"Drop back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old-age, they find, has stolen on them unawares, and taken away their powers before they have gathered in the fruit of all their toil, such men seem to me like those who desire to be thrifty husbandmen, and who sow well and plant wisely, but when the time of harvest comes let the fruit drop back ungarnered into the soil whence it sprang. Or as if an athlete should train himself and reach the heights where victory may be won and at the last forbear to enter the lists—such an one, I take it, would but meet his deserts if all men cried out upon him for a fool. [11] Let not such ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... by itself away from the noises of camp, and left her there to stay quietly by herself. In the quiet atmosphere of the "Infirmary" she soon fell asleep again, to waken at times, listen to the singing of the birds in the woods, feel the breezes stealing caressingly through her hair, and then to drop back once more into blissful drowsiness which erased from her mind all memory of yesterday's visit to Atlantis, and of Mary Sylvester's wonderful rescue of the robin. As yet no word of Mary's heroism had reached the ears of the camp; she had ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... himself to the air-holes with eyes fastened on the horizon, while the train sped across the naked, singeing back of the plains like the welt that springs to meet the fall of the lash. For two nights he watched the distended sun, exhausted by its own madness, drop back into the heated void, and the tortured stars rise over the stricken desert. At the end of thirty-six hours of agony he arrived at Rio Mendoza. Thence he reached Punta de Vacas, procured mules and a guide, and prepared for ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... otherwise it would have been impossible to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go: a shock which in the best of times had made him tremble. He drew no water but by stealth and under the cloak of night. After an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... had brought Sally and the child through my inordinate ambition, and the weight of the two hundred thousand dollars of debt on my shoulders—all these things returned to my memory, with an additional heaviness, like a burden that has been lifted only to drop back more crushingly. And as always in my thoughts now, this sense of my failure came to me in the image of George Bolingbroke, with his air of generous self-sufficiency, as if he needed nothing because he had been born to the possession of all ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... depths, we see the dolphins as distinctly as the birds overhead. Shoals of flying fish dart out of the water, their fins serving as sails for an instant; then they drop back again. ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... thrust out their muskets to stop the stream. One little fellow, however, had got half up: so they let him nig in, making fourteen in all. Three or four more had tried to get up near the stern; but Weymouth and Don, who were on duty there, rapped their knuckles gently, as a reminder to let go and drop back into their kayaks, which they did without grumbling. Indeed, they seemed singularly inoffensive; and, come to get them on deck, they were "little fellows,"—not so tall as we boys even by a whole head. They were pretty thick and stout, however, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... surroundings in the cheap New York boarding-house where the rheumatism had finally reached Welstoke's heart, and the paper was peeling off the walls. I had always swallowed the airs and graces of society people very hard, and many was the time I'd wish to drop back among people like my father's family, who didn't mind the smell of cooking and could get a night's sleep by laying a head on a pillow and weren't bothered by frills. So, though it was plain enough that nothing was left for me but to come down in the world, I was ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... just over the head of the horizontal bolt. There should be about one quarter inch of space between the heads of the two bolts. An electric current passing through the wires of the vertical bolt will therefore lift the head of the horizontal bolt, which will drop back on to the screw eye when the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... with the dotted line on the chart. I add this brief explanation, that Davies's method had been to cross the channel called the Buse Tief, and strike the other side of it at a point well south of the outlet of the Memmert Balje (in view of the northward set of the ebb-tide), and then to drop back north and feel his way to the outlet. The check was caused by a deep indentation in the Itzendorf Flat; a cul-de-sac, with a wide mouth, which Davies was very near mistaking for the Balje itself. We had no time to skirt ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... taxi she had time, through their light rattle of talk, to readjust herself and drop back into her usual feeling of friendly ease with him. He had been extraordinarily considerate, for anyone who always so undisguisedly sought his own satisfaction above all things; and if his considerateness were just an indirect ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study. Besides this, I thought ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... the game to leave, even for refreshments. Now and then I saw him beckon to an attendant, who brought him a stiff drink of whiskey. For a moment his play seemed a little better, then he would drop back into his hopeless losing. For some reason or other his ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... benefit—and not at all for their own. It is a pity that such a feeling should exist. But it does exist and perhaps it has some justification. If an employer urges men to do their best, and the men learn after a while that their best does not bring any reward, then they naturally drop back into "getting by." But if they see the fruits of hard work in their pay envelope—proof that harder work means higher pay—then also they begin to learn that they are a part of the business, and that its success depends on them and their success ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... another house at your disposal, or I would take the lease here off your hands, and later have it pulled down. Your case interests me greatly, and I mean to see you through, so that you have no anxiety, and can drop back into your old groove of work tomorrow! The drug has provided you, and therefore me, with a shortcut to a very interesting experience. I am ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Bob to draw his fire, if he can," explained Ned. "I'll be in reserve to shoot as soon as I see the flash. If I miss you take him. It's got to be nip and tuck, and we'll have to make it a snap shot, for he'll drop back into ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... he said with genuine enthusiasm. "And, some way, I knew when I saw you drop back that you were going to put it over. I'd have bet a hundred dollars ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... commonly termed the covered operation. The pig is usually held or hung up by the hind legs. A larger animal is placed on its back. The hernia is reduced by manipulating the mass of intestines with the fingers, so that they drop back into the abdominal cavity. The part is carefully cleaned and disinfected and an incision made through the scrotal wall, and the thin covering or serous sac in which the testicle is lodged is exposed. The testicle with the cord and covering is drawn well out of the scrotum ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... Maxwell let himself drop back into the hammock. "I think I won't humiliate myself by giving the figures. I'd better leave it to your imagination. You'll be ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... still holding the broken sword in his hand when the door opened again and some one came rushing in. The Soldier had to drop back on the carpet, letting his broken sword fall where it would, and neither the Horse nor the other toys could ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... was so shocked that he forgot the gout, and attempted to rise; a violent twinge made him drop back in ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... waiting on miladi, whose strength of will kept her alive. Or was it that horrible fear of death? If it was true as the priests taught—oh, yes, it must be. God could not be so cruel as to put creatures in this world to toil and suffer, and then drop back to dust, to nothingness. Even the Indians believed in another sphere, in their crude superstitious fashion, and there must be some better place as a reward for the pain here that was not one's own fault. She loved to peer ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of mere personal sympathy upon a man's look and bearing. When, therefore, one bright May morning, the family at Greyhope, himself excluded, was ready to start for London, he had no thought but that he would drop back into his old silent life, as it was before Lali came, and his brother's child was born. He was not conscious that he was very restless that morning; he scarcely was aware that he had got up two hours earlier ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... face his new antagonist, letting Bud drop back. Bud sank to the iron floor. The farmer was astonished almost to powerlessness to find facing him, with a length of swinging pipe in his hand, the boy who had a few ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... any good to be expected of young men who confess their sins and repent, and straightway fall into them again. A man of strong character only confesses his faults to himself, and punishes himself for them; as for the weak, they drop back into the old ruts when they find that the bank is too steep to climb. The springs of pride which lie in a great man's secret soul had been slackened in Victurnien. With such guardians as he had, such company as he kept, such ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... water to let go he might yet be saved, but this would not be for some time at the present rate the balloon was falling. The performer realized this, and, as the fire was getting hotter, he made another desperate attempt to reach the parachute. It was unavailing and he had to drop back, hanging ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... should certainly make a certain proposal to the honourable member. After this good-natured badinage, he drifted off into the consideration of the question under discussion, and Beatrice paid no further attention to him, but occupied herself in watching Geoffrey drop back into the same apparent state of cold indifference, from which the necessity of action ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... as I write this, looking up at it through the window. The trekking, the fighting, the croak of the invisible rifle, the glare of the sun, the row of swarthy determined faces, the roar of horse hoofs, all this, and the lounging days by river banks (shooting guinea-fowl and springbuck), will drop back and be shut off from one's life to rise now and then, I suppose, with the creeping of an old ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... off the pillow and let it drop back again, because of the pain in his shoulder. "You never seen me crawl out from under no wagon. I come straight down the hill ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... would listen, Hedwig," said the Crown Prince, almost fretfully. "It's so interesting. The enemy's soldiers would come up the river in boats, and along that road on foot. And then we would raise the guns and shoot at them. And the guns would drop back again, before the enemy had time ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shibriyah, more, I suspect, for the sake of annoying the Sikh than because she really wanted it. So she ranged alongside, and chiefly because I was curious and chose to be amused, but partly because of my league with Narayan Singh to keep watch on her, I checked my protesting camel and let him drop back ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... He tried to persuade himself that her fatigue was responsible for the change: but he knew that it was for a very different reason. The nearer they came to the town the more he saw Anna's face grow cold, and life die down in her, and all her beautiful body with its savage grace drop back into its casing of stone. She did not make use of the hand he held out to her as she stepped out of the carriage. They ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... little melodeon into the ring, facing the reserved seats, I told him the boys were going to raise a rumpus and drive him out of the tent with the bulldog hanging to his coat tails. He put his hand on his pistol pocket and pulled a long, blue gun about half way out, and let it drop back down beside his leg, and he winked at me and said he guessed not, scarcely, as he had preached to crowds so tough that a circus gang was a Sunday school ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... though. I needed it. I can see that now. Speaking of doses I wish you would make Ted tutor this summer. I don't know whether he has told you. I rather think not. But he flunked so many courses he will have to drop back a year unless he makes up the work and takes ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... and make a headlong plunge into the brown tamarack water of the swamp just when he should have been most careful. They had known him to do such things more than a few times in the past; and on this account Mark always made it a point to drop back and keep him company when he ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... for Hay, this Plain is verry extensive in the evening I walked on the S. S. to see if any timber was Convt. to make Oars, which we were much in want of, I found Som indifferent timber and Struck the river above the Boat at a bad Sand bar the worst I had Seen which the boat must pass or Drop back Several Miles & Stem a Swift Current on the opsd Side of an Isd. the Boat however assended the middle of the Streem which was diffucult Dangerious We Came to above this place at Dark and Camped in a bad place, the misquitoes and Ticks are ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours will drop back into a secondary place in the world. These two writers really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, the greedy usurer, the comfortable obstructive, confronted ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... captured. The boys excitedly watched these sturdy fishermen, and were astonished at the cleverness and quickness with which they were able to throw out the fish upon the shore. Although they had to throw them quite a number of yards, they very seldom miscalculated and allowed any to fall short and thus drop back into ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... made without eggs or milk," said Felix. "You mix a quart of flour with a tablespoonful of baking-powder and put in water till it is just so thin that when you take up a spoonful and let it drop back you can see the shape of it for a few seconds before it melts into the rest. You fry the batter in bacon fat or butter just like pan-cakes, and the cakes ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various |
