"Lean back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 5: Enclitic means leaning back, and that is, as you see, just what these little words do. They cannot stand alone and so they lean back for support upon the ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... their first real experience with wind. Going into the woods it had been been at their backs and they thought it great fun to be shoved along and to lean back against it like a supporting hand, but going against it was an entirely different matter. It was all they could do to stand on their feet and at times they simply could not move an inch forward. The roaring ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... chance. Meddlesomeness is the very opposite of helpfulness, for it consists in forcing your self into another self, instead of opening your self as a refuge to the other. They are opposite extremes, and, like all extremes, touch. It is not correct that extremes meet; they lean back to back. To Polwarth, a human self was a shrine to be approached with reverence, even when he bore deliverance in his hand. Anywhere, everywhere, in the seventh heaven or the seventh hell, he could worship God with the outstretched arms of love, the bended knees ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... him anxiously through the window. Presently she saw him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Now she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... going farther and farther away. Now, Pani, sit down here. Then lean back against this tree. And now you may take a good long rest. I am going to talk to the chipmunks and the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... lived in such sure luxury! I would lean back against a tent pole, and with crossed feet I would smoke sweet willow bark the rest of ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... times for the warm young Irish gentleman, where are you now? Though my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with years, and ennui, and disappointment, and the treachery of friends, yet I have but to lean back in my arm-chair and think, and those sweet figures come rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes! There are no women like them now—no manners like theirs! Look you at a bevy of women at the Prince's, stitched ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grounds another hour or so, the party from Fairfield was ready to go, and they all found it restful to lean back in the comfortable car and spin ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... and sit down; the wind, coming in soft puffs from the south, sends us floating around and around with a dreamy, restful motion that our tired little charioteers thoroughly appreciate as they lean back and trail their hands idly ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... rivers, the Garonne and the Dordogne, in the introduction is poetically rendered, and he goes on to describe the cool hall and grottos, state-rooms, pillars—above all, the splendid view: 'There on the top of the fortress I sit down and lean back and gaze at the mountains covered by olives, so dear to the Muse and the goats. I shall wander in their shade, and believe that coward Daphne grants me her love.' He delighted in ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... necessity nowadays to give these boys a room of their own, popularly known as the "den," a retreat where they can go and sit in a chair without having fancy embroidered tidies adhere to their coat collars, where they can lean back in their chairs, if they choose, with no danger of ruining the valuable Hepplewhite or breaking the claw feet off a rare Chippendale—a place where they can relax. The greater the contrast between this room and the rest of the house, the greater will be the enjoyment derived by the boys ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... a disadvantage, and he knew it. Breathing hard, his face red, his little eyes darting about the room, he took it all in—the members of the Committee; the boss, figuring at the table, with an air of exasperating coolness about his lean back; and last of all, James, standing in the shadow. It was the sight of the new man that checked the storm of words that was pressing on Grady's tongue. But he finally gathered himself and stepped forward, pushing aside one of ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by shaking hands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes which have gone out, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a footstep. It approaches the window, and a hand taps at the glass. 'Come in!' calls Wegg; meaning come round by the door. But the heavy old-fashioned sash is slowly raised, and a head slowly looks in out of the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... in the centre or very near the centre of the loop in the crutch wire which is connected with the verge, and for this reason, if it rubs the front or back end of the loop, the friction will cause it to stop. To prevent this, set the clock case so that it will lean back a little or forward, as it requires. It sometimes happens that the dial (if it is made of zinc) gets bent in, and the loop of the crutch wire rubs as it passes back and forth. This should be attended to. It should be ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... away to the sky-line, broken only by the steeples of Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the westward which marked the Mapleton stables. We all sprang out with the exception of Holmes, who continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the sky in front of him, entirely absorbed in his own thoughts. It was only when I touched his arm that he roused himself with a violent start and ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... steps. When they had mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the original mastabah, and close to the first stage of the pyramid. Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one could lean back against the wall while seeking for the ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... into the room. I saw Ruth. She was sitting beneath a bright light, on a sofa. She was sewing. She seemed quite at home. I saw the man turn away from the window and go back and sit down on the sofa beside her. I saw him stretch out, put one hand in his pocket, lean back luxuriously, and proceed to smoke. It was all very intimate. A policeman passed me as I stood ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... stowed away. These duties performed, paterfamilias cast one penetrating glance round the church, and leaned gracefully forward with a kind of circular motion. Having suitably addressed Almighty God (it is to be supposed), he would lean back, adjust his trousers, possibly place an elbow on the pew-door, and contemplate with a fixed and determined gaze ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... York on each side of the chair; all the Ministers present, except Lord Palmerston, who is ill of gout in the hand. Lord Russell, Lord Granville, and Duke of Somerset sat on other side of table from Sir Henry Holland, Sir Roderick, and myself. Lord Clarendon was close enough to lean back and clap me on the shoulder, and ask me when I was going out. Duke of Argyll, Bishops of Oxford and London, were within earshot; Sir J. Romilly, the Master of the Rolls, was directly in front, on the other side ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the table, and began to make a hearty but hurried meal. Johnny stood up in a careful manner, and got along very well, but poor Dickey could neither sit down nor help himself. He made one or two vain efforts to pick up a biscuit from the table, but his armor would not permit, and he was about to lean back against the wall in helpless indignation, ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... pour out a tumbler of bottled stout, for which he had an inordinate relish, and tossing it down his throat, give a sigh of the deepest satisfaction when he had finished it, when, replacing his glass on the table, he would lean back in his chair as if ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... heavily on his arm and stood with her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the speakers' platform. Her hands busied themselves nervously about her hair. "You are so restless, child," said the mother, who had seated herself at their feet. "You might let me lean back against your knee; I was sitting ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... lean back? Ho! Ye mean one that you can lean back in. What talk folk will bring with them from up south, to be sure! Yes, I'll get it for ye, Ma'am. Come, Mop, be a braw little wee mon, and ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... want of appetite. He had been under the care of some very sensible practitioners, but his complaints increased, and he determined to come to Birmingham. I found him supported upright in his chair, by pillows, every attempt to lean back or stoop forward giving him the sensation of instantaneous suffocation. He said he had not been in bed for many weeks. His countenance was sunk and pale; his lips livid; his belly, thighs and legs very greatly swollen; hands and feet cold, the nails almost black, pulse 160 ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... about four minutes she demanded if it wasn't simply too lovely. She sat straight up with her vigorous profile and her smart hat; and the silhouette of her personality sharply refused to mingle with the dust of any dynasty. She was a contrast, a protest; positively she was an indignity. 'Do lean back, dear child,' I exclaimed at last. 'You ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... income tax by a plutocratic supreme court—I would probably not be here to inquire whether you are Slaves or Sovereigns. And if you could draw your check for seven figures—with any probability of getting it cashed—you would not be here to answer. You'd do just as Dives did: lean back in your luxurious chair and absorb your sangaree, while Lazarus scratched his Populist fleas on your front steps and exploited your garbage barrels for bones. You'd turn up your patrician nose at the lowly proletaire, ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lovely days when we went gipsying along the roads of Provence and Picardy and Touraine! I cannot write of them now, for in to-day's shock of battle they have already become unreal and dreamlike. I touch them and the bloom vanishes. But sometimes when I do not try to write, and only lean back and close my eyes, I can catch again a little of their breath and sweetness; I can see the purpling vineyards and the poppied fields; I can drift once more with Elizabeth and our girls through the wonderland ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... ten days of hotel fare in small Wisconsin towns, would come home to sea-foam biscuits, and real soup, and honest pies and cake. Sometimes, in the midst of an appetising meal he would lay down his knife and fork and lean back in his chair, and regard the cool and unruffled Terry with a sort of reverence in his eyes. Then he would get up, and come around to the other side of the table, and tip her pretty face up ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... a bite," the old man protested. "To eat now would canker a memory. I took sacrament over at the Major's. Now, I'm going to lean back here and I may talk or I may drop off to sleep, and in either event just let me go. But if I doze off don't wake me, not even when you get ready to leave. Just pull the door ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... mass, which represents ten thousand heartaches and anxieties, doubtful shifts, and open sins, as bad or worse than a man's own, there is a silent sympathy and no reproach. Mr. Ford's client did not lean back, the tension of his mind was too great. He sat stiffly, and gazed vacantly before him, half seeing and half transforming into other visions whatever lay before the hansom, as it wound its way through the streets. Now for ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing |
