"Backward and forward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... struggle swayed backward and forward through wood and hamlet, the fighting assumed a most confused and desperate character. The units became inextricably mixed, and in many cases, in order to strengthen some threatened point or to fill a gap in the line, the officers ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... but when the sun coming to be higher, the strong northerly wind had covered the hills with the dust, the soldiers came and turned this mound of earth over and over, and broke the hard clods in pieces, whilst others on horseback rode through it backward and forward, and raised a cloud of dust into the air: there with the wind the whole of it was carried away and blown into the dwellings of the Characitanians, all lying open to the north. And there being no other vent or breathing-place than that through ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the most effectual way we know of for the learner to pursue and she will find that her work is the same on both sides, producing raised and depressed rows in alternate succession. In working she must not generally work backward and forward, but must ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... then dry them with a cloth, sprinkle them with pepper, salt, and a little dried sage, turn them backward and forward, and skewer them; rub a gridiron with beef suet, broil them a nice brown, put them on a dish with good melted butter, and lay ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... this sentiment with a gentle series of groans, such as were her general expression of approbation, swaying herself backward and forward; while Mrs. Brown gave a sort of toss and snort, and said that for her part she always thought people knew what they did know,—but she guessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the other hand, had been so harassed backward and forward, that to him certainty was relief; it was a great matter to be no longer called upon to decide. His mother had said, "Part," and now Christie had said, "Part"; at least the affair was taken out of his hands, and his first ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... is now re-heated and subjected to the process of rolling. "The rolls" are heavy cylinders of cast iron placed almost in contact, and revolving rapidly by steam-power. The bloom is caught between these rollers, and passed backward and forward until it is pressed into a flat bar, averaging from four to six inches in width, and about an inch and a half thick. These bars are then cut into short lengths, piled, heated again in a furnace, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... grand staircase where the Duchess received her guests. It exceeded my utmost conceptions of magnificence and beauty. The vast size of the apartment, the vaulted ceilings, the arabesque ornaments, the fine pictures, the profusion of flowers, the music, the flourish of trumpets, as the Queen passed backward and forward, the superb dresses and diamonds of the women, the parti-colored full dress of the gentlemen all contributed to make up a scene not to be forgotten. The Queen's Ball was not to be compared to it, so much more effective is Stafford House than Buckingham Palace. ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... right of altering even the whole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure? They may change it, say they, from a monarchy to a republic to?day, and to-morrow back again from a republic to a monarchy, and so backward and forward as often as they like. They are masters of the commonwealth; because in substance they are themselves the commonwealth. The French revolution, say they, was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majority of any other people, the people of England for instance, wish to make the same ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... read of as pertaining to the dark ages. It was of no use to resist. They clutched hold of the back of my neck, and I thought they were going to strangle me; then they pulled at my arms and legs, and I thought again they were going to put me on the rack; and lastly, when they both began to roll backward and forward on my chest, doubling my cracking elbows underneath them, I thought, finally, that my last minute was come, and that death by suffocation would finish me. They were fiends, and evidently delighted in my agony; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... intensive frequentative form of the word—that is, it represents the action as being repeated over and over again. For instance, it might be used to describe the restless motion of a wild beast in a cage, raging from side to side, never still, and never getting any farther for all the racing backward and forward. So here it signifies 'walketh to and fro,' and implies hurry and bustle, continuous effort, habitual unrest. It thus comes to be parallel with the stronger words which follow,— 'Surely they are disquieted in vain'; and one reason why all this effort and agitation are purposeless and sad, is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... samples and examined them with interest. He felt their texture. He twisted them and crumpled them and bent them backward and forward and tore them. Then, the light at this window being too weak, he went to one of the broad windows where a stronger stream of light came out, and examined them anew. Sam, still sitting in his chair, nodded in satisfied approval. He liked that kind of ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... Backward and forward the tide of battle surged. For nearly three minutes all Scraggs saw was an indistinct tangle of legs and arms; then suddenly the combatants disengaged themselves and Scraggs beheld Mr. Gibney lying prone upon the deck with a gory face upturned to the foggy skies. When he essayed to rise and continue ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... of the floor sat Tom, his eyes tightly closed, a rubber boot in each hand, and rocking backward and forward with great rapidity, ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... upon his consciousness as the signet on soft wax;—a single pressure is enough. Let me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth piston slides backward and forward as a lady might slip her delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of its fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... do. He would keep jerking his inquisitive little head out of the window, for he never remembered a caution five minutes. He delighted to run up and down the narrow aisle, and, putting his hands on the arms of the seats, swing backward and forward with all his might. He became acquainted with every lozenge-boy and every newspaper-boy on the route, and seemed to be in a high state of merriment ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... meat and water near us, and then sat by the mast, singing loudly and rocking himself backward and forward. ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... be said to work two ways, backward and forward. Worked forward, it listens to people until they feel understood. When the same machine is turned around and worked the other way, it makes ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... straw-effigy was called, blazed up, all the boys of the neighbourhood, who had gathered expectantly around, fell upon him with their wooden swords and hewed him to pieces. As soon as he had vanished in smoke and flame, the lads leaped backward and forward over the glowing embers, and later in the evening they feasted on the proceeds of their collection.[408] Here the Angel-man burnt in the fire appears to be identified with Martin Luther, to whom, as we have seen, allusion was made ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... inventors, until aptly selected words or phrases have as it were nailed them down and held them fast.' [Footnote: Mill, System of Logic, vol. ii. p. 291.] And this holds good alike of the false and of the true. I think we may observe very often the way in which controversies, after long eddying backward and forward, hither and thither, concentrate themselves at last in some single word which is felt to contain all that the one party would affirm and the other would deny. After a desultory swaying of the battle hither and thither 'the high places of the field' the critical position, on the winning of which ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... as they followed their guide. Mrs Franklin lifted up her heart in silent praise for their preservation, and in prayer for present direction. Backward and forward swayed the lantern, just revealing snatches of hedge and miry path. At last the deep barking of a dog told that they were not far off from a dwelling: the next minute Mr Tankardew exclaimed, "Here we are;" and the light showed them that they were ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... set in the singers' seats, too, and he would have it that he sung tenor. He no more sung tenor than a skunk-blackbird; but he made b'lieve he did, jest to git next to Miry in the singers' seats. They used to set there in the seats a writin' backward and forward to each other till they tore out all the leaves of the hymn-books, and the singin'-books besides. Wal, I never thought that the house o' the Lord was jest the place to be courtin' in, and I used to get consid'able shocked at the way things went on atween 'em. ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cultivated urban Germany a century ago as to induce "a sort of dislike of poetic productions," what sort of dislike of them must it not be inducing to-day? For the appreciation of poetry cannot live under the same roof with the journalistic spirit. The art needs long, quiet vistas backward and forward, such as are to be had daily on one of those "lone heaths" where Hazlitt used to love to stalk ideas, but such as are not to be met with in Times Square or ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... London, never to return till the day of a terrible and memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began which occupied many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible. The sure punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal word, and invoked heaven to witness ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... requested Mr. Stuart to dismount and give him the horse he was riding. Mr. Stuart valued the animal very highly, so he shook his head at the demand of the savage. Upon this the Indian walked up, and taking hold of Mr. Stuart, began to push him backward and forward in his saddle, as if to impress upon him that he ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... by means of the resistance of Theresa, they had not been able to succeed, they had afterwards had frequent conferences with the mother, the subject of which was a secret to the daughter. However, she knew little presents had been made, and that there were mysterious goings backward and forward, the motive of which was entirely unknown to her. When we left Paris, Madam le Vasseur had long been in the habit of going to see Grimm twice or thrice a month, and continuing with him for hours together, in conversation ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... usually wears a sallow and cadaverous look, which, coupled with his emaciation, makes him resemble an exhumed corpse after a month's interment, looks to-day like a galvanized corpse which had been buried two months. The circles round his eyes are absolutely black! And yet he was pacing briskly backward and forward between the President's office and the War Department. He seems much ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... four, generally by girls. Two players face each other, clasping hands at full arm's length. The other two face each other in the same way, with their arms crossing those of the first couple at right angles. Bracing the feet, the couples sway backward and forward, ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... stood out on Lovell's grave countenance, and his head, like a laborious sledge-hammer, was swaying mechanically backward and forward. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... mixing evenly without producing air bubbles, is not always easily acquired, by this method. An alternative plan is to hold the inoculated tube vertically upright between the opposed palms and to rotate it between them by rapid backward and forward movements of the two ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... cold dinner, the boys donned snowshoes and oilskin coats and sallied forth again. They traveled down the lake as far as the point where they had seen the men make a crossing. Then they entered the forest, and tramped backward and forward for several hours. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... journey toward the center. Another effort is made to hold the carriage when it again comes to a stop; but if this is not successful, then comes the most peculiar experience of all. The carriage of its own momentum continues dashing backward and forward until it comes to rest at the center of gravity. Then the engineer, by communicating with the surface, gets the longest stretch of rope and is drawn two hundred and fifty miles to ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... yeoman?" said Richard, somewhat impatiently. "Have we not already granted thee a full pardon for all transgressions? Thinkest thou our word is a feather, to be blown backward and forward between us? Thou canst not have had time to commit any new ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... The seaweed floated backward and forward like waving green hair; fruits round as Indian figs hung in whitish clusters on the rocks; pearly flowers shone in the depths of the green waters, and among the mysterious growth star-fishes spread their colored points; sea-urchins formed balls like dark ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... surged backward and forward over Reims twice, and it is not surprising that the city suffered severely. Nevertheless, the French officer who gave us the information outlined above was firmly of the opinion that the cathedral had been wantonly destroyed in revenge ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... of Robert Wilbur, he began to feel uneasy, lest what his mother had said were true. She saw her advantage, and followed it up until, in a fit of anger, he rushed from the room and repaired to his own apartment, where for a time he walked backward and forward, chafing like a caged lion, and wishing all manner of evil upon Nellie, if she were ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... set up at each end of the room, the players are provided with fans, and the football is a blown hen's egg, which is wafted backward and forward along the floor. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... that she does not know, and it speaks to the Spirit that is older than her child. She is a mute, unconscious sacrament between the infinite reason and the finite, a path for the lightning that plays backward and forward between the soul of man and the soul of God. The great primal fact in the human environment is that man is the interpreter of nature. In this character of interpreter of nature he receives his first message from God, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... around the end of the hinge, and thus not only gained a better purchase, increasing his leverage, but was able to operate without the slightest sound. It was a long time before the bolt moved, but to his intense gratification it did move at last, and Henley took a fresh grip upon his hinge. Backward and forward he worked his lever, and with each turn the old bolt slipped back a little. At last he could see the end of it, and then it was clear of the frame entirely. He had expected no difficulty in opening the door when the hinge was once slipped, but to his surprise ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... excessively warm, and so, as she sat, she gracefully waved, backward and forward, one of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... beneath the eternal calm, the order Which can come only from a Love Divine? A love that sees the good beyond the evil, The serial life beyond the eclipsing death,— That tracks the spirit through eternities, Backward and forward, and in every germ Beholds its past, its present, and its future, At every stage beholds it gravitate Where it belongs, and thence new-born emerge Into new life and opportunity, An outcast never from ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... and quietly closed the door behind him, "you go back to the poop and keep an eye upon the ship. I shall not be long." And with one bound, as it seemed to me, he was out on deck and running forward. As for me, I returned to my station on the poop, which I anxiously paced backward and forward in momentary expectation of hearing the call ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... with its bill. When alarmed and made to fly, it utters a loud quack, the cry of the female being the louder. "It feeds silently, but after hunger is satisfied, it amuses itself with various jabberings, swims about, moves its head backward and forward, throws water over its back, shoots along the surface, half flying, half running, and seems quite playful. If alarmed, the Mallard springs up at once with a bound, rises obliquely to a considerable ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... dreamer, will you go on like this to the end—forever tossed backward and forward between duty and happiness, incapable of choice, of action? Is not life the test of our moral force, and all these inward waverings, are they not temptations of ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... reached them, they paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality of the law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the law, the abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and negative. But the average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward and forward down the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... this one fine evening, as they sauntered by starlight round the market-place, which was surrounded by high trees; the young couple had invited Bertalda to join their evening stroll, and they now paced backward and forward in pleasant talk, with the dark blue sky over their heads, and a beautiful fountain before them in the centre, which, as it bubbled and sprang up into fanciful shapes, often caught their attention, and interrupted the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... perfection. An engraving is first made upon soft steel, which is hardened by a peculiar process without in the least injuring its delicacy. A cylinder of soft steel, pressed with great force against the hardened steel engraving, is now made to roll very slowly backward and forward over it, thus receiving the design, but in relief. The cylinder is in its turn hardened without injury., and if it be slowly rolled to and fro with strong pressure on successive plates of copper, it will imprint on a thousand of them a perfect facsimile of the ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... out. When he refused with oaths, they broke in the door—and found themselves face to face with a brace of pistols. Before they could be used, however, Colonel King, stooping suddenly, made a dash at Fitzgerald, closed with him, and was at once engaged in a life and death struggle. Backward and forward the combatants swayed, straining every muscle to bring their pistols into play for the fatal shot. By an almost superhuman effort, Fitzgerald at last wrested his right arm free. His pistol was pointed at the Colonel's ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... carriage of the bird is very different from that of other pigeons; in good birds the head touches the tail-feathers, which consequently often become crumpled. They habitually tremble much; and their necks have an extraordinary, apparently convulsive, backward and forward movement. Good birds walk in a singular manner, as if their small feet were stiff. Owing to their large tails, they fly badly on a windy day. The dark-coloured varieties are generally ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... before it, and the easy-going masons of Amboise prepare to patch up its walls. No particular method is observed, the work progresses after the fashion of a child's block house, and the principal labour lies in dividing the lumps of stone. This is done with a rusty old saw pulled slowly backward and forward by two men, the sound produced resembling a succession of agonized shrieks. It goes on for hours and hours, with no apparent result except the noise; while a handsome boy, in a striped blouse and broad blue sash, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... which sweeping through the Atlantic enriches every country it touches, he would have a golden circuit established in Canada—the farmers would sell to the manufacturers and the money paid them would continue to flow backward and forward to the enrichment of both. The flowing of gold from our midst would be stopped, and the farmers, with a home-market for all they could raise, would become rich and view with delight factories rising on every hand. All this could be accomplished by enacting a judiciously-framed ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... his leg above the knee, to choke back the first excruciating pang. Rocking backward and forward, he began to repeat scattered texts from ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand—at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... properly boiled, strain it off, taking care to skim off all the fat; then put into it two ounces of rice, well boiled, half a pint of cream beaten up, and five or six yolks of eggs. When ready to serve, pour the soup to the eggs backward and forward to prevent it from curdling, and send it to table. You must boil the soup once after you add the cream, and before you put it to the eggs. Three laurel leaves put into it in summer and six in winter make a pleasant addition, ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... center of the frame there is fixed a support which carries a train of gear wheels which is set in motion by a pulley and belt. These wheels serve to communicate a backward and forward motion, longitudinally, to the mullers through the intermedium of a winch, and a backward and forward motion transversely to two granite tables on which is placed the ink or color to be ground. This last-named ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... isolated, but its capture presented great difficulties. All through the 8th General Fry bombarded it from Mazera, while his infantry were slowly ferried over higher up. This was prepared by some daring sappers, who swam the broad river and fixed a wire rope by which the boats were worked backward and forward, and an advance was made ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... again. The key might be quite a small one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reflection.... With what disgust have I heard sensible women speak of the wearisome confinement which they endured at school. Not allowed, perhaps, to step out of one broad path in a superb garden, and obliged to pace, with steady deportment, stupidly backward and forward, holding up their heads and turning out their toes, with shoulders braced back, instead of bounding forward, as Nature directs to complete her own design, in the various attitudes so conducive to health. The pure animal spirits, which make both mind and body ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... it, so that the ball of soft fiber is pressed with some force against its inner or concave surface. Another man now takes a piece of bamboo a foot long or less, and shaped with a blunt edge, something like a paper knife, and commences a sawing motion backward and forward across the horizontal piece of bamboo, and just over the spot where the ball of soft fiber is held. The motion is slow at first, and by degrees a groove is formed, which soon deepens as the motion increases in quickness. Soon smoke arises, and the motion is now made as rapid as possible, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... sort," retorted Nancy vehemently. "In trying to find a place to put the lamp down I walked backward and forward with it in my hand until I had pushed a table before the window. I then placed the lamp on it, and went to help the doctor. He told me my presence was no longer needed, and advised me to go home, as ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the six votes on the Walker-Otis bill shows at a glance who voted consistently for the measure on all of the numerous roll calls; who voted consistently against it; and who were pulled backward and forward, voting one moment to satisfy the public demand that the bill be passed, and the next on the side of ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... doors, till I have your direction: and I am the more secure, having dropt words to the people of the house where the coach set me down, as if I expected a chariot to meet me in my way to Hendon; a village a little distance from this. And when I left their house, I walked backward and forward upon the hill; at first, not knowing what to do; and afterwards, to be certain that I was not watched before I ventured to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... contained. This calmed her spirits a little, and she rose once more to watch the course of events. The body of men had left the gate at which they had just been toiling, and were crowding around its fellow. One leaf was hung! As an assurance of this, she soon after saw her father swing it backward and forward on its hinges, to cause it to settle into its place. This was an immense relief, though she had heard too many tales of Indian warfare, to think there was any imminent danger of an attack by open day, in the very face of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Claverhouse were quartered around the country, and his three prisoners, still bound to each other, were confined in a small farm-house, from which the inhabitants had been expelled. They could hear the heavy and measured tread of the sentinel pacing backward and forward in front of the house; the sound of his footsteps seemed to measure out the moments between them and eternity. After they had sung a psalm and prayed together—"I am auld," said John Brydone, "and I fear not to die, but rather ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... arrangement for vignetting in enlarging is a piece of cardboard the size of the negative, with an opening cut out at the proper place and about the size of the portion of the negative to be vignetted. This is held near the lens and moved backward and forward between the latter and the screen, the opening showing larger as we near the lens and smaller as we recede from it. Very tasteful vignettes can be made in this way. A favorite method of the writer's is to use a sheet of bromide paper, preferably that ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... frame that rested on two gilt knobs standing out from the wall like giant rosettes. She had dared to make the skirt a little longer than that of her best frock. It was almost as long as Kate's, and for a moment she lingered, sweeping backward and forward before the glass and admiring herself in the long graceful folds. She caught up her braids in the fashion that Kate wore her hair and smiled at the reflection of herself in the mirror. How funny it seemed to think she would soon be a woman like Kate. When Kate was gone they ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the air, to be followed by a second and a third. Now the animal was through the throng and carrying a poor boy on its horn, whence presently he fell dead; through and through the ranks of the regiments it charged furiously backward and forward. ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... a breach had been made in the wall of the suburb adjoining the tower, and troops poured in to the assistance of their comrades. A continued battle was kept up for two days and a night by reinforcements from camp and city. The parties fought backward and forward through the breach of the wall and in the narrow and winding streets adjacent with alternate success, and the vicinity of the tower was strewn with the dead and wounded. At length the Moors gradually gave way, disputing every inch of ground, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... tried, as a means of getting through the time, in the absence of general conversation. Lady Loring sat down at the piano, and played as admirably as usual. At the other end of the room Romayne and Stella were together, listening to the music. Lord Loring, walking backward and forward, with a restlessness which was far from being characteristic of him in his after-dinner hours, was stopped when he reached the neighborhood of the piano by a private ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... very difficult to catch one, for their movements are like a flash. I did succeed once in holding one long enough to examine his beautiful steel-blue bands. The babies are as delicate as if they were made of glass, and as light and airy as if they belonged to fairy-land. They run, all the time, backward and forward, just for the pleasure of moving, over the ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... Depend upon it, she managed to get some note from him, and pass one to him in return. He had only to run it under the leaf of a table, or stick it inside of some book: no doubt they have it all arranged, and pass their infernal love-letters backward and forward. But I'll soon have a chance. My time is coming. It's near, too. I'll have my vengeance; and then for all the wrongs of all my life that demon of a woman ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... crossed in four vessels provided by Ilyan. According to his account, Tarik landed on a Saturday, in the month of Shaban, of the year 92, and the vessels that brought him and his men on shore were immediately sent back to Africa, and never ceased going backward and forward until the whole of the army was safely landed on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... do it? The audacity of the proceeding was sufficient to make the iron will of even Lennox Sanderson waver. And yet, to lose her! Such a contingency was not to be considered. His mind flew backward and forward like a shuttle, he turned the leaves of his book; he smoked, but no light ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... entertained in prophetic circles in the eighth century. We learn the heroic legends in the interpretation which the prophets put upon them. We have still to seek to interpret them for ourselves. We must begin in the middle and work both backward and forward. Such a view of the history of Israel affords every opportunity for the connecting of the history and religion of Israel with those of the other Semite stocks. Some of these have in recent years been discovered to offer extraordinary ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... and when noon came, each ate a little piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they were sure their father was near. But it was not the axe, it was a branch which he had tied to a dry tree, and the wind was blowing it backward and forward. As they had been sitting such a long time they were tired, their eyes shut, and they fell fast asleep. When at last they awoke, it was ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... indirect for individuals singly or associated together, it is proper for the State and not for individuals to take hold of it.—According to this rule the limits of the public and private domain can be defined, which limits, as they change backward and forward, may be verified according to the changes which take place in interests ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady, remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... and Stuart's two troops of cavalry, stood face to face with more than 20,000 infantry and seven troops of regular cavalry, behind whom at the lower fords were 35,000 men in reserve. While his men were lying down awaiting the attack, Jackson rode backward and forward in front of them as calm and as unconcerned to all appearance as if on the parade ground, and his quiet bravery greatly nerved ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... we to make haste, took our wherry toward Chatham; but, it growing darke, we were put to great difficultys, our simple, yet confident waterman, not knowing a step of the way; and we found ourselves to go backward and forward, which, in the darke night and a wild place, did vex us mightily. At last we got a fisher boy by chance, and took him into the boat, and being an odde kind of boy, did vex us too; for he would not answer us aloud when we spoke to him, but did carry us safe thither, though with a mistake ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... he placed the chair close to the wall, stood upon it, and, with his ear against the wallpaper, moved his head backward and forward and up and down. Then he stopped moving and reaching up felt along the wall ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and to the point, or lower part, is fixed a gourd-shell larger than the fist. Into this is put something to rattle, which is done by holding the instrument by the small part, and shaking or rather moving it from place to place briskly, either to different sides or backward and forward just before the face, striking the breast with the other hand at the same time. The other musical instrument (if either of them deserve that name) was a hollow vessel of wood, like a platter, combined with the use of two sticks, on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... her hands and rocked herself backward and forward in her misery, but answered not a word. What could she answer, if she had plotted with this "dreadful man" against a young and innocent girl, to deliver her over into his hands, at the risk of all her earthly ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... came, each ate a little piece of bread, but, as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe, they believed that their father was near. It was, however, not the axe; it was a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was blowing backward and forward; and, as they had been sitting such a long time, their eyes shut with fatigue and they fell fast asleep. When at last they awoke it was already dark night. Grethel began to cry and said, "How are we to get out of the forest now?" ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... to lay back upon the rope. Now pass three turns of twine like a timber-hitch tightly around the part where the nettles separate and fasten the twine, and while passing this "warp" lay the nettles backward and forward with each turn. The ends are now whipped with twine or yarn and finally "snaked," which is done by taking the end under and over the outer turns of the seizing alternately. If the rope is small a stick is often put in the upper part to strengthen it or the tip maybe finished with ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... roving are placed in a creel at the back of the machine, the stands of roving being passed through the rolls and drawn out in the same manner as at the roving frame. The spindles are mounted on a carriage which moves backward and forward in its relation to the rolls, the distance roved being about five feet. When the spindles are moving away from the frame the stock is being delivered by the rolls, the speed at which the spindles move away from the rolls ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... of consuming fire. It was a thing incredibly huge, incredibly furious, incredibly wild. Human figures, black against its glare, were flying to safety, near-by silhouettes were flinging their arms aloft and dashing backward and forward; faces upturned to it were white and terrified. The scattered mesquite stood against the night like a wall, spotted with inky shadows, and, above, the heavens resembled a ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the car I eagerly scanned each face among the crowd to see if I could find any one whose appearance answered to my ideas of Uncle Nathan, but for some time I could see no one whom I could suppose to be my unknown relative. I at length spied a middle-aged gentleman walking backward and forward in a leisurely manner, upon the platform, whom I thought might possibly be my uncle, and, as the crowd had mostly dispersed, I mustered up courage, and in a low voice accosted him with the question. "Please ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... stood just inside the door, on the mat. His eyes wandered, his face was pale—he looked ill; he looked frightened. He trifled nervously with his cap, and shifted it backward and forward, from ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... contiguous racial or national bodies, and in it each is modified and assimilated to the other. On its edges it is strongly marked by the characteristics of the adjacent sides, but its medial band shows a mingling of the two in ever-varying proportions; it changes from day to day and shifts backward and forward, according as one side or the other exercises in it more potent economic, religious, racial, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... perplexing. The stream of historical causes has borne the nation onward on the bosom of its inevitable flow, until we can now almost see clear through to the end; at any rate, we have reached a point where we can look backward and forward with perhaps greater advantage than at any former period. What changes of opinion have been wrought! How many doubts resolved! How many fears dispelled! How many old prejudices and preconceived notions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... fishes very stupid; that they have no feeling. A gentleman in England, a surgeon and a naturalist, told me of what he had himself seen. A pike had struck its head against a tenter hook on a post in the pond where he was swimming. His agony was so great that he darted backward and forward with the greatest rapidity, then buried his head in the mud, then whirled his tail round and round, and threw himself up into the air to the height of two or three feet, and, at last, he threw himself out of the pond upon the grass. Dr. Warwick placed his hand on the fish, ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... by means of these metals than of almost any other goods. As they are the universal instruments of commerce, they are more readily received in return for all commodities than any other goods; and, on account of their small bulk and great value, it costs less to transport them backward and forward from one place to another than almost any other sort of merchandize, and they lose less of their value by being so transported. Of all the commodities, therefore, which are bought in one foreign country, for no other purpose ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... invaded the North, delivered battle on the territory of the enemy, suffered a repulse, retired, and was again occupying nearly the same ground which he had occupied before the advance. Moving backward and forward on the great chessboard of war, the two adversaries seemed to have gained or lost nothing. The one was not flushed with victory; the other was not prostrated by defeat. Each went into camp, ceased active operations, and prepared for the new conflict which was to take place ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... upon deck, and, taking his arm as had been my wont, I sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom, however (which I considered quite natural under the circumstances), seemed entirely unabated. He said little, and that moodily, and with evident effort. I ventured a jest or two, and he made a sickening attempt at a smile. Poor fellow!—as I thought of his wife, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in his Berserker rage; bleeding, frothing, cursing; five frozen years thawing into sudden hell. They swayed backward and forward, panted, sweated, like some cyclopean, many-legged monster rising from the lower deeps. The slush-lamp went over, drowned in its own fat, while the midday twilight scarce percolated through the dirty canvas of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... certainty that a rhino cow accompanied by its calf would always attack. We moved forward a few yards, clapped our hands to show where we were, and their attitude at once became more threatening. They rushed backward and forward a couple of times and faced ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... life than the men, for some of them were moving about among the children, and one poor, old, withered, ragged squaw sat in the door of her lodge, with her gray hair all down over her face, rocking backward and forward, and singing ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... was near; and, with the automatic restlessness of an impatient dog tied under a travelling dray, he walked back and forward, backward and forward beside his weary team; often looking back to see the wagon clear the trees, but never, by any chance, looking forward against the blaze of the declining sun intently enough to notice the back of the buggy, partly concealed, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... village of Natondre and a most interesting sight. Hundreds of natives were squatting on the ground of the village square, and about one hundred men with faces black and in full war paint, swinging war clubs, were rushing backward and forward yelling and singing while large wooden drums were beaten. They were dressed in most fantastic style, some only with fibrous strings round their loins, and others with yards of "tapa" cloth wound around them. Several ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the two surged backward and forward at the very edge of the hill, each searching for the other's throat. The girl stood by, watching the battle with wide, frightened eyes. If she could only do something to ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... moral reaction, that she no longer sought to discipline her mind. She sipped the drink gingerly, and her thought fluttered backward and forward, full of contradictions and repetitions, as thought is in life, but now free.... Suppose, after all, that her past was not escaped? It wasn't such an easy thing to do, it seemed. Dalhousie thought he had escaped his, but it had run him down at last, way off in Texas. Suppose Dr. Vivian now decided ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... through the long aisles, raising strange and ominous echoes, and making the vast folds of sable drapery wave slowly backward and forward, as if agitated by unseen hands. A few spectators, standing in the background, appeared like grim figures on a black tapestry; and the gleam of the wax tapers, oscillating on their countenances, made them ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... knows the country well, and get him to lead three of us round through the edge of the swamp to the back of the house. It stands within fifty yards of the swamp. I have no doubt they put it there so that they might escape if pressed, and also to prevent their being observed going backward and forward ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... that he will be laughed at if he does not make a fortune, so that they wink at each other; and, so great is the distance between Spain and Peru, that the royal orders are seldom, regarded, being two years in going backward and forward: Hence arise many clandestine doings. According to law, the king ought to have a twentieth part of all the gold, and a fifth of all the silver procured from the mines; but vast quantities are carried away privately, without ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... in which you will proceed—do not shift backward and forward from near to far, remote to close in time, general to particular, large to small, important to unimportant, concrete to abstract, physical to mental; but follow your chosen order. Scattered and shifting observations ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... motionless, the sinews of his neck drawn and knotted, his eyes starting from their sockets. Thorndyke felt the rubber tube quiver suddenly and writhe with the slow energy of a dying snake, and then from the quivering bell came a low, gurgling sound like a stream of water being forced backward and forward. ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... death-bed addresses, his Adieux a ses Amis et a l'Eglise, one admirable chapter, the second, is devoted to the passage before us, Phil. i. 21-26. From the borderland of eternity the great French Christian looks backward and forward with St Paul's letter in his hand, and comments there upon this divine possibility of "Happiness in Life and in Death." "The Apostle," he says, "is asking here which is most worth while for him, to live or to die. ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... (17. 'Transact. Linnean Soc.' vol. xxvi. 1868, p. 296.) says: "it is very amusing to see these little creatures (Smynthurus luteus) coquetting together. The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another, standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful lambs. Then the female pretends to run away and the male runs after her with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again; then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker and more active, scuttles round ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... smoke and flames of the houses, through which they were slowly passing, giving the enemy time to escape. At last, seized with despair, they fled precipitately. It had been observed during the fight that some women went backward and forward to the town, only about half a mile distant, apparently with the most perfect indifference to their fearful situation. While the commando was struggling between hope and despair of being able to rout the enemy, information was brought that the half of the enemy, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... in the white folks' yard. I don't know what kind of house it was. My mother used to cook and do for the white folks. She caught her death of cold going backward and forward milking ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration |
