"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... retort was in a still sharper, more angry key. "Your'n, indeed! I'd rather stand up to be a mark for all the musketeers in the Parliament army, as poor Master Edmund is like to be, all along of you. O Diggory Stokes," ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and other friends emphasize the President's sense of humor. He had it, of course. He took pains to establish the true reading of that famous retort, "All I want out of you is common civility and damned little of that." He used to repeat with glee Lounsbury's witticism about "the infinite capability of the human mind to resist the introduction of knowledge." I wonder whether he knew of that other good saying of Lounsbury's about ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... body was quite still the raccoon let go and stood over it expectantly for some minutes. He bit it several times, and seeing that this treatment elicited no retort, suffered himself to feel assured of his victory. Highly pleased, he skipped back and forth over the body, playfully seized it with his fore-paws, and bundled it up into a heap. Then seeming to remember the origin of the quarrel, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... North American Indian. They slay all they meet with of their enemies—men, women, and children; but this is common to all wild tribes. They have an implacable spirit of revenge as long as the war lasts, retort evil for evil, and retaliate life for life; and, as I have before said, the heads are the trophies, as the scalps are to the red men. But, on the contrary, they never torture their enemies, nor do they devour them; and peace can always be restored among them by a very moderate payment. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... pastor's eyes. For an instant a wild desire to refuse help, to even command Neil to see that the programme was a failure, entered his heart. But it was only momentary; Donald was incapable of being petty. But he could not resist the retort, "I couldn't think of assuming such honours in the presence of the clergyman and the schoolmaster, but I can at least produce the cause of this serious mishap." He put his fingers to his lips and gave three sharp whistles, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... calmly, but with much apparent confidence, said, "I am sure it is an Irish dog."—"How do you know that?" exclaimed the astonished young man with eagerness.—"I know it, sir," (replied the divine,) "by its impudence and its howl." This seasonable retort cured the garrulity of the patient, and gave him a locked-jaw till the stage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... never be brought to see that he had done anything wrong when he stole. Nor, indeed, did the Doctor think he had; but that gentleman was never very scrupulous when in want of a retort. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been disturbed the reply has been that till quiet is restored nothing can be done, and when a peaceful Ireland has demanded legislation the absence of agitation has been adduced as a reason for the retort that the request is not widespread, and can, in ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... but few virtues, I do not yet think the Australian savage is more? vicious in his propensities or more virulent in his passions than are the larger number of the lower classes of what are called civilized communities. Well might they retort to our accusations, the motives and animus by which too many of our countrymen have been actuated ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... yet to say truth, too late I thus contest; then should have been refused Those terms whatever, when they were proposed: Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good, Then cavil the conditions? And, though God Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son Prove disobedient, and reproved, retort, "Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not!" Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee That proud excuse? yet him not thy election, But natural necessity begot. God made thee of choice his own, and ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... hoped that Prosper would betray himself by uttering some passionate retort when thus wounded to the quick; but he remained impassible. Of all the judge said to him his mind dwelt upon only one word—Caldas, the name of the poor travelling agent who had ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Miscreants are for throwing down Religion in general, for stripping Mankind of what themselves own is of excellent use in all great Societies, without once offering to establish any thing in the Room of it; I think the best way of dealing with them, is to retort their own Weapons upon them, which are ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... constituents that they renominated him for the succeeding term. In the canvass which followed he distinguished himself as a stump-speaker; showing, by his tact and ability, by the skill and ingenuity with which he met his opponents in debate, by his shrewdness in attack and readiness in retort, how much he had profited by the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... at once lest Conroy should venture another retort, and make an immediate fight unavoidable. Before his eye the silent audience melted as swiftly as it had appeared, and Conroy was alone with his sick sense of having ventured too far, which stood him in place ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of dismay took possession of her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was fully warranted. She had insisted upon his carrying out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took pleasure in seeing him do what was honorable, but to preserve the credit of another man. And now it was with intense repugnance that she recognized that there was ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... Americans find leisure, of late years, to travel and take notes, as well as their transatlantic brethren; and, in return for the polite attentions of our travellers, describe England and Englishmen in the bitter language of recrimination and retort; and thus the enmity between the mother and daughter is kept alive and perpetuated. A publication of this kind fell lately into my hands, entitled, "The Glory and Shame of England." The writer, said to be a Christian minister, with the ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... hope it is!" was Aileen's disgusted retort. "And if you don't watch out you'll boast just once too often and Miss Woodhull will get wise to your boasting. Then there will be something ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Nature! (wrote the funny Sidney Smith). To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? The toucan, to be sure, might retort, to what purpose are certain foolish, prating members of Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the country? There is no end to such questions; so we will not enter into the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... true than such careless reports of actual occurrences as are published in the daily newspapers. Water that has been distilled is much more really H{2}O than the muddied natural liquid in the bulb of the retort; and life that has been clarified in the threefold alembic of the fiction-writer's mind is much more really life than the clouded and unrealized events that are reported in daily chronicles of fact. The newspaper may tell us that a man who left his office in ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... worse for Scripture,' was the unguarded, yet honest, retort of Mr. Penrose; and Dr. Hale laid a kind hand on the young minister's shoulder ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... he 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 ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... upon whom 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 ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... her instantly ready wit, was too astonished to retort or to try to stop him. It was clear at a glance that she and King had had some sort of conference while the Mahatma and I were locked up together, and she had evidently expected King to fall in line and accept the trust imposed on him. Even now she seemed to think that ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... compliance, it is authority and retort and a medium declaration of fitness and agility and solemn use of patience. All this does not disease a stomach or distress a vaccination, it ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... my resolution. My old enemy, the midshipman (whose name was Crampley), entertaining an implacable animosity against me for the disgrace he had suffered on my account, had since that time taken all opportunities of reviling and ridiculing me, when I was not entitled to retort this bad usage; and, even after I had been rated on the books, and mustered as surgeon's mate, did not think fit to restrain his insolence. In particular, being one day present while I dressed a wound in a sailor's leg, he began to sing a song, which I thought highly injurious ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... man of your ain, Janet," my grandmother would retort, "then you will have new light as to how it is permitted for a woman ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... quite sure what his retort is, but you take my point. It is manifestly absurd to drag the psychological element into this cold-blooded mathematical pursuit. After all that England has done and come through in the last few years, is a man in baggy knickerbockers, with tufts on the ends of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... it may flee. I have always thought that the worst type of bully is the teacher in school or in college who indulges a pretty talent for satire at the expense of his pupils. It is a cowardly and a demoralising practice. It means not only hitting some one who is powerless to retort, it means confusing the sense of truth in the adolescent mind. Here is some one quite grown up who smiles and means to hurt you, who says good and means bad, who says yes and means no. The young soul stares at ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... minutes' freedom of tongue." Then he would be amused by hearing one of them saying, "Turn your back to the sahib, and let him see it still wealed with the whipping Nikalseyn gave you!" Whereupon the other would retort, "You need not talk, for your back is ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... him. His language was terrific. He cursed freighters in most able style. He asked why the Nequasset was loafing there in the seaway without steering headway on her! That amazing query took away Captain Wass's breath and all power to retort. Asking that of a man who had obeyed the law to the letter! A fellow who was banging through the fog at eighteen knots' speed blaming a conscientious skipper because the latter had stopped so as to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... echoes from a platform, in the great historic chord of his lyre. "He is very English, too English, even," says the Master on whom his enemies alone—assuredly not his most loving, most reverent, and most thankful disciples—might possibly and plausibly retort that he was "very French, too French, even"; but he certainly was not "too English" to see and cleave to the main fact, the radical and central truth, of personal or national character, of typical history or tradition, without seeking to embellish, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and refused to be "touched," he rebuked her for withholding that which, save for his help, she would never have been able to make. This went on until they were almost entirely estranged. He was wont to say that "now his sister was up in the world, she had got the big head," and she to retort that her brother "wanted to use her for ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... expedition, that his knowledge of Hindustani might be useful to us; he was not wanted for any other purpose, and unless he was satisfied with doing that alone, we would get on much better without him. To this provocation Baraka mildly made the retort, "Pray don't put yourself in a passion, nobody is hurting you, it is all in your own heart, which is full of suspicions and jealousy without ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... no retort but stands passive. The great orange brute whose nerves has been torn to rags creeps to the squatter an' with mournful howls explains what we've ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... that they may forget their existence. I do not venture to think this exactly culpable, but I feel sure that it is a pity that people do not do less and think more. If a man asks what good comes from thinking, I can only retort by asking what good comes from the multiplication of unnecessary activity. I am quite as much at a loss as any one else to say what is the object of life, but I do not feel any doubt that we are not sent into the world to be in a fuss. Like the lobster in The Water-Babies, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Saxon ministry against him, to secure the originals; the existence and reality of which might otherwise have been denied. He observed, that every man has a right to prevent the mischief with which he is threatened, and to retort it upon its author; and that neither the constitutions nor the laws of the empire could obstruct the exertion of a right so superior to all others as that of self-preservation and self-defence; especially when the depository of these laws is so closely united to the enemy, as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... married already?" The question escaped before she could bite it back. With a quickening heartbeat she awaited an outburst, a retort that would end everything. But he answered quietly, in the same toneless voice: ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... visitor to be further pressed by the zealot with the vision of eternal hell, I believe he would retort that there is no reason for God to punish those who doubt or deny faith in His existence, since it is His own doing; and if He desired each one of His children to worship Him according to the precepts of a certain creed, He surely would have instilled that creed into man's make-up ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... the fine Temper of genius so soon Thrills at each smart, is the praise, Not to have yielded to pain! No small boast, for a weak Son of mankind, to the earth Pinn'd by the thunder, to rear His bolt-scathed front to the stars; And, undaunted, retort 'Gainst thick-crashing, insane, Tyrannous tempests of bale, Arrowy lightnings ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... 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 needs be exactly those subjects about which ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, and if you know what I mean," was Wolf Larsen's retort. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... our pile of quicksilver balls into an iron retort that had a pipe leading from it to a pail of water, and then applied a roasting heat. The quicksilver turned to vapor, escaped through the pipe into the pail, and the water turned it into good wholesome quicksilver again. Quicksilver is very costly, and they never waste ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... who speak the language of the Bohemians equaled the combined inhabitants of Richmond, Atlanta, Portland, and Nashville—all large cities. "What do you think of it?" I asked. "We are up against it," was the reply. I can not explain this retort so that you would understand it, but it had great significance. The professor, a distinguished philologist, was worried, and he looked it. A lady who was a club woman—and by this I do not mean that she was armed with a club, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... disciples and successors, and seems to suggest that Mr. Asquith in his generous and difficult estimate may have exaggerated the purely Victorian element in the science of the age of Darwin. This only accentuates the difficulty, and he may perhaps retort that there is an extreme danger in suggesting what does and what does not form a part of so huge ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... or clay, leaves all its saltness in it. Woollen stuffs placed on board ship absorb fresh water. If sea water is distilled under a retort it becomes of the first excellence and any one who has a little stove in his kitchen can, with the same wood as he cooks with, distil a great quantity of water if the retort is a ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... him as a cicerone!" said Miss Bordereau with an effort of something like cruelty in her implacable power of retort—an incongruous suggestion that she was a sarcastic, profane, cynical old woman. "Haven't we heard that there have been all sorts of changes in all these years? You ought to see them and at your age (I don't mean because you're so ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... my broad-minded ancestor of the first degree—an aimless challenge coupled with the name of one recognisable spot, replied to by the haphazard retort of another place, frequently in no way joined to it, was regarded as an exceptionally fascinating sit-round game by ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... 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 ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one may retort, Why should they not do so? Why should they not have their own views as to the future of South Africa? Why should they not endeavour to have one universal flag and one common speech? Why should they not win over our colonists, if they can, and push us into the sea? I see no reason why they should ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with twinkling eyes retorted: "Sure av ye was boss av a gang ye wud break more hearts wid yer swate face than I could heads wid me two hands." Which retort effectually closed ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... frequently complained of the lack of presence of mind which would seize him on any conventional emergency not included in the daily social routine. In a real one he was never at fault. He never failed in a sympathetic response or a playful retort; he was always provided with the exact counter requisite in a game of words. In this respect indeed he had all the powers of the conversationalist; and the perfect ease and grace and geniality of his manner on such occasions, arose probably ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... rage and declares she will go whining to that upstart Geyling! And you, Monsieur de Stafforth, Hofmarshall and successful courtier, propose terms to a young husband in so unpolished a fashion, that even a peasant would be obliged to retort with the old affectation of a wife's honour and purity. Now hear me; I know the court better than you do——' The darkness hid the meaning smiles which played over the lips of the others, for Frau von Ruth (Madame de ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Hudson Bay in this passage. 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, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... him as chaplain to insult others, knowing that his cassock protected him. This was a bitter reply to Mr Hawkins, who at the very time that the insinuation made his blood boil, was also reminded that his profession forbade a retort: he rushed into his cabin, poor fellow, having no other method left, vented his indignation in tears, and then consoled himself by degrees with prayer. In the meantime, Mr Pottyfar had gone on deck, wroth with ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... down in what must be regarded as the listener's end of the room. We then have the whole story over again from her point of view; and this time it is the gentleman who would bite off his tongue rather than make a retort calculated to put the ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... hope, discontinued his reading. This drove the English mad; and one of Winchester's secretaries told Cauchon it was clear that he favored the girl—a charge repeated by the Cardinal's chaplain. "Thou art a liar," exclaimed the Bishop. "And thou," was the retort, "art a traitor to the King." These grave personages seemed to be on the point of going ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... reading, declared it was no better than dram-drinking, and even preached to him an ingenious variety of mechanical aids to memory and short cuts to knowledge, till Robert would turn round upon him with some triumphant retort drawn from his own utterances at some sincerer and less discreet moment. In vain. Langham felt a dismal certainty before many weeks were over that Elsmere would miss his first in Greats. He was too curious, too restless, too passionate about many things. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of abortive misery. He pored over the document that had so possessed him, turning its crabbed meanings every way, trying to get out of it some new light, often tempted to fling it into the fire which he kept under his retort, and let the whole thing go; but then again, soon rising out of that black depth of despair, into a determination to do what he had so long striven for. With such intense action of mind as he brought ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ammoniac, and place in a suitable vessel. Afterwards you must take a pound of alum, a pound of Hungary crystals, four ounces of verdigris, four ounces of cinnabar, and two ounces of sulphur. Pulverise and mix, and place in a retort of such size that the above matters will only half fill it. This retort must be placed over a furnace with four draughts, for the heat must be raised to the fourth degree. At first your fire must be slow so as to extract the gross phlegm of the matter, and when the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... wretches, 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 ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... to him, thus marked out as the champion of the most debatable theory of evolution, that, two days later, the Bishop addressed his sarcasms, only to meet with a withering retort. For on the Friday there was peace; but on the Saturday came a yet fiercer battle over the "Origin," which loomed all the larger in the public eye, because it was not merely the contradiction of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... belongs to a poor widow lady who's got two daughters to support?" he asked of an officer who was foremost in the destruction. "Poor? Damn them! I don't know when I have seen a house furnished like this! Look at that furniture! They poor!" was the retort, and thereupon the work went bravely on, of making ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... protesting, for example, that women were by no means helpless creatures, but, on the contrary, the rulers of the stronger sex, and so of the world,—then she would have merely smiled sarcastically and relapsed into silence; but there was something like a challenge in his unexpected retort. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... 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 ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... this oxide is a dangerous explosive, great care must be taken in its preparation; the chlorate is finely powdered and added in the cold, in small quantities at a time, to the acid contained in a retort. After solution the retort is gently heated by warm water when the gas is liberated:—3KClO3 2H2SO4 KClO4 2KHSO4 H2O ClO2. A mixture of chlorine peroxide and chlorine is obtained by the action of hydrochloric acid on potassium chlorate, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... he had committed a fault in giving expression to his astonishment. Porthos had taken advantage of it, to retort with a question. "Why," said he, "you know I am a bourgeois, in fact; my dress, then, has nothing astonishing in it, since it ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... got inside before your sister came with her husband to see me—to beg me to go with her to Flint House and reason with your brother. To reason with him! He was beyond the futility of argument, the folly of retort. I did not want to go—at first. Then it dawned upon me that a kindly fate offered me a providential chance of securing my safety. No suspicion could fall on me if I went back—and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... retort, why should they not conspire? Why should they not have their own views as to the future of South Africa? Why should they not endeavour to have one universal flag and one common speech? Why should they not win over our colonists, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... retort. Usually she was too busy to waste the time. But she allowed herself the luxury of a half minute ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... retorts and moved by the cranes over, and lowered into the cast iron coolers beneath the floor; these had water from the canal circulating around them; the covers being then put on to exclude the air, the mass of charcoal was rapidly cooled. As soon as a slip cylinder was removed from a retort a freshly charged one would take its place, and thus the process was continued. The slip cylinders were taken out of the coolers in succession by the cranes, and swung over a long and broad table upon which their contents were dropped; here the sticks of charcoal were separately ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... utterly erred; for his mother, a black slave, had been one of the mistresses of a Virginia planter belonging to one of the oldest families in that state. Another insulting remark followed this innocent disclosure; retort followed retort; in a word, at last they came together ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... retort, and I do not know how much longer we should have endangered the moral existence of the young dandies at home, had not P——, already at a distance from us, called out with the impatience ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... persuasion to prevail over the resolute will of her majesty, the favorite at last forgot himself so far as to turn his back upon her with a laugh of contempt; an outrage which she revenged after her own manner, by boxing his ears and bidding him "Go and be hanged." This retort so inflamed the blood of Essex that he clapped his hand on his sword, and while the lord admiral hastened to throw himself between them, he swore that not from Henry VIII. himself would he have endured ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... his mouth as if to make some retort, when suddenly Oku re-appeared carrying a tray in which was a tempting spread of cocktails, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... retort often expressed itself by accepting a verbal attack as justified, and elaborating it in a way to throw into shadow the assault of the critic. At a small and familiar supper of bookish men, when there was general dissatisfaction over an expensive but ill-made salad, he alone ate with apparent ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... The word "boy" naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of "elder brother," he grasps him with firm hands, and makes him feel he is ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... An impatient retort was rising in the man's breast, and it might have found an outlet if she had not left him at that instant to give an order to the girl who had come in ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... wholly to pass by a matter of this Importance, I will first take notice to you, that Guajacum (for Instance) burnt with an open Fire in a Chimney, is sequestred into Ashes and Soot, whereas the same Wood distill'd in a Retort does yield far other Heterogeneities, (to use the Helmontian expression) and is resolv'd into Oyl, Spirit, Vinager, Water and Charcoal; the last of which to be reduc'd into Ashes, requires the being ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... clothes was always a strong point with him, and he resented the barbarism of his present get-up acutely. "If I wanted a job at teaching manners, I could find one in your boat, that's certain," was his prompt retort. "And when I'd finished with that, I could give some of you a lesson in pluck without much harm being done. I wonder if you call yourselves white men to let a crowd of niggers clear you out of your ship ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Olympus—Minerva goes down and persuades Fandarus to violate the oaths by wounding Menelaus with an arrow— Agamemnon makes a speech and sends for Machaon—He then goes about among his captains and upbraids Ulysses and Sthenelus, who each of them retort fiercely—Diomed checks Sthenelus, and the two hosts then engage, with great slaughter ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... was a series of happenings. Tom's elbow came in contact with another jar of acid, knocking it over, and spilling it into the retort where he had been mixing the first two liquids. There was a hissing sound, as the acids combined, and a thick, white vapor arose, puffing into Tom's ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... outrage every sense of decency in foul language addressed to the negro woman; but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst. The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known overseer of the cotton region, who was always coarse and often brutal, sure to be profane, and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... I've begun," had been the small boy's retort. And he had returned to the onslaught, regardless ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampooning ballads.—Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... however, and Bruhl, that which to everyone else seemed an amusing retort had a totally different aspect; while the former turned yellow with chagrin and came near to choking, the latter looked as chapfallen and startled as if his guilt; had been that moment brought home to him. Assured by the tone of the monk's voice—which ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... it, they much mistook the man. He entertained their principles sincerely and not the less that they were found impracticable; for the miscarriage of his experiment no more converts the political speculator, than the explosion of a retort undeceives an alchymist. But Bletson was quite prepared to submit to Cromwell, or any one else who might be possessed of the actual authority. He was a ready subject in practice to the powers existing, and made little difference betwixt various kinds ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the like, till I ground my teeth, clenched my fists, and sat there bent over the exercises before me, seeing nothing but the interior of Lomax's cottage, and listening to his instructions how to stop that blow and retort with another, till in imagination I could fancy myself thrashing my enemies, and making for myself ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... remarking that it has always seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then that ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... the crystallization of an infusion of the blood of many cultured, high-bred, haughty women which had been melted in the retort of a stern necessity and had come out a rather brilliant specimen of the modern woman, if a bit hard. Viewed in some ways she became an alarming augury of the future, but there are always potent counter-forces at work in life's laboratory, and the kind of forces that David Kildare brought to bear ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... great many people, is sometimes set down by the more critical or, let us say, the more censorious of them, to a sort of childish prepossession—akin to that which makes a not ill-conditioned child fail to discover any uncomeliness in his mother's or a favourite nurse's face. There is no retort to such a proposition as this so proper as the argument not ad hominem, but ab or ex homine. The present writer did not read the Devil till he had reached quite critical years; and though he read Gil Blas much earlier, he was not (for what reason he cannot say) particularly fond ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... working features. He saw and appreciated the terror he was causing, the suffering. But he could draw no further retort. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... tell you better after I have asked her," was Elfreda's flippant retort. "I have an idea that she will feel dreadfully hurt if no ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... certain sarcasm, of which Marthe felt the sting. But, before she had time to retort, Philippe ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... bold vindication of an opinion which all present deemed to be so audacious, there succeeded a general and loud murmur. Encouraged by this evidence of his superior popularity, Nightingale was not slow, nor very meek, with his retort; and then followed a clamorous concert, in which the voices of the company in general served for the higher and shriller notes, through which the bold and vigorous assertions, contradictions, and opinions of the two principal disputants ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... words, were but momentary, but for that brief moment the angry retort was checked on Hortensius' lips, even as were the sneers and the bibulous scowls on the faces of those around. Taurus Antinor, towering above them all, and imbued with a strange dignity, seemed to be gazing into a space beyond the walls of the gorgeous dining-hall; into ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... This retort is given by Schuyler Colfax. There are various reports of what Lincoln said. In another version, "I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... of satisfaction in that, you know. Now, I can chuck the giddy persiflage at Piddie day in and day out, and enjoy doin' it, because it always gets him so wild. Also there's more or less thrill to slippin' the gay retort across to Old Hickory Ellins now and then, because there's a giddy chance of gettin' fired for it. But to rub it into a non-resister like Uncle Dudley—well, ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... as the honourable gentleman has NOT had the courtesy to give him notice of that question (great cheering from the Wigsby interest), he must decline to give the honourable gentleman the satisfaction he requires. Mr. Magg, instantly rising to retort, is received with loud cries of 'Spoke!' from the Wigsby interest, and with cheers from the Magg side of the house. Moreover, five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them, in revenge for being taken ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... refusal to see that which is pointed out or which stares one clearly in the face, cannot go far to establish one's case or as a method of defense. And the same thing applies to that oft-repeated and tiresome retort: "You do not (or perhaps you cannot) understand our theories and viewpoints." Or that other evasive accusation, rather than reply: "Your lack of understanding is of itself proof positive that our theories are absolutely correct in every detail." Or "Your attack or criticism ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... know why the reiteration of this phrase of the fat man irritated me, but it did exceedingly, and I turned around and glared at him, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue. Ballard's fingers closed on my arm and I was silent. But the fat man's glances and mine had met and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... would give too much," she said; for the magic of the hour and place was upon her, and the Doctor's earnest tones admitted of no laughing retort. She ought to have checked him then, and the instant she had spoken she knew it; but before she could speak again he had taken the hand he was already touching between both of his, and was ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... equipment of old colonels and other originally mean persons. If there was to be a House of Lords, Hasilrig and others now said imprudently, why should it not be a real one, why should not the old nobility, so many of them honourable men, resume their places? "Why not?" was the instant retort from some independent members, with the instant applause of many in the House. Hasilrig saw his mistake, of which Thurloe did not fail to take advantage. "The old Peers," said Thurloe, "are not excluded by the Petition and Advice: divers are called,—others ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... said to me: 'Rose, did we disturb your sleep last night?' I answered, 'No, I had no sleep'—which was not entirely true but the retort amused him. Then the young lawyer's wife complained to him that we were not fairly used. We came along with them, young women, and when they were having the best time we were sent away like children to go to bed in ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... of C and O, metallic sodium is formed. As usual, heated charcoal is the reducing agent. The end of the retort, which holds the ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... hatred all who presumed on their own consequence, whether arising from wealth, titles, or 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... pan, had now poured the whole into a large test-tube, and was holding it in the flame of the burner. At the moment that it reached the boiling point it became colourless. He carefully placed the whole of the liquid in a retort to which he attached a condensor. He ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... was Lucien's quick retort. "That speech from Mme. d'Espard's cousin would dry the eyes of a weeping Magdalene. Oh me! for a little moment old memories, and lost illusions, and my twentieth year came back ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... herself by indiscreet acts during the past twenty-four hours? The latter was not unlikely; I knew her whims and her faults by this time. In either case, I had come to feel decidedly uncomfortable, so much so, in fact, that I was content to let the innuendo pass without a retort. It behooved me to keep my temper as well ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... was personal criticism, and it irritated her vanity, over-fed with public adulation and the sincere praise of musical critics. 'If you don't like me as I am, there are so many people who do that you don't count!' That was the sub-conscious form of her mental retort, and it was in the manner of Cordova, and not ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... c.c. of the 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
... viscosity or chemical properties of sap, regardless of whether it flows in liana, shrub, or vine, yet the Bug's artesian product is clear, tasteless and wholly without the possibility of being blown into bubbles. When a large drop has collected, the tip of the abdomen encloses a retort of air, inserts this in the drop and forces it out. In some way an imponderable amount of oil or dissolved wax is extruded and mixed with the drop, an invisible shellac which toughens the bubble and gives it an astounding glutinous endurance. As long as the abdominal air-pump ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... on her part. The fact that during the present war German trade has been swept from the seas, and that she is in the position of a blockaded Power, will certainly convince any German patriot, not that she did not need a navy, but that she needed a much stronger one; and the retort that there need have been no war if Germany had not provoked it by building a fleet is not one that can be expected to appeal to any nation so long as the European anarchy endures. For, of course, every nation regards itself as menaced perpetually ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... to Mary's mood and purpose. But she did not find it easy to begin. Pretty quick at a retort herself, she could often foresee the retorts open to her interlocutor. Beaumaroy had provided himself with plenty: the old man's whim; the access to the old man so willingly allowed, not only to her but to Captain Alec; his own candor carried to the verge of self-betrayal. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... feelings." said Mrs. Nelson, "for I have myself endeavored to change my husband's determination. But he is a rigid disciplinarian, and makes it a rule never to overlook the first symptom of insubordination in any of the servants. He says if a servant is once permitted to retort, all discipline ceases, and he must be sold South. It is his rule and he never departs from it. O! I sometimes feel so sick when I see the punishments inflicted that seem necessary to keep them in subjection. ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... with good-natured forbearance. Of all qualities, good temper is the one that wears and works the best in married life. Conjoined with self-control, it gives patience—the patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to refrain until the angry flash has passed. How true it is in marriage, that "the soft answer turneth ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... the extravagance of purchasers was incredible: to such an extent was it carried, that when a Roman accused his wife of expending his money on pearls, jewels, or similar costly trifles, she used to retort, and turn the tables on her husband. Hence our expression of 'turning ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... visible. What Alaric, what Odoacer, what Theodorick, had done, Alboin did with yet more terrible results; and the fourth captivity which Nova Roma had prepared for her mother, become in her mind a hated rival, was the hardest, the longest, the most destructive of all. It is doubtful whether the retort of the eunuch Narses to the empress Sophia, when she recalled him from his government to ply, as she said, the spindle, that he would spin for her such a thread as in her life she would not disentangle, is authentic, but it undoubtedly ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... this view, says Fitzjames, 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
... basis of one bank, one newspaper, one wife and one country, and the way to do that is to get out in the open and fight. If I've got as much sense as a rabbit I say that Ab Handy is the man, and whether I'm right or wrong I'm going to run him." He seemed to retort to some objector: "Yes, and the first thing you know he'd come charging up to the Speaker's desk with a maximum freight-rate bill, or a stock-yards bill—and where would I be? I tell you he won't stand hitched. He'll swell up like a pizened pup, and you ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... the obvious retort that the property was not looked after, but allowed to fall into dilapidation; but Mr Farrell understood without the need of words, and his ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that the approximate length of the previous dispute had now been taken up, whatever retort Carolyn Drake had made. Then he checked himself, again looking at his watch: "And just what did you answer to your husband's ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... of 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 ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... eyes 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 ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Labouchere. How that ostentatiously manufactured alias ever imposed on Truth passes comprehension. Is it any wonder that at one of our numerous mid-day lunches "Colonel" Norton fired the following rhyming retort at Field?— ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... talk of the atheist Terror, to rejoin that the retainers of Anjou and Montpensier slew more men and women on the first day of the Saint Bartholomew, than perished in Paris through the Years I. and II. But the retort does us no good beyond the region of dialectic. Some of the opinions of Chaumette were full of enlightenment and hope. But it would be far better to share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest, like the Bishop in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... interrupted Elizabeth; I know it all. The forms of the law must be complied with, however; the search must be made, the deer found, and the penalty paid. But I must retort your own question. Have you lived so long in our family not to know us? Look at me, Oliver Edwards. Do I appear like one who would permit the man that has just saved her life to linger in a jail for so small a sum as this fine? No, no, sir; my father is ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... promptly that she never learnt he had a wife, even then. It occurred to him then for the first time, in the flash of her retort, that she did not know he ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... So deeply did he take the matter to heart, that he suffered one small boy to inquire pathetically, "if 'e'd bin long in that state o' grumps?" and another to suggest that, "if 'e couldn't be 'appier than that, 'e'd better go an' drown hisself," without vouchsafing a retort, or ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... better for all concerned if she had trusted you in the beginning," was Emma's dry retort. "I can't help feeling a trifle out of patience with that girl, Grace. She had no business to commit an act, no matter how trivial, that would lay ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... words the hypothetical Mrs. Courage was presumed to use, while Steptoe slowly threw back his head for the purchase, bringing it forward in condescending grace. Language could not have given Mrs. Courage so effective a retort courteous. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... fire, and a sharp retort rose to his lips. But, after a brief silence, he answered his wife with a restraint that spoke volumes to the girl at ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... unfortunate, Lord Frederick had 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 ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... opened his mouth in angry retort. Then he discovered he had no retort, only anger. And this made him angrier, and his mouth remained open, quite ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... supposed to be, he was not quite prepared to give credit to this explanation; but being of a peaceful disposition, and altogether unaccustomed to retort, he merely smiled his disbelief, as he proceeded to lay aside his fowling-piece, and divest himself of the voluminous out-of-door trappings with which he was clad. Mr. Hamilton was a tall, slender youth, of about nineteen. He had come out by the ship in autumn, and was spending his ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... of disposing of the dead likely to become very popular, especially with women who are so fond of having the last retort. ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... his memorable rebuke addressed to the Duke of Grafton. If the testimony of English travellers in this country is to be believed, the legislative assemblies of our own land have hitherto enjoyed the unenviable monopoly of this species of retort. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... "A fair retort! But let's be serious. I'm not sure I'd have fallen off the log if I'd been left alone, but it's very possible. Walters' help was useful, whether he saved my life or not, and you can't deny that ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to this religion, which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God, his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they might more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis a la Domination des Russes, tom. i. p. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... was displeased at this retort, so at last the woman agreed to comb his hair, for she did not want to see the Malaki angry. By and by the Malaki felt sleepy while his hair was being combed; and he said to the Bia, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to Mrs. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... like a yellow-fanged snake with its forked tongue fairly dripping with poison," was the ready retort. "She come to gloat over you as she always has since the day you cut her out of that young man. She knowed you were going to work at home to-day, and she had the littleness to traipse over here to try to make you feel like ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... punishment with it. "You are no gentleman!" said Gangsman Dibell to one Hartnell, a currier who accidentally jostled him whilst he was drinking in a Poole taproom. "No, nor you neither!" replied Hartnell. The retort cost him a most disagreeable experience. Dibell and his comrades collared him and dragged him off to the rendezvous, where he was locked up in the black-hole till the next day. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 580—Inquiry into the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... altitudes. To such devices the usual wretched girl, who has never drawn rebellious breath, or listened to the discourses of Valeria Du Prel, has to turn for a living, or to keep ennui at bay. But I, no, the inimical sex may possess their souls in peace, as far as I am concerned. They might retort that they never had felt nervous, but a letter has the same advantage as the pulpit: the adversary can never get ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... perfuming their hair with oil of benzoin, which they distil themselves from the gum by a process doubtless of their own invention. In procuring it a priuk, or earthen rice-pot, covered close, is used for a retort. A small bamboo is inserted in the side of the vessel, and well luted with clay and ashes, from which the oil drops as it comes over. Along with the benzoin they put into the retort a mixture of sugar-cane ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... These writers would retort (if I take them properly) that this was very true; that it was the same with themselves and other persons of (what they call) the artistic temperament that in this we were exceptional, and should apparently be ashamed of ourselves; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their eyes at the tips of their feelers, and cannot even see unless they at the same time touch. When these finger-philosophers affirm that Plato, Bruno, &c. must have been "out of their senses," the just and proper retort is,—"Gentlemen! it is still worse with you! you have lost ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge |
