"Look back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know. I didn't see him until I turned to look back. Then I saw him close by the edge of the water. I think he must have leaped out from behind the thick cedars yonder. He looked at me, and the expression on his ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... the man bad not remained to see if his bid was accepted, for no one raised it at once, but he hurried off and did not look back. Tom took a ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... light, I have good will to do it. Are you sure, If I would pack him with a pardon hence, He would speak well of me-not hint and halt, Smile and look back, sigh and say love runs out, But times have been-with some loose laugh cut short, Bit ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the best of us, much sense of failure and shortcoming when we look back on our lives. But whilst some of us will have to say, 'I have played the fool and erred exceedingly,' it is possible for each of us to lay himself down in peace and sleep, awaiting a glorious rising again and a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... foresee that it must prove to me, and especially at this time of my age, a work of much labour to enquire, consider, research, and determine what is needful to be known concerning him. For I knew him not in his life, and must therefore not only look back to his death,—now sixty-four years past,—but almost fifty years beyond, that, even to his childhood and youth; and gather thence such observations and prognostics as may at least adorn, if not prove necessary for the completing ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawning his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with the sole purpose to be ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... with plane-trees, and the fishing-boats—by which San Remo is connected with the naval glory of the past—with the Riviera that gave birth to Columbus—with the Liguria that the Dorias ruled—with the great name of Genoa. The port is empty enough now; but from the pier you look back on San Remo and its circling hills, a jewelled town set in illimitable olive greyness. The quay seems also to be the cattle-market. There the small buff cows of North Italy repose after their long voyage or march, kneeling on the sandy ground or rubbing their ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... well into the autumn with her; six months—six blessed, happy, joyous months with the sweetest woman that ever lived. We were all by ourselves, excepting for one servant maid, in a pretty little house on the outskirts of Teignmouth. Ah! that was a time for a man to look back upon for the rest of his life. Then by-and-by, when the autumn days began to grow short, the cash began to grow short, too; and I had to go to sea again to earn more. I'm not a particularly soft-hearted man, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... and monotonous enough, and yet the wild beasts and wild men that frequent the valley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and excitement to the traveler. Of those who have journeyed there, scarce one, perhaps, fails to look back with fond regret to his ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... like a second-'and pepper-caster. The F.O. was 'avin' a most unhappy time with shrapnel an' rifle bullets, but 'e 'ad 'is guns in action, so 'e just 'ad to stick it out an' go on observin', till the wires was cut again. This time the F.O. sez to look back as far as the wire ran in the trench, an' if I didn't find the break up to there come back an' report to 'im. But I found the break in the hedge jus' outside, an' mended it an' went back, the bullets still zipping down an' me breakin' ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... hardly time to grasp them; if we are fully aware of the infinite possibilities of what has been so well called this 'fearfully glorious present'? I think not, and I do not know that it is possible for us to do so. Only when we look back upon it from the hight of the far-off future, shall we see the country through which we are journeying in all its grand, sweeping outlines, its majestic proportions, and its imperial tints of coloring. The days of peace and tranquillity in a nation as in a life are robed in colors sweet ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... look back, immortal shade, On that confusion which thy death has made: Or from Olympus' height look down, and see A Town involv'd in grief bereft of thee. Thy Lucy sees thee mingle with the dead, And rends the graceful tresses from her head, Wild in her woe, with grief ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... subordinate his story to an idea, to make his art speak, he went on to teach it to say things heretofore unaccustomed. If you look back at the five books of which we have now so hastily spoken, you will be astonished at the freedom with which the original purposes of story-telling have been laid aside and passed by. Where are now the two lovers who descended the main watershed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... But first look back to Fig. 7, of Plate 8, Vol. III., there given as the typical representation of the ruling forces of growth in a leaf. Take away the extreme portion of the curve on the left, and any segment of the leaf remaining, terminated by one of its ribs, as a or b, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... another, who looked stout and well-fed, who strode in the middle of the pavement, while the Poles, whose clothes were poor and threadbare, shuffled aside in their patched and shambling boots to make way for the conqueror. Sometimes they would turn and look back at some sword-bearer who was more offensive than usual, with reflective eyes as if marking him in order to know him at a future time. As is always the case, it was the smaller officials who were the most offensive—the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Revolution. But he never got much comfort, nor even, as I used to think, much guidance, by his piety. He had his black fits when he was afraid of hell; but he had led a rough life, to which he would look back with envy, and was still ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they had gone some way needs must he look back at Belsaye, its battered walls, its mighty towers; and high upon the bartizan he beheld two figures, the one be-swathed in many bandages, and one he knew who prayed for him, even then; and all at once wall and towers and distant figures ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... As we look back through history, and as we look abroad through our land and through all civilized lands, one of the most conspicuous facts concerning the powers of sex is their frightful destructiveness. The spectacle of wasted manhood and womanhood, of depleted powers in body, mind, and soul, is in history and ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... think you will look back a little wistfully on the period of your obliteration. People—for people are very nice, really, most of them—will tell you that they have missed you. You will reply that you did not miss yourself. And you will go the more strenuously to your work and pleasure, so as ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... of his father's loss and his own share in it recurred often to his mind. Suddenly he was roused from his revery by a whisper from the darkness behind, "Listen," a voice said, low but very distinct, in his ear, "do not look back. You are in danger in this place. So am I. Meet me to-night at the Brig, at twelve o'clock precisely. Keep at home till the gloaming and ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not better nor nobler things than these. I believe the man who designed and the men who delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the reader look back to the archivolt I have already given out of the streets of London (Plate XIII. Vol. I., Stones of Venice), and see what there is in it to make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men who design ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... the undisguised pleasure and the repressed delight of Clara at this arrangement, and I will pass over the next two days, only saying that the memory of them haunts me yet; and that though at the time they seemed short enough, yet when I look back upon them, it is hard to realize they were not months instead of days, so much of heart experience did I acquire in the time. I found Clara to be every thing which the most exacting wife-hunter could wish—beautiful as a dream. Believe me, boys, I do not now speak with the enthusiasm of a lover, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... soul is wrung; I pause, look back from the portal— Ah, I no more am young, and you, child, you ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... is, we'll concede that, for the sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as foreordained, and there's no other way ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hall! No skipping three steps at a time up the stairs pursued by imaginary hands that would grip at her ankles! She faced the darkness with wide-open eyes, instead of feeling her way with lids squeezed down as had been her custom; and when eyes seemed to look back at her from the darkness, her boyhood laughed at her girlhood, and she did not quicken her pace. But—Mollie was glad to step into the room where the light burned. Her mother had gone to bed early with one of her tired-out headaches, and she only half woke to see that ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... nature, that we suffer imagination to outspeed time, and compress into one little moment the hopes, the fears, the anticipations, and the events of years; but when the spoiler again overtakes us, we look back, and, forgetful of our former impatience to accelerate his pace, we are astonished at ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... sweeping in your assertions, child. These are early days yet to talk about results. When you come to my age, my dear, you will look back and realise that those who go through life in the right spirit are never left to the mercy of what you call 'luck.' 'Submit thy way unto the Lord, and He will direct thy path.' I am an old woman, Darsie, but I can ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking—and listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of the second letter: and all the servants shared ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... brought the letter is still detained. Confront him with Messer Francesco; or apply the question to him, and learn his master's true name and station. As for the rest, if that letter is insufficient proof for you, I beg that you will look back at facts. Why should he lie to you? and say that his name was Francesco Franceschi? Why should he have urged you—against all reason—to remain here, when he brought you news that Gian Maria was advancing? Surely had he but sought to serve you he had better accomplished this ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... do you think I met yesterday? Why, nothing gave me greater pleasure ever since I have been here than this: I was crossing the Square on my way to the Club, when some one plucking at my jubbah angrily greets me. I look back, and behold our dear old Im-Hanna, who has just returned from New York. She stood there waving her hand wildly and rating me for not returning her salaam. "You know no one any more, O Khalid," she said ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... will a moment stay, And death with hasty journeys still draws near; And all the present joins my soul to tear, With every past and every future day: And to look back or forward, so does prey On this distracted breast, that sure I swear, Did I not to myself some pity bear, I were e'en now from all these thoughts away. Much do I muse on what of pleasures past This woe-worn heart has known; meanwhile, t' oppose My ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... for the murrain is to hire a man of the Chamar caste, turn his face away from the village, brand him with a red-hot sickle, and let him go out into the jungle taking the murrain with him. He must not look back. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Hand in this history is doubly plain when, as we now look back, we see that this was also the period of preparation for his life-work—a preparation the more mysterious because he had as yet no conception or forecast of that work. During the next ten years we shall watch the divine Potter, to Whom George Muller ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... much—only I tried to take hold. When I look back from here, from where we've sat, I can measure the progress. That's what I wanted to say to you and Mr. Ransom—because I'm going fast. Hold on to me, that's right; but you can't keep me. I don't want to stay now; I presume I shall join some of the others that we lost ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... temperament, and already the sun was shining through the cloud; the load at her heart was not so heavy, nor the future half so dark. Her decision was made, her destiny accepted, and henceforth she would abide by it nor venture to look back. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... now standing on is the point to which martyrs in their triumphant pain, prophets in their fervor, and poets in their ecstasy, looked forward as the golden future, as the land too good for them to behold with mortal eyes; it is the point toward which the faint-hearted and desponding hereafter will look back as the priceless past when there was still some good and virtue and opportunity ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... with eloquence. But he did recognize this as a fact that Clara was not to be his wife, and that he had better get back from Belton to London as quickly as possible. It would be well for him to teach himself to look back on the result of his aunt's dying request as an episode in his life satisfactorily concluded. His mother had undoubtedly been right. Clara, he could see now, would have led him a devil of a life; and even had ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... toward the landing. The earl stood watching her. She did not look back. The earl looked up at the clock-tower. "In half an hour," he said to himself, "he will bring it to her, aboard the yacht;" and he turned and re-entered the church. He went up the aisle, nodded to the sacristan, entered the treasury, took the turquoise ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouse That witnessed what they could never understand Or alter or prevent in the dark house. One thing remains ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... generally to be met with in all societies, are not only lamentable but highly ridiculous in small out-of-the-way colonies. Such divisions, however, must be apprehended even here in progress of time, and the period will come when we shall look back with regret to those days when we were all friends and associates together, and when each sympathized with the fortunes of his neighbour. The kindly feeling which thus held society together, was ever manifested at the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... have a crudish look in the mellow light of years, phrases dropped in the heat or hurry of the moment which one would fain obliterate. Many a regret must rise in men's minds on any occasion that compels them to look back over a long reach of years. The disparity between aim and performance, the unfulfilled promise, the wrong turnings taken at critical points—as an accident of the hour draws us to take stock of a complete ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... outward benefits for which children have to thank their parents are of less value than the lessons of truth and goodness which are never so well taught as by the lips of a faithful and devoted father and mother. To these lessons the greatest and best men generally look back ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... will look back upon his history as to some grand and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and when all the lesser tumults and ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Stertinius, the eighth of the wise men, gave to me, as to a friend, that for the future I might not be roughly accosted without avenging myself. Whosoever shall call me madman, shall hear as much from me [in return]; and shall learn to look back upon the bag ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... come when we shall look back on this evening as the beginning of a new era in British ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Dr. Pettiford worked under joint appointment of the American Baptist Home Mission Society and the Home Mission Board of the Alabama Baptist State Convention as lecturer for ministers. In this capacity he accomplished a great work. Many ministers to-day look back to those days when they sat in institutes conducted by him as the times of their greatest inspiration for mental ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... "I know exactly how you feel, Wallace. I think every decent chap feels like that the day before he marries. He wants to look back on every year, and search out every mean thought, and every unworthy action—if there is one. But"—he reached to take the other's hand—"you needn't be blaming yourself, old man. Ha-ha-a-a! Don't I know you! Why, bless the ridiculous boy, you couldn't do a downright ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... turned to the door. As he was going out he happened to look back. The dresser stood against the wall beyond the bed, and in its mirror he caught a glimpse of the face of the sick man. On that face, which should have been distorted with agony, was ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands (whose degrees of precedency are plainly demonstrable from the first page of the Complete Accomptant, or Young Man's Best Pocket Companion) that a bow at church from them to such a man as Harley would have made the parson look back into his sermon for ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... marries a boy: well, twenty-one—not quite that: and an innocent, a positive innocent—it may seem incredible, after a term of school-life: it was a fact: I can hardly understand it myself when I look back. Marries him! And then sets to work to persecute him, because he has blood in his veins, because he worships beauty; because he seeks a real marriage, a real mate. And, I say it! let the world take its ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... refusing to send out the documents known as "Domestic Relations" and "Coffin Handbills." "The impression of the masses was that the six militiamen deserved hanging," he says, in his autobiography, "and I look back now with astonishment that enlightened and able statesmen could believe that General Jackson would be injured with the people by ruthlessly invading the sanctuary of his home, and permitting a lady whose life had ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... faster. He gave one look back over his shoulder to see if any one might be chasing him, and he caught sight of the Cat's ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... Fair and abundant, the corn-fields; beneath them, the vineyard and garden; Yonder the stables and barns; our beautiful line of possessions. But when I look at the dwelling behind, where up in the gable We can distinguish the window that marks my room in the attic; When I look back, and remember how many a night from that window I for the moon have watched; for the sun, how many a morning! When the healthful sleep of a few short hours sufficed me,— Ah, so lonely they seem to me then, the chamber and courtyard, Garden ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... interfered with. Claude did his best to close the breach, but there had been something to forgive on both sides, and perhaps SHE was prouder than the Mohuns themselves. Oh! my dears, I hope you will never have a family quarrel among you! It is so sad to look back upon a change after the happy years when we were all together, and were laughing and making ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nothing better, I felt that the scene was to be changed only FOR A TIME. "Within a month from now," I kept thinking to myself, "I shall be back again in Roulettenberg; and THEN I mean to have it out with you, Mr. Astley!" Yes, as now I look back at things, I remember that I felt greatly depressed, despite the absurd gigglings of the ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... it less often than the others, and, though he acknowledges its greatness, he will sometimes speak of it with a certain distaste. It is also the least often presented on the stage, and the least successful there. And when we look back on its history we find a curious fact. Some twenty years after the Restoration, Nahum Tate altered King Lear for the stage, giving it a happy ending, and putting Edgar in the place of the King of France as Cordelia's lover. From that time Shakespeare's tragedy in its original form was ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... daughter," she said. "Will you excuse me just a minute? I'm so very sorry." She glided towards the door, and threw a flying look back. It was one of those social moments precious to those who are ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... shall have," cried she, "and a better lodging than the Prince of Baden can look back upon, though he pay never so dearly for it. Poor man, he will have slept wakefully this night! Here, sir, you will find honest board and an honest bed for yourself and your sweet lady, and an honest bill to set you off in a sweet humour ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... shows that practically the acquisition of property often becomes a passion which absorbs the man and leaves little energy for the higher pursuits. Most men who have used up their life to acquire wealth look back with homesickness to some idealistic aspiration of their youth as to a lost Edenland. Jesus felt the antagonism of private wealth and the Kingdom of God so keenly that he set God and Mammon over against each other, and warned ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... years, when Nora was able to look back on this portion of her life and see things in just perspective, she always felt that she could never be too thankful that her days had been crowded with occupation. Without that, she must either have gone actually insane, or, in a frenzy of helplessness, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... air. All the parts had been marked before leaving Norway, and were now discharged from the ship in the order in which they were wanted. Besides which, Stubberud himself had built the house, so that he knew every peg of it. It is with gladness and pride that I look back upon those days. With gladness, because no discord was ever heard in the course of this fairly severe labour; with pride, because I was at the head of such a body of men. For men they were, in the true sense of the word. Everyone knew ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... apricot-trees flourished. The mulberries, the olives, the sycamores were abundant. Peasants were ploughing the fields with their crooked sticks shod with a long iron point. When a man puts his hand to such a plough he dares not look back, else it will surely go aside. It makes a scratch, not a furrow. (I saw a man in the hospital at Nazareth who had his thigh pierced clear through by one of these dagger-like ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Mr. Barclay?—for himself? Look back along the record for his life: there are many tears charged to his account, but none for his own use. Back in the seventies there are tears of Miss Culpepper, charged to Mr. Barclay, and one heart-break for General Hendricks. Again in the eighties there is sorrow for Mr. Robert Hendricks, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Granny expected to hear that dreadful gun, and it seemed as if her heart would burst with fright as she ran, thinking each jump would be the last one. But the dreadful gun didn't bang, and after a little, when she felt she was safe, she turned to look back over her shoulder. Farmer Brown's boy was standing right where she had last seen him, and he was laughing harder than ever. Yes, Sir, he was laughing, and though Old Granny Fox didn't think so at the time, his laugh was good to hear, for it was good-natured ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... befriended this young human thing as he would have rescued a wounded bird, and with as little thought for the consequences; yet the day was to come when he should look back on this action as one inspired, in very truth, by ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... to look back and saw Mrs. Minturn on her knees separating the silvery green moss heads and thrusting her hand deeply to learn the length of the roots. She noticed the lady's absorbed face, and the wet patches spreading around her knees. Leslie fancied she could see Mrs. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the pastor, with emphasis speaking "If you're mistaken in man, 'tis not for me to reprove you. Evil enough have you suffer'd indeed from his cruel proceedings! Would you but look back, however, on days so laden with sorrow, You would yourself confess how much that is good you have witness'd, Much that is excellent, which remains conceald in the bossom Till by danger 'tis stirr'd, and ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... held on his lap beside the Bear Water. What was there in common between that outcast, and this well-groomed, frankly spoken young woman? Yet, whoever she was or had been, the remembrance of her could not be conjured out of his brain. He might look back with repugnance upon those others, those misty phantoms of the past, but the vision of his mind, his ever-changeable divinity of the vine shadows, would not become obscured, nor grow less fascinating. Let her be whom she might, no other could ever win that place she occupied in his ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... died away up the ravine had folded up all his eight legs and lain down in the dusty road, regardless of the effect upon his derned skin. The queer little man slid off his seat to the ground and started up the dell without deigning to look back to see if I ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... "Just look back, if you please, one moment, before loading," said Harry, "for that down-charge is well worth ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... leave, wait on your grace. We have met before, though perhaps the recollection of the circumstances may not be altogether pleasant. I will not therefore now speak of them, though, as your grace at present sits on the upper end of the seesaw, you may look back ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... she?" she cried, scanning one after another, speaking to those she knew, while, at the same time, looking past them with such an intent gaze that more than one turned to look back at her and remark with the shake of a ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... writing and arithmetic, and not a few were learning architectural drawing, for which they had every convenience and facility, and were, in a very obliging manner, assisted in their studies by Mr. David Logan, clerk of the works. It therefore affords the most pleasing reflections to look back upon the pursuits of about sixty individuals who for years conducted themselves, on all occasions, in ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found plenty of dry juniper trees for fire. and of course plenty of water. Here they killed an ox and fed the hungry so that they were pretty well refreshed. This was an elevated place and they could look back over the trail across the desert for, what seemed to them, a hundred miles, and the great dangers of their journey were discussed. Said one of them to Tom Shannon:—"Tom, you killed the first game we have come across in two months. Even the buzzards and coyotes knew better ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... ad infinitum. I can scarcely remember performing a wholly voluntary act. My whole life, as I look back upon it, seems to be a long series of inexplicable accidents, not only quite unavoidable, but even quite unintelligible. Its history is the history of the reactions of my personality to my environment, of my behavior before external stimuli. I have been no more responsible ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... that's nothing. Now, then, to the door! Hold it ready. In a few moments you will see us make a dash and drive these fellows back. Then we shall turn and follow you. Dash out with a good shout, and strike right and left. The men there are sure to run. Then all for the rocks, and don't look back; we shall follow." ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... look back upon Time's old track, And dream of the days long past, When Rome leant here on his sentinel spear And loud was the clarion's blast;— As wild and shrill from Martyr's Hill Echoed the patriot shout; Or rush'd pell-mell with a midnight ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation for something better. But happiness and utility are not necessarily concomitant; and even when an undergraduate's course is least employed for its intended purpose ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... of which I should never tire as I sat here with my memories. Margaret was rarely absent from my mind, and every memory of her was a blessing and an inspiration. I did not regret my love, foolish and vain as it had been. The thing that really mattered was that Jack was alive. I could now look back on everything without bitterness. If Margaret came for me now, to call me forth to another hard round of struggle and adventure, I should be off with her like a shot. She had made a splendid companion. She ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... dying monarch lay helpless upon his bed, in the alcove of his apartment, distressed and wretched. To look back upon the past filled him with remorse, and the dread futurity, now close at hand, was full of images of terror and dismay. He thought of his wife, and of the now utterly irreparable injuries which he ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... at the foot of Squaw Peak at last we look back over Squaw Valley. In the late summer tints it is beautiful, but what must it be in the full flush of its summer glory and perfection? Then it must be a delight to the eye and a refreshment to the soul. How interesting, too, it is to rehabilitate ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... in ashes Lie smouldering on the sod! Not—while our houseless women Send up wild wails to God! Not—while the mad fanatic Strews ruin on his track! Dare any Southron give the rein To feeling, and look back! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... March 31, when I visited him, and confessed an excess of which I had very seldom been guilty; that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction; instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, 'Alas, Sir, on how few things can we ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... answered. "It isn't altogether a novelty. I once spent three years in manual labor; and now when I look back at them, I believe I ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... "to remember our opening day as a pleasant one. Miss Marvin especially wishes to look back on it with pleasure; and I think we all ought to help her. Now if I say no more about this foolish young man—whom I could punish very severely—will you promise me to go back to your books? To-day, as you know, is a half-holiday; but ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... through the courses of thy manhood. Wit sat at thy table, and Genius was thy comrade. Beauty was thy handmaid; and Frivolity played around thee,—a buffoon that thou didst ridicule, and ridiculing enjoy! Who among us can look back to thy brilliant era, and not sigh to think that the wonderful men who surrounded thee, and amidst whom thou wert a centre and a nucleus, are for him but the things of history, and the phantoms ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the wall, she reluctantly departed, stopping to look back at him two or three times in spite of the rain, till the angle of the wall ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for the praiseworthy employment of their wealth; and making amends as it were for the backwardness of India as regards hotels, they supply their places to the friendless traveller, in a way which our frigid friends at home might imitate with advantage. I look back upon my stay in Benares with the greatest pleasure, and shall long remember ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... then. Suppose that in the social organism generally, and in the attitude of servants particularly, the decades after the War shall bring but a gradual evolution of what was previously afoot. Even on this mild supposition must it seem likely that some of us will live to look back on domestic service, or at least on what we now mean by that term, as a ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... I had one for a little boy; he was older than I, about fourteen; his name was Robert, and he had freckles; I think he squinted, too, and he teased all the girls a great deal. I am sure he was a very horrid little boy, as I look back, but at that time I thought he was wonderful, and it almost broke my heart when he said he had no use for little yellow-haired girls and took a girl with two brown pigtails to a big children's party, instead ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... only one day to get ready. But she had few clothes and so it was an easy matter. She put them neatly in a bundle and with a queer feeling underneath the little red dress, now too short instead of too long, she started bright and early to walk the thirty miles to school. Many times she turned to look back at the little log cabin till it was hidden from her sight by a turn in the road. Then somehow she felt very much ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... came closer those in the sleigh who were able to look back saw that it was running at a great rate of speed and swaying from side to side of the roadway. It contained four young men, out, evidently, for a gloriously good time. Dave did not dare look back to ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... special care, these the realm for our kindly surgery and the arts of healing. We need to become acutely conscious that the present will become the past and that there will be a new present which will take on the same qualities that now characterize our present. We need to feel that the future will look back to our present and commend or condemn according to the practices of this generation. And the only way to make a sane and right future is to create a sane ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand, and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful; his features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly sighing—'Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the loss of those who are dearer ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the gods his Sage King was the swiftest horse in all that wild upland country of wonderful horses. He swore the great gray could look back over his shoulder and run away from any broken ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... impossible to look back on the occurrences of the late wars in Europe, and to behold the disregard which was paid to our rights as a neutral power, and the waste which was made of our commerce by the parties to those wars by various acts of their respective Governments, and under the pretext ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... called for help upon the passers-by. Cobden described the situation in a way that pierced the rhinoceros hides of the landlords, and they offered concessions of this and that. Cobden said, "Future generations will stand aghast with amazement when they look back upon this year and see children starving for bread in Ireland, and we forbidding the entry of corn into the country with a prohibitive tariff, backing up this law ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... The easier to batter it down, Which he had proved must be the case (If it hadn't already taken place): He called on his readers to fear and dread it, Whilst he wrote it,—whilst they read it!" "How simple! How beautifully simple," said he, "And obvious was the remedy! Look back a century or so— And there was the ancient Norman bow, A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh) Efficient, better, cheaper by half: (He knew quite well the age abused it Because, forsooth, the Normans used it) These, planted in the citadel, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... often, in her letters to me, inquired if I had heard from you, and will be much pleased at hearing that you are well and happy. In her name, as she is not here, I thank you for your polite attention to her, and shall speak her sense of the honour conferred on her by the Marchioness. When I look back to the length of this letter, I have not the courage to give it a careful reading for the purpose of correction: you must, therefore, receive it with all its imperfections, accompanied with this assurance, that, though there may be many inaccuracies in the letter, there is not a ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... fain have tempted him; but Gudmund is a faithful swain. [Turns again to GUDMUND.] Aye, but the tale is not finished yet. When you bear away your lady-love, over hill and through forest, be sure you turn not round; be sure you never look back—the huldra sits laughing behind every bush; and when all is done— [In a low voice, coming close up to him.] —you will go no further than ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... Philip's death, that I should scarce believe that Ambrose was the child I knew at the old home of Ford Place. And scarce will you believe, when we meet, as meet I pray we shall, I am the same Lucy of days past. Ever since that time of your grief and sickness, I have changed. I look back with something which is akin to pity on the vain child who thought fine clothes and array the likest to enhance the fair face and form which maybe God has given me. Ay, Mary, I have learned better now. I should have been a dullard, in sooth, had I not ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Woman all at once leaves the main road,—begins to mount a steep narrow path leading up from it through the woods upon the left. But Fafa hesitates,—halts a moment to look back. He sees the sun's huge orange face sink down,—sees the weird procession of the peaks vesture themselves in blackness funereal,—sees the burning behind them crimson into awfulness; and a vague fear comes upon him as he looks again up the darkling path to the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... look back on life I do not remember the houses I have lived in, the people that I have known, the things of passing interest at the moment. They are all gone. There is nothing stands out before my mind as of any consequence, but the work I have done for God ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... got to think of, it's the future," said Yeovil. "Other maritime Powers had pasts to look back on; Spain and Holland, for instance. The past didn't help them when they let their sea-sovereignty slip from them. That is a matter of history and not very ...
— When William Came • Saki
... account, how shall I address my dear, my fondly beloved brother!—how describe the anguish we have felt at the idea of this long and painful separation, rendered still more distressing by the terrible circumstances attending it! Oh! my ever dearest boy, when I look back to that dreadful moment which brought us the fatal intelligence that you had remained in the Bounty after Mr. Bligh had quitted her, and were looked upon by him as a mutineer!—when I contrast that day of horror with ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... wheeled the pony and fled. Up to this time I had not been hit, but just as I was getting safely away, having jumped through the men surrounding me, clubbing them to the earth with the butt of my pistol, I turned to look back. I saw Mowbray bring down his rifle and take deliberate aim at me, and I shuddered, because Mowbray is one of the finest shots in the world. Then I heard the report of his weapon, and felt the sting ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... overhung it. The weather changes very quickly in this part of the world. Sharp drops of rain came spitting at Hammond and Mary as they climbed the crest of the Pike, and stopped, somewhat breathless, to look back at Maulevrier. He was trudging blithely down the winding way, and seemed to have done wonders while they had been ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... happening. This is an excellent illustration of what was said at the beginning of this book, that when people are down in the midst of events they cannot see the wood because of the trees, and it is only when they have climbed the hill of history and look back over the landscape that they can see what things really meant. At the end of the year 1777 people could only see that Burgoyne had surrendered to Gates, while Washington had lost two battles and the city of Philadelphia. Accordingly there were many who supposed that ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... although he was then seventy years of age. He lived to see his munificence bearing good fruit, and his foundations flourishing in reputation and usefulness; so that when he lay down to die, on September 27, 1404, in his palace of Bishops' Waltham, he could look back to a long life spent in the service of his Maker. The funeral procession moved slowly along the ten miles that separated palace from Cathedral through crowds of people mourning his loss. At the Cathedral door the prior met the procession, and the great bishop-builder was laid to rest in the ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... quickened her pace and went on, but as if with a sense of being followed, because constantly as she walked she jerked a step, to look back, and ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... fair" it was early in the morning of April 23, 1909, nearly seventeen days since we had left the Pole, but such a seventeen days of haste, toil, and misery as cannot be comprehended by the mind. We who experienced it, Commander Peary, the Esquimos, and myself, look back to it as to a horrid nightmare, and to describe ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... my father, a fine, intelligent, gentlemanly, handsome man; and though his hair was perfectly grey, his complexion was yet clear, nor had his eye lost the animation of youth. It is with great satisfaction that I can look back and picture him as I have ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... but esteem ourselves engaged in the highest of degrees, to render unto him the highest thanks we can express. Although, surpris'd with joy, we become as lost in the performance; when gladness and admiration strikes us silent, as we look back upon the precipiece of our late condition, and those miraculous deliverances beyond expression. Freed from the slavery, and those desperate perils, we dayly lived in fear of, during the tyrannical times of that detestable usurper, Oliver Cromwell; he who ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... had caused men to look back with fondness upon the milder and more vacillating tyranny of the Duchess Margaret. From the same cause the advent of the Grand Commander was hailed with pleasure and with a momentary gleam of hope. At any rate, it was a relief that the man in whom an almost impossible perfection of cruelty ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... there be no mistake. At such a time, as this, it is well we should look back upon the path by which we have travelled, and forward to the goal towards which we are tending. As it was necessary that the material foundations of this building should be so sure that there shall be no subsidence in the superstructure, so is it not less necessary ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... first fine careless rapture that showers on the immature 'Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-centre" of his career. And when a man stands still, he ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I look back to bow my acknowledgment, but it is too late; we have turned the corner and the rue Vaugirard is ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... St. Ives seems, as I look back on it, an odd spot to have served as stage wings for a melodrama, pure and simple. Yet a melodrama did begin there. No other word fits the case. The inns of the Middle Ages, which, I believe, reeked with trap-doors and cutthroats, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... time to look forward to, but it does not seem so long when you look back, and yet when I review the changes that have taken place in the Horticultural Society since I assumed the position of secretary twenty-five years ago the way seems long indeed. In the year 1890 very nearly all of the old members of the society, those who had contributed their time and money to ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... this interior hall He and Pilate stood face to face—He in the prisoner's lonely place, Pilate in the place of power. Yet how strangely, as we now look back at the scene, are the places reversed! It is Pilate who is going to be tried—Pilate and Rome, which he represented. All that morning Pilate was being judged and exposed; and ever since he has stood in the pillory of history with the centuries ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... that time have been dead. He did not therefore hesitate. Slipping into the water, he struck out across the stream. He had got nearly half-way over, when he became aware that the shouts he heard were directed at him. Not daring to look back, he swam on with all his strength, hoping that no one would venture to ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... made the place like home to us. One gets to love Germany and the Germans as he does no other country and people in Europe. There has been something so simple, honest, genuine, in our Munich life, that we look back to it with longing eyes from this land of fancy, of hand-organ music, and squalid splendor. I presume the streets are yet half the day hid in a mountain fog; but I know the superb military bands are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
