"Backs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for making a farthing do the work of a halfpenny, betrayed her German origin; in everything else she had become very Russian. She kept a considerable number of house serfs, especially many maids, who earned their salt, however: from morning to night their backs were bent over their work. She liked driving out in her carriage with grooms in livery on the footboard. She liked listening to gossip and scandal and was a clever scandal-monger herself; she liked to lavish favours upon someone, then suddenly crush him with her displeasure, in fact, Lizaveta ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a mile of open water, and the maidens started off with a large supply of dried flesh slung in osier baskets on their backs. Some of the young braves looked after them as they went and disputed as to which of them they would like to choose as ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... soon found that we were reserved for some other purpose. Six mules were brought up, and upon these we were mounted in a novel fashion. We were first set astride on the bare backs, with our faces turned tailwards. Our feet were then drawn under the necks of the animals, where our ankles were closely corded together. We were next compelled to bend down our bodies until we lay along the backs of the mules, our chins resting on their rumps. In this position our arms were ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... backs crouched once more, Carmine shrilly called his signals, Thayer and Gafferty plunged against an imaginary foe as Thursby shot the ball back and St. Clair, hugging the pigskin ecstatically with wide-spread ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... daughter of the king of the Kilikians, Syennesis. The opinion of this man was to the effect that the Carians should cross over the Maiander and engage battle with the Persians having the river at their backs, in order that the Carians, not being able to fly backwards and being compelled to remain where they were, might prove themselves even better men in fight than they naturally would. This opinion did not prevail; but ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... Venetian palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... transportation of our goods on human backs was begun, and shortly after six o'clock I started with the men to walk to the foot of the rapids, which takes about three hours. On the way, I observed a large accumulation of vines and branches heaped round the base of a tall trunk ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... on road-sides were a' dry wi' their drinking, Yet a' wadna slockin' the drouth i' their skin; A' around the peat-stacks, and alangst the dyke-backs, E'en the winds were a' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... learning to work, John gathered courage to say to her that he wished to leave home and apprentice himself to some handicraft business. Having seen some carpenters working in the neighbourhood, with good clothes on their backs, and hearing the men's characters well spoken of, he thought it would be a fine thing to be a carpenter too, particularly as the occupation would enable him to move from place to place and see the world. He was as yet, however, of too tender an age to set out on the journey of life; but ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... sword-fish Only attempt to do what all do wish: The thresher backs him, and to beat begins; The sluggard whale leads to oppression, And t' hide himself from shame and danger, down Begins to sink: the sword-fish upwards spins, And gores him with his beak; his staff-like fins So well the one, his ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Fathers, she cried, by turning your backs on me and keeping silence? Is it an insult to me you intend or to the memory of that great and holy man who has just quitted the earth? Will you dare to say that the reports he brought to us of the marvellous doings he witnessed in heaven, when he ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... really set such store on the life you hear rushing by outside? Only look out into the street. There they go, walking about in the heat of the sun, perspiring and tumbling about over their little affairs. No, we undoubtedly have the best of it, who are able to sit here in the cool and turn our backs on the quarter from which ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... was it that it was impossible to believe that it had not been carried out under definite orders. Chairs, sofas, settees lay scattered about in every conceivable attitude, and in every case as far as I can recollect minus legs and backs. In a small room at the end of the hall a table had been overturned, and on the floor and around lay broken glass, crockery, knives and forks, mixed up in utter confusion, while the wall was freely splashed with ink. One fact was very ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... visit to Jamaica, I found on my estate a poor woman nearly one hundred years old, and stone blind. She was too infirm to walk, but two young negroes brought her on their backs to the steps of my house, in order, as she said, that she might at least touch massa, although she could not see him. When she had kissed my hand, "that was enough," she said: "now me hab once kiss a massa's hand, me willing to die tomorrow, me no care." She had a woman appropriated to her ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of wheat, he handed them over. Jo was proceeding to lay these upon the backs of the animals; but this was too thin ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... very discreet and diplomatic," Thorndyke remarked, "and it was very necessary that it should be, for it is essential that we show the backs of our cards to Scotland Yard; and if to Scotland Yard, then to the whole world. We know what their trump card is and can arrange our play accordingly, so long as we do not show ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... and the land seem here struggling for mastery: although terra firma has obtained a footing, the denizens of the water think their claim at least equally good. In every part one meets hermit crabs of more than one species, carrying on their backs the shells which they have stolen from the neighbouring beach. (20/6. The large claws or pincers of some of these crabs are most beautifully adapted, when drawn back, to form an operculum to the shell, nearly as perfect ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... destruction only their best and brightest clothes. At a distance their colors shine and smile as if nothing at all had happened. But upon coming up closer, one can easily see how little these unfortunate beings carry on their poor backs. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... seen as far as the eye can reach; nor can you see the whole even near you from the deck of the vessel, as the grass is so high that sometimes they are hidden, and frequently you observe only their backs. They live here both in summer and in winter, but in very severe weather are said to go ashore, or into the higher lands, in search of the bark of the red elm. The owners brand them on the shoulder, and they are caught, when any are wanted, by ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... nurses to prevent her doing more, if necessary, and Diana and I could, if we liked, lie on the sands and watch the children. But it so happens that I love building castles and making puddings, and, curiously enough, Diana does too, and we were children once more with perhaps less hinge in our backs than formerly, but still ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... and encamped for the night. Having consulted a map I had with me, and observing by the sun the direction in which we had crossed the lake, (for we had actually crossed it at its greatest width,) I could make out pretty clearly that we had turned our backs to our true course! We had, however, a good supply of provisions, and a voyageur is never discouraged while he has the provender before him. Having now learned, to my cost, what confidence my pilot was entitled to, I determined on keeping land in ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... off into that dark maze of streets, narrow and tortuous, which backs up from the Seine to the Luxembourg, while its fare reflected that Fate had not served him so hardly after all: if Roddy had really been watching for him at the Gare du Nord, with a mind to follow and wait for his prey to make some incriminating ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... half from foreign quacks, Takes airings, now, on English horses' backs; While every modern bard may raise his name, If not on lasting ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... downright sly of John Kynaston!" she exclaims, angrily; "picking out a nobody like that behind all our backs, and keeping it so quiet, too; he ought to be ashamed of himself for ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... the reunion of two contending and shattered elements of a great nation. There is something beautifully pathetic in the picture of the North and the South clasped in each other's arms and shedding a torrent of hot tears down each other's backs as it is done in a play, but do you believe that the aged mothers on either side have learned to love the foe with much violence yet? Do you believe that the crippled veteran, North or South, now passionately loves the adversary who robbed him of his glorious youth, made him a feeble ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... had we pass'd out of the gates of Troezen, He silent in his chariot, and his guards Downcast and silent too, around him ranged; To the Mycenian road he turn'd his steeds, Then, lost in thought, allow'd the reins to lie Loose on their backs. His noble chargers, erst So full of ardour to obey his voice, With head depress'd and melancholy eye Seem'd now to mark his sadness and to share it. A frightful cry, that issues from the deep, With sudden discord rends the troubled air; And from the bosom of the earth a groan Is heard ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... was one of those unfortunate girls who cannot glance over the garden wall without being accused of stealing peaches, or else she had too thoroughly got people's backs up during the first week at sea, for everyone looked cold-eyed at her romance and called it unromantic names. There were continual little undercurrents of gossip going on about her beneath the otherwise pleasant surface of everyday ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... his declaration tacks; Then drives proud Frenchmen into the yawning sea— "The bravest whites, by bravest of the blacks." Brave Maceo pursues the Spanish packs, And Aguinaldo, in the mountain wilds, Pours shot and shell into the tyrants' backs— They save her throne and Freedom on them smiles, True heroes, and the Fathers of their ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... no aid to the well-established maxims. The teachers and preachers who seek to implant in the young the principles of continuousness of purpose and of regularity and of kindred qualities must turn their backs on Lloyd George. They will find nothing from him to go into the text-books, for in the course of his career the Welsh statesman has trampled on every sound rule for securing success. That a man with so many contradictions ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... at a steady gait. The cruel whip played over furry backs, a never-ceasing threat. And so the miles were hungrily devoured. It was the first day of freedom for dogs and man alike, and each moment of it yielded a sense of almost ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... fire in hell. Raise thy strong arm and fix him deep. Add this: in anguish make him weep. Now hell, make room in thy domains, This dreadful foe will soon no more Firm bind poor slaves in galling chains, Or lash their backs till flows their gore. Remorseless still, he cares not for their fate, Doom speedy, therefore, should on ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is ours that halts - the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he was coarse and severe: even the brutal Vandamme confessed that he trembled before that "devil of a man," while Lannes was the only human being who still dared to use the familiar "thou" in addressing his old comrade. To the face of his generals the Emperor was merely cold: behind their backs he sneered—saying, for instance, of Davout that he might give him never so much renown, he would not be able to carry it; of Ney that he was disposed to ingratitude and turbulence; of Bessieres, Oudinot, and Victor that they were mere mediocrities. Among all ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation—their Tower ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Pastourelle. You take a lady with either hand, and jig them to and fro, for all the world like an Englishman of legend parading a couple of wives for sale at Smithfield; while the other male, like a timid purchaser, backs and advances with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... new feeling did not definitely begin till after Sunday-school was over, when she was helping Miss Simpson collect the song-books. Not the big, thick hymn-books used for the church service, but smaller ones, with pasteboard backs and different tunes. Melissa would have preferred the Sunday-school to use the big, cloth-covered hymnals. Somehow they looked more religious; just as their tunes, with slow, long-drawn cadences, somehow sounded more religious than the Sunday-school's cheerful tunes. Why this ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... I had, and one poisoned for six weeks with a Minnie bullet, it was a slow process to recover, but I made steady progress with, of course, occasional pull backs. ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... is, having in your mind and really believing that a person is guilty of a certain sin when you have no reason for thinking so, and no evidence that he is guilty. "Backbiting"—that is, talking evil of persons behind their backs. You would not like your neighbor to backbite you, and you have no right to do to him what you would not wish him to do to you. Besides, everyone hates and fears a backbiter; because as he brings to you a bad story about another, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... groups, were listening to it and drinking Turkish coffee. It was very early in the season. The rush up the Nile had not begun, and travellers had not yet cemented their travelling acquaintanceships. People looked at each other rather vaguely, or definitely ignored each other, with profiles and backs which said quite plainly: "We won't have anything to do with you until we know more about you." The entrance of the party from the Villa Androud created a strong diversion. As soon as Baroudi was perceived by the attendants, there was a soft ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... her climb the rocks, they took a last glance back at the stolid pair who didn't mind storms. Captain Stubbs in brilliantly yellow new oilskins and Miss Matthews in a sad-colored waterproof coat sat side by side with their backs against the ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... a chair in which the width of front and back is the same. Also the back leg parallels the front below the seat. In commercial practice the backs are usually made somewhat narrower than the fronts and the back leg is slanted somewhat below the seat as well as above. As this construction necessitates sloping shoulders on all tenons it complicates the problem when the work is not done ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... the fire was lighted, also without flurry. The two scouts now cantered back knocking over a bush on their way. Shots were heard in the distance, and our camp was leisurely, very leisurely, broken up. The tents were, with some difficulty, placed on the backs of the horses, and most of our troopers mounted without serious difficulty. One certainly was thrown, and another had to hold firmly to his horse. Then we advanced. We again dismounted. One of our body, after some negotiation, collected the reins of our horses. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... and why does the seller sell it instead of keeping it? The seller sells it because he thinks he can do best by parting with it now at a certain price. I buy it because I think I can make money by keeping it. It is just the same as though we were to back our opinions. He backs the fall. I back the rise. You needn't have coffee and you needn't have guano to do this. Indeed the possession of the coffee or the guano is only a very clumsy addition to the trouble of your profession. I make it my study to watch the markets;—but I needn't buy everything I see in order to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... like a human vulture to feed upon ships and men? There have been many Edmond Czernys in the world; but this man I name chief among them, and others will name him also. We set ourselves against a hand in a million; stiff backs we need to wrestle with that; but we'll do it, old comrade, we'll ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... where the diners were at table the huge fireplace, with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens, with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth, kindled merriment, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... with a sort of kettle turned upside down an' covered with feathers for a sky-piece. I certainly made an imposin' sight, an' all I had to do was to ride around an' fling little plugs o' tobacco out o' my saddle-bags. But the' was draw-backs. The' generally is. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... thoughts; contributed to make that hour much the most wonderful that Roswell Gardiner had ever passed. To add to the excitement, a couple of whales came blowing up the passage, coming within a hundred yards of the schooners. They were fin-backs, which are rarely if ever taken, and were suffered to pass unharmed. To capture a whale, however, amid so many bergs, would be next to impossible, unless the animal were killed by the blow of the harpoon, without requiring the keener ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... may think, gentlemen, of the prisoner's marriage, we have it in evidence that his relatives turned their backs on him from that moment—with the one merciful exception of the head of the family. Lord Le Basque exerted his influence with the Admiralty, and obtained for his brother (then out of employment) an appointment to a ship. All the witnesses agree ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... the past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast, and soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... earliest victims of the hunt. Here in full view of the soldiery, but vouchsafing them no glance nor greeting whatever, two young warriors reined in their lively ponies and disdainfully turned their backs upon the spectators on the divide, while the squaws, with shrill laugh and chatter, rolled from their saddles and began the drudgery of their lot—skinning and cutting up the buffalos slaughtered ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... But will this satisfy you, Gilbert? You know there are some exciting pleasures that we must turn our backs on resolutely. I think this book is one of them. Now you will let me take it? I will tell your father about it in private, and he cannot blame you. Then, if he will give his consent, whenever you can come home early, come to my dressing-room, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in silence. Passengers were beginning to get into their deck-chairs; and Elsa noted the backs of the many novels that ranged from the pure chill altitudes of classic and demi-classics down to the latest popular yarn. Many an eye peered over the tops of the books; and envy and admiration and curiosity brought their shafts to bear upon her. It was something to create these variant ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... maidens, bags of gold sufficient to provide them with dowries without which they would have been forced by poverty to a life of shame. In the realm of the avaricious and the prodigals, Dante addresses one of the repentent souls: "Spirit, who thou wast and why ye have your backs turned upward, tell me" ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... of the N.Z. and A. Division, but his shells either fell short or, unfortunately, went in amongst the marquees of the 13th Casualty Clearing Station, which was situated near-by. Men could be seen running for cover, some bearing in their arms, or on their backs, other men who were unable to help themselves. Many, already wounded, were ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... cost! Do you want an annual contract? Write to DOUDNEYS' by the post. DOUDNEY BROTHERS! DOUDNEY BROTHERS! Not the men that drive the van, Plastered o'er with advertisements, heralding some paltry plan, How, by base mechanic stinting, and by pinching of their backs, Lean attorneys' clerks may manage to retrieve their Income-tax: But the old established business—where the best of clothes are given At the very lowest prices—Fleet Street, Number Ninety-seven. Wouldst thou know the works of DOUDNEY? Hie thee to the thronged Arcade, To the Park ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... had tugs-of-war with a rope made of stockings tied together. It was not a good rope because it always broke at the most exciting moments, but that only added to our pleasure; for both teams fell flat on their backs when the rope gave way, and Miss Lane looked particularly funny rolling ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... these little children are great friends. Although the horses are so big, they are very gentle, and allow the carter's children to lead them home in the evening, or to ride on their backs. ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel
... a cruel boy. He used to strip his little fellow negroes while in the woods, and whip them two or three times a week, so that their backs were all scarred, and threatened them with severer punishment if they told; this state of things had been going on for quite a while. As I was a favorite with Gilbert, I always had managed to escape a whipping, with the promise of keeping the secret ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... ship down, Spud; that patrol would be on our backs in half a second. And they'd knock me out with one shot the minute ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... that she could remember seeing some of the slaves being whipped on their bare backs with a plaited hickory stick, or thong. She never received any whippings. She said that a man once cut at her with his thong, but that she escaped the blow ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... mud and water, and it took often three days to remove cannon from one battery to another. The waggons became useless, too, so that the transport of bombs, shot, and so forth, could not be performed except upon the backs of mules and of horses taken from the equipages of the Court and the army. The state of the roads deprived the Duc de Luxembourg of the use of waggons and other vehicles. His army was perishing for want of grain. To ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of young ladies of excellent family, three of them at least considerable heiresses, who have married young officers of merit solely because they were officers of merit, and who have gladly turned their backs on the flutter and glitter of fashionable Paris to share the quiet, unpretending quarters, and take a sympathetic interest in the serious military career of their husbands in this rather ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... was intensely hot, and scorched our backs, and burned our faces by flashing back from the water, which looked cool and tempting, as ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... our guns were slung across our backs, the loads taken up, and, each armed with a staff, we made our start—Cross, as he held the lanthorn, asking leave to lead ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... I heard the roar of mills; and moving through the noise, Like phantoms in an underworld, were little girls and boys. Their backs were bent, their brows were pale, their eyes were sad and old; But by the labour of their hands greed added gold to gold. Again the Presence and the Voice: 'Behold the crimes I see, As ye have done it unto these, so have ye ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... on! Would that thoughtless policeman have given Mr Moses three hundred precious sovereigns to put himself in locomotion? Not he. Then came two or three mysterious individuals, travellers apparently from the east, with long beards, heavy bags on their backs, and sonorous voices, who had evidently letters of introduction to Methusaleh, for they deposited their burdens before him as they passed, and entered with him into friendly conversation, or rather ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... (once) dancing. But dust, dust, dust, everywhere. We went on, through a long, straggling, dirty suburb, thronged with people; having on our left a dreary slope of land, on which the country-houses of the Marseilles merchants, always staring white, are jumbled and heaped without the slightest order: backs, fronts, sides, and gables towards all points of the compass; until, at last, we entered ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... flashing with gold and rich brocades, and borne on the shoulders of men; while his princesses and favorite begums followed in all the pomp and glory of the seraglio, nestled in delicious pavilions curtained with massy silk, and mounted on the backs of stately elephants of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... an adjacent boulder to watch the actions of the little party, which stood huddled at the foot of another huge rock, their backs toward us. ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Anglia being wide, and there being room for both. And all men rejoiced greatly, for all were weary of a strife in which little had been gained on either side beyond hard blows, and their thoughts were of the ingle-nook. So the long-bearded Danes, their thirsty axes harmless on their backs, passed to and fro in straggling bands, seeking where undisturbed and undisturbing they might build their homes; and thus it came about that Haafager and his company, as the sun was going down, drew near to the town of seven towers, that in those days stood on dry land between ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... my debt," whispered Yorke in her ear, as he thrust Betty safely into the seat. "Pompey, drive for your life!" The startled negro needed no second bidding, down came the whip-lash on the horses' backs, and with a furious plunge, a mad rear, they were off, a quarter of a mile ahead before their pursuers turned the corner ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... candle I had noticed in the daytime, and sat down to note his progress in a professional way. His pulse was right, as I found by timing it with my own; and the hard swelling of the elbows seemed to have relaxed a little. The backs of his hands were pretty bad with the external scurvy known as 'Barcoo rot'—produced by unsuitable food and extreme hardship—but that had nothing to do with the complaint which had so strangely overtaken him. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... conveys a suitable idea of her personal character. The marble of this work, long as it has stood there, is as white as snow just fallen, and must have required most faithful and religious care to keep it so. As for the volumes of the library, they are wired within the cases and turn their gilded backs upon the visitor, keeping their treasures of wit and wisdom just as intangible as if still in the unwrought mines ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... call on you Who lost their support from this tyrant's attacks, And he with his legions may soon fall upon you, If you now shrink from duty or show him your backs. Lend, lend a hand! Lend, lend a hand! Your own peace and safety your ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... promise of a safe return. Again and again she was driven from her course towards the low rocks on the other side of the bay, and again and again, returned to disport herself, like a sea-animal, as it seemed, upon the backs of the wild, rolling, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... discharged wildly in the air against the will of the gunner. But from the moment when Kennedy's voice rang out in the door, "Hands up!" to the time that I saw that we had the robbers lined up with their backs against the heavy cases of the precious metal for which they had planned and risked so much, it is a ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... inquired after Butcher Long's brood of kids in the East, and cried "Hello, old man!" and "What's the good word from Yellow Tail?" and "How d'ye do?" and "Glad t' see you!" and everywhere shook hands and clapped backs—carefully preserving, however, his own back from being slapped—and devoutly ejaculated "God bless you, men! A Merry Christmas to you all and every one!" and eventually disappeared in the direction of Pale Peter's ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... the lower rows of shelves, standing just near enough to them to read the titles on the backs of the volumes. I saw Voltaire in red morocco, Shakespeare in blue, Walter Scott in green, the "History of England" in brown, the "Annual Register" in yellow calf. There I paused, wearied and discouraged already by the long rows of volumes. How (I thought to myself) am I to examine ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... removal of the members of this Board, under the law, and when they refused to close the public gambling houses and otherwise enforce the laws against vice in Denver, he read them out of office. They refused to go, and defied him, with the police at their backs. He threatened to call out the militia and drive them from the City Hall. The whole town ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... occasionally, he honored one or two of the seigniors with an invitation to his table, he sat alone in solemn state at the head of the board, while the guests, to whom he scarcely vouchsafed a syllable, were placed on stools without backs, below the salt. Such insolence, it may be supposed, was sufficiently galling to men of the proud character, but somewhat reckless demeanor, which distinguished the Netherland aristocracy. After a short time they held themselves aloof, thinking it sufficient to endure ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the following extract from the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1781. "Mr. Hollis employed Mr. Fingo to cut a number of emblematical devices, such as the caduceus of Mercury, the wand of AEsculapius, the owl, the cap of liberty, &c.; and these devices were to adorn the backs and sometimes the sides of books. When patriotism animated a work, instead of unmeaning ornaments on the binding, he adorned it with caps of liberty. When wisdom filled the page, the owl's majestic gravity bespoke its contents. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... as well as of surprise, might well have thrilled any youthful breast at such a spectacle; for why, oh! why, was this resplendent dolly hung up there to be stared at by thirteen of her kindred? Was she a criminal, the sight of whose execution threw them flat upon their backs in speechless horror? Or was she an idol, to be adored in that humble posture? Neither, my friends. She was blonde Belinda, set, or rather hung, aloft, in the place of honor, for this was her seventh birthday, and ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... watchful guardian of the mid-world is as wakeful as the birds. And his hearing is so keen, that no sound on earth escapes him,—not even that of the rippling waves upon the seashore, nor of the quiet sprouting of the grass in the meadows, nor even of the growth of the soft wool on the backs of sheep. And his eyesight, too, is wondrous clear and sharp; for he can see by night as well as by day, and the smallest thing, although a hundred leagues away, cannot be ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... of the gloom The red fire paints the empty room: And warmly on the roof it looks, And flickers on the backs of books. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... less, those on board the pirate ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the central gang-plank, which separated the rowers' benches, the boatswain and his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the better work was not to be relied upon here, as ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... Tartar tribes. The Lamas are divided into three classes: those that remain under the tent, and whose mode of life differs little from that of the other members of their family; the travelling Lamas—a migratory kind of animals—who, with staff in hand, and wallet at their backs, wander from place to place, trusting to Tartar hospitality for their maintenance; and lastly, the Lamas who live in communities, or convents, and devote themselves more especially to study and prayer. Most of the Lama-houses enjoy large revenues, the result of imperial foundations, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... can see half round the world from here," he said as they stood with their backs to the rock. "Now you can get an ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... pointed out a drove of ten of these little animals, which appeared handy and without an owner, and suggested to the men that they would look well with our brand on. It took very little time to round them up, cut a cross in the hair on their backs and place a brassard round their ears. They were then our property. The other type of donkey generally indulged in what were known as Furfys or Beachograms. Furfy originated in Broadmeadows, Victoria; the second title was born in the ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... XIV., adjoined the sort of antechamber in which Manon was usually stationed, and it seemed to be parallel with Madame de la Chanterie's bedroom, which also opened into the salon. This room had no other ornament than a tall clock. The furniture consisted of six chairs with oval backs covered with worsted-work, done probably by Madame de la Chanterie's own hand, two buffets and a table, all of Mahogany, on which Manon did not lay a cloth for breakfast. The breakfast, of monastic frugality, was composed of a small turbot ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... is, Spurlock was coming along: queerly, by his own imagination. The true creative mind is always returning to battle; defeats are only temporary set-backs. Spurlock knew that somewhere along the way he would write a story worth while. Already he was dramatizing Ruth, involving her, now in some pearl thieving adventure, now in some impossible tale of ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... panic among the Irish was caused by the mistake of an officer who called out "Right about face" instead of "Right face." Neither Avaux nor James had heard any thing about this mistake. Indeed the dragoons who set the example of flight were not in the habit of waiting for orders to turn their backs on an enemy. They had run away once before on that very day. Avaux gives a very simple account of the defeat: "Ces mesmes dragons qui avoient fuy le matin lascherent le pied avec tout le reste de la cavalerie, sans tirer un ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lay in shade, save for the bright gleam of the reading-lamp. Among the books which lined the walls from floor to ceiling, the gilded backs of the smaller volumes caught the light and sent it back in soft, broken twinklings; but the great brown folios on the lower shelves were half lost in a comfortable duskiness. The crimson curtains were drawn before the open windows, and the evening wind waved them lightly now and then, sending new ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... cross-legged, as tailors usually sit, in the act of pressing a pair of breeches; his hands were placed, backs up, upon the handle of his goose, and his chin rested upon the backs of his hands. To judge from his sorrowful complexion, one would suppose that he sat rather to be sketched as a picture of misery or of heroism in distress than for the industrious purpose of pressing the seams of a garment. There ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... assistance of man. The fidelity of the dog, his affectionate fawning on his master, his aversion to strangers, his sagacity in finding game, and his vivacity in pursuit of it, what do these qualities denote but that he was created for our use? Why need I mention oxen? We perceive that their backs were not formed for carrying burdens, but their necks were naturally made for the yoke, and their strong broad shoulders to draw the plough. In the Golden Age, which poets speak of, they were so greatly ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of this some time since, by a letter from one of our Jacobite friends to whom I wrote, asking for news. He says that the new knight has no great cause for enjoyment in his dignity and possessions, because, not only do the Jacobite gentry turn their backs upon him, when they meet him in the town, but the better class of Whigs hold altogether aloof from him, regarding his elevation, at the expense of his wife's kinsman, to be disgraceful, although of course they have no idea of the evil plot by which he brought about my ruin. There is great ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... James in his Demonologie. The hands and feet of the suspected persons were tied together crosswise, the thumb of the right hand to the toe of the left foot, and vice versa. They were then wrapped up in a large sheet or blanket, and laid upon their backs in a pond or river. If they sank, their friends and relatives had the poor consolation of knowing they were innocent; but there was an end of them: if they floated, which, when laid carefully on the water, was generally the case, there was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... beliefs of the people. Empire is the servant of ambition and the shadow of greed. Popular government has been evolved by the human race at an immense sacrifice during centuries of struggle against the forms and ideas that underly imperialism. Since men have set their backs on the past and turned their faces with resolute hope to the future, empire has repelled them, while democracy has ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... wert grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento: I knew the road: a few strides brought me back: here I am. To-morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk together, as we used to do, into the cool and quiet caves on the shore; and we will catch the little breezes as they come in and go out again on the backs of the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian-at work also with a plow. The corn must be plowed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sunbonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned, or more properly burned, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness "creak-cracked" as he swung steadily and patientiy forward, the moisture pouring from ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... night, after the servants had gone to bed, it would turn everything topsy-turvy, put sugar in the salt-cellars, pepper into the beer, and was up to all kinds of pranks. It would throw the chairs down, put tables on their backs, rake out fires, and do as much mischief as could be. But sometimes it would be in a good temper, and then!—"What's a Brownie?" you say. Oh, it's a kind of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't know what's a Bogle or a Redcap! ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... try to describe our position. We were drawn up on a nearly square tableland known as the Plain of Ayacucho, a league in circumference, and flanked right and left by rugged ravines. We had the village at our backs, and the only road by which we could retreat was effectually blocked. The Royalist army was perched just below the summit of a gigantic ridge called Condorcanqui, which formed the eastern boundary of ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... to a different kingdom of nature. Thus a New Zealand bird, originally granivorous and insectivorous, has become carnivorous, from the want of its natural supplies, and now tears the fleeces from the backs of the sheep, in order to feed on their living flesh. All these changes have exercised more or less direct or indirect action on the inorganic surface of the globe; and the history of the geographical ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the traitor's death!" shouted the Sovereign Pontiff. The chest was loosed, and swung like a pendulum lengthwise of the room, down almost to the floor and up nearly to the ceiling. The profanity now turned into a yell of terror. The Martyrs slapped one another's backs and grew blue in the face with laughter. At a signal, a light box was placed where the chest would crush it (which it did with a sound like a small railway collision); the chest was stopped and ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... as he said. Already a brightness was visible in the eastern sky, and the stars in that quarter of the heavens began to fade and disappear. A word from the Mochuelo brought his men to their feet, and, slinging their muskets on their backs, they ascended the water-course. Meanwhile the horses were stripped of their equipments, and, taking hold of the halters, Paco and El Tuerto led them into the wood. A cord was lowered from the top of the precipice, and the saddles were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... consists of a mill and a bakehouse; a pulpit for the orator is a hopper, while the learned director sits on a mill-stone; the other seats have the forms of a miller's dossers, or great panniers, and the backs consist of the long shovels used in ovens. The table is a baker's kneading-trough, and the academician who reads has half his body thrust out of a great bolting sack, with I know not what else for their inkstands ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... fluttering ribbon and rich lace; the third, a tall well-made man, had a plain walking suit, surmounted by a flowing periwig and plumed beaver. Coming close beneath Peregrine's tree, and standing with their backs to it, they eagerly conversed. "Such a cascade will drown the honours of the Versailles fountains, if only the water can be raised to such a height. Are you ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the church to a decent condition being too great for the inhabitants, they agreed to pull down the Lady Chapel, and sell the materials. This was done, except that some portion of the woodwork was utilised in repairs. The painted boards from the roof were made into backs for the seats in the choir. An engraving of the choir as it appeared in the eighteenth century shews these boards. They are mostly adorned with the letter M surmounted by a crown, and the three lions of England, in alternate ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... mounting the steps now, St. George carrying the guns, Todd loaded down with the game—ten brace of canvas-backs and redheads strung together by their bills—the driver of the gig following with the master's big ducking overcoat and smaller traps—the four dogs crowding up trying to nose past for a dash into the wide hall as soon ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... trotted out of the scrimmage line and blew his whistle; the Hillton quarter-back crouched again behind the big center; the other backs scurried to their places as though for ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... contents of the pockets of Badshah's pad, but with loaded rifles beside them lest their meal should be disturbed by any dangerous denizen of the jungle. The two natives sat down some distance away and, turning their backs on each other, drew out cloths in which their midday repast of chupatis, or thick pancakes, with curry and an onion or two was tied up. The elephants left to themselves grazed close by and did ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... cough near by, and turning saw a couple sitting on a bench half hidden in the heavy shrubbery. Their backs were toward her, and she noticed that the girl's hand rested on the man's shoulder and that their heads were bent in intimate conversation. The next instant she recognized Rose Mattel's hat and the dim outline of Quin's ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... said on deck. The result proved his sagacity, no less than his diabolical villainy. All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in all, of the crew who were not concerned in the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... which to view the trading floor of the Exchange. It runs the full width of the south wall. The chairs entrenched behind the rail have acquired a slippery polish from the shiftings of countless occupants just as the wall behind has known the restless backs of onlookers who have stood ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... can receive them again. If, by unwearied industry and perseverance, she can earn for herself and children a patch of ground and a shed to cover them, the husband can strip her of all her hard earnings, turn her and her little ones out in the cold northern blast, take the clothes from their backs, the bread from their mouths; all this by your laws may he do, and has he done, oft and again, to satisfy the rapacity of that monster in human form, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... cruelty was in fact a kind of mercy. The victims could not keep up with the party, and the death-blow saved them from a lonely and lingering death from cold and starvation. Some of the children, when spent with the march, were carried on the backs of their owners,—partly, perhaps, through kindness, and partly because every child ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Chief Secretary said, a courageous one. But with all its difficulties and dangers it is the right course. We who have been through the mill know what the effect of coercion is. We know that you do not put down Irishmen by coercion. You simply embitter them and stiffen their backs." ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... boys sincerely wished that the idea to investigate had never appealed to them, for they began to have a rough time of it. But both were too proud to admit the fact, and so they kept crawling along over the rocks with their rifles slung on their backs, at times finding it necessary to clutch hold of bushes or saplings in order to save themselves from some tumble into holes, the actual depth of which they had no means of even guessing in ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... filled with tomb-stones of all sizes. As I entered it two women passed me; they were tall, stout, and dusty, had very short petticoats, and thick hob-nailed boots, dark-blue dresses hung over big haunches, little black shawls no larger than handkerchiefs over their backs. They had big black bonnets cocked right upon the tops of their heads, and seemed women who worked out of doors, agricultural laborers perhaps, or perhaps the wives of bargemen, for there was a canal through the village. They had the strong steady ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... together) Their warriors take to flight; at this new courage animates our men. When the Teloboians turn their backs we stick them full of spears, and Amphitryon himself cut down King Pterelas with his own hand. This fight was fought out all through the day there from morn till eve. (reflectively) I remember this point more distinctly because ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... they can best be left at the old site until the reconstruction has progressed far enough so that they may be put in place when delivered. All fireplaces are now examined carefully to determine the exact angles of sides and backs. The individual stones must also be numbered and keyed. Paint is applied, that will not rub off ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... the desert, glaring like a sea of brass! Here before them were the valleys, fair with moonlight-coloured grass! At their backs were haggard waste-lands, bickering in a wicked blaze! In their faces beamed the waters, marching down melodious ways! Touching was the cool, soft lustre over laps of lawn and lea; And majestic was the great road ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... to keep us from being idle; the promise to keep us from being discouraged. Well, let us imitate God, and, as He couples a command and a promise, so let us couple a resolution and a petition. As God seconds and backs His command with His promise, so let us second and back our promises with our prayers; the one in sense of our duty, the other in sense of our weakness; by the one, to bring our hearts up to God: by the other, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... pleasure in rolling and rubbing their necks and backs on carrion. The odour seems delightful to them, though dogs at least do not eat carrion. Mr. Bartlett has observed wolves for me, and has given them carrion, but has never seen them roll on it. I have heard it remarked, and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... wheel-hubs; the horses kept their feet well, though the current was strong; the sun shone brightly on the white hats and laughing faces of the men, on the guns in their hands, on the red paint of the wagon and the warm backs of the horses breasting the stream. When they were halfway across, one of the men tossed a small, reluctant black dog over the wheel into the river, and all the company, with the exception of the driver, who was giving ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... great ship backs its yards, With drooping sails, await, A spider-web of spars and lantern-lights, While like a pilot shark, the slim canoe, A V-shaped ripple wrinkling from its jaws, Slides noiselessly across the swells, Leading the swinging boat's crew to the beach; And all ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... to stay here in the sleigh, keeping the headlight pointed just to the left of that big tree—I noticed that was where the flash of their fire came—and for Just and me to start across the fields. I'll turn the horses with their backs to the wind and blanket them. Then—hold on, I've a better plan. Let's make a fire of our own. That ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... finest, freshest vegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and his companion entered the piazza, it appeared that some common preoccupation had for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers from their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who were concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor of old-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... under the thick sheets and the dark blankets, minus his boots, the trooper smokes his pipe until he falls asleep. Their officer is with them in the morning, to see that they brush the scurf out of their horses' manes and put the burnisher over the backs of the buckles; he puts his nose into their room at dinner-time to ask if there are any complaints, and withdraws it almost before it is recognised by the men, as if the odour of the Irish stew disagreed with him. After ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... the arch-enemy Damophilus, He was known to be staying in his pleasance near to the city. Thence he and his wife were fetched with every mark of ignominy, and the unhappy pair were dragged into the town with their hands bound behind their backs. The masters of the city now mustered in the theatre for an act of justice; but Damophilus did not lose his wits even when he scanned that sea of hostile faces and accusing eyes. He attempted a defence and was listened to in silence—nay, with approval, for many of his auditors ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... seemed to plough up and roll waves of fire about her sides. By their bright light he could even distinguish the spars and ropes in her. He could also distinctly see the men on board, with sou'westers on their heads; but as their windward side was nearest, they all had their backs turned to him, and were nearly ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... extremely cold. Fierce winds whistled down from the crests of the mountains and pierced their clothing with myriads of little icy darts. They crept closer and closer to the fire. Their faces burned while their backs froze, and the menacing wind, while it chilled them to the marrow with its breath, seemed to laugh at them in sinister fashion. They thought with many a lament of their warm quarters ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... revolver high above his head. The bystanders swung up to their horses' backs. Two miles away another little group of men with field glasses were upon a ridge from which they could see the start, from which they in turn could signal the word to the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... know not which to call it, for sometimes you should see them dart out of the air as if they would fall on their faces into the lake, when coming near the surface they would stretch their legs in a horizontal posture, and in an instant turn on their backs, and then you could see nothing from the bank, to all appearance, but a boat sailing along, the graundee rising at their head, feet, and sides, so like the sides and ends of a boat that you could not discern the face or any part of the body. I own I often ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... drawers is indicated by the diagrams, Fig. 30, b, c, d. The fronts are of 5/8-inch, the sides and backs of 3/8-inch, and the bottoms of (barely) 1/4-inch wood. The grooves should not come nearer than 1/8-inch to the bottom edge, or be more than 5/16 inch wide and deep. The possessor of a suitable "plough" plane will have no difficulty in cutting them out; ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... to the ankles, and slide back at every step; but it is short,—we were up in six to eight minutes,—though the ladies, who had been helped a little by the guides, were nearly exhausted, and sank down on the very edge of the crater, with their backs to the smoke. What did we see? What would you see if you looked into a steam boiler? We stood on the ashy edge of the crater, the sharp edge sloping one way down the mountain, and the other into the bowels, whence the thick, stifling smoke rose. We rolled stones down, and heard them rumbling for ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... good to be true: it was like the sun rising after the long arctic night. Those sad faces flushed, and the moody eyes kindled. The burgesses straightened their backs and lifted their heads; they looked at one another, and felt that they were once more men. There was a murmur of joy and congratulation; and thanks were uttered to God, and to the Company, for what had been done. And forthwith they set to work with life ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... husband who sat by. Indeed his utter scorn of painting was such, that I have heard him say, that he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them, if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he had turned them.' Such a remark of Johnson's must not, however, be taken too strictly. He often spoke at random, often with exaggeration. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... backs on the church and the law; Search all the world through, From the king on his throne, To the beggar—you'll own There are none like the gipsy crew. Wherever we rove, We're sure to find home; In field, lane, or grove, Then roam, boys, roam! 'Tis only when walls his poor body surround, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... were, many of them, killed on board, and carried ashore dead in the canoes, and others were thrown overboard alive, and attempted to swim to the land; but many of them were killed in the water by the natives, who got astride on their backs, and then struck them on the head with their merys. Many of the canoes came to the land loaded with plunder from the ship; and numbers of the natives quarrelled about the division of the spoil, and fought and slew each other. I observed, too, that they broke up ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... island, I found several cocoa-nut shells, the remains of an old wigwam, and the backs of two turtle, but no sign of any quadruped. One of my people ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... of the crew slept at night. But one night the natives collected a heap of big stones from the ballast of the ship, and piled them up to a kind of platform beneath the hatch; some of the strongest of them got upon the platform and set their backs horizontally against the hatch, gave a great heave and, lifted it off. In the confusion that followed, a great many of the prisoners escaped into the sea, and swam ashore; the rest were captured and thrust back under the hatch, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... from one to another. Renewals of past acquaintance came from every side. There were hearty clappings on the backs of scores and ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... of Mr. Low and his companions, who turned round to answer the speaker. The slave, seeing their backs toward him for an instant, seized that opportunity to rush out; and he had run two or three rods before they missed him. They immediately raised the cry of "Stop Thief! Stop Thief!" An Irishman, who joined in the pursuit, arrested ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... chained one to the other by thick flowering plants with bright scarlet or yellow blossoms, were famous hiding-places for the monkeys, who could wait unseen, till a puma or an elephant passed by, and then jump on their backs and go for a ride, swinging themselves up by the creepers when they had had enough. Near the rivers huge tortoises were to be found, and though to our eyes a tortoise seems a dull, slow thing, it is wonderful ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... dawn of a new day breaking, When a strong armed nation shall take away The weary burden from backs that are aching With maximum ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... the beach, where a large party of people were collected, with a number of pack horses and carts. The boats were at once surrounded, and their cargoes quickly taken out of them and placed either in the carts or on the backs of the horses. The work was carried on with the greatest rapidity, and by the time Dick and his companions had launched their boat, the whole had begun to move off, and before the lugger was reached, not a single person was to be ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... liable to ferment, and produce too much acidity; as appears by the consequent diarrhoea with green dejections and gripes; the colour is owing to a mixture of acid with the natural quantity of bile, and the pain to its stimulus. And they should never be fed as they lie upon their backs, as in that posture they are necessitated to swallow all that is put into their mouths; but when they are fed, as they are sitting up, or raised up, when they have had enough, they can permit the rest to run out of their mouths. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... indignant. "Why, Billy Wiggs!" she exclaimed, "do you think I'd take an' go to a show, when Asia an' Australia ain't got a good shoe to their backs?" ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... who seek to reduce the impressions of the extravagance indulged in by the Indians at these games. The concurrence of testimony is to the effect that there was no limit to which they would not go. Their last blanket or bead, the clothing on their backs, their wives and children, their own liberty were sometimes hazarded; and if the chances of the game went against them the penalty was paid with unflinching firmness. The delivery of the wagered wives, Lescarbot tells us, ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis |
