"Backhanded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steady light all around him issued from stark gray walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to reduce ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... not think it consistent with the office he held, which required self-denial and a renouncing of the world. As to how he could live on so small a sum, that was a question rarely asked; and when presented, was put to rest by some backhanded kind of an answer, that left the matter as much in the dark ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... too fulsome for French gallantry to invent finding space in the foremost French newspapers; hoping, praying, beseeching the help of Russia, when Germany makes up her mind to gobble France, yet dealing Russian achievement a backhanded slap by hinting what a compliment it is for a cultivated, accomplished, over-cultured race like the French to beg the assistance of a barbarous ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to 'elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog Merrylegs.' He was also to exhibit 'his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.' ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... started, struck the Frenchman a backhanded blow on the chest, which hurled him violently against the man at the wheel, and, bending down, sprang with a wild shout into ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... with eyes opened to their utmost width, made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right forefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand everything that the other could possibly advance during the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... who take care of them, they being passive recipients. If it were said that children are themselves marvelously endowed with power to enlist the cooperative attention of others, this would be thought to be a backhanded way of saying that others are marvelously attentive to the needs of children. But observation shows that children are gifted with an equipment of the first order for social intercourse. Few grown-up persons retain all of the flexible and sensitive ability of children ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... backhanded blow over his right shoulder, which he thinks caught the burglar in the face; but the fellow caught him by the elbow, and gave his arm such a twist that he dropped the truncheon on ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... his enemy was there still. He had got clear of the gate, but seemed in much pain, for he lay tearing up the grass and sod in handfuls. When Clare stooped to ask what he should do for him, he struck him a backhanded blow on the face that knocked him over. Clare ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... him across the mouth with a backhanded blow that snapped his head back on his shoulders and ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin |
