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noun
Back  n.  
1.
In human beings, the hinder part of the body, extending from the neck to the end of the spine; in other animals, that part of the body which corresponds most nearly to such part of a human being; as, the back of a horse, fish, or lobster.
2.
An extended upper part, as of a mountain or ridge. "(The mountains) their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds."
3.
The outward or upper part of a thing, as opposed to the inner or lower part; as, the back of the hand, the back of the foot, the back of a hand rail. "Methought Love pitying me, when he saw this, Gave me your hands, the backs and palms to kiss."
4.
The part opposed to the front; the hinder or rear part of a thing; as, the back of a book; the back of an army; the back of a chimney.
5.
The part opposite to, or most remote from, that which fronts the speaker or actor; or the part out of sight, or not generally seen; as, the back of an island, of a hill, or of a village.
6.
The part of a cutting tool on the opposite side from its edge; as, the back of a knife, or of a saw.
7.
A support or resource in reserve. "This project Should have a back or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof."
8.
(Naut.) The keel and keelson of a ship.
9.
(Mining) The upper part of a lode, or the roof of a horizontal underground passage.
10.
A garment for the back; hence, clothing. (Obs.) "A bak to walken inne by daylight."
Behind one's back, when one is absent; without one's knowledge; as, to ridicule a person behind his back.
Full back, Half back, Quarter back (Football), players stationed behind those in the front line.
To be on one's back or To lie on one's back, to be helpless.
To put one's back up or to get one's back up, to assume an attitude of obstinate resistance (from the action of a cat when attacked). (Colloq.)
To see the back of, to get rid of.
To turn the back, to go away; to flee.
To turn the back on one, to forsake or neglect him.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Back" Quotes from Famous Books



... carried into the garden, where on awaking he believed himself to be in Paradise. After enjoying all its delights he was given a fresh dose of the opiate, and, once more unconscious, was transported back to the presence of the Grand Master, who assured him that he had never left his side but had merely experienced a foretaste of the Paradise that awaited him if he obeyed the orders of his chiefs. The neophyte, thus spurred on by the belief that he was carrying out the commands of the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... effeminacy about it, and gave a man the air of being merely an assistant to the cow. And now, at the sight of this animal pursuing him relentlessly, as though to claim him for her own, the whole of Elmbrook fair burst into a thunderous roar of laughter. Sawed-Off glanced back to see the cause, just as his horse's head passed the front wheel of his lady's buggy. With a start of chagrin he realized his ignominious position. To go around the track again in the face of that jeering crowd, with the cow close at his heels, was impossible. He pulled up sharply, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... a-tiptoe, and replaced the mirror upon the shelves, setting it upright behind those wonderful green cups which had anew reminded her of Pevensey's wealth and generosity. She smiled a little, to think of what fun it had been to hold George back, for two whole weeks, from discharging that horrible old queen's ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... informed that we hoped he would do us the favour to visit the ships, that we might convince him of it. We now took our leave, well satisfied on the whole with what had passed, but full of conjectures about this extraordinary French paper. Three of the natives offered their services to accompany us back, which we readily accepted, and returned by the way we came. Captain Gore felt peculiar satisfaction at seeing us; for, as we had exceeded our time near an hour, he began to be alarmed for our safety, and was preparing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... The assailants, thus deceived, cut off the head of the stone, and departed in triumph: the saint then reversed the transformation, leaving the man to go his way in peace. An analogous story is that of Cadoc, who turned raided cattle into bundles of fern, and transformed them back to cattle when the raiders had retired discomfited (Cambro-British Saints, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... top of the table to pitch the key of the next glee; and the waiters bustling up and down with all sorts of tempting comestibles; and the gentleman in the Chesterfield wrapper smoking a cigar at the side of the room, while he leans back and contemplates the ceiling, as if his whole soul was concentrated in its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... bumpkin disposed of, my lord drew leisurely back from the foeman's landing-place, at the head of a body of serious Englishmen; teaching them to be manageable as chess-pieces, ready as bow-strings to let fly. Weyburn rejoiced to find himself transcribing crisp sentences, hard on the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing more. For they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another, so they fly back again asunder. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... true I had some doubts last night, wondering if I'd used the right words and all, but then when you rapped 'Good night' to me, I splashed the sentiment back at you and went to sleep in a wink. But I'm afraid ...
— What's He Doing in There? • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... Abbey, but had shown the same insensible pride on the death of her only son, dressing his figure, and sending messages to her friends, that if they had a mind to see him lie in state, she would carry them in conveniently by a back-door. She sent to the old Duchess of Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had carried the Duke's body. Old Sarah, as mad and proud as herself, sent her word, "that it had carried my Lord Marlborough, and should never be ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... determined an orchestral writer, that he has fixed it most successfully. There has been no composer, not Brahms in his German forest, nor Rameau amid the poplars of his silver France, not Borodin on his steppes, nor Moussorgsky in his snow-covered fields under the threatening skies, whose music gives back the colors and forms and odors of his native land more persistently. The orchestral compositions of Sibelius seem to have passed over black torrents and desolate moorlands, through pallid sunlight and grim primeval forests, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... brilliant philosopher and the peace-advocating humanitarian, who had diffused in high Roman society so many ideas and sentiments considered by the traditionalists pernicious to the force of the State; he had come back far more powerful, and ruled the Empire. Husbands, burdened by the excessive expenses, by the too frequent infidelities, by the tyrannical caprices of their wives, in vain regretted the good old time when husbands ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... otherwise seem only fit for demons. The place we speak of was Arcis-sur-Aube. Napoleon, who looked on the system of this sisterhood 'as one of the most sublime conceptions of the human mind,' was then in the act of falling back with 30,000 men, after having been attacked the evening before (March 19, 1814) by 130,000 Austrians. He was within three weeks of the prostration of his power, and he must have felt bitterly the crushing reverses he was experiencing. Yet he stopped on the nearly demolished bridge of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various

... quickly back toward where I knew the men were waiting, happy to think that there was work to be done at once. I gave the orders that had been handed to me, and in about twenty minutes we were turning over the earth. While we were working others were ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... as is commonly used by fishermen in the bays and shallow waters of America, was lying within ten feet of the ship, and in a position where it was necessary to take some little pains in order to observe it. It was occupied by a single man, whose back was towards the vessel, and who was apparently abroad on the ordinary business of the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... body was put into a leaden coffin, and carried with funeral pomp to the church at Iselbein, when Dr. Jonas preached a sermon upon the occasion. The earls of Mansfelt desired that his body should be interred in their territories; but the elector of Saxony insisted upon his being brought back to Wittemberg, which was accordingly done; and there he was buried with the greatest pomp that perhaps ever happened to any private man. Princes, earls, nobles, and students without number, attended the procession of this extraordinary reformer; ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... you won't be able to see your friend to-night," he said. "His left arm is broken, and I think his back is injured, although I can't tell yet how seriously. By this time to-morrow night I'll be able to tell you more. Has he any relatives that should be ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... was a staple article in any river-town,—and again set out "the old way, over the sand-ridges, for Petersburg. As we drew near home, the impulse became stronger and urged us on amazingly. The long strides of Lincoln, often slipping back in the loose sand six inches every step, were just right for me; and he was greatly diverted when he noticed me behind him stepping along in his tracks to keep from slipping." Thus the two comrades came back from their soldierings to their humble homes, from ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... Maverick, rising. "I should be sorry not to have this little scene of New England life to take back with me: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... supped the first night of the sale at Bedford-house, and found my Lord Gower dealing at silver pharaoh to the women. "Oh!" said I laughing, "I laid out six-and-twenty pounds this morning, I will try if I can win it back," and threw a shilling upon a card: in five minutes I won a five-hundred leva, which was twenty-five pounds eleven shillings. I have formerly won a thousand leva, and at another five hundred leva. With such luck, shall not I be able to win you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... cravings of my strong sexual nature, but never wished for anything out of the usual except intercourse from behind. A woman with marked development of the nates has great attraction for me. Solitary masturbation has for some time ceased, but a nude woman in the act of masturbation with her back to me gives me great pleasure. I am as strong sexually at 38 as I was at 20, only I never want women unless I am brought into actual contact with them and they are hairy and have large pelvic development. I am in excellent health. Genitals are well developed, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... its food needs, has limited fresh water supplies, and has few domestic energy sources. The economy is dependent on foreign trade, manufacturing (especially electronics and textiles), and tourism. Continued sluggishness in the European economy is holding back ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... next week my old job. Me go back work in big bank. Me be janitor. Me washee window, washee floor; ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... Hatty turned her back resolutely, but in vain. Meg was not to be so easily disposed of. Hatty was going to say some hasty words to Meg, as she twitched away from her, when Meg pleaded, "Do wake up, sister Hatty. ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly

... on the consternation prevalent at Vienna early in 1794. For, along with news of the loss of Toulon, tidings of defeat and retreat came from the Rhineland. Able and vigorous young generals, Hoche and Pichegru, had beaten back Austrians and Prussians from the hills around Woerth and Weissenburg; so that the Allies fell back with heavy losses towards the Rhine. Thus, on the whole, the efforts of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Holland, and some of the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Bear reared. The man sprang backward, tripped and fell, and the Grizzly was upon him. Face to earth the hunter lay like dead, but, ere he struck, Jack caught a scent that made him pause. He smelt his victim, and the smell was the rolling back of curtains or the conjuring up of a past. The days in the hunter's shanty were forgotten, but the feelings of those days were ready to take command at the bidding of the nose. His nose drank deep of a draft that quelled all rage. The Grizzly's humor changed. He turned and ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton

... its central portion a red cross connecting all four sides of the flag; in each of the four corners is a small red bolnur-katskhuri cross; the five-cross flag appears to date back to ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... looked back. The beach over which he had come glimmered faintly in the dusk, with its long line of breakers gleaming far up and down. Back there in the darkness, he thought, Dirk's child was dying for want of medicine. Oh! ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor for the lady's hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, always by the agency of Mrs. Woolper and that phenomenon of idleness and iniquity, the London "girl," that Mr. Sheldon was not by any means attentive ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... her husband's room. There was no help or sympathy in him. She went back to her own room and flung herself face downwards on her bed. Let no one think she ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... just come from the Homes. You know whom I mean? Their little boy was the one I helped to nurse through scarlet fever. Mother and boy have come back from Torquay like different creatures from the pleasant change. Mrs. Home looked absolutely bright. Charlotte will like to hear of her; and by the way, a curious thing, a little bit of a romance has happened ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... down the steep. Then he hastily and anxiously flew after it, bustling and croaking as though he were grumbling; he would take it cautiously and clumsily in his talons and carry it, a frightened flustered atom, back to the nest. There he would smooth its feathers with his great beak for a long time, strutting round it, standing high on his legs, and ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... fault of his own, he had stood alone before the bar of justice, with no voice lifted in his behalf save the shrill, small voice of Nance Molloy. Twice he had been acquitted and sent back to the old hopeless environment, and admonished to try again. How hard he had tried and against what odds, surely only the angel detailed to patrol Calvary ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... until I knew every twist in the writing. In the reading I had been carried away from myself, and seemed to be beside him in his battle in the world, laying about with him right lustily. Then by force of habit I had looked up and had seen the shadow of the juniper-tree. I was back in my prison. And it ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... and the confused emotions which swept through me brought with them the queerest and most romantic views of life. But when I was seven we came to the end of my mother's old stock of romances, and we fell back on Bossuet, Moliere, Plutarch, Ovid, and the like. Plutarch went far to cure me of novels; indeed, his "Lives" were the means of forming that free and republican spirit, intolerant of servitude, which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... for Franklin?" he cried. "Protected her? No. Repudiated her? Yes. You gave her to the Confederacy for a war debt, and the Confederacy flung her back. You shook yourselves free from Carolina's tyranny, and traitors betrayed you again. And now they have betrayed your leader. Will you avenge him, or will you sit down like cowards while they ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... it went deep." Nick leaned back abruptly, with closed eyes. "I wonder if I can bring myself to refuse finally and conclusively—without ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... turning her head back as far as she could, and looking at the sky. "How do you ever see ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... Wood groomed were the black ones, Cleve and Pacer. Pacer had something wrong with his mouth, and Mr. Wood turned back his lips and examined it carefully. This he was able to do, for there were large windows in the stable and it was as light as Mr. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... had my wits about me, I would have gone back and followed the spoor, noting where it stopped. But the whole thing looked black magic to me; my stomach was empty and my enterprise small. Besides, there was the terrible moaning of the imprisoned river in my ears. I am ashamed to confess it, but I ran from that ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... like," said Carrington, "but as he knows now that you brought Miss Farmond back and have heard her version, he'll naturally be feeling a little uncomfortable about the place where one generally gets kicked, when he sees you march in. He will expect you to open out on that subject, so if ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... ago I fell from the rigging of a schooner, and was laid up for nearly sixteen weeks with a broken thigh. I also had both testicles terribly sore and swollen, and it was a long time after my leg got well before I was able to walk, the pain in the groin, testicles and small of my back was so bad. Sometimes, even when I was sitting quiet, it would cut me like the stab of a knife. The first I noticed of the Varicocele was one day when I was taking a bath I saw there was a sort of bulging there, and come to notice ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... because he did his part toward building up the commerce and prosperity of the nation I have always regarded him with the warmest respect. I do not approve of all his methods, however, any more than I approve of many of the cut-throat business methods of to-day which sometime will be looked back upon with as much shame as these have been. There are moments, I must confess, when I wonder if we, with all our supposed enlightenment, have made any very appreciable advance over the frank and open racing done by our forefathers on the Hudson," reflected he half-humorously. "Perhaps ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... might not seem wholly to neglect the Queen's favour, had sent a packet of his letters which had no secrets unto Monsieur Bonele, the Queen's Commissary in England, who wrote back an account to Whitelocke of his care of them, and of the command he had received from the Queen so to do, and prayed Whitelocke to speak to the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... same as for boiling, cut it open down the back, wipe the inside clean with a cloth, season it with a little pepper and salt, have a clear fire, and set the gridiron at a good distance over it, lay the chicken on with the inside towards the fire (you ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... closer to take a peep at the snowy, spotless little eggs he had found so beautiful, when at the slight noise up raised four tiny baby heads with wide-open mouths, uttering hunger cries. Freckles stepped back. The brown bird alighted on the edge and closed one cavity with a wiggling green worm, while not two minutes later the blue filled another with a white. That settled it. The blue and brown were mates. Once again Freckles repeated his "How I ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Laputa a law was passed compelling each workman to work with his left hand tied behind his back, and the law was justified on the ground that the demand for labor was more than doubled by it. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... all the honesty in the room by herself, you know, for it's quite impossible to act honestly by her, for very terror. She keeps discipline, and much or little, it's all the same. Any one who wants to speak the truth without using his fists to back it up will get thrashed as I did! It doesn't matter for me; but when I think of you going home and making up all those lies again, and that you are so frightened, and haven't the strength to ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

... whole study so detached as to be at times lacking in vitality. Even, however, with these reservations the figure of the poet stands out, bewildering as it must have been in life, with its strange blend of frailty and genius. Stories abound also (sometimes one suspects Mr. GOSSE of having fallen back upon anecdote with an air of relief); they range from the early days of brilliant "failures" at Eton and Balliol to those when in the watchful security of Putney the lamp was guarded by hands so zealous that its flame was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... attain to eternal success even here. Great Rishis gratified with knowledge, with hearts set upon Emancipation, and conversant with yoga, act in such a way that their yoga meditation may get on properly. These, O son of Pritha, being freed from the faults of the world, never come back (for rebirth). Liberated from liability to rebirth, they live in their original Soul-state.[618] Freed from the influence of all pairs of opposites (such as heat and cold, joy and sorrow, etc.), ever existing in their own (original) state, liberated (from attachments), never ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the condition of being able to take care of himself and make his own contracts and sign his own name to a contract: I have known of numerous instances where negroes, working under the management of a proprietor of a plantation, have made enough money to buy a home; such a one will go back out in the hills, that section of country lying back of the alluvial lands, and buy a home. In three or four years he will move back to the river again, having lost all his property, mortgaged it to some storekeeper, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... for the first time, namely, the production of alcohol and the absence of cells of ferments. It is worthy of remark that these two facts, as we have shown above, were actually fore-shadowed in the theory of fermentation that we advocated as far back as 1861, and we are happy to add that Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, who at first had prudently drawn no theoretical conclusions from their work, now entirely agree with the theory we have advanced. [Footnote: Those gentlemen express themselves thus: "In a note presented ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety in her faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly to the horse-shed to help him unharness. "You did n't expect to see me back to-night, did you?" he asked satirically; "leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! You need n't be scairt to look under the wagon-seat, there ain't nothin' there, not even my supper, so I hope you're suited for once! No, I guess I ain't goin' to be an angel right away, ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... when there had been no railroad, and had no awe of it; but here the railroads had been before time was. The towns had been staked out on barren prairie as convenient points for future train-halts; and back in 1860 and 1870 there had been much profit, much opportunity to found aristocratic families, in the possession of advance knowledge as to ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... sacrifice of a pig brings the period of mourning to an end and after it the cord may be laid aside. If any one were so hard-hearted as not to wear that badge of sorrow, the people believe that the angry ghost would come back and fetch him away. He would die.[399] Thus among these savages the mourning costume is regarded as a protection against the dangerous ghost of the departed; it soothes his wounded feelings and prevents him from making raids on ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... it were by these reminiscences, leaned back in his chair and breathed heavily. With downcast eyes and in silence the queen still sat before him, charmed by the music of his words, which found an echo in her heart like the dying wail of ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... little gnomes carried him into their house, away back in the trunk of the tree, and placed him upon ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle

... saddled a horse that she had, and jumped on his back, and rode off north to Bearfirth, to Swanshol, and Swan received him with open arms, and said: "That's what I call a man who does not stick at trifles! And now I promise thee if they seek thee here, they shall get ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... Drawing back the door he motioned Yussuf ahead, and followed, drawing the door shut. Down a steep, stone spiral stair they went, and at the bottom, at the general's order, the black set Ryder down from his shoulder ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... more than physical comfort and social standing to rejoice in. They gave us, or set out to give us, education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels, indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never heartily ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... simply and quietly and placed him in Hilary's cell, at first assigning to him a lay brother but afterwards leaving him alone, at Sergius's own request. The cell was a dual cave, dug into the hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried. In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a monk placed food ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... torrents. I gave my driver a lunch of bread and cheese, which—of course, there—included whisky. I also gave him a sovereign, telling him to pay his master for the horse-hire and keep the change for himself; then started him back, brimful of delight and the 'craythur,' receiving his ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... country, and not go any further in the same direction; for if we did so we should enter India; and that I do not wish to do at present. For, on our return journey, I mean to tell you about India: all in regular order. Let us go back therefore to Badashan, for we cannot otherwise proceed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... continued incapable of thought or action. When he recovered recollection, he withdrew from his melancholy station. Laying the venerable remains back on the bed, he did not trust his rallied faculties with a second trial, but hastening down stairs, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... devil with thee and thy battle-axe; I would send the pair of ye back in your tracks, With an answer that even to thy boorish brain ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... two phases: in July and August the French were satisfied to worry the enemy with small forces and to oblige them to fight; in October and December General Nivelle, well supplied with troops and material, was able to strike two vigorous blows which took back from the Germans the larger part of all the territory they had won ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... is that there is a really good country to fall back upon when the prairies to the south are taken up. Swamps and muskegs abound, but good land also abounds, and the time will come when the ring of the Canadian axe will be heard throughout these forests, and when multitudes of comfortable homes will be hewn out of what are ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... from the far track Of worlds, and gazing inward, O brother, fare where Life has come, Yea, into its far Whence fare back. All other ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... "Turn your back to the lake and walk backwards," said the old man. Scarcely had the youth had time to turn round and take a couple of steps, when he found himself under the water and in a white-stone palace—all its rooms splendidly furnished, cunningly ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... overshadowed by the high bluffs which seem to threaten its existence, and would quite exterminate it should land-slides ever become possible with these silicious limestone battlements. Beyond being an outlet for surplus products of the back country, it has no importance and no attractions. The traveller is now one hundred and thirty miles above Dubuque, one of the points of embarkation for those from the East who visit the State by the way of the river. If the sail is made by daylight ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... exhibition was over there were murmurs of admiration from the passengers, who, grouped here and there, or promenading back and forth, had stood spellbound, as may be said, while it ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Lacey set his teeth to bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the colour came back faintly to his face. "God's will be done," he said, and looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes. "It was no accident," he added with conviction. "It was an enemy of Egypt." Suddenly the thing rushed over him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and clamping ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... need to go back farther than his own Romeo and Juliet and Richard II, nor to imitate any other than himself. Yet his great plays may have seemed to his contemporaries to adopt rather than to depart from current dramatic ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... equipment weighs about l75 lb, including a 40 lb lead weight carried by the diver on his chest, a similar weight on his back, and l6lb of lead on each boot. Upon entering the water the superfluous air in the dress is driven out through the outlet valve in the helmet by the pressure of the water on the legs and body, and by the time ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams

... were carried away. The mission had been hoping to get some of the evangelical churches, ere long, upon a self-supporting basis; but the hopes thus excited of their burdens being assumed by the Church of England, put back for a time this work ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... not for you. Back I say, go: least I let forth your halfe pinte of blood. Backe, that's the vtmost of your ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... love,—and to find them after eighteen hundred years still preferring the Gospel of hate,—is enough to make one doubt the truth of religion altogether! The Divine Socialist preached a creed too good and pure for this world; and when we try to follow it, we are beaten back on all sides by the false conventionalities and customs of a sacerdotal system grown old in self-seeking, not in self-sacrifice. Were Christ to come again, the first thing He would probably do would be to destroy all the churches, saying: 'I never knew you: depart ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... her the list of books. But the weeks passed, and she did not come back. Once, when he met her at a dinner of Mrs. Preston's, both avoided the subject of her visit, both were conscious of a constraint. She did not know how often, unseen by her, his eyes had sought her out from the chancel. For she continued to come to church as frequently ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that, when Hanuman was crossing the Ganges, it was bridged over by all the animals; one small gap remained, which was filled by this squirrel, and as Hanuman passed over he put his hand on the squirrel's back, on which the marks of his five fingers have since remained. It is not unlike the chipmunk of America (Tamias striatus), but these true ground squirrels have cheeks pouches and live in burrows. Our so-called palm ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... take a message from your Divine Master? I have thought it all over, and can tell you where you will be listened to at least, and where you may do much good. I went, last Sunday, to the same prison in which I visited you. and I read to the inmates. It would be a moral triumph for you, Egbert, to go back there as a Christian man and with the honest purpose of doing good. It would be very pleasant for me to think of you at work there every Sabbath. Make the attempt, to please me, if for no ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... death, when Mr. Macallan came into her room to inquire how she had passed the night. 'Oh,' she said, 'never mind how I have slept! What do you care whether I sleep well or ill? How has Mrs. Beauly passed the night? Is she more beautiful than ever this morning? Go back to her—pray go back to her! Don't waste your time with me!' Beginning in that manner, she worked herself into one of her furious rages. I was brushing her hair at the time; and feeling that my presence was an impropriety under the circumstances, I attempted to leave the room. She forbade me to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... of Number, because, bringing back the binary to unity, it restores to it the same quantity whereby it had departed from unity. It is the first odd number, containing in itself the first even number and the unit, which are the Father and Mother of all Numbers; and it has in ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back to her an intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as they smiled. The soft silk of her hair looked like the night and the small rings on the back of her very slim white neck were things to ensnare the eye ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts, which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family, who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... not come back until eight months later. It is needless to say that, when he did so, all his relations and friends came to drink cups of wine with him to "wash down the dust of the journey." At last his wife told him what had happened, affirming that all was decided. But the eyes of the master ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli

... lodge, to show the king, etc., objects through the seven-foot. But when the days began to shorten, this was found impossible, for the telescope was often (at no small expense and risk of damage) obliged to be transported in the dark back to Datchet, for the purpose of spending the rest of the night with observations on double stars for a second catalogue. My brother was, besides, obliged to be absent for a week or ten days, for the purpose of bringing home the metal of the cracked ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... finger to tap at the window, but paused as this thought occurred to him. The rector could not fail to receive him back from the dead joyfully; but there would be the inevitable reckoning to pay. Even now, the lad hesitated, wondering whether, after all, Colonel Dundas were not right in declaring him better dead. But he was ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... and he held the drawing towards her as he leant back with a sigh. He had made too many drawings that evening, and any talent he had hung in his mind as wearily as a flag in an airless room. With an effort she broke her position and moved towards him, taking up the drawing in her ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... murderer, mother," she exclaimed. "You talk of a murderer, do you? But if murder has been committed, as it has, I am the murderer. Keep back now, let me look upon my innocent father—upon that father that ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... tones of his harp induce them to make way for him. He finds Eurydice in the Elysian fields, and taking her by the hand leads her on to the upper world. In a fatal moment he yields to her desire to see him, and she sinks back lifeless. Love, however, comes to the rescue, and full of compassion restores her. Thus the happy lovers are reunited; and the opera closes without the tragic denouement of the old myth. In the American performances the opera was ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... group, a picture of misery itself, shines the hot sun of the tropics; around it, far as eye could reach, extends the calm sea, glassed, and glancing back his lays, as though they were reflected from a sheet of liquid fire; beneath them gleams a second firmament through the pellucid water, a sky peopled with strange forms that are not birds: more like are they to dragons; for among them can be ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... remembered that Daniel Deronda went into a second-hand book-shop and bought a small volume for half a crown, thereby making the acquaintance of Ezra Cohen. Some time back I had in my hands the identical book that George Eliot purchased which formed the basis of the incident. The book may now be seen in Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London. The few words in which George Eliot dismisses the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... swamps all round, meant almost certainly an attack of fever. Nothing, however, could be done beyond what the captain and the Kafirs were doing, so that suspense was weighted by no sense of personal responsibility. We moved alternately from stern to bow, and back from bow to stern, to lighten the boat at one end or the other, and looked to windward to see from the sharp curl of the waves whether the gusts which stopped our progress were freshening further. Fortunately they ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... given back, and the father and mother were dependent upon their only son to provide for them in their old age, the man who had entered the accusation before the god was entreated again to appear before him in his temple ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... Since we were lost, he at least should be saved from this. I suffered from his spasmodic, agonized laugh away there, with twenty knives aimed at his breast and the eighty-foot drop of the precipice at his back. Why did he hesitate? ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... lands a good order now it makes the blood rush all over his veins; and when an order it cut out it is like getting separated from a wisdom tooth. Of course you can't blame a Kansas merchant for going back on his orders in a grasshopper year; but it is the fellow who has half a notion of canceling when he buys and afterwards really does cancel, that I carry a ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... instructions given to other Ministers, and that, in the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be detected.(1) Mr. Washington may now, perhaps, learn, when it is too late to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in one sly falsehood. When one is detected, a ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Asia, and how is it that they have remained stagnant for ages, while Europe advanced? The origin of the Asiatic civilisations is obscure. The common idea of their vast antiquity has no serious ground. The civilisation of Japan cannot be traced back beyond about the eighth century B.C. Even then the population was probably a mixed flotsam from neighbouring lands—Ainus, Koreans, Chinese, and Malays. What was the character of the primitive civilisation resulting from the mixture ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... adjourn the debate till Friday next: and my cosen Pepys did come out and joy me in my acquitting myself so well, and so did several others, and my fellow officers all very briske to see themselves so well acquitted; which makes me a little proud, but yet not secure but we may yet meet with a back-blow ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... in her voice, bound me by a blood-curdling nautical oath not to breathe a word of the mishap to Mummy, Daddy or Miss Watt, her governess. The pledge having been given, Betty, the offending boots discarded, fled to her own room by way of the back-door. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various

... would be able to share her ecstasies, as a tired-out, middle-aged woman could never do. Therefore, might Maud come? Could Maud be spared for a month to give Mabel the very great pleasure of her society? She should have every care, and be brought back ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... was republican, down to her sturdy back- bone. The son of an absolute monarch became the man Karolus; and his crown and head, both rolled in the dust. And Dominora had her patriots by thousands; and lusty Defenses, and glorious Areopagiticas were written, not since surpassed; and no turban was ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... ascribed to carnivorous dinosaurs run in series with narrow tread, short or long steps, here and there a light impression of tail or forefoot and occasionally the mark of the shank and pelvis when the animal settled back and squatted down to rest a moment. The modern crocodiles when they lift the body off the ground, waddle forward with the short limbs wide apart, and even the lizards which run on their hind legs have a rather wide tread. But these dinosaurs ran like birds, setting one foot nearly in front of the ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... therefore, when of two independent States the one has wronged, or is about to wrong the other, and will not desist nor make amends, nothing is left for it; Nature has made no other provision, but they must fight. They must fall back upon the steel and the shotted gun, the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... Looking back to the ancient superstitions about ghosts and fairies, Dryden, the poet, has some lines which may fitly close ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... after a long while. "With you here there is nothing else in the world. I can see only you." With a catch in her voice she rushed on. "You must not only go, but I must not know where you go. I must not be able to call you back. You must give me your word ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... his bed, in his short little shirt, hot from sleep, and firmly clasped my neck. His arms were burning—they were so soft and delicate. I lifted his hair on the back of his head and kissed his ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... say it was right, my dear. But in looking at what is wrong, we ought to look for the beginning of the wrong; and possibly we might find that in this case farther back. If, for instance, a father isn't a father, we must not be too hard in blaming the child for not being a child. The father's part has to come first, and teach the child's part. Now, if I might guess from what I know of the old lady, in whom probably it was much softened, her father ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... She drew back to the stairs, but did not descend. Leaning against the rail she tried to get rid of a feeling of being choked; and she gazed at the door with a sort of dreadful courage. No! she refused to go down. Did it matter what people thought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... troops which have been put upon his track, proved him a leader of extraordinary ability. The object of the raid is yet a mystery. Time alone will develop the plan, if plan there was. Moving on with such a force, far from all support—at the very time, too, that Bragg's army was falling back and scattering—makes the affair look like one of simple bravado, as if the leader was willing to be captured, provided he could end his career in a blaze of excitement created by his dash and daring. But it is useless to speculate now. Broken into squads, some ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... that," said Isabel, "I should find in my own nation entertainment for a lifetime. But we've a long drive, and my aunt will soon wish to start." She turned back toward the others and Lord Warburton walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the others, "I shall come and see you next week," ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... out for a ride beyond the city. As he turned his horse's head homewards and rode slowly back towards the golden sunset, he suddenly saw, a little way ahead, something that made him shudder and almost turn aside on to another path. It was a poor leper, his filthy rags only half covering his wretched body, with its horrible running ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... last night at the Ostian Gate, you were better placed than you are now. The ramparts here are as lonely as a ruin in the provinces. Nothing behind us but the back of the Pincian Mount; nothing before us but the empty suburbs; nothing at each side of us but brick and stone; nothing at our posts but ourselves. May I be crucified like St. Peter, if I believe that there is another place on the whole round of the walls possessed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... reason to think he's not well," said Hamilton; "for, to my certain knowledge, he would have stood an examination on Prometheus better than that, a week after we came back. Why, Harris and Peters, and half the rest, are not to be compared ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... from all parts of the globe, with ivories, carved in Japan as nowhere else, with mosaics from all sections of the world, with beautiful chairs, with embroidery that had graced the homes of monarchs in the old country, and on his back porch, and in his yard, were beautiful flowers hardly seen outside of ...
— Silver Links • Various

... the bar-room door opened, and a man past the prime of life, with a somewhat florid face, which gave a strong relief to the gray, almost white hair that, suffered to grow freely, was pushed back, and lay in heavy masses on his coat collar, entered with a hasty step. He was almost venerable in appearance; yet there was in his dark, quick eyes the brightness of unquenched loves, the fires of which were kindled at the altars of selfishness and sensuality. This I saw at ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... from somewhere," Iris urged, her manner becoming practical. "I'm not rich enough to lend very much, but I could help you over a year, perhaps. Wouldn't you rather go back to Rivenoak with a feeling of complete independence?—I see what it is. You don't really mean what you say; you're ashamed to be indebted to a woman. Yes, I can see ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... of fresh cookies, crisp, brown, and sweet; their spicy odor pervaded the room, and the china-closet door stood suggestively open. Miss Hetty's spectacles turned that way, then went back to the busy scene in the street, as if trying to get courage for the deed. Something happened just then which decided her, and sealed the doom of the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... I, Simon the old, have shewn, was I, Simon the young, brought back to my senses. It is ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... carriage coming up the avenue," Rose said, "the shivers went up and down my back, but Uncle John, when he got up to go in to see her, stooped and whispered in my ear: 'Don't be frightened, little girl, for remember that you now belong to me, and I shall not easily give you up. Now, come in with me, dear. You know I can not refuse ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks



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