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Reverting   /rɪvˈərtɪŋ/   Listen
Reverting

noun
1.
A failure to maintain a higher state.  Synonyms: backsliding, lapse, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Reverting" Quotes from Famous Books



... Reverting to Poor Tom, well may the words of Dickens in Bleak House serve as a text for to-day: "There is not an atom of Tom's shrine, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, nor an obscurity or degradation about ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... aside as having no connection with her own life. I have seen the same thing—though, happily, only in exceptional cases—among educated Indians, girls who had spent years in the schools at Faribault or under the direct training of missionaries reverting on marriage to old wigwam habits, and content to eat the parched corn and boiled dog of their early experience. The same law holds in full force among many of the Irish, who, no matter how well trained or how exacting in their demand for varied food while servants, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... said he, reverting to his lady love, as he eyed himself intently in the glass while performing the critical operation, "I'll just sound the old gentleman after dinner—one can do that sort of thing better over one's wine, perhaps, than ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... Reverting to the aquatic scenery, the most prominent object amidst the "myriad convoy," is the Commodore's fine ship, the Falcon, 351 tons, lying out a mile and a half to sea. Contrasting her proportions with the numerous yachts around her, we might compare her commanding ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... Lynda! The day brings appetite and strength; the night, sleep! I wonder whether you know what that means? I begin to believe I am reverting to type, as McPherson would say, and I'm intensely interested in finding out—what type? Whenever I think of study, I have an attack of mental indigestion. There is only one fellow creature to share my desolation but I am never lonely—never lacking employment. I'm busy to the verge of exhaustion ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... 'I?' said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising slowness. 'Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that Mr. Dunborough's surplice—covers ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... The land on our left or to the southward proved an island, five miles and a quarter in length, of the same bold and rugged character as the rest of this numerous group, and by far the largest of them all. To prevent the necessity of reverting to this subject, I may at once add, that two or three months after this, on laying before Ewerat our own chart of the whole coast, in order to obtain the Esquimaux names, we discovered that the island ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... more varied conversation. 'The expedition to the Hebrides,' he wrote to Boswell some years after, 'was the most pleasant journey I ever made;' and two years later, after restless and tedious nights, he is found reverting to it and recalling the best night he had had these twenty years back, at Fort Augustus. Yet all through September they had not more than a day and a half of really good weather, and but the same during October. Out of such slight materials and uncomfortable surroundings has Boswell produced a ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... was eating his heart out in the Pasha's prison at Tripoli, his thoughts reverting constantly to his lost frigate, he reminded Commodore Preble, with whom he was allowed to correspond, that "the greater part of our crew consists of English subjects not naturalized in America." This incidental remark comes with all the force of a revelation to those who have ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... Reverting to times when I was a boy, I remember me of a generation of bandy-legged, foxy little curs, long of body, short of limb, tight of skin, and "scant of breath," which were regarded as the legitimate descendants of a superseded class,—the Turnspit of good old times. The daily round of duty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... he tells us, kept every breed of domestic pigeons he could purchase or obtain, in order to study their variations. In this he was himself reverting to the associations of childhood, when the beauty, variety, and tameness of The Mount pigeons at Shrewsbury were ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy condition. First, attention must be ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... the Sarah Jane allowed this insolence to pass unheeded. It is in moments of deep distress that the mind of man, naturally reverting to solemn things, seeks to improve the occasion by a lecture. The skipper, chastened by suffering and disappointment, stuck his right hand in his pocket, after a lengthened search for it, and gently bidding the blanketed urchin in front of him ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... of imperialism that darkens its beauty with sable wing—no! No single thought of regret. How pitiful and absurd our Lilliputian game of empire! What man is better than another? Tolstoi and Buddha, they are the men who knew. Was not my wildest error," he demanded reverting afresh to the other's reproach, "that homesick letter that brought him to my side? Peace came to me, Tregar, in building this lodge, in working in the field and hunting, in doctoring these primitive people who saved my life, in teaching ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... a government so situated is in the condition called in mechanics unstable equilibrium, like a thing balanced on its smaller end, which, if once disturbed, tends more and more to depart from, instead of reverting ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... precisely on account of their stubbornness in rejecting the advances of the Anglo-Norman invaders. Sir John Davies, the attorney-general of James I., could scarcely write a page on the subject without reverting ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... his soul, and nothing that had gone before seemed as humiliating as this trivial comment on his tragedy. The paragraph continued on its way through the press, and whenever he took up a newspaper he seemed to come upon it, slightly modified, variously developed, but always reverting with a kind of unctuous irony to his financial preoccupations and his wife's consequent loneliness. The phrase was even taken up by the paragraph writer, called forth excited letters from similarly situated victims, was commented on in humorous editorials and served as a text for pulpit ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... to deceive Lubbe, who was hanging on to his right flank, and to elbow him away from the drifts, French changed direction with two brigades and headed for Klip Kraal Drift, some eight miles above Klip Drift, reverting suddenly to his original line as soon as the river came in sight. The drifts were held by small parties of the enemy, who offered no resistance, and on the evening of February 13 the Division took possession of the kopjes on ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those slender winrows, Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide; Miles ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... Reverting to the journal again, we find this note: "March 3. For some days past I have been engaged in packing up and taking leave, and yesterday was introduced by the Count le Grice to Cardinal Weld, who received me very politely, presented me with a book, and sent me two ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... my friend, both lying together in Colinton churchyard; and of Dr. Dick, who was minister before him, of the Coventrys, and of Stitchel and Sprouston, of his mother, and of himself,—his doubts of his own sincerity in religion, his sense of sin, of God—reverting often to his dying friend. Such a thing only occurred to me with him once or twice all my life; and then when we were home, he was silent, shut up, self-contained as before. He was himself conscious of this habit of reticence, and what may be called selfism to us, his children, and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... romancers in prose and verse, including Scott and Byron, are falling out of fashion with the middle classes, though Scott holds his own in the sixpenny edition. The rule of Realism is becoming so despotic that the story of adventure is reverting more and more to that shape which lends itself most completely to life-like narrative, the shape of a Memoir. And it may be pointed out accordingly that in France the Editor of Memoirs has lately entered into substantial rivalry with the Novelist ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... sigh, and Clancy's words would repeat themselves again and again. She saw how utterly incapable her aunt was to render any assistance in their desperate straits. Even the stress of their present emergency could not prevent her mind from vainly reverting to a past that was gone forever. Again her confidence was more severely shaken as she was compelled to doubt the wisdom of their habits of seclusion and reticence, of living on from year to year engrossed by memories, instead of adapting themselves ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... was led, by hearing on every side the conversation reverting to the dangers and tragic incidents of the era, separated from us by not quite two years, to make inquiries of every body who had personally participated in the commotions. Records there were on every side, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... sprang to the street and veered across, shouting the news as he went, while Ba'tiste made hurried arrangements regarding the silent form of the lonely cabin. A few moments later, the makeshift boarding-house lobby was crowded, while Barry Houston, reverting to the bitter lessons he had learned during the days of his own cross-examinations, took his place in front of the ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... Reverting from non-success to success, from consideration of the two methods mentioned above to the direction in which practical flight has been achieved, it is to be noted that between the time of Le Bris, Stringfellow, and their contemporaries, and the nineties of last century, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... Early's withdrawal from Maryland had quieted all apprehensions for the safety of Washington, the orders that had met the advance of the Nineteenth Corps at Hampton Roads were recalled, and, reverting to his original intention, Grant sent the detachments of the corps as they arrived up the James River to Bermuda Hundred to join the right wing of his armies under Butler. Indeed, at the moment of its arrival at Poolesville, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... "The only way to keep an Indian from reverting is to put him where he never can see his people or the reservation. Charlie's given up. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... dwellings without permission, who carry fire-arms, or other weapons, or who threaten to injure either persons or property, shall be put to work in the common penitentiary for a period of three years. Pennsylvania in this is but reverting to the old law of England in the Tudor days. In the time of Henry VIII. vagrants were whipped at the cart's tail, without distinction of either sex or age. The whipping-post, together with the stocks, was a conspicuous ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... "Reverting again to Mademoiselle Diana," said he: "she looks charming in black, for women should look upon a death in the family as a most fortunate occurrence; but I ought not to be praising her to you, who are ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... his characteristics, Scott's taste for the theater was exhibited in his childhood. We find him reverting, in a review written in 1826,[108] to his rapturous emotions on the occasion of seeing his first play; and in the private theatricals which he and his brothers and sister performed in the family dining-room he was always the manager. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... thus: 'If,' he says, 'the queen was not married to the king, there was no adultery.' Certainly not. But, says Mr. Froude, Burnet forgets that she was condemned for conspiracy and incest, as well as for adultery. Then thirdly come we, and reverting to this charge of forgetfulness upon Burnet, we say, Forgets! but how was he bound to remember? The conspiracy, the incest, the adultery, all alike vanish from the record exactly as the character of wife vanishes from Anne. With any or all of these ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... assiduity everywhere. K.P. Singha misunderstands it completely. What is meant by the direction about reverencing persons who have attained to Brahma is this: the existence of Brahma and the possibility of Jiva's reverting to that Immutable status are matters that depend upon the conception of such men. Brahma, again, is so difficult to keep, that the great sages never desist for a moment from the culture that is necessary for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... life, retain the primitive habit of clinging vertically to the trunks of trees, although the habit has lost its use. With the tyrant birds—a family showing an extraordinary amount of variation—it is the same; for the most divergent kinds are frequently seen reverting to the family habit of perching on an elevation, from which to make forays after passing insects, returning after each capture to the same stand. The thrushes, ranging all over the globe, afford another striking example. Without speaking of their nesting habits, their relationship ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... was having. His own lot was certainly far less entertaining. However, it was his own; and here he resembled his friend in one respect at least. His thoughts, like Peter's, had a way just now of reverting at short notice to the matters in which he himself ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... his late wife, and then reverting to his former speech, said, "And yet I was happy with her! I consider ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... should succeed, it would be a rewardless one to Miss Sally. If she might detain the captain for herself, the effort would be worth making. The aunt sighed deeply, shook her head distressfully, and then, reverting to a keen sense of Elizabeth's rage and ridicule in the event of failure, looked wildly around for some suggestion of means to hold the officer. Her eye alighted on ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... ancient Greece and which at a very recent epoch, that of Pisistratus, had been gathered into two grand consecutive poems, thanks to some rearrangement and editing. At the commencement of the nineteenth century the erudite were generally agreed that Homer had never existed. Now they are reverting to the belief that there were only two Homers, one the author of the Iliad and the other ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... reverting to the subject of his own enforced idleness, Selwyn said: "I've been on the point of going to see Neergard—but somehow I can't quite bring myself to it—slinking into his office as a rank failure in one profession, to ask him if he has any ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... them so cheaply, and the new Kehillah jumped at the opportunity of gratifying their restless migratory instinct and sent them to a newer. Thus were they tossed about on the battledores of philanthropy, often reverting to their starting-point, to the disgust of the charitable committees. Yet Moses always made loyal efforts to find work. His versatility was marvellous. There was nothing he could not do badly. He had been glazier, synagogue beadle, picture-frame manufacturer, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... said, reverting to our original topic, "if my father has set his mind upon marrying Kate Daltrey, he ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... about that medicine;" then, his mind reverting to the conversation at the gate, he added, "I wasn't goin' to tell her about that horse; let him tell her himself. Blamed fool! I think I headed off his issuing orders about that sick-bed too. Poor little girl! Now if she'd only ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... Lovelace, reverting in his mind to the editor of the journal in question. "What's his name I wonder?" He searched and found it at the top of a column-"Sole Editor and Proprietor, C. Snawley-Grubbs, to whom all checks and post-office orders should be made ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... well as for your own, and as she looked upon you in that affectionate light, the contract between you, as far as it now can be done, shall be maintained. Henceforth you are my daughter. I adopt you. All that she was to have shall be yours, reverting, however, should you die without-issue, to my nephew, Henry Woodward; and should he die childless, to his brother, Charles Lindsay; and should he die without offspring, then to my niece Maria. I have arranged it so, and ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... in causeless cruelty. His motive was a very simple one. He was forced to obey his servant, the Army. The men whom he had made, and who had made him, demanded a visible share in the power and profit that he enjoyed. Reverting to the autumn of 1654, much had then occurred to disquiet the Army. Cromwell had taken a distinct step towards Kingship, by attempting to persuade Parliament to make the Protectorate hereditary. Parliament had made a distinct movement towards ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... I will tell your Mightinesses," said Caron, reverting once more to the dreaded marriage which occupies so conspicuous a place in the strangely mingled and party-coloured tissue of the history of those days, "what the King has again been telling me about the alliance between his son and the Infanta. He hears from Carleton that you ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to respectful silence. Each step in my career of criticism takes me further away from the starting-point. Have I, then, lost all hope of coming back to Catholicism? That would be too bitter a thought. No, sir, I have no hopes of reverting to it by rational progress; but I have often been on the point of repudiating for once and all the guide whom at times I mistrust. What would then be the motive of my life? I cannot tell; but activity will ever find scope. You may be sure that I must have ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... begun to write her Memoirs, and reverting to them now, she found there work that suited her mood, as dealing with the past, more agreeable to contemplate just then than the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... will be a grand ceremonial, grander than ever you have!" Then they told us how this great one had been initiated into the Hindu mysteries by his family priest, and that the mystical benefits accruing from this initiation were to be caused to revert to the priest. This Reverting of the Initiation was to be one of the ceremonies. We watched the procession pass down the street. They were going for water from a sacred stream for the bathing of purification. When they return, said the women, the ceremonies ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... clergyman found his thoughts reverting voluntarily to his favorite relic, which came a good second in his sympathies to his favorite nephew, and before he knew where he was he found himself encircled by the group discussing its loss, and more or less carried away on the current of their excitement. But an undercurrent of query ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... excessive. This is well seen in fig. 23, where the set of first three curves A is for stimulus intensity of 45 deg. vibration, and the second set B, with an augmented response, for stimulus intensity of 90 deg. vibration. On reverting in C to stimulus intensity of 45 deg., the responses are seen to have undergone a great diminution as compared with the first set A. Here is seen marked fatigue, the result of overstrain from ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... nineteenth century after Christ may be assimilated to the golden age of Mencius and Confucius; or, in other words, may consummate its religious freedom, and attain the highest pinnacle of human progress, by reverting to a state of childhood ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... who had been the tireless reapers, the skilled wood-choppers, the husky threshers of the olden time, and as they talked, each of them reverting to significant events in those heroic days, I sobered with a sense of irreparable loss. Pathos and humor mingled in their talk ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... "Reverting to avowed Freethinkers, it is evident that some of them who have lost belief in God are afraid to speak too loud lest he should overhear them. 'How old are you, Monsieur Fontenelle?' asked a pretty young French lady. 'Hush, not so loud, dear Madame!' replied the witty nonagenarian, pointing ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... one sure cause revealed to men How the sun journeys from his summer haunts On to the mid-most winter turning-points In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross That very distance which in traversing The sun consumes the measure of a year. I say, no one clear reason hath been given For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood Seemeth the doctrine ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... seat, she began to watch the door for the new scholar. She tried to attend to the opening exercises, but found her eyes constantly reverting to the spot of fascination, until she grew strangely excited. She really had not long to wait. Soon the girl was ushered quietly in and given a seat five desks away. Polly wished it had been nearer. Then she might have been asked ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... out. Dusky forms were circling round the yellow of the fire which threw pale flickers on the figure of Corporal Inyira, revealing the beginning of the hysterical gleam in the yellows of his eyes as, reverting to habit, he squatted on his haunches in the chair. They might make a rush for the victims at any moment. The sentry, excitement overcoming discipline, was, rifle still in hand, dancing round ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... "churn" is also given. The upright churn was worked by hand by a wooden "plunger"; later came a box-shaped churn with a "splasher" revolving inside and turned by a handle. The modern type of churn, in large dairies worked by mechanical means, either revolves or swings itself, thus reverting to the most primitive method of butter-making, the shaking or swinging of the cream in a skin-bag or a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... one hand, they agreed to grant their lands in tail male in preference to tail general. On the termination of the estate in tail male, the lands were to revert to the trust; and such lands thus reverting were to be granted again to such persons, as the common council of the trust should judge most advantageous for the colony; only the Trustees in such a case were to pay special regard to the daughters of such persons as had made improvements on their lots, especially ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... Reverting to the former incident, the elder Weller and Solomon Pell duly returned with the document all complete, and the party sallied forth to the Fleet Prison. On their way they stopped at Sarjeants' Inn Coffee House off Fleet Street to refresh themselves once more. When Sarjeants' Inn was rebuilt ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... 'do you know that my reverting to the pleasant habit of not smoking is the cause of ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... it was time for smoking; they began to drink and, reverting to their usual topic, they spoke of their monotonous and tedious life. Bottles of cognac and liqueur passed from hand to hand, and seating back on their chairs, they were all absorbing their liqueur in repeated sips, holding at the corner ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound was it at that time: what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances! Reverting for a moment to these, I feel a mystic importance attached to the minutest circumstances connected with the place and the time and the man (if man he was) that first laid open to me the Paradise of Opium-eaters. It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless: ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... refuse-chambers of which I have already spoken, in connexion with the liver, where the blood disembarrasses itself of any useless materials, and from which it comes out with clean pockets, so to speak, reverting to the comparison of which we have ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... shadows of foreign sails on its beautiful waters. Hudson is a prince among triumphant and adventurous discoverers. And I never sail past the Palisades, by summer or gorgeous autumn, when all the hills are blood and flame, without reverting in thought to Hudson, who gave the stream to our geography and his name to the stream, nor forget that he was set adrift in the remote and spacious sea, which likewise bears his name; though well it may, for it is doubtless his grave; for, set adrift by mutineers, he ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... originally built and used for officers for the company's secretaries, directors' boardroom, &c. As part of the New Street Station, a far more pretentious establishment was erected, and to this was given the title of the "Queen's Hotel," the Duddeston Row building reverting to its original use. The Great Western Hotel was the next to be built, and the success attending these large undertakings have led to the erection of the handsome Midland Hotel, opposite New Street Station, and the still grander "Grand Hotel," in Colmore ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... the public mind experienced a strange reaction. The politicians of the two kingdoms, Scotland and England, reverting from the severe discipline of the "Protector," launched into every excess of luxuriousness and dissipation. A cry for the return of the profligate king swept the country from London to Edinburgh. Even the Covenanters were loud in calling for the banished monarch. They determined not to be last ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... must the Blessed Agnes have had," he thought, his mind reverting to his favourite Saint; "she is like the lilies in the garth ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... on the plain: the cultivators have ploughed and the cattle have grazed round it since the flood. Standing beside it, and reverting to its possible history, you give scope to your imagination and ask, What if it had fallen, or should yet fall on me? The bare conception makes you shudder: you are fain to shake off the reverie and compose yourself by the reflection that the rock, fixed to the spot by the laws ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... when they were disabled, and watching every move of the game with a practised eye and an immobile countenance. But though to the eyes of the small fry on the grass at his feet he was as self-sufficient as ever, somehow he kept having strange qualms, and his mind kept reverting to the swart fat face of Pat at the Junction, as it ducked behind the cypress and talked into the crude telephone on the mountain. Somehow he couldn't forget the gloat in his eye as he spoke of the "rich guy." More and more uneasy he grew, more sure that ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... In reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generally been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers. It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your nation, an ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... with the Golden woman?" cried Mrs. Gerard, reverting with feminine insistence to the subject of their first difference. "What are you going to ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... will, he kept mentally reverting to the midships port stateroom containing the woman. He could not keep himself from wondering how she was getting on. Her wound, he hoped—he felt ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... his famous reform of the language of English poetry, the Miltonic diction was the current coin paid out by every versifier. Wordsworth revolted against this dialect as unmeaning, hollow, gaudy, and inane. His reform consisted in dropping the consecrated phraseology altogether, and reverting to the common language of ordinary life. It was necessary to do this in order to reconnect poetry with the sympathies of men, and make it again a true utterance instead of the ingenious exercise in putting together words, which it had become. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... "Donnerwetter!" exclaimed Diefenbach, reverting momentarily to his native tongue. He picked up a beading-punch and turned to his ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... before. One hundred thousand dollars, outright, to Increase M. Argenter's beloved wife; also the use of the homestead; fifty thousand dollars to his daughter Sylvia on her reaching the age of twenty-five, or on her marriage; all else to be Mrs. Argenter's for her life-time, reverting afterward to ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... (1858-1863).—Alexander II. (1855-1881), who came to the Russian throne in the midst of the Crimean War, abandoned the narrow and intolerant system of his predecessor Nicholas, and reverting as it were to the policy of Peter the Great, labored for popular reform, and for the introduction into his dominions of the ideas and civilization of Western Europe. The reform which will ever give his name a place in the list of those rulers ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... totally new to me? Many years ago, when my faculties were much less impaired, I was forced to quit Dow's History of Indostan, because the Indian names made so little impression on me, that I went backward instead of forward, and was every minute reverting to the former page to find about whom I was reading. Your book was a still more laborious work to me; for it contains such a series of argumentation that it demanded a double effort from a weak old head; and, when I had made myself ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... object of a training discipline is to raise a safeguard against any military body reverting to crowd form under trial by fire, history shows that paralysis both of leadership and of the ranks, obliviousness to orders, forgetfulness of means of communication, disintegration and even panic are the not uncommon reactions of military forces ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... are merely permissive conditions for friendship; its positive essence is yet to find. How, we may ask, does the vision of the general socius, humanity, become specific in the vision of a particular friend without losing its ideality or reverting to practical values? Of course, individuals might be singled out for the special benefits they may have conferred; but a friend's only gift is himself, and friendship is not friendship, it is not a form of free or liberal ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... indeed," remarked Uncle Hughie, wisely reverting to an earlier subject, "it will be a question that puzzles the greatest men in the world, why some people must suffer. But, indeed, it is our own selves that will be responsible. And as long as there ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... flicker shot from the eyes of the warrior as they followed her for a moment, but he neither moved nor spoke, his gaze reverting again to his conqueror. ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... Reverting to a Query in your Second Number, p. 29, your correspondent DRAMATICUS may rest assured that Colley Cibber's characters of actors and actresses (his contemporaries and immediate predecessors) first appeared ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various

... it possible?" replied Tom Hunter, his thoughts reverting involuntarily to a former invention of the Hon. J. T. Maston, by which, at its first trial, he had succeeded in killing three ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... near this hospital that he was educated; in its noble church he was a chorister, and his feelings of veneration for the whole establishment, dedicated to the highest of Christian virtues, will never be effaced." Would that every heart beamed with so amiable a sense of gratitude. Reverting to the ancient purposes of the foundation it is to be feared they are not realized with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various

... the courage to leave his enigma unexplained. But ever since Gaboriau created his Lecoq, the transcendent detective has been in favor; and Conan Doyle's famous gentleman analyst has given him a fresh lease of life, and reanimated the stage by reverting to the method of Poe. Sherlock Holmes is Dupin redivivus, and mutatus mutandis; personally he is a more stirring and engaging companion, but so far as kinship to probabilities or even possibilities is concerned, perhaps the older version of him ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... one respect, but not in another," Cyril put in, anxious to prevent the conversation reverting to the question of his bravery. "I put down this wound in my shoulder to it, for if I had been myself I don't think I should have got hurt. I guarded the blow, but I was so shaky that he broke my guard down as if I had been a child, though I think that it did ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... she found her thoughts reverting persistently to chemicals as the only solution to the problem before her. One day she took the strained juice of a lemon and wrote a few words with it on a sheet of white paper. When dry, there was no trace of the written words to ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... o'clock when I left him; even then I went reluctantly, traversing again in my mind the field that his tongue had easily and lightly covered, and reverting to the girl who, as he said, was a sort of embodiment of the thing. The phrase was definite enough for its purpose, and struck home with an undeniable truth. He and she were the sort of people to live in that sort of world, and to stand as its representatives. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... from reverting, in this connection, to the essential difference between the animal instincts and the intellect of man, and would quote, on this subject, the forceful statement of the case by Paul Haffner in his "Materialismus" (Mainz, 1865). We translate: ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... breakfasted, and was just about to take my wherry and go down to acquaint the old couple with the bad success of my application. I had been reflecting with gratitude upon my own happiness in prospect, indulging in fond anticipations, and then, reverting to the state in which I had left Mary Stapleton and Tom's father and mother, contrasting their misery with my joy, arising from the same source, when, who should rush into the dining-room but young Tom, dressed in nothing but a shirt and a pair of white trousers, covered with dust, and wan with fatigue ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... my mind from reverting to a former visit by an American Secretary of State to the republic of Mexico. Thirty-eight years ago, Mr. Seward, a really great American Secretary of State, visited your country. How vast the difference between what ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... will. But why haven't you been free?" she asked, reverting to his previous topic. "Seems to me—down here on the Cape where the sea breezes blow, and ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... fer the future!' she said, reverting to her whimsical brogue. 'We're weak mortals, an' every one iv us is born again wid the new sun. I'd not have ye bind the strange man ye may be to-morrow wid oaths, an' I won't bind the unknown colleen I may be for the likes ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... very beautiful plant. They grow freely in light, rich, loamy soil, but need dividing frequently to prevent them dwindling away. The best season for this operation is early in spring. Beyond the care that is needed to prevent the double varieties reverting to a single state, they merely require the same treatment as other hardy perennials. They flower in June and July. Height, 2 ft. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... amazement, complied, and after remaining a few moments silent, was on the point of reverting to what interested her at that time rather more than anything else in the world, Laurentina's skeleton, when her friend prevented her, by saying, "For heaven's sake! Let us move away from this end of the room. Do you know, there are two odious young men who have been staring at ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... any friendly feeling towards that country. Mary died in 1482, leaving two children, Philip and Margaret, who had been entrusted to the care of Ghent. On the archduke's refusal to conclude peace, the Ghent deputies, reverting to the project of the French marriage, negotiated at Arras a treaty with Louis XI, according to which the young Princess Margaret was to marry the dauphin. Maximilian succeeded in defeating the Ghent militias, and transferred Philip from Ghent to Malines. But the Communes were not ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... time, Be well assured, that inlet of the sea All mortal men shall call Ionian, In memory that Io fared thereby. Take this for proof and witness that my mind Hath more in ken than ever sense hath shown. (To the CHORUS) That which remains, to you and her alike I will relate, and, to my former words Reverting, add this final prophecy. (To Io) There lieth, at the verge of land and sea, Where Nilus issues thro' the silted sand, A town, Canopus called: and there at length Shall Zeus renew the reason in thy brain With the mere touch and contact of his hand Fraught now with fear no more: and thou ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... at their command on the first signal; will it then be time to think of preparing for war when the enemy pass the frontiers? Is it a wise risk to rely for aid upon the nearest Belgian troops when their loyalty is so little to be depended upon? And is not the regent perpetually reverting in her despatches to the fact that nothing but the want of a suitable military force has hitherto hindered her from enforcing the edicts, and stopping the progress of the rebels? A well-disciplined ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... confession, not startling, not, as he now viewed it, beyond a commonplace acknowledgment, and he wondered why he should have suppressed it. He wanted simply to tell her that, at the time when the joking ceremony had been performed, he had looked at her, with his mind reverting to the sick man whose face he had seen that day at the window, and had thought of the charm she could throw upon the gloom-weighted scene should she step into the room. This had come to pass; he had beheld it, and his mind had been sweetened by it; he had walked nearly all the way home with her ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... Kipling as essentially concerned with the carving of men to the "nasty noise of beef-cutting on the block." His "god in a halo of gold dust" seriously discourages any attempt to brand him with the mark of the reverting carnivor. ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer

... led the Sage, l. 189. This description is taken from the figures on the Barbarini, or Portland Vase, where Eros, or Divine Love, with his torch precedes the manes through the gates of Death, and reverting his smiling countenance invites him into ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... perhaps a third burned, behind, and I heard them stumbling back through the darkness to the foot of the stairs. I glanced about curiously, shaking the loosened rope from my wrists, my mind instantly reverting to the chance of escape. Whoever these fellows might be, whatever their purpose, I had no intention of remaining in their hands a moment longer than necessary. Somehow their silence, their mysterious movements, had impressed me with a strange feeling of fear which I could not analyze. I could ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... days, the June days, of her convalescence, Catherine found herself involuntarily reverting, more often than she could understand, to thoughts of the inscrutable and unknown man who had in all probability ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... Edo, and the sword will be drawn. In a month, Edo, fired at a hundred points will lie in ashes. Then...." He stopped a little frightened. But she feigned the greatest indifference, teased him into opposition. Sitting down before the wine she got out of him the whole affair. Reverting to the accident—"But yourself, an accident has been deigned. Has another Yoshi encountered Kuro[u]ji Dono?" To the tender solicitude half laughing he made jesting answer. "A Yoshi with beard and wearing two swords. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... composition of "Evgenii Oniegin" extended over a considerable space of time, our readers may not be displeased at our reverting occasionally to the progress of this work and to the character of its merits. This production must be considered as the fullest and most complete embodiment that exists in Russian literature, of the nationality of the country. It will be found to be the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... which we referred above has forcefully directed attention to the great need of emphasizing this aspect of our subject, since such disintegration is naturally accompanied by a weakening of mathematical vigor. It may be noted that such a disintegration would mean a reverting to primitive conditions, since some of the older works treated mathematics merely as a chapter of astronomy. This was done, for instance, in some of the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... food and lodging in the solitude of their retreats, where they were lost in holy contemplations," and that "in our days, priests could make a retreat for themselves in the solitude of their own hearts." Then, reverting to Birotteau's affairs, he added that "such disagreements were a novelty to him. For twelve years nothing of the kind had occurred between Mademoiselle Gamard and the venerable Abbe Chapeloud. As for himself, ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac

... gentleman, gravely and seriously enough. 'Whatever, madam, it is in my power to do for you, that shall be done with pleasure. As soon as my chaise shall overtake us, it is yours to carry you where you will. But,' added he, reverting to his former manner, 'I observe you ask ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the first to lead me to every one of them, and then leave me in the lurch. The next day, after these my fallings off, he never failed to reprove me gently, blaming me for my venial transgressions; but then he had the art of reconciling all, by reverting to my justified and infallible state, which I found to prove a delightful ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... Reverting now to Darwin's discussion of the variability of cereals, we may conclude that subsequent investigation has proved it to be exactly of the kind which he describes. The only difference is that in reality it reaches ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... reverting to a painful subject, but I am suffering too much now that I know there is no hope for me. I am haunted by the thought of that illegitimate child of my husband's. Will you do me a great service? Make the inquiry you once spoke to me about, try to find out if he is alive or ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... chaps," continued Walton, reverting to another grievance, "will stick on no end of side next term about that cup. They wouldn't have had a look in if Kay hadn't given Fenn that extra. Kay ought to be kicked. I'm hanged if I'm going to care what I do next term. Somebody ought to do ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... "Reverting to that question of deceivers: is it not your opinion that to pardon, to condone, is to corrupt society by passing off as pure what is false? Do we not," he wore the smile of haggard playfulness of a convalescent child the first day back to its toys, "Laetitia, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... he were one of the placidly stupid type, would be a positive relief; she could abandon herself to the secure sense of being at home; she need fear no surprises, and in the smooth shallows of their talk there were no unsuspected depths to excite and to baffle her ingenuity. And, again, reverting in her thought to Halfdan, his conversational brilliancy would almost repel her, as something odious and un-American, the cheap result of outlandish birth and unrepublican education. Not that she had ever valued republicanism very ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... walk all the way back to Tavistock Square. They mentioned neither Hilaria nor Blanche Grey again that night, but as Ishmael lay for a long time awake staring into the darkness he could not keep his mind from reverting with a sense of deep fear to what he had heard about Hilaria. That such things could lie in wait in life, around the path of people one knew—people like oneself.... To others these exotic misfortunes, not to oneself or those near one. He ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... that it had the Emperor's sympathy, declined the honour and announced his intention of entering religion, which he did by retiring to the monastery at Yoshino. The conspirators, at whose head were the minister of the Left, Soga no Akae, and the minister of the Right, Nakatomi no Kane, aimed at reverting to the times when, by placing on the throne a prince of their own choice, one or two great uji had grasped the whole political power. The prime mover was Kane, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... retorted, firing up. "Or if he did not, prove it—prove it! And, by the way," she continued, lowering her voice again, and reverting to her former tone of spiteful badinage, "how is the dear queen? I heard that she was indisposed yesterday, and kept the King in attendance all day. So unfortunate, you know, just at this time." And her eyes twinkled ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... Reverting to the original advertisement for coffee in English, when we compare it with the latest examples of advertising art, it is of the same order of merit. But Pasqua Rosee had no advertising experts to advise him and no precedents to follow. Pasqua ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... told me nothing about her," I now urged, reverting to the topic of gravest interest to me. "Is she any one we know or an importation ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... exalted above a mere personal function, looked forward to as the highest social service, as the sacrament of a lifetime—were now confronted with an opportunity to make the great step of changing their whole status, of reverting to their ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... belief, the stranger's shoulders sagged and he trembled as with the ague. The two older men who had kept in the background gasped their astonishment as his hair faded to a sickly gray, then became as white as the driven snow. Old Crompton was reverting to his previous state! Within five minutes, instead of the handsome young stranger, there stood before them a bent, withered old man—Old Crompton beyond a doubt. The effects of Tom's process ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... have humbugged me so?" she wailed, in delight, reverting to the window. "Anyhow, she's charming. She's made for the part. I couldn't pray ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... again on the old man's cheeks. "If madam would call me Steptoe," he said ceremoniously, "I think she'd find it easier. I mean," he went on, reverting to the original theme, "that 'E didn't make 'em to be cooks and 'ousemaids and parlormaids, and all that. That's men's work. Men'll do it as easy as a bird'll sing. I never see the woman yet as didn't fret 'erself over it, like a wild animal'll fret ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... convent—yes," I cried, my mind reverting back to the conversation I had heard between Richard ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... no longer had novelty, but it still had interest; and they varied their day by taking a coupe, by renouncing advertisements, and by reverting to agents. Some of these induced them to consider the idea of furnished houses; and Mrs. March learned tolerance for Fulkerson by accepting permits to visit flats and houses which had none of the qualifications she desired in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Reverting to the original recipe: Take the remainder of the crawfish and add thereto three anchovies, washed for the purpose, and also the crusts of French rolls, fried to a light brown color in butter. Pound all these thoroughly together and then put them ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... He, 't' the cranks she may have, hopin' for the best.' An' He done it! That He did! They're tidy craft—oh, ay, they're wonderful tidy craft—but 'tis Lard help un in a gale o' wind! An' the Lard made she," he continued, reverting to the woman from Wolf Cove, "after her kind, a woman, acquaint with the wiles o' women, actin' accordin' t' nature An'," he declared, irrelevantly, "'tis gettin' close t' winter, an' 'twould be comfortable ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... upon many points. "But so many orphans," he said perplexed, reverting to a first misconception, and learnt again that they ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... he was not thinking of Deans or Seniors just then; his thoughts were reverting to his father's implacable anger, and to Julian's forbidding him to hope for the love of Violet Home. Weary of the talking, and careless of explaining anything to them, and with a short return of his old contempt, he wished to cut ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... Reverting to the use of aircraft in naval warfare it may be said that to the aeroplane the relatively fast fleet is virtually stationary. About the only case parallel to the aeroplane looking over the hill and down on concealed ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... had been trying to whistle them all his life, but had never succeeded; he whistled them as a clever bullfinch might whistle them—he had got them, but he had not got them right; he would be a semitone out in every third note as though reverting to some remote musical progenitor, who had known none but the Lydian or the Phrygian mode, or whatever would enable him to go most wrong while still keeping the tune near enough to be recognised. Theobald stood ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... a thousand with me here are laid Within is Frederick, second of that name, And the Lord Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not." He, this said, from sight withdrew. But I my steps towards the ancient bard Reverting, ruminated on the words Betokening me such ill. Onward he mov'd, And thus in going question'd: "Whence the' amaze That holds thy senses wrapt?" I satisfied The' inquiry, and the sage enjoin'd me straight: "Let thy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... Eastern Church during the nights as well as days. In ordaining the fast he said that God 'would make it an ease and not a difficulty,' but he may not have reflected that his own action in discarding the intercalary month adopted by the Arabs and reverting to the simple lunar months would cause the fast to revolve round the whole year. During the fast people eat before sunrise and after sunset, and dinner-parties are held ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... make this resolution: to keep it, Gertrude found another matter. She could not think of the war, she could not talk with her neighbors of current events, she could not take up a newspaper, without reverting to her absent friend. She found herself constantly harassed with the apprehension that he had not allowed himself time really to recover, and that a fortnight's exposure would send him back to the hospital. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... local matters, a disposition to leave the war to the French, a willingness to let other States bear the burdens, replaced the fervour of 1776. In other words, the old colonial habits were reasserting themselves, and the separate States, reverting to their former accustomed negative politics, were {108} behaving toward the Continental Congress precisely as they had done toward England itself during the French wars. With hundreds of thousands of men of ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... yours is a humbug," broke out Coronado, his mind reverting to the letter which he had just burned. "I put work on him which he swore to do and did not do. He is a ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Paul accuse the Galatians of reverting to the weak and beggarly elements of the Law when they never had the Law? Why does he not say to them: "At one time you Galatians did not know God. You then served idols that were no gods. But now that you have ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... the gallants consisted, for the greater part, of witticisms at one another's expense, which, though evoked for Ariel's benefit (all eyes furtively reverting to her as each shaft was loosed), she found more or less enigmatical. The young men, however, laughed at each other loudly, and seemed content if now and then she smiled. "You must be frightfully ennuied with all this," Eugene said to her. "You see how provincial ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... getting foozled already," she exclaimed, gaily reverting to a girlhood habit of clapping her hands. "How much will I win if I win?" The gesture attracted attention even as the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... only had my oxygen-containing bullets ready!" thought Stern, his mind reverting to an unfinished experiment down there in his laboratory in the Rapids power-house. "They would turn the trick, sure enough! They'd burst and rain fire everywhere. But they aren't ready yet; and even if they were, nobody could ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England



Words linked to "Reverting" :   recidivism, regressive, revert, failure



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