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More "Retract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pretty dress which the young Countess gave to Mary,' said the cook in her turn, 'that made Juliette angry. In her rage, and not knowing well what she was about, she began to tell lies, and then it was impossible to retract without acknowledging her guilt. The proverb is true which says that, once the devil has us by the hair, he will hold ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... be, by force, the mongrel measure of concession and obstinacy which the Court had carried against the proposals of Necker. That victory was reversed, and the success of the Commons was complete. They had brought the three orders into one; they had compelled the king to retract his declaration and to restore his disgraced minister; they had exposed the weakness of their oppressors, and they had the nation ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... only indirectly, there seems little doubt that Homer must have conceived the death of the hero as brought about by the maternal curse: the unrelenting Erinnys executed to the letter the invocations of Althaea, though she herself must have been willing to retract them."] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... an hour last night. He admires his ribbon, ring, and snuff-box, so much, that an excellent petit-maitre was spoiled, when he was made a minister. The sentiments of my heart have flown from my pen, and I cannot retract them." ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... want of charm—is flatly a falsehood.[509] Neither mouth nor eyes can beat it in that respect; and if it has less variety individually, it gives perhaps more general character to the face than either. However, he is, if I mistake not, obliged to retract partially in the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... persuasion and argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract; but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone, and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff, whose authority ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... at another phase of the picture: That Lionel had been growing to love her; but that Sibylla Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract. She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away, or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory, regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances were ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... kneel, I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... such, that it required all her self-restraint to prevent her from going and seeking him out, and (as man would do to man, or woman to woman) begging him to forgive her hasty words, and allow her to retract them, and bidding him accept of the love that was filling her whole heart. She wished Margaret had not advised her against such a manner of proceeding; she believed it was her friend's words that seemed to make such a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the care which he took in polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... Kentucky—friends and brethren, may I call you in my new position?—I see no occasion and feel no inclination to retract a word of this. If it shall not be made good, be assured the fault shall not ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... subjects or people of either party, with their shipping, whether publick and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity for seeking of shelter and harbor, to retract and enter into any of the rivers, creeks, bays, ports, roads or shores belonging to the other party, they shall be received with all humanity and kindness, and enjoy all friendly protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... may have had one or two hard thoughts about the heartlessness of your corporation, but I retract 'em now. You have a kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all. It does you credit. I was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed. It would not be honorable or praiseworthy,' says I, 'for us to let Murkison go on with this ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... soon found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms. His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard to the wishes of my friends, I submitted to the temporary degradation of being placed on the same ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... old fox that she was, too true to her system to retract the policy, which formerly, laid her open to the criticism of all the civilised Courts of Europe for opening the correspondence with De Pompadour, to whose influence she owed her daughter's footing in France—a correspondence whereby she degraded the dignity of her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... I don't believe either she'd do it. Needn't all of you look so glum! I'll take it back. We know, God bless every last woman of them, that they don't do it! They haven't got any more use for a bombproof than we have!—I can't retract handsomer than that!—Darling Chloe, the Company's grown amiable, but it don't think much so far of its part in this campaign. Heretofore in tableaux and amateur theatricals it has had a star role, and in this damned Richmond play it's nothing but a walking shadow! Darling Chloe, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... admit That love is just as childish, every whit; To own that whimpering at your mistress' door Is e'en as weak as building on the floor; Say, will you put conviction into act, And, like young Polemo, at once retract; Take off the signs and trappings of disease, Your leg-bands, tippets, furs, and muffatees, As he slipped off his chaplets, when the word Of sober wisdom ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... yawn, when suddenly he threw himself on Bernard with the agility of a tiger and knocked him to the floor. From secret closets in the room sprang six able bodied men. They soon had Bernard securely bound. Belton then told Bernard that he must retract what he had said and agree to keep his revealed purpose a secret or he would never leave that ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... Augsburg, one only question was raised. Luther had broken the laws of the Church. He had taught doctrines which the Pope had declared to be false. Would he or would he not retract? ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... method of a calculating mind. He aimed to kindle a conflagration because he had icebergs to melt. "The public shall not be imposed upon," he replied to one of his critics, "and men and things shall be called by their right names. I retract nothing, I blot out nothing. My language is exactly such as suits me; it will displease many, I know; to displease them is my intention." He was philosopher enough to see that he could reach the national conscience ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... since Dr. Perowne wrote these words; if he were to write to-day he would be much less confident that Moses wrote the whole of Deuteronomy, and he would probably modify his statements in other respects; but he would retract none of these admissions respecting the composite character of ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... say, Jack spent the night in his clothes on deck. Sleep was impossible; and, in the hope that she would relent and creep on deck to find him and retract the hard things she had said, he haunted the companion till the stars paled and the day began ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... laying down his theological tract, and rubbing his spectacles mournfully.—"I hear him, child: I hear him. I retract my vindication of Man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on the other side of the screen,—it is all ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... readily comply with my wishes and are willing to believe me innocent upon my word alone, and no longer yield to every suspicion, but blindly believe what my heart tells you; then this submission, this proof of esteem, shall cancel all your offences; I instantly retract what I said when excited by well-founded anger. And if hereafter I can choose for myself, without prejudicing what I owe to my birth, then my honour, being satisfied with the respect you so quickly show, promises to reward your love with my heart and my hand. But listen now to what I say. ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... they can say so," answered Canute; "we have been acting strangely enough during the last few days,—it is time for us to retract. It has really gone far when we can dig up, each his own grandfather, to make way for a railroad; when in order that our loads may be carried more easily forward, we can violate the resting-place of the dead. For is not overhauling our churchyard the same as ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... retract my words about your young mind being jelly. I see there is some substance in it growing already. But no, Syd, you are not going to be a doctor; and ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... troubled mind. When our hands met, I found the Mongo's cold and clammy. I refused wine under a plea of illness; and when, with incoherent phrases and distracted gestures, he declared his willingness to retract his refusal and accept a share of the Felix's cargo, I thought it best to adjourn the discussion until the following day. Whilst on the point of embarking, I was joined by the faithless servant, whom I bribed to aid me in my ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Every movement that he makes seems to be bearing him farther from the society and the sympathy of his kind. Too benumbed, perhaps, to turn, he glides on, helpless as an ice-boat before the wind. Conscious of his mistake, of his danger, and knowing not how to retract the one or avoid the other, his helpless motions, seemingly guided by idleness, by madness, or by folly, lead him to the last place whither he would have led himself,—the weak spot ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... for one moment to doubt the correctness of MR. HUDSON TURNER'S remarks on this question, and I hasten to retract my own suggestions, frankly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... which says: 'It takes more than one day to compass a man!' Yesterday you had such a sentimental pathetic air, when I permitted myself to administer a little correction to my serf, that I took you in all simplicity for a philanthropist. I retract it now. You are one of those tyrants who are only moved for the victims of another. Pure professional jealousy! But," continued he, "there is one thing which astonishes me still more, and that is, that you Gilbert, you could for ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... he said, at first utterly denied the substitution, but he insinuated that, plied with questions, and overcome by the evidence, she had, in a moment of despair, confessed all, declaring, soon after, that she would retract and deny this confession, being resolved at all hazards that her ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... will lead to the ruin of his career, your action will, in the fullness of time, recoil so appallingly upon your own head that it will kill you. I know you are one of those that faithlessness, remorse and contempt would kill.—Don't look so beseechingly at me; I cannot retract a word of what I have said. But I can tell you now what I had decided upon before I came. I will look after your future. I am not rich; but, as sure as I stand here before you, you shall live free from care—you shall have everything that you need—for the rest of your life. I want no ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... of his subservience, became a little restive under this treatment, Pope indirectly admitted the truth by claiming only twelve books in an advertisement to his works, and in a note to the Dunciad, but did not explicitly retract the other statement. Broome could not effectively rebuke his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope to attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too much, according to Pope; and the ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... and he said in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard". (Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... literature, they who speak first hold the fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and wholly my own, and as I have good reason ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... had spoken, Esther showed no disposition to retract, and she steadily resisted all Mrs. Bingley's solicitations to remain with her. She knew the risk she was running in leaving her situation, and yet she felt she must yield to an instinct like that which impels the hunted animal ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... had given orders for her passage to be engaged in the first vessel that sailed, she could not now retract; and must prepare for the lonely voyage, as the Captain intended taking advantage of the first fair wind. She had too much strength of mind to waver in her determination but to determine wrung her very heart, opened all her old wounds, and made ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, of immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... King of the Crystal Lake, "I have your word. Should ye retract now, what follows will be upon your own heads!" And, with these parting words, he merged into a column of water which towered up as before, its spray falling like fine bronze dust against the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... that this excellent man should fall a sacrifice to private and personal pique, as the marquis's was said to be to a more exalted revenge; and it is said, that the managers had no small debate what his sentence should be, for he was dealt with by some of them to retract what he had done and written, and join with the present measures, and he was even offered a bishopric. The other side were in no hazard in making the experiment, for they might be assured of his firmness in his principles. A bishopric was a very small temptation to him, and the commissioner ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... was now too angry, and I replied, "My lord, you well know that I once held my tongue for eighteen months, I therefore can be silent when I choose; but I can also speak when I choose, and now I do choose to speak. I have said it, and I will not retract my words." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... took this very decided step in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two empresses reinstating Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank and dignity, and thus reasserting ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... arms tightly round her father's neck, he considered it the better part of valour to take back his words. "All right," he said, "rather than be garroted,—I retract! You're a beautiful and dignified lady, and your notions of convention and ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... basis of civil society, how was it possible but that reflecting men, who perceived this truth, should mistrust those Representatives of the People, who could not have acted less prudently, had they been utterly unconscious of it! But they had committed themselves and did not retract; either from unabating devotion to their cause, or from false honour, and that self-injuring consistency, the favourite sister of obstinacy, which the mixed conscience of mankind is but too apt to produce. Meanwhile the tactics of Parliament must continue in exercise on some system ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a sermon which one of his auditors commended. "Yes," said the gentleman to whom it was mentioned, "it was a good sermon, but he stole it." This was repeated to the preacher, who resented it, and called on the gentleman to retract. "I will," replied the aggressor. "I said you had stolen the sermon. I find I was wrong, for on referring to the book whence I thought it was taken, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... approached, had the body of Amaury dragged forth from the lists, and conducted Huon to Charlemagne. The Emperor, however, listening to nothing but his resentment and grief for the death of his son, refused to be satisfied; and under the plea that Huon had not succeeded in making his accuser retract his charge seemed resolved to confiscate his estates and to banish him forever from France. It was not till after long entreaties on the part of Duke Namo and the rest that he consented to grant Huon his pardon, under conditions ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... did not know whether she was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. "It can't ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... could not retract his word immediately without making himself ridiculous. He thinks you ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... fair, waxed wroth out of wit. "Thou must forego that ho ever do you a vassal's service; he is worthier than my brother Gunther, the full noble man. Thou must retract what I have heard thee say. Certes, it wondereth me, sith he be thy vassal and thou hast so much power over us twain, why he hath rendered thee no tribute so long a time. By right I should be spared ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... Parson softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment—"But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... silence upon all that regarded the dignity or pleasure of his royal consort, a display of firmness which more and more exasperated the favourite, who retorted by observing that since the monarch had seen fit to retract a solemn engagement, and thus to brand herself and her children with disgrace, it only remained for her to reiterate her demand for permission to leave the country, with her son and daughter, and her father and brother, both of whom were prepared to share her ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... are influenced by their consciences, above all, by their esprit de corps and a point of honor. Most of the cures rally around this staff of officers. In the diocese of Besancon,[2278] out of fourteen hundred priests, three hundred take the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty retract. In the department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the department of Lozere, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty." It is stated positively," writes the best informed of all observers that everywhere ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... stand; 50 As though at Adam it had first set out And had been stealing all this while about, And when it backe to the first point should come, It shall be then iust at the generall Doome. The Seas into themselues retract their flowes. The changing Winde from euery quarter blowes, Declining Winter in the Spring doth call, The Starrs rise to vs, as from vs they fall; Those Birdes we see, that leaue vs in the Prime, Againe in Autumne re-salute ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... own sphere of activity. One of them will necessarily nullify the other, for every existing thing aims at the greatest possible development of its own forces. A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing comedy with comedy the least perilous and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing you retract your opinion,—or, in what manner you support it.—But, if you do support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must do it with all your powers, because you have the whole world against you.—I promised the Count I would do myself the ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... accusation left her lips she regretted it because she knew it to be utterly unfounded and the blaze which sprung into Beverly's eyes warned the little shallow pate that she had ventured a bit too far. She tried to retract by saying she was "nervous and excited and perfectly miserable at the loss of the letter. It was the first of Reggie's letters she had ever lost, and he had written every single day for ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... direct, published over their own signatures a declaration that all was peaceful in and about the settlements of Utah. The public eye began to twitch, and soon to open wide; the conviction was growing that someone had blundered. But to retract would be a plain confession of error; blunders must ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... "wild Irishman." The stoker resented the insinuation, and I overheard him berating the old lady in Irish so sharply and threateningly (I had no doubt of his guilt) that she was quite frightened, and ready to retract the charge to hush the man up. She seemed to think her troubles had just begun. If they behaved thus to her on the little tug, what would they not do on board the great black steamer itself? So when she got separated from her luggage in getting aboard the vessel, her excitement ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... I was examining an actinophrys (Actinophrys Eichornii), which was engaged in feeding. It would seize a rotifer (there were numerous Brachioni in the water) with one of its pseudopodia, which it would then retract, until the captured Brachionus was safely within its abdominal cavity. On the slide there were several grains of sand, but these the actinophrys passed by ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... said he, very slowly,—"if you wish to retract your letter to me, you now have my ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... us pause and see what monuments had been erected in the Cathedral since the Stuarts mounted the throne. Dean VALENTINE CAREY was also Bishop of Exeter, d. 1626, a High Churchman, He "imprudently commended the soul of a dead person to the mercies of God, which he was forced to retract." There was a brass to him with mitre and his arms, but ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... but for all your well saying, there is no need for me to retract, because I have never said the contrary. But I must declare and explain. Therefore, first I maintain that the immediate vision, so called and understood by us, does not do away with that sort of medium which is the intelligible species, nor that which is the light; ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... observing that she spoke with a timidity quite new in her. "I have a hyperbolical tongue: it catches fire as it goes. I dare say I shall have to retract." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... upon, but the gentleman had arrived with an immense carriage case, which he insisted upon embarking, in spite of all the difficulties which opposed themselves to that operation. The fisherman had wished to retract. He had even threatened, but his threats had procured him nothing but a shower of blows from the gentleman's cane, which fell upon his shoulders sharp and long. Swearing and grumbling, he had recourse to the syndic of his brotherhood at Antibes, who administer justice among ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... France[317]; and Renaudot, in the account he gave, named the English before the Swedes, and spoke of the affair as accommodated. Grotius was very angry at this: he sent to tell him, to name the Swedes first in another Gazette, and to retract what he had said of the accommodation: Renaudot was even threatened, that if he did not give this satisfaction to the Swedes, he would be made to feel to his cost that Sweden was powerful enough to do herself justice. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... came back to him with new energy. He felt with a kind of panic that his confident answer to her might have been wrong. When a girl appeared in the archway, he moved impulsively toward her, as if to retract the command that would send her out into this land that the Lord had spoken against, but the strength and repose in her ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... that their wives need watching. You have turned them against me and against their wives, who are as pure and virtuous as the snow which you never see. (God, forgive me!) All this, my friend, in order to get even with me. I don't ask you to retract anything you've said. I only intend you to know that I can crush you as I would a peanut, if you know what that ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... from sea-sickness. I indulged him twice a week with some lavender water put into a cup made of stiff paper, but never allowed him to have it when his claws were pushed forth; so that he learned to retract them ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... All language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... It was too late to retract, and though he deeply repented having placed himself in such a humiliating situation, he faithfully related to his stern auditor the cause of his distress. The old man listened to him attentively, a sarcastic smile at times ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Motives, may be one Reason why we are naturally averse to the launching out into a Man's Praise till his Head is laid in the Dust. Whilst he is capable of changing, we may be forced to retract our Opinions. He may forfeit the Esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different Light from what he does at present. In short, as the Life of any Man cannot be call'd happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced vicious or virtuous, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... to his wife, "We will proceed no further in this business." Then must Lady Macbeth rebuke him as a coward, no longer trust his love, if he, when time and place so wait upon him, retract from his purpose. She lays on the strongest accent, yes, uses the ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... and that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil aforesaid for the use of the Company; and wholly failing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... manner, which convinced all who heard him of his fairness. I say all, because even John Haynes was persuaded against his own will, though he did not choose to acknowledge it. He had a dogged obstinacy which would not allow him to retract what he had once said. There was an unpleasant sneer on his face while the teacher was speaking, which he did not ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... she persisted, going on now in sheer desperation, having proceeded too far to retract. 'My petals are delicately fair, with just a faint rosy blush, my pistils and stamens of a tender yellow, and my form, if fragile, is very ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... approved the vows of the Nazarenes, Num 6:2ff, and the vows of the Rechabites, who neither drank wine or ate grapes, Jer. 36:6, 19; while he strictly requires that the vow once made be paid, Deut. 23:21f; "It is ruin to a man after vows to retract," Prov. 20:25; "The vows of the just are acceptable," Prov. 15:8. God also teaches specifically through the prophet that monastic vows please him. For in Isa. 56:4, 5 it is read as follows: "Thus saith the Lord unto ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... you think shilly-shallying between two stools will secure your seat? You have gone too far with me to retract; don't you see that the jailer means to get you dismissed the next time the justices visit the jail for business? Can't you read your fate in ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... They fear to express a revised, frank opinion about any new work, and to relish it honestly and heartily, lest it should be condemned in the next review, and they stand convicted of bad taste. Hence they hedge their opinions, like a gambler his bets, and leave an opening to retract, and retreat, and qualify, and neutralise every unguarded expression of delight, until their very praise declines into ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons it is thought best that support of these ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... her, when she came forth to him,—smiling, speaking freshly and lightly, and with the colour on her cheeks which showed that she had done her part? How could he retract a step? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... company-this proof of your good faith to-night, and we are again joined in heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you to-morrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?" ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... to even the smallest of the Punch family being "fed" on cards, or getting his or her living by cards, the statement is utterly at variance with the facts. Mr. P. is quite sure that the "Jacquard Automatic Reading and Punching Syndicate" will at once retract the injurious statement, or the youthful, vigorous and pugnacious Punches will be inquiring of Mr. P., as Sam Weller did of Mr. Pickwick when that gentleman's great name was apparently taken in vain, "Ain't nobody to be whopped for takin' this here ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... suspicious, and confirmed perhaps by an unfortunate experience. And in proportion as that was possible, the chances increased that the accuser might, as the examinations advanced, and the winning character of the accused party began to develop itself, begin to see his error, and to retract his own over-hasty suspicions. But now we saw at a glance that for this hope there was no countenance whatever, since one solitary circumstance sufficed to establish a conspiracy. The deposition bore—that the lace had been secreted and afterwards detected in a muff; now it was ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... as was here to be obtained and she only wished Mr Monckton had been present, that he might himself be convinced of the impracticability of his scheme. Her whole business, therefore, now, was to retract her offer, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... when Theology would have to reconsider the platform whereon she stands; and possibly to "give way." But it is an undeniable fact that there exist no Theological dogmas on matters Geological,—no, not one! Theology cannot retreat from ground on which she has never set foot. She cannot retract, what she has never advanced, or recal the words which she has never spoken. The decrees of Theology are all confined to the Science of Theology,—and with that subject-matter, the other Sciences have simply no concern. Their office ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... news, indeed," said he; "and strange that the brother of Clara should have been the messenger to convey it; but this is language, Frank, which not even your unhappy state of mind can excuse. Retract your words." ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vehemence of the Republican leaders who crowded around their candidate and tried to get him to retract that Question. He listened quietly, he answered with a patient smile. Now and then he threw a story into the midst of this discussion which made them laugh in spite of themselves. The hopelessness of the case was quite plain to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... people, that they could not conduct their monarch to the scaffold without the deepest emotions of awe. A feeling of consternation oppressed every heart in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But it was too late to retract. Perhaps there was not an individual in that vast throng who did not shudder in view of the crime of that day. At one spot on the line of march, seven or eight young men, in the spirit of desperate ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... inexperience and ignorance of an undertaking which it required scientific knowledge to successfully carry out. When the truth had been gradually borne in upon him as the work progressed, he felt that it was too late to explain or retract if he would raise more money and keep his position. The real cost he believed would frighten possible investors and with the peculiar sanguineness of the short-sighted, he thought that it would ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... well tell you now that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the articles, he replied, charged him with teaching things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but such unconditional submission ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not command you. To serve your friend would have been, I deemed, a labour of love. I did not command you, and I now retract the trifling request which I find I was too bold ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the thing you have proposed?" he added, in a different tone. "It's not too late to retract, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... depress, calm, Abought, paid for, Abraid, started, Accompted, counted, Accorded, agreed, Accordment, agreement, Acquit, repay, Actually, actively, Adoubted, afraid, Advision, vision, Afeard, afraid, Afterdeal, disadvantage, Againsay, retract, Aknown, known, Aligement, alleviation, Allegeance, alleviation, Allow, approve, Almeries, chests, Alther, gen. pl., of all, Amounted, mounted, Anealed, anointed, Anguishly, in pain, Anon, at once, Apair, weaken, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... opinions and that he has a right to their expression. It is now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general statements about Alaska can be ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... unnerved by the glances of those dark blue eyes, which like searchlights seemed to penetrate into every nook and cranny of his soul. But his recklessness and love of adventure having led him so far, it was now too late to retract or to reconsider the risks he might possibly be running. He therefore took the quill and dipped it into the crimson drop that welled ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... unspeakable refreshment for an overworked brain, of laying aside all cares, and surrendering one's self to simple bodily activity? Laying them aside! I retract the expression; they slip off unnoticed. You cannot embark care in your wherry; there is no room for the odious freight. Care refuses to sit behind the horseman, despite the Latin sentence; you leave it among your garments when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... from the imputation cast upon it by you; which imputation, I am fain to believe, was uttered in a moment of hastiness; and which, after I have explained the circumstances of the case, you will be happy to retract. However, sir, permit me to continue. The black, I have every reason to believe, is in the service of Mr. Ferguson at Fern Vale; for he came over this morning, while you were absent at the bridge, with ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... ill-humoured, and cast much unnecessary opposition in the way; at one time requesting them to think of it, and call again in a week or a fortnight; at another, predicting that they wouldn't like it; at another, offering to retract and let them off, and muttering strong imprecations upon the folly of the General. But the whole of the astoundingly small sum total of purchase-money—it was only one hundred and fifty dollars, or ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... made a few observations on this comedy. They were not very favourable to it; and, notwithstanding its great success in representation, we are not at all disposed to retract any of them, because our opinion of the intrinsic value of the piece is not in the least altered. In representation it is all—in the closet nothing. This arises from the conduct of the plot, which indeed constitutes the whole of its merit. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the Osseous or one who is largely of this type who languishes in prison through long years, refusing to retract. ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... cried Richard, infuriated past endurance; "and, if you do not instantly retract the infamous accusation you have made, neither your age nor your office ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... terror, and she tremblingly clasped her babe closer to her breast, for the taper was nearly burned out and its extinction could not be very long delayed. The eldest Norn, however, had no intention of seeing her prediction thus set at naught; but as she could not force her sister to retract her words, she quickly seized the taper, put out the light, and giving the smoking stump to the child's mother, bade her carefully treasure it, and never light it again until her son was weary ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... no joking matter," began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, or are ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... accept your apology now. Neither your spirit nor mine is right. And I cannot retract. Your ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... she had regretted the step she had taken in writing that cruel letter before she left Glencardine. But it was all too late. She had tried to retract; but, alas! ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... wisdom. A man whose opinions at fifty are his opinions at fourteen has opinions of very little value. If his intellect has developed properly, or if he has profited by experience, he will modify, though he need not retract, his early views. To claim to have learnt nothing from 1792 to 1830 is almost to write yourself down as hopelessly impenetrable. The explanation is, that what Hazlitt called his opinions were really his feelings. He could argue very ingeniously, as appears from his remarks on Coleridge and ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert a position." ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... these "Conciones", Coleridge wrote on a blank page of one of them the following words:—"Except the two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these outbursts of my youthful zeal to retract; and with the exception of some flame-coloured epithets applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to personifications—(for such they really were to me)—as little ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... to retract,' replied Parravicin, taking up the key, and turning with a triumphant look to ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... successes in the future. He was honoured with golden crowns, and elected sole general with absolute power both by sea and land. A decree was also passed by which his property was restored to him, and the Eumolpidae and Kerykes were ordered to retract the curses which they had invoked upon him at the instance of the people. When all the rest obeyed, Theodorus the hierophant excused himself, saying, If he has done the State no wrong, I ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Lizzie Hepburn. If you saw her you would be quite sorry for her. She is such an interesting girl, so beautiful, and she has a great deal of character, quite different from Christina. I have asked them down, and of course I can't retract my invitations; they may have gone down to Miss Peck already, for aught I know. Promise to come down to Bourhill and see poor Lizzie, then I am sure you will say I have ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... rank of artist," said Bakkus. "I retract. I apologize. No one but an artist would inflict on another human being ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... yet retract! For me no spell Lights those slit orbs, where, some think, dwell Machicolated ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Parliament that ever was practised in this kingdom. No attention even to exterior decorum, in the practice of corruption and intimidation employed on peers, was observed: several peers were obliged under menaces to retract their declarations and to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the columns of a reputable journal. It is worse than worthless, because it makes the public lose confidence in the paper. And the ideal of all first-class newspapers to-day is never to be compelled to retract a published statement. This desire for accuracy does not bar a paper from publishing, for example, a rumor of the assassination of the German Crown Prince, but it does demand that the report be published only ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... other who had been her accomplice, who now, being touched of God, was very penitent, I thought it best for me to suffer and be silent. There was a very pious man who knew all her history, from the beginning to the end of it, who wrote to her, that if she did not retract her lies, he would publish the account of her wicked life, to make known both her gross iniquity and my innocence. She continued some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, with many other falsehoods. Some time after she had such a cruel remorse of conscience on ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... you have promised to confine your attention to a trifling number; by advertising that one or two are still wanting, or by decreasing your terms, attempt immediately to retract this promise. Apply to your first benefactors; hope they will permit you to accommodate a few pretty little masters, sons of Mr. Such-a-one, who may be of the greatest service to you. They will not deny you; they will consider it as a proof of your rising ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... half her chance, that is to say, half her chance would have been lost over any strangers who had not known her before; they would probably have thought her stiff and awkward, and apt to say things and then retract them. But she was so different from her usual self that Roger noticed the change in her as soon as she arrived at the Hall. She had carefully measured out the days of her visit; they were to be exactly the same number as she ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Contrary to the usual theory respecting the production of a great dramatic effect, he declares that the grand scene between the prophet and Fides in the third act, where John of Leyden, by the sheer force of intonation of voice and play of feature, forces his mother to retract her recognition of him and to fall at his feet, was created, so to speak, by Madame Viardot and himself on the inspiration of the moment and without any preliminary conference or arrangement. How wonderful this fine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... lost, my dear Reginald, and you are deprived of your rightful inheritance, it will be my pride and joy to try and make amends to you for your loss of fortune; and I am very sure that my father would not retract his promise under any circumstances which may occur." ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, yet she had no joy of that night's contract: it was too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it; meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her, and thought ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... For Happiness consists essentially in an operation of the intellect, as stated above (Q. 3, A. 4). But rectitude of the will, by reason of which men are said to be clean of heart, is not necessary for the perfect operation of the intellect: for Augustine says (Retract. i, 4) "I do not approve of what I said in a prayer: O God, Who didst will none but the clean of heart to know the truth. For it can be answered that many who are not clean of heart, know many truths." Therefore rectitude of the will is not necessary ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... "it's coming now. I've pushed it too far—never thought what I was doing: she will certainly accept me, and I cannot retract." It took me but a moment to see my danger and to make up my mind. A gentleman will always sustain his word. My voice was shaking a little from the greatness of the resolution I had made, but I managed to say pretty steadily, "Of course I do." It was so very sudden, you know. I felt I should be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... "I retract my remark unreservedly," said my curate; "it was unjust and unfair. It is curious that I have never yet made an unkind remark but ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... there, Maurice, my son, Let her rest, since her spell is broken; We can neither recall deeds rashly done, Nor retract words hastily spoken. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Emperor, who was then hunting in the environs. In the mean time a distinguished friend of Cajetan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters—"Revoco" ("I retract"). Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. "God forbid!" answered Luther. "Where then do you mean to take refuge?" he went on to ask him. "Under ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... to bite upon it hereafter. In other respects the Discourse has hardly been touched. It is only an individual's expression, in his own way, of opinions entertained by hundreds of the Medical Profession in every civilized country, and has nothing in it which on revision the writer sees cause to retract or modify. The superstitions it attacks lie at the very foundation of Homoeopathy, and of almost every form of medical charlatanism. Still the mere routinists and unthinking artisans in most callings ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... let us quarrel about it; I am ready to retract. Good-night, mademoiselle. Apropos, did you know that M. Camille Langis ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... yet, I was with this minister for an hour last night. He admires his ribbon, ring, and snuff-box, so much, that an excellent petit-maitre was spoiled, when he was made a minister. The sentiments of my heart have flown from my pen, and I cannot retract them." ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady—for one week, fare well." With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she thought ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... by the king's confession and communion, cunningly labored to counteract the same by the grossest misrepresentation. They related that the king, at the moment of his death, had spoken both as a Christian and an infidel revolutionist. They made him thus retract his retractation. "In all that I have done, I am conscious of having always fulfilled my duties as a citizen and a prince, and of having done nothing against the religion of my ancestors." As his conscience was thus at ease, for what ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... showed no disposition to retract, and she steadily resisted all Mrs. Bingley's solicitations to remain with her. She knew the risk she was running in leaving her situation, and yet she felt she must yield to an instinct like that which impels the hunted animal to leave the cover and seek safety in ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... now, the hypocrite that I am," he thought. "Alice Johnson never would forgive me. I can't retract now, not yet; I'm in ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... written 434. The chief Augustinians were Hilary and Prosper of Aquitaine. The discussion was not continuous. About 475 it broke out again when Lucidus was condemned at a council at Lyons and forced to retract his predestinarian views; and again about 520. The matter received what is regarded as its solution in the Council of Orange, 529, confirmed by Boniface II in 531. By the decrees of this council so much of the Augustinian ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... case the subjects or people of either party, with their shipping, whether publick and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity for seeking of shelter and harbor, to retract and enter into any of the rivers, creeks, bays, ports, roads or shores belonging to the other party, they shall be received with all humanity and kindness, and enjoy all friendly protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... shall give me satisfaction for this insult. Depend upon it, I am not one to be trifled with, as you shall find. You shall retract ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... pretensions, even though he should discover that they are false; and in resenting affronts with the utmost rigour, even when they were provoked by himself, he is taught, that it is his business to conquer in whatever cause, and that to desist from any of his attempts, or retract any of his assertions, is unworthy of a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... opinions on the American war are introduced, as if in his late work he had belied his conduct and opinions in the debates which arose upon that great event. On the American war he never had any opinions which he has seen occasion to retract, or which he has ever retracted. He, indeed, differs essentially from Mr. Fox as to the cause of that war. Mr. Fox has been pleased to say that the Americans rebelled "because they thought they had not enjoyed liberty enough." ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... disappointments were so heavy; the hopes which were blasted were so like my present ones, that the dread of a like result will intrude upon my thoughts. And now your dream! Indeed, I know not what to do. I believe I ought still to retract—ought, at least, to postpone an act ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Lyell. I feared I had been unreasonable.") When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us, and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... yet he has often wit, happy allusions, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this work? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... any conflict arises concerning what Hecker may have spoken or written, or any work or movement in which he may be engaged, to re-examine. If wrong, make him retract at once. If not, then ask: Is the question of that importance that it requires defence, and the upsetting of attacks? If not of this importance, then not to delay and perhaps jeopardize the progress of other works, and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... comply with my wishes and are willing to believe me innocent upon my word alone, and no longer yield to every suspicion, but blindly believe what my heart tells you; then this submission, this proof of esteem, shall cancel all your offences; I instantly retract what I said when excited by well-founded anger. And if hereafter I can choose for myself, without prejudicing what I owe to my birth, then my honour, being satisfied with the respect you so quickly show, promises to reward your love with my heart ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... no joy of that night's contract: it was too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it; meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her, and thought it time for her to be in bed, for it was near to daybreak; but hastily ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... horse, besides a vast host of foot. The sultan would now have delayed his expedition, as the enemy possessed all the ferries of the Kistnah, but that his tents were pitched, and it would have been disgraceful to retract from his declarations He therefore marched with 7000 horse, all foreign, and encamped on the bank of the river opposite to the enemy, waiting to prepare floats to ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... how he held out against the whole legislature and the public and proved himself right in the end. Old Judge Willis, the father of Doctor Hugh's father, once came near being lynched for a decision he made, but no howling mob could make him retract. As I tell Mrs. Willis, when she gets to worrying about the strong wills the girls have, it's worse not to have a mind of your own than to have too much; I'm not one to preach breaking anyone's will—bend it the right way, ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... they had the same right and liberty to protest that I have. A German physician told me plainly that he thought that within six months I would change my view, and with the new light go over to the position of his native land, and even thought that I might retract all my studies, that are apparently prejudiced in favor of the republic and self-government and the liberty of the press. Well, if I do change my views and am converted to his viewpoint, I certainly will retract my statements. But I think this improbable. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... perhaps a proof that Mr. Gryce is getting old, that he allowed these words to escape him. But having once given vent to them, he made no effort to retract them, but proceeded to take me into his confidence ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... him to give it up, papa went and concluded, what appeared to him, an excellent bargain, with the lawyer, who was too anxious to serve his employer, not to try and make light of the reports, and not only this, but to fix papa so, that he could not possibly retract. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... the Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has however determined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... endeavour to prevent litigious suits, and conciliate differences. And no suit is to be commenced before the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Ferris and the Earl thought of the man in Vienna who had once dared, and whom the gentle-mannered duellist before them had sent quickly to his own place, with no more time given than to retract his words and receive holy absolution. For in the Austria of that time two gentlemen took a priest as well as a doctor with them to the field of honour. Then Adam Ferris remembered his lonely house below the dark green pines and demanded with a sudden darkening of humour, "And ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... "The prisoner can retract that declaration, if he please," remarked another judge. "His confession, if taken, goes fully to prove ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount was one.(384) The mention of two of the papers in it will explain the views intended. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs, we retract our first sentiment, and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil. Giving alms to common beggars is naturally praised; because it seems to carry relief to the distressed and indigent; but when we observe ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved his hand and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Xenophon), whom, as he says, "the Asiaticks, conversing with the Father of European History, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express." A nearer acquaintance with the great epic bard of Persia had now taught him therefore to retract the assertion he had made in his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, that "the hero, as it is called, of the poem, was that well known Hercules of the Persians, named Rustem; although there are several other heroes, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... hero whose fame stands in the records of a dozen battles, and at least half as many bloody duels. Besides, he is the favorite emissary and bosom friend of Houston. If I have the good fortune to kill him, I think it will tempt the president to retract his vow against venturing any more ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... am much grieved to have to retract the permission which in my letter of yesterday I said I would give to Lord Westmorland.[39] When I said so, I had not received the opinion of the Ministers, which I have since done, and this is, I am sorry to say, conclusive against it. I quite overlooked one very important ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... avail you nothing," replied Marcello. "Your sleeping confessions, although you may now wish to retract them, are yet sufficient grounds for the tribunal to go upon, and the most excruciating tortures will be used, if needful, to procure their waking confirmation. Reflect, Dansowich," continued the Proveditore in a persuasive and gentle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... licentiousness; the others are influenced by their consciences, above all, by their esprit de corps and a point of honor. Most of the cures rally around this staff of officers. In the diocese of Besancon,[2278] out of fourteen hundred priests, three hundred take the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty retract. In the department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the department of Lozere, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty." It is stated positively," writes the best informed of all observers that everywhere in France two-thirds of the ecclesiastics have refused the oath, or have ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... between the mendicant and other orders was revived towards the end of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass, who maintained opinions still more extreme than those of Fitz-Ralph; but he was compelled publicly and solemnly to retract them before Commissioners appointed for that purpose ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... holy—for it was a human—image; he had resigned her, and he repented. The light of day served, if not to dissipate, at least to sober, the turbulence and fervor of the preceding night. But was it indeed too late to retract his resolve? "Too late!" terrible words! Of what do we not repent, when the Ghost of the Deed returns to us to say, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trap (compare the similar trap which is laid for Theodorus). 'Then, Theaetetus, you will have to be examined, for Theodorus has been praising you in a style of which I never heard the like.' 'He was only jesting.' 'Nay, that is not his way; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent which you have already given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him what he learns ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... satisfactory manner. Mrs. Cohen seconded the nomination of William J. Bryan. A newspaper correspondent published a sensational story in regard to her bold and noisy behavior, but afterwards he was compelled to retract publicly every word of it and admit that it had ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... I retract my wishes about crying, for when I do begin, I cry in such a very disagreeable way—no spring shower, but a perfect tempest of tears. Philip's unexpected generosity upset me, and I sobbed till I frightened him, and he said I was hysterical. The absurdity ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... who exercises a limited power, may err without causing great mischief in the State. Congress may decide amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of the moral sublime is to be found than in the bearing of Luther before the Imperial Diet in the city of Worms. He was confronted by the chief dignitaries of Church and Empire. The emperor himself, Charles V, was present. "Will you, or will you not, retract?" solemnly demanded the speaker of the Diet. "Unless," replied the intrepid reformer, "unless I am convinced by the testimony of Holy Scripture or by clear and indisputable reasoning, I cannot, and will not, retract anything; for it is unsafe for a Christian to do anything against his conscience. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... 3: As the knowledge of God's essence is by grace, it belongs only to the good; but the knowledge of Him by natural reason can belong to both good and bad; and hence Augustine says (Retract. i), retracting what he had said before: "I do not approve what I said in prayer, 'God who willest that only the pure should know truth.' For it can be answered that many who are not pure can know many truths," i.e. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... and general tone of management we have nothing to retract, nothing to alter. History is Truth, or it is a mere delusion. The discovery and the establishment of Historical Truth, in all its branches, are our objects, and we shall continue to pursue them, as we have done in times past, faithfully and honestly, but, ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... "I do not retract my opinion. What the Rajah really is I don't pretend to know, but I am quite sure that the character of a smiling host is not his real one, and that for some reason or other he ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the article on 'Edgeworth's Patronage,' I have gotten a high compliment, I perceive. Whether this is creditable to me, I know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. Many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or can praise the man it has once attacked. I have often, since my return to England, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. I admire him for this—not because he has ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... at his indifference, but fearing that he would retract his unexpected permission, was again in the draught ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... to the west by the entrance to a field which partly belonged to the property, while the shorter side was bounded to the north by the house of Ittabsi, and to the south by the house of Likimm, were signed and sealed by Nebo-usatu, who pledged himself not to retract the deed or make any subsequent claim, and they were then handed over to Nebo-liu." The troubles of the latter, however, were not yet at an end. "Ilu-rabu-bel-sant, Sennacherib, and Labasu, the sons of Rakhaz the [priest] of ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... earliest utterances of modern Philosophy, and one which it has never found reason to retract, that the Self which knows can and does know itself better than aught else whatsoever, and in that knowledge can without end make confident and sure-footed advance. To itself the Self is the most certain and the most knowable of all realities—with this ...
— Progress and History • Various
... polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra del Fuego endeavoured to explain that their friend, the captain of a sealing ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer[875], are not so formidable; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... cigar. So matters went on for nearly a year. I became a morose and melancholy man. This will account for all the bitter and ill-natured things I said of the Germans in some of my sketches, every word of which I now retract. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... I very well know that I cannot attack so many without rendering myself obnoxious to some, especially those whose histories are already finished and made public; even if what I say should be approved by them, it would be madness to expect that they should retract anything or alter that which had been once established and, as it were, laid up in royal repositories. It may not be amiss, however, to give them these instructions, that in case of another war, the Getae against the Gauls, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... go. Will you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... they entered into it with pleasure. Could Anne have foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but, from some feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was too late to retract, and the whole six set forward together in the direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently considered the walk as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the designer himself—as one of the 'illustrators' of the 'Miscellany'? Let Mr. Bentley but produce a single design for the 'Miscellany,' by 'Cruikshank the Younger' (by him so-called), and I will retract this indignant disclaimer and apologise. If Mr. Bentley cannot do this, he stands self-convicted of an attempt to impose upon the public by a mystification, for purposes as ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... has put me in charge of a girl," she wrote, "considering that I have never got on well with women, or had much to do with them. However, I must retract some of the things that I have said against them. If they were properly educated I don't see why they shouldn't be much the same as men—as satisfactory I mean; though, of course, very different. The question ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... me almost unawares, yet I did not wish to retract it. She was behaving so nobly and generously toward us both, that I was willing to do any thing ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder 400 DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms 410 DA ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... rare, erect carriage, and eyes of a strange, violet-gray, full of much meaning. This was all Pinckney had time to note; it was no one he had ever seen before. He had gone up like a hunter, sure of his game, and too far in it to retract. The embarrassment of the situation was such that Pinckney forgot all his cleverness of manner, and blurted out ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... frankness evidently embarrassing to all present, Mr HAGERUP pointed out the two only possible alternatives with reference to the decision; to retract, or to rupture. The latter alternative he evidently found most acceptable, and in Norway's real interest, he warned them as to what the issue might be. He proposed that the decision with respect to these eventualities—which might exceed both the Constitution and the Act of Union—should ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... on his knees at her feet. "Anything but that. I apologize, I retract; I will do penance; I will even eat ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... perverse creatures in this world, a woman who has thoroughly committed herself to any man, or any cause, is the least tractable and reasonable. I hope this statement will not offend my sweet friends, because it is so true that I cannot conscientiously retract it. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... her dangling in his power. "No, Gwendoline," he said slowly, drawing his words out by driblets, so as to prolong her suspense, "I oughtn't to have mentioned it at all. It's a professional secret. I retract what I said. Forget that I said it. Excuse me on the ground of my natural reluctance to see a woman I still love so deeply and so purely—whatever she may happen to think of ME—throw herself away on a man without a name or a penny. However, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... pace up and down his chamber, Hannah's argument came back to him with new energy. He felt with a kind of panic that his confident answer to her might have been wrong. When a girl appeared in the archway, he moved impulsively toward her, as if to retract the command that would send her out into this land that the Lord had spoken against, but the strength and repose in her ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... abjure, discontinue, quit, retire from, cast off, forego, recant, retract, cease, forsake, relinquish, surrender, cede, forswear, renounce, vacate, depart from, give up, repudiate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... firmly. "This is no time for dealing with such a matter. I have enough on my hands to keep the enemy at a distance, and I want every one's help. But as soon as we are relieved— if we ever are—I am bound, unless Captain Roby and the corporal retract all they have said and attribute it to delirium—I am bound, I say, to call the attention of my superiors to the matter. I shall do so unwillingly, but I must. Out of respect to your brother officers, ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's disadvantage were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I retract what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and particularly beg his pardon for my ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... due season of repentance the gifts of His good grace, steadfastness of faith, loftiness of hope, and the widest charity to all men. That He may turn our haughty will to lament its faults, that it may deplore its past most vain elations, may retract its most bitter indignations, and detest its most insane delectations. That His virtue may abound in us, when our own is found wanting, and that He who freely consecrated our beginning by the sacrament of baptism, and advanced our progress ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ against ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... will retract what you insinuated had become of it? I'll willingly make it up to you, if it takes every cent I earn; but I'll not have a blight upon my reputation, even in your ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... foolish speech was severely handled by Mansfield. In the commons Alderman Beckford, a hot-headed admirer of Chatham, said that "if the public was in danger the king had a dispensing power," and was forced by Grenville to retract his words. The debates on this matter injured the reputation of the ministry though they ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... shrinking from visitors; and Bessie infused into her praise and congratulations a hint that a refusal would have been much against Alick's reputation, so that she resolved to keep up to the mark, even though he took care that she should know that she might yet retract. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any one be surprised at Deronda's concluding that she wished him to join her? Perhaps she wanted to make amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his recommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went to her side ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the thirty-nine articles, and consequently the Athanasian creed, and what I had done it became me to defend. This is the maxim of all people, who think it more worthy their dignity to be consistent in error than to forget self, revere truth, and retract. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... wrong that's been done needs a more radical remedy than you or I could bring to it. Bienville has lied, and I must force him to retract. Nothing else can ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... set forth to argue the matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady to be brought down.' ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that Count Schwarzenberg is so inimically disposed toward the Electoral Prince ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... my dear Haller," said Ransom, "I retract all. I assure you my remarks were only made upon the spur of the moment, when I was angry ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... himself. Bowyer's Commentaries, 355, note. Upon a simple and plain confession, the court hath nothing to do but to award judgment; but it is usually very backward in receiving and recording such confession out of tenderness to the life of the subject; and will generally advise the prisoner to retract it and plead to the indictment. 4 Blackst. Comm. 329. 2 ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... Without preamble, I said, 'I have the honour of speaking to Mr Orlando Jones, I believe?' 'Who told you my name, sir?' he exclaimed, starting to his feet in great alarm: then, perceiving the mistake he had made in thus proving his own identity, he tried to retract, but stammered and broke down. I proceeded quietly to demand the restoration of the papers and jewels, fraudulently carried off by him from Mr Popham's office at Ragusa. He tried to shuffle off the charge. 'Very well,' said I, 'do as you please, but mark me, I am empowered by his ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... which was offered to him: perhaps he had suffered from sea-sickness. I indulged him twice a week with some lavender water put into a cup made of stiff paper, but never allowed him to have it when his claws were pushed forth; so that he learned to retract them at my bidding. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... was afterwards restored, and died in 1800. Kleman wrote a book, in 1774, on the Connection between Grace and Duty, in which he held that the right use of those intellectual and spiritual gifts which God has imparted to us is the condition of his further blessings. He was compelled to retract his heresy. Ten Broek, of Rotterdam, considered only the death of Christ expiatory, while his colleagues wished the same to be said of every act of his life. Because that rash theologian ventured ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... question has been set at rest. Hilgenfeld, who had hitherto been a determined advocate of the negative theory, at once gave up his ground [Endnote 288:1]; and Volkmar, who had somewhat less to retract, admitted and admits [Endnote 288:2] that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be considered as proved. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' stands alone in still resisting this conviction [Endnote 288:3], but the result I suspect will be only to show in stronger ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... had loved each other. Underneath all that roughness of speech and violence of statement, there was great tenderness and understanding. He spoke his mind, and more than his mind, but he was generous and quick to retract and quicker to console. "I'm an Ulsterman," he said once. "Ulster to the marrow, an' begod I'm proud ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Zoom by a new sort of conveyance; by way of variety we "voitured" it, viz., hired a carriage, driver, and horses for Breda on our way to Amsterdam. It was a nice sort of Gig Phaeton, with comfortable seats for 4, the Driver on the front bench. I fear I must retract what I said in the beginning of this letter, as to the decided change in houses and people here. It was most conspicuous about Malines, but on this road there was nothing remarkable one way or ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... which I have since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. But under this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... remain silent if his opponents were forced to do likewise. He promised, too, that if Miltitz wrote advising the Pope to appoint a German bishop to try the case and to convince him of his error he would be willing to retract his theses, to submit to the Church, and to advise all his supporters to remain loyal to the Holy See. At the same time he prepared a letter for transmission to Rome, in which he addressed the Pope in the most respectful terms, declaring as ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... caused the death of an immense number of animals. Several of these persons were taken up, and they owned that they carried such powders about with them and though they made them suffer various tortures, they could not force them to retract what ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... she was certainly altered by the air of Paris. How very much she had improved in appearance and manner! He had never before thought her so very beautiful as many others had done—but he must now retract all he had ever said on the subject. He supposed the good taste with which she was dressed must have some effect; but it seemed as if her beauty were now in its perfection. When he last saw her, there was something almost childish in her appearance ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Mr. Peter Finnerty received the judgment of the Court of King's Bench, for a libel upon Lord Castlereagh. There never was a man who stood upon the floor of the Court for judgment who made a more able or a more brave defence than he did; he did not retract one sentence, one syllable of the original publication, but, on the contrary, he produced affidavits to prove the truth of every word that he had published about Lord Castlereagh's cruelty to the people of Ireland, when he was in power, at the Castle of Dublin. The Attorney-General, Sir Vicary ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." Several of his disciples were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to follow him. Jesus did not retract; he only added: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." The twelve remained faithful, notwithstanding this strange preaching. It gave to Cephas, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... through the hot morning. His big guns have suddenly become nervously active. Then, a little murmur along the pits and trenches, and from somewhere over behind us, this air-shark drives up the sky. The enemy's balloons splutter a little, retract, and go rushing down, and we send a spray of bullets as they drop. Then against our aerostat, and with the wind driving them clean overhead of us, come the antagonistic flying-machines. I incline to imagine there will be a steel prow with a cutting edge at either end of ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... those clasped hands, and raising herself in her bed, fixed her eyes earnestly upon Cecilia, and asked,—"Would you, Cecilia—tell me, would you if it were now, this moment, in your power—would you retract your confession?" ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment—"But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... "If he will retract," was my condition. And Chaves went to see my enemy. What passed between them, what Vasquez may have told him, what he may have added to those rumours of my relations with Anne, I do not know. But I know that from that date there was a change in the King's attitude ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia, immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish one of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... proof of your good faith to-night, and we are again joined in heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you to-morrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?" ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... has put so bewitching a Mixture together, of the Rais'd with the Natural, and the Soft with the Strong and the Eloquent—-thatnever Sentiments were finer, and fuller of Life! never any were utter'd so sweetly!—-Even in what relates to the pious and frequent Addresses to God, I now retract (on these two last Revisals) the Consent I half gave, on a former, to the anonymous Writer's Proposal, who advis'd the Author to shorten those Beauties.——Whoever considers his Pamela with a View to find Matter for Censure, is in the Condition of a passionate Lover, who breaks in ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... sorcerers were executed. Thus only the truthful and conscientious suffered from the effects of this odious insanity. Some among the wretched people who had confessed witchcraft showed a subsequent disposition to retract. A man named Samuel Wardmell, having solemnly recanted his former statement, was tried, condemned, and executed. Despite this terrible warning, a few others followed the conscientious but fatal example. Every one of the sufferers during this ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... How dare you pollute that holy name, Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink it ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... freedom or with frankness lend; His money built the Jail, nor prisoner yet Sits at his ease, but he must feel the debt; To these let candour add his vast display; Around his mansion all is grand and gay, And this is bounty with the name of pay." I grant the whole, nor from one deed retract, But wish recorded too the private act: All these were great, but still our hearts approve Those simpler tokens of the Christian love; 'Twould give me joy some gracious deed to meet That has not call'd for glory through the street: ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... great dramatic effect, he declares that the grand scene between the prophet and Fides in the third act, where John of Leyden, by the sheer force of intonation of voice and play of feature, forces his mother to retract her recognition of him and to fall at his feet, was created, so to speak, by Madame Viardot and himself on the inspiration of the moment and without any preliminary conference or arrangement. How wonderful this fine dramatic situation appeared when interpreted by these two great artists, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me not into the insane asylum. I will retract all; I will believe that all this is false; ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was too late to retract, Rigdon perceived with dismay that, instead of acquiring a silly bondsman, he had subjected himself to a superior will; he was now himself a slave, bound by fear and interest, his two great guides through life. Smith consequently became, instead of Rigdon, "the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... throat by his own phrase, could not proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as his age permitted, from the bed-chamber, shut the door ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he never consulted me—I never"——but here she checked herself, as perhaps she considered that the vehemence of her denial might be construed into something very like an anxiety to retract it; and whether this was the construction put on it or not, all we have to say is, that on Miss Alice Smith slipping quietly into the room, with a volume of the Scottish Chiefs in her hand, she almost screamed, as she saw a stranger seated on the sofa beside her niece, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... likewise the vehemence of the Republican leaders who crowded around their candidate and tried to get him to retract that Question. He listened quietly, he answered with a patient smile. Now and then he threw a story into the midst of this discussion which made them laugh in spite of themselves. The hopelessness of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... essence is to expand a place within its own sphere of activity. One of them will necessarily nullify the other, for every existing thing aims at the greatest possible development of its own forces. A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing comedy with comedy the least perilous and the most advantageous administration is found in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... stubborn fact from a new angle, it is amazing how all its contours and edges change shape! Immediately my dishpan began to glow with a kind of philosophic halo! The warm, soapy water became a sovereign medicine to retract hot blood from the head; the homely act of washing and drying cups and saucers became a symbol of the order and cleanliness that man imposes on the unruly world about him. I tore down my book rack and reading lamp from over ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... public retraction before the whole ship's company. I therefore insist upon your retracting what you have said.' 'Certainly, sir,' replied the youngster. 'Mr. Owen,' continued he, turning to the master, 'I said that you were not fit to carry guts to a bear. I was in the wrong, and I retract with pleasure, for I am perfectly satisfied that you are fit to carry them.' 'Sir!' cried the captain. 'Oh, Captain G——!' interrupted the master, who did not take the joke, 'I'm perfectly satisfied. The young gentleman sees his error, and has retracted; I ask no more.' 'If you ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... quarrel about it; I am ready to retract. Good-night, mademoiselle. Apropos, did you know that M. Camille Langis ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the last assertion disproves the first!" I replied; "but I retract, I will not, even for the sake of a syllogism, abuse my own sex; women are never envious except when men make them so, by casting down among them the golden ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... at this contempt of his authority, got his hat with the intention of compelling her to return and retract, in their presence, what she had said; but the daughter, being the more light-footed of the two, reached home before he could overtake her, where, backed by her mother, she maintained her resolution, and succeeded, ere long, in bringing ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... it, men, and be damned to you! The man 's a hero; 't was cleverly done," roared the captain, excitedly. "I retract. Give it to him, boys! Give it to the impudent ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Choose now, and abide by that choice without a shadow of turning, as I abide by mine. Take me as I am; help me willingly and unwillingly; and in the end receive the promised gift—years like the days you have called heaven upon earth. Or retract the vows you plighted, receive again the heart and name you gave me, and live unvexed by the stormy nature time alone can tame. Here is the ring. Shall I ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... the bad!' This is a bit of Faraday's innermost nature; and as I read these words I am almost constrained to retract what I have said regarding the fire and excitability of his character. But is he not all the more admirable, through his ability to tone down and subdue that fire and that excitability, so as to render himself able ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... and by whom he was dissuaded from his present courses. But all the persuasion and argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract; but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone, and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff, whose authority ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... interruption, the principal persons of the colony held a meeting after church and decided that the preaching of such revolutionary doctrines must be silenced. They repaired to the monastery to make their protest, and to demand that Fray Antonio should retract or modify his words the following Sunday. The Prior received the angry deputation and, after listening to their demands, informed them that the discourse preached by Fray Antonio represented the sentiments of the entire Dominican community and had been pronounced ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... which controls every other interest, and an attachment to her authority which no other influence can supplant. If in anything published by us a passage can be found which is contrary to that doctrine, incompatible with that devotion, or disrespectful to that authority, we sincerely retract and lament it. No such passage was ever consciously admitted into the pages either of the late Rambler or of this Review. But undoubtedly we may have committed errors in judgment, and admitted errors of fact; such mistakes are unavoidable ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... there is no need for me to speak, John. This can all be settled in a few hours, when I have denounced father to his face, and compelled him to retract." ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... replying to me: consider on the one hand, this man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn; there is still time to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as your former companion ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the past, gentlemen, I have perhaps a little to explain, but certainly nothing to repent or to retract. My opinions, from the day on which I entered public life, have never varied. I have always considered the principle of protection of agriculture as a vicious principle. I have always thought that this vicious principle took, in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not know whether she was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... own betise as it left his lips, and felt the immeasurable depth of it, but he had not time to retract before every personal consideration was wiped from his mind by a cry from Isabel in a very different accent—"Lawrence! oh! look at ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... solicitation of the Protestants, the government ordered its demolition. The municipal officers of Paris declined to obey, because it had not been erected by them; the parliament, because, as they alleged, the sentence was just and they could not retract; the Provost of Paris, because he was not above parliament, which had placed it there.[808] Charles himself wrote with his own hand to the provost: "You deliberate whether to obey me, and whether you will have ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... resolution[509] calling for a report from the government on "all negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... accommodate either her mind or her person to a residence such as was here to be obtained and she only wished Mr Monckton had been present, that he might himself be convinced of the impracticability of his scheme. Her whole business, therefore, now, was to retract her offer, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... hurriedly press my suit, but any post may bring me orders to leave the coast, never again to return. Your own words betrayed me into uttering a prayer I might not otherwise have ventured so soon to urge; but now it has been made, do not compel me to retract it." ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... letter, which gave as his reason disinclination to step into the cabinet over the bodies of his friends. It seems that Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne, who assists him, sent Canning to Lord Aberdeen to invoke his aid with Cardwell and prevail on him to retract. But Lord Aberdeen, though he told Canning that he disapproved (at variance here with what Graham and I considered to be his tone on Monday, but agreeing with a note he wrote in obscure terms the next morning), said he could not ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Majesty's pardon,' said Berenger, anxious to retract his false step. 'It was your goodness and the gracious Queen's that made me ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pass the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... a confident and told two schoolfellows who were brothers, I could not keep it to myself, and was indeed proud though ashamed to speak of the pleasure. They both had bigger pricks than mine, and never had jeered at me because I could not retract my prepuce easily. Soon after they came to see me, we all went into the garden, each pulled my prepuce back, I theirs, and then we all ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... to dissuade me from my design. They said no one would accompany me, for it was quite a tempest. I replied that I would pay those handsomely who would go with me. A person present asked me if I would give him three guineas for a boat. I replied I would. He could not for shame retract. He went out, and in about half an hour brought a person with him. We were obliged to have a lanthorn as far as the boat. We got on board, and went off. But such a passage I had never before witnessed. The wind was furious. The waves ran high. I could see nothing but white foam. The ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... the Jesuit Suarez in his reply to a Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings by the James I.; and a Spanish monk who had asserted it in Madrid, under Philip II., was compelled by the Inquisition to retract it publicly in the place where he had asserted it. All republicans reject it, and the Church has never sanctioned it. The Sovereign Pontiffs have claimed and exercised the right to deprive princes of their principality, and to absolve their subjects from the oath of fidelity. Whether the ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... posesiones e prematicas- senciones, e usos e costumbres, ca en cuanto a est oatane yo los abrogo e derogo." (Marina, Teoria, tom. ii. p. 216.) This was the very essence of despotism, and John found it expedient to retract these expressions, on the subsequent remonstrance ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... that she was in love, she was certainly very quiet about it; but the Doctor was of course prepared to admit that her quietness might mean volumes. She had told Morris Townsend that she would not mention him to her father, and she saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion. It was no more than decently civil, of course, that after having dined in Washington Square, Morris should call there again; and it was no more than natural that, having been ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... in his final answer before the Emperor at Worms is generally believed to state Luther's position on the question of religious liberty in a nutshell. "Unless convinced by the Word of God or by cogent reason" that he was wrong, he declared at the Diet of Worms, he could not and would not retract what he had written. The individual conscience, he maintained, cannot be bound. Each man must determine the meaning of the Word for himself. And the inevitable result of this principle is individual liberty. This principle Luther maintained to the end of his life. His ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... unfortunate man to the galleys. You mean to live on with this thought in your heart, that the man whom you love is innocent, and nevertheless, disgraced forever, and cut off from human society. A priest might induce the count to retract his statement, you know very well; and hence you refuse to let the priest from Brechy come to his bedside. And what is the end and aim of all your crimes? To save your false reputation as an honest woman. Ah! that is miserable; that ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... first letter regarding Mayer, stated his belief that I should not find anything very important in Mayer's writings; but before forwarding the memoirs to me he read them himself. His letter accompanying them contains the following words: 'I must here retract the statement in my last letter, that you would not find much matter of importance in Mayer's writings: I am astonished at the multitude of beautiful and correct thoughts which they contain;' and he goes on to point out various important ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... it, Mr. Johnson withdrew from the commission, declaring that he should be happy to find congress inclined to retract their former declaration, and to negotiate with others on terms equally conducive to the happiness of both countries. This declaration was accompanied by one signed by the other commissioners, in which, without admitting the construction put by congress on his letters, or ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... savage ancestors found it necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick to a falsehood before the teacher or other inquisitors, only to retract and "go to pieces" when obliged to answer his mother. It has been shown over and over again that children even well along in the teens consider it quite right to tell one story to a teacher or to another child who is disliked, and a different story to one that is ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... to a spirit of persecution. This was the true reason that the lad's youthful rashness of speech was treated as so grave an offence. Brainerd's spirit was up. Probably he saw no cause to alter his opinion as to Mr. Whittlesey's amount of grace, and he stoutly refused to retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council of ministers who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his restoration, but were refused, the authorities deeming themselves well rid ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... that agreement is written by the contracting parties themselves, or, if written by some one else, is at least signed by them, or finally, if written by a notary, is duly drawn by him and executed by the parties. So long as any of these requirements is unsatisfied, there is room to retract, and either purchaser or vendor may withdraw from the agreement with impunity—provided, that is to say, that no earnest has been given. Where earnest has been given, and either party refuses to perform the contract, that party, whether the agreement ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... Volume; as to which he can only say, in addition to a reference to the general authority given by the Author, that to the best of his knowledge and judgment he has not permitted any thing to appear before the public which Mr. Coleridge saw reason to retract; and further express his hope and belief that, with such allowance for defects inherent in the nature of the work as may rightfully be expected from every really liberal mind, nothing contained in the following pages can fairly be a ground ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... preached a sermon which one of his auditors commended. "Yes," said the gentleman to whom it was mentioned, "it was a good sermon, but he stole it." This was repeated to the preacher, who resented it, and called on the gentleman to retract. "I will," replied the aggressor. "I said you had stolen the sermon. I find I was wrong, for on referring to the book whence I thought it was ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, of immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, when ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... not retract! No! Not a single sentence! I have told the truth. This woman not satisfied with the South's bloody record since the war, is clamoring and whining like a she wolf for more human sacrifices, and an increased flow of human blood. She is unmercifully pounding a helpless and defenseless ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil aforesaid for the use of the Company; and wholly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... thing you have proposed?" he added, in a different tone. "It's not too late to retract, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... was charged (February 21, 1905) before a ward bishop's court in Ogden with "un-Christianlike conduct and apostasy," after two minor Church officials had called upon me at my home and received my acknowledgment of the authorship of the editorials, my refusal to retract them, and my statement that I did not "sustain" Joseph F. Smith as head of the Church, since he was "leaving the worship of God for the worship of Mammon and leading the people astray." On the night ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... articles, and consequently the Athanasian creed, and what I had done it became me to defend. This is the maxim of all people, who think it more worthy their dignity to be consistent in error than to forget self, revere truth, and retract. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Hierocles in the fourth century, to disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount was one.(384) The mention of two of the papers in it will explain the views intended. One is on natural ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... warmest advocates for the petition point out any part of it that relates to this single clause, and I will retract my assertion; but as it appears that there are only general declarations of the inexpediency of the measures proposed, and the pernicious tendency of the methods now in use, what is the petition, but a complaint against the bill, and a request ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... right to their expression. It is now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Green: "ay, sir, how soon afterwards? After the deed was done, ha? or after I was so far committed that I could not retract? And let me ask you, why it was that I was not to be informed till afterwards, when every other person here present knew it long before—I, who remained by the bloody waters of the Boyne when you ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... yet. Let ME go to the elector. We are intimate friends, and I will persuade him to retract his ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done. I can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood which ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the loss of the Titanic, in the number of The English Review for May, 1912. I will admit that the motives of the investigation may have been excellent, and probably were; my criticism bore mainly on matters of form and also on the point of efficiency. In that respect I have nothing to retract. The Senators of the Commission had absolutely no knowledge and no practice to guide them in the conduct of such an investigation; and this fact gave an air of unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... Mrs. Levison, his grandmother, that ancient lady who must now be bordering upon ninety, she warned me. The night before my wedding day, she came on purpose to tell me that if I married Francis Levison I should rue it for life. There was yet time to retract she said. Yes; there would have been time; but there was no will. I would not listen to either. I was led away by vanity, by folly, by something worse—the triumphing over my own sister. Poor Blanche! But which has ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... been charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent and nothing to conceal—nothing to retract and nothing to countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which charge others with ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... others will be sold before the next are ready, what says Curly? remember I have advised you not to risk it a second time, and it is not too late to retract. However, you must abide by your ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... "I should like to retract my refusal of your very kind invitation for to-morrow evening. I have explained to you my weak avoidance of crowds. I have determined to overcome it in this case, and I want your ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... time of our parting drew near, Lord B— became gloomy and discontented, and even entreated me to postpone my resolution; but I told him, that now everything was prepared for my reception, I could not retract without incurring the imputation of folly and extravagance. On the very day of my departure, Mr. B— endeavoured, with all the arguments he could suggest, to dissuade me from my purpose; and I made use of the same answer which had satisfied ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... preamble, I said, 'I have the honour of speaking to Mr Orlando Jones, I believe?' 'Who told you my name, sir?' he exclaimed, starting to his feet in great alarm: then, perceiving the mistake he had made in thus proving his own identity, he tried to retract, but stammered and broke down. I proceeded quietly to demand the restoration of the papers and jewels, fraudulently carried off by him from Mr Popham's office at Ragusa. He tried to shuffle off the charge. 'Very well,' said I, 'do as you please, but mark ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... primary emotion, is one of the basic reactions of life and civilization. Literally "disagreeable taste," its facial expression, with mouth open and lower lip drawn down,[1] is that preliminary to vomiting. We eject or retract when disgusted; we are not afraid nor are we angry. We say "he—or she, or it—makes me sick," and this is the stock phrase of disgust. Inelegant as it is, it exactly expresses the situation. Disgust easily mingles with fear and anger; it is often dispelled by curiosity and interest, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... creatures would be the better for it. So far all was well enough. But personally—was this entire self-abnegation necessary?—was he fulfilling his duty to himself? was he not rather sacrificing his future to a prejudice—an idea? In any case he knew that it was too late to retract. He had renounced his proper position in life, it was too late for him now to claim it. And there had gone with it—Sybil. After all, why should he arrogate to himself judgment? The sins of his father were not his concern. It was chiefly he who suffered by his present attitude, yet he ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scorn to do, and not satisfied with that, visited your petty spite upon a girl who is the soul of truth and honor. You may say what you choose about me, but you shall not hurt Grace, and if you don't immediately retract what you have written I will take measures which may prove most unpleasant ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... or people of either party, with their shipping, whether publick and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity for seeking of shelter and harbor, to retract and enter into any of the rivers, creeks, bays, ports, roads or shores belonging to the other party, they shall be received with all humanity and kindness, and enjoy all friendly protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... exclaimed Claudia haughtily, "I demand that you retract your words. You know them to be as false—as false as— yourself. They could not ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... at me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... good faith to-night, and we are again joined in heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you to-morrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?" ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... lord and Elector, I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that Count ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... been her accomplice, who now, being touched of God, was very penitent, I thought it best for me to suffer and be silent. There was a very pious man who knew all her history, from the beginning to the end of it, who wrote to her, that if she did not retract her lies, he would publish the account of her wicked life, to make known both her gross iniquity and my innocence. She continued some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, with many other falsehoods. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... he said, still addressing Estella, 'it is probably a matter of indifference to you, as it is merely an opinion expressed by myself which I wish to retract. When I first had the pleasure of meeting you, I took it upon myself to speak of a guest in your father's house, fortunately in the presence of that guest himself, and I now wish to tell you that what I said does not apply to Frederick Conyngham himself, but to another whom Conyngham is screening. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... only one confession which I care to hear. You made it once, though you are not willing to repeat it. But I have your word, Sylvia; I am content. Not all the world could make me believe that you would willingly retract that word." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... reprieve, as none but the supposed impenitent sorcerers were executed. Thus only the truthful and conscientious suffered from the effects of this odious insanity. Some among the wretched people who had confessed witchcraft showed a subsequent disposition to retract. A man named Samuel Wardmell, having solemnly recanted his former statement, was tried, condemned, and executed. Despite this terrible warning, a few others followed the conscientious but fatal example. Every one of the sufferers ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... is annihilated; and merit, more than manners, raises men to the highest stations. Besides, it is a presumption inherent in the Parisians to believe that they never can be mistaken. To reason with them on taste is useless; it is impossible to compel them to retract when they have ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... an imputation upon me, Jocelyn Mounchensey," he cried with concentrated fury, "which you shall be compelled to retract as publicly as you have made it. To insult an officer of the Crown, in the discharge of his duty, is to insult the Crown itself, as you will find. In the King's name, I command you to hold your peace, or, in the King's name, I will instantly arrest you; and I forbid any one ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... ain' able to git de—I was detain'." Zeke had learned from experience and considerable instinct to hedge his utterances about with much generality. It was a good principle. It meant less to retract. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... rest assured, his tale ran thus at first, Nor can he now retract what then he said; Not I alone but all our townsfolk heard it. E'en should he vary somewhat in his story, He cannot make the death of Laius In any wise jump with the oracle. For Loxias said expressly he was doomed To die by my child's hand, but he, poor babe, He shed no blood, but perished ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Drinks of distemper, or has cause to cry Repentance to his liberty. No, thou knowest order, ethics, and has read All economics, know'st to lead A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show How far a figure ought to go, Forward or backward, sideward, and what pace Can give, and what retract a grace; What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees With those thy primitive decrees, To give subsistence to thy house, and proof What Genii support thy roof, Goodness and Greatness; not the oaken piles; For these and marbles ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fie, what a superfluity of man's time,—if you could think so! Enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. O the corroding torturing tormenting thoughts, that disturb the Brain of the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance. Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment, look upon them as Lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close but unharassing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... found than in the bearing of Luther before the Imperial Diet in the city of Worms. He was confronted by the chief dignitaries of Church and Empire. The emperor himself, Charles V, was present. "Will you, or will you not, retract?" solemnly demanded the speaker of the Diet. "Unless," replied the intrepid reformer, "unless I am convinced by the testimony of Holy Scripture or by clear and indisputable reasoning, I cannot, and will not, retract anything; ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... serve to enrich you; but the other hundred and ninety pieces, which you would make me believe you hid in a pot of bran, might." "Sir," answered I, "I have told you the truth in regard to both sums: you would not have me retract, to make ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... shall reprove me, and shall make it apparent unto me, that in any either opinion or action of mine I do err, I will most gladly retract. For it is the truth that I seek after, by which I am sure that never any man was hurt; and as sure, that he is hurt that continueth in any error, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... possible offender in mind," replied Mr. Morton more evenly. "In a case of this kind we must proceed with such absolute caution and reserve that we will not be obliged to retract afterwards in deep ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... over he came to her to retract it. "I cannot be so unfeeling, so unneighbourly, as not to call," he said. "Even were my relations not what they are with Miss Ashton, I could not do it. It's of no use talking, ma'am; I am too restless to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the government on "all negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... as such, not cover quite all the cases, for I find that sometimes the visualization is absent in other areas as well, and also the holding of an emotion of pleasure or pain and of other dominating mental attitudes that are sometimes visualized would not, therefore, be included. I would therefore retract the broader claim in order to place the term on a conservative basis and call the essence of the lesion simply no more or less than a Centre Asthenia. As well as visual Asthenia, the following terms might be considered as applicable: ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... the task I set myself in this treatise. [20:5] (83) It remains only to call attention to the fact that I have written nothing which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and approval of my country's rulers; and that I am willing to retract anything which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws, or prejudicial to the public good. (84) I know that I am a man, and as a man liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and have striven to keep in entire accordance with ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... into the accounts left us of those governments which were in their infancy, and, of course in the least complicated state, to attempt to discover their foundation: he cannot say therefore, that upon a very minute perusal of the excellent work before quoted, he has been so far convinced, as to retract in the least from his sentiments on this head, and to give up maxims, which are drawn from historical facts, for those, which are the result of speculation. He may observe here, that whether government ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... the Guard looked at them, then they looked at Grey Dick and gave him a wide berth. Also Ambrosio said something about having offered to fight a man and not a fiend. But it was too late to retract, for the Doge, taking, as was natural, no share in this small matter, had already left ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... only Mr. Page's features and his shirt front, but his whole personality seemed to stiffen. He sat up and made an outward movement on the seat of his chair which signified, "My hat and overcoat are in the hall, and if you do not at once retract——" ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment—"But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they were meant ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... a relic of the time when our savage ancestors found it necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick to a falsehood before the teacher or other inquisitors, only to retract and "go to pieces" when obliged to answer his mother. It has been shown over and over again that children even well along in the teens consider it quite right to tell one story to a teacher or to another child who is disliked, and a different story to one that is liked. This attitude ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but such unconditional ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... desponding; the physician had spoken of the case as hopeless, and likely to terminate rapidly; and Gilbert, who was always at the worst in the morning, had shown no symptom that could lead his father to retract his first impression. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the paragraph which you quote from a letter of mine to Mrs. du Bouchet, and see no reason yet to retract that opinion, in general, which at least nineteen widows in twenty had authorized. I had not then the pleasure of your acquaintance: I had seen you but twice or thrice; and I had no reason to think that you would deviate, as you ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh, the corroding, torturing, tormenting thoughts that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight who must draw upon it for daily sustenance! Henceforth I retract all my foul complaints of mercantile employment; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me live! A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen, but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... that's the way you handle your private affairs it doesn't look promising for whoever employs you. No, I'll retract that, and on second thought reverse that judgment. I'll say that if you invariably put your employer's interests before your own your sole chance to succeed is to become a member of any firm you work for. I suggest that you ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... before him and fully examined, that he would take back what he had said. "No atonement," the letter concluded, "will be accepted, that is not first approved of by the plaintiff in the suit." Barber was not (p. 186) disposed either to retract or to investigate the accuracy of the facts he had stated. He published the letter, however, with the usual solemn declaration that seems to be kept in type in all newspaper offices, that in doing what he had done he had been actuated solely by ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... were still in her mouth that it was a mistake. The girl shrank away and dropped the hand she had been fondling. There was absolute silence for a moment, the older woman dumb, unable to go on, unable to explain, unable to retract, or extricate herself in any way. The discussion had promised so well at first that both had entered into it with zest, and yet the moment it had become personal, loyalty had risen between them and ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... which is laid for Theodorus). 'Then, Theaetetus, you will have to be examined, for Theodorus has been praising you in a style of which I never heard the like.' 'He was only jesting.' 'Nay, that is not his way; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent which you have already given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him what he learns of Theodorus. He is himself anxious to ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... first consideration was to establish my good fame, from the imputation cast upon it by you; which imputation, I am fain to believe, was uttered in a moment of hastiness; and which, after I have explained the circumstances of the case, you will be happy to retract. However, sir, permit me to continue. The black, I have every reason to believe, is in the service of Mr. Ferguson at Fern Vale; for he came over this morning, while you were absent at the bridge, with a message ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... these scenes. Mother pretends to think she don't know enough to sorrow for anything; but if she could see her as I have, when she sup- posed herself entirely alone, except her little dog Fido, lamenting her loneliness and complexion, I think, if she is not past feeling, she would retract. In the summer I was walking near the barn, and as I stood I heard sobs. 'Oh! oh!' I heard, 'why was I made? why can't I die? Oh, what have I to live for? No one cares for me only to get my work. And I feel sick; who cares for that? ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... so many bales of cloth, should be given to Mackra, and then sank into the arms of intoxication. England now pressed Mackra to hasten away, lest the ruffian, upon his becoming sober, should not only retract his word, but give liberty to the crew to cut him and ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... you, my lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence, declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the slightest advance ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... self-esteem and vanity of Louis, at the same time that they renewed all the terrors of the previous evening. His feeble remonstrances were overruled; his filial misgivings were stifled; and the favourite at length quitted his presence satisfied that he would not seek to retract ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... dog! This is your return for my care and forethought for you, is it? Do you retract every word which you have said, or I'll cut you off without a penny," and with a fearful oath he swung himself around in his chair with such violence as to overturn the small onyx table upon which the cigars were standing, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... divinity of the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... come to that. All you have to do is to tell your parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk would die down. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... ordenamientos, constituciones e posesiones e prematicas- senciones, e usos e costumbres, ca en cuanto a est oatane yo los abrogo e derogo." (Marina, Teoria, tom. ii. p. 216.) This was the very essence of despotism, and John found it expedient to retract these expressions, on ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... highly amused and instructed by a letter of our historian to his rival, Robertson, who probably found himself often in the same forlorn situation. Our historian discovered in that collection what compelled him to retract his preconceived system—he hurries to stop the press, and paints his confusion and his anxiety with all the ingenuous simplicity of his nature. "We are all in the wrong!" he exclaims. Of Hume I have heard that certain manuscripts at the State Paper Office had been ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... after our arrival, I alone got nothing. From Sigurdr and the Doctor to the cabin-boy, every face was beaming over "news from home!" while I was left to walk the deck, with my hands in my pockets, pretending not to care. But the spell is broken now, and I retract my evil thoughts of the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... indiscreetly sent to Mr Brandram, much to Mr Rule's regret, who wrote to Mr Brandram, saying that whilst he had nothing to retract, he would not have written for the eyes of the Bible Society's Committee what he had written to Borrow. To Mr Rule Lieut. Graydon was "a good man, or at least a well-meaning [one], who has not the balance of judgment and temper necessary for the situation he occupies." He was given to "the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... at first utterly denied the substitution, but he insinuated that, plied with questions, and overcome by the evidence, she had, in a moment of despair, confessed all, declaring, soon after, that she would retract and deny this confession, being resolved at all hazards that her son should preserve ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... and were on the best of terms with the young farmers. To Henry Williams, with his life-long devotion to the government he had once served, no charge could have been more painful. It touched his honour to the quick. He offered to give up every acre of the land, if the governor would either retract or substantiate his charges. Neither of these things would the governor attempt to do. He was determined to get the land, and he left no stone unturned in his efforts to accomplish ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... that, with such mighty enemies, we can do nothing by halves. We cannot afford to retract, mutilate, or moderate our original determination. He who swerves from the straight road at the beginning is lost; he who stumbles at the first step is apt to fall down the whole staircase. If, on account of imaginable necessity, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... said, "I offer you my apologies. I came here in a furious temper and a little drunk. I retract all that I said. I'll drink to your club, if you'll allow ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Stevens hasn't seen it. And now I hope I shall never be called upon to speak to you again, for you are the cruelest, most contemptible girl I have ever known; but, if I hear anything further of this, I will take you to Miss Archer, to the Board of Education, if necessary, and make you retract every word. Come ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy,—what he calls "busy." No! he is not. He has just come in with news of such a charming pic-nic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below. Because he has brought in such a pleasant piece of news, I retract all I said just now. Did not somebody burn his hand for having said or done something he was sorry for? Well, I can't burn mine, because it would hurt me, and the scar would be ugly; but I'll retract all I said as fast as I can. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... you have me to retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... who found their way into the great hall where the Emperor and the chief princes, bishops, and nobles of the land were sitting, when Dr Martin Luther, replied to the chancellor of Treves, the orator of the Diet, who demanded whether he would retract the opinions put forth in numerous books he had published ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... never be the cause of a breach between father and son. Bob asked for his father's consent, and hoped to have it, but he thought it only right to add that he had given his word and his love, and did not mean to retract either. He spoke of his visit to Brampton, and explained that Cynthia was teaching school there, and urged his father to see her before he made a decision. Mr. Worthington read it through to the end, his lips closing tighter and tighter until his mouth was but a line across his face. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... refused to recant and repent. Dittrich not only deprived him of his medical books, but told him that his going over to Protestantism was a greater crime than if he had plundered the convent of two thousand florins. He was continually dinned with the cry, "Retract, retract!" He was not allowed to see his brother, confined in the same convent, nor other friends, and was so sequestered in his cell as to make him feel that he was forgotten ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... "Then I retract my words in asking you if you feared to go to the fort as courier, for your volunteering as driver proves that you ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... glances of those dark blue eyes, which like searchlights seemed to penetrate into every nook and cranny of his soul. But his recklessness and love of adventure having led him so far, it was now too late to retract or to reconsider the risks he might possibly be running. He therefore took the quill and dipped it into the crimson drop that welled from that soft ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... kindness, and your promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady—for one week, fare well." With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she thought ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... may smile at the sanguine utterances of the first four lectures: but it has not been wholly my own fault that they have remained unfulfilled; nor do I retract one word of hope for the success of other masters, nor a single promise made to the sincerity of the student's labor, on the lines here indicated. It would have been necessary to my success, that I should have accepted permanent residence ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... own. His head is hard as a flint, and his heart—never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, and lodgings. If you are ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... remark that the North abhorred the institution of slavery, wounded the Southern men sorely. They were not indignant, but grieved rather. At any rate, such was their aspect, and for many days the remark was repeated or referred to with the hope, apparently, of inducing me to retract or qualify it. I allowed it to stand as a truth ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... preparation of diphtheria serum, so that the yield of serum may be the largest possible. Amongst these that the blood should be received in longish vessels, which must be especially carefully cleaned, and free from all traces of fat. If the blood-clot does not spontaneously retract it must be freed from the side of the glass with a flat instrument like a paper-knife without injuring it. If no clot occurs in the cold, a result may perhaps follow at ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... would have to reconsider the platform whereon she stands; and possibly to "give way." But it is an undeniable fact that there exist no Theological dogmas on matters Geological,—no, not one! Theology cannot retreat from ground on which she has never set foot. She cannot retract, what she has never advanced, or recal the words which she has never spoken. The decrees of Theology are all confined to the Science of Theology,—and with that subject-matter, the other Sciences have simply no concern. Their office there, as I have again and again explained, is simply ministerial; ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... when I ask this pardon, gentlemen—and I do it sincerely and in shame—it is not as desiring to retract anything in the general tenor and scope of what I have hitherto tried to say. Permit me the pain, and the apparent impertinence, of speaking for a moment of my own past work; for it is necessary that what I am about to submit to you to-night ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... after this, that the interviewer waited for more? Not she. Leaving him mixed up with his daydream, she took herself off before he could retract, or modify, or in any way ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... to see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... care of the rest. You don't want her to turn nun—you know more about the horrors of it than I do. Marrying a commercial person is better than that. Give me a letter to her, signed and sealed, saying you retract and that she may marry me with your blessing, and I will take it to her at the convent and bring her out. There's your chance—I ...
— The American • Henry James
... "You have uttered a wilful and deliberate falsehood in asserting that I have murdered Thames, for whom you well know I would lay down my life. Retract your words instantly, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Coronado made a second call on Clara and her Aunt Maria, to retract, contradict, and disprove all that he had said in favor of the isthmus and against the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... want him sometimes," said Cecil. "You are always 'off' and 'on' with poor Jack. I believe, if he proposed, you would say 'No' one day and retract the next." ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... genuine effusion of anxiety and friendship, and will pardon me. It is not that I am more exempt from youthful folly than others. Born with a heart too susceptible for my peace, I am continually guilty of irregularities, that I immediately wish, but am unable to retract. But friendship, in however frail a bosom she resides, cannot permit her own follies to dispense her from guarding those she loves against ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Much elegiac verse expresses such stereotyped sorrow for a departed bard that it is not significant. In other cases, one seems to overhear the gasp of relief from a patron whom time can never force to retract his superlative claims ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... suits, and conciliate differences. And no suit is to be commenced before the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... future, I may as well tell you now that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside that hope ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... false, for Captain Kearney was not in the remotest manner connected with my family, yet having once asserted it, he could not retract, and the consequence was, that I was much the gainer by his falsehood, as he treated me very kindly ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... heads, popish priests, bishops and cardinals, together with the principal nobility of Catholic Europe—these all came together to compel the recantation of Friar Martin Luther. But Luther said; "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything for my conscience is a captive to God's Word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience," and a great multitude of men in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Great Britain stood beside Luther and protested that they were amenable to the Lord alone, and that they could do ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Noir, striding toward Traverse and raising his hand over his head, with a fearful oath, "retract your words or—" ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... suddenly he threw himself on Bernard with the agility of a tiger and knocked him to the floor. From secret closets in the room sprang six able bodied men. They soon had Bernard securely bound. Belton then told Bernard that he must retract what he had said and agree to keep his revealed purpose a secret or he would never leave ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... and the candour of a gentleman, he might expect an ingenuous declaration. That if, as he had reason to believe, General Hamilton had used expressions derogatory to his honour, he would have had the magnanimity to retract them; and that if, from his language, injurious inferences had been improperly drawn, he would have perceived the propriety of correcting errors which might thus have been widely diffused. With these impressions Colonel Burr ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... repeated Mrs. Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary remark, "That this ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... he had nothing to retract. His representations had not been too strongly stated, for the most disgraceful circumstances were those which rested upon public notoriety, or upon his own personal knowledge. It had been stated that he had overestimated the number of prisoners, and he would give the Neapolitan ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... plain confession, the court hath nothing to do but to award judgment; but it is usually very backward in receiving and recording such confession out of tenderness to the life of the subject; and will generally advise the prisoner to retract it and plead to the indictment. 4 Blackst. Comm. 329. 2 Hale, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... him retract," cried Porbus, striking Poussin on the shoulder. "The fruits of love wither in a day; ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... the sudden impulse, and then reflected as they passed down the aisle that he had no right to bring a stranger into Mrs. Wilson's pew. Having invited her, however, it was impossible to retract, and he showed her into the slip after Mrs. Wilson. As the latter turned to sit down, she became aware of the stranger. She paused, and looked at ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... perceived internal arguments of its having been written by our excellent prelate. I was even pleased with the apprehended ingenuity of my discoveries. But the whole was a mistake, which, whilst it will be a warning to myself, may furnish an instructive lesson to others. At the same time, I do not retract the character which I have given of the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Whoever was the author of that performance, it does credit to his abilities and to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... of this practice is commonly shameful disgrace, with an obligation to retract and render satisfaction: for seldom doth calumny pass long without being detected and confuted. "He that walketh uprightly, walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known:" and, "The lip of ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... he renounce her, when she came forth to him,—smiling, speaking freshly and lightly, and with the colour on her cheeks which showed that she had done her part? How could he retract a step? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to clinch the matter before his partner could retract this somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the sample-room and made resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, and surveyed him calmly ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... this accusation left her lips she regretted it because she knew it to be utterly unfounded and the blaze which sprung into Beverly's eyes warned the little shallow pate that she had ventured a bit too far. She tried to retract by saying she was "nervous and excited and perfectly miserable at the loss of the letter. It was the first of Reggie's letters she had ever lost, and he had written every single day for a ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of everlasting ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... indeed, he was not certain that she would appear in the same company with Pickle; but, as she made no stipulation on that score, he would interpret her silence in the most favourable manner, and keep her in ignorance of his design, until she should find it too late to retract with any decency. The hope of seeing and conversing with Emilia, and perhaps of being reconciled to her, after having suffered so much and so long from her displeasure, raised a tumult of ideas in his breast, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... began the Nunc Dimittis. My Lord was ill-favouredly clad, in a bare and ragged gown, and an old square cap. Dr Cole preached, and more than twenty times during the sermon, the Archbishop was seen to have the water in his eyes. Then they did desire him to get up into the pulpit, and openly to retract his preaching, and show all the people that he was ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... BUT," said the Templar, "are words for fools; wise men neither hesitate nor retract—they resolve and ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady to be brought down.' Every ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the editor (Jeffrey), because he once abused me: many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or can praise the man ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... many of his tributaries; so that the army amounted at least to 50,000 horse, besides a vast host of foot. The sultan would now have delayed his expedition, as the enemy possessed all the ferries of the Kistnah, but that his tents were pitched, and it would have been disgraceful to retract from his declarations He therefore marched with 7000 horse, all foreign, and encamped on the bank of the river opposite to the enemy, waiting to prepare floats to cross and ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons it is thought best that support of these measures shall be included in the oath, and it is believed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Newton had no fair ground of complaint. "When a man pays through the nose for his whistle, he ought to get it!" said the Squire, plainly showing that his idea as to the price fixed was very different from that entertained by his nephew. But he did not retract his offer. He was too anxious to accomplish the purchase to do that. He would go home, he said, and wait till the 20th. Then he would return to London. And he did ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... entreats the daughter, shaken by the sight of her father's passion. "Fight straightforwardly for Fricka," he orders her, in the excess of bitterness; "what she has chosen I choose likewise; of what good to me is a will of my own?" "Oh, retract that word!" she beseeches, "you love Siegmund.... Never shall your discordant dual directions enlist me against him. For your own sake, I know it, I will protect the Waelsung!" At this first intimation of rebellion in his child,—this incipient treachery of his own will,—Wotan becomes ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... dream. Then at other times her state of impatience was such, that it required all her self-restraint to prevent her from going and seeking him out, and (as man would do to man, or woman to woman) begging him to forgive her hasty words, and allow her to retract them, and bidding him accept of the love that was filling her whole heart. She wished Margaret had not advised her against such a manner of proceeding; she believed it was her friend's words that seemed to make ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it, and therefore I excepted them; but I do not know there are any errors of mine in it, and therefore cannot except them. But," added I, "if thou pleasest to show me any error of mine in it, I shall readily both acknowledge and retract it;" and thereupon I desired him to give me an instance, in any one passage in that book, wherein he thought I had erred. He said he needed not go to particulars, but charge me with the general contents of the whole book. I replied that such a charge would be too general for me ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... residence such as was here to be obtained and she only wished Mr Monckton had been present, that he might himself be convinced of the impracticability of his scheme. Her whole business, therefore, now, was to retract her offer, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... now they feared that the caged lion would burst his bars. Indeed, the trusty secretary Fain asserts that when on Easter Monday, the 11th, Caulaincourt brought back the allies' ratification of this deed, Napoleon's first demand was to retract the abdication. It would be unjust, however, to lay too much stress on this strange conduct; for at that time the Emperor's mind was partly unhinged by ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... intention to die in that battle; that he had long wished for death, and waited for an opportunity of obtaining it without staining his own character by the cowardice of suicide, or distressing me by an act of butchery. This event gave the finishing stroke to my afflictions;—yet let me retract;—another misfortune awaited me when I least expected one. The Chevalier de Menon died without a will, and his brothers refused to give up his estate, unless I could produce a witness of my marriage. I returned to Sicily, and, to my inexpressible sorrow, found ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... double layer (the fasciae being oblique to each other) the whole of the upper part of the prosoma. From under the adductor, a pair of delicate muscles runs to the basal edge of the labrum, so as to retract the whole mouth, and two other pair to the integument between the mouth and the adductor, so as to fold it: again, there are other delicate muscles in some (for instance in Lepas Hillii) if not in all the Lepadidae, crossing each other in the most singular ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... He bade the trumpeter sound an alarm, and as the man hesitated and refused, struck him with his fist. This man afterwards gained great credit for his conduct, as it was thought that by it he had saved the whole camp from being thrown into an uproar. As Kleitus would not retract what he had said, his friends seized him and forced him out of the room. But he re-entered by another door, and in an offensive and insolent tone began to recite the passage from the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... point for the present, reserving still a right to retract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... you! How dare you pollute that holy name, Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink it in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... review of Burke was the best prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the "Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If there be ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... to him suddenly that even in Canaan there might be social gradations, and that the tramp-boy, rare little chap though he seemed to be, was probably miles away from the daughter of the promoter, Mr. Crittenton Madeira. "I retract, Piney," he ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... stand by and count them." "For God's sake," the merchant screamed, "I can never endure it." "We will see about that," the favorite said, coldly, "and if you die under it, it was allotted you by fate; I am not going to retract my orders." ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the coal of revolutionary principles with all his might, in every society to which he could obtain admission. He was a great favourite with some of the west country gentlemen of that faction, by reason of his unbending impudence. No opposition could for a moment cause him either to blush, or retract one item that he had advanced. Therefore the Duke of Argyle and his friends made such use of him as sportsmen often do of terriers, to start the game, and make a great yelping noise to let them know whither the chase is proceeding. They often did this out of sport, in order to tease their opponent; ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Florinda complained of my having, what every honest girl in Venice should do, exposed her fraud to the authorities, she advised his master to seize me, partly in revenge, and partly with the vain hope of making me retract the complaint I have made. Thou hast heard of the bold violence of these cavaliers ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard". (Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... written, I feel bound here, as at the end of my treatise, to declare that I have written nothing, which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and judgment of my country's rulers, and that I am ready to retract anything, which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws or prejudicial to the public good. (58) I know that I am a man and, as a man, liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and striven to keep in ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... beloved become distinct in memory or dream only after long absence." Of the work itself he says, "Except the two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these 'outbursts' of my 'youthful' zeal to 'retract', and with the exception of some flame-coloured epithets applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to personifications (for such they really were to 'me') as little to regret. Qualis ab initio [Greek: estaesae] S.T.C. [15] When a rifacimento ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... brother, hastily, as if anxious to retract an error; "I said it then, and I say it now and so you will find it to be. The Tetons are in our neighbourhood, and happy will it prove for the boy if he is well shut ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Montenegrins. Without preamble, I said, 'I have the honour of speaking to Mr Orlando Jones, I believe?' 'Who told you my name, sir?' he exclaimed, starting to his feet in great alarm: then, perceiving the mistake he had made in thus proving his own identity, he tried to retract, but stammered and broke down. I proceeded quietly to demand the restoration of the papers and jewels, fraudulently carried off by him from Mr Popham's office at Ragusa. He tried to shuffle off the charge. 'Very well,' said I, 'do as you please, but mark me, I am empowered by his highness to ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... condemned this resolution, and endeavoured to instil some suspicion of the courage and fidelity of those who had promoted it. The Prince was easily persuaded that he had been too complaisant in consenting to a retreat, but would not retract the consent he had given, unless he could bring back those to whom he had given it over to his own sentiments; which he hoped he might be able to do, since the Secretary had altered his opinion. With this view he called another meeting of the Council, in the evening, but found all the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... his tale ran thus at first, Nor can he now retract what then he said; Not I alone but all our townsfolk heard it. E'en should he vary somewhat in his story, He cannot make the death of Laius In any wise jump with the oracle. For Loxias said expressly he was ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... to teach doctrines in glaring contradiction to the general belief of the Churches. For example, in 1812, M. Gasc, professor of theology at Montauban, attacked in his lectures the doctrine of the Trinity, whereupon several consistories required him either to retract his opinions or to resign his post. M. Gasc ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... Stavordale, because just what you tell me you approve of is what I meant to propose, or if I had any conception beyond it, it was from a sudden thought which I retract. I have said a few words to Charles, but I do not find that he has more intercourse with him than you have. He says that there can be no doubt of the validity and payment of the debt, and there is no anticipation ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... all was well enough. But personally—was this entire self-abnegation necessary?—was he fulfilling his duty to himself? was he not rather sacrificing his future to a prejudice—an idea? In any case he knew that it was too late to retract. He had renounced his proper position in life, it was too late for him now to claim it. And there had gone with it—Sybil. After all, why should he arrogate to himself judgment? The sins of his father were not his concern. It was chiefly he who suffered by his present attitude, yet ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of course, Mr. Johnston demands that Major Penfield retract his charge of German influence ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... nothing to do but to award judgment; but it is usually very backward in receiving and recording such confession out of tenderness to the life of the subject; and will generally advise the prisoner to retract it and plead to the indictment. 4 Blackst. Comm. 329. 2 Hale, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... orders for her passage to be engaged in the first vessel that sailed, she could not now retract; and must prepare for the lonely voyage, as the Captain intended taking advantage of the first fair wind. She had too much strength of mind to waver in her determination but to determine wrung her very heart, opened ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... possibility has been discussed in the chapter on Affect.] His description seems perhaps to include cases which we would regard as perplexity states or absorbed manias. Activity is reduced, they lie in bed mute, do not answer, may retract shyly at any approach, but on the other hand may not ward off pin pricks. Sometimes there is catalepsy and lack of will, again there may be aimless resistance to external interference. They hold anything ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... screen his own junior master, he felt that this public exhibition of irreconcilable views was quite unpardonable and irretrievable. 'Mr. Blenkinsopp,' he said gravely, turning to the awe-struck tobacco-pipe manufacturer with an expression of sympathetic dismay upon his practised face, 'I must retract all I have just been saying to you about our junior master. I was not aware of this. Mr. Le Breton must no longer retain his post as an assistant at ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the Restoration.] because in many things he has taxed me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... that even in your dying hour, I would never forgive you: I retract. If my pardon can console your last moments, remember that it is yours. I have made no alteration in my will; if you can accept the benefits which may accrue to you by my death, take them; but so surely as you ever attempt to approach the innocent ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... stoop to retract your meaning," rejoined Bertrand. "And since you are content to refer it to my pleasure, I ought not to value myself too low. So I will give and engage for my freedom one hundred thousand ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... it is—how very hard! One can never, alas! retract one's downward steps. I am "The Count's Chauffeur," and shall, I suppose, continue to remain so until the black day when we all fall into ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... short of the highest. Since the publication of the conclusion of the Homilies the question has been set at rest. Hilgenfeld, who had hitherto been a determined advocate of the negative theory, at once gave up his ground [Endnote 288:1]; and Volkmar, who had somewhat less to retract, admitted and admits [Endnote 288:2] that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be considered as proved. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' stands alone in still resisting this conviction [Endnote 288:3], but the result I suspect will be only to show in stronger ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... This is your return for my care and forethought for you, is it? Do you retract every word which you have said, or I'll cut you off without a penny," and with a fearful oath he swung himself around in his chair with such violence as to overturn the small onyx table upon which the cigars were standing, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... thoughts were engrossed by one whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done. I can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood which ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... purpose as Hierocles in the fourth century, to disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... that her character is very seriously assailed. Sir Marmaduke had understood this, and on hearing the word had become wroth with his brother-in-law. There had been hot words between them, and Mr. Outhouse would not yield an inch or retract a syllable. He conceived it to be his duty to advise the father to caution his daughter with severity, to quarrel absolutely with Colonel Osborne, and to let Trevelyan know that this had been done. As to the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... to his pretensions, even though he should discover that they are false; and in resenting affronts with the utmost rigour, even when they were provoked by himself, he is taught, that it is his business to conquer in whatever cause, and that to desist from any of his attempts, or retract any of his assertions, is unworthy of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... has long been an unfavored suitor of mine, and when this Florinda complained of my having, what every honest girl in Venice should do, exposed her fraud to the authorities, she advised his master to seize me, partly in revenge, and partly with the vain hope of making me retract the complaint I have made. Thou hast heard of the bold violence of these cavaliers when thwarted in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... your Majesty's pardon,' said Berenger, anxious to retract his false step. 'It was your goodness and the gracious Queen's that made ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent and nothing to conceal—nothing to retract and nothing to countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which charge others ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Franciscan convent, which had become the martyr's prison, formally to try his case, they cruelly attempted to prejudge the matter without hearing him at all. But the emperor interfered, and Huss appeared before them, ready to retract whatever was contrary to Scripture: but whenever he attempted to plead, a savage outcry arose around, till the voice of truth was drowned in the din. On June 7th, he stood forth the second time before the council; but it was a wrangle rather than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... their best dresses. The women were of a better appearance than is usual in Savoy; their dress attracted the particular attention of our French companion, who had never before quitted his own country, and who had previously expressed a contempt for Savoy, which he now seemed willing to retract; and certainly it would be difficult to see a spot where primitive simplicity was more conspicuous. We determined to refresh ourselves here, and afterwards went through the village to the church, which was decorated with flowers for the festival; and during our walk ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... Professor Hodge asserts, that "slavery may exist without those laws which interfere with their (the slaves) marital or parental right" Now, this is a point of immense importance in the discussion of the question, whether slavery is sinful; and I, therefore, respectfully ask him either to retract the assertion, or to prove its correctness. Ten thousands of his fellow-citizens, to whom the assertion is utterly incredible, unite with me in this request. If he can show, that slavery does not "interfere with marital or parental rights," they will ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Gathered far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder 400 DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms 410 DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... said he, 'it is no lie; and if another than yourself had said such a thing, I would have struck him down like a mad dog. And I must beg of you to retract your words, and ascertain to your own satisfaction that what I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... express the prince's confusion at this demand; he loved the mouse, but he detested the bride; he hesitated; he desired time to think upon the proposal. He would have been glad to consult his friends on such an occasion. "Nay, nay," cried the odious fairy, "if you demur, I retract my promise; I do not desire to force my favours on any man. Here, you my attendants, (cried she, stamping with her foot,) let my machine be driven up; Barbacela, queen of Emmets, is not used to contemptuous treatment." ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... he—a clearer, more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my pledge—that—" he paused and the silence was tremendous. He went on, each word ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... was deceived in response to its first questions, the father or mother may retract in some such way as this: "Do you remember, Molly, that when you asked me where your baby brother came from, I told you the doctor made us a present? Well, that's the way fathers and mothers answer little children, just as we told you that Christmas presents ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... even now they feared that the caged lion would burst his bars. Indeed, the trusty secretary Fain asserts that when on Easter Monday, the 11th, Caulaincourt brought back the allies' ratification of this deed, Napoleon's first demand was to retract the abdication. It would be unjust, however, to lay too much stress on this strange conduct; for at that time the Emperor's mind was partly ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... no other influence can supplant. If in anything published by us a passage can be found which is contrary to that doctrine, incompatible with that devotion, or disrespectful to that authority, we sincerely retract and lament it. No such passage was ever consciously admitted into the pages either of the late Rambler or of this Review. But undoubtedly we may have committed errors in judgment, and admitted errors of fact; such mistakes are unavoidable in secular matters, and ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... a holy—for it was a human—image; he had resigned her, and he repented. The light of day served, if not to dissipate, at least to sober, the turbulence and fervor of the preceding night. But was it indeed too late to retract his resolve? "Too late!" terrible words! Of what do we not repent, when the Ghost of the Deed returns to us to say, "Thou hast ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... cried the colonel. "I retract what I said. And how about the canoe? Can we take that ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... me—I never"——but here she checked herself, as perhaps she considered that the vehemence of her denial might be construed into something very like an anxiety to retract it; and whether this was the construction put on it or not, all we have to say is, that on Miss Alice Smith slipping quietly into the room, with a volume of the Scottish Chiefs in her hand, she almost screamed, as she saw a stranger seated on the sofa beside her niece, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... he replied, charged him with teaching things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but such unconditional submission he could ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... me, gave me clearly to understand that he did not think the Jacobins guilty. I mentioned this to the First Consul, but nothing could make him retract his opinion. "Fouche," said he, "has good reason for his silence. He is serving his own party. It is very natural that he should seek to screen a set of men who are polluted with blood and crimes! He was one of their leaders. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it, meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her and thought it time ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... from the government on "all negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... their meanings and intentions, are not entirely free, he had ever, in the warmth of his heart, dropped a word which might be injurious to any on that account, (which I believe very seldom happened,) he would gladly retract it on better information; and this was perfectly agreeable to that honest and generous frankness of temper in which I never knew any man ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... as food for the people than sheeps' heads and boiled bagpipes; to which he retorted by asserting that we west-country folks were little better than heathens and had no more manners than blackamoors. As neither of us would retract what we had said, it was decided that our dispute could alone be settled by mortal combat. Pistols, we were aware, were the most gentlemanly weapons to be employed on such occasions; but we found that it would ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... May, 1912. I will admit that the motives of the investigation may have been excellent, and probably were; my criticism bore mainly on matters of form and also on the point of efficiency. In that respect I have nothing to retract. The Senators of the Commission had absolutely no knowledge and no practice to guide them in the conduct of such an investigation; and this fact gave an air of unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that even in the United States there is some regret that this zeal of theirs was ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... I, 'if what you tell me be true, and if I am to be a beggar, it shall never make me a rascal, or induce me to disavow my principles. I'll go this moment and inform the company of my circumstances; and as for the argument, I even here retract my former concessions in the old gentleman's favour, nor will I allow him now to be an husband in any ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... whether grave sin is ever forgiven, cannot be answered by philosophy. Of course the sinner may see by the light of reason his folly and his error, and thereby conceive some sort of sorrow for it, and retract, and to some extent withdraw his will from it on natural grounds. This amendment of sin on its moral and philosophical side may deserve and earn pardon at human hands. But the offence against God remains to be reckoned for with God. Now God is not bound to forgive without receiving ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... development in other men, are due to our early forefathers having been provided with these formidable weapons, will probably reveal, by sneering, the line of his descent. For though he no longer intends, nor has the power, to use these teeth as weapons, he will unconsciously retract his "snarling muscles" (thus named by Sir C. Bell) (46. The Anatomy of Expression, 1844, pp. 110, 131.), so as to expose them ready for action, like a dog ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... us for a due season of repentance the gifts of His good grace, steadfastness of faith, loftiness of hope, and the widest charity to all men. That He may turn our haughty will to lament its faults, that it may deplore its past most vain elations, may retract its most bitter indignations, and detest its most insane delectations. That His virtue may abound in us, when our own is found wanting, and that He who freely consecrated our beginning by the sacrament of baptism, and advanced our progress to the seat ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... to propagate his views, was called on by the Inquisition to retract and abjure, and the formal notice to him to do so states expressly that the declaration of 1616 was made by the Pope himself, and that resistance to it was, therefore, heresy, contrary to the doctrine of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. On being brought ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... majesty," cried the emperor, "surely you will not retract your word in the face of the whole world, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of literature, they who speak first hold the fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and wholly my own, and as I have good ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... replied Ronald, "hoping you would retract hard, cruel words that you never meant. I could not help it, father; she has no one but me; they would have forced her to marry some ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... first time Philip became aware that his sister was present, and had heard his denunciation of her husband. But it was too late to retract, and he would not if he could. Truth-telling, like the cauterizing of the snake's bite, must sometimes be done, no matter what the immediate suffering. His eyes sought Winifred's, misty with apprehension, admiration, love. And ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... has cause to cry Repentance to his liberty. No, thou knowest order, ethics, and has read All economics, know'st to lead A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show How far a figure ought to go, Forward or backward, sideward, and what pace Can give, and what retract a grace; What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees With those thy primitive decrees, To give subsistence to thy house, and proof What Genii support thy roof, Goodness and Greatness; not the oaken piles; For these and marbles ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... travelled in the history of modern times, that is to say, these last thousand years; but those who are can, I make no question, furnish you with parallel instances." He concluded, therefore, that, had he taken any such hasty resolutions against his nephew, he hoped he would consider better, and retract them. The gentleman answered with great warmth, and talked much of courage and his country, till, perceiving it grew late, he asked Adams, "What place he intended for that night?" He told him, "He waited there for the stage-coach."—"The stage-coach, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... other Motives, may be one Reason why we are naturally averse to the launching out into a Man's Praise till his Head is laid in the Dust. Whilst he is capable of changing, we may be forced to retract our Opinions. He may forfeit the Esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different Light from what he does at present. In short, as the Life of any Man cannot be call'd happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the hills are full, And newer fashions blow, Doth not retract a single spice For ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... before replying to me: consider on the one hand, this man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn; there is still time to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as your former companion in the galleys, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... expected still farther effects of his resentment. Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute promise of observing the ancient customs [p]. [FN [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31. Hist. Quad. p. 34. Hoveden, p. 492. [p] Hist. Quad. p. 37. Hoveden, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... opinions which I have since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. But under this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... "why set forth all these considerations? After my promise has been given, I never retract my word. But it is only to the Duke de Armada I have engaged myself, and he alone can free me from that engagement. Are you satisfied with ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... there seems little doubt that Homer must have conceived the death of the hero as brought about by the maternal curse: the unrelenting Erinnys executed to the letter the invocations of Althaea, though she herself must have been willing to retract them."] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... to be found than in the bearing of Luther before the Imperial Diet in the city of Worms. He was confronted by the chief dignitaries of Church and Empire. The emperor himself, Charles V, was present. "Will you, or will you not, retract?" solemnly demanded the speaker of the Diet. "Unless," replied the intrepid reformer, "unless I am convinced by the testimony of Holy Scripture or by clear and indisputable reasoning, I cannot, and will not, retract ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... considered as a proof of your guilt; no, no, as a sincere friend I should advise you to be quiet, and to take such steps as the case requires. That frown, that treatment of you in public, is sufficient to tell me that you must prepare for the event. Can you expect a king to publicly retract?" ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... environs. In the mean time a distinguished friend of Cajetan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters—"Revoco" ("I retract"). Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. "God forbid!" answered Luther. "Where then do you mean to take refuge?" he went on to ask him. "Under heaven," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and probably would have been content with less, if less had been offered. It was addressed to the earl of Tyrconnel, not only in the first lines, but in a formal dedication, filled with the highest strains of panegyric. These praises in a short time he found himself inclined to retract, being discarded by the man on whom he had bestowed them, and whom he said, he then discovered, had ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... absolutely necessary he showed himself in church with us; but our daily life, our pleasures, our pastimes were heathen, and when life began for us in earnest we offered a bleeding sacrifice to the gods. It was impossible to retract honestly, since a renegade Christian returning to the worship of the old gods is incapacitated by law from making a will. You know this; and when you ask me why I am content to live alone, without either wife or child—and I love children, even those of other people—a solitary man dragging ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... love her—but he has understanding and resolution. He loved his sister too, tenderly loved her, and yet when he had taken the resolution, and passed his word that he would never see her again—even upon her death-bed he would not retract it—no entreaties could prevail upon him. And now, though he maintains, and I dare say loves, her child, yet you remember, when you brought him home, that he would not suffer ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... went and concluded, what appeared to him, an excellent bargain, with the lawyer, who was too anxious to serve his employer, not to try and make light of the reports, and not only this, but to fix papa so, that he could not possibly retract. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... wives need watching. You have turned them against me and against their wives, who are as pure and virtuous as the snow which you never see. (God, forgive me!) All this, my friend, in order to get even with me. I don't ask you to retract anything you've said. I only intend you to know that I can crush you as I would a peanut, if you know ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... was severely punished. He was compelled to make an apology, to retract his horrible ideas, to stifle the germ of these infant monstrosities; then he was condemned to spend six months in one of those ecclesiastical prisons called houses of retreat, where the guilty priest is exposed to ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... "language in very many respects unbecoming." Whether Tungche took this very decided step in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two empresses reinstating Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank and dignity, and thus reasserting the power ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... perfect health. But it would require a heart of stone and an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical joy. Now, my dear Louis, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... plenipotentiaries to begin the conference with those of the allies on the first day of January. The states-general inveighed against this memorial, as a proof of the French king's insincerity; though he certainly had a right to retract those offers they had formerly rejected. They came to a resolution, that it was absolutely necessary to prosecute the war with rigour; and they wrote pressing letters on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... her head. She was fast losing her composure. She would have given the world to retract what she had said, and accordingly she ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... Not yet. Let ME go to the elector. We are intimate friends, and I will persuade him to retract his ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Hastings, after he had given the license aforesaid, and that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Ten thousand nobles and a hundred thousand soldiers will not be compelled either by force or by authority to affix their signatures to it. But, to talk of enforcing submission to a Roman Catholic confession is idle, so long as the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine do not retract their own adhesion to the Augsburg Confession lately given in with such protestations to a German prince. The charge of countenancing the breaking of images the prince would answer by pointing to the penalties he has inflicted in order to repress the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... in appointing this commission, between his sense of what was due to the character and services of Columbus, and his anxiety to retract with delicacy the powers vested in him. A pretext at length was furnished by the recent request of the admiral that a person of talents and probity, learned in the law, might be sent out to act as chief judge; and that an impartial umpire might be appointed, to decide in the affair between himself ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... was he betrayed into some passion when the accusation was presented. "The commons themselves," he said, "though his accusers, did not believe him guilty of the crimes with which they charged him;" an indiscretion which, next day, upon more mature deliberation, he desired leave to retract; but so little favorable were the peers, that they refused him this advantage or indulgence. Laud also was immediately, upon this general charge, sequestered from parliament, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... angry at the pity she had shown. It was not fair to be thus misinterpreted. But he had done wrong to swear, and more so in quitting them so abruptly. The consciousness of his wrong-doing, however, only made him more confirmed in it. His native obstinacy would not allow him to retract what he had said—even to himself. Walking along, he came to Bates's grave, and the cross upon it. Here was another evidence of ill-treatment. She had always preferred Bates. Now that Bates was gone, she must needs transfer her childish affections ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... hire his boat, for the purpose of visiting the island of St. Honorat. The price was agreed upon, but the gentleman had arrived with an immense carriage case, which he insisted upon embarking, in spite of all the difficulties which opposed themselves to that operation. The fisherman had wished to retract. He had even threatened, but his threats had procured him nothing but a shower of blows from the gentleman's cane, which fell upon his shoulders sharp and long. Swearing and grumbling, he had recourse to the syndic of his brotherhood ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... is present among the company-this proof of your good faith to-night, and we are again joined in heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you to-morrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?" ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the praises of his candour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. There were some letters which a very good or a wise man would wish suppressed; but, as they had been already exposed, it was impracticable now to retract them. From the perusal of those letters, Mr. Allen first conceived the desire of knowing him; and with so much zeal did he cultivate the friendship which he had newly formed, that, when Pope told his purpose of vindicating his own property by a genuine edition, he offered to pay the cost. ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... said, but I never have been able personally to verify the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Scotland—James IV—having espoused the cause of Warbeck, and attended him upon an invasion of England, though he would not formally retract his judgment of Perkin, wherein he had engaged himself so far, yet in his private opinion, upon often speech with the Englishmen, and diverse other advertisements, began to suspect him for a counterfeit. Wherefore in a noble fashion he called him unto him, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname Milioni that Polo's popular reputation in his lifetime was of a questionable kind; and a contemporary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious friends to retract his extraordinary stories.[20] A little later one who copied the Book "per passare tempo e malinconia" says frankly that he puts no faith in it.[21] Sir Thomas Brown is content "to carry a wary eye" in reading "Paulus Venetus"; but others of our countrymen in the last century ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Adam Ferris and the Earl thought of the man in Vienna who had once dared, and whom the gentle-mannered duellist before them had sent quickly to his own place, with no more time given than to retract his words and receive holy absolution. For in the Austria of that time two gentlemen took a priest as well as a doctor with them to the field of honour. Then Adam Ferris remembered his lonely house below the dark green pines and demanded with a sudden darkening of humour, "And how ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... is the great art of quackery and puffing; to raise a lively and exaggerated image in the mind, and take it by surprise before it can recover breath, as it were; so that by having been caught in the trap, it is unwilling to retract entirely—has a secret desire to find itself in the right, and a determination to see whether it is or not. Describe a picture as lofty, imposing, and grand, these words excite certain ideas in the mind like the sound of a trumpet, which are not to be quelled, except ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... easier. Of all the perverse creatures in this world, a woman who has thoroughly committed herself to any man, or any cause, is the least tractable and reasonable. I hope this statement will not offend my sweet friends, because it is so true that I cannot conscientiously retract it. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... something I would scorn to do, and not satisfied with that, visited your petty spite upon a girl who is the soul of truth and honor. You may say what you choose about me, but you shall not hurt Grace, and if you don't immediately retract what you have written I will take measures which may prove most unpleasant to all ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... Cassius's pride and military sense of honor. Rather than concur in a counsel which was thus, on the part of one of its advocates at least, dictated by what he considered an inglorious love of life, he preferred to retract his opinion. It was agreed by the council that the army should maintain its ground and give the enemy battle. The officers then repaired ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... prophesies of a mercurial temperament and an energetic character. It can, however, anchor itself and lie by when occasion offers. It is provided with two long cables, prettily set with spiral filaments or tendrils, by means of which it can make fast to any point. When not in use, it can retract them, and stow them away in two sacs or pouches within the body, where they may be seen coiled up, through the transparent walls. The mouth is a simple opening at one pole of the globular body. No arms are needed. The beroe is ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... boast. I soon found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms. His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... prayer for superhuman strength had been heard. No cry, scarcely a groan, escaped her. She saw Don Luis at her side; she heard his hissing whisper that there was yet time to retract and be released; but she deigned him no reply whatever. It was not his purpose to try her endurance to the utmost in the first, second, or third trial; though, so enraged at her calmness, as scarcely to be able to restrain it even before his colleagues, and with difficulty ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... for Theodorus). 'Then, Theaetetus, you will have to be examined, for Theodorus has been praising you in a style of which I never heard the like.' 'He was only jesting.' 'Nay, that is not his way; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent which you have already given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him what he learns of Theodorus. He is himself anxious ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... abandonment of armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation nor shall I return to slavery any person who ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... 'I may have had one or two hard thoughts about the heartlessness of your corporation, but I retract 'em now. You have a kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all. It does you credit. I was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed. It would not be honorable or praiseworthy,' says ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... crowned heads, popish priests, bishops and cardinals, together with the principal nobility of Catholic Europe—these all came together to compel the recantation of Friar Martin Luther. But Luther said; "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything for my conscience is a captive to God's Word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience," and a great multitude of men in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Great Britain ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... gratification. If artful, she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. Now, it is only the parents and near relations of a young woman who can be witnesses to her real character, unless it be, indeed, her own maid, whom one ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... that I can make no pretension to be a teacher of science. I trust that there is no material error of statement; if there is, I shall be the first to retract and correct it. I am quite confident that no correction that may be needed in detail will ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... Agatha," she pleaded, embracing her fondly; "forgive me if I am constrained to speak in a manner that you think is wrong; but I can retract nothing of what I have said. Let me go to my father; he is my natural protector, and he alone has the ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... works. We are the more willing to adopt this course, because the most of his works form in a certain measure one great whole, and mutually supply each other; and because too, the author having in part first explored unknown regions, and having of course sometimes found it necessary to retract hypotheses started in his earlier writings, his works cannot well be separated. He wrote mostly in German; sometimes in Latin; while comparatively very few of his numerous books are in the Bohemian ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... to all present, Mr HAGERUP pointed out the two only possible alternatives with reference to the decision; to retract, or to rupture. The latter alternative he evidently found most acceptable, and in Norway's real interest, he warned them as to what the issue might be. He proposed that the decision with respect to these eventualities—which might exceed both the Constitution and the Act ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... offender in mind," replied Mr. Morton more evenly. "In a case of this kind we must proceed with such absolute caution and reserve that we will not be obliged to retract afterwards in deep ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... compliment you ever have paid me. I shall appropriate it immediately, before you have time to retract it," Zibeline replied. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with this minister for an hour last night. He admires his ribbon, ring, and snuff-box, so much, that an excellent petit-maitre was spoiled, when he was made a minister. The sentiments of my heart have flown from my pen, and I cannot retract them." ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... Camillus ordered his lictors to break up the assembly and proclaim that if a man lingered in the forum, the dictator would call out every man fit for service and march from Rome. The tribunes ordered resistance and declared that if the dictator did not instantly recall his lictors and retract his proclamation, they, the tribunes, would, according to their right, subject him to a fine five times larger than the highest rate of the census, as soon as his dictatorship expired. This was no idle threat, and Camillus retreated so fairly beaten as to abdicate immediately under ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
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