"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... handles the retort and decanter! Makes lightning and thunder would scare Tam O'Shanter; Makes feathers as heavy as lead, in a jar, And eliminates spirits from coal and ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... the kind," was the sharp retort; "but how know I, even were I to marry one of the princesses I have enumerated, that I should be more fortunate than I have hitherto been? If beauty and youth could have ensured to me the blessing of a Dauphin, had I not every right to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... idiosyncrasies in the slightest degree, the poet certainly makes himself out as the most insupportable of human companions. None the less did the publication of Elle et Lui, a quarter of a century later, provoke a savage retort from the deceased poet's brother, in Lui et Elle. Finally, in Lui, a third novelist, Madame Colet, presented the world with a separate version of the affair from one who imagined she could have made up to the poet ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... trouble to get a good start again. But he needn't have bothered; there was no occasion. It was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of our nature—an irresistible law—to enjoy and applaud a spirited and promptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the preacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would soon return. It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that satisfaction—without too much ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... frequently occurred for me to defend General Buell against what I believed to be most unjust charges. On one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted—of disloyalty. This brought from General Buell a very severe retort, which I saw in the New York World some time before I received the letter itself. I could very well understand his grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained by an officer who, at the time, was at the head of the army. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... long-necked decanter hung up with the opening below. From the bottom of the decanter a strong band attaches the whole to the branch of a tree. (Fig. 28.) The Yellow Weaver Bird of Java, as described by Forbes, constructs very similar retort-shaped nests.[96] ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was impossible, and the older ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... brings tears to our eyes also. Richard calls for a glass wherein to see his sins, and we are reminded of Hamlet, who advises the players to hold the mirror up to nature. He jests with his grief, too, in quick-witted retort, as ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... grandson at that time, and when the nurse announced my birth, she was not sufficiently courageous to tell the truth, and said: "A boy, sir!" Her faltering manner possibly betrayed her, as the sarcastic retort was: "I dare ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... head in sad remonstrance at this vulgar, coarse, but latterly frequent retort of insurgent democracy upon indignant aristocracy. But he ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... remark, but took no notice of it. Owen had again a good deal to endure from Ashurst, and his temper was sorely tried. Often a retort rose to his lips, though he refrained from uttering it. A month or more went by. The two frigates had come round to the ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... bit hurt, and this time I indulged a retort. "Wonder if you'll get Popplewell into the Academy. You've never had anything in yet, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... Writes me that man—how dearly ever parted How much in having, or without, or in— Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he knows, but by reflection; As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them, and they retort their heat ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... the occurrence, or the non-occurrence, of certain phenomena at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden revelation of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the scientific mind is enough to take away the breath of any one unfamiliar with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the assumption that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious end, in any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical events, things that actually happened; and, as such, must ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... tone stung him to instant retort. "And in gude company I'd be. Fifty years syne Lord Erskine was laughed down in Parliament for proposing to give legal protection to dumb animals. But we're ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... good-humoured over her taking-off that for a long time I cherished a rather dream-like faith in her reappearance to prove that this attitude had been justified. Not that Mr. LOWIS has not every right to retort that he is writing comedy rather than farce; certainly he has made his four blind mice to run in highly diverting fashion, very entertaining to those of us who see how they run; and as they at least save their tails triumphantly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... part of the archangel more by act than word. Words are hushed in great encounters. Debate with a pirate, a body-snatcher, would be folly; no arguments, therefore, were wasted, on the top of Nebo, by Michael, over the grave of Moses. "The Lord rebuke thee," was his retort; his heavenly form stopping the way, his baffling right arm hindering the accursed design, were the invincible logic of ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... fancifully added that we too should peradventure be gilded by the legend, should be pointed at for having listened, for having actually heard. Gravener, who had glanced at his watch and discovered it was midnight, found to all this a retort beautifully characteristic of him. ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... and you make our conceptions the measure of reality. Mysteries, therefore, become nonsense, and miracles an impossibility. In fact, Ward's logic would lead to Spinoza, not to the deity of Catholic belief. Ward might retort that Fitzjames's doctrines would lead to absolute scepticism or atheism. Fitzjames, in fact, still accepts Mill's philosophy in the fullest sense. All truth, he declares, may be reduced to the type, 'this piece of paper is blue, and that is white.' In other words, it is purely empirical ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... this stage that Danny Ward arrived. Quite a party it was. His manager and trainer were with him, and he breezed in like a gusty draught of geniality, good-nature, and all-conqueringness. Greetings flew about, a joke here, a retort there, a smile or a laugh for everybody. Yet it was his way, and only partly sincere. He was a good actor, and he had found geniality a most valuable asset in the game of getting on in the world. But down ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... play like that for when he is howling?" Harris would retort, catching the boot. "You let him alone. He can't help howling. He's got a musical ear, and your playing ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... though the streets are wide and regular, and the large town is well aired by four squares, the whole aspect was strongly suggestive of the cocineros (cooks), as the citizens of the capital are called by the sons of the capital-port. They retort by terming their rival brethren chicharreros, or fishers of the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of la Charente a nervous chill. "You may tell her," Lucien went on, "that I now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... they were quite alone. He began the experiment, explaining as he went, and she watched it as eagerly as he. He turned away for a moment, to get another chemical. As he leaned over the retort to put it in, he heard it seethe. With all her strength, she pushed him away instantly. There was an explosion which shook the walls of the laboratory, a quantity of deadly gas was released, and, in the fumes, they ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... intellectually, there was also in parts of his poems evidence of a healthy vigour which only needed favourable circumstances to develop into transcendent excellence. Hazlitt, holding with the one of these opinions, cries, 'If Chatterton had had a great work to do by living, he would have lived!' Others retort on the critic, 'On the same principle, why did Keats, whom you rate so high, perish so early?' The question altogether is nugatory, seeing it can never be settled. Suffice it that these songs and rhymes of Chatterton have great beauties, apart from the age and position of their author. There ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... proposed an increase of territory and a Turkish title in return for the acknowledgment of suzerainty. "As long as my people defend me," was the proud answer, "I need no Turkish title to my throne; if they desert me, such a title would avail me little." War was the effect of this retort, but the Turks gained nothing by it, and peace ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... producing a very great lowering of temperature. It is this principle that is utilized in refrigeration and ice making. In the absorption system, where aqua ammonia is used, the liquor is contained in a retort to which heat is applied by means of a steam coil, and a great part of the gas which was held in solution by the water is expelled, and carries with it a small amount of water or vapor. This passes into a separator in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... throat, but said nothing, recollecting by this time that all retort or explanation was lost upon Miss Deborah Coggins. To change the subject she remarked, "How disappointed I was at your not coming last night, my dear Miss Debby—one of the friends I most wished ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... trouble to find out!" was his mother's retort. "I tell you, my boy, no lass that ever lived thinks more of a lad for staying in the background. You ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... concerned with playwriting as with generalship. The latter dipped his pen in the satirical inkpot, and wrote a farce, "The Blockade of Boston." It was this play that drew forth from a woman, an American playwright, the retort stinging. This lady was Mrs. Mercy Warren[1] who, although distinguished for being a sister of James Otis, and the wife of General James Warren, was in her own name a most important and distinct ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... like that? Great Heaven! With just such accent he had heard a wrangling woman retort upon her husband at the street corner. Is there then no essential difference between a woman of this world and one of that? Does the same nature lie ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... The French claim that he did; the English that he did not. "The house demolished with bullets" was probably an old trading post, contend the English; but there was no trading post except Radisson's west of Lake Superior at that time, retort the French. By "cows" Radisson meant buffalo, and no buffalo were found as far east as Hudson Bay, say the English; by "cows" Radisson meant caribou and deer, and herds of these frequented the shores of Hudson Bay, answer the French. No river comes from the Saguenay to Hudson ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... retort to say that New-Englanders who go to the South, soon learn to patronize the system they have considered so abominable, and often become proverbial for their severity. I have not the least doubt of the fact; for slavery contaminates all that comes within its influence. It would be ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... their quarters, at the same time striking right and left with the flat of his sword, hitting two of the men. One proved to be a sergeant who was trying to quell the noise and get his men into quarters. The latter resented the blow and made a sharp retort to the colonel, who immediately repeated it, whereupon the sergeant struck him a terrible blow in the eye with his fist, knocking him down. I got there just in time to see the colonel fall, and immediately seized the sergeant and placed him in arrest. ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... report you for impertinence!" declared the now angry passenger, taking out his notebook and making a memorandum lest he forget the conductor's retort. "It's a disgrace the way this road is managed," he went on to the crowd of passengers that had gathered. "I'm going to write to the newspapers about it. They're always having accidents. Why, only last week, they run over a steer, somewhere in this locality, the engine was derailed, two cars ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... He explained what had happened to the principal chief. The chief seemed very much put out and told La Verendrye for his {62} consolation that there were a good many rascals among the Mandans. Later, when the Assiniboines told the chief that he was himself the thief, he made the weak retort that one of his accusers might be the culprit. He promised to do his best to recover the bag, but La Verendrye never ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... flashed. She opened her lips to speak—closed them again with the angry retort unuttered. After all, Frank was her mother's and her sole dependence. They could hope for little from him, but nothing must be said that would give him and his mean, selfish wife a chance to break with them and refuse to do ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... deft, was plaiting horsehair about a stick of hardwood to form the handle of a quirt, Sandy overhauling his two Colts and Sam furnishing orchestra on his harmonica. Now he put it to his lips, unable to find a sufficiently crushing retort to Mormon's diatribe against words of more than one syllable, breathing out the burden of "My Bonnie lies over ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the grains of corn they had gained from the autumnal store. There can be little doubt that some species of ants do store food; but their praiseworthy actions in this direction have been greatly exaggerated, and there appears, indeed, to be some danger of idle persons being prepared with the retort to the wise man, that the ant is by no means the model creature he thought her to be. If, however, the supposed corn-grains turn out to be the rising generation of ants in their chrysalis-state, it may be said that what the ants may have lost in the way of fame in this direction ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... the beer, put it into a glass retort, furnished with a receiver, and distil, with a gentle heat, as long as any spirit passes over into the receiver; which may be known by heating from time to time a small quantity of the obtained fluid in a tea-spoon over a candle, and bringing ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... commissions in the army; officers he usually called "the epauletted puppies," and lords he generally spoke of as "feather-headed fools," who could but strut and stare and be no answer in kind to retort his satiric flings, his unfriends reported that it was unsafe for young men to associate with one whose principles were democratic, and scarcely either modest or safe for young women to listen to a poet whose notions of female virtue were so loose and his songs so free. These sentiments ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... O viper vile! The "solus" in thy most mervailous face; The "solus" in thy teeth, and in thy throat, And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy, And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth! I do retort the "solus" in thy bowels; For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... a Bunsen burner under a large glass retort. But he had no sooner done so than he sat down on a chair and, picking up a book which I surmised might be some work ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... their point. For instance, a dull dog of a jester (played in a funereal fashion by Mr. SUGDEN) stopped the action of the piece, for what seemed to me (no doubt the time was actually less) some three-quarters of an hour, while he explained the difference between the "retort courteous" and "the reproof valiant." The plot was as thin as a wafer, but as it is, no doubt, generally known, I need not further refer to it. Mrs. LANGTRY was a most graceful and pleasing Rosalind. She acted with an earnestness worthy of a better cause, and afforded not a trace of ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... ages, ladies to look at, all of them,—suggested anew the question, Why should his daughter be shut off from the privileges of these? He felt ashamed when he asked. Yet the question would be answered; and without palliation, self-excusing, or retort, he meditated. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... only grunted in retort, his head nodding drowsily. The tremulous tracery the wood-fire cast upon his face gave it an expression of dumb intensity which adumbrated all the pathos and the patience of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... been the object of it: she had waited by his side, and, with every good purpose, had preached patience to him, while he was smarting under the pain, but more under the shame, of his chastisement. At first, his fury threatened a retort upon the servants around him (and who refused his entrance into the house) of the punishment he had received. But, in the certainty of an amende honorable, which must hereafter be made, he overcame the many temptations which the moment offered, and re-mounting ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... once more appeared dubious, and made no answer; but she noticed that the man now preceded them, and raised his hand when they came up with the band, which had apparently halted to indulge in retort or badinage with some ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... formed by mixing intimately eight parts of common salt, and three parts of the black oxide of manganese in powder; put this mixture into a retort, then pour four parts of sulphuric acid, diluted with an equal weight of water, and afterwards allowed to cool upon the salt and manganese; the gas will then be immediately liberated, and the operation may be quickened by a moderate heat. A tube ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... the poor creature of a husband strove very hard to draw Marion into a dispute, about what he was pleased to call our "REBELLION". I expected to have heard him lashed very severely for such brutality; for few men ever excelled Marion in the 'retort abrupt'. But every time the subject was introduced, he contrived very handsomely to waive it, by some pretty turn to the ladies, which happily relieved their terrors, and gave a fresh spring to general ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... "I won't retort the question about 'something sharp,'" said Constance arching her eyebrows, "because it is against my principles to make people uncomfortable; but you have certainly brought in some medicine with you, for Miss Ringgan's cheeks a little ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... would come now! He saw Railsford's face flush and his eyes flash. But before the furious retort escaped from his lips, a wise whisper from somewhere fell between them and robbed ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... the clerk's lips to say that it was time that the questioner was in his bed, but it is not safe upon a campaign to be ironical at the expense of khaki-clad men. He contented himself, therefore, with the bald statement that it was after two. But no retort that he could have devised could have had a more crushing effect. The voice turned drunken also, and the man caught at the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... keep more to the middle of the river?" was the retort, and then the boat shot around and took the same direction as the one in which the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... boring the ceiling with his gaze, filing the prison bars. By his restlessness, he had tired out the soldiers who watched him through the little window, and who, several times, in despair, had threatened to shoot. Tsiganok would retort, coarsely and derisively, and the quarrel would end peacefully because the dispute would soon turn into boorish, unoffending abuse, after which shooting would ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... father's habit, could have vented such an insinuation—he was however frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... have," was the angry retort; and taking no notice of his visitor's proffered hand, the man stamped his foot impatiently on the uncarpeted floor. "No one ever comes to see me about anything else but business. And I don't want them to," he added with a grim chuckle. "Well, let us get it done. My ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... The retort happily hit the mark, for the fellow was the possessor of a richly tinted proboscis of carmine hue, that was somewhat of a landmark in the village. The crowd roared in approbation of the home thrust and the man, hastily ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... retort in any other way, yet in uncontrollable recklessness, she exclaimed, "They never shall see me hang, then!" and swallowed the arsenic she had concealed in ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... retort, perhaps heatedly, but Cleggett, generous even while determined to have his own way, hastened to add: "Do not think, Mr. Barnstable, that I minimize your work, or your assistance—but, after all, what am I demanding that is unreasonable? If Logan Black ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... what came over me, for I had not been conscious of a similar weakness since I was a child, but I was so mortified by this retort that my eyes pricked and filled with tears, as I continued to gaze ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not really believe that they love us and have kindly feelings toward us, or that they will be just and kind and sympathetic in their actions that affect us or relate to us. Have you not seen children who, when one would hurt another and say, "Oh, I did not mean to do it!" the other would retort, "Yes, you did; you just did it on purpose"? There are many older persons who are always ready to say, "It was just done on purpose; they just meant to hurt my feelings!" This is childish, but alas, how many professed Christians ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... angrily, and proud, He answered thee with laughter loud And brief retort. But thou didst speak So mild, so earnestly did seek To change his mood, in wonder first He eyed thee; then no longer durst Raise his bold glances to thy face, But, looking down, began to trace, With little, naked foot and hand, Thoughtful devices in the sand; And when at last thou didst ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... stock of anecdotes made to screw on and screw off for the special behoof of college presidents and university professors. Why hold up Choricius to ridicule? He was no worse than others of his guild. It was not Choricius, it was another Byzantine historian who conveyed from Herodotus an unsavory retort, over which the unsuspecting Gibbon chuckles in the dark cellar of his notes, where he keeps so much of his high game. The Greek historian of the Roman Empire, the Roman historian of every date, are no better, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who has devoted many pages to the arraignment ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... the "Baron de B.-W.!" Erreur! I, the Baron de B.-W., being of sound mind and body, hereby declare that the Baron himself was not present. And why? Well, do my readers remember the honest milk-maid's retort to the coxcomb who said he wouldn't marry her? Good. Then, substituting "me" for "you," and "he" for "she," the Baron can adopt the maiden's reply. After this, other ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... water and place them in a retort connected with a Liebig's condenser. Add a drop or two of a solution of carbonate of soda and distil over 100 c.c.; collect another 50 c.c. separately. Determine the ammonia in the distillate colorimetrically (with Nessler's solution, as described under Ammonia) ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... think of a retort, so, perhaps thinking she had said enough, madame gave him a dignified bow ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... deg., and even in open vessels the explosion is very violent. Care must also be taken during the fractional distillation of the concentrated solution in methyl alcohol to cool the apparatus before changing the receiver, as if air is admitted while the retort is heated the experiment ends with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... blown half a gale about it—that he had had no right to dispose of such a production without her consent. His answer to this was simply that the purchaser was so little of a stranger that it didn't go, so to speak, out of the family, out of hers. It didn't matter, Miriam's retort that if Mr. Sherringham had formerly been no stranger he was utterly one now, so that nothing would ever less delight him than to see her hated image on his wall. He would back out of the bargain and Nick be left with the picture on his hands. Nick ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... game went on Harry never exactly knew. Well practised as he was in snapping in the nursery, he often failed to think of a retort, and paid for his unreadiness by the loss of his hair. Oh, how foolish and wearisome all this rudeness and snapping now seemed to him! But on he had to go, wondering all the time how near it was to twelve o'clock, and whether the Snap-Dragons ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... same lightning flash which had illuminated the beribboned diploma in Miss Priscilla's mind had passed to Virginia also, the girl bit back a retort that was trembling on her lips. "I wonder if she can be getting to know things?" thought the older woman as she watched her, and she added half resentfully, "I've sometimes suspected that Gabriel Pendleton was almost too ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... course of any cousinly discussion, whatever the subject in dispute, and she had not even glanced at Herbert's hands to assure herself that the accusation was warranted. But, as usual, the facts supported her; and they also supported Herbert in his immediate mechanical retort: ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to meet Gade, and an opportunity soon occurred. Gade expressed a willingness to look at some of his compositions, and asked if he had anything to show him. Edward modestly answered in the negative. "Go home and write a symphony," was the retort. This the young composer started obediently to do, but the work was never finished in this form. It became later Two Symphonic Pieces for ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... "You have provoked the retort—were you convinced that you would be happy with Arthur Carew, when you made up your mind ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... in a humour to bear this affront, and she was about to make a very angry retort on the child, when she perceived that the villagers were once again entering the chapel to see the conclusion of the ceremony, so turning to her uncle, she whispered, "You see they do not want you at home, uncle Dorsain, so you may as well ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... delineated (fig. 66.). This I have found exceedingly useful in experiments continued in succession for days together, and where large quantities of indicating gas were to be collected. It is fixed on a weighted foot, and has the form of a small retort containing the two electrodes: the neck is narrow, and sufficiently long to deliver gas issuing from it into a jar placed in a small pneumatic trough. The electrode chamber, sealed hermetically at the part held in the stand, is five inches in length, and 0.6 of an inch in ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... why a much greater subdivision of land would not be beneficial in England. Of course, if to the example of America you retort all its singular and advantageous conditions, I have nothing to say; but how about Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland? where small proprietorship appears to result in prosperity both to the land and its ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... slaughtered; even women were hanged. The dead numbered 600. Grey doubtless regarded the measure as a just return for the doings of the Inquisition, and the punishment of English sailors as pirates, for his retort to the garrison's overtures had been that their presence in Ireland was piracy. But the whole business illustrates the sheer ruthlessness which characterised both sides, at least where there was a technical excuse for denying belligerents' rights to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... master wit of the Play consist in any one class of fun, as verbal conceits in the punning line; practical jokes; Euphuism, so-called; banter in speech and retort, versemaking and sonneteering, learned quips, or in the use of all these combined in a way to bring out the point of the Play—the clash of ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... decomposition commenced. That the portions passing over below 290 deg. had a strong acid reaction already indicated the presence of ethers. Herr Convert boiled 10 grammes of the oil with 20 grammes of alcohol and 1 gramme of potash during one day in a retort provided with a return condenser. Finally the alcohol was separated by distillation, the residue supersaturated with dilute sulphuric acid, and together with much water submitted to distillation until the distillate had scarcely an acid reaction. The liquid that had ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... chemistry?" asked Lindsley. But the trapper did not answer. He got out the retort, and in five minutes the oxygen was bubbling furiously through the wash bottle into the India-rubber receiver. Edwards stood at the window scanning the road toward Gager's with his telescope until it grew ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... only 2d., a sum which has been immortalized by Samuel Johnson's famous retort on his tutor: 'Sir, you have sconced me 2d. for non-attendance at a lecture not ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... This retort angered the owner of the Three Stars, but before he could say anything the proprietor of ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... experience,—much like a headstrong personage who was about to attempt crossing a river in a boat sure to sink. "You will drown, if you go in that thing," said a bystander. "Never was drowned yet," was the prompt retort; and pushing off, he soon lost the opportunity to repeat that boast! But this resistance is constantly becoming less. Meantime, numbers of foreseeing men are waking up, or are already awakened, to the importance of recreation and physical culture,—members ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... give you my face as well as my name to help you bear it," said April drily. Unexpectedly the retort pierced, for ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... had a certain tenderness for the pretty black sheep of the family, checked the sharp retort which trembled on her lips. Still, it was quite true that Rosamund had more than once been kept to lunch at The Trellis House, and that on the day of Nanna's accident Mrs. Crofton had issued a sort of general invitation to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... broom from the black servant's hand, discharged it at Iskender's head with all his strength. The son of Yacub, by a lucky move, escaped the missile; but seeing the negro stepping forth to recover his broom, stayed to make no retort. ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... be thought to lay myself open to the rejoinder,—"Neither have you any right to assume that Inspiration will result in Infallibility." But the retort is without real point. I do but assert that, just as every man of honour claims to be believed until he has been convicted of a falsehood,—inspired Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles have a right to our entire ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... may, so they be men and not cowards!" shouted John Alderton in retort, and springing to the stern he thrust out his own oar, calling to a comrade,—"Here, Cornish Jim, come you and help me, and so long as ash blades and stout arms hold we two ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... Rose would retort curtly: "What can I buy with your wisdom? Will it give me wherewith to eat and to drink, and to clothe myself? No! Very well then, what is ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... perfectly true that what neither Hoadly nor Warburton, nor Tindal, nor Wesley could do, was done by John Dennis.... "Plays," wrote Law, "are contrary to Scripture as the devil is to God, as the worship of images is to the second commandment." To this Dennis gave the obvious and unanswerable retort that "when St. Paul was at Athens, the very source of dramatic poetry, he said a great deal publicly against the idolatry of the Athenians, but not one word against their stage. At Corinth he said as little against ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... the troops, embittered almost intolerably by a sense that the Fifth Division had disgraced itself. One regiment blamed another, and all conspired to curse the artillery—whose practice, by the way, had been brilliant throughout the siege. Nor did the gunners fail to retort; but they were in luckier case, being kept busy all the while, first in shifting their batteries and removing their worst guns to the ships, next in hauling and placing the new train that arrived piecemeal from England; ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... countered by asking him whether he really believed me such a fool as to venture into his country without sending a messenger to my countrymen by another way, informing them where I had gone, and asking them to investigate my fate if I did not arrive at home in due course. This retort proved to be my winning card, for he gave in at once, acknowledging Nell's presence in the place; but insinuating that, since he had kept her alive and treated her well ever since the Tembu had sent her to him as a present, I ought to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... this was the wisest course, but wisdom is often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural man has asserted himself by a retort in kind. But the wrong was committed; his resignation was accepted; the vulgar letter, not fit to be spread out on these pages, is enrolled in the records of the nation, and the first deep wound was inflicted on the proud ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... synagogues and beating Jews to senselessness in all parts of the city, undisturbed by the presence of police and troops who did nothing to stop the atrocities. The appeal of representative Odessa Jews to Governor-General Kotzebue was met by the retort that the Jews themselves were to blame, "having started first," and that the necessary measures for restoring order had been adopted. The latter assertion proved to be false, for on the following day the pogrom was renewed ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... careless retort, and with the words a gas-jet shot up, then two, then all that the room contained. "How's that? What's a flash ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... was the gruff retort. 'Orders are that all the men are to turn in and take what rest they can. Faith, it's mighty little slape any of ye will get, once you're ashore. Go down now and ate your suppers and rest. I'm thinking ye'll be taking tay with the Turks ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... only too easy. And Jules Janin, whom he had already indisposed by sketching a seeming portrait of him in the Provincial Great Man in Paris, came down heavily on the daring satirist in the Debats of the 20th of February 1843. The retort, so he informed Madame Hanska, made him laugh immoderately. Perhaps; but the laugh must have been somewhat forced—what the French ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... mildest, was stung quickly to a retort, and I was about to order her to hold her tongue and return me my basket, when the door into the house opened and shut, and the little girl of the enchanted garden appeared in ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... and longitude was longitude," would be the captain's retort. "Variation and deviation are used in setting courses and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was false, and yet here sat Mart—a gentleman. While still he puzzled over the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart turned to Bertha. "Do ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Strand in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merriment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to "look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to the quick, Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers-by to be on their guard against "that brace of disguised pickpockets"—his next was to step into the middle of the street, where there was room for action, half draw his sword, and beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow him. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... suppose an oyster is dull," was Rose's disdainful retort. "But it's no good to talk to ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... but, above all, Settle and Shadwell, whom, under the names of Doeg and Og, he has depicted in the liveliest colours his poignant satire could afford. They who have patience to look into the lampoons which these worthies had published against Dryden, will, in reading his retort, be reminded of the combats between the giants and knights of romance. His antagonists came on with infinite zeal and fury, discharged their ill-aimed blows on every side, and exhausted their strength in violent and ineffectual rage. But the keen and trenchant ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... merely paid back in their own coin, but they had never been accustomed to yield to others the privileges they claimed for themselves, and could not understand how "this fellow" dared presume to retort the foulness hurled at him. His paper meanwhile enjoyed a fair circulation, and his enemies periodically saw themselves held up before the people of the Province in a light well calculated to bring down public execration upon them. They winced, and hated their aggressor ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... time the Monroe Doctrine was originally proclaimed, it did unquestionably express a valid national interest of the American democracy. It was the American retort to the policy of the Holy Alliance which sought to erect the counter-revolutionary principles into an international system, and which suppressed, so far as possible, all nationalist or democratic agitation. The Spanish-American colonies had been winning their independence from Spain; and there was ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... cutting-process to your taste As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned, Nor see more danger in it,—you retort. Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wise When we consider that the steadfast hold On the extreme end of the chain of faith Gives all the advantage, makes the difference With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule: We are their lords, or ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... bewildered by Vesey's boldness and dazed by his terrifying doctrines, reply defensively "we are slaves," the harsh retort "you deserve to remain so," was, without doubt, intended to sting if possible, their abject natures into sensibility on the subject of their wrongs, to galvanize their rotting souls back to manhood, and to make their base and sieve-like minds capable of receiving and retaining, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... significant. Everybody remembers, or ought to remember, Goldsmith's charming pastor, to whom it can only be objected that he has not the fear of political economists before his eyes. This is Crabbe's retort after describing a dying pauper ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... leaves me arms, Vigour of soul and body, and a race Subject by law, and dutiful by choice, Whose hand is never to be holden fast Within the closing cleft of gnarled creeds; No easy prey for these vile mitred Moors. I, who received thy homage, may retort Thy threats, vain prelate, and ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... far better creature than the cause of his fortunes; and one doubts if Lord Beaconsfield would have trusted even the least frank of his private negotiations to some of the men who enjoy the Prime Minister's political confidence. Nor can Mr. Lloyd George retort that he makes use of all kinds of energy to get his work done, for one knows very well that he is far more at his ease with these third-rate people than with people of a higher and more intellectual order. For culture ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone. The blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad. This time he came to die. He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with a broken retort in fragments beside him. With his servant, Luke Claridge was the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last experiment, a spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light of a winter's morning. Luke Claridge ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... way through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who, by her beggings and importunities, disturbed him in his story. "Pack yourself off, old witch!" said he, and walked by. She shouted after him the well-known retort,—only somewhat changed, since she saw well that the unfriendly man was old himself,—"If you did not wish to be old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!" He turned round violently, and I feared a scene. "Hanged cried he, "have myself hanged! No: ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Jane did not retort, but it was noticeable that thereafter she kept her eyes more closely on her work and not dreamily upon the floor. Presently, from out that roomy kitchen rose a medley of odors that floated even to the workers out of doors; each odor most appetizing ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... an object of compassion for the merciful, was beginning to stir and glow under his ashy paleness. Before the last words were out of Mr. Hawley's mouth, Bulstrode felt that he should answer, and that his answer would be a retort. He dared not get up and say, "I am not guilty, the whole story is false"—even if he had dared this, it would have seemed to him, under his present keen sense of betrayal, as vain as to pull, for covering ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... said the mother. Oh yes, it was a little revenge upon those people who were taking her daughter from her, and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell. It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's great friends, who were ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the Covenanters used to throw many aspersions respecting their receiving proof against shot from the devil, and other infernal practices, rejoiced to have an opportunity, in their turn, to retort on their adversaries the charge of sorcery. Dr. Hickes, the author of "Thesaurus Septentrionalis," published on the subject of Major Weir, and the case of Mitchell, who fired at the Archbishop of St. Andrews his book called "Ravaillac Redivivus," written with ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... indissoluble, self-sufficing; that our passage across the world, if very short, is yet too serious to be wasted in frivolous disrespect for ourselves, and angry disrespect for others. All this was actually his mind. And hence the little difficulty he had in keeping his retort to the archbishop, as to his other antagonists, on a ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... retort, Madame de Bergenheim lost countenance and sat speechless before the young maiden, like a pupil who has just been punished by ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Liberal party. Mr. Robert Lowe, a Liberal, became one of its most powerful assailants. His enmity to the working classes made him extremely unpopular. Mr. Horseman also joined the Conservatives in opposing the bill. Mr. Bright, in a crushing retort, fastened upon the small party of Liberals, led by these two members in opposition to the bill, the epithet of "Adullamites." Mr. Horseman, Mr. Bright said, had "retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... atrabilious, and arrogant man, was about to retort, when the craftier Tinville laid his hand on his arm, and, turning to the general, said, "My dear Henriot, thy dauntless republicanism, which is too ready to give offence, must learn to take a reprimand from the representative ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... next retort to their enemies was the grandest of all. At a Synod held in Lindsey House, they resolved that a Book of Statutes was needed, and requested Zinzendorf to prepare one {1754.}. The Count was in a quandary. He could see that a Book of Statutes was required, but he could not ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the Chien Noir," went on Commines, ignoring the retort; "you are in the King's service and have been paid with your life. Why are you not faithful? Under your very eyes a devilish scheme is hatched and you see nothing. Are you a fool, or have you grown besotted in your age? ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond |
