woman does willingly give up all for a man, and never looks backward, like Lot's wife, she is a prize that it is worth running a risk to gain,—that is, if she has the making of a good woman in her; and a few years will go far ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... A backward glance at the sparse and fragmentary annals of the Celtic people, will satisfy us that they have but slight claims to an original share in English literature. Some were in the Celtic dialects, others in Latin. They have given themes, indeed, to later scholars, but have left little trace in ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... not mean the subject to drop here; and after a little graceful manipulation of the reins, a glance backward to see how far behind they had left the rest of the caravan, and some slight slackening of the pace at which they had been ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... glancing backward as she went, he standing motionless to watch her go. At the last she kissed her hand to him ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... he fully entered on his vocation. His voice was weak; his style uncertain; his soul, we may believe, still wavering between strange dread and awful joy, as he beheld, through many a backward rolling mist of doubt, the mantle of the prophets descend upon him. Already he had abandoned the schoolmen for the Bible. Already he had learned by heart each verse of the Old and New Testaments. Pondering on their texts, he had discovered four separate interpretations ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... speak for us? Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes? Who shall proclaim us in the palace? Who shall contend for us in the gate? The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone; The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night, They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward, And the dark days are come again upon us— Will he return no more? His friendship was like a shady wood, O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice? Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood? The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it! When ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I should recount it; but I hasten, before another cancelling telegram may arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle

... is by doing things that will involve distant vision. Walking and looking far ahead and far away on every side rests the eyes best of all, and this is one reason why a good walk will often clear up a headache. Another way to insure distant vision is by riding backward in a car. Then as the landscape flows past you, your eye muscles relax to the position needed for distant vision. If you cannot walk or ride and are doing close work, like sewing or reading, look up and "at nothing" every once ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... of Heaven. The remains of extensive mines prove that this source of public wealth was not neglected; navigation laws encouraged transit and traffic; and ordinances for the fisheries aimed at developing a branch of industry which is still backward even during the xixth century. Most substantial encouragement was given to trade and commerce, to manufactures and handicrafts, by the flood of gold which poured in from all parts of earth; by the presence of a splendid and luxurious court, and by the call for new arts and industries which such a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... men went over to the abandoned roadway, a mere trail of ruts, where, in years before, ox-teams had hauled salt hay. Up and down the long strip of narrow grass that bordered it, they went backward and forward, hunting for traces of men's feet, for they knew by this time, almost beyond doubt, that the child was in the hands of tramps. The "tramp-hole" is an institution in all suburban regions which are bordered by stretches of wild and unfrequented country. These tramp-holes or camps ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... a growth of willows. Each had two cage traps. The device was divided into two parts by wires running horizontally and parallel to the plane of the floor. In the lower half of each cage was a male American Goldfinch. In the roof of the traps were two little hinged doors, which turned backward and upward, leaving an opening. Inside the upper compartment of the trap, and accessible through the doorway in the roof, was a swinging perch. The traps were placed on stumps among the growth of thistles ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various

... into it. After its winter residence in the tree this soft couch was found full of withered leaves, and otherwise rather damp and uncomfortable. Annie tossed the leaves on to the ground, and laughed as she swung herself gently backward and forward. Early as the season still was the sun was so bright and the air so soft that she could not but enjoy herself, and she laughed with pleasure, and only wished that she had a fairy tale by her side to help to soothe her ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... to expect that his army would be increased to 9,000 men—a force which might have successfully resisted all the efforts of the royal army. But neither Congress nor the Carolinas were able to fulfill the promises which they had made, for the militia were extremely backward in taking the field, and the expected number of Continentals could not be furnished. Lincoln, therefore, was left to defend the place with only about one-third of the force which he had been encouraged to expect. At any time before the middle of April he might ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... deal of happiness in this world, if you knew how to extract it,—or, rather, I should say, of pleasure; there is a pleasure in doing good; there is a pleasure, unfortunately, in doing wrong; there is a pleasure in looking forward, ay, and in looking backward also; there is pleasure in loving and being loved, in eating, and drinking, and, though last, not least, in smoking. I do not mean to say that there are not the drawbacks of pain, regret, and even remorse; but there is a sort of pleasure even in them; it ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... which he had ever in mind, and had striven to carry into effect so far as he could; namely, to snatch souls from the jaws of the devil and restore them to their Maker. This work his followers in their time were not backward to do, neither have their successors to the present day ceased to fulfil the ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... HERE WAS THE MAP, ETC.: This sentence is an addition in the reprint. Masson remarks "how artistically it causes the due pause between the horror as still in rush of transaction and the backward look at the wreck ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... silence endure! To your eyes, friend of mine, and to your eyes alone, That now long-faded page of my life hath been shown Which recorded my heart's birth, and death, as you know, Many years since,—how many! "A few months ago I seem'd reading it backward, that page! Why explain Whence or how? The old dream of my life rose again. The old superstition! the idol of old! It is over. The leaf trodden down in the mould Is not to the forest more lost than to me That emotion. I bury it ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... unawares, but which among the crowd of visitors is it most likely to be? The Solitary, I wonder? I should never have thought it, were it not for the memory of that last day, the scene at the piano, the "song of him that overcometh," and the backward glance from the corner as he sprang, absolutely sprang, on the car. There was purpose in it, or I am greatly mistaken. Mr. Man's eyes would be worth looking into, if one could find purpose in their brown depths! Moreover, though I am ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... he spoke two things happened. His mind swept backward over the years to the day of that wonderful Judas sermon he had heard, and with this recalled memory there came the recollection of his turning to look into the face of that magnificent looking young man who had been ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... the slow unclosing of his hand from an imaginary dagger; the tottering of his body backward; then the moment when with wide open eyes he seemed to contemplate in horror the result of his own deed;—these needed no explanation beyond what was given by his writhing features and trembling body. Gradually succumbing to the remorse or terror of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... perhaps I wished to see The American who brought the money—well, No matter what it was, I walked in view Upon the landing, stood there for a moment And saw our visitor, a clergyman From all appearances. He stared, grew red, Large eyed and apoplectic, then he rose, Walked side-ways, backward, stumbled toward the door, Rattled with shaking hand the knob and jerked The door ajar, with open mouth backed out Upon the street and ran. I heard him ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... have spread themselves, are of course now well known, principally from the accounts published by Europeans, and especially Englishmen, who have been tempted to explore them, or to settle there. The government of the United States itself has not been backward in setting on foot exploratory travels into the immense districts to the west of the Mississippi: to these enterprizes they seem to have been particularly directed and stimulated by the acquisition of Louisiana from France, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... "Ideas and time ne'er backward move; My soul I cannot renovate— I love you with a brother's love, Perchance one more affectionate. Listen to me without disdain. A maid hath oft, may yet again Replace the visions fancy drew; Thus trees in spring their leaves renew As in their turn ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... to Edinburgh, and took lodgings in a street in the Old Town. The reflection, however, that he had not succeeded in vindicating his character—that he had left behind him a blasted reputation—poisoned all his enjoyments. He walked backward and forward in Princes Street, crossed the North Bridge, and wandered about the Canongate and High Street, and tried to lose himself in the crowd. Again he returned to his lodging, and felt that his loneliness and misery ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... emergencies was not a failing of hers. She made one dart to the rear of Josephine. Josephine wore her hair in a braided loop, tied with a bow of black ribbon. Maria seized upon this loop of brown braids, and hung. She was enough shorter than Josephine to render it effectual. Josephine's head was bent backward and she was helpless, unless she let go of the baby-carriage. Josephine, however, had good lungs, and she screamed, as she was pulled backward, still holding to the little carriage, which was also somewhat ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... fiend; at the sound of which the culprit fairly tumbled backward. "Sign this contract, or thou shalt accompany me instantly. Ay, this very minute: for know, that every one who calls on me is delivered into my power; and think thyself well dealt with when I offer ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... Across the Deep their Journey lay, The Deep divides to make them Way; The Streams of Jordan saw, and fed With backward Current ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... of that same glaring sunshine, not four miles away, toiling upward along a rocky slope, following the faint sign here and there of Apache moccasin, a little command of hardy, war-worn men had nearly reached the crest when their leader signaled backward to the long column of files, and, obedient to the excited gestures of the young Hualpai guide, climbed to his side and gazed intently over. What he saw on a lofty point of rocks, well away from the tortuous "breaks" through which they had made most of their wearying ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... spent shot! Forward, boys!" he cried, the thought of being a support to his men almost making him cheerful. But the words were not out of his mouth when other shots whizzed through the air. In spite of himself, his body twitched backward and his head sank lower between his shoulders. That made him stiffen his muscles and grind his teeth in rage. It was not the violence with which the scream flew toward him that made him twitch. It was the strange precision with which the circle of the thing's ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... the man in gray, while strange, gurgling sounds came from his throat. All at once he gave a yell, rolled over backward ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail. With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... in life was to be. Was poetry to be merely a pastime; a recreation after the labours of the day were done; a solace when harvests failed and ruin stared the family in the face? That question Burns answered when he sat down by the ingle-cheek, and, looking backward, mused on the years of youth that had been spent 'in stringing blethers up in rhyme for fools to sing.' He saw what he might have been; he knew too well what he was—'half-mad, half-fed, half-sarket.' Yet the picture ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... a noble life? Then cast No backward glances to the past. And what if something still be lost? Act as new-born in all thou dost. What each day wills, that shalt thou ask; Each day will tell its proper task; What others do, that shalt thou prize, In thine own work ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... did not interrupt them in so doing; but when they were gotten up, they fell upon them and fought with them; some of them they thrust down and threw them backward headlong; others of them they met and slew; they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again, and slew them with their swords before they could bring their shields to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down from above when they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... then burned him. Some buried the dead in an erect 'posture. The common explanation of burning was that it prevented the dead from returning, thus it has always been usual to burn the bodies of vampires. Did a race so backward hit on an idea unknown to the Mycenaean Greeks? [Footnote: Ling Roth., The Tasmanians, pp. 128-134. Reports of Early Discoverers.] If the usual explanation be correct—burning prevents the return of the dead— how did the Homeric Greeks come to substitute burning for the ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... can see now moving backward and forward, and up and down, and around and around about the gold. Now they grow a little clearer. They are river nymphs, or something of the sort, and they are here to guard the gold, lest anybody should ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... same ant-heap or to avoid the same rough place. After the first few miles it is silent, and one hears behind one only the sweep of many feet upon the grass. It is like Fate, or, say, Time with his scythe held steady; the thing comes and passes and is gone; but ride backward and you shall see the traces of its passage. Grass downtrodden that shall rise again, little flowers bruised that shall renew their blossoms; and still the birds singing peacefully, the hares leaping, the manifold petty life of the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... the bottom with leaping fish, whose numbers gradually thinned out toward the center; while near the top, close to the edge of level water, one solitary fish, of powerful fin and tail, breasted the steep stream. Now forward a leap, then a slide backward, sometimes further to the rear than the next leap made up for, then steady progress, then a slip, but every moment nearer, until, clearing foam and ripple and spray at one bound, it passed the edge and swam happily in ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... within the inclosing walls, and the whistling of air through hundreds of open deadlights as the water, entering the holes of the crushed and riven starboard side, expelled it, the Titan moved slowly backward and launched herself into the sea, where she floated low on her side—a dying ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... comforts and pleasures, my thanks I return. I'm glad that the nation is greasy and rich, acquiring high station with nary a hitch; her barns are a-bursting with mountains of grain; her people are thirsting for glory and gain. She'll ne'er backward linger, this land of our dads, for she is a dinger at nailing the scads. I'm glad that our vessels bring cargoes across, while counting rooms wrestle with profit and loss; that men know the beauties of figures and dates, and tariffs and duties ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... he had made, but he would not own it. Putting strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay geniality of manner which his looks belied, and boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore flung her arms round her husband in a capacious embrace, dragging him backward with an energy ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... Hollister thought she was about to exercise the immemorial privilege of the wild places and hail a passing stranger. But she did not call or make any sign. She stood gazing at them, and presently her husband joined her and together they watched. They were still looking when Hollister gave his last backward glance, then turned his attention to the reddish-yellow gleam of new-riven timber which marked his own dwelling. Twenty minutes later he slid the gray canoe's forefoot up on a patch of sand ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... "A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... turn, Black Heart the traitor!" he rushed at Hadden, his eyes rolling and foam flying from his lips, as he passed striking the chief Maputa from his horse with a backward blow of his hand. Ill would it have gone with the white man if Nahoon had caught him. But he could not come at him, for the soldiers sprang upon him and notwithstanding his fearful struggles they pulled him to the ground, as at certain festivals ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... with an ingenious jointed chair-back. This is so arranged that by leaning toward the high point of his wing planes the aeroplane is restored to an even keel. The steering post of the wheel is movable backward and forward, and by ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... the building characterized by extreme lightness, yet still loaded with a profusion of crowded ornaments. If, however, this Lombardic style was practised as early as the fifth or sixth century, in a town so backward in the science of architecture as Rouen, what date is to be assigned for its introduction into other parts of France, where the knowledge of the fine arts disappeared for a much shorter period?—It must be left to the decision of antiquaries, whom this passage in Fridegode seems ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... running step forward, crossing the feet and hop on the foot you step with last, which leaves the L up for a backward ...
— The Highland Fling and How to Teach it. • Horatio N. Grant

... by Mr. Templeton; and with him came a fair, a blooming, and healthful girl to contrast her own drooping charge. Though but a few weeks older, you would have supposed the little stranger by a year the senior of Alice's child: the one was so well grown, so advanced; the other so backward, so nipped in the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cleared. Home went the bands, Like children, linking happy hands, While singing through their father's lands; Or, arms about each other thrown, With amber tresses backward blown, They moved as they ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... sensual: in the third degree are those who love only themselves, placing their heart on the quest of honor; these are properly meant by the corporeal, because they immerse all things of the will, and consequently of the understanding, in the body, and look backward at themselves from others, and love only what belongs to themselves: but the sensual immerse all things of the will and consequently of the understanding in the allurements and fallacies of the senses, indulging in these alone; whereas the natural pour ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... had taken to the oars, but in spite of every exertion they soon found that the light craft had got within the influence of the strong current, and was sucked downward more rapidly than ever. Their backward strokes ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... the Eastern man never knew, but Jake went staggering backward, and when he recovered himself and stood with the blood trickling from a cut under his eye, the Cowboy had him covered with a big Colt's 45, and the eyes which looked at him over the barrel were ugly enough to make a gamer man than Jake ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... Pratt, the task was undertaken as a civil and Christian duty, but thus was started a government policy, and an educational experiment which, carried on and broadened to other races under Dr. Frissell, has changed the face of our own land and altered the conditions of backward races the world over. Because of this great historical fact, Hampton should always keep up its Indian department, which witnesses to the beginning of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... to the Summer Shelter was terrific, and having but little headway at the moment of collision she was driven backward by the tremendous momentum of the larger vessel as if she had been a ball struck by a bat. Every person on board was thrown down and hurled forward. Mrs. Cliff extended herself flat upon the deck, her arms ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... hill commanding a view of the castle and of the surrounding country for miles away. Here Katy also came, rambling with him through the village graveyard where slept the dust of centuries, the gray, mossy tombstones bearing date backward for more than a hundred years, their quaint inscriptions both puzzling and amusing Katy, who studied them by ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... obedience of his elders. He was tolerably well drilled in Calvinism, and had his head pretty well filled with snatches of doctrine which he caught from his father's constant discussions; but he was very backward in his education. He was placed at the school of the Rev. Mr. Langdon, at Bethlehem, Connecticut, and it was hoped that the labors of this excellent tutor would result in making something of him. He spent a winter at this ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... leaving behind us the oaks and the ceibas, and meeting with nothing but gigantic pine-trees. The pine-needles,[H] which literally carpeted the ground, made it so slippery, that for every step forward we frequently took two backward. We fell time after time, but our falls were not in the least degree dangerous. Sometimes, as if at a signal, we all four rolled down together, and each laughed at his neighbor's misfortune, thus cheering one another. Lucien had an idea ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... his wet hair plastic, and easily obtained the long, even sweep backward from the brow, lacking which no male person, unless bald, fulfilled his definition of a man of the world. But there ensued a period of vehemence and activity caused by a bent collar-button, which went on strike with a desperation that was downright savage. The day was warm ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... as throughout Europe, in a thousand remote and isolated corners, civilization builds itself up, synthetically and slowly; yet at last, a whole is likely to get itself constructed. Thus, impelled by great and conflicting forces, now obliquely, now backward, now upward, yet, upon the whole, onward, the new Society moves along its predestined orbit, gathering consistency and strength as it goes. Society, civilization, perhaps, but hardly humanity. The people ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... drained. Several new islands were also raised in the river, and during one of the shocks the ground a little below New Madrid was for a short time lifted so high as to stop the current of the Mississippi, and cause it to flow backward. The ground on which this town is built, and the bank of the river for fifteen miles above it, subsided permanently about eight feet, and the cemetery of the town fell into the river. In the neighboring forest the ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... solemn day in Stromness when he went to the gallows. The bells tolled backward, the stores were all closed, and there were prayers both in public and private for the dying criminal. But few dared to look upon the awful expiation, and John spent the hour in such deep communion with God and his own soul ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... his life, I wrenched myself as well as I could from his grip, and with my lifted poignard struck him, as God willed, above the eyebrow, and a little blood trickled from the wound. He, in high fury, gave me such a thrust that I fell backward, and the ground besides was slippery from having rained a little. Then Alessandro drew his sword, which he carried in its scabbard, and thrust at me in front, and struck me on the corslet, which for my good fortune ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... felt the effects of what Napoleon chose to nickname the Continental System, is too evident to need demonstration. The sentiments of its inhabitants towards the author of that system could not of course be very favourable; neither were they backward in shewing the spirit by which they were animated, as the following facts will serve to evince:—When the French, on their return from their disastrous Russian expedition, had occupied Leipzig, and were beginning, as usual, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... to whom he was speaking, as he followed the shadows of his vanished dream, that he called Bernadotte "my dear general." The latter, almost appalled by the magnitude of the project which Bonaparte had unfolded to him, made a step backward. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... backward and I must have hit something when I fell. The back of my head is very sore and my head aches terribly—and I'm a little ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... morals it is a backward step to restore God to the supremacy from which he has with the utmost difficulty been deposed. I am sure Mr. Wells does not in his heart believe that any theological sanction is required for the plain essentials ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... and the present Pickett Street erected in its stead. P. CUNNINGHAM. In Humphry Clinker, in the letter of June 10, one of the poor authors is described as having been 'reduced to a woollen night-cap and living upon sheep's-trotters, up three pair of stairs backward in Butcher Row.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... be calling to him. It was a voice that was hard to resist. He savagely jammed down deep inside him the tiny inner voice that was trying to object. He turned, looking backward at the dingy dreary buildings ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg

... really tickled me most was the boy's peroration. It gave me a pretty clear insight into his "innard workings." He led up to it in his favourite way: stepping backward a pace or two and sinking his voice to a kind of Edwin Booth quiet; gradually growing a little louder; then suddenly turning on ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... under cook, the scullery boy went back to cleaning the knives, Susan, the parlor maid who was going through the kitchen with her dustpan and broom, hurried off with a backward glance or two, and Phronsie was left quite alone to hum her way along ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... these early experiences happened one winter's evening in the midst of the press and bustle which always attended the opening of the autumn session. The winter number of the Universal was almost due, and we were backward, having had to wait for the copy of an important contributor, whose communication, in the present state of affairs, might even overturn a policy—or, at least, in the opinion of the Advocate, could not be done without. I need not say that the article in question represented ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... judgment on the matter. There has been a great deal of progress in that direction. The Senate and the House of Representatives of the last Congress provided Select Committees to whom all matters relating to woman suffrage could be referred. Will this House take a step backward on ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... beyond our vision Moving sure in pre-decision Of man's doom his mystic lips?— Calling thee, the Battle-wed, Thee, the Strife-encompassed, HELEN? Yea, in fate's derision, Hell in cities, Hell in ships, Hell in hearts of men they knew her, When the dim and delicate fold Of her curtains backward rolled, And to sea, to sea, she threw her In the West Wind's giant hold; And with spear and sword behind her Came the hunters in a flood, Down the oarblade's viewless trail Tracking, till in Simois' vale Through the leaves they crept to ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... seems to grow only in certain patches. The neck is relatively much thicker than that of other animals of the same size; the legs and hoofs are also strongly built, like the neck." The horns of the female are comparatively small, flat, and have only a small bend backward; they are of a dirty-yellowish white, marked with closely connected annulations to the very tip. The legs are brown, as are also the ends of the hairs about the neck; the hoofs are black. "A ewe will weigh about 100 lb. when in ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... in the centre of which was a summer-house. To the heart of this shrubbery led three paths, one of which Stafford discovered quite close at hand. The sound of gravel under his feet gave him an idea, and he began walking backward till he came to the shadow of a tree, and then, simulating the sound of retreating ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... golden wealth upon the forest floor, And all the days 15 Look backward at the days that went before, A pensive company, the asters, stand, Their blue eyes ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty



Words linked to "Backward" :   regardant, retrospective, backward and forward, reverse, adynamic, archaism, retarded, inverse, returning, retrograde, regressive, slow-witted, transposed, retroflexed, reversive, self-referent, reflexive, undynamic, retracted, receding, retroflex, retral, timid, ahead, bashful, rearwards, forward, reversed, backswept, rearward, converse, sweptback, blate, cacuminal, archaicism



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