"Push back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... along!" cried Allan, suspending his singing for a moment, and glancing back. Still, without a word of answer, the other followed. Thrice he stopped before he reached the stern end of the wreck: the first time, to throw aside his hat, and push back his hair from his forehead and temples; the second time, reeling, giddy, to hold for a moment by a ring-bolt close at hand; the last time (though Allan was plainly visible a few yards ahead), to look stealthily ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... move. He tried to push back the weakness that numbed his body. But he couldn't. His head swam with the pain of the blow he had received, and he could only watch through half-closed eyes as the monster reached out ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... One thing certain, they've unlocked it first from the outside. See here," and the constable showed where the blade of a heavy knife had left marks on the frame. It had evidently been thrust between the two halves of the window to push back ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... her to push back the light screen door, he found himself face to face with Alix. In the dark entryway Peter and Cherry had not seen her, had not heard her move. Peter cursed his carelessness; he could not remember, in the utter confusion of the moment, just what he and Cherry had said, but if it was of a betraying ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Austrians, suddenly ordered Vandamme to seize Eckmuehl, and then despatched Lannes to cross the Laber and circumvent the enemy. Davout, having learned the direction of the Austrian charge, threw himself against the hostile columns on their right, and after a stubborn resistance began to push back the dogged foe. In less than two hours the French right, left, and center were all advancing, and the enemy were steadily retreating, but fighting fiercely as they withdrew. This continued until seven in the evening, when ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... alive Ef I knowed much as that, An' could stand up like him an' drive, An' ist push back my hat, Like he comes skallyhootin' through Our alley, with one arm A-wavin' Fare-ye-well! to you— The Boy lives ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... goods and chattels. But the cold fact is that there is scarcely any locking device which affords less protection than the ordinary spring lock. It is the simplest thing in the world for a sneak thief to slip a thin knife between the door-casing and the strip, push back the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... It is the Wars.... They are more terrible and powerful than ever.... Heaven knows what would happen if one of them escaped!... Fortunately, they are rather heavy and slow-moving.... But we must stand ready to push back the door, all of us together, while you take a ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... pleasure. She would have liked to sit there, drinking more tea, and continuing to talk of herself to Rosedale. But the old habit of observing the conventions reminded her that it was time to bring their colloquy to an end, and she made a faint motion to push back her chair. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... tailor in New York. If I sought another suit in the city of Hayesville might there not be dangers of discoveries in the adjustment thereof? "Is it not a vexation?" I asked as the Gouverneur Faulkner attempted to push back that murdered ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Garcia reported to Aguinaldo that on the previous night the Americans had attempted to push back his line at San Lazaro, and that morning had concentrated and penetrated the Insurgent territory, making a reconnaissance through the fields about Sampaloc. Aguinaldo put an endorsement on this communication ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... suppose that the home owner finds himself in possession of a house of uncertain age and between ten and twenty acres of land. Unless he is prepared to maintain a miniature conservation corps, he will not attempt to keep over two acres in active cultivation. Even with those he will not push back the wilderness in one season. The first step is a careful inspection of the grounds around the house. If they have been neglected for years, he may find practically anything except grass growing. If the average ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... open, his head a little thrown forward so as to miss no word. The ordinariness of the surroundings made the matters they dealt with extraordinarily moving. And often the master, seized himself by the wonder of his subject, would push back the book in front of him, and with his hands clasped together over his heart, as though to still the beating, would talk of the mysteries of their religion. Sometimes Philip did not understand, but he did not want ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... adventure in supersensuous regions, but with the loving and patient exploration of the world that lies at your gates; the "ebb and flow and ever-during power" of which your own existence forms a part. You are to push back the self's barriers bit by bit, till at last all duration is included in the widening circles of its intuitive love: till you find in every manifestation of life—even those which you have petulantly classified as cruel or obscene—the ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... the bulb convulsively, and the Angel's closed on his at the instant. Then she heaved a great sigh of relief and lifted her hands to push back the damp, ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... these cakes, will you, while I see to the hash? I wonder if those boys have got enough dishes on the table to eat out of. And push back the coffee pot please. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... that the hot day might stand for the friction and the fretting of the world, for things which closed in upon one as heat closed in, bore down as heat bore down. As Ann pushed back the hair from her forehead it seemed she would push back the weight ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... same long, all-day storms of the so-called Rainy Season in California, that give rain to the lowlands, give dry frosty snow to the mountains. But at rare intervals warm rains and warm winds invade the mountains and push back the snow line from 2000 feet to 8000, or even higher, and then come ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... a plenty," Jackson remarked. "He'd try to push back a stampede by main strength if he reckoned it was his duty. It's his good luck that he wasn't killed long ago—I'd ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the woman at his right had suddenly gone white with a pallor visible even beneath its rouge and patches. She half turned, as though to push back her chair from the board, would have arisen, would have spoken perhaps; yet act and gesture ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Bacon far behind Sir Edward Coke! Bacon clinging to exploded abuses! Bacon withstanding the progress of improvement! Bacon struggling to push back the human mind! The words seem strange. They sound like a contradiction in terms. Yet the fact is even so: and the explanation may be readily found by any person who is not blinded by prejudice. Mr. Montagu cannot ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reflecting on his experience, instead of pushing forward to discover for ourselves, if we may, what his experience actually was. To discover that, we cannot be content to pause for ever on his reflections. We must push back to the moment of his experience, that is to the moments when he is in the presence of his gods and is addressing them. Those are the moments in which he prays and in which he has no doubt that he is ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... frantic efforts to push back the bolt, or to force the lock from the wood. He was wild with rage. At last, having succeeded in forcing the door open, they dashed out in pursuit of their mysterious adversary. On reaching the street, they eagerly questioned the ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... knights did forsake their evil ways, and went to Sir Bedevere and Sir Uriens, with whom they strove to push back the fierce pagans into their long black ships. But many others, so lost to honour and knightliness were they, performed not their promises, and continued to ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... to trail behind her stern. Drusus had no time to ask of himself or Antonius the special object of this last burst of speed. He only knew that he was flinging every pound of strength into the heavy handle of his oar, and that his life depended on making the broad blade push back the water as rapidly as possible. Antonius, however, had had good cause for his command. A searching scrutiny had revealed to him that a single very long warehouse ran clear down to the river's edge, and so made it impossible to continue running along the bank. A pursuer ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... they set him down in front of the palace and he slipped unseen through the guards at the gate and through the halls of the palace to the Princess's own chamber. The lion, the wolf, and the tiger were asleep and he was able to push back the curtain before which they were lying and creep up to the Princess's very bedside ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... is better off without Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt. If you have faith in God, or man, or self, Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf Of silence lower thoughts ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... with scorn and contempt upon the woman who through her love for some man has gone down to destruction, do not smilingly acknowledge her paramour a worthy suitor for your own unsullied daughter. Maiden, if you must sneeringly raise your white hand and push back into the depths of pollution the woman who seeks to reinstate herself in the path of rectitude, do not permit the man who keeps half a dozen mistresses to clasp his arm around your waist and whirl you away to the ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... things she could never take in. To begin with, they were hideously unclean. She was not a daughter of the Puritans, but for all that she believed in such a thing as chastity and even as decency. It would appear that Osmond was far from doing anything of the sort; some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Did all women have lovers? Did they all lie and even the best have their price? Were there only three or four that didn't deceive their husbands? When Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for the gossip of a village parlour—a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... and slipped back into her room. Then, after sitting down upon her bed and getting up again, she stepped boldly to the door and knocked upon it. Instantly she heard Miss Barbara start and push back ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... tongues push back The stems ov reed an' lily, Jest let 'em dream ov them thar days When they was colt an' filly, An' spekkleate, es fetlock deep They eye my cool creek flowin', On whar I loosed it from My hand, Where be its crisp waves goin'. ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... to Merawe, a flourishing town which marked the northern limit of the power of Meroe, the desert forming a convenient neutral ground between the two kingdoms. Sometimes Egypt under a powerful king carried her arms much further to the south, at other times a warlike monarch of Meroe would push back the Egyptian frontier almost to Syene; but as a rule the Nile as far south as Semneh was regarded as ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... would have had the victory over me. But the morning was warm, and we had worked for some moments. My man stopped for a moment in his calm pinioning of my arms, and perhaps raised his hand to brush his face or push back his hair. At that moment luck came to my aid. He did not repeat the strange gentle blow at the back of my head—one which I think would have left unconscious a man with a neck less stiff—and as his pressure on my twisted arm relaxed, I suddenly got back my faculties. At once I used my ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... all round, and after his bruises were attended to by an old woman, the sliding panel was shut upon him. A kind of fever set his ideas wandering, and sometimes he fancied that he heard the voice of Flora Mac-Ivor speaking in the hut without. He tried to push back the panel, but the inmates had secured it on the outside with a ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... which had been without color, pale and clear like the sky about the evening star, went crimson in a moment. She bit her lip and shot at me one withering glance, then dropped her eyelids and hid the lightning. When I looked at her again, covertly, and from under my hand raised as though to push back my hair, she was pale once more, and her dark eyes were fixed upon the water and the green ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... moist place put a few Jack-in-the pulpits. This flower is much like a child's jack-in-the-box. It is so different from most of our plants that it has the effect of the joker in a pack of cards. Push back the flap over Jack's face and you will see a club like a policeman's billy. Along this club the inconspicuous flowers are borne. Later, in the fall, the fruit forms, and inside, instead of rather uninteresting flowers, are bright red berries. So ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... internal warmth was just sufficient to make him push back his chair and break up the party. "Mavis," he said, rather grimly, "we mustn't detain Mr. Ridgett from his duties." Then he forced a laugh. "I'm nobody; and so it doesn't matter how long I sit over my supper. But we've to remember ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... bank, and draw them near, That I may feast myself with hearing it, Till shortly they forget their bashful fear, Push back their flaxen curls, and round me sit— Tell me their names, their daily tasks, and show Where wild wood-strawberries in the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... close just round the corner. The more we examine the work of our old master, in fact, the more does the conviction force itself upon us that he was very far indeed from being primitive—that we must push back the early history of our race not for 250,000 winters alone, but perhaps for two or three million years into the dim ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... formal duty make no more thy boast: Thou disobey'st where it concerns me most. Fool! with both hands thus to push back a crown, And headlong cast thyself from empire down! Though Nourmahal I hate, her son shall reign: Inglorious thou, by thy own fault, remain. Thy younger brother I'll admit this hour: So mine shall be thy mistress, his thy ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... soon as he had moved his troops across safely, he was to send two regiments forward: one to the right, the other to the left, and the whole line was to advance and cover the territory between Mangjeloskabara and Shashinshi, the object being to push back any movement of the Austrians ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... in to arrange the room. Their talking aroused Molly, who sate up on the bed, and tried to push back the hair from her hot forehead, and to remember where she was. She dropped down on her feet by the side of the bed, to the astonishment of the women, and said,—'Please, how ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... father's sudden illness had spread rapidly, with the report that he had fallen dead while standing at the altar; and the church was thronged, and the street rapidly blocked up with a hushed crowd, eager for news and eager to give aid. So great was the press that the police had to interfere, and push back the throng from the door. It was useless to attempt to disperse it with the assurance that Father Damon was better; it patiently waited to see for itself. The sympathy of the neighborhood was most impressive, and perhaps the thing that the public best remembers about ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... for me to bend down, for she was almost past speech; then raising both hands she tried to push back my hat. I flung it aside, and she passed her hands over my hair again and again, and drew her thin fingers, from whose touch I did not shrink now, through the curling rings about my forehead and temples; then her lips moved, and Tony stooped ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... replied, stopping to push back a loosened wiry lock of hair; "it's time to think about growin' up when you ain't been but two years in breeches. Here, if you're through breakfast, I want you to step with this plate of muffins to Mrs. Cudlip. Tell her I sent 'em an' that I hope she ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... push back the sofas. This is a splendid room. We can roll up the rugs in a twinkling. Where is Mrs. Merriman? She will play the dance music. Oh, there are seven of us—one too many. Perhaps you ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... stopping now in front of Struve's, drawing another quick, bright smile from the banker's daughter, accepting its invitation and coming into the little yard and down the veranda. Only when he fairly towered over the two girls did he push back the hat which already he had touched to them, standing with his hands on his hips, his heavy features bespeaking a deep inward serenity and ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... leaned across the table as if, for some reason, she had to attract her husband's attention before speaking to him. He was just taking the last swallow of coffee, and now he set down his cup with decision, and moved away his plate. She knew what the next step would be. He would push back his chair, clear his throat, and then he ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... push back small parties of the enemy and prevent their observing, firing upon or delaying the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss |
