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Backward   Listen
verb
Backward  v. t.  To keep back; to hinder. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Backward" Quotes from Famous Books



... after a glance backward and followed his companion's example, drawing rein so that their steeds settled down into a hand-gallop, still leaving their pursuers farther behind. The ground was now perfectly level, stretching for three or four miles without an obstacle, and then the horizon line ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... intervals like a trooper, and cutting the most enormous capers. The moment Prince Violet recovered himself sufficiently, he dismounted, and regaining his trusty sword, belabored the impenetrable hide of the egregious monster with such arrant good will, that he retreated backward between every fit of sneezing, until finally falling into the moat, he stuck fast in the mud, sneezing and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... muscles of his mouth. As to the channel between Abo and Stockholm, which lies partly through the Aland Islands and numerous adjacent rocks, above and below water, I believe he had traveled over it so often that he could steer a vessel through it standing backward as readily as box the compass, or shut both his eyes and tell where the deepest water lay by the smell of the air and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from cooperation and from contrast Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to general reflections expressive rather of broad wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused; much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a manner a picture of the resistless laws of moral justice. Speeches, a moralizing Chorus, actions not performed but reported in detail, a sense of ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... among the firs they awaited his headlong rush; not without many a startled glance backward, and a very uncomfortable sense of being trapped and frightened, as Mitchell confessed to me afterward. He had left his gun in camp; his employer had insisted upon it, in his eagerness to ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... I make my last appeal; O, clear my conscience, or my crimes reveal! If wandering through the paths of life I've run, And backward trod the steps I sought to shun, Impute my errors to your own decree; My feet were guilty, ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... into the hall. Beverley, thinking quickly, went to the door of her own special sitting room, which adjoined her bedroom. A backward glance told her that the man had stopped facing the vestibule which gave exit from the flat. "Wait one moment," she said. "I'll see where Clodagh is." As she touched the door of the boudoir she was surprised to find it yielding before she turned the handle. This was odd, because ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the chauffeur. "And hurry." He turned away abruptly, without a backward glance. Emma's head jerked over her shoulder in surprise. But he did not turn. The tall figure disappeared. Emma's taxi crept into the stream. But uppermost in her mind was not the thought of Serbians, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... their chiefs; for, without the arch-priests of greed, speculation would have died from inanition. The speculators were most hungry kites; but their maws were crammed by the great vultures that sat at the coast, blinking ever out over the sea for fresh gains; with never a backward glance at the gaunt, grim legions behind ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... Mary, Adelaide River. One of the horses cannot be found this morning, and he has been for some time very ill and weak, and no appearance of getting better. It was my intention to have left him. We have been all round the tracks forward and backward over the feeding-ground and can see nothing of him. I am afraid he has gone off to some place and died; I shall therefore waste no more time in looking for him. If he is alive I may have a chance of recovering him on my return. Late ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... Spain is approached from the Binondo side by almost the only steep grade to be found in Manila. I was leaning as far forward as I could, figuring upon the possible strain to be withstood by the frayed rope end which lay between us and a backward somersault, when my ears were assailed by an uncanny sound, half grunt, half moan. For an instant I thought it was the wretched pony moved to protest by the grade and my oppressive weight. But the pony was breasting the steep most gallantly, all things considered. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... and did act, an important part. Acknowledging, as we all acknowledge, our obligations to the original sources of English law, as well as of civil liberty, we have seen in our generation copious and salutary streams turning and running backward, replenishing their original fountains, and giving a fresher and a brighter green to the fields of English jurisprudence. By a sort of reversed hereditary transmission, the mother, without envy or humiliation, acknowledges that she has ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Cows and pigs, horses, goats, sheep and rabbits abandoned by the husbandman, startled, puzzled; the clock with the broken mainspring running backward. The small game: deer, antlered, striped, and spotted; wildsheep, ovis poli, TeddyRooseveltshot and Audubonprinted, mountaingoats leaping in terror to hazardous safety on babel's top, upward to the pinpoint where no ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... the gaunt old women on foot, the gay young squaws on horseback, the restless children running among the crowd, old men striding along in their white buffalo robes, and groups of young warriors mounted on their best horses. Henry Chatillon, looking backward over the distant prairie, exclaimed suddenly that a horseman was approaching, and in truth we could just discern a small black speck slowly moving over the face of a distant swell, like a fly creeping on a wall. It rapidly grew larger ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... is no call for finical criticism. The "Recessional" is a product of the poet's holiest mood. "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him"—as the old Hebrew phrase is, and for the time he was a rapt prophet, with a backward and a forward vision. Providence saved the hymn, and it touched and sank into the better mind of the nation. It is already learned by heart—and sung—wherever English is the common speech, and will be heard in numerous ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... away and disappeared into the forest on the backward trail with Jean Benard, and half an hour afterwards Helen emerged from her tent to find him bent over Ainley's pocket-book with a troubled ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... I was able to save myself by jabbing my stick into the ground, though, more often than not, this was impracticable, and my hands could find nothing firmer to catch hold of than a few tufts of grass, which almost invariably gave way, causing me to do a graceful but involuntary backward dive into the dyke. As constant exercise of this sort is very tiring and the weight of water contained in one's clothes greatly hinders freedom of action, my progress was necessarily rather slower than usual. ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... came down from London about five weeks ago to treat with the remainder of his tenants. What are the terms they asked of him, think you? 'The land at the old rents; the augmentation paid for three years backward to be refunded; and his factor to be immediately dismissed.'" The "Courant" added that unless these terms were conceded the island of Lewis would soon be an uninhabited waste. Notwithstanding the visit of lord Fortrose, emigration went on. The ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... was a gush of water, but this only fell at the feet of the patient, without being ejected at any distance; the urethra was found to have undergone precisely the same dilatation back of this preputial orifice that it usually undergoes back of a stricture; the whole urethra from the meatus backward was found to have exceeded the calibre of that of the vesical neck; the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... slow and backward, was sufficiently advanced to render the journey pleasant; and though the road from Washington to Baltimore was less brilliant in foliage than when I had seen it before, it still had much of beauty. The azalias were in full bloom, and the delicate yellow blossom of the sassafras ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... to read and write comes by nature.' The Senator from Pennsylvania and others seem inclined to say, 'Away with writing and reading till there is need of such vanity.' I believe that the idea of admitting men to the elective franchise who can neither read nor write is going backward and downward. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded—his legs seemed to tremble under him—he hung rather backward, and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face: 'Don't thrash me with it: but if you will you may.' 'If I do,' said ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the month in which Sir Percival was born, I began my backward search with the early part of the year. The register-book was of the old-fashioned kind, the entries being all made on blank pages in manuscript, and the divisions which separated them being indicated by ink lines drawn across the page at the close ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... courser deliverly,[8] And to Sir Talbart made support, And humillie[9] did him comfort. When Talbart saw into his shield An otter in a silver field, 'This race,' said he, 'I sore may rue, For I see well my dream was true; Methought yon otter gart[10] me bleed, And bore me backward from my steed; But here I vow to God soverain, That I shall never joust again.' And sweetly to the Squier said, 'Thou know'st the cunning[11] that we made, Which of us two should tyne[12] the field, He should both horse and armour yield To him that won, wherefore I will My horse and harness ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... between then and now, ma'am. She is distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her about me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance of winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve's backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he'll ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... knew how to prod with his bony knuckle the angry man's solar plexus—how to step swiftly aside and bring the horny edge of his hand against sensitive vertebrae. He could seize Orme by the arm and, dropping backward to the ground, land Orme where he wished him. Yes, Arima had every reason to feel confident. Many a time had he got the better of ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... and with the compass point on the centre of 2 we mark line 2, showing that while the crank-pin moved from 1 to 2, the rod end moved from a to b; by continuing this process we are enabled to discern the motion for the whole of the stroke. The backward stroke will be the same, for corresponding crank-pin positions, for both strokes; thus, when the rod end is at 7 the crank-pin may be at 7 or at 17. This fact enables us to find the positions for the positions later than ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... He sprang a good yard, instinctively hitching up his moleskins in preparation for flight; but a backward glance revealed to him the true cause of this supposed attack from the rear. Then he lifted the body, stood it on its feet against the chimney, and ruminated as to where he should lodge his mate for the night, not noticing that the shorter sheet of bark had slipped down ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various

... closely resembling the tonsure of a Romish priest. This defect was usually covered with an elaborate pile of braids and puffs; but occasionally the slippery surface of her bald crown and the power of gravitation proved too much for her hair-pins, and the whole structure slipped backward, to reveal a shining expanse of milk-white skin, gleaming forth from the dark tresses surrounding it. Moreover, rumor had been known to whisper that there was something peculiar about the rich brown hue of Mrs. Pennypoker's hair; that it was remarkable for a person of her age to be so free ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... progress of the vessels, and to occasion terror lest what is fabulously reported of St. Amaro in the frozen sea might happen to them, that they might be so enveloped in the weeds as to be unable to move backward or forward; wherefore they steered away from those shoals of weeds as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... plot near the gate. The sun was shining brightly; and when he had taken a few turns with the machine he stopped, raising his face to the breeze, and saw Conolly standing so close to him that he started backward, and made a vague movement as if to ward off a blow. Conolly, who seemed amused by the mowing, said quietly: "That machine wants oiling: the clatter prevented you from hearing me come. I have just returned from Carbury ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... take it thence, upwards to the left, across two threads, and begin the return journey, from right to left, crossing and thus completing the first row of stitches. In the auxiliary stitch with which you begin the backward journey, the thread lies double on both sides. Fig. 295 shows how to pass down to ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... weight fell on the small boats, they were dragged irresistibly backward. Even from a distance the three men on the SPRITE could make out the white-water as the oars splashed and churned and frantically caught crabs in a vain effort to hold their own. Marsh lowered his telescope, the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... in life by a horny sheath, as in birds or turtles. But this is not the only feature in which they came nearer to birds than do the other Dinosaurs. The pelvic or hip bones are much more bird-like in many respects, especially the backward direction of the pubic bone, the presence of a prepubis, in the number of vertebrae coossified into a solid sacrum, in the proportions of the ilium and so on. Various features in the anatomy of the head, shoulder-blades and hind limbs are equally suggestive of birds, and it seems probable ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... of all, the apparition, as though retreating to the cabinet, swayed backward, then staggered forward. There was a sob, human, heart-broken, a cry, thrilling with distress; a tumult of ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... it is also to America that I look for this hope to be realised. The work of William James, Morton Prince, and Kirsopp Lake encourages me in this conviction; but most of all I am encouraged by that youthful spirit of the American nation which looks backward as seldom as possible, forward with exhilaration and confidence, that manful spirit of hope and longing which is ever in ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... them who are able to change themselves into birds, beasts, or aquatic animals, and by these means keep the ignorant people in a state of terror. If some of them in trading with some foreign ship have a quarrel, the sorcerers pronounce a charm over the ship, so that it can neither go forward nor backward, and they only release the ship when it has settled the dispute. The government has formally ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... her spindle legs were attached mismatched shoes, twice too large, tied around the ankles. One had a loose sole that flapped up and down. It really wasn't any dancing, for she just kicked out one foot and then the other, with such vigor that you wondered she didn't go over backward. Her very earnestness rendered it irresistibly funny. She certainly ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... say," spoke up the former, getting the first opening, "was that when Patrick reached the top of the stairs, something struck him full in the chest, and two hairy arms were thrown about his neck. The sudden shock sent him tumbling backward, and he fell kerflop! down the steps. Up above, his wife was howling to beat the band, 'Mike, Mike, ye spalpane! You do be killing your poor father. Och! why did I live to see this day?' In the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... the mother-in-law, she was of herself so liberal as to anticipate the wishes of any moderate adventurer, and presented him with sundry valuable jewels, as memorials of her esteem; nor was the daughter backward in such expressions of regard; she already considered his interest as her own, and took frequent opportunities of secreting for his benefit certain stray trinkets that she happened to pick up in ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... flying backward and forward all day, and it was surprising to see the quantity of fish ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous

... demanded, and the words leaped out so abruptly that they were almost harsh. "And be like all the rest," he reiterated, jerking his head backward, "old and thin, and bent and worn-out at thirty?" A hard, self-scathing note crept into the words. "Why, it—it took me almost a ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... sued PKWare for copyright and trademark infringement on its ARC program. PKWare's PKARC outperformed ARC on both compression and speed while largely retaining compatibility (it introduced a new compression type that could be disabled for backward-compatibility). PKWare settled out of court to avoid enormous legal costs (both SEA and PKWare are small companies); as part of the settlement, the name of PKARC was changed to PKPAK. The public backlash against SEA for bringing suit helped to hasten the demise ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... together." They said "the idea of huntin' us up had come to 'em after readin' my books." They told me so, and I said, "Wall!" I didn't add nor diminish to that one "wall," for I didn't want to act too backward, nor too forward. I jest kep' kinder neutral, and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... because, as I remember it now, it was wagging its tail, and afterward I found out it was only a cocker spaniel; but I thought it was a wolf and was going to eat me. I begun to cry, and I was afraid to go backward or to go forward. And by and by a little girl came along and asked me what I was crying about, and I said, 'About the dawg!' And the little girl said: 'O-oh! He's big, ain't he?' And I said, 'He's goin' to eat one of us ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... love me long, Is the burden of my song; Love that is too hot and strong Burneth soon to waste; Still I would not have thee cold, Or backward, or too bold, For love that lasteth till 'tis old ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... to better ends than this. My own eyes have seen from these windows a broken town, stagnant in trade and population and rich only in memories, transform itself into the splendid thriving city you see before you. Our faces, too long turned backward, are set at last toward the future. From one end of the State to another the spirit of honorable progress is throbbing through our people. We have revolutionized and vastly improved our school system. We have wearied of mud-holes ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... I persuaded you into marrying her," moaned the mother, rocking herself backward and forward in the extremity of her regretful anguish; "I—who ought to have ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind—it being a very backward spring that year—taking a last leave of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him saying "There there there. Now let me go Peggy." And by that time it was plain that what the ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens

... should not be used stronger than one-quarter teaspoonful in a glass half full of water. The others can be used in one to two teaspoonfuls, to same amount of warm water. The solution should always be mild and warm. To use any solution pour it gently through the nose, tilting the head backward, with the mouth open; then as the solution flows through the head should be put forward and downward. The solution flows out of the mouth, and also out of the other nostril. A nasal douche cup made purposely should be ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Governor-General, and this he knew through friends of his in the Court. Government, however, having signified their dissent to his nomination, Lord Amherst was nominated by the Court and accepted. Lord William's displeasure with Canning arises from an idea that Canning was backward in supporting his interests in this matter, and that he kept aloof from Lord William, and acquiesced in his rejection without ever communicating with him on the subject. Had Canning stated to him the difficulties under which he laboured, from his anxiety ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the use of a bridle, he despises such a troublesome article of luxury, and guides his horse with his voice, hands, and feet—nay, it almost seems as if he directed it by the mere exercise of the will, as we move our feet to the right or left, backward or forward, without its ever coming into our head to regulate our movements ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... School is "in" for the preliminary exercises. Afterward there are to be the tree and ice-cream for the good children. In their anxiety to prove their title clear, they sit so straight, with arms folded, that the whole row bends over backward. The lesson is brief, the answers to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... the room then, with one backward glance at the inert stiff figure on the bed,—and went to arrange matters with her household that the Professor's instructions should be strictly carried out. Lady Kingswood, deeply interested, heard her giving certain orders ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... softly past, fell clattering to the floor, and the gambler leaped instantly forward. Keith's grip closed like iron on his groping arm, while he shot one fist out toward where the man's head should be. The blow glanced, yet drove the fellow backward, stumbling against the table, and Keith closed in, grappling for the throat. The other, startled by the unexpected attack, and scarcely realizing even yet the nature of his antagonist, struggled blindly to escape the fingers clawing ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... every respect. It is an ill-written book. It is mainly directed against the Jewish economy. But Morgan takes a far wider range than this, embracing the whole of the Old Testament, which he appears to read backward, finding objects of admiration in what are there set before us as objects of ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... are those whom we push from the path with respect. Bow to that elder, though seeing him bow To the backward as well, for a thunderous back Upon thee. In his day he was not all wrong. Unto some foundered zenith he strove, and was wrecked. He scrambled to shore with a worship of shore. The Future he sees as the slippery murk; The Past as his doctrinal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... (Sahaptin I) for bad, mean, page 412, (G) refers to the type of hand position so marked, being identically that position, but in the following reference, to (R 1), the type referred to by the letter R has the palm to the front instead of backward, being in all other respects the position which it is desired to illustrate; (R), therefore, taken in connection with the description, indicates that change, and that alone. This mode of reference is farther explained in the EXAMPLES at the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... that stream will backward flow, Or cease its destin'd course to keep; As soon the blazing spark shall glow Beneath the surface ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... up the arm-chair her brother had vacated and sat down, her thoughts drifting backward to the past. Backward four years, and she saw herself, a penniless orphan, dependent on the bounty of that miserly Uncle Roosevelt in Montreal. She saw again the stately gentleman who came to her, and told her he was her father's ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... the people of their Lives in its Defence. We are not however dismayed; believe me this People are prepared to give him a warm Reception if he shall venture to make the bold Attack. I know very well the policy of great Men on your side the Water. They are backward to exert themselves in the Cause of America, lest we should desert our selves and leave them to the Contempt and Ridicule of a Ministry whom they heartily despise. But assure them that though from the Dictates ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... a few moments heavy footsteps were heard in the court below. The footsteps tramped backward ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... very arduous and very modest career of a teacher. He had been usher in a school, and was said now to be tutor in a private family. Hortense, when she mentioned Louis, described him as having what she called "des moyens," but as being too backward and quiet. Her praise of Robert was in a different strain, less qualified: she was very proud of him; she regarded him as the greatest man in Europe; all he said and did was remarkable in her eyes, and she expected others to behold him from the same ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the temple of Hecate. She gets there first, and while waiting every sound of footsteps makes her bosom heave. At last he comes and at sight of him her cheek flames red, her eyes grow dim, consciousness seems to leave her, and she is fixed to the ground unable to move forward or backward. After Jason has spoken to her, assuring her that the gods themselves would reward her for saving the lives of so many brave men, she takes the salve from her bosom, and she would have plucked her heart ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... Restigouche, the Green River of St. John and Tuladi; they next perform a circuit around Lake Temiscouata, separating its basin from those of the Otty and Trois Pistoles, until they reach the Temiscouata portage at Mount Paradis. This portage they cross five times, and finally, bending backward to the north, inclose the stream of the St. Francis, whose waters they divide from those of Trois Pistoles, Du Loup, and the Green River of the St. Lawrence. Leaving the Temiscouata portage at the sixteenth milepost, a region positively ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... rushed for the table. Rick reached out and grabbed an ankle. Bracing his legs, he gave a mighty heave. Striped shirt went over backward in front of Barby, who stamped with both bare feet on his stomach. The breath went out of ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... found the little company gathered once more on the ship, with nothing to do but rest and remember their homes, temporal and spiritual—homes backward, in old England, and forward, in Heaven. They were, every man and woman of them, English to the back-bone. From Captain Jones who commanded the ship to Elder Brewster who ruled and guided in spiritual affairs, all alike were of that stock and breeding which made ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... a train of dusky attendants entered, each of whom deposited his load on the floor with a guttural grunt and returned backward, until the sitting-room was blocked with piles of sacks, and bales, and chests, whereupon the head driver appeared and intimated that the tale of gifts ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... signal of the end of peace. Nelsen and Ramos used to practice close-contact tactics at zero-G, in space. So Nelsen didn't even wait for the man to notice him. He leaped, and sped like an arrow, thudding into the guy's stomach with both of his boot heels. Shovel Teeth was hurled fifty yards backward, Nelsen hurtling with him all the way. Unless Nelsen wanted to kill him, there wasn't any more to do. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... did the men know the bellicose temperament of the big Irishman to think of grumbling at such a command; yet, it was with a certain reluctance which invariably accompanies a backward step that the men retired to meet the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... Lane concentrated all his remaining strength in throttling the savage. But, just as the tense form beneath him grew lax with evident unconsciousness, and head fell limply back, extending over the edge of cliff, his own head was jerked violently backward by a noose cast ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... to us in the loch. We soon left Loch Awe, turning off when we reached Cladich and striking over the hills to the left. After walking about two miles all uphill, we reached the summit, whence we had a fine backward view of Loch Awe, which from this point appeared in a deep valley with its sides nicely wooded. Here we were in the neighbourhood of the Cruachan mountains, to which, with Loch Awe, a curious tradition was attached that a ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... had been the cause of the spruce's fall. Between two of the perpendicular roots, which were partly embedded in the ground, was a large hole, before which Gyp was making all the fuss. The stiff hairs on his back stood straight on end, and he kept leaping constantly forward and backward, wild with excitement. ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... be near. Ledoux manqua tomber la renverse, Ledoux almost fell over backward; et voil que nous avons manqu de prir tous, and now we have all come ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen

... fascinated gaze, and with an awful sense of apprehension. Presently the object was revealed. It was a pair of scissors with the handle wrapped about with a small handkerchief dappled with brown stains. She took a step backward, raising her hands to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... fact that our men could not see their opponents. Their own men fell or rolled over on every side, shot down by an invisible enemy, with no one upon whom they could retaliate, with no sign that the attack might not go on indefinitely. Yet they never once took a step backward, but advanced grimly, cleaning a bush or thicket of its occupants before charging it, and securing its cover for themselves, and answering each volley with one that sounded like an echo of the first. The men were panting for breath; the sweat ran so readily into their eyes that they ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... satisfy this our desire, because, on account of the trust which you yourself placed in him, you appointed him special envoy to ourselves in behalf of the affairs of his Order, and showed that you honoured him with equal good will. We therefore most earnestly entreat your Reverence not to be backward in receiving him on his return with all possible offices of love, and to serve him especially in those matters which regard his office of Turcoplerius, and his Mastership. Moreover, if any honours in the gift ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... the descriptions are like those of the best imaginative-pictorial verse itself. The first appearance of Clarimonde; the scene at her death-bed and that of her dream-resurrection, have, I dare affirm it, never been surpassed in verse or prose for their special qualities: while the backward view of the city and the recital of what we may call Serapion's soul-murder of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... short as well as cold," she argued, "so wouldn't it be advisable that my senior sister-in-law, Mrs. Chia Chu, should henceforward have her repasts in the garden, along with the young ladies? When the weather gets milder, it won't at all matter, if they have to run backward and forward." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... small channel is so that, when the chisel is held vertically on the gauge line and struck with the mallet, the chisel will have no tendency to force its way backward and overshoot the gauge line. The waste or core is now removed by holding the chisel approximately vertical and applying sufficient power to drive it half-way through the timber. The drawer side is now turned over, the operation repeated, ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... waited two days for the answer, and there came no message; and they took thirty men from the junk, and sent them to the King of Borneo, and set sail with fourteen men of those they had taken and three women; and they steered along the coast of the said island to the northeast, returning backward, and they again passed between the islands and the great island of Borneo, where the flag-ship grounded on a point of the island, and so remained more than four hours, and the tide turned and it got off, by which it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... moment on Dan's face. It was towards the end of the meal when she rose and went towards the kitchen. At the door she turned, and Dan, though he was looking down at his plate, was conscious that someone was observing him. He glanced up and the moment his eyes met hers she made a significant backward gesture with her hand. He hesitated a moment and then shoved back his chair. Calder was busy talking to a table mate, so he walked out of the house without speaking to his companion. He went to the rear of the house and as he had expected she was ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... You are indeed a backward correspondent, and much may be said against you. But in this weather, and O dear! in this political scene of degradation, much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead of Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... lace collar?" he inquired. "Queer!" he added, as though to himself. "I can't ever have seen him in New York." And he took a step backward ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... remind the home government that under the French regime the king, when making out patents for the seigneurs, reserved the right of taking wood for ship-building and fortifications from any of the seigneuries. Agriculture was found to be in a very backward state. The habitants would raise no more than they required for their own use and for a little local trade. But the fault was attributed to the gambling attractions of the fur trade, to the bad governmental ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... the best part of the morning," answered Abe, with an old man's freedom of tone and a complacent look backward at the patch of turned soil. "And 'might have been workin' yet but the children singin' their hymn yonder"—with a jerk of his thumb towards the wall that hid the school building—"warned me 'twas time to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... break your head if you run against a wall; I will have you in gaol ere night fall.' And he seemed to push her backward with his ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... in a backward condition, partly for the want of good system and an educated people, but mainly for lack of the capital and engineering skill to construct the irrigating canals that are needed to make the land productive. Maize, ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... going to visit with her mother at strange houses, the watch-dogs never barked at her; on the contrary, they yielded to the charm which seemed to come from her little fingers as she patted their great heads. Slowly their tails would move backward and forward as she patted them, and even the most ferocious would ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... room for hope. But Slade was a white man. He might prefer gold to the lust of torture. The death of his victim would mean the loss of the ransom money. Lennon's tense nerves and rigid muscles relaxed. He allowed his upward—and backward-strained head to sink down until one cheek rested upon the hot sand. The change of position brought the top of his head very close to the snake. But he trusted to Slade's avarice to see that he escaped ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... The region in which the latter is situated, remote both from tide-water and from the great river by which the Western States found their way to the Gulf of Mexico, was singularly unfitted to progress under the conditions of communication in that day; and it long remained among the most backward and primitive portions of the United States. The admiral's father, after his long experience there, must have seen that there was little hope of bettering his fortunes. Whatever the cause, he moved to Louisiana in the early years of the century, and settled his family in New Orleans. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... Breed Hill, as at Concord, the unexpected came to pass. The British troops were unable to endure the destructive fire of the colonists. Again and again they advanced over the incline as calmly as if on parade; again and again they reeled backward with shattered ranks, leaving grim piles of dead upon the fire-swept slope. The execution was terrible; regiments that marched up the hill as if to certain victory fell back from it a mere remnant of themselves, leaving most of their men and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... war-path, the women performed dances at frequent intervals. These dances were believed to ensure the success of the expedition. The dancers flourished their knives, threw long sharp-pointed sticks forward, or drew sticks with hooked ends repeatedly backward and forward. Throwing the sticks forward was symbolic of piercing or warding off the enemy, and drawing them back was symbolic of drawing their own men from danger. The hook at the end of the stick was particularly well adapted to serve the purpose of a life-saving apparatus. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... come to them by Carlisle, a thing inconvenient to Lord James. Knox chid them sharply for sloth, and want of wisdom and discretion, praising highly the conduct of Lord James. They had "unreasonable minds." "Wise men do wonder what my Lord Duke's friends do mean, that are so slack and backward in this Cause." The Duke did not, however, write to France with an offer of submission. That story, ben trovato but not vero, rests on a forgery by the Regent! {164} The fact is that the Duke was not a true Protestant, his advisers, including his brother the Archbishop, were Catholics, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... arms and hauled him through the sand. The wounded man set his teeth to keep back a groan. Very slowly and carefully, an inch here, a foot there, Bob worked Houck's heavy body backward. It was a long business. A dozen times he stopped to select the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... ground abounds, all tending in one direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity; sometimes watching the wheeling of those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... citizenship, to subordinate their own personal interests or inclinations to the common welfare, the "commonwealth." That is what is meant when it is claimed that Great Britain has done a "civilising" work both in India and in backward Africa. The Germans reproach and despise us, we are told,[1] for our failure to spread "English culture" in India. That has not been the purpose of British rule, and Englishmen have been foolish in so far as they have presumed to attempt it: England has to learn ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... existence of God, connected with the reason, and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man, with his capacity of looking far backward and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause, having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... that, poor soul. I said my life was done, I was wrong; I have still a duty. It is not in vain you taught me; I shall still prove to you that it was not in vain. You shall soon find that I am no backward friend. Farewell. ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... fellow has reason in his inexplicable impudence!" muttered Ludlow, pacing backward and forward beneath the shadow of the tree. "The language and the acts of the girl are in contradiction; and I am a fool to be trifled with, like a midshipman fresh broken loose from his mother's apron-string. Harkee, Master-a-a—You've a name I suppose, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... all real gents, and that's what the people want—even the poorest tenement dwellers. As you go farther uptown you find a rather different kind of district leader. There's Victor Dowling who was until lately the leader of the Twenty-fourth. He's a lulu. He knows the Latin grammar backward. What's strange, he's a sensible young fellow, too. About once in a century we come across a fellow like that in Tammany politics. James J. Martin, leader of the Twenty-seventh, is also something of a hightoner and publishes ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... which ever keeps its face to the front. Burying its past mistakes and forgetting them as speedily as possible, it pushes straight forward into fresh fields and fresh patients, always hopeful of what the future may bring in the way of newly discovered and highly expensive ailments. As we look backward upon the centuries we are astonished by its advancement. I did a good deal of looking backwards upon the centuries during my ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb

... to me. "Well," said I, "if it be in the next chair, I may keep my own. But what is the likeness of the man?" He said he was a tall man, with a long grey coat, booted, and one of his legs hanging over the arm of the chair, and his head hanging dead to the other side, and his arm backward, as if it was broken. There were some English troops then quartered near that place, and there being at that time a great frost after a thaw, the country was covered all over with ice. Four or five of the English riding by this house some two hours ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... might, Because the former can the latter bite? And, by the rule of strength, the rat Had sent his bride to wed the cat; From cat to dog, and onward still To wolf or tiger, if you will: Indeed, the fabulist might run A circle backward to the sun.— But to the change the tale supposes,— In learned phrase, metempsychosis. The very thing the wizard did Its falsity exposes— If that indeed were ever hid. According to the Brahmin's plan, The proud ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... marrow. Of old she would have rejoiced at the golden triumph, but now she could only realize that if everybody in Carthage sent her something nice, it was because everybody in Carthage expected something nicer. And her Christmas crops were hopelessly backward. At a time when she should be half done, she could not even begin. She had not tatted or smeared ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes

... and with a little backward hitch of his elbow which meant "Wait till I come back, and I will pay you for this flouting," he strode determinedly across the green space towards ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... such was the case with John Quincy Adams and the Federalists. The earlier Federalist creed related to one set of issues, the later Federalist creed to quite another set; the earlier creed was sound and deserving of support; the later creed was not so. It is easy to see, as one looks backward upon history, that every great and successful party has its mission, that it wins its success through the substantial righteousness of that mission, and that it owes its downfall to assuming an erroneous attitude towards some subsequent matter which becomes in turn of predominating importance. Sometimes, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... with almost instantaneous blindness before becoming accustomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries.... And when the first images began to be vaguely outlined on his retina, he stepped hastily backward, so ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... hallucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall collect and compare the accounts which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments from the belief ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... Union. In this accession of a territory from which several large States will eventually be carved out, the slave power of the United States obtained a signal advantage, of which it will not be backward to avail itself in the time of its need. A faithful history of this entire movement is ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... very ticklish; that if we were favoured by the general inclination of the people we should carry all before us, but that the Parliament, which was our chief strength in one sense, was in other respects our main weakness; that they were very apt to go backward; that in the very last debate they were on the point of twisting a rope for their own necks, and that the First President would show Mazarin his true interests, and be glad to amuse us by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in possession of it, and by ending ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... through. At that unimaginable explosion water was hurled for miles. The bed of the ocean was not only exposed, but in it there was blown a crater at whose dimensions the Terrestrials dared not even guess. The crawling fortresses themselves were thrown backward violently and the very world was rocked to its core by the concussion, but that iron-driven wall held. The massive nets swayed and gave back, and tidal waves hurled their mountainously destructive masses ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... could walk backward over that fire escape. He looks husky, but I'll try it. Now obey me without question or comment. You'll have to help me get him outside the window and in through yours. Between the two windows I can ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,— "Guess now who holds thee!"—"Death," I said, But, there, The silver answer ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

... idly into the pockets against the hour for the nightly game. But no primrose way nor clicking cue could woo the remorseful soul of Perkins the bereft. The thing that was his, lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and he wanted it. Backward to a certain man named Adam, whom the cherubim bounced from the orchard, could Perkins, the remorseful, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... blinded by the dust, "I'm a dead man!" He attempted to save himself by leaping backward, but Alfio struck him a second blow, this time in the belly, and ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... clean out of sight. One thing remarkable came to pass. A spaniel dog, the favourite of young Master Bligh, had followed us, and lo! when the woman drew nigh, the poor creature began to yell and bark piteously, and ran backward and away, like a thing dismayed and appalled. We returned to the house, and after I had said all that I could to pacify the lad, and to soothe the aged people, I took my leave for that time, with a promise that when I had fulfilled certain ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... a soldier with a Minie ball sticking in the centre of his forehead, the blood oozing from the round, clean-cut hole beside the lead. He was walking steadily backward, loading and firing with incredible rapidity. The company halted behind the troops held in reserve, but the man with the ball in his forehead refused to go to the rear. He wouldn't believe that he was seriously hurt. He ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... which irritated the other members of the family, several of whom were living in idleness on their mother, doing nothing and paying nothing. The brothers at least could not but feel the implied rebuke. As we have seen, she was not at all backward in expressing her disapprobation, when she found her silent testimony was disregarded or misunderstood; and her language was generally rather forcible. This, of course, was trying to those who did not see the necessity of living according to her standard, and very trying to Angelina, whose ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... backward in applying his own principles plainly and pointedly to such forms of oppression as appeared among the Jews. These principles, whenever they have been freely acted on, the Princeton professor admits, have abolished domestic bondage. Had this prevailed within the sphere of our Savior's ministry, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... takes a great deal of love to keep down the 'climbing sorrow' that swells up in a woman's throat when such memories seize upon her, in her moments of desolation. But if a foreign-born woman does willingly give up all for a man, and never looks backward, like Lot's wife, she is a prize that it is worth running a risk to gain,—that is, if she has the making of a good woman in her; and a few years will go far ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... this oath four years ago, I did so in a time of economic stress. Voices were raised saying we had to look to our past for the greatness and glory. But we, the present-day Americans, are not given to looking backward. In this blessed land, there is always ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... vast enthusiasm for Bellamy's "Looking Backward," and read it aloud to his wife on Sunday afternoons, sitting under the apple trees in the garden. They had a fund of little personal jokes and sayings that they were forever laughing over, and she had infinite delight in his comments on the life and people of Caxton, but did not share ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... a girl! No sense of humor!" commented Calder, with a shake of his head and a backward roll of his eye ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... Looking backward for the generative source of that creative power of thought in him, from his own mysterious intellectual being to its first cause, he still reflected, as one can but do, the enlarged pattern of himself into the vague region of hypothesis. In this way, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... displaying it before those to whom it was so familiar. "That's about the ticket, I think, my lady. Yes, just so. I found a nice old hag waiting to claim her five pounds reward; for, you see, the men at the police-office at Murford Haven contrived to keep her dancing attendance backward and forwards—call again in an hour, and so on—till I was there to cross-question her. A precious deep one she is, too; and a regular jail-bird, I'll wager. I soon reckoned her up; and I was pretty sure that whatever ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... meantime fighting had been going on almost incessantly in front of Alexandria. General Coote, who was in command of the besieging force, gradually gained ground. The French lines were forced backward, and on September 2nd, finding the contest altogether hopeless, and most of the British troops from Cairo having returned, reinforced by a British native Indian army, the garrison capitulated. The number of troops, ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... twenty square miles for fifty hours, trying to find an opening to the south, south-east, or south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or north-west. It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were pointing us to the backward track—the track we were determined not to follow. Our desire was to make easting as well as southing so as to reach the land, if possible, east of Ross's farthest South and well east of Coats' Land. This was more important as the prevailing ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... the English, can remain dark to us. Of Montijos, the eminent Spaniard, a brown little man, magnificent as the Kingdom of the Incas, with half a page of titles (half a peck, five-and-twenty or more, of handles to his little name, if you should ever require it); who, finding matters so backward at Frankfurt, and nothing to do there, has been out, in the interim, touring to while away the tedium; and is here only as sequel and corroboration of Belleisle,—say as bottle-holder, or as high-wrought peacock's-tail, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... wicked little head of the brown man's devil, and with a stifled cry, sprang hastily backward. The lamp shattered against the corner of the drawers, and, falling in a shower of broken glass and oil about his stockinged feet, left him in darkness. He threw the fragment of glass stand which remained in his hand from him, and, quick as thought, gained the bed again, and crouched ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... to Banneker's stern face. "Have you?" he said coolly. "Now, as to the mayoralty campaign; what do you think of running a page feature of Laird's reforms, as President of the Board, tracing each one down to its effect and showing what any backward step would mean? By the way, Laird is going to be pretty heavily obligated to The Patriot ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... from the supper-table, he well-nigh fell backward when Fagon, coming forward, cried in great trouble that all was lost. It may be imagined what terror seized all the company at this abrupt passage from perfect security to hopeless despair. The King, scarcely master of himself, at once began to go towards the apartment of Monseigneur, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... deeper emotions in our hearts, than do those of Solon, Leonidas, and Pericles. But respect for the memories and deeds of our ancestors is security for the present, seed-corn for the future; and, in the language of Burke, "Those will not look forward to their posterity who never look backward to their ancestors." ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... When the fire is burning low, Or chatting round about the well On the green at Ashlins Dell, With many a timid backward glance And fingers crossed and eyes askance, Still tell about the Midmas Day When Marget ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... were selfish tyrants, nor all the liberators mere pretenders. Disturbed conditions bred by twenty years of warfare, antique methods of industry, a backward commerce, inadequate means of communication, and a population ignorant, superstitious, and scant, made a strong ruler more or less indispensable. Whatever his official designation, the dictator was the logical successor of ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... Palomedes and Sir Gaheris together; but Sir Palomedes said, "Nay, but it is a shame for two to fight with one." So he bade Sir Gaheris stand by, and he and Sir Tristram fought long together; but in the end Sir Tristram drave him backward, whereat Sir Gaheris and Sir Dinadan with one accord sundered them. Then Sir Tristram prayed the two knights to lodge there; but Sir Dinadan departed and rode away into a priory hard by, and there he lodged ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... slant of that same glaring sunshine, not four miles away, toiling upward along a rocky slope, following the faint sign here and there of Apache moccasin, a little command of hardy, war-worn men had nearly reached the crest when their leader signaled backward to the long column of files, and, obedient to the excited gestures of the young Hualpai guide, climbed to his side and gazed intently over. What he saw on a lofty point of rocks, well away from the tortuous "breaks" through which they had made most of their wearying marches from ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... did his best to follow instructions, but the rope was a short one, the end jerked loose suddenly and he went backward in a heap. I thought, for an instant, that he was going overboard and that mine would be the mixed ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 'moods of my own mind,' are worth all the rest of my more active days. Then, instead of looking forwards as I did in youth, and forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of the grave, I turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners of my better time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close and interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be wiser, or more rational, or less prejudiced, than those to whom I looked up ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... load? I beseech you no longer to cover your wounded conscience. Rogo vos etiam pro periculo men, per illum Dominum quem occulta non fallunt, desinite vulneratam tegere conscientiam. Men sick are not backward to show their sores to physicians, and shall the sinner be afraid or ashamed to purchase eternal life by a momentary confusion? Will he draw back his wounds from the Lord, who is offering his hand to heal them? Peccator timebit? peccator erubeseet perpetuam vitam praesenti pudore mercari? ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... 31-32), and cover the body with so many strips of hemp cloth that a knife thrust is warded off. Turning his body sideways to the enemy, the warrior crouches behind his shield, keeping up a continuous capering, rushing forward or dancing backward, seeking for an opening but seldom coming to close quarters. Arrows and spears are glanced off with the shield. An attack is usually initiated by the throwing of spears, then, if the enemy is at a disadvantage or confused, the warriors rush in to close combat. For this purpose they rely entirely ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... perfection, and closely resembled the pictures we are accustomed to see upon the fans which ladies use even to the present day. Their little airs of sylvan simplicity were very pretty; and the gallant gentlemen were not backward in their part. They bowed and simpered until they resembled so many supple-jacks, pulled by the finger of ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... feet again, this time backward along the boat. As they picked themselves up, Seldar Glav was shaking his head, sadly. "That was the ship going up," he said; "the blast must have caught ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... this cold country," writes Ray, "exposed to the winds, bleak and shelterless, is very backward at the first, but afterwards overtakes the forwardest in the country, if not in the barn, in the bushel, both for the quantity and goodness thereof." According to the Italians, "Every grain hath its bran," which corresponds with our saying, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... country, cool and wild, like the uplands he had left. For days he camped on Wildfire's trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he hoped to find. And the red stallion spent much of this time of flight in looking backward. Whenever Slone came in sight of him he had his head over his shoulder, watching. And on the soft ground of these canyons he had begun to recover from his lameness. But this did not worry Slone. Sooner or later ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... son, in Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, Mrs. Browning's health seemed to have fully returned. She used to ride horseback up and down the mountain passes, and wrote home to Miss Mitford that love had turned the dial backward and the joyousness of girlhood ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... apparatus in the frog is to furnish, a basis of attachment to the tongue muscles; it remains cartilaginous, with the exception of the relic of one branchial arch, which ossifies as the thyro-hyal (Figure 7 th.h.). It will be noted that, as development proceeds, the angle of the jaw swings backward, and the hyoid apparatus, shifts relatively forward. These changes of position are indicated in Figure 8, ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... Detroit thought him mildly insane on the subject of "little buggies driven by gas," as the newspapers called them. Then one day, when no one was paying any especial attention to him, Henry Ford made a car that would run on level ground, would run up and down hill, and go backward and forward. His problem was solved, and he began to make automobiles. Today he is the head of the Ford Motor Company which has its largest factory in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, not more than fifteen ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... a second waits for the axe to drop. But while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that they were growing tame and dull; the open jaws closed, the neck fell backward and downward on the coil from which it rose, the charm was dissolving, the numbness was passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie Venner, looking motionless ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... their way, and proceeded at a rapid pace towards the mountains, until a few hours before noon, when their horses began to sink under the united influence of their previous exertions and the increasing heat of the day. Iskander looked serious, and often threw a backward glance in ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli



Words linked to "Backward" :   retrograde, undynamic, inverse, returning, archaism, forward, bashful, self-referent, retral, ahead, reverse, regardant, retroflex, retroflexed, reversive, look backward, rearward, rearwards, backwards, receding, backswept, transposed, backward and forward, adynamic, blate, retarded, reversed, feebleminded, reasoning backward, back, converse, retrospective, cacuminal



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