"Backbone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... experiments and some failures. Fig. 1 is an elevation, Fig. 2 a ground-plan of the frame, and Fig. 3 a section of a runner. Get a spruce plank, A, 12 feet long, 6 inches wide, 2 inches thick. This is the backbone of the structure. Cut near one end of it a hole two inches square to receive the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... speak was Ballard. His eyes glanced round with an indomitable expression of scorn and indignation, which, as Diccon whispered, he could have felt to his very backbone. It was like that of a trapped and maimed lion, as the man sat in his chair with crushed and racked limbs, but with a spirit untamed in ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woman will stan' up fur me when I gin myself up fur State's evidence, ef I put ye on the track fur findin' Bubby? He's thar all right yit, I'll be bound—well an' thrivin, I reckon. He hev got backbone, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... rather blindly went out of the room. In the street, after the summer breeze had been touching his forehead and yet not cooling it, he realised he was carrying his hat in his hand, and put it on hastily. He was Addington to the backbone, when he was not roaming the fields of fiction, and one of the rules of Addington was against looking queer. He walked to his office and let himself in. The windows were closed and the room had the crude ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Austria declared clearly and emphatically their wishes and desires in their proclamations. If instead of working for the conversion of the ruling factor in favour of these wishes Dr. Seidler shows us Gessler's hat of Austria with a German head and backbone, then let him remember that we shall hate this Austria for all eternity (loud cheers and applause) and we shall fight her, and God willing, we shall in the end smash her to pieces so completely that nothing will remain ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... tell of this magic to her sisters. Tell them, if they are above labour in the fields or at the wash-tub, that the wheel, without fatiguing, will give them the deep breath which will purify the blood, invigorate the heart, stiffen the backbone, harden the muscles; that the mind will follow and accommodate itself to these physical changes; finally, that the wheel will be of more account to them than all the platforms in the land, and clubs of all the pioneers and colleges, all congresses, titles, honours, votes, and all the books ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... teeth are good points and he has been given a magnificent backbone as well as a beautiful voice, although he often ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... spot. The punishment of turbulence was with the rigour of martial law, which really means no law at all, but only the will of the man in charge of the army. A subordinate official lifted to a position of almost irresponsible power—such was Pilate. We can well understand how a man with no moral backbone would succumb to its temptations. Pilate was a much smaller man than Gallic the proconsul at Corinth, and that other proconsul at Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, whom St Paul won over to Christian faith. But his pettiness ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... asks, Whence have they come? What could have tempted, or what change compelled, a tribe of men, to leave the fine regions of the north, to travel down the Cordillera or backbone of America, to invent and build canoes, which are not used by the tribes of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and then to enter on one of the most inhospitable countries within the limits of the globe? Although such reflections must at first seize on the mind, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... about fifty Americans; but fortunately, a few days later, Jones was compelled to put back to port, where he was unexpectedly able, owing to a recent exchange of prisoners, to get rid of some of his aliens, and to secure 114 American officers and sailors, who proved to be the backbone of the Richard's crew. The Alliance, the only American ship, was a good frigate rating as a large thirty-two or medium thirty-six, but captained by a mad Frenchman in the American service, Landais, who refused to obey Jones, and in the important fight with the Serapis turned his guns against his ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... a quiet, peaceable town. There had never been any labor troubles there. The Appeal paid union wages; and, in fact, was the backbone of the town, giving employment to hundreds of men and women. It was not the citizens of Girard that composed the mob. This mob had risen up out of the earth apparently, and to all intents and purposes, its ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Secret Service sneak has bolted. Without him to put backbone in them, they'll eat out of ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... sweep the whole length of Washington: Virginia Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Massachusetts Avenue. But Pennsylvania Avenue is the only one known to ordinary men, and the half of that only is so known. This avenue is the backbone of the city, and those streets which are really inhabited cluster round that half of it which runs westward from the Capitol. The eastern end, running from the front of the Capitol, is again a desert. ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... condition of affairs to contemplate, and for an instant Dave's heart almost stopped beating and something like a chill swept down his backbone. What if they should be unable to find their way out of ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... elsewhere sufficiently spoken of his unsophisticated use of words, of the diction which forms the backbone of his manly style. If I mention my own greater bookishness, by which I mean his less quantitative reading, it is to give myself better occasion to note that he was always reading some vital book. It might be some out-of-the-way book, but it had the root of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Israelites, he was forced by a superior power to bless them. So I with the Unionists. The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayed by editorial difficulties through the critical months of the bye-elections. When published in the December number, owing to the exigencies of space, the backbone—namely the extracts from the Land Acts, now included in this re-publication—was taken out of it, and my own unsupported statements alone were left. I was sorry for this, as it cut the ground from under my feet and ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... the horses began to fail so rapidly that they had to abandon the carts, while the men were becoming completely exhausted from the endless cutting and hacking of the scrub. At length they surmounted the range, the backbone of the peninsula, and on the western slope, amid the heads of the rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria, made better progress. Kennedy, however, adhered to his instructions to examine the eastern slope, and recrossed ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... a well-known naturalist. It makes an excellent binding for certain books. Among fishes the shark provides a skin used in a variety of ways. The shagreen of the shark's ray is of great value. Canes are made of the shark's backbone, the interstices being filled with silver or shell plates. Shark's teeth are used to decorate the weapons of various nations. The magnificent scales, nearly four inches across and tipped with seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... days, an advantage which he now lost by stooping to such a degree, that at a meeting, where there was some dispute concerning the sort of arch which should be thrown over a considerable brook, a facetious neighbour proposed to offer Milnwood a handsome sum for his curved backbone, alleging that he would sell any thing that belonged to him. Splay feet of unusual size, long thin hands, garnished with nails which seldom felt the steel, a wrinkled and puckered visage, the length of which corresponded with that of his person, together ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... must give our attention to the sermon. It is what the congregation will pronounce "a large, nervous, and golden discourse," a Scriptural discourse,—like the skeleton of the sea-serpent, all backbone and a great deal of that. It may be some very special and famous effort. Perhaps Increase Mather is preaching on "The Morning Star," or on "Snow," or on "The Voice of God in Stormy Winds"; or it may be his sermon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... structure is proportioned to the height of the pillars. It contains such parts as are necessary for life, and which consequently ought to be placed in the centre, and shut up in the securest place. Therefore two rows of ribs pretty close to one another, that come out of the backbone, as the branches of a tree do from its trunk, form a kind of hoop, to hide and shelter those noble and tender parts. But because the ribs could not entirely shut up that centre of the human body, without hindering the dilatation of the stomach and of the entrails, they form that hoop but to a certain ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... delight av a shiny night,' frum a band that thought we was the second four comp'nies av the Lincolnshire. At that we was forced to sind them a yell to say who we was, an' thin up wint 'The wearin' av the Green.' It made me crawl all up my backbone, not havin' taken my brequist. Thin, right smash into our rear, came fwhat was left av the Jock Elliotts - wid four pipers an' not half a kilt among thim, playin' for the dear life, an' swingin' their rumps like buck rabbits, an' a native rig'mint shrieking blue murther. Ye niver heard the like. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... down. The last few days' experience at being out late had taught us wisdom so Memba Sasa had brought a lantern. By the light of this, we discovered our bull down, and all but dead. To make sure, I put a Winchester bullet into his backbone. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... upon some stubbly straw, He munched at bran and common grits, Not venturing on the dainty bits. At length the town mouse; "What," says he, "My good friend, can the pleasure be, Of grubbing here, on the backbone Of a great crag with trees o'ergrown? Who'd not to these wild woods prefer The city, with its crowds and stir? Then come with me to town; you'll ne'er Regret the hour that took you there. All earthly things draw mortal breath; Nor great nor little can from death Escape, and therefore, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... alone it can be found—in these most striking and instructive volumes. As this theory is the key to M. Comte's other generalizations, all of which arc more or less dependent on it; as it forms the backbone, if we may so speak, of his philosophy, and, unless it be true, he has accomplished little; we cannot better employ part of our space than in clearing it from misconception, and giving the explanations necessary to remove the ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... pointed enough to warrant its constant repetition for more than two generations. Back in the sixties, when this grizzled railroad chieftain was the chief factor in the rapidly growing New York Central Railroad system, whose backbone then consisted of a continuous one-track line connecting Albany with the Great Lakes, the president of a small cross-country road approached him one day and requested an exchange ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... Steward to have a claim to a place in their houses, if they were successful, than to work for its security. It was with great difficulty that Sir A. Milner as late as September 18 obtained his consent to the dispatch of a few regulars to Kimberley to form the backbone of a defensive force. He seems to have retained almost to the end, in spite of all indications to the contrary, the belief that the war would be averted or at least that the Orange Free State would not join in it. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... carefully measured, for if the family begins to rely on the State for the backbone it should have, it will not stay up, and its fall will be lower than the stage it rose from. "When man reverts, he goes not ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... among the tangles of mane and tail for an unknown period; no brush had smoothed his coat. It was once a rich red-chestnut, no doubt, but now it was sun-faded to the color of sand. He was thin. The unfleshed backbone and withers stood up painfully and she counted the ribs one by one. Yet his body was not so broken as his spirit. His drooped head gave him the appearance of searching for a spot to lie down. He seemed to have been left here by the cruelty of ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... the belly of the monster which is to swallow up the candidates. To keep up the delusion a pair of great eyes are painted over the entrance, and above them the projecting roots of a betel-palm represent the monster's hair, while the trunk of the tree passes for his backbone. As the awe-struck lads approach this imposing creature, he is heard from time to time to utter a growl. The growl is in fact no other than the humming note of bull-roarers swung by men, who are concealed within the edifice. When the procession ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... The girl's backbone grew chill. She remembered hearing that the children had been always minded by an educated old Basuto woman called Sophy, who had been a devoted slave to each from birth up, and because of whose death, a few months back, a ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... had no womenfolks in our family ez looked like that—stronger built is ourn, with more backbone, and none of that lackadaisical ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... detail—the number of the room they met in, the exact hour, and all that. What I like to get in a report of a secret meeting is absolute accuracy in small matters, so that those who were there will know it is not guesswork. That always takes the backbone out of future denials. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... strength; it does not make a man interesting, but it makes him feared. Every ruler,—in fact every man intrusted with executive power, especially in stormy times,—should be resolute, unflinching, with a will dominating over everything, with courage, pluck, backbone, be he king or prime minister, or the superintendent of a railway, or director of a lunatic asylum, or president of a college. No matter whether the sphere be large or small, the administration of power requires energy, will, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... just as the word to charge rang out, And before they could give their battle shout, On a stony ledge Of the ridge's edge, With its lips curled back and its teeth laid bare, And a hiss that ripped the morning air, With its backbone arched And its tail well starched, With bristling hair and flattened ears, What shape of courage and wrath appears? A cat, a tortoiseshell mother-cat! And a very diminutive cat at that! And below her, nesting upon the ground, A litter of tiny kits they found: Tortoiseshell kittens, one, two, ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... greatly facilitated, and by lengthening the neck rope, and drawing the feet together as close as possible, the process of laying him down in the water is finally accomplished by the keepers pressing the sharp point of their hendoos over the backbone. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... born, and a fine, handsome man of about forty—a descendant of the Scotch farmers, who emigrated to the Cape in 1820. His conversation impressed me much. He told me that the Colonists generally are loyal to the Queen to the backbone; but not to the British Government, which they consider has not represented their feelings and opinions, and has sacrificed their interests. They dislike the Colonial Government, and are not favourable to responsible ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... easier to carve this joint by cutting across the ribs, parallel with the backbone, but that is cutting with the grain; and meat, especially beef, seems more tender if ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... may be termed the backbone of the widespread anti-submarine operations during the Great War, but with the experience gained and the brains of almost every nation focussed on the problem of providing an effective counterblast to the under-water warship, there can be little doubt that in the next ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... hereditary charges reserved for the lesser nobility. The functions of the Iwikuamoo (backbone of the chief) were to rub his lord on the back, when stretched on his mat. The Ipukuha had charge of the royal spittoons. The Paakahili carried a very long plume (kahili), which he waved, around the royal person to drive ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... counted on his: fingers. "I must know the names and faces of your men friends as far as I can. Your woman friends don't count. While I'm you, you will be adamant." He laughed again pleasantly. "But the men are essential—the backbone of the whole business." ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... but before you go, I wish you would do me a little favor. Your brother did it for me before he left, and cured me, but it has come back on me again. I am subject to very severe pains along the left side of my backbone, all the way from my shoulder blade down to where my ribs attach to my backbone, and the only way I get any relief from the pain is to have some one kick me along the side." (She was a witch, and concealed in her robe a long sharp ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... very glad to do so. I suppose you are a Yankee still, engaged in the business of subjugating the free South, as I am still a rebel to the backbone," replied Percy, ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... have done will be known from one end of California to the other. You've got your choice. You've either got to let up on Standing or kill all three of us. Standing's got your goat. So have I. So has Morrell. You are a stinking coward, and you haven't got the backbone and guts to carry out the dirty butcher's work you'd like ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... as we see upon the wooden figures before cigar-shops, and from this hung down a long piece of scarlet cloth, about a quarter of a yard wide, and long enough to trail on the ground a yard or two behind. This was ornamented with a fringe of eagles' feathers on each edge, like the backbone of a fish, and as it waved about nothing could be more superb. The savage dandies were evidently proud of their appearance, and to say that they were "got up regardless of expense" was simply a fact, for their wardrobes must have cost considerable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... it was true. He remembered that the repairs, which were the backbone of Paasch's trade, began to come in slowly on Monday. Paasch always began the week by making a pair of boots for the window, which he sold at half price when the leather had perished. In his eagerness for work, he had forgotten that Paasch's business was so small. He looked round with ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... dollars. While other real-estate investors who considered themselves astute were planning for the future by gobbling up stretches of land along the shore of the East River the Astors were buying across what was primitively known as the backbone of the island. ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... his fellow, a few yards away, hearing a sound. I only say this that you may feel that you must take your chances. The men under me are, every one, old hunters and Indian fighters, and are a match for the redskin in every move of forest war. They are true grit to the backbone, but they are rough outspoken men, and, on a service when a foot carelessly placed on a dried twig, or a word spoken above a whisper, may bring a crowd of yelping redskins upon us, and cost every man his scalp, they would speak sharply to the king himself, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... to be fed with success. She began to think that she had been cozened: Ginx's Baby was too evidently a spiritual miscarriage. He must, like the rest of his family, be, indeed, "Protestant to the backbone." Father Certificatus agreed with her. His robes and best ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... ever he acted upon a system. Living in a country governed by the mightiest and wealthiest aristocracy in the world, which, from the first class almost to the lowest, ostentation pervades,—the very backbone and marrow of society,—he felt that to fall far short of his rivals in display was to give them an advantage which he could not compensate either by the power of his connections or the surpassing loftiness of his character and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a sharp lot. Twelve years ago there was a good bit of talk about her ladyship's father being one of them with the fullest pockets. She came here with plenty, but Sir Nigel got hold of it for his games, and they're the games that cost money. Her ladyship wasn't born with a backbone, poor thing, but this new one was, and her ladyship's father is her father, and you mark my words, there's money coming into Stornham, though it's not going to be played the fool with. Lord, yes! this new one has a backbone and good strong wrists and a good strong ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... also my backbone is protesting. Whether you have reached the end of that Anthony Adverse of a shopping list or not, we're going home! And what are you looking for? You've opened all those bags at least twice and dropped no less than three on the floor ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... down-trodden tenants from older lands, many of whom lie in the old grave-yard of the Kildonan settlement on the Red River of the North, a few miles from the City of Winnipeg. Their descendants with their Scotch thrift form the backbone of that progressive province of such magnificent possibilities. Their weary journeys overland, toilsome portages and struggles with want and isolation are now mere matters of history, for the overflow ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... dry land. Then, leaving the boat, Flinders and Brown walked along a bank of mud and sand to the shore, to examine the country. Flinders ascended one of the foot-hills of the range that forms the backbone of Yorke's Peninsula, stretching north and south upwards of two ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... easier way. Our own misery was now greater than theirs. So we hung on to whatever would help us to keep erect, and ate the food given us like famished animals. Rough and threatening as the surroundings still were, I was seaman enough to realize that the backbone of the storm had broken, and so rejoiced when the skipper ordered sail set. In a few moments the brig was once again headed on a westerly course, and riding the heavy ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... and Europe is disclosed as a prone and emaciated figure, the Alps shaping like a backbone, and the branching mountain-chains like ribs, the peninsular plateau of Spain forming a head. Broad and lengthy lowlands stretch from the north of France across Russia like a grey-green garment hemmed by the Ural mountains ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... man's body and that of any brute is marked along the whole line, from the solid basis of the feet, enabling him to stand erect, look upward and behold the stars; along the line of the stiff backbone, maintaining the dignified posture; to the hands, on which treatises have been written, displaying their wonderful superiority over those of all other creatures, and enabling man to do what no other animal has done, to fill the world with his handiworks, and alter the very face of nature ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... would have been no more than a ten-mile ride from that cabin to the same huge valley at the headwaters of the east branch, where he and Dexter and the boy had camped only a few days before. But it was a two days' journey around the backbone of that ridge alone, by trail. And even then, when he did locate the "Jenkinses," it took hours of quiet argument before Caleb could convince those shy and suspicious people that his errand was an honest one. Eventually they did come to believe him; they led him, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... motifs employed on the surrounding Arcade are sea plant life and its animal evolution. The conventionalized backbone, the symbol for the vertebrates, is seen between the arches. The piers, arches, reeds and columns bear legendary decorative motifs of the transitional plant to animal life in the forms of tortoise and other shell motifs - kelp and ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... of view, the danger of this spot lay chiefly in the fact that it was so widely scattered. The ridge runs like a broken backbone for a distance of some eight miles.... In rough weather the whole of the rocks are covered, and the waves, beating heavily on the mass, convert the scene into one of ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... in the morning the backbone of the hurricane broke. By five no more than a stiff breeze was blowing. And by six it was dead calm and the sun was shining. The sea had gone down. On the yet restless edge of the lagoon, Mapuhi saw the broken bodies of those that had failed ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the fish and take out the backbone. Gash the flesh and insert a thin slice of salt pork under the skin. Make a stuffing of one cupful of bread-crumbs, two tablespoonfuls of chopped salt pork, and salt, [Page 70] minced parsley, chopped onion, red pepper, kitchen ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... accustomed to meet in his native jungles, a yellow cowardly fellow, that had often slunk away from the very prey from which I had driven him, but a real red British lion, that, although thin and ragged in the unhealthy climate of Khartoum, looked as though he was pluck to the backbone. ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... point was indeed stupendous. The vision seemed to range not only over an almost limitless world of forests, lakes, and rivers—away to where the haze of the horizon seemed to melt with them into space—but beyond that to where the great backbone of the New World rose sharp, clear, and gigantic above the mists of earth, until they reached and mingled with the fleecy clouds of heaven. To judge from their glittering eyes, even the souls of the not very demonstrative Indians were touched by the scene. As for ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... that the principal functions of the soul do act erroneously. His treatment consisted of emetics, purges, opening the veins under the tongue, blisters, issues, and shaving the head, followed by a cataplasm upon it, the backbone anointed with a very choice balsam of earthworms or bats. One prescription for melancholia contains no less than twenty-seven ingredients, to be made into a decoction, to which is to be added that sine qua non, the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... Psalter.—This is the very backbone of the Breviary, the groundwork of the Catholic prayer-book; out of it have grown the antiphons, responsories and versicles. In the Breviary the psalms are arranged according to a disposition dating from the 8th century, as follows. Psalms i.-cviii., with some omissions, are recited ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... variety it presents us with a kind of symbolic tree, remarkable for more than archaic flatness and rigidity. Now, this kind of "originality" is not only absolutely valueless, but exceedingly harmful; its only merit is that, like its ideal seaweed, it has no backbone of its own, and we may hope that it will soon betake itself to its natural home, the slimy bottom ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... said. "Bend the left knee but keep the other one more nearly rigid. Keep the weight of your body on your heels or you will fall on your ball when you swing through. Do not curve your back like a letter C. Keep the backbone straight but not rigid. It is the pivot on which your body and shoulders must turn, and how can it turn true ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... encounter, though I am no weakling. I cannot understand quite how it happened. Pious people will say some deity was offended, but, for my part, I think my horse stumbled. It does not seem to matter now. What really matters, more or less, is that it would appear the man broke my backbone as one snaps a straw, since I cannot move ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... What-you-may-call-him in Shakespeare's play said: 'Let me have men about me that are fat,' it showed how blamed little Shakespeare knew about men. He should have said: 'Let me have men about me who are long and tough, and fairly thick in the middle; let me have scrappy boys about me with backbone!' ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... take the command of the Portuguese armies, and as he had brought many British officers with him, some 20,000 men had been armed and drilled, and could be reckoned upon to do some service, if employed with British troops to give them backbone. The Portuguese peasantry were strong and robust, and by nature courageous, and needed only the discipline—that they could not receive from their own officers—to turn them into valuable troops. According to the law of the country every man was liable ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... me that any man who secured Dan as a boss would already have the backbone of his gang. I didn't ever expect to use him in this way but I wanted the man for a friend and I wanted to learn the secret of his power if I could. But I may as well confess right now that I never fully ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... you can see this remarkable peak from almost every point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone. Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the world where the hills of Wensleydale rise ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... which promised a fairly good storehouse for their goods and chattels. They proposed to erect their one big tent right in front of this cavity in the rock—in conjunction therewith, in fact. There was a backbone of rock through the center of the island in which Professor Skillings, as a geologist, was very much interested, and had been ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Mathis regarded him without a smile. The proprietor of the Hotel Previtali might have been in a trance, for all the interest he displayed. The hotel employees continued their tasks impassively. The children were blind and dumb. The cat across the way stropped its backbone against the railings unheeding. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... red-leather note-book, he fully understood, had at one stroke put him in possession of facts more vital to the labor-movement and the world at large than any which had ever developed since the very beginning of Capitalism. A Socialist to the backbone, thoroughly class-conscious and dowered with an incisive intellect, Gabriel thrilled at thought that he, by chance, had been chosen as the instrument through which he felt the final revolution now must work. And though he remained outwardly calm, as he ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... shipmate and travelling companion A. was cheery to the backbone, as, in truth, a good-looking fellow of fourteen stone, and with nothing to do but travel about the world and enjoy himself, ought to be. Being no angler, it was all the same to him whether fish sulked or frolicked; his patience ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... exhibit common qualities of structure which mean that they have grown from the same antecedents, while even the larger divisions or classes of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibia, and fishes, possess a deep underlying theme whose dominant motif is the backbone, which proves their ultimate unity in ancestry. The greater and lesser branches have reached different levels, for the fish is clearly simpler in its make-up than the highly specialized bird. But the great fact ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... as he could see, chain after chain of mountains heaved themselves into his vision. To the east his eyes, leaping the miles between range and range and between many ranges, brought up at last against the white-peaked Sierras—the main crest, where the backbone of the Western world reared itself against the sky. To the north and south he could see more distinctly the cross-systems that broke through the main trend of the sea of mountains. To the west the ranges ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... an argument to which John's slow mind could not supply an answer. Conservative to the backbone in all his notions, like most Sussex people, be their politics what they may, the law of progress was no law to him, but rather rebellion to the divine appointments, and that Jack should wish to be anything else but a shepherd like his ancestors ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... Kentucky and Indiana, and the backbone of the story is Morgan's great raid—one of the most romantic and reckless pieces of adventure ever attempted in the history of the world. Mr. Clark's description of the "Ride of the Three Thousand" is a piece of literature that deserves to live; and ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Joe—not the English-speakin' men. The Greeks and the Bulgars, maybe—they're fightin' at home, and they might fight here. But the Irish never—never! Them that had any backbone went out long ago. Them that stayed has been made into boot-licks. I know them, every man of them. They grumble, and curse the boss, but then they think of the blacklist, and they go back and cringe at ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... had been in the White House six months the country was divided substantially into Jackson men and anti-Jackson or administration men. The elements from which Jackson drew support were many and discordant. The backbone of his strength was the self-assertive, ambitious western Democracy, which recognized in him its truest and most eminent representative. The alliance with the Calhoun forces was kept up, although it ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... together sometimes by connection of subject, sometimes (though incidentally) by sequence of time. In St. John, on the other hand, the successive festivals at Jerusalem are the vertebrae of the chronological backbone, which is altogether wanting to the account of Christ's ministry in the Synoptists. We cannot indeed be sure even here that the vertebrae are absolutely continuous; many festivals may have been omitted; the ministry of Christ may have extended over a much longer period, ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... that the poor girl should be taught some honest trade; but encountered a scowl from Colonel Mannering's darkening eye (to whom, in his ignorance of the tone of good society, he had looked for applause) that made him ache to the very backbone. He shuffled downstairs, therefore, as ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... much, and killed a little, the wary, the beautiful, the fleet-footed big game. I have driven a four-in-hand over corduroy roads and ridden horseback over the pathless vasty wilds of the continent's backbone. ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... magic abroad," he declared, in a rich, Irish brogue that Lady Blythebury smiled to hear. For she also was Irish to the backbone. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... to help out the evening's supper, besides honey enough to make mead for the whole company. And with such a prospect of feasting before them the laborers will return with increased zest to their work, swinging gaily their short scythes worn well-nigh to the backbone, roaming in parties hither and thither through the field, and attacking, amid songs and shoutings, the thickest masses of grass as if so many Russian ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... it could be furnished on the latest democratic lines; and before it could be even built, the ground had to be wrested from the hands of absentee landlords or cleared of the little dynastic State-shanties which cumbered it. The Polish nationalists became the backbone of the republican movement in Europe; the French republicans proclaimed the independence of nations as one of their cardinal principles. Thus the social idea and the national idea were originally intimately connected. They were the twin children of Poland and the French Revolution, and in ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... hour later. The only point was that he should not have arrived like that. If Schneider had had anything resembling a skin, he would have felt about as comfortable as Mother Eve at a woman's club. Lockerbie's scowl was no joke; and Follet had a way of wriggling his backbone gracefully.—It was up to me to save Schneider, and I did. The honor of Naapu was nothing to me; and by dint of almost embracing him, I made myself a kind of absorbent for his worst breaks. It was not a pleasant hour for me before the rest began to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... great opponent of Jansenism, alluding to the same circumstance, says, "I do not dispute the fact, that the andiron sunk so deeply that it appeared to penetrate to the very backbone."[20] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... said, "have you considered the enormous gulf between your—views? The Countess owns great hereditary estates, she comes from a family which is almost Royal, she herself is an aristocrat to the backbone. It is a class against which you have declared war. How can you possibly come ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What happens to her in marriage?" "How ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... the rector, raciest of men, is an Oxford divine of the old school; a ripe scholar; one who has travelled wide and far, and is learned in the tongues, the manners, and the literature of many nations; but who is himself English to the backbone in person, thought, and feeling. Orthodox is he, no doubt. Nowhere are church and schools, and parish visitings, better cared for; but he has a knack of attending also to the creature comforts of all about him, of calling beef ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... but I am a Confederate to the backbone. It was my intention to set up a navy on my own hook. The Pedee was the first vessel, and I intended that the Vixen should be the ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... split, removing backbone and fins along the edge. Very large fish should be cut into slices. Dry on piece of cheesecloth; season with salt and pepper. Cook on well-greased broiler, from 10 to 20 minutes, turning frequently. Remove to hot platter; add melted butter and sprinkle with chopped parsley; ...
— The New Dr. Price Cookbook • Anonymous
... we'd better fill him up again," said Mother. "Them legs still look 'most too much like knitting-needles to suit me, and I kinder want to feel him to be sure his stomick haven't growed to his backbone. Anyway, you can't never measure a boy's food by his size. Please run and get him a glass of buttermilk and a biscuit, child, while I finish setting in this sleeve. Let me see them britches legs 'fore you put 'em down. Dearie me, if you ain't gone and made 'em both for the same leg! Too bad, ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... back!" It was Baxter who uttered the cry, and not without cause, for his backbone had received a hard crack on the bottom step of ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... and tumble; sometimes one a-top, and sometimes the other, and both growin' weak from loss of blood. May be we didn't kick and tussle about, and tear up the sand on the beach of the lake some! The buck was game to the backbone, and had no notion of givin' in, and I had to fight for it, or die; so up and down, over and over, and all around, we went for a long time, until Crop made up his mind that my callin' so earnestly meant ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... "It don't hurt me and Blackie none, whatever the Big 'Un says. And say, Jack, you and us ought to be good friends. Blackie and me know that you're a good man, the kind that'll take a chance, and keep his word. Well, we're the same. There are only a few of us in this end of the ship that have any backbone to speak of, and we ought to stick together. There's pay-dirt in this ship if we only ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... mountains which runs like a backbone all through Korea from north to south, and late in the evening we come to the capital, Seoul, which has 280,000 inhabitants, a fifth of whom are Japanese. The town is confined in a valley between bare cliffs, and from the heights all that can be seen is ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... carried the torch until another group could take it, and every step gained was fought for. The history would be incomplete without mention of the Portland Equal Franchise League, of which Mrs. Arthur L. Bates was president, which for many years was the backbone of the State association. The list of State officers who freely gave their services is too long to publish. Among other prominent workers not already mentioned were Dr. Jennie Fuller of Hartland; Mrs. Zenas Thompson and Miss Susan Clark of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... their more refined sisters too often do; from their broad chests, and healthy lungs, and noble throats, and above all, their musical hearts, they poured out the harmony so clear and full, that every glass in the room rang like a harp, and a bolt of ice seemed to shoot down Grace Carden's backbone; and, in the chorus, gentle George's bass was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... for the cheap supply of "gentlemen's lounge-suits" for the so-called working-classes to lounge in. I know of no surer antidote to the spirit of Bolshevism. But let us not forget the claims of the middle classes, who are the backbone of the Empire. If Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY cannot help us in the direction I have indicated, then let Mr. KENNEDY JONES, on behalf of the Middle Class Union, put a hyphen to his name and open a shop for the sale of evening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... He bit his lower lip and went and sat down before the desk again and turned on the electric reading-lamp. Now he had given in long enough; now he must face the situation; now was the time to find if there was any backbone in him to "buck up." To fool those chaps by amounting to something. There was good stuff in this boy that he applied this caustic and not a salve. His buoyant lightheartedness whispered that the fellows ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews |
