"Drop back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at her own sweet will, perfectly regardless of the time and key of the accompaniment with which Charlie was struggling to follow her. At length her cousin was forced to abandon his efforts and allow her to drop back into her old place as listener, a part which she always played with perfect success and contentment, while he turned his attention to the others. Grant was taking banjo lessons now, and Ned occasionally strummed a little on the venerable guitar which Louise had thrown ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... were packed like sardines in a box, caused us to almost suffocate, while to remain on deck five minutes would be to court death by freezing. Thus one would go up the little ladder, stick his head through the door a moment for a breath of fresh air, then drop back and allow another the pleasure of a fresh breathing spell. So we alternated between freezing and smothering all the way, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles or more. I had read of the tortures of the "middle passage" and the packing of the slave ships, but I ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... dark flanks of the fishing-boats all aslope above, in their shining quietness, hot in the morning sun, rusty and seamed with square patches of plank nailed over their rents; just rough enough to let the little flat-footed fisher-children haul or twist themselves up to the gunwales, and drop back again along some stray rope; just round enough to remind us, in their broad and gradual curves, of the sweep of the green surges they know so well, and of the hours when those old sides of seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge and dip into the deep green purity of ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... brown tamarack water of the swamp just when he should have been most careful. They had known him to do such things more than a few times in the past; and on this account Mark always made it a point to drop back and keep him company when he imagined ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... made without eggs or milk," said Felix. "You mix a quart of flour with a tablespoonful of baking-powder and put in water till it is just so thin that when you take up a spoonful and let it drop back you can see the shape of it for a few seconds before it melts into the rest. You fry the batter in bacon fat or butter just like pan-cakes, and the cakes ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... scene, when they seem to say, "Why, THIS is home," and down they come again; beholding the wreck and ruins once more, they still thinking there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third time and then drop back pitifully as before. It is the most pathetic sight of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling to save a few drops of their ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... years. Such is the effect of mere personal sympathy upon a man's look and bearing. When, therefore, one bright May morning, the family at Greyhope, himself excluded, was ready to start for London, he had no thought but that he would drop back into his old silent life, as it was before Lali came, and his brother's child was born. He was not conscious that he was very restless that morning; he scarcely was aware that he had got up two hours earlier than usual. At the breakfast- ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mystified him. He glanced all over me with a playful eye and said, "You must have a carbine the first time our ordnance-wagon finds us. Drop back, now, into the ranks." ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... the almost lifeless girl, and forced open her lips. Then he took the glass, and poured half the contents down her throat. She spluttered, but swallowed, and he let her form drop back on the bed. He was in a cold perspiration now, and in sudden fear, he fairly rushed out of the cottage and down the hillside in the direction ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... men to drop back into the woods. But it was with great difficulty at first that he could inforce his commands upon the now thoroughly aroused sailors. They wanted to continue their ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... this?' he said, gathering up the money in his hand and letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water. 'Do you hear it? Do you know the sound of gold? There, put it back—and don't talk about banks again, Isaac, till you've got one of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... don't none of you look very dangerous," he was told, "so drop back as you please. We can't take chances, you understand, so we'll ask you to produce proofs that you're what you claim. Then if everything is O.K. p'raps now you might invite a couple of hungry and tired guards to hang around a while until you rustled ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... the broken sword in his hand when the door opened again and some one came rushing in. The Soldier had to drop back on the carpet, letting his broken sword fall where it would, and neither the Horse nor the other toys could speak ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... "She's getting splendid care," he cried. He could not endure the thought that it was still necessary to exercise caution lest they rejoice prematurely. He had taken the leap from boyish despair to boyish confidence at a bound, and he had no mind to drop back to a half-way point of doubt ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... day or two, the stock may drop back to less than one half of what it was selling at. If this "one-man" manipulator wants to buy any stock, he will give out a little unfavorable news, and he can get ...
— Successful Stock Speculation • John James Butler
... the game to leave, even for refreshments. Now and then I saw him beckon to an attendant, who brought him a stiff drink of whiskey. For a moment his play seemed a little better, then he would drop back into his hopeless losing. For some reason or other ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... drop back a bit, and let some of the rest of you fellows take the lead from now on," Lub told them, contritely, "I ought to have known better than to try and show off when I'm such a greeny about ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... hold of a woman who was trying to get out of the same place. I dragged her out. The ship was full of Jews, women, and people, selling all sorts of things. I threw the woman from me, and saw all the heads drop back again in at the port-hole, for the ship had got so much on her larboard side, that the starboard port-holes were as much upright as if the men had tried to get out of the top of a chimney, with nothing for their ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... spar so that he could scramble free. She needed to be strong to do that; but she was strong. If she had held the spar up only an instant longer, the other man might have wiggled free too. But she let it drop back. The man she had freed she picked up and carried to the quarter-rail, where she waited for us in the boat. He made an effort as if to get back to the man left under the spar, but she would not let him. "Tain't no crime, Honey," I heard her say as we got to them. She went overboard ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... uninquiring affection, the breadth of outlook, the quick friendliness, the careless assumption that one was decent, that one's intentions were good,—why shouldn't he pull some of the splendid stuff into his poor, lame little home? Why should he let himself drop back from heights like those to the old ridiculous timidities, the miserable habit of avoiding the truth? Rebellion, hope, determination, seized Mr. Twist. His eyes shone behind his spectacles. His ears were two red flags of revolution. He gripped hold ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... listen, Hedwig," said the Crown Prince, almost fretfully. "It's so interesting. The enemy's soldiers would come up the river in boats, and along that road on foot. And then we would raise the guns and shoot at them. And the guns would drop back again, before the enemy had time to aim ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the thickly-carpeted floor, a dip to the left, another to the right, a plunge forward, a drop back, then a settling down to a steady persistent roll, showed her companions that Audrey was right—the yacht was crossing the bar which lay at the mouth of Scarhaven Bay. Outside that lay the North Sea, and Copplestone suddenly wondered which course the vessel was going ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... with a snort of disgust, and a few minutes afterward, when we were tramping along, I made it my business to drop back beside Maru and advise him to keep the ring out of the youngster's sight till we had rescued Miss Barbara. If the native had displayed his reward it was highly probable that the lovesick Holman, with nerves on the raw edge from want of sleep ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... herself drop back among the pretty pillows. "I don't want any. If there was a fire," she said dully, "then it's true. Everything's all burned up. I don't want any tea. I want ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... that," the young man went on. "I'm willing to accept a handicap. I'll drop back about five hundred feet and ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... "Grandfather Fragini, you must drop back—you must! If you don't, I'll have you carried back!" called Dellarme, sparing the old man only a glance from his concentrated observation on ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... his bridges behind him. He must either climb aloft or drop back into the river; but there had been no other way. He struggled to raise one leg over the limb, but found himself scarce equal to the effort, for he was very weak. For a time he hung there feeling his strength ebbing. He knew that he must gain the branch above at once or it ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... But because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours will drop back into a secondary place in the world. These two writers really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, the greedy usurer, the comfortable obstructive, confronted with ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... a moment. "I am using a supported grade there for eight miles to get over the hill within a three-tenths limit. I can't drop back there. We might as well not build at all if we can't hold our grade, whereas it would be very simple to run a new line for your ditch, and my engineers will do it for you without a dollar of expense to ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... yet we're not content to think of nothing but socks and darning-cotton. I'd demand all I could get—whether I finally settled down to designing frocks or building temples or pressing pants. What if you do drop back? You'll have had the adventure. Don't be too meek toward life! Go! You're young, you're unmarried. Try everything! Don't listen to Nat Hicks and Sam Clark and be a 'steady young man'—in order to help ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... while the train sped across the naked, singeing back of the plains like the welt that springs to meet the fall of the lash. For two nights he watched the distended sun, exhausted by its own madness, drop back into the heated void, and the tortured stars rise over the stricken desert. At the end of thirty-six hours of agony he arrived at Rio Mendoza. Thence he reached Punta de Vacas, procured mules and a guide, and prepared for the ascent ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... They have to, even in the face of an economic system that holds out no prospects of anything but insecurity and an increasing chance of trouble and disaster to the employee's family group. What happens is that they drop back into a distressful, crippled, insecure imitation of the old family life as one had it in what I might call the multiplying periods of history. They start a home,—they dream of a cottage, but they drift to a lodging, and usually it isn't ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... hour later Harry said: "You had better drop back now, Jerry, there is the gap right ahead. If you see me hold up my paddle you row ashore. When we come to a bad rapid we had better all get out, and make our way down on the rocks as far as we can, to see what it ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... she had time, through their light rattle of talk, to readjust herself and drop back into her usual feeling of friendly ease with him. He had been extraordinarily considerate, for anyone who always so undisguisedly sought his own satisfaction above all things; and if his considerateness ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go; a shock which in the best of times had made him tremble. He drew no water but by stealth and under the cloak of night. After an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, the merchant who had educated him was appealed to. The merchant was a bow-legged ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... guess we're holding our own again now. For a little while I began to be afraid that they were going to just make us take their dust, and give us the merry ha-ha, vanishing in the distance. But now I know you've got the twist of the thing down fine, Frank, and can haul up on the biplane, or drop back, ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... on Physical Flash-lights I have described the old volcano of Bromo. It is a terrible thing to look into. Great fissures in the earth, belch thunder, sulphur, fire, and lava. Great rocks as large as wagons shoot into the air to the rim of the two hundred-foot crater, and then drop back with a crash. ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... felt his heart suddenly bound upward, and as suddenly drop back in his breast like lead. Glad that there was a chance for another pal to come under the same brutal sway as he had? What sort of a friend was he, anyway? But an I.O.U.!... And in Lester Stark's name! He remembered the black looks ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... up the Tennessee river would avoid this danger, for if our boats were crippled, they would drop back with the current and escape capture; but a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy's lines in two by reaching the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred miles due west, ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... shibriyah, more, I suspect, for the sake of annoying the Sikh than because she really wanted it. So she ranged alongside, and chiefly because I was curious and chose to be amused, but partly because of my league with Narayan Singh to keep watch on her, I checked my protesting camel and let him drop back into place ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... discipline, such as grazing on the march, or attempting unauthorized short cuts. They appreciated this duty. Bullet always became vastly indignant if one of the pack-horses misbehaved. He would run at the offender angrily, hustle him to his place with savage nips of his teeth, and drop back to his own position with a comical air of virtue. Once in a great while it would happen that on my spurring up from the rear of the column I would be mistaken for one of the pack-horses attempting illegally to get ahead. Immediately Dinkey or Buckshot would snake his head out crossly to turn ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... up against? Here's cattle that's got you skinned for looks, old girl, and they know it's coming blamed tough; and you just bat your eyes and peg along like yuh enjoyed it. Bawl, or something, can't yuh? Drop back a ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... word descriptive of the bird's halting flight; and indeed to see a landrail drop, as already mentioned, after flying a few yards, makes one incredulous when tracing its long voyages on the map. In the first place, however, it should be remembered that the bird does not drop back in the grass because it is tired, but solely because it knows the way to safety by running out of sight. In the second, the apparent weakness of its wings is not real. Quails have little round wings that look ill adapted to long journeys. I have been struck ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... nine pens, and why warm houses partly covered with earth were necessary for their comfort and health, while the sledge dogs required nothing more than a bed of snow. Father Roland seized this opportunity to drop back toward the cabin, calling in Cree to Mukoki. Five seconds after the cabin concealed him from David he had the plush box out of his pocket; another five and he had opened it and the locket itself was in his hand. And then, his breath coming in a sudden, hissing spurt between his teeth, he was ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... canoe. P'tit Louis made his way carefully to a point of rock, with the wide-mouthed, long-handled net, and dipped it quietly down into the water, two or three feet deep. The fish was guided gently in toward the shore, and allowed to drop back with the smooth current until the net was around him. Then it was swiftly lifted; there was the gleam of an immense mass of silver in its meshes, an instant of furious struggle, the quick stroke of a short, heavy baton; and the great salmon ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... who did threw them back. They were reverting to the old piscatorial stage, feeling again the old thrill of a nibble on the hook, and went home refreshed, even if they had not had a bite, because they had been able to drop back into an ancient stratum of the soul which was sound, so that they came back to the hard reality of the next day refreshed. Play in general, too, we now regard as reversionary, and I cannot but believe that many ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... the reservation and as they look when they are graduated,—well dressed, intelligent, with the fire of ambition in their eyes. We predict great things for them; but the majority of those who go back to their tribes, after struggling awhile to keep up their new standards, gradually drop back to their old manner of living. There are, of course, many notable exceptions, but these are strong characters, able to resist the downward-dragging ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and lift the patient or pupil to a sitting attitude. Here, of course, if the muscles that hold the head are perfectly relaxed, the head will drop back from its own weight. Then, in letting the body back again, of course, keep hold of the hands,—never let go; and after it is down, if the neck has remained relaxed, the head will be back in a most uncomfortable attitude, and must be lifted and placed ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... near the window, at the suggestion of Amelius. He knelt down so as to raise her foot to his knee. "Turn a little more towards the light," he said. He took the foot in his hand, lifted it, looked at it—and suddenly let it drop back on the floor. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... terror of the titlark, what says the old hat which a beggar would none of? "I was the fashion!" And the coat? "I was the fashion!" And the tattered sleeves, that no one has care to mend, try to clasp the Wind, whom they take for the Fashion, and drop back empty—The Wind has passed, the Wind ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... waiting on miladi, whose strength of will kept her alive. Or was it that horrible fear of death? If it was true as the priests taught—oh, yes, it must be. God could not be so cruel as to put creatures in this world to toil and suffer, and then drop back to dust, to nothingness. Even the Indians believed in another sphere, in their crude superstitious fashion, and there must be some better place as a reward for the pain here that was not one's own fault. She loved to peer beyond the skies as she thought, and to drift midway ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... on the Rosemary. If Winton should attempt to build around the private car, the fireman was to wait till the critical moment: then he was to lessen the pressure on the automatic air-brakes and let the car drop back down the grade just far enough to ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... Cain't you-all drop back and tell your Paw what ails me?" shouted Jeb, certain that John, who had been to college, ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... had dropped into the soft, melodious chant of his nation. At times he would lapse into Malay, and the boatmen would push forward and listen with unconcealed excitement. Then, as he returned to English, they would drop back into their places, but never take their eyes off the face of the speaker. Only our China "boys" took no interest in the past of Maur. It was tiffin time, and they were anxious to set before us our lunch of rice curry, gula Malacca, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... for years after, and even for life. Finally, that as these cases were followed further and further, it was found that even after becoming cured they were sadly liable to relapse under some unexpected strain, or to slacken their vigilance and drop back into their former bad physical habits; while the conviction began to grow steadily upon men who had devoted one, two, or more decades to the study of this disease in the localities most resorted to for its ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... would go sixty miles on the moon. A lunar giant thirty-five feet tall would weigh no more than an ordinary son of Adam weighs on his greater planet. To shoot a body from the earth so that it would not drop back again, we should have to start it with a velocity of seven miles per second; a mile and a half per second would serve on the moon. It is by no means difficult to believe, then, that a lunar volcano might form a crater ring eight or ten times broader than the greatest ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... grasping Judd by the arm, shouted in his ear: "I'll switch positions with you. You drop back and punt that ball out of ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... gang become by the taste of human blood, that they soon, in their determined and constantly-repeated efforts, began to strike and seize the beams with their teeth, by which they would hang suspended a moment, and then drop back again to the ground for another trial. The terrified maiden now gave herself up as lost, and tried to quell the tumult of her frenzied feelings, that she might meet her approaching fate, as dreadful as it was, with calmness and resignation. But the terrific noise of her ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... window. The trekking, the fighting, the croak of the invisible rifle, the glare of the sun, the row of swarthy determined faces, the roar of horse hoofs, all this, and the lounging days by river banks (shooting guinea-fowl and springbuck), will drop back and be shut off from one's life to rise now and then, I suppose, with the creeping of an old excitement ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... way among the branches to permit one to see indistinctly for a few feet. She was confident that she could give their enemy one quick glance and then drop back before ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... exploits which were not easy, especially the long swing and the triple suspension. Then Joe, alone, did an act which has been fully described in the book just previous to this one. It is called the "drop back to instep hang," and Joe did it in such a way that it was very thrilling. The act looked as though an accident had happened and that Joe was falling from the trapeze. But he caught himself in the ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... dandy. He was nevertheless curious to know who this personage was with whom the countess had been shut up so long. Hearing no one approach the room he was in, he went to the window and opened the curtain cautiously, prepared to let it drop back at the slightest noise, and to make a quick right-about-face to avoid being caught, "flagrante delicto," in curiosity. An elegant coupe, standing at a little distance, was now driven up to the house, a footman in showy livery hastened to open the door, and a little old ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... on the chart. I add this brief explanation, that Davies's method had been to cross the channel called the Buse Tief, and strike the other side of it at a point well south of the outlet of the Memmert Balje (in view of the northward set of the ebb-tide), and then to drop back north and feel his way to the outlet. The check was caused by a deep indentation in the Itzendorf Flat; a cul-de-sac, with a wide mouth, which Davies was very near mistaking for the Balje itself. We had no time to skirt dents so deep as that; hence the dash across its mouth ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Dullness or dizziness of the head? Dryness or heat of the nose? Is your voice harsh or rough? Have you any difficulty in talking? Have you an excessive secretion of mucus or matter in the nasal passages, which must either be blown from the nose, or drop back behind the palate, or hawked or snuffed backward to the throat? Ringing or roaring or other noises in the ears, more or less impairment of the hearing? If so ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various |
