Pushing

“ That a man has more power in pulling than in pushing, has been proved by the ninth proposition De Ponderibus [1] , where it is said, that of two equal weights, that will have the greatest power which is farthest removed from the pole or centre of its balance. ”

“ He pushes a brick; what caused the brick to fall? He feels that it was his own force that caused it; he no longer looks upon the push and the fall as if the former merely preceded the latter; he imagines a connection of necessity between the push and the fall, the cause and the effect, and gradually comes to imagine himself as the causer of the cause. ”

“ Several times when you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the beautiful view below, I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,' but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back. ”

“ Incredibly the Push were blind to their amazing superficiality. Even had they suffered from an inclination to be serious, life came so easily and so rapidly that it would have been impossible to do anything but play with it. ”

“ Then there was a movement, a movement that blanched the watching faces to a more pallid white—that dangling, wobbling leg drew inward slowly, very slowly, and hip and knee, as though guided by some mighty power, immutable, supreme, came deliberately into normal form. ”

“ Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. ”

“ One arm, however, is free—he clutches in his despair for something that might serve him for a weapon—his club lay within his grasp—hope springs to his heart—he brings down the weapon with a desperate effort, and it fell on the head of his opponent. ”

“ With his right foot he kicked him—that stuck too; then with his left—and that stuck too! Then he butted at him with his head, crying, "I'll pound you to powder!" and his head stuck fast like the rest. ”

“ Movement was the keynote of the picture—stealthy, not-yet-quite-confident pack-movement on the one hand, concentrated here and there in blood-red eddies, and, on the other hand, swift, desperate marches in the open. ”

“ All the vital forces crowd to your head, and your legs are powerless to support you. You throw yourself on your berth like a log, and instinctively close your eyes, so as not to see that man over there, who is just about to open the ball, or that other who is looking at you with a mixture of amusement and pity, as he calmly eats his chop. ”

“ She had even seen the men stoop and lift them and push them forward, and at times when the brute simply dropped again the man might lift it and carry it clear of the line, and leave it lying to gather up a few more ounces of strength from its rest. ”

“ If I or you touch a man or woman with a finger, or clasp their hand, or embrace them more completely, the tendency is at once set up, and the force seeks to flow, and, according to certain conditions, does flow, from one to another, evermore seeking to find a common level,—always, that is, in the direction of the greater need, or the greater capacity. ”

“ We have had not only one incident for every day in the week, but two or three; we have not simply been stunned with the alarming noise of one terrific clash, but another, and another, and another, have followed upon each other's heels, like Job's messengers, till we have needed Job's patience and resignation to hear the dreadful tale of woes. ”

“ Moreover, each attitude—standing, sitting, lying down, turning over—entails a different set of pressures, both of the parts on one another and on the ground; and those partial arrests of motion which result from sitting down the feet alternately when running, send jolts or waves of varying pressure through the body. ”

“ In the beginning, when man began to plough, when he had cut a furrow from one end to the other, he lifted his plough on to his shoulder, and when he had carried it back to the same end that he had begun from, he began again to plough thence. The Lord, in the form of an old man, passed by and said to him, ‘Not thus, my son, but when you make a furrow, turn your plough round at the same place to which you have cut the furrow, and plough back to the end from which you began.’ And thus the ploughman learnt to plough aright, as people plough at this day. ”

“ The natural man within him raged, and he had to battle with a suffusing impulse to rush back, snatch her up in his arms, and make off with her to the uttermost ends of the earth, there to fight and keep her for his own to the end of time. ”

“ The strongest position for push holds is that with the fingers turned inward, the palms downwards, in front of the body, at a level anywhere between the waist and neck, according to the individual power of spring from the feet. ”

“ And such is the inevitable irony of things, this reaction, this tweak at the rope which binds us to earth, brings about a fall more peremptory and convincing in proportion to the height to which the fluttering soul has soared. ”

“ Soon the swift motion lulls our brains into the accustomed muddle; we seem to be dragged along like a miserable thread pulled through the eye of an ever-lasting needle,—through and through, and never through,—while here and there, like painful knots, the dépôts stop us, the poor thread is arrested for a minute, and then the pulling begins again. ”

“ Then, again, to be pursued by others, he might be seen suddenly changing to the back and heel-forward movement, offering them his hand, and, at the same time, eluding their grasp by his dexterous and instantaneous deviations to the right and left, leaving them to their hard work of striking out after him with all their might and main. ”

“ Imagine you've got to go on or jump off! Would you not, in an ecstasy of nervous agitation, fall to your knees, get down face first at full length, clutch by your hands, and with your shut eyes feel your way? ”

“ Like the blow of a hammer, continually repeated until the iron bar crumbles beneath it, his whole force comes with ceaseless percussion on that one mind till it has yielded, and accepts the conviction on which the pleader's purpose is fixed. ”

“ Some, trying to pass, entangled themselves with the chains of others, and they themselves bumped against the heads of those sitting below, and they tumbled over, and scolded, and dragged into the quarrel those whom they hit. ”

“ You haven't got full discipline of your nerves, just the same. You're a little afraid of the sound and the explosion, and you flinch back—just a little movement of your hand—when you pull the trigger. ”

“ At first I was very much afraid of jumping across the ditch, but I resolved once and for all—I've got to jump it. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall fall and bruise myself. Suppose I do? What then? Why do all the others jump it and don't care? One needn't be so very strong to jump! ”

“ Also, be sure to hug yourself while you are revolving—hug your face with your left arm and your abdomen with your right. You see, the other fellow might try to stop you with a punch from his free arm. ”

“ And going down feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. ”

“ It's a great mistake. No one can exactly measure in years or months the effect of a forward push or a reaction. No one can demonstrate that the eight-hour movement could have been won twenty-five years ago. ”

“ The gong, and then Half Ahead!—great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of limitless strength. Full Ahead!—and so off again for the great struggle—man's wits and the engines and the mercy of God against the upreaching of the sea. ”

“ The gentle pressure of one sensitive body upon another produces counter-pressure, a resistance that is positively [59] pleasurable, whereby the impenetrability of matter becomes a delightful instead of a frightful revelation to the mind of the Immutable Reality of the loving Creator, as the complement of our own changeful individuality! ”

“ We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking the helpless with brutal whip—but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning. ”

“ The same changes occur among the impulses; these are at times almost irresistible. Nearly every one, while standing on a high cliff or house-top, has felt an impulse to jump off or push his friend off, reckless of the consequences. ”

“ The significance of all these muscular strains and pressures is so rendered that we cannot help realizing them; we imagine ourselves imitating all the movements and exerting the force required for them—and all without the least effort on our side. ”

“ He lay pressed hard against his adversary, his body adjusting itself to its one pure purpose of choking the other man, resisting exactly at the right moment, with exactly the right amount of strength, the struggles of the other, silent, intent, unchanging, gradually pressing its knuckles deeper, feeling the struggles of the other body become wilder and more frenzied. ”

“ These were the days when he believed in using force—punishing with words—"punch," he called it. This is a mental indelicacy which the ordinary man seldom outgrows. His crowning fact is that dynamite will loosen stumps and break rock. ”

“ But running away isn’t altogether in my line—I don’t mean under any circumstances—those who declaim most against the lawfulness of leg-bail at a push are generally the ones most prone to putting it to the test. ”

“ But if a needle be stuck on the end of the punch, its point upwards, the scale, instead of drawing nigh to the punch, and snapping, discharges its fire silently through the point, and rises higher from the punch. ”

“ The first movement is a movement of her hands. They rise slowly from her side and waver in the air like the hands of a person groping in the dark. Another interval—and the movement spreads to her lips; they part and tremble. ”

“ For although there is always the difference that they ask the movement simply as a movement, while I employ it only as a gymnastic exercise and a means to something else, yet our methods of obtaining the action are the same. ”

“ Where was his wind, his stamina, his ability to mix it with rough customers through long grueling contests? He had demonstrated nothing but the posession of a lucky punch and a depressing proclivity for flukes. ”

“ The sempiternal lift, for one’s comings and goings, affects one at last as an almost intolerable symbol of the herded and driven state and of that malady of preference for gregarious ways, of insistence on gregarious ways only, by which the people about one seem ridden. ”

“ By muscular contraction he can create a pressure on an outward object, which, if sufficiently powerful, will set it in motion, or if it be already moving, will check or modify or altogether arrest its motion, and he can do no more. ”

“ We are all harnessed from our cradle, with bearing reins, not only to give our necks the proper curve, but also to prevent us from taking the bit in our mouths, kicking out, plunging over the barriers, and deserting the ring, and the saw-dust, the lights, and the crack of the manager's whip. ”

“ And now that our cheeks no longer grow hot at the name of Bull Run, and peace and victory—terms which no loyal heart ever wished to dissever—are ours; now that we have laid down our muskets and stop to take breath, how strange it all seems! ”

“ I now, however, desire to direct attention to the public, general, and impersonal schemes, and I point out the fact that, if you undertake to lift anybody, you must have a fulcrum or point of resistance. All the elevation you give to one must be gained by an equivalent depression on some one else. ”

“ Being unable to use his fists as was his wont, and being possessed of no other safety-valve, the pressure mounted steadily until it registered a point on his mental gauge that spoke eloquently of trouble to come. ”

“ The throbbing of legs was a venting of superfluous flowing energy that by its sheer force could be channeled one way or another or both to the objects of one's intrigues, these friends who possessed admirable traits that he lacked. ”