"Hindmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ... well ... we, were thinking in terms of finding out why waiters were surly, why workers and professionals and even officials tried to, uh, beat the rap, pass the buck, look out for themselves and the devil take the hindmost, and all those Americanisms that Kardelj is ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... The hindmost of the Hounds surged against those in front, and the whole mob fell forward upon Redfield; he staggered over the threshold to save himself, and struck Enraghty backward ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... man in evening dress stepped from the wings and made signs that he wanted to speak. Silence fell, and he announced that Arthur Stoss, the world's champion, would say a few words. The next instant Stoss's sharp, clear boyish voice rang through the theatre reaching even the hindmost seats. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... and more than mortal strong. As the bold hound, that gives the lion chase, With beating bosom, and with eager pace, Hangs on his haunch, or fastens on his heels, Guards as he turns, and circles as he wheels; Thus oft the Grecians turn'd, but still they flew; Thus following, Hector still the hindmost slew. When flying they had pass'd the trench profound, And many a chief lay gasping on the ground; Before the ships a desperate stand they made, And fired the troops, and called the gods to aid. Fierce on his rattling chariot Hector ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... a consid'able bigger craft than the leadin' one. Get a move on, fellers—the dinner gong's struck and the grub's on the table waitin' to be swallered—first come, first served's the rule things go by, so stir your stumps, an' put in the best licks you know how—an' may the devil take the hindmost. Hey there! that drummin' noise, it's stopped—wonder if they got out to the sloop or else smell a rat an' are lyin' low till they make it a dead certainty? Gosh, but ain't this all mighty thrillin' though, and how it does tickle me most to death," muttering which Perk, still ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... out at the outer gate, and proceeding along a beautiful path leading above the cliffs. The mules kept in one long string, Bekir with the foremost, which was thus at some distance from the hindmost, which carried Ulysse and was attended by Arthur, while the master rode his own animals and gave directions. The fiction of illness was kept up, and when the bright eyes looked up in too lively a manner, Yusuf produced some of the sweets, which were ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wherewith to perfect their flowers and seed. But, throughout the great republic of the forest, the motto of the majority is—as it is, and always has been, with human beings—'Every one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.' Selfish competition, overreaching tyranny, the temper which fawns and clings as long as it is down, and when it has risen, kicks over the stool by which it climbed—these and the other 'works of the flesh' are the works of the average plant, as far as it can practise them. So ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Moor fell back a step, his face paling under its copper skin to a sickly grey. In the background, the hindmost members of the retreating clerical procession turned and stood at gaze, angered and scandalized by what they heard, which was indeed ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... to collect insects; and I afterwards obtained it in great numbers. The use of the curious brushes on the antennae is not known. Another longicorn, about the same size (Coremia hirtipes), has its two hindmost legs greatly lengthened, and furnished with brushes: one I saw on a branch was flourishing these in the air, and I thought at first they were two black flies hovering over the branch, my attention being taken from the body of the beetle by ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... and drew a fuller breath; Nine strides and then a louder beat that warn'd me of her spring, I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing— But oh! the crash!—the hideous shock!—the million sparks around! Her hindmost hoofs had struck the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... knowledge they experiment on their patients, and often with fatal results. The best of butchers deserve to be rated with the Amalekites, they are accustomed to blood and cruelty; as it is written of the Amalekites, 'How he met thee by the way and smote the hindmost of thee, and that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... formerly served in his army. When the front of the Jewish army had been cut off, the Jews retired into the city; but still Simon, the son of Giora, fell upon the backs of the Romans, as they were ascending up Bethoron, and put the hindmost of the army into disorder, and carried off many of the beasts that carded the weapons of war, and led Shem into the city. But as Cestius tarried there three days, the Jews seized upon the elevated parts of the city, and set watches at the entrances into ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... fulness, there is any one single command in Scripture more habitually disregarded. Proverbs are generally supposed to be a condensation of facts or experiences. Whence comes "Every one for himself, and God for us all"? or, the more vulgar one, "Go ahead, and the d——l take the hindmost?" What are they but concentrations of the fact that selfishness is man's ruling passion? What are most laws made for, but to restrain men by human penalties from a broach of the law of love? and, if these laws be needful in communities, all the members of which are equal ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... hindmost year but ane Was five and twenty days began; 'Twas then a blast o' Januar' win' Blew hansel in on ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... sent after those that were entred Penzance before him, that they should make their stand at the market place, himselfe [158] staying hindmost, to obserue the enemies order, and which way they would make their approach. Which done, he found at the said market place but onely two resolute shot, who stood at his commaund, and some ten or twelue ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... understanding between it and himself. They now had races of all sorts and daily. Hurdles had given place to great hedges and ditches, which most of the animals distinguished themselves in leaping. Monty was still the hindmost in everything, yet showed his pluck in sticking to his saddle at all risks, and sometimes with ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre like Naples—the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements—sullies ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... do! I guess I shall have to leave the thing to Providence—and the devil take the hindmost!" he thought gloomily. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... fourpence. They set out when it was getting dark; the sheep were put on the road, the drover going before the flock and Shergold following at the tail. It was a cold, cloudy night, threatening snow, and so dark that he could hardly distinguish the dim forms of even the hindmost sheep, and by and by the temptation to steal one assailed him. For how easy it would be for him to do it! With his tremendous strength he could kill and hide a sheep very quickly without making any sound whatever to alarm the drover. He was very far ahead; Shergold could ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... A ledge of rock prevented an attack. The captain commanded them to dismiss. "We will," they replied, "when the service is over, if you promise us no harm." The promise was given, yet the treacherous troops dashed upon the hindmost ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... of 1889, it has made little progress as yet in Catholic France. Even at the theatres in Paris, I am glad to say, the popular instinct still regulates the queue on principles quite inconsistent with the Darwinian maxims of 'every man for himself,' and 'the devil take the hindmost.' It will be an evil day for invalids and cripples bitten with the drama when the 'struggle for life' comes to be logically developed into the right of the strongest men to get first to the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... as I do, Greif. Perhaps, some day— when you and I are old, Greif—then you will love me as I love you now, but then, you see, I shall have learnt how to love you more, and you will still be hindmost in love's race—for women are made to love and men to fight, in this world, and though I could fight not badly, if need were, for you, yet I know better how to do the sweeter thing, than you can ever know. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the summum bonum,—no matter how obtained, or at what sacrifice. Money is our god: "Devil take the hindmost" our motto. The spirits of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... now—only there's none of us a prisoner, thank goodness—hem! Well, I said to myself, hit or miss, I'll thry it; I have a pair o' legs, an' it won't be my fault or I'll put them to the best use: an' for that raison it'll be divil take the hindmost wid us. Now listen, boys; I started off, an' one fellow that had a pistol let bang at me, but long life to the pistol, divil a one of it would go off; bang again came the other chap's, but 'twas ditto repaited, and no go any more than the other. Well, do you know ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of dark bulks—wild hog, perhaps, galloping down the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... remained at home; and Octavia's old maid, Wilbor, told her the hurly burly downstairs is beyond description; snatching their meals anywhere, with no time or etiquette or housekeeper's room; all, everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. And the absolutely disrespectful way they speak of their master and mistress—machines to make money out of, they seem to think—perfectly astonished Wilbor, who highly disapproves of it all. Agnes, having a French woman's eye to ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... the positions we hold will be insecure. Suddenly happening upon a powerful foe, we shall be brought to battle in a flurried condition, and no mutual support will be possible between wings, vanguard or rear, especially if there is any great distance between the foremost and hindmost divisions ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... a little to get the wind of the horses, in which he succeeded—approaching within a hundred yards without being discovered. The chase for a few minutes was interesting. My hunter easily overtook and passed the hindmost of the wild drove, which the did not attempt to lasso; all his efforts being directed to capture the leader. But the strength of the horse, weakened by insufficient nourishment of grass, failed in a race, and all the drove escaped. We halted at noon on the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... stand. Fu' hale an' healthy wad they pass the day; At night, in calmest slumbers dose fu' sound; Nor doctor need their weary life to spae,[23] Nor drogs their noddle and their sense confound, Till death slip sleely on, an' gie the hindmost wound. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... pistol. With this in hand she ran to meet her children. Some hunter had broken the bear's fore leg with a bullet a few days before, which accounted for its strange, waddling gait; but it was almost within reach of the hindmost child when the mother arrived. The bear at once turned its attention to the newcomer, and with a terrific snarl rushed 5 at her. On sped the children, screaming and crazy with fright. It was a moment of imminent peril to the mother, but she was equal to the occasion. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... spoke, but griefe stopt vp her breath, For me (quoth she) my Loue is done to death, And shall I liue, sighes stopt her hindmost word, When speechlesse vp she tooke the bloudy sword, And then she cast a looke vpon her Loue, Then to the blade her eye she did remoue. And sobbing cride, since loue hath murthred thee, He shall not chuse but likewise murther me: That men may say, and then she sigh'd againe, ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... might be several men. No one knew but what the man next to him had turned traitor. They groped for one another's throats and finally, as though by one impulse, crowded for the exit. They fought and pounded and kicked at each other. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. Wilson helped them along by continued shooting—aiming high and low. In five minutes the cabin was cleared save for the wounded, who managed, however, to ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... attended by violent oscillation. This was probably the circumstance that had recommended Dash as the object of Robbie's half-drunken pastime; and after a fruitless half-hour's exercise the tractable little creature, with a woeful expression of face, was at length poised on its hindmost parts just as Liza pushed open the door ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... gharrie I was obliged to take off my boots and wrap them in handkerchiefs. The dust was deep and made heavy walking, and the level straightness of a great part of the road is wearisome. Overtaking even at my slow rate of progress a string of creaking buffalo carts, I got upon the hindmost, but after a little rest found the noise, dust, and slow progress intolerable, and plodded on as before, taking two and a half hours to walk three miles. About a mile from Cholen there is an extraordinary burial-ground, said to cover an area of twenty square miles. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last: Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast, And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away, For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay, Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore The ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... all pass in to prayer. As the concourse increases the shoes of the Faithful gather in heaps along the inner edge of the porch: only the newer shoes are permitted to lie, sole against sole, close to their owners, each of whom after washing in the shaded cistern takes his place in the hindmost line of worshippers. ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... money. With a hell which means—'failing to make money,' I do not think there is any heaven possible that would suit one well. In brief, all this Mammon gospel of supply-and-demand, competition laissez faire, and devil take the hindmost (foremost, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?), 'begins to be one of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the poor fugitives. At last, however, they came full upon a ravine too wide to leap over; and as this compelled them to turn abruptly to the left, I contrived to get within ten or twelve yards of the hindmost. At this she faced about, bristled angrily, and made a show of charging. I shot at her with a large holster pistol, and hit her somewhere in the neck. Down she tumbled into the ravine, whither her companions had descended ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... this as well as I did, looked full of horror. He caught one of the hindmost of the rabble by the sleeve and asked him harshly, 'What has this man done, and whither are you taking him?' At which the man, turning towards us his ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... for yesterday was once to-morrow: That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd; And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd, For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask, And wilt be ever to begin thy task; Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, are curst, Still to be near, but ne'er ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting as they rode—at the four men first, and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... full blast, every man working with such feverish industry that not one of them stopped to look up. From the receiving corral three Mexicans in slouched hats and jumpers drove the sheep into a broad chute, yelling and hurling battered oil cans at the hindmost; by the chute an American punched them vigorously forward with a prod, and yet another thrust them into the pens behind the shearers, who bent to their work with a sullen, back-breaking stoop. Each man held between his knees a sheep, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... stepped hastily across the azotea in the direction of the sounds. I looked over the parapet. Down the slope of the hill two men were running at the top of their speed, one after the other. The hindmost held in his hand a drawn sabre. It was Holingsworth still in ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... reconciled himself 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' But life is not always, nor for most persons at any time, a thing of ease and soft enchantments, and the Cyrenaic philosophy must remain for the general work-a-day world a stale exotic. 'Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,' is a maxim which comes as a rule {128} only to the lips of the worldly successful, while they think themselves strong enough to stand alone. But this solitude of selfishness neither works nor lasts; every man at some time becomes 'the hindmost,' if not before, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... usury or over-population. Freedom must not be simply negative. It must be positive. If on account of the immaturity or over-maturity of a people, there be no sturdy middle class among them, unlimited competition may become what Bazard calls a general sauve-qui-peut (let the devil take the hindmost); what Fourier designates as a morcellement industriel, and a fraude commerciale; what M. Chevalier denominated "a battle-field on which the little are devoured by the big;" and in such case, as Bodz-Reymond ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... until Crittenden saw a wire fence stretching ahead. Followed another wait. And then a squad of negro troopers crossed the road, going to the right, and diagonally. The bullets rained about them, and they scuttled swiftly into the brush. The hindmost one dropped; the rest kept on, unseeing; but Crittenden saw a Lieutenant—it was Sharpe, whom he had met at home and at Chickamauga—look back at the soldier, who was trying to raise himself on his elbow—while the bullets seemed literally to be mowing down ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... where, on closer inspection, I found these creatures clinging by thousands, literally blackening the wall, and hanging in festoons a foot or two in length. The manner of forming these festoons was curious enough: three or four bats having first taken hold of some sharp projecting ledge with their hindmost claws, and hanging thereby with their heads downward, others had seized their leathery wings at the second joint, and they too, hanging with downward heads, had offered their wings as holding-places for still others; and so the unsightly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... I, "dropped my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car, and gained the platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran together, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... went galloping, galloping; Legs and arms a' walloping, walloping; De'il take the hindmost, quo' Duncan M'Calapin, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... processes of this basilar plate, the trabeculae, are quite unlike anything in the vertebral column. It is true that when the process of ossification begins, separate bones are differentiated in the basilar plate one in front of the other, giving an appearance of segmentation. The hindmost of these bones, the basioccipital, ossifies round the notochord, quite like a vertebral centrum, and its side parts which form the occipital arch develop in a "remotely similar" way to the neural arches of the vertebrae. The ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... angels, things would be different. If this were the Millennium, every thing would doubtless be agreeable to every body. But it is not—how very sad! True, how very sad! Where was I? Oh! it's all devil take the hindmost. And because your neighbors are dishonest, why should you starve? ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... him—stop him there!" he heard the master-player call, and a wild, unreasoning fright came over him. He dug his heels into the palfrey's heaving sides and urged him up the hill through the cloud of dust that came rolling down behind the horsemen. The hindmost riders had plunged into those before, and the whole array was struggling, shouting, and wrangling in wild disorder; but out of the flurry Carew and the bandy-legged man with the ribbon in his ear spurred furiously and came galloping after him at the ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... paced. When Rama saw his blameless spouse A suppliant under holy boughs, The gentle darling of his heart, He thus to Lakshman spake apart: "Brother, by thee our way be led; Let Sita close behind thee tread: I, best of men, will grasp my bow, And hindmost of the three will go. What fruits soe'er her fancy take, Or flowers half hidden in the brake, For Janak's child forget not thou To gather from ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... green inch-worms vanish on the tenth of every June, so on the tenth of that June all the money in America had buried itself and was as if it were not. Everybody and everything was ready to fail. If the hindmost brick went, down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... the hindmost Indian uttered his exclamation of surprise, the others paused, and thus, before Elwood Brandon fully realized his danger, he found himself confronted by the whole force. Resistance or flight was not to be thought of, so he ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... the two riders, the hindmost drawing steadily upon the leader, and stood looking so until they disappeared in the timber at ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the boy, aiming a shot at the leader's left ear, and bringing the thick end of the whip down on the flanks of the six hindmost dogs. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... abruptly, and fleeing pellmell down the hill after Jim, falling over one another as they ran. Quick as a flash Edwards threw about him a sheet which he had ready, and pursued the fleeing Frenchmen. Jim had already seized the reins, and, on the plan of "the devil take the hindmost," was driving at a pace that would have done him credit in the Central Park, up the trail toward Gager's, leaving the half-breeds to get on as best they could. Bourdon stumbled and fell, and Edwards lavished some blows upon him ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain; ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... devilish aphorisms, as well as sound and worthy ones. Each style of character, kind and grade of experience breathes itself out in corresponding expressions. "Self is the man"; "Look out for Number One"; "Devil take the hindmost"; "One for me is as good as two for you"; "Every man has his price"; "Draw the snake from its hole by another man's hand"; "Vengeance is a feast fit for the gods." The fact that such infernal sentiments are proverbs must be no excuse for not trampling them out of sight ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... as to be ludicrous from one point of view: but another is magnificent enough to make me forgive the scamp his autobiography from now to the day of judgment (when we shall all begin forgiving each other in great haste, I suppose, for fear of the devil taking the hindmost!), and I registered a vow on the spot to that effect:—so no more of him here, henceforth, ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... when we had succeeded in dispersing and driving before us a rather numerous band, I came up with one of the hindmost Cossacks, and I was about to strike him with my Turkish sabre when he took off his cap ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... your hook with a Menow, you must put your hook through the lowermost part of his mouth, so draw your hook thorow, then put the hook in at the mouth againe, let the point of the hook come out at the hindmost Fin, then draw your Line, and the Menowes mouth will close, that no water will get into its belly; you must alwayes be Angling with the point of your Rod down the stream, with drawing the Menow up the stream by little and little, nigh the top of the water; the Trout seeing the ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... the meantime, had stopped and loaded their box cars with old cross-ties and discarded rails These they began to throw out of the rear end of their hindmost car as a measure of safety. They did not suspect pursuit at this time, but they took the precaution to obstruct the track in this manner. Six miles north of Kingston the raiders stopped and tore up several rails. ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... of Gloster is not come; 'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man, Whate'er occasion keeps him from ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... that he would die within the next twelve months. This is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill, "the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost." A ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... is right," he said. "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, the let-alone policy of each for himself and devil take the hindmost. As Mr. Everhard said the other night, the function you churchmen perform is to maintain the established order of society, and society is established on ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... sneaking, dunghill, recreant; unwarlike, unsoldier-like. " in face a lion but in heart a deer". unmanned; frightened &c. 860. Int. sauve qui peut[Fr]! [French: every man for himself]; devil take the hindmost! Phr. ante tubam trepidat[Lat], one's courage oozing out; degeneres ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... all," he declared as he rode away, "and the devil take the hindmost. Good-bye, I'm going home. I still have ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... going more easily, far more beautifully. But alas! they were losing time. The greyhounds were closing; in vain we yelled at them. We spurred our horses, hoping to cut them off, hoping to stop the ugly, lawless tragedy. But the greyhounds were frantic now. The distance between Bran and the hindmost fawn was not forty feet. Then Eaton drew his revolver and fired shots over the greyhounds' heads, hoping to scare them into submission, but they seemed to draw fresh stimulus from each report, and yelped and bounded faster. A little ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... they saw one of the Kaffirs overtake the hindmost zebra, ride alongside for a few moments, and then spear it, the unfortunate beast stumbling as the assegai was driven home, and then falling headlong ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... hindmost row I sat, and some one touched my head, He tendered ten-and-six, but oh! That only client now ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... that their "faith, unfaithful, makes them falsely true"—that I can fully enter into what his feelings must have been when he contemplated the picture of his discourse, in which the lights on "raw midshipmen," "pessimist out and out," "devil take the hindmost," and "Heine's dragoon," were so high, while the "good things" he was kind enough to say about me lay in the deep shadow of the invisible. And I can assure Dr. Abbott that I should not have dreamed of noticing the report of his interesting ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... The hindmost ranks are continually rising from the ground, and dropping in front of the others. This is the proper time to fire, just as the hind-rank are a couple or three feet from the ground; firing the second barrel as the whole ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... changed, the player who has been tagged then becomes the "tagger" and the former "tagger" tries to secure a place in front of some pair. But whenever the runner (the player pursued) has succeeded in getting in front of a pair before being tagged, then the hindmost (the last or third, in the respective rank) must take to her heels and seek to evade the unsuccessful "tagger" who now turns her attention to the new runner. In trying to evade a tagger the successive players may run in ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... sometimes. During the war they did nobly, giving their time and money, their sons and selves to the good cause, and I was proud of them. But now too many of them have fallen back into the old ways, and their motto seems to be, 'Every one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.' Cheating, lying and stealing are hard words, and I don't mean to apply them to all who swarm about below there like ants on an ant-hill—they have other names for these things, but I'm old-fashioned and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... moment, when a second onset must have brought them into collision with those who stood on the defensive within, in which case great loss of life and bloodshed would inevitably have ensued,—the hindmost portion of the crowd gave way, and the rumour spread from mouth to mouth that a messenger had been despatched by water for the military, who were forming in the street. Fearful of sustaining a charge in the narrow passages in which they were so closely ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... from the hindmost Part of the Right Heel to the Left Heel near the Ancle. The Point of the Right Foot must be opposite to the Adversary's, turning out the Point of the Left Foot, and bending the Left Knee over the Point of the same Foot, keeping the Right Knee a little bent, that ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... second-in-command was in the rear to keep up those who could not move so quickly as the others. As pace was apparently of importance, and as it seems to have been a punishable offence to lag behind in the dance, this is possibly the origin of the expression 'The Devil take the hindmost'. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... what is admirable in that generation of nation builders is obscured by the industrial anarchy which prevailed. Everybody was for himself—and the devil was busy harvesting the hindmost. There were "rate-wars," "cut-rate sales," secret intrigues, and rebates; and there were subterranean passages—some, indeed, scarcely under the surface—to council chambers, executive mansions, and Congress. There were extreme fluctuations of industry; prosperity was either at a very high ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... route lay before those who took the River Road leading to the Indian Encampment. Bachelor Lot was the hindmost in this receding column. Bachelor Lot, though too withered and brown of visage to afford immediate enlightenment as to his species, was held to be of unquestionable white descent. Yet he kept house, alone, at the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... great republic of the organic world the motto of the majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it is, and always has been, with the majority of human beings: "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Overreaching tyranny; the temper which fawns, and clings, and plays the parasite as long as it is down, and when it has risen, fattens on its patron's blood and life—these, and the other works of the flesh, are the works of average plants and animals, as ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... stable, Fire outstreaming from his nostrils, From his hoofs, the sparks outshooting, Hitches to his sledge, the fleet-foot, To his golden sledge, the courser, Mounts impetuous his snow-sledge, Leaps upon the hindmost cross-bench, Strikes his courser with his birch-whip, With his birch-whip, pearl-enamelled. Instantly the prancing racer Springs away upon his journey; On he, restless, plunges northward, All day long be onward gallops, All the next day, onward, onward, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... is, they that will have heaven must run for it; then this calls aloud to those who began but a while since to run, I say, for them to mend their pace if they intend to win; you know that they which come hindmost, had need run fastest. Friend, I tell thee, there be those that have run ten years to thy one, nay, twenty to thy five, and yet if thou talk with them, sometimes they will say they doubt they shall ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... contents of so insolent a scroll, I caused one of my squires to pluck down a trophy so disgraceful to the chivalry and nobility of Scotland. Where upon, it seems some of these saucy burghers took license to hoot and insult the hindmost of my train, who wheeled their horses on them, and would soon have settled the feud, but for my positive command that they should follow me in as much peace as the rascally vulgar would permit. And thus they arrived here in the guise of flying men, when, with my command to repel force by force, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... existence, the present world is the only place to punish them as nations. See how God has dealt with them. See if they have not reaped what they sowed. Take Amalek: "Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee, by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God." What was to be the result of this attack? Was it to go unpunished? God ordained that Amalek should reap as ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... most obnoxious to him, and continued the pursuit of the flying royalists with the utmost diligence, through difficult and almost impracticable roads, where no provisions could be procured, always coming up with some of the hindmost of the enemy. Gonzalo likewise sent on several Indians with letters to the principal officers who served under the viceroy, urging them to put him to death, and offering them their pardons for the past and to give them high rewards. He continued the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... suffocation in this last place. Men and women faint and are carried out. Some fall and are trodden down. Sometimes, as at the table this year, some unfortunate pays for her curiosity with her life. It is "Devil take the hindmost!" and if any one is down, he is leaped over by men and women indiscriminately, for there is no time to be lost. In the Chapel, when once they are in, all want to get out. Shrieks are heard as the jammed mass sways backward and forward,—veils and dresses are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... make a stand, I was to go into battery. The right and center sections had gone far ahead of me, as the road was not cut up so bad for them, and it literally seemed, in the language of the poet Horace, that the "Devil would take the hindmost." After the first mile we came to a long, deep bed of sticky mud. I rode in advance, and found that about a half mile ahead there was a little knoll of cleared land, comparatively dry, and skirted by a ...
— Campaign of Battery D, First Rhode Island light artillery. • Ezra Knight Parker
... more pay, and employers will continue to oppose them. This is the key-note to laissez faire,—everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. It is upon this that the rampant individualist bases his individualism. It is the let-alone policy, the struggle for existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and makes a finer and more capable breed ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... whole Hunt, as in the former, and leads four times, and lyeth behind as many, and twice in every other place; the two Bells in the 3d. add 4th. places continue dodging, when the Treble moves out of the 4th. place; untill it comes down there again, and then the two hindmost dodge, till the Treble displaceth them; who maketh every double Change, except when it lieth behind, and then the double is on the four first, and on the four last when it leads. Every Single (except when the Treble lies there) is in the 5th. and 6th. places; or if possessed by the Treble, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... on a roof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming close. Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in the transparent tissue as in an aviary. Angel's eye at last fell upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed laughter at their dilemma, could not ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... living can remember how the people who assisted at the bonfires would wait till the last spark was out and then would suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!" The saying, as Sir John Rhys justly remarks, implies that originally one of the company became a victim in dead earnest. Down to the present time the saying is current in Carnarvonshire, where allusions to the cutty black sow are still occasionally made to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... and then a string of asses, their panniers filled with stones or with wood for Carmona; the drivers sat on the rump of the hindmost animal, for that is the only comfortable way to ride a donkey. A peasant trotted briskly by on his mule, his wife behind him with her arms about his waist. I saw a row of ploughs in a field; to each were attached two oxen, and ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... To the hindmost wall of the scene an upper story could be added; whenever, for instance, it was wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great middle entrance there was a space for the Exostra, a machine of a semicircular form, and covered above, which represented ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... take as another example two apples, one partly covering the other, as in a, Fig. 72, where one apple is supposed to be behind the other, and so implies distance. There is no means of expressing this distance in carving. Lowering the surface of the hindmost apple would merely throw out the balance of masses without giving a satisfactory explanation of its position, while to cut a deep groove between the two would be an equally unsightly expedient. The difficulty should, ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... could take her leave, She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve. Then a little dab here and a wee pat there. And a touch or two to her hindmost hair, Then around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and a cloak and some Eau-de-cologne and chewing-gum, Her opera glass and sealskin muff, A fan and a heap ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... wending with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers had a pursuer ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... hindmost one, a strongly built, broad-shouldered man, looked round and saw the gleaming figure above him upon the hill, with open helmet, and the five roses glowing upon his breast. With a sweep of his hands ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle |
