"Fall back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swipe o' men at Amboy this mornin', makin' us fall back mighty quick ter Bonumtown, an' there, arter the orficers confabulated, it wuz decided thet as the bloody-backs wuz too strong ter fight, the militia and the flyin' camp thereabouts hed better go home an' look ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... made the horses rear and fall back upon their masters by pricking their nostrils with the points of their lances. The slaves who were to hurl stones had picked such as were too big, and they accordingly fell close to them. The Punic foot-soldiers exposed ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the convict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection, and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall back there in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must be done! He had done nothing if he did not do all this; his whole life was useless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of saying, "What is the use?" He felt that the Bishop ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... relation to the body which has been mentioned above. If we ask the psychologist how he knows that the body he is talking about is a real body, and not merely an imagined one, he has to fall back upon the test which is common to us all. A real hand is one which we see with the eyes open, and which we touch with the other hand. If our experiences of our own body had not the setting which marks ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... not a dominant nature. I never trusted myself as a leader. Leading abashed me. I was happiest in the comity of the crowd. Having received a hamper, I was always glad when it was finished, glad to fall back into the ranks. Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... those trees which Perry attempted to ascend, for the suggestion of safety carried by the larger of the forest giants had evidently attracted him to them. A dozen times he scrambled up the trunks like a huge cat only to fall back to the ground once more, and with each failure he cast a horrified glance over his shoulder at the oncoming brute, simultaneously emitting terror-stricken shrieks that awoke the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed, but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose native means of expression is the thin ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... factory was brought to him nightly by Ridgar and the young clerk Gifford, and he would look over things and make a few suggestions, dispose of this and that as a matter of course and fall back into his lethargy. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... droning song of the scalp dance had ceased and with it the voices of the warriors talking. No sound came from the river, save the soft swish of the flowing waters, and now and then a gurgle and a splash, when some huge catfish raised part of his body above the surface, and then let it fall back again. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... educational work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... to fall back a little way. Then he exerted himself to show his best in seamanship as he ran the submarine up to board the sloop by the starboard quarter. The two boats barely touched. Mr. Terrell, his three marines and two seamen leaped to the standing room of the yacht. Eph, all ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... too, there was some feeling of the hardship inflicted upon her by John Gordon. He had certainly said that which had justified her in believing that she possessed his heart. But yet there had been no word on which she could fall back and regard it as ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... that there is a wonderful similarity in his physiognomy every year. However this may be, there is no doubt that some one is annually dug out of the Ghetto, which is the pit of Judaism here in Rome; and if he fall back again, after receiving the temporal reward, and without waiting for the spiritual, he probably finds it worth his while to do so, in view of the zeal of the Church, and in remembrance of the fifteenth verse of the twenty-third ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... fail to discover and apprize them of any secret ambuscade; and that he had little doubt they would find the ways secure, or, if otherwise, would receive such timely notice of the danger as would enable them to fall back on a strong troop of archers, with which he himself proposed to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Carrington, them's the kind of people that need help. You ain't no idee how many men in this city have got little businesses that's jest makin' them a livin' but nothin' over for a rainy day, and when the day comes they've nothin' to fall back on. And if they could tide themselves over the bad times, whether it's sickness or bad business, they'd be all right. That's just like the truck gardener down on the Fulham Lane. Ain't you seen his place? The hail broke all his ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... scruple somehow and I seemed to know by instinct that she would not believe me if I expounded those theories of love and marriage which you know I so strongly hold. Pure reason would not appeal to her. So I had to fall back upon sentiment. Instead of saying, "I shall never love. It is impossible," I said, "I have ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Midas, Silenus & others, who fall back during the scene; Midas is always anxious about his crown, & Zopyrion gets behind him & tries ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that $200,000 appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... visionaries may say, would be certain to fail. Popularity is indispensable to the success of Lafayette, for thousands now support him, who, in despite of his principles, would become his enemies, were he to fall back sternly on the truth, and turn his back on all whose acts and motives would not, perhaps, stand the test of investigation. The very beings he wished to serve would desert him, were he to let them ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would not make this country exclusively agricultural because we have boundless fields and can raise corn cheap, any more than I would recommend a Minnesota farmer to raise nothing but wheat. Insects and mildews and unexpected heats may blast a whole harvest, and the farmer has nothing to fall back upon. He may make more money, for a time, by raising wheat exclusively; but he impoverishes his farm. He should raise cattle and sheep and grass and vegetables, as well as wheat or corn. Then he is more independent and more intelligent, even as a nation is by various industries, which call out all ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... A portion of Ewell's Corps had passed through the town several days before, and neglected to secure that very commanding position. Was it mere accident, or something more, which thus gave the key to the country into our hands, and led the invaders, alarmed by Meade's vigorous pursuit, to fall back and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... meet the foe whether within his own kingdom or invade the foe's realm and thus oblige the foe to fall back for resisting him there. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... acted as escort, and brought her several minutes later, safe and sound, but trembling on my account, and this is what she told me. "Just imagine. When the crowd was pressing against you, seized with terror on seeing your head fall back with closed eyes on to Abbey's shoulder, I shouted out, 'Help! My sister is being killed.' I had become mad. A man of enormous size, who had followed us for a long time, worked his elbows and hips to make the enthusiastic but overexcited ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... million years seems more probable—but still only an instant in the life of a star—they begin to draw apart, and the flaming column is stretched out, and ever thinner it grows, and the two stars at last separate. But now the gas will never fall back into the sun. Like some giant flaming cigar it reaches out into space and it will stay thus, for it has been set in rotation about the sun at such a speed as is needed to form an orbit. The giant ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... diverse objects that are agreeable and disagreeable. When one withdraws his senses from the objects of (those) senses as the tortoise its limbs from all sides, even his is steadiness of mind. Objects of senses fall back from an abstinent person, but not so the passion (for those objects). Even the passion recedes from one who has beheld the Supreme (being).[146] The agitating senses, O son of Kunti, forcibly draw away the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again." ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... a night of rain—rain that slashed and whipped the house as though it would batter it to the ground. The rain would come with a wild fury upon the panes, trembling with its excited anger, would crash against the glass, then fall back and hang waiting for a further attack; next the results of the first attack would slip and slide like the crawling of a thousand snakes, then fall and drop slowly and heavily as though every drop were ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... intend not to be separated from the balloon until I reach the western coast of Africa. With it, every thing is possible; without it, I fall back into the dangers and difficulties as well as the natural obstacles that ordinarily attend such an expedition: with it, neither heat, nor torrents, nor tempests, nor the simoom, nor unhealthy climates, nor wild animals, nor savage men, are to be ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... garden, and Joseph said to Esora: she'll be knocking at the door in another minute; she mustn't come hither. Go and meet her, Esora, and as soon as the girl is safe come back to me. It shall be as thou sayest, Master; but meanwhile hold the man forward; let him not fall back upon the pillow, for it will stick there and my work will be undone. To which Joseph obeyed, himself quaking lest the Pharisees had come in search of Jesus, saying to himself: the Pharisees might be persuaded that Jesus is risen ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... incarceration for a time, and are then sent back to the bosom of the tribes, with the elements of the knowledge of letters and history, which their parents and friends are utterly unable to appreciate, and which they, in fact, ridicule. The instructed youth is soon discouraged, and they most commonly fall back into habits worse than before, and end their course by inebriety, while the body of the tribe is nowise bettered. Whatever the defects are, there are certainly some things to amend in our measures and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... plantation that night. A large force of Federal soldiers had loomed up in the vicinity, and the Confederate army had been compelled to fall back to the mountains and ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... brave men who had seen nearly three thousand of their comrades fall on the day before, sent the confederates back from the road. At length, the divisions on the right and left of Getty having fallen back to the Brock road, the division was forced to fall back to the road also, but only after exhibiting a steadiness and valor rarely equaled by ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... friend—fall back,' said the military lady, as soon as he had delivered the bow to Hal; 'I mean, stand out of the way, for your great patch cuts no figure amongst us. Don't follow so close, now, as if you belonged ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... Danish butter and a fair amount of paraffin, with smaller supplies of assorted articles—the whole sufficient to afford provision for such a party as ours for about six or eight months if well administered. In case of necessity this would undoubtedly be a very useful reserve to fall back upon. These stores are somewhat scattered, and the hut has a dilapidated, comfortless appearance due to its tenantless condition; but even so it seemed to me much less inviting than our old Discovery hut at ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... where he was a familiar guest. But he had never wanted these things for himself, any more than he wished for a pedigree and the images of ancestors to adorn lofty halls. He came away from splendid houses more than willing to fall back into plainer ways. Neither had he ever been apologetic toward his friends. If they wanted to come and dine with him on inexpensive vegetables, he would gladly himself superintend the polishing of his few pieces of silver and the setting of his cheap table. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... with such a brisk and well-directed fire from his arquebusiers, that their ranks were disconcerted. The Portuguese men-at- arms, charging them at the same time, augmented their confusion, and compelled them to fall back precipitately on the narrow pass in their rear, where, being supported by some fresh detachments from the reserve, they were with difficulty rallied by their officers, and again brought into the field. In the mean while, Ferdinand closed with the enemy's centre, and the action ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... ten thousands I have slain, I have smitten old and young. Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust; And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breast Of its mother, dead and cold. I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky, And fall back upon an earth of ashes; But, heedless, I have gone on with my work. 'Tis thus, O, Prince, that I ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... Blow up to-morrow all the country-seats on the banks of the Hudson, and all the fine houses on Madison Square, and Brooklyn Heights, and Bunker Hill, and Rittenhouse Square, and Beacon Street, and all the bricks and timber and stone will just fall back on the bare head of American labor. The worst enemies of the working-classes in the United States and Ireland are their demented coadjutors. Assassination—the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, in the attempt to avenge the wrongs of ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... his first defeat by a splendid victory. From his camp at Fulda, whither he had marched with his army, he earnestly requested permission from the Duke of Bavaria to give battle to Gustavus Adolphus. But, in the event of Tilly's defeat, the League had no second army to fall back upon, and Maximilian was too cautious to risk again the fate of his party on a single battle. With tears in his eyes, Tilly read the commands of his superior, which compelled him to inactivity. Thus his march to Franconia was delayed, and Gustavus Adolphus gained time to overrun ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... coal cars up the incline, broke, letting them fall back at break-neck speed against the engine-house. Fortunately it occurred at a time when the men were not riding up the incline, so no lives were lost. This accident was the subject of discussion that night at "The Miner's Rest." ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... when they're cool and tranquil, I get on to a word or two, but usually I fall back on moral suasion and the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... take up the ancient glad salutation, 'The Lord is risen!' and, turning from these thoughts of the disaster and despair that that awful supposition drags after it, fall back upon sober certainty, and with the Apostle break forth in triumph, 'Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... of a conversation in which Vanessa's native Jewish wit was beginning to tell against the more homely gifts of the rest of the party, Leonetta would suddenly fall back, stand in an attitude of rapt attention over a brook, a well, a wild flower, a plank bridge, a pool, or anything; and, at a signal from her, the three men of the party would quickly rally to her halting place, and ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... sixpence for a bottle of strong medicine. In this predicament most people, to save themselves from unbearable mistrust and misery, or from being driven by their conscience into actual conflict with the law, fall back on the old rule that if you cannot have what you believe in you must believe in what you have. When your child is ill or your wife dying, and you happen to be very fond of them, or even when, if you are not fond of them, you are human enough to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... is Canaan cursed and not Ham? For an answer to this question, we are at liberty neither to fall back upon the sovereign decree of God, as Calvin does, nor to say with Hofmann: "Canaan is the youngest son of Ham (Gen. x. 6); and because Ham, the youngest son of Noah, had caused so much grief to the father, he, in return, is to experience ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Parliament Charles endeavored to raise the money he needed to carry on the government, by means of "benevolences" and forced loans. But all his expedients failed to meet his needs, and he was compelled to fall back upon Parliament. The Houses met, and promised to grant him generous subsidies, provided he would sign a certain Petition of Right which they had drawn up. Next after Magna Charta, this document up to this date is the most noted in the constitutional ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... authority or fashion forbidding it, necessarily rose to their just place, and enjoyed their due influence in society. The want of manners, joined to the want of knowledge, in the nouveaux riches, created universal disgust: they were compelled, some by ridicule, some by bankruptcies, to fall back into their former places, from which they could never more emerge. In the mean time, some of the Irish nobility and gentry, who had been living at an unusual expense in London—an expense beyond ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... the human intellect. The existence of the savage state in all its various degrees, and of the common intellectual habits and conditions which are shared by the backward peoples, and again the survival of many of these in civilisation, are indubitable facts. We are not obliged to fall back upon some fanciful and unsupported theory of what "primitive man" did, and said, and thought. Nay, more; we escape all the fallacies connected with the terms "primitive man". We are not compelled (as will be shown later)(1) to prove that the first men of all were like modern ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... excitement in the town, although Seringapatam was generally supposed to be impregnable and, as the English had failed to take it during the last war, it was believed that, after another futile siege, they would be forced to fall back again from want of food, as they did ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, sixty-four years of age, and wearied to death. I well remember him seated on the Treasury Bench in those days, with eager face and restless body. Sometimes, as morning broke on the long, turbulent sitting, he let his head fall back on the bench, closing his eyes and seeming to sleep; the worn face the while taking on ten years of added age. In the last two Sessions of the Salisbury Parliament he often looked younger than he had done eighteen or nineteen ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 'or be quits with Laertes the third bout':—in any case, whatever the probabilities, even if Hamlet be wounded, the king, who has not perfect confidence in the 'unction,' will fall back on his second line of ambush—in which he has more trust: he will drink to Hamlet, when Hamlet will be ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... winding stairs a little man in black screwed himself into the armoury. I was startled, but not altogether frightened. I felt myself grasping my own sword somewhat nervously in my left hand, as I abandoned the great one, and let it fall back with a clang into ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows. Apparent exceptions to the rule are met with, especially among people with strong religious convictions. But these apparent exceptions are scarcely real exceptions, since such persons commonly fall back on the putative approbation of some supernatural ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... expected to see them fall back. What they actually did was most annoying. Every one of them ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the four while close behind them came the howling pack of enraged savages. Now one closed upon Number Three only to fall back dead with a broken neck as the giant fingers released their hold upon him. A parang swung close to Number Twelve, but his own, which he had now learned to wield with fearful effect, clove through the pursuing warrior's skull splitting him wide to ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor of a waiting-room, with a gentleman bending over me. Instantly recollecting what had occurred, I endeavoured to start up, but was obliged to fall back again. ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... called Pakan Badar, distant about half a day's journey from the capital, where they were directed to entrench themselves. From this post they were driven by the country chief, who advanced rapidly upon them with several thousand men, and forced them to fall back to Padang Siring, where the king was collecting an army, and where a battle was fought soon after, that terminated in the defeat of the royal party with great slaughter. Those who escaped took refuge in the castle ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... was simple enough," said the other, shrugging. "I saw that I was not going to have a very good time unless I had somebody to fall back on, so I selected him. He wore his hair rather long and romantic. I told him he had the face of a poet. He spent the rest of the evening reciting original verses to me. That was all. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... adjacent fort in the neighborhood of Ironton was assaulted, but the Confederate forces again sustained a severe loss. This fort held a commanding lookout on Shepard Mountain, which the Confederates occupied, and their wall-directed fire obliged General Ewing to fall back to Harrison Station, where he made a stand, and some sharp fighting followed. General Ewing again fell back, and succeeded in reaching General McNeill, at Rolla, with the main body of his troops. This was Will's first serious battle, and it so chanced that he found ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... them with the bayonet. He gave this command, with the cry of Vive la nation! and this cry, repeated from one end of the line to the other, startled the Prussians still more than the firm attitude of our troops. The duke of Brunswick made his somewhat shaken battalions fall back; the firing continued till the evening; the enemy attempted a fresh attack, but were repulsed. The day was ours; and the success of Valmy, almost insignificant in itself, produced on our troops, and upon opinion in France, the effect of ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... each other's line of life. Yes, there are few who can be borne so high, and none can breathe that ether long. Soon the wings which Love lent them in his hour of revelation will shrink and vanish, and the borrowers will fall back to the level of this world, happy if they escape uncrushed. Perchance even in their life-days, they may find these spirit wings again, overshadowing the altar of their vows in the hour of earthly marriage, if by some happy fate, marriage should be within their ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... weakness. He, of course, learned of the failure, and his father soon after took pains to say significantly that one of the members of the iron firm had told him that Mr. Jocelyn had nothing to fall back upon. Therefore Arnold knew that the girl he loved must be in sore trouble. And yet, how could he go to her? What could he say or do that would not make him appear contemptible in her eyes? But to remain away in her hour of misfortune seemed such a ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... how you esteem money here,' said Gorman, laughing. 'When all else fails you, you fall back upon it.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... nothing of woman's rights up there, in that well-ordered household. Were it not well, if we, too, could give up our royal right of choice,—if we could fall back on our strong earth-born instincts, to be, to know, to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... mediocrity," to use the words of his own counsel to Licinius, Horace has somehow or another taken deep hold of the mind, and even the imagination, of mankind. This very mediocrity, so fine, so chastened, so certain, is in truth as inimitable as any other great artistic quality; we must fall back on the word genius, and remember that genius does not confine itself within the borders of any theory, but works ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... anyway—and there's a half dozen more. The fun of it is, child, that Sam was afraid there weren't enough!—he wanted to know if I was sure they'd last till to-morrow!—so I guess he's not in a fainting away state. I told him we'd roast beef in the house, for you to fall back upon, child," she added with a little laugh, as she turned the pigeon. But her face was very grave the next moment, with the sorrowful reality. "Pretty child," she said tenderly, "do you feel as if you could eat a muffin or a ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... more than short ones, because of the drag of the long limbs upon the waist. But the object is to support, with the pillows, the back below the breathing apparatus, to allow the shoulders room to fall back, and to support the head, without throwing it forward. The suffering of dying patients is immensely increased by neglect of these points. And many an invalid, too weak to drag about his pillows himself, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... obvious. I had got thoroughly sick of the man, and wanted to drive him away. But he had only his own society to fall back upon, and he had evidently the good taste to object strongly to that. And so ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... a father, even though he be a sovereign?" interrupted the princess, who, attended only by a single page bearing her train, advanced within the chamber, her firm and graceful deportment causing the lords to fall back on either side, and give her passage, though the expression of their monarch's countenance ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Sergeant's wife through her teeth. "Bill Gedge and I will keep them off till you are in and tell us to fall back." ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... falling directly on wide tracts of greenery, made splashes of light over them, hung gleaming drops of silver from the ends of the branches, streaked the grass with long lines of emeralds, and flung gold spots on the beds of dead leaves. When they let their heads fall back, they could distinguish the sky through the tops of the trees. Some of them, which were enormously high, looked like patriarchs or emperors, or, touching one another at their extremities formed with their long shafts, as it were, triumphal ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... angrily. Then he rubbed his eyes and craned forward only to fall back again with a muttered curse. He had stared into the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... men could not stand the pace he cut out and so he was forced to fall back to stubborn marching. Their path swung to the right, and past many straggling houses where the good housewives were just up and kindling their fires, with no inkling of what was about. To them nothing was ahead but the meagre routine of another day. Occasionally they caught ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... the higher experience which reveals to us a Power of righteousness in the world, no less reveals to us the living personal character of this Power. Shut out conscience as a true source of knowledge, and the very idea of righteousness will disappear with it—there will be nothing to fall back upon but the combinations of intelligence, and such religion as may be got therefrom; admit conscience, and its verifying force transcends a mere order or impersonal power of righteousness. It places us in front of a living ...
— Religion and Theology: A Sermon for the Times • John Tulloch
... but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way. Fain would I question his imperious decree, for my heart is still undisciplined and passionate; but my tongue will not utter the bitter, futile words that rise to my lips, and they fall back into my heart like unshed tears. Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness." So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... man has been attended to and is able to be put on a stretcher again he is sent to Calais. We have to keep emptying the wards for other patients to come in, and besides, if the fighting comes this way, we shall have to fall back ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... provided the agriculturists are let alone. But, on the contrary, there is a chance not of one future famine, but of many, if the protective duties are removed, and the land at present under tillage permitted to fall back. You talk of the present distress and low wages of the agricultural laborer. It is a favourite theme with a certain section of philanthropists, whose hatred to the aristocracy of this country is only equalled ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... for reinforcements, and Washington improved the time to fall back to Northcastle, five miles, where, in the rocky fastness, he could defy the whole British army. To add to his advantages, the day on which the British commander decided upon an attack, after the arrival of reinforcements, a violent rain set in, and continued through the day, rendering ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light; a treasure-heap, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... been mistaken in their experience, and so they make a new attempt at the same thing and again fall, until at last, worn out with the experiment, they conclude that the experience is a delusion, or, at least, that it was never intended for them, and so they fall back into the old way, and their last state is worse ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... excitement taken hold of all classes of the people, an excitement that has caused all other contemporary events to fall back. The search for an actual remedy for that exceedingly ravaging disease, tuberculosis, has at last been crowned with success, and even the most uneducated will be able to estimate the significance of ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... in both hands, across his person, the muzzle slightly elevated, his left grasping the trigger guard; the thumb of the right resting upon the hammer, and the fore-finger on the trigger of the left hand barrel; but, as he had said, neither cocked. "Fall back, Tom, if you please, five yards or so," he said, as coolly as if he were unconcerned, "and you come forward, Frank, as many; I want to drive them to the left, into those low red bushes; that will do: now then, I'll flush them; never mind me, boys, I'll reserve ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... comes you have not even got yourself to fall back upon. You're done for—sucked dry. You fall to pieces because you've sold ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the suspicion that she did not know her own feelings. All this work of the merest chance had been so unexpected, so sudden. And she had nothing to fall back upon, no experience but such as to shake her belief in every human being. She was dreadfully and pitifully forlorn. It was almost in order to comfort my own depression ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... waiting upon Europe, as it had been clear long before that Europe would do nothing. The last commentary on the Berlin Act was read. Malietoa Laupepa had been put in ex auctoritate by the Powers; the Powers would not support him even by a show of strength, and there was nothing left but to fall back on an "Election according to the Laws and Customs of Samoa"—by arbitrament of rifle-bullets and blackened faces. Instantly heaven was darkened by a brood of rumours, random calumnies, and idle tales. As we rode, late at night, through the hamlet near my house, we saw the fires ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the Pampas they generally dig wells, and find water a few feet below the surface. But the travelers could not fall back on this resource, not having the necessary implements. They were therefore obliged to husband the small provision of water they had still left, and deal it out in rations, so that if no one had enough to satisfy his thirst no one felt it ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... in command of mine. I never saw him look so enchanted as he did when the orders came down. I heard the chief warning him to be cautious, not to go too far (for there was a good deal of broken ground ahead), but to wheel about as soon as we had got through their lines, and to fall back immediately on our position. Royston listened and saluted, but I know he didn't catch one word; he kept looking over his shoulder all the time the colonel was speaking, as if he grudged every second. We were very soon off; and almost before I realized the situation we were closing in on the ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... vehement Dr. Eben grew, and the feebler grew Hetty's opposition. She could not gainsay his arguments. She had nothing to oppose to them, except her wifely instinct that the old bond and ceremony were by implication desecrated in assuming a second: "But what right have I to fall back on that old bond," thought poor Hetty, wringing her hands as the burden of her long, sad ten ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Zabriskie on the platform. They had walked together as far as the cars, and Dr. Zabriskie was just stepping on to the train, when a man pushed himself hurriedly between them and whispered something into his master's ear, which caused him to fall back and lose his footing. Dr. Zabriskie's body slid half under the car, but he was withdrawn before any harm was done, though the cars gave a lurch at that moment which must have frightened him exceedingly, for his face was white when he rose to his feet, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... scientific leader of men or Pandours, skilfully and furiously hurls upon Landshut and him, in an unexpected manner. Colonel Winterfeld had need of all his heart and energy, in the intricate ground; against the furious overplus well manoeuvred: but in him too there are manoeuvres; if he fall back here, it is to rush on double strong there; hour after hour he inexpugnably defends himself,—till General Stille, Friedrich's old Tutor, our worthy writing friend, whom we occasionally quote, comes up with help; and Nadasti is at once ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... look at this composition; sometimes his fingers itched with the craving to be at work on it, and his arms would be stretched longingly towards the boldly sketched figure of Electra, to fall back again helpless to his sides. The artist was burning with enthusiasm, his soul aspired to great achievements. But he had to exhaust his energy on pot-boilers which he executed indifferently, because he was bound ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... the way your patrols bother me. And if such is the case, all things must yield to military wants. Where we have no legal principles or courts to decide, we must fall back on legal axioms. And here the law is clear and explicit, for it says, Inter arma leges silent—the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and then mount one of our lamps in a conspicuous place. We can then proceed with the other as far as the water, and if any accident happens it will not cause trouble to both of the lights. We can always have one of them to fall back on." ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... owing to the way in which accusations are made and the intimate association of trial with bribery, it is as certain that many innocent persons suffer as it is that many guilty escape. From such a system one is compelled to fall back upon the righteousness of the Judge of all the earth; and as I stood in that hideous judgment-hall beside the tortured wretches, I could not shut out of my heart a trembling hope that for these and the legion of these, a worthier than an earthly ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Ford, at the very knuckle of the elbow that is crooked toward us a mile west of where we were yesterday. That is near the railway, which it is Beauregard's business to fight for and our business to get, for then he will have to fall back near Richmond to feed his army. Now from the railway where it crosses Bull Run near Mitchell's Ford to the Warrenton road, which Beauregard must also hold, is about nine miles. He must guard all these fords, and we must fight for any one or two of them that we need to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... hillside in an obtuse angle to it, some ninety feet below. Making one more turn up the stem, the mule was nicely caught between the forked branches, which broke the momentum, loosened the cargo, and caused the animal to fall back into the high grass. One box landed close by, the other, containing our library, pursued its course downward 200 feet further, bursting open on the way and scattering the wisdom of the ages to the winds, while the ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... her father would say in his bluff way, "you 'll not be absolutely obliged to die an old maid. If we can't find anything better for you, there 's always Jack. As long as he does n't take to some other girl, you can fall back on him as a last chance. He 'd be glad to take you to ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... objective and went right on, seeking the non-existent third trench, until they came into the area which the French artillery were shelling to prevent the forward movement of the Turkish reserves. It was long hours before they were able to fall back on the captured trenches, and then only ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... camp; but this movement was repulsed, and a party of the Americans[36] followed up their advantage, and running along the banks of the Kanawha out-flanked the enemy in turn. The Indians being pushed very hard now began to fall back, the best fighters covering the retreat, while the wounded were being carried off; although,—a rare thing in Indian battles—they were pressed so close that they were able to bear away but a portion of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... returning pretty much to the colonial state. When Adams, with unconscious prophecy of Sherman's march through Georgia, pressed Calhoun with the question whether the north, cut off from its natural outlet upon the ocean, "would fall back upon its rocks bound hand and foot, to starve, or whether it would not retain its powers of locomotion to move southward by land," Calhoun answered that the southern states would find it necessary to make their communities military. [Footnote: ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... began to fall back. As the Flying Fish roared by her, Rob heard a shout of something about ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... the readiness of these writers to fall back, not only from the front line to the middle line, but from the middle line itself to the base line. Leibniz, for example, writes with perfect seriousness and decency about the Christian scheme of redemption, but it hardly ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... curate; they were all drawing long bows with the young ladies at the bottom of the lawn, or finding places for their graceful co-toxophilites in some snug corner of the tent. In such position Mrs Proudie had been wont in earlier days to fall back upon Mr Slope; but now she could never fall back upon him again. She gave her head one shake as she thought of her lone position, and that shake was as good as a week deducted from Mr Slope's longer sojourn in Barchester. Sir Harkaway Gorse, however, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of life, ending all at last in utter grief, which the lower middle classes in England are now suffering, is so great that I feel constantly as if I were living in one great churchyard, with people all round me clinging feebly to the edges of the open graves, and calling for help, as they fall back ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... men who run accounts to that extent fewer upon these estates than upon the Simbister estate and the other estates in the district?-We don't run such heavy accounts as that with any men at all, unless they have something else to fall back upon ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... who were awakened by my ministry did after that fall back, as sometimes too many did, I can truly say their loss hath been more to me than if one of my own children, begotten of my body, had been going to its grave; I think, verily, I may speak it without an offence to the Lord, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... heads, and through their armor, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows; others flung them on the ground and all turned about and retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The King of France seeing them thus fall back cried out, "Kill me those scoundrels, for they stop up our road without any reason." You would then have seen the above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and mother, informing them of my circumstances; that I was leaving Glasgow in quest of work, and that they would, not hear from me again till I had found a suitable situation. I told them that if otherwise unsuccessful, I should fall back on my own trade, though I shrank from that as not tending to advance my education; but that they might rest assured I would do nothing to dishonor them or my own Christian profession. Having read that letter ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... speaks of them, and in the absence of positive fact we can only fall back upon mere hypothesis, more or less probable, until an accurate investigation with regard to the origin of this primitive people may present us with ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... sword blows but with drugged wine, and treating all your servants in like fashion, since not one of them can shake off its fumes before to-morrow's light. So indeed it is—a very scurvy trick which I shall remember with shame to my life's end, and that perchance may yet fall back upon my head in blood and vengeance. Yet bethink you how we stand, and forgive us. We are but a little company of men in your great country, hidden, as it were, in a den of lions, who, if they saw us, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... posterity—that of one of the great diarists. Now there is no human failing upon which we look with more affectionate lenience than that of keeping a diary. All of us, in our pilgrimage through the difficult thickets of this world, have moods and moments when we have to fall back on ourselves for the only complete understanding and absolution we will ever find. In such times, how pleasant it is to record our emotions and misgivings in the sure and secret pages of some privy notebook; and ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... eloquent persuader. In turn, the virtuous legislators, on being questioned by their constituents as to why they had voted such great subsidies, such immense land grants and such sweeping and unprecedented privileges to private corporations, could fall back upon the justification (and a legitimate one it seemed) that to get the railroads built, public ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... men fall back at the sight of that black face, which never changes, which is just like steel and which they fancy neither sword nor bullet can hurt; but my nails have torn his body and I have seen ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai |
