"Backwards" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster; lightly, more lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying round Marya Dmitrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until, turning his partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas, raising his soft foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling and making a wide sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and laughter led by Natasha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... assistant. Andrews remained standing in the cab. He looked like some sea captain who was waiting to sink beneath the waves in his deserted ship. He worked at the lever and touched the valve, and then leaped from his post to the roadbed. The next moment "The General" was moving backwards towards the ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... here, and knows it backwards," Hilderman informed him. And we chatted about the district and the fishing and the views until the steward returned, and we got under weigh. I should have liked to have seen the accommodation below, but the ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... a force there to take him in flank as he attacked their front. He ordered them, if they found the wood unoccupied, to join in the fight as opportunity might offer. The wood was unoccupied, and the spearmen, seeing the two divisions of their army driven backwards, and being thereby cut off from their friends, issued from the wood and, charging down in a body, fell suddenly ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Nolan, touching his hat gravely. "He was pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... or at any rate to prove him a pupil of one of the great schools of Erin. There was special anxiety to connect the saint with Bangor or Clonard. To effect the connection in question it was sometimes necessary to carry the life backwards, at other times to carry it forwards, and occasionally to lengthen it both backwards and forwards. Dr. Chas. O'Connor gives a not very convincing explanation of the three-hundred-year "Lives," scil.:— that the saint lived in three centuries—during the whole of one century ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... meals, we faced a broad waterfall, a curving wall of white foam, stretching right across the stream, which was at this point about seventy or eighty yards wide. Innumerable blue dragon-flies flitted backwards and forwards in the sunlight. Though the weather was warm, it was less hot than usual at this time of year, and the surroundings of our Mess reminded me vividly of Kerry. In the first days that followed I could often imagine myself back ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... broke into a laugh. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her feet lightly backwards and forwards. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... going on a full canter, he gave the words, "Present! fire!" and off it went, knocked him backwards, and shivered a beautiful mirror into a thousand pieces. Oh, what a sad scene of confusion ensued! Some of the young ladies screamed out with fright. Miss Timid, knocked down by Dicky in falling backwards, lay on the ground bleeding at the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... left, the greater high-seat; opposite it on the right, the lesser. In the middle of the floor, a wood fire is burning on a built-up hearth. In the background, on both sides of the door, are daises for the women of the household. From each of the high-seats, a long table, with benches, stretches backwards, parallel with the wall. It is dark outside; the fire ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... practical man) had perhaps been tried by the strange doings of the Admiral in the Gulf of Paria, decided that he as well as any one else might go and find some pearls. Nino is a poor man, having worked hard in all his voyagings backwards and forwards across the Atlantic; but he has a friend with money, one Luis Guerra, who provides him with the funds necessary for fitting out a small caravel about the size of his old ship the Nifta. Guerra, who has the money, also has a brother ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... be deeply interested in "studying lessons," and was soon, after hard study, complete master of the alphabet. I could repeat it forwards and backwards, and could instantly tell the name of any letter pointed out to me. My mistresses seemed to take great pleasure in teaching me, and I was very anxious to learn. I soon found that I could understand in a great measure the instructions the teacher gave to the different scholars, by ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... the well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the notes of a lark. And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in that holiday atmosphere! They still held each other's hands. Silvere leaning against the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown backwards. They were about to tell each other all the soft things which they had not dared to confide to the reverberations of the well, when Silvere, hearing a slight noise, started, and, turning pale, dropped Miette's hands. He ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... peering down into the lagoon, probably on the look-out for another turtle, when a large shark, coming as it seemed from beneath the boat, rose suddenly but quietly, and made a snatch at him. Johnny saw the monster barely in time; for just as he sprang up with a cry of affright, and fell backwards into the boat the shark's shovel-nose shot four feet above water at our stern, his jaws snapping together as he disappeared again, with a sound like the springing of a powerful steel-trap. Though baffled in his first attack, the voracious fish continued to follow ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... and if we know better, it is only because other men, and those few and far between, have laboured amid disbelief, ridicule, and error; needing again and again to retrace their steps, and to unlearn more than they learnt, seeming to go backwards when they were really progressing most: and now we have entered into their labours, and find them, as I have just said, more wondrous than all the poetic dreams of a Bonnet or a Darwin. For who, after all, to take a few broad instances (not to enlarge ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... is confirmed by subsequent evidence.] It remains that we agree on some method and plan by which henceforth our letters may go between us by a sure route. This does not seem very difficult, when so many of our merchants have frequent and large transactions with you, and their messengers run backwards and forwards every week, and their vessels sail from port to port not much seldomer. The charge of this I shall commit, rightly I hope, to Bookseller James (Jacobo Bibliopolae), or to his master, my very familiar acquaintance (vel ejus ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... watched him during that interminable dinner, watched his clear-cut face with its clever forehead and intent eyes, his slightly scornful, wholly unyielding lips. She cast her thoughts backwards over their honeymoon, trying somehow to trace an adequate reason for the fear that gripped her. He had been very forbearing with her throughout that difficult time. He had been gentle; he had been considerate. Though he had asserted and maintained his mastery ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... began to move slowly backwards at a slant across the road. In a minute or two he had it in position. Not blocking the road entirely, which would arouse immediate suspicion, but angled across it, lights out, empty, both front doors open and inviting ...
— An Incident on Route 12 • James H. Schmitz
... I gave you life, I will also kill you!" said Taras, and, retreating a step backwards, he brought his gun up to his shoulder. Andrii was white as a sheet; his lips moved gently, and he uttered a name; but it was not the name of his native land, nor of his mother, nor his brother; it was the name of the beautiful ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... regard to time or tune, more as if he were sawing a piece of wood, than playing on a musical instrument. He then became aware of a very curious thing, which was that the sheep all returned as he drew the bow backwards, tho' they were off again the moment he drew it forwards. This convinced him he had not attended to the manner in which the lady drew the bow, and accounted for his losing the sheep every evening. "Now," thought he, "I ...
— Up! Horsie! - An Original Fairy Tale • Clara de Chatelaine
... what happened afterwards. It was a confusion of white water rushing past and over me. Then for a moment I stopped, and at once made a clutch at the ground that I had been rolling over. There was a big strain, and I was hauled backwards as if a team of wild horses were pulling at me. Then there was a jerk, and I knew nothing more, till I woke up and found myself on the sands, out ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... rang out. Rainy-Moon gave one sharp cry of pain and sprang backwards—into space. In one hand he still gripped the leashes of the dogs. The other clutched wildly at the air. For one instant his fall was broken by his hold upon the four dogs, then the suddenness of his precipitation and his weight told, and the poor beasts were dragged ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... up a handspike and dealt him a crashing blow on the head. Half-blinded and stunned by the blow, the man fell on his knees, and shielding his face with his hands, strove to rise. Before he could do so the mate struck wildly at him again, and with a great cry he fell backwards and rolled heavily overboard. The mate, with a sob in his breath, gazed wildly astern, and waited for him to rise. He waited: minutes seemed to pass, and still the body of the skipper did not emerge from ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... backwards, and retiring to some distance rubbed his nose vigorously with his paws, looking all the while with dignified reproach ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... been dead six months. Only Desmond and I were with him in his last moments. When he sprang from his bed, staggered backwards, and fell dead, we clung together with faint hearts, and mutely questioned ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... separated from one another and show the sepals between them. [54] In the same manner bluebells vary in the size and shape of the corolla, which may be wide or narrow, bell-shaped or conical, with the tips turned downwards, sidewards or backwards. ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... secret, but he had been put out of action and sent off, post haste, to the nearest veterinary surgeon. Lutra saw her tormentors—some of them of the pure otter-hound breed, some half otter-hound, half fox-hound, and others, again, fox-hounds trained for otter-hunting—rushing backwards and forwards in the water and on the bank. Another terrier, led by a boy, strained at his leash near the river's brink. Women, dressed, like the men, in smart scarlet and blue, and as ready to wade into the stream as the huntsman himself, stood leaning ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... magician regarded not their scoffs, hootings, or all they could say to him, but still continued crying, "Who will change old lamps for new?" He repeated this so often, walking backwards and forwards in front of the palace, that the princess, who was then in the hall with the four-and-twenty windows, hearing a man cry something, and not being able to distinguish his words, owing to the hooting of the children ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... gregarious hunt after pleasure which carries the train of votaries along at so breakneck a pace, and with so little time to enjoy the pleasure they are pursuing. When he saw indications that the stream was setting backwards to the entrance, again to separate and take its various ways to other entertainments, he broke into the throng and called Elinor's attention to himself. For a moment she smiled with genuine pleasure at the sight of him, but then changed her aspect almost ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... was obliged to turn about and travel backwards, had mentioned the departure of Sophia and her maid from the inn; we shall now therefore pursue the steps of that lovely creature, and leave her unworthy lover a little longer to bemoan his ill-luck, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... we lost Emily I thought we had drained the very dregs of our cup of trial, but now when I hear Anne cough as Emily coughed, I tremble lest there should be exquisite bitterness yet to taste. However, I must not look forwards, nor must I look backwards. Too often I feel like one crossing an abyss on a narrow plank—a ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... The little foot moved backwards and forwards a good while, and when Nannie did speak, she spoke almost as if she ...
— Nanny Merry - or, What Made the Difference • Anonymous
... was a-staring after him with all the eyes in my head, the cars gave another jerk, and, splash-bang, away we went, so fast that the man scooting along that platform, waving his hand backwards, seemed to be swimming ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Moving slowly backwards, he held out one hand the hand that had proved all kindness and comfort and, snapping a finger and thumb, clicked his tongue in a murmur ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... tired, Divine One!" she gasped. She seemed hardly able to walk. Craig could not understand. Snatching a glance backwards, he saw that the Pharaoh, too, seemed to be ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... said, launching out my fist straight towards his bullet head and giving him a cropper on the mouth that sent him tumbling backwards on the deck, all of ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... course insisted upon seeing him; and he presently appeared, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and haughtily demanded their business with him at such an hour. The answer smote him as with a thunderbolt, and he staggered backwards, till arrested by the wall of the apartment, and then sank feebly, nervelessly, into a chair. Eagerly, after a pause, he questioned the intruders upon the nature of the evidence against him. Mr. Sharpe briefly replied that Edwards was in ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... the little Creole burst into tears. Howard sprang forward to free him from his tyrant's grasp: Holloway struck Howard a furious blow, which made him stagger backwards. ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the jumper, which were, at the instant confined down by the passing runners of the large sleigh; when snorting and wild with desperation, he reared himself upright on his hinder legs, and fell over backwards, striking, with nearly the whole weight of his body, upon his doubled neck, which all saw at a glance was ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... before the blue line saw them through the haze. The hill blazed and hissed in their faces. The massed infantry behind the guns found their marks. Men dropped right and left, sank in grey heaps or fell forward on their faces—some were knocked backwards down the slope. Yet without ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... said Fred; "that is in time of war, when the town is in danger. And when the Great Plague was here, S. Philip and S. James both tolled all day long with their bells muffled. But when there's a fire they ring backwards, as witches ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... They were spacious cupboards, many of them, with doors in no way different from other doors. Visitors would wish each other good-night and disappear with their candles into cupboards, staggering out backwards the next moment, looking scared. One poor gentleman, this woman's husband told me, having to go downstairs again for something he had forgotten, and unable on his return to strike anything else but cupboards, lost heart and finished up the night in a cupboard. At breakfast-time ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... turn, did he try to bend Dunn backwards to crush him to the earth, it was an effort before which one might have thought that iron and stone must have given away, but Dunn still ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... thickening of basement-membrane underlying that portion of the stomochord which lies between the above-mentioned pouches and the orifice into the throat. At the point where the stomochord opens into the buccal cavity the nuchal skeleton bifurcates, and the two cornua thus produced pass obliquely backwards and downwards embedded in the wall of the throat, often giving rise to projecting ridges that bound a dorsal groove of the collar-gut which is in continuity with the wall of the stomochord ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... on his sword-hilt, Jivaka, the minister, drew backwards a few steps, steadfastly regarding the prince, that he might avert this great sin. And so it was that the prince laid down his sword, and secluded his mother ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... terrible end of those who were marked down by this terrible disease. How they died in awful agony, the spine bent backwards like a bridge! ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... whether this oscillation would slacken or increase with time. Would she swing on a longer and more dangerous rhythm? Would she be flung backwards and forwards between ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... yard of your own than a beggar on another's large estate.' A cloud of dust was rising on the high-road beyond the river. Some one was coming towards the bridge from the manor-house, riding in a peculiar fashion. The wind blew from behind, but the dust was so thick that sometimes it travelled backwards. Occasionally horse and rider showed above it, but the next moment it whirled round and round them again, as if the road was raising a storm. Slimak shaded his ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... sank backwards, and her hand was upon the dagger, while she cast such a look as the fabled vampire might cast upon her destined victim, loving gold much, but perhaps blood most, when all at once she ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... banbanayo, and with the alan (p. 123). The alan, just mentioned, are to-day considered as deformed spirits who live in the forests: "They are as large as people but have wings and can fly; their toes are at the back of their feet and their fingers point backwards from their wrists." The several references to them in the tales such as "you alan girls whose toes on your feet turn out" indicate they were so considered in the first times (p. 161). Some of ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... no; go to your pigs first, you'll spoil my lovely present for Jack if you come near me," said Fairy, hiding her hands behind her, and running backwards to avoid any chance of a collision with Charlie and his pail as he prepared to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... needles had traversed the fleecy mesh backwards and forwards some three or four times, May suddenly bethought herself of Helen, and laying her work carefully down in her basket, she ran upstairs to see if she was awake. Turning the knob of the door softly, she entered with a noiseless step, and went towards the ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... give chase and who were to stay with himself: he never allowed the whole army to be broken up. [59] Thus Cyrus conducted the advance, but it is not to be thought that he kept to one particular spot; he was always galloping backwards and forwards, first at one point and then at another, supervising everything and supplying any defect as it arose. Thus Cyrus and his ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... the torch blows harder than at first, and there is enough air to waft it backwards, so there will be an opening at the end, I am sure. That is what I must ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... The bailiff deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting for orders. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... with the white granites: I am the more inclined to this view, from having found at the foot of the range the mica-schist surrounding a hummock [Y2], exclusively composed of white granite. Near Los Arenales, the mountains on all sides are composed of the mica-slate; and looking backwards from this point up to the bare gigantic peaks above, the view was eminently interesting. The colours of the red granite and the black mica-slate are so distinct, that with a bright light these rocks could be readily distinguished even from the ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... of the body. A delicate layer of ectoplasm surrounds the granular endoplasm, and pseudopodia formation is eruptive, beginning with the accumulation of ectoplasm. Movement rapid, usually in one direction, but may be backwards or sideways, etc. Contractile vacuole absent; the nucleus is spherical and contains many large chromatin granules. Length 80 mu; ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... an air of indolence, and a want of interest in those exercises which should engage her attention. In her seat, she most commonly sits in some lazy posture;—either with her elbows upon her desk, her head leaning upon her hands, or with her seat tipped forwards or backwards. When she has occasion to leave her seat, it is in a sauntering, lingering gait;—perhaps some trick is contrived on the way, for exciting the mirth ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... her accessories, and she gave the precious Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated backwards out of sight, holding it at arm's-length and reiterating his obeisance. The young lady gathered her shawl about her like a perfect Parisienne, and it was with the smile of a Parisienne that she took leave ...
— The American • Henry James
... upon by the Dead Boxer as an opportunity of glutting his revenge. When the crowd had dispersed, he called a waiter, and desired him to inquire if his wife had returned. The man retired to ascertain, and the Boxer walked backwards and forwards in a state of mind easily conceived, muttering curses and vows of vengeance against her and Lamh Laudher. After some minutes he was informed that she had not returned, upon which he ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... first to know how to die right. I should think, judge, that Sam Kimper had been converting you over again and doing it backwards. That fellow has only got hold of one end of the Scripture—one little jag end ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... bear, that ordinary conditions are slipping away from under us, that in another moment reason or life itself must snap with the strain; and all these feelings I then underwent. At last I moved, moved backwards from the figure. I dared not attempt to pass her. Yet I could not at first turn away from her. I stepped backwards, facing her still as I did so, till I was close to the fireplace. Then I turned sharply from her, sat down again on the low chair still standing by the hearth, ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... by a fine river; especially as the country to the N. W. was open or thinly wooded, and likely to be found so as far as the central downs and plains on the banks of the river Victoria. A new and very remarkable Ventilago was found this day.[*] I now again numbered the camps, continuing the series backwards, by a different character; this was numbered 77; the last, 76. The utility of these numbers along our surveyed line will be admitted, when the country is taken up, as they will not only serve to identify localities ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... well-nigh broken-hearted, from the political arena. The writings of such a man could hardly fail, at any rate they do not fail, to give us many interesting glimpses into the political life both of the Romans and the Barbarians. It is true that they throw more light backwards than forwards, that they teach us far more about the constitution of the Roman Empire than they do about the Teutonic customs from whence in due time Feudalism was to be born. Still, they do often illustrate these Teutonic usages; ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... to be more necessary, because otherwise there ought to be some reflexion of movement backwards when it passes from a smaller particle to a larger one, according to the Laws of Percussion which I ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... warming to his narrative, "I am literally racing backwards. It is like a drive over a road one has passed along before, only in the opposite direction and much faster. I simply whizz past the old milestones. Now, a man who is behaving like that has no business to marry an already mature lady, who is growing ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... men glared at each other. Then Van Dorn, regaining his poise, answered: "Well, sir, I'm going to win—no matter how—I'm going to win. I've sat up with this situation every night for six months—Oh, for a year. I know it backwards and forwards, and you can't trip me any place along the line. I've counted you out." ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... backwards, slowly and mechanically, like a blind man who has unexpectedly run against a wall; like the blind, too, she held out her hands before her, as if to assure herself that she was getting out of reach of the obstacle. Her face had turned white and ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... come to pass that there had been messages backwards and forwards between the visitor and the master of the house, all carried by that unfortunate lady. Trevelyan did not demand that his wife and child should be given up to him;—did not even, on this occasion, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola, were ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... lovely Chatterissa clapped her pretty little pattes with joy, and gave all the other natural indications of delight, which characterize the emotions of that gentle sex of which she was so bright an ornament. Dr. Reasono was not backwards in explaining the cause of so much unusual exhilaration, for hitherto her manner had been characterized by the well-bred and sophisticated restraint which marks high training. The experiment had shown, by the infallible and scientific tests of monikin chemistry, that we were ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... know best. I've no objections. But if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... native country, To my mother's Island-dwelling, Fly to her that waits my coming, With a mother's grave forebodings." Farther, farther, Lemminkainen Flew and soared on eagle-pinions, Looked about him, backwards, forwards, Spied a gray-hawk soaring near him, In his eyes the fire of splendor, Like the eyes of Pohyalanders, Like the eyes of Pohya's spearmen, And the gray-hawk thus addressed him: "Ho! There! hero, Lemminkainen, Art thou thinking of our combat With the, hero-heads of Northland?" ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... arm-chair till he appeared to be resting on the flat of his shoulder-blades, with his chin buried in the lappels of his monkey-jacket. "I maintain," his amiable monologue continued, "that there's something rather touching about the way they flap their arms about and hop backwards and forwards, and 'span-bend' and agonise themselves with such unfailing good humour—don't you ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... was going now and coming Up and down the stairs, and doors were creaking Backwards now, now forwards,—footsteps clatter'd Yet, as though it were a thing all-living, From my cherish'd hope I could not ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... happened among the papers of the Barnabite Mazenta, who died in the year 1635. 'It was about fifty years ago,' says the memorandum, written shortly before the old monk's death, 'that thirteen volumes of Leonardo's papers, all written backwards in his own way, fell into my hands. I was then studying law at Pisa, and one of my companions in the class-room was Aldus Manutius, renowned as a book-collector. We received a visit from one of his relations called Lelio Gavardi; he had been tutor in the household of ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... the republic, that as long as you were in fear you would promise everything, but that as soon as you had emancipated yourself from alarm you would be yourself again. Therefore, while the rest of the men of consular rank were going backwards and forwards to you, I adhered to my opinion, nor did I see you at all that day, or the next; nor did I think it possible for an alliance between virtuous citizens and a most unprincipled enemy to be made, so as to last, by ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... sending many a bucketful into her, and then, with a thundering roar, hissing as it went rolling on, caught the smaller boat, which had by that time performed half of her passage. Down it came upon her; the next instant the men at the warp were seen to come toppling down backwards—the rope had parted. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... The men began to feel the cold, and this aggravated their intoxication. Saint Anthony, annoyed at not being the victor, amused himself by shoving his companion so as to make him fall over into the ditch. The other would dodge backwards, and each time he did he uttered some German expression in an angry tone, which made the peasant roar with laughter. Finally the Prussian lost his temper, and just as Anthony was rolling towards him he responded with such a terrific ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... head fell on my left shoulder. I struggled, and shook my body again, but could not move my arms. I got my head upright, but for an instant only, when it fell on my right shoulder; and then I fell backwards, my back resting against the side of the car, and my head on its edge. In that position my eyes were directed towards Mr. Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body I seemed to have full power over the muscles of the back, and considerable power over those ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... and I could not rest at home. Night after night I promenaded up and down that Monkeys' Parade full of an unappeasable desire, with a thwarted sense of something just begun that ought to have gone on. I went backwards and forwards on the way to the vanishing place, and at last explored the forbidden road that had swallowed them up. But I never saw her again, except that later she came to me, my symbol of womanhood, in dreams. How my blood was stirred! I lay awake of nights whispering in ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... in an open place, and were just discussing the matter, when—whiz!—a bullet grazed the flank of Wildgoose, and the mettlesome creature reared straight into the air, threatening to fall backwards over his rider. ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... excessive laughter the whole body is often thrown backwards and shakes, or is almost convulsed; the respiration is much disturbed; the head and face become gorged with blood, with the veins distorted; and the orbicular muscles are spasmodically contracted in order to protect the eyes. Tears are freely shed." On this one may refer to a phrase by ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Daddy Eroshka has kissed his dog!' suddenly the little Cossacks who had been spinning their tops under the window shouted, looking towards the side street. 'He's drunk his bitch, and his dagger!' shouted the boys, crowding together and stepping backwards. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... patriarchate of Constantinople—Eutychius, who was already patriarch when the council assembled; and when he twice tears Formosus from his grave to parade him in his vestments about Rome,—we may suspect that the perfect grasp of documentary history from the twelfth century does not reach backwards in a like degree. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... stooping. They had the door on the ground and Harold and a man were stooping and walking backwards over the door, carrying something. Presently there was more stooping, and then Harold and Robert and three men were carrying the door between them and walking as if the door were very heavy. Whatever was happening? Hilda came running to ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... Agni at the place pointed out by the parrot, and witnessing the curse denounced upon him, the gods, feeling a compassion for the poor creature, blessed him, saying, 'In consequence of thy being a parrot, thou shalt not be wholly deprived of the power of speech. Though thy tongue has been turned backwards, yet speech thou shalt have, confined to the letter K. Like that of a child or an old man, thy speech shall be sweet and indistinct and wonderful.' Having said these words unto the parrot, and beholding the deity of fire within the heart of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... had said nothing as yet, but had been walking backwards and forwards, with his head down, and his hands in his pockets, turned suddenly round to Mary, and said, "I have been thinking we can soon know if your knife is in the nest. We only want a polemoscope for that. Hurrah! long ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... this tablet with other authorities, namely, Manetho, Eratosthenes, and the tablet of Abydos, is supposed by some to contradict the longer views of chronology held by Bunsen, Lepsius and others. Thus, reading the list of names backwards from Remeses II. to Amosis, the first of the eighteenth dynasty, this tablet, like the tablet of Abydos, immediately jumps to the Kings of Manetho's twelfth dynasty; thus arguing that the intermediate five dynasties mentioned ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... not. We were all of us in the same distress, and if we had not ultimately found water must all have perished together. Finding that they would not eat, we saddled and proceeded onwards, I should say backwards—and at 10 p.m. we were on the sand ridges. At the head of the valley Traveller fell dead, and I feared every moment that we should lose the Colt. At one I stopped to rest the horses till dawn, and then remounted, but Morgan and Mack got slowly on, so that I thought ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and sat down at the table, as much for the purpose of getting something for Kate as to eat myself. I was scarcely seated, when I was thrown over backwards, chair and all, and found myself lying on the floor, held ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the many visits which Adrien found necessary to make to Barminster, journeying backwards and forwards in his great car, Lady Constance maintained a smiling, gentle demeanour; but she allowed him no opportunity for explanation, seeming rather to avoid his presence. Even Lord Barminster, watching ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... of the ohm; it is a more logical unit, but has never been generally adopted; as a name the title mho (or ohm written backwards) has been suggested by Sir William Thomson, and ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... linen tunic beneath and his white knees red with blood, which ran down his legs and over his bare feet. He made a reverence, as he had been taught, to the man of the house and to his people, and went backwards to the upper end of the chamber. The Ultonians ran to meet him, but Fergus Mac Roy was the first, and he took Setanta upon his mighty shoulder and bore him along and set him down at the table ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... seeing the rest of the island, opportunities will not lack for this; to others, the knowledge is superfluous. A careful horse will make his way down, but he ought to be strong to get up. Mine was not; and, in climbing, his force or his footing failed him, and over he went backwards, and I narrowly escaped being crushed under him. Stunned and half bewildered by the fall,—for I had struck on my back amongst sharp stones, with one of which my head had made intimate acquaintance,—I managed, I know not how, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of note, is, that these luminous streaks are more nearly parallel than is due to a radiation from the centre. These streaks have, also, been seen bent at right angles at the middle of their height, as a flame is by means of a blowpipe, precisely analogous to cometary rays being driven backwards to form the tail, as already described, thus indicating a common origin. If the moon had an atmosphere, we should, no doubt, see a greater display; but, having no rotating vortex to protect her from the radial stream, her atmosphere must have been long since stripped ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... reflector, that, like a magazine lantern, had been mortised into the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to: I rapped again, and, looking round, I noticed Mr. Treenail flitting backwards and forwards across the doorway, in the rain, his pale face and his sharp nose, with the sparkling drop at the end on't, glancing in the light of the lamp. I heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... thus affected by Mrs. Delarayne's able and perfectly relentless handling of a difficult situation; in feeling her love for her mother intensified backwards, so to speak, to the degree it had attained in infancy, as the result of the incident, Leonetta showed not only that she was worthy of her incomparable mother, but also that she had survived less unimpaired, than some might have thought, the questionable ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... wings, hurrying about here and there, and is extremely active, and of a slender graceful figure—the type of an assassin. It visits and explores every crack and hole in the ground, and, if you watch it attentively, you will at length see it, on arriving at a hole, give a little start backwards. It knows that a spider lies concealed within. Presently, having apparently matured a plan of attack, it disappears into the hole and remains there for some time. Then, just when you are beginning to think that the little blue explorer has been trapped, out it rushes, flying ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... upon a sheet of linen, P, as in the case of carding for felt, with a to-and-fro motion in the direction of the axis of the rollers. In this way one or more layers of the fleece can be placed on the sheet, which in that case passes backwards and forwards from roller S to R, and vice versa. It is, in fact, the bat arrangement used for felt, only with this difference, that the bat is at once rolled up instead of going through the bat frame. In the manufacture of felt it is of course of importance to have many very thin layers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... "Oh!" very gently, close at the back of his head. All these things he felt certain of, and yet investigation led to nothing. He felt odd little cramps stealing now and then about him; and then, on a sudden, the middle finger of his right hand was plucked backwards, with a light playful jerk ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... pyrotechnic display, my two hours on a hillside clearing. I can neither enliven it with a startling escape, nor add a thrill of danger, without using as many "ifs" as would be needed to make a Jersey meadow untenable. For example, if I had fallen over backwards and been powerless to rise or move, I should have been killed within half an hour, for a stray column of army ants was passing within a yard of me, and death would await any helpless being falling across their path. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... down to the edge of the pool, and looked backwards to the Kangaroo and Dot, who called out "Good-bye" to it. Its eyes were dim with tears, for it was still thinking of the Iguanodon and ichthyosaurus, and of the good old ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... to say," broke in Rachel, with some impatience. "We have been going backwards and forwards here certainly for half an hour, talking about the many difficulties which must beset a clergyman, who is at the same time the servant of both God and the State, and continually, or at least several ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards! Oh, all this brazen sunshine ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... long taken up our position, when we caught sight of the huge forms of several elephants coming through the forest, along the path which we had discovered. We saw them sweeping their trunks backwards and forwards over the ground, evidently suspecting ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... know I have no right now to be a Beef-eater, or any thing else; but I must just tell you how it was. Sure as you are alive I thought all the while I was fighting for His Majesty; for those generals, as they called themselves, turned, and twirled, and swore backwards and forwards till nobody knew what side they were of. And that smooth-faced knave, Monthault (as pretty Mrs. Isabel said he was), told me all was going on as it should be; and that Lambert would bring the King back presently. So ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Woman found an empty jar which had lately been full of prime old wine, and which still retained the fragrant smell of its former contents. She greedily placed it several times to her nose, and drawing it backwards and forwards, said: "O most delicious! How nice must the Wine itself have been when it leaves behind in the very vessel which contained it so ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... free from pretence. No one, as I believe, will ever taste the flavor of certain writers as he has done. He was the last true lover of Antiquity. Although he admitted a few of the beauties of modern times, yet in his stronger love he soared backwards to old acclivities, and loved to rest there. His essays, like his sonnets, are (as I have said) reflections of his own feelings. And so, I think, should essays generally be. A history or sketch of science, or a logical effort, may help the reader some way up the ladder of ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... comfortably beneath the trees. GILES walks restlessly backwards and forwards as though impatient at any delay. From time to time he glances at a ring which he wears, sighing heavily as he ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin |
