"Backwards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spelled backwards," Dundee explained. "Possibly because he considered it the sophisticated thing to do, Miles used an assumed name at the party at which he met Nita Leigh—and married her under that name shortly afterward. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... inferred that our precautions had prevented the execution of the design formed against particular persons, but it was believed there was some mischief hatching at the Chancellor's against the public, because sergeants were running backwards and forwards, and Ondedei went thither four times ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... exploring expedition, if only the state of the ice permit a suitable steamer to force a passage in that sea. In order to form a judgment on this point, it may perhaps be necessary to cast a brief glance backwards over the attempts which have been made to penetrate in the direction which the projected ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... at the machines. These responded to touches upon their key-boards by going through uncanny internal agitations. Then out from a mysterious somewhere would come a small thin strip of almost hot metal, the width of a newspaper column and marked along one edge with letters printed backwards. ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... meet; and I was wrong in sending you to mourn. They look on life as a huge tumour from which death sets them free. All the same they know not where they were before birth, nor where they will be after death. They ignore their passions. They take no account of their ears and eyes. Backwards and forwards through all eternity, they do not admit a beginning or an end. They stroll beyond the dust and dirt of mortality, to wander in the realms of inaction. How should such men trouble themselves with the conventionalities of this world, or care what ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... radiating, gray, then brownish-purple, and sometimes white, branched, split along the edges and rather deeply rolled backwards. The ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... on the right, the lesser. In the middle of the floor, a wood fire is burning on a built-up hearth. In the background, on both sides of the door, are daises for the women of the household. From each of the high-seats, a long table, with benches, stretches backwards, parallel with the wall. It is dark outside; ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... bade her get in first, which she did very rapidly, as if to escape observation. There she crouched like a wild beast, in the left corner, on the straw, riding backwards. The doctor sat beside her on the right. Then the executioner got in, shutting the door behind him, and sat opposite her, stretching his legs between the doctor's. His man, whose business it was to guide the horse, sat on the front, back to back with the doctor and the marquise, his feet ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his arms from round her, and, pushing her slender, white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly into ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... straight through, without wincing. The Judge Advocate, they said, was a right clever gentlemanly fellow, but ignorant of law, and completely at the disposal of the General. I saw him several times when I was passing backwards and forwards, and he looked to me as if the beef was a little too thick on the outside of his forehead, for the brains to be active inside. Still, the Colonels have no fault to find with him, except that between times he would talk about drinking to ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... many as we can get over the rocks with; but we can make many journeys backwards and forwards now we have found the place. But the herr will not take all away without sending word to Lucerne ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... Kongra Lama, bringing ponies, genuine Tartars in bone and breed. Remembering the Dewan's impracticable saddle at Bhomsong, I stipulated for a horse-cloth or pad, upon which I had no sooner jumped than the beast threw back his ears, seated himself on his haunches, and, to my consternation, slid backwards down a turfy slope, pawing the earth with his fore-feet as he went, and leaving me on the ground, amid shrieks of laughter from my Lepchas. My steed being caught, I again mounted, and was being led forward, when he took to shaking ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... sudden application of the lash. The unfeigned surprise he manifested, together with the quick leap which his horse made, who partook of the blow, was irresistibly ludicrous. He was nearly thrown off backwards in the speed of the animal's flight along the road. It was some time ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... 'I'm dying... Good-bye, my poor girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... the ridge for a considerable time, they crept backwards with extreme caution, and, on getting sufficiently far down the hill-side to be safe from observation, rose on their hind-legs and began to talk; from which circumstance it may be concluded that they were human beings. After talking, grinning, and glaring at each other for a few minutes, with ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... diversities of motion which are expressed by, up and down, to right and left, backwards and forwards, and in varying circles, are reducible either to direct or to oblique motion, for they all signify the discursive action of the reason. For if this discursive action be from the genus to the species or from the whole to the part, it will be, ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... plot worked out better than he could have hoped. Sir Joseph's letter proved convincing, for Miss Matilda had a holy awe of constituted authority, and would no more have thought of disobeying its injunctions than she would of saying her prayers backwards. His Lordship accordingly went to London, and disappeared for a month—ostensibly to Scotland, in reality to America; and no one on the Allan liner suspected for a moment that the little man in civilian's clothes, whose name appeared on the passenger-list as Mr. Banborough, ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... half resolved, half doubting persons, that meditated emigration, vibrated alternately backwards and forwards, inclined or disinclined to it, according to the last view of the case presented to them. But the natural love of adventure, curiosity, fondness for the hunting life, dissatisfaction with the incessant labor necessary for subsistence ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... put my alibi to a better use. And, Badger, one word in your ear: there's no Newcastle Jemmy about me. Drop the subject, and for good, or I shall drop you. (He rises, and walks backwards and forwards, a little unsteadily; then returns, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the cat that she sprang backwards. The blare of a trumpet, the crash and smash of a pile of plates flung to the ground, a pistol shot fired off at her ear, could not have frightened her more thoroughly. All her ornithological ideas ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... back a step and as Nicolas came forward with him, the Cossack thrust a leg behind his opponent and pushed with all his might. Nicolas was caught off his balance and before he could recover himself Ivan twisted sharply with his leg. Nicolas went over backwards, with ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... argues some essential defect of system. Under our modern policy, military power—though it may be the growth of one man's life—soon takes root; a succession of campaigns is required for its extirpation; and it revolves backwards to its final extinction through all the stages by which originally it grew. On the Roman system this was mainly impossible from the solitariness of the Roman power; co-rival nations who might balance the victorious party, there were absolutely none; and all the underlings hastened to make ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Entendre in such a Degree as before, yet that ambiguous Answers were not at an End; and that whether those Negatives were meant so by the Writers, or not, 'twas certain Custom led the Readers to conclude them to be Satyrs, that they were to be rung backwards like the Bells when the Town's on fire; tho' in short, I durst not read them backward any where, but as speaking of foreign People, for fear of raising the Devil I ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... reputation, and experience. An army of twenty thousand men was disposed in different bodies along the south coast; and orders were given them, if they could not prevent the landing of the Spaniards, to retire backwards, to waste the country around, and to wait for reenforcement from the neighboring counties, before they approached the enemy. A body of twenty-two thousand foot and a thousand horse, under the command of the earl of Leicester, was stationed at Tilbury in order to defend ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... in the ranks behind the policemen, or strolled out again, holding to the generally prevalent belief that if they returned at two o'clock they would still have sufficient hours to wait. In the Yard a thin line extended from the side of the Hall gateway backwards to the railings in St. Margaret's Street, with another line drawn up across the far edge of the broad carriage-way before the entrance. There was no ostentatious show of police, but they had a way of silently filing out from under the sheds or out of the Commons' gateway in proportion ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... the will is all; that is one of the chief things which turns the wheel either backwards or forwards; and God knoweth that full well, and so likewise doth the devil; and therefore they both endeavor very much to strengthen the will of their servants. God is for making his a willing people to serve him; and the devil doth ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... Cannes, and all that lovely country, were not at that time what they now are. There was only one single villa at Cannes, the Villa Eleonore, built by Lord Brougham, the Christopher Columbus of the locality. He always came to the Tuileries on his way backwards and forwards between his villa and England; and he invariably sang the praises of that exquisite coast to us. One evening he made a sketch of his villa for my ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... of the buffalo is that of a hybrid of the bull and rhinoceros. Its horns do not rise upwards, are very close at the root, bent backwards, and of a triangular form, with a flat side above. One of the peculiarities of the buffalo is its voice, which is quite low, and in the minor key, resembling that of a young colt. It is as fond of mire as swine, and shows the consequence of recent ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... the cross a pretty, bright insect, of such a brilliant hue that he could not recollect having ever before seen the like in an insect. He wondered greatly at this, but still he did not disturb it. The insect did not remain long quiet, but ran without ceasing backwards and forwards upon the cross, as if it was in pain and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... the back of the arm-chair and now occupied the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... those dreadful walks backwards and forwards which made my life so bad. What so pleasant, what so sweet, as a walk along an English lane, when the air is sweet and the weather fine, and when there is a charm in walking? But here were the same lanes four times a day, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... head downwards like gigantic bats, must have been hundreds upon hundreds of the pteranodons. One of them, whistling oddly, fluttered up to the bars, affording the Wanderers an excellent view of a loathsome head, the back of which ended in a curious sort of horn, that, projecting backwards, jutted far above its rear. Fierce, vermillion eyes with green irises glared at the Americans through the bars, and great wings of greasy-looking leather fanned a disgusting stench from the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... follows, a D may also be expressed using an I followed by a backwards C; and an M by a C, followed by an I, followed by a backwards C—these can be seen in ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... spar, and sent up to heaven an earnest petition that they might have the power to rescue them, and eagerly waited their chance. The three men had no control whatever over the spar; it was as much as they could do to preserve their hold. Washed about backwards and forwards, their peril seemed imminent; but at last a fortuitous wave carried them on to the rocks amid the rejoicings of their compatriots. Captain Wright and five others drifted towards Point Danger, where they encountered ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... married Daisy Trimble of the Gaiety, and when I meet her now I feel like walking out of her presence backwards. But there the thing was, and you couldn't get away from it. Gussie had vaudeville blood in him, and it looked as if he were reverting to type, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Spaniards on this, as on other occasions, had foolishly neglected to secure the breaches in the causeways as they passed, or at least the rash Alvarado had not done so with his command, his earlier lesson unheeded; and when the Christians were hurled backwards—for their easy entrance into the great square of the city had been in the nature of a decoy—disaster befel them, which at one moment seemed as if it would be a repetition of that of the Noche Triste. "The moment ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... several of the enemy climbed to the top of the palisades, but were hurled backwards, or, being shot as they appeared, fell down into the fort. In spite of the fate which had overtaken their comrades, others made most daring attempts to get in. Should two or three succeed, they, with their tomahawks, might keep a space clear for a sufficient time to enable others to follow them, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... access of weakness, he leaned for support against the doorway. His senses left him for a moment, and when he came to, he saw a company of soldiers passing the spot where he stood. The next instant the butt-end of a musket pushed him backwards into the doorway. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... in, and a pulling match ensued. Steve had hold of the gun and Thee firmly clenched the rod. The gun could stand the combined strength of two powerful men no better than it could resist the jamming of the rod, and they parted. Steve went backwards over Mary Rogers, a dog, and took a moist seat in a tub of warm water, which had been prepared for cleaning guns. Steve said the water was hot, while our fastidious friend looked bland, gathered himself up from out a pile of empty shells, mixed with scraps of red flannel ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... the deck, and, as the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can't balance ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... wolf followed the cat, and attacked it. Then the cat changed into a worm, which buried itself in a pomegranate that had fallen from a tree over-hanging the tank in the court, and the pomegranate began to swell until it became as large as a gourd, which then rose into the air, rolled backwards and forwards several times, and then fell into the court and broke into a thousand pieces. The wolf now transformed itself into a cock, and ran as fast as possible, and ate up the pomegranate seeds. ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... forgetful generation, that knows better than God what the aim and goal of our pilgrimage is; that will not hear His murmured language, or see His patient writing on the wall! That in teaching, forget to learn, and in prophesying, have no leisure to look backwards! It is we that have despised life and beauty and God; it is we that make graven images, and worship the fire till we cannot see the sun, who pray daily for peace, and cast the jewel in the mire when it is put ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... positive condition is wanting, or what negative one is present. No one now supposes that gunnery depends upon those "remotest of all causes," the stars, or upon the sun being in Sagittarius rather than in Aquarius, or that one shoots straightest with a silver bullet, or after saying the alphabet backwards. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... silken meshes of the Spiders. Among these corpses some male Sitares circle, busy, amorous, heedless of death, mating with the first female that passes within reach, while the fertilized females thrust their bulky abdomens into the opening of a gallery and disappear into it backwards. It is impossible to mistake the situation: some grave interest attracts to this spot these two insects, which, within a few days, make their appearance, mate, lay their eggs and die at the very doors ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... all along of his honer's thick shoes;" and Larry, stepping backwards towards the door, lifted them up from some corner, and coming well forward, exposed them with the soles uppermost to ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... wisdom, were to ease the levies, by feeding a drove of pigs, which, agreeable to their own nature—ran backwards.—Renting a piece of ground, by way of garden, which supplied the house with a pennyworth of vegetables, for two-pence, adding a few cows, and a pasture; but as the end of all was loss, the ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... question! Know the trail? Haven't I climbed that mountain so many times that I could go up it backwards and ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... as little time as it took him to step backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded masquerade. Instantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the Virginian—the native with head and shoulders submissively bended, as one who awaits ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... he with the Spartans would take the left wing of the army, where he would be opposed to those Greeks who had taken the Persian side. Most of the Athenian generals thought this a silly and insolent proceeding of Pausanias, that he should leave all the other Greeks in their place, and march them backwards and forward like helots, only to place them opposite the bravest troops of the enemy. Aristeides, however, said that they were entirely mistaken, for a few days before they had been wrangling with the Tegeans for ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... nor will we, delay to glance at the well-swept earthen floor, and the bright tins in rows on the dresser, but immediately addressed himself to Aunt Peggy, who, seated in a rush-bottomed chair in the corner, and rocking herself backwards and ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... climbed up, and made it lean so much on one side that I was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to prevent overturning. When the frog was got in, it hopped at once half the length of the boat, and then over my head backwards and forwards. The largeness of its features made it appear the most deformed animal that can be conceived. However, I desired Glumdalclitch to let me deal with it alone. I banged it a good while with one of my sculls, and at last forced ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... occurred to everybody that they had seen nothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the three little Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, what had become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards and forwards between the respective party headquarters and the various committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere as to the whereabouts of the children. Every one had been too busy in the closing moments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near to the top, but not reaching it. So I get ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... carved, particularly the magnificent screen at the east end of the great hall, which is adorned with two columns, their entablature and pediment; and on acroters are placed the figure of Bacchus between several Fames, with other embellishments; and they have a garden backwards ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... upon the figure by her side—Mamzelle Paddy in all the glory of a French hat, wearing the very biggest hair-ribbon in her possession, in honour of the occasion. At sight of the profile the young lady started and cried, "It is! It must be!" Then she dodged backwards, saw the hat, and became filled with doubt. "No, it can't be! ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... extorted a tribute of 50,000,000 denarii from the Emperor Macrinus in 218. Ctesiphon was their capital; the Euphrates lay between them and Rome; they were over thrown by Ardashir of Persia in 224. The Parthians were famous horse-archers, and in retreat shot their arrows backwards often with deadly ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... in an attempt to win over to his side the Duke of Burgundy and Sigismund, King of the Romans, who actually visited him in England. Sigismund promised much, but had little power to fulfil his promises, whilst the Duke shifted backwards and forwards, looking out for his own advantage and giving no real help to either side. In 1417 the quarrels in France reached a head. The Count of Armagnac, getting into his possession the Dauphin Charles, a boy of fourteen, established a ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... uttered quickly, and with a sort of scream, and were supposed to be highly agreeable to Satan, who loved to be called a king. If he did not appear immediately, it was necessary to repeat a further exorcism. The one in greatest repute was as follows, and was to be read backwards, with the exception of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... doubt of it. Old McIntyre was sitting up now, and burst suddenly into a hoarse peal of laughter, rocking himself backwards and forwards, and looking up at them with little twinkling, cunning eyes. It was clear to both of them that his mind, weakened by long brooding over the one idea, had now at last become that of a monomaniac. His horrid causeless mirth was more ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Warden swing round again in his tracks, but before she could turn he had caught her and flung her backwards over his arm. With his other hand simultaneously he dealt Hill a blow in the back that sent him blundering down into the darkness, and then, with lightning rapidity, he banged the door upon his captive. The lock ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... their youth, four other nurses to advise and direct them, and exclusive of two personal maids to look after their dress and toilette, four or five additional young maids to do the washing and sweeping of the rooms and the running about backwards and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... palace. Her father, who had been remotely connected with the Royal blood, was an official in the War Department. Her mother, however, had been married again to the Governor of the province of Chikzen, and had gone there with her husband; so Tayu made her father's house her home, and went from there backwards and forwards to the palace. She was an intimate acquaintance of a young Princess, the daughter of the late Lord-Lieutenant of Hitachi, and she had been the child of his old age, and was at this time his survivor. The life that she passed was somewhat lonely, and her circumstances miserable. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the plain. The men began to feel the cold, and this aggravated their intoxication. Saint Anthony, annoyed at not being the victor, amused himself by shoving his companion so as to make him fall over into the ditch. The other would dodge backwards, and each time he did he uttered some German expression in an angry tone, which made the peasant roar with laughter. Finally the Prussian lost his temper, and just as Anthony was rolling towards him he responded with such a terrific blow with his ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to come out with one foot, with the arm extended along the side and the other foot turned backwards; then the woman must be immediately put to bed and laid in the above-described position; when the midwife must immediately put back the foot which appears so, and the woman must rock herself from side to side, until she finds that the child has turned, but she must ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... unable to sustain any longer the neglect of her lover, here sunk backwards on her chair with a sigh, which at once recalled the Duke from the land of romance, and induced the Lady Hameline to ask whether ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... deck, as leisurely as if he were executing a step in the sword dance; but, the next moment, as his eye took in the position of the ship and the scene around, the wind catching him at the moment, and almost knocking him backwards down the hatchway, as it met him full butt, he made a dash for the weather rigging, shouting out to his companions behind, who were coming up out of the fo'c's'le just as slowly as he had done: "Look alive, mates! Ther's ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... got married I jumped a broomstick. To git unmarried, all you had to do was to jump backwards over the ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... moment was close at had. Myrtle was listening with an instinctive premonition of what was coming,—ten thousand mothers and grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and so on, had passed through it all in preceding generations, until time readied backwards to the sturdy savage who asked no questions of any kind, but knocked down the primeval great-grandmother of all, and carried her off to his hole in the rock, or into the tree where he had made his nest. Why should ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... to wrestle for a crown. Is this all that thou hast brought me from thy field of high renown? Is this all the trophy carried from the lands where thou hast been? It was broider'd by a Princess, can'st thou give it to a Queen?" Woman's love is writ in water! Woman's faith is traced in sand! Backwards—backwards let me wander to the noble northern land; Let me feel the breezes blowing fresh along the mountain side; Let me see the purple heather, let me hear the thundering tide, Be it hoarse as Corrievreckan spouting when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... "Pardon?" for the second time. That upset the Marquis to such a point that he said "Damn," which is the only English word he knows, and when Victorine looked horribly surprised, he dived into his waistcoat pocket and fished out the ring. Then he took her hand, pulled off her glove backwards, and pushed it on to the first finger he came to, which happened to be the middle one! He just said he hoped she would wear it for his sake; and when she exclaimed, "Mais, monsieur! ce n'est pas ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... although the railway had been of much service, was still distant. There was not sufficient rolling stock available to transport all the infantry simultaneously, and, in any case, the cavalry, artillery, and waggons must have proceeded by road. The trains, therefore, moving backwards and forwards along the line, and taking up the rear brigades in succession, forwarded them in a couple of hours a whole day's march. Beyond Frederickshall the line had been destroyed ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... steadily contracted, and the patient was sent down to the Base one month after receiving the wound, when the condition was as follows. There is no evidence of any fracture of the jaw. On the right side of the neck a large aneurism fills the carotid triangle, extending from the mid-line backwards to the margin of the trapezius, and from the level of the top of the larynx upwards to the margin of the mandible. The wall is fairly firm, pulsation is both visible and palpable, and a well-marked thrill and machinery murmur are present. The latter annoys ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... entertainment was provided free by our owner's agent, and altogether we found Nassau very jolly: so much so, that we felt almost sorry when 'time' was called, and we had to prepare for another run. In fact, it was pleasanter in blockade-running to look backwards than forwards, especially if one had been so ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... Torrance was on his feet. A single blow he struck at Werner's mad eyes. The head before him snapped back, the bent legs crumpled. As if he had been shot, Werner's limp body slid backwards down the sand. For a moment it hung balanced over the edge, then bent slowly over ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... with Lucy personally,—but with the untoward fact that her son would not marry money. At the deanery she remained for fifteen happy months, and then became Mrs. Greystock, with a bevy of Fawn bridesmaids around her. As the personages of a chronicle such as this should all be made to operate backwards and forwards on each other from the beginning to the end, it would have been desirable that the chronicler should have been able to report that the ceremony was celebrated by Mr. Emilius. But as the wedding ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short, uneasy motion— Backwards and forwards half her length With a short, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... winding upland road back to her home, her thoughts followed her sister into her new existence, and then turned wistfully backwards to the days that had been marked off into the past by Algitha's departure. How bright and eager and hopeful they had all been, how full of enthusiasm and generous ambitions! Even as they talked of battle, they stretched forth their hands ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of her nature made her pause for some minutes at his door. She heard him traverse his chamber backwards, and forwards with disordered steps; a mood which increased her apprehensions. She was, however, just going to beg admittance, when Manfred suddenly opened the door; and as it was now twilight, concurring with the disorder of his mind, he did not distinguish the person, but asked angrily, who it ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... knee on the window-sill and then struggled for a moment, her foot engaged in the last rung of the ladder; then she turned and stepped down backwards into ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Beak was born he was a minor, and his nose must have been no better than a badly-shaped button or piece of putty; but the Major's father had owned a tremendous aquiline nose, which at birth had also been a button, and so on we can proceed backwards until we drive the Beaks into that remote antiquity where historical fact begins and mythological theory terminates—that period when men were wont, it is supposed, to name each other intelligently with reference to personal ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Reilly, Larry cleared six yards backwards at wan jump if he cleared an inch; and he'd a cleared seven if Doolan's granmother hadn't cotch him in her apern widhout intindin to. ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... will not follow all the different manoeuvres of the deer-stalker and his followers, but bring them at once near the unconscious stag. After performing a very considerable circuit, moving sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards, the party at length arrive at the back of a hillock, on the opposite side of which the stalker said, in a whisper, the deer was lying, and that he was not distant a hundred yards. The whole party immediately moved forward in silent and breathless expectation, with the dogs in ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... down on the stone and watched the Mohar, who slowly and silently paced backwards and forward in front of her. This incessant to and fro of her companion at last became unendurable to her sensitive and irritated nerves, and suddenly raising her head from her hand, on which she had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... portion of our life it is, that we really enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands. Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the man's uniform was green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held the grenade a second and then threw it, throwing himself backwards into the middle of the kitchen. The light-haired man had not moved; his blue eyes still stared ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Story help the mountains to please us a good deal. He is the son of Judge Story, the biographer of his father, and for himself, sculptor and poet—and she a sympathetic graceful woman, fresh and innocent in face and thought. We go backwards and forwards to tea and talk at ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... accounted the most eloquent of all the Romans. He was Verres's counsel in the prosecution conducted against him by Cicero. Seneca relates that his memory was so great that he could come out of an auction and repeat the catalogue backwards. He ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... warriors, O king, thinking the sun to have set were filled with delight at the prospect of Partha's laying down his life. Indeed, thy warriors, not seeing the sun, were filled with gladness. All of them stood, with heads thrown backwards. King Jayadratha also was in the same attitude. And while the ruler of the Sindhus was thus beholding the sun, Krishna, once more addressing Dhananjaya said these words, "Behold, the heroic ruler of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... do!" he said to himself, rocking backwards and forwards, with his hands clasped over his knees,—"if ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... off backwards, his big bony figure bending double with repeated genuflections. Pierre, whom the scene had greatly interested, in him beheld a specimen of the petty clergy of Rome and its environs, of whom people had told him before his departure from Paris. This was not the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to the general conference in Cincinnati, and the Methodist Episcopal Church denied ordination to the women whom it had graduated in its schools and upon whom it had conferred the degree of bachelor of divinity. It not only did this, but it made a step backwards; it took from us the licenses to preach which had been granted to Miss Oliver for four years and to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... stopping to rest only for a short time. Little Mary now was too weak to walk alone. The other two held her up between them or carried her on their backs. Troloo had gone on without faltering as yet, but now they reached some hard, stony ground, and after going backwards and forwards several times he shook his head and said that he could not find the track of the children. They must go across it. Perhaps it might be found on the other side. Mr Harlow and his party went across the stony ground, but they looked up and down in vain. All the ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... Magepa leapt up and wheeled round to take the thrust in the chest. Evidently he did not wish to be speared in the back—for a certain reason. He took it sure enough, for the assegai was wrenched out of the hand of the striker. Still, as he was reeling backwards, it did not go through Magepa, or perhaps it hit a bone. He drew out the spear and threw it at the man, wounding him. Then he staggered on, back and back, to the ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... help pitying them; but Uncle Doc had tried to persuade them not to walk, so that it was their own fault after all. You cannot imagine what a dreadful feeling it gives one to be climbing a slippery, rocky path, and know that a great heavy boy is pulling your horse backwards by the tail. Polly insisted that she heard her mule's tail break loose from its moorings, and on measuring it when she got back to camp she found it three inches ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... attention of another member when in company or at a public place we take the braid between the thumb and little finger and stand carelessly on one leg. This is the Secret Signal and the password is Sobb (B.O.S.S. spelled backwards) which was my idea and is thought ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... boy sculled the boat, and, apparently, had been ignorant of the ship's approach, for he gave a shout of alarm on seeing it, and made frantic efforts to get out of its way. In his wild attempts to turn the boat he missed a stroke and went backwards into ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... beauty—spake he piteously; Then breaks away once more, by Kali driven. But yet another and another time Stole back into the hut, for one last gaze— That way by Kali dragged, this way by love. Two hearts he had—the trouble-stricken Prince— One beating "Go," one throbbing "Stay"; and thus Backwards and forwards swung his mind between, Till, mastered by the sorrow and the spell, Frantic flies Nala, leaving there alone That tender-sleeper, sighing as she slept. He flies—the soulless prey of Kali flies; Still, while he hurries through the forest drear, Thinking ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... from each and all of them is presented in 437 D ([Greek: to blasphaemounti eis to pneuma to hagion ouk aphethaesetai auto oute en to nun aioni oute en to mellonti]). Another example of Epiphanius' manner in skipping backwards and forwards from one Synoptic to another may be seen in 218 D, which is made up of Matt. xv. 4-9 and Mark vii. 6-13. A strange mistake is made in 428 D, where [Greek: paraekolouthaekoti] is taken with [Greek: tois autoptais kai hupaeretais ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... paralyzed, and he and the other deacon rushed out to pick up the minister and the first old man, and when they struck the steps they went kiting. Pa's feet somehow slipped backwards, and he turned a summersault and struck full length on his back, and one heel was across the minister's neck, and he slid down the steps, and the other deacon fell all over the other three, and Pa swore at them, and it was the worst ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... flung her hand away, and then in a twinkling he gave her a push, and before she could recover herself she had gone backwards over the edge of the dock. With a frightened cry she disappeared, and the man, instead of trying to rescue her, leaped aside and vanished into ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... suddenly descended on the town, turned out Colonel Weare, who was in command of the Parliamentary forces, and took possession. Many skirmishes must have taken place either in or about the town, for large bodies of the troops belonging to King or Parliament moved backwards and forwards in the immediate neighbourhood during ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... beginning of that way of prayer, with this book for my guide; for I had no master—I mean, no confessor—who understood me, though I sought for such a one for twenty years afterwards: which did me much harm, in that I frequently went backwards, and might have been even utterly lost; for, anyhow, a director would have helped me to escape the risks I ran of sinning ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila |
