"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the personification. The gastronomists chuckled at the nightingale sauce; but for the first few minutes no one spoke. During this temporary embarrassment, Vetranio whispered a few words in Julia's ear; and—just as the Cynic was sufficiently recovered to retort—accompanied by the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... separation from the others, Johnston had been unaware of the manner in which Frank had been tormented, as it was borne so uncomplainingly. But this time Frank's indignant speech, followed so fast by Damase's angry retort, told him plainly that there was need of his interference. He emerged from his corner just at the moment when Damase was ready to strike. One glance at the state of affairs was enough. Damase's back was turned toward him. With a swift spring, that startled the others as if he ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... It is impossible that you could conceive such a plot and execute it without help, and I am going to sift it to the bottom," was Miss Williams' sharp retort; for she by no means relished being aroused at midnight by such a frightful bedlam, to find herself a prisoner ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a stove in it is a retort in which the power of strong men is evaporated, where their vitality is exhausted, and their wills enfeebled. Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 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 not of the same monde as the people ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the daughters and the neighbors saw only the same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck and Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the imaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort: "What of it? We can ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... and nuns, who shut themselves up, and never see their fellow-creatures at all?" he had retorted, greatly pleased with himself for the retort. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... little of his rebellion, but was gentler, would regard him with horror. "Why, Henry Whitman, that is a dreadful wicked spirit!" she would say, and he would retort stubbornly that he didn't care; that he had to pay a road tax for these people who would just as soon run him down as not, if it wouldn't tip their old machines over; for these maniacs who had gone speed-mad, and were appropriating ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the time of which I am speaking; on the contrary, I had my full share of the failing and short-comings common to my age, and often my own temper would rise when Aunt Lucinda found fault with me, or in some other way manifested a feeling of dislike, and the bitter retort would rise to my lips; but I believe I can say with truth that I never gave utterance to a disrespectful word. My mother's counsel to me before leaving home, recurring to my mind, often prevented the ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... at Aurora's red peep, Awaken'd his tyros by bawling—"Two deep!" Jack Jones would retort, with a half-suppress'd sigh, "Ay! too deep by half for such ninnies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... thick or thin. There is one explicit reference in the poem to his predecessor's work, and it is 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 in need of ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury, but even returned it, with an icy, cat-like malignance and fixity ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... originates is the substance in its subsequent states. As thus the substance in all its states has being, there is nothing irrational in the satkarya theory.— But the admission of the origination of a non-existing state lands us in the asatkarya theory!—If he, we retort, who holds the asatkarya theory is of opinion that the origination of the effect does not itself originate, he is similarly landed in the satkarya theory; and if he holds that the origination itself originates, he is led ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... a growth of English root, Though nameless in our language: we retort The fact for words, and let the French translate That awful ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... one way in which the Company might have used some of the profits: it might have granted shorter hours and higher wages to the workmen whose health was destroyed and whose lives were shortened by the terrible labour of the retort-houses and the limesheds; but of course none of the directors or shareholders ever thought of doing that. It was not the business of the Company to concern itself ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... 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 ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... these frequent consultations with the wolf from Midian?" was the quick retort. "Thou art unskilled in the ways of war, my father. The king who would conquer treats not with his enemy. Thou dost risk the respect of thy realm for thee. Strengthen thy fortifications and exhaust the cunning of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... 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; and not only busy, but alert, on ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... like to know what o'clock it was; and the other would display the ring, and tell me that his sweetheart would value it when she knew that it was taken from a conquered Englishman. This was their practice every day, and I was compelled to receive their gibes without venturing a retort. ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... be caned," and 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 ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 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
... sickened me, and I was about to retort when a shout from one of our men drew our attention to the gully below. And there were our terrified Indians peering out cunningly at us like so many foxes playing tag with an unbroken ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... At this unexpected retort, Madame de Bergenheim lost countenance and sat speechless before the young maiden, like a pupil who has just been punished ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the boy, growing moody after his sharp retort. "I won't have any one know about it. Tessibel, I want this more than anything else in the world. I love you—I love you, and you love me. Then why not? You ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... for yourself and your friends, Sir, if you were;" was the natural retort. Their common friends interfered, to prevent a ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... took up his abode in his lonely refuge on Lake Hanover, which he alternately dubbed his Diogenes tub, his Uncle Tom's Cabin, and his retort. It was no Diogenes tub, because the two friends brought wood and anthracite coal for a little American stove in the bedroom, which gave quite a good deal of heat and made a cosey appearance with the glow of the burning coal visible; and because the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... journeys are apt to make companions irritable one to another; but under hard circumstances, a traveller does his duty best who doubles his kindliness of manner to those about him, and takes harsh words gently, and without retort. He should make it a point of duty to do so. It is at those times very superfluous to show too much punctiliousness about keeping up one's dignity, and so forth; since the difficulty lies not in taking up quarrels, but in ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... I might retort truthfully and say I am not accustomed to have students address me in quite this manner. I'm glad, however, to find that you are sensible enough not to make an amusing show of yourself by imagining that you are making a noble fight ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... age, the son of a man who was at that time a candidate for office. And what I saw made me pity the Commonwealth. I saw the child dancing to the castanets, and it was a dance which one of our wretched, shameless slaves would not have danced.' On another occasion he showed a power of quick retort. As censor he had degraded a man named Asellus, whom Mummius afterwards restored to the equites. Asellus impeached Scipio, and taunted him with the unluckiness of his censorship—its mortality, &c. 'No wonder,' said Scipio, 'for the man who ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... snuff and offered some to Bakahenzie, who grunted acceptance and sniffed with even greater indifference. Motionless they continued to sit and silently. Bakahenzie wondered whether Yabolo knew that he, too, had fled, and Yabolo, who did know, waited for the first move on Bakahenzie's part to retort. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... had not tried more than once to catch Grumpy Weasel perhaps Mr. Crow's retort wouldn't have made him feel so uncomfortable. And muttering that he wished when people spoke of his beak they wouldn't call it a bill, and that Mr. Crow was too stupid to talk to, Solomon blundered away ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... grandmother!" was the trader's retort. "You want to pay up your debts, that's what you want. You owed me twelve hundred dollars Chili. Very well; you owe them no longer. The amount is squared. Besides, I will give you credit for two hundred Chili. If, when I get to Tahiti, the pearl sells well, I will give you credit ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... is the charge our enemies bring against us. We feel, but don't reason, they say. We have much reason to retort, 'You reason, but have no feeling and little comprehension for those that have.' Come, I will be serious now," and his expression became grave and firm. "Cousin Sophy, Mr. Houghton will never give me a penny, nor would I take a gift from him even if starving, yet ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the show-room before a retort could formulate itself, so Morris struggled into his overcoat instead and made for the store door. As he reached it his eye fell on the clock over Wasserbauer's Cafe on the other side of the street. The hands pointed to two o'clock, and he broke into a ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... 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
... and bodily, by his cousin's retort, Richard Frayne gave way, and was borne back against the ruined wall of the old sanctuary; for Mark had, by a quick action, seized him hard by the ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... 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 say, an ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Rebellion,' and is very warmly and gracefully expressed in a letter to his father, written at Holyrood.' {23a} He could not be induced to punish miscreants who attempted his life and snapped pistols in his face. He could hardly be compelled to retort to the English offer of 30,0001. for his head by issuing a similar proclamation about 'the Elector.' 'I smiled and created it' (the proclamation of a reward of 30,000l. for his head) 'with the disdain it deserved, upon which they' (the Highlanders) 'flew into a violent rage, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... I'm the only one!" came the quick retort, and the young chap in the shade of the adobe shook ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... A Painter's Retort, or Dangerous Re-touch.—Antonio More, the celebrated painter, was highly favoured by Philip of Spain, whose familiarity with him placed his life in danger; for More ventured to return a slap on the shoulder which the king in a playful moment gave him, by rubbing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... hurried on Bert, too engrossed in his solution to retort in kind. "Sandy was telling me a little while ago about the habits of grizzlies, and he mentioned especially the trick they have of standing on their hind legs and clawing at trees as high as they could reach. But I remember ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... the car is not what it should be, and judging by the product the builder is not what he is represented to be either. Dr. Martineau was far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon Green's foolish retort, but he does seek to parry the force of the atheist criticism by saying that God "if once he commits his will to any determinate method, and for the realisation of his ends selects and institutes a scheme of instrumental rules, he thereby shuts the ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... course, if you choose," came the scornful retort; "but you have no power to break ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... same penetrating sense of humour as her brother Raymond and quite as much presence of mind in retort. Her gift of expression was amazing and her memory unrivalled. My daughter Elizabeth and she were the only girls except myself that I ever met who were real politicians, not interested merely in the personal side—whether Mr. B. or C. spoke well ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... twice in the course of his speech Mr. Macdonald spoke of himself and his Labour friends as 'we.' 'Who are "we"?' sharply challenged Mr. Wardle, reviving a question familiar in the annals of split parties. 'You knof perfectly wel thlat you are not inclueddin the "we,"' was the retort."—Manchester Guardian. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred himself to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic provision. His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved the retort, the flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he still winced from the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted the importunacy of Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had persisted to the limit ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... but the words stuck in his throat. The consummate art with which his patron had led him to this point, and managed the whole conversation, perfectly baffled him. He did not doubt that if he had made the retort which was on his lips when Mr Chester turned round and questioned him so keenly, he would straightway have given him into custody and had him dragged before a justice with the stolen property upon him; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... 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 those ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... man will need discipline; but I imagine he was thinking less about my poor old father than about—well, I needn't have mentioned the Baker house, but what does he really know of how I came to leave it? Perhaps suspicion and bitter memories made my retort more spirited ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... demurely closed lips, a probable indication that the only retort she could think of was ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... Greenwell for remarking from the Durham County Bench that if a few motorists were shot no great harm would be done. The same paper subsequently published an article headed, "Maxims for Motorists." Retaliation in kind is natural, and a maxim is an excellent retort to a canon. But why abuse the ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... blowed!" came the retort; "p'r'aps nex' time the Proosians are round Paris and you have to git your dinner off a steak from the 'ind wheel of a motor-car, you Frenshmen'll wish you ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... distressed him, it was so difficult to answer. However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my metier at present." And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning in superintending the removal of books, busts, and pictures to ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... of 79 A.D. is interesting as having given rise to a happy retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the Parthians. He is a hairy man, but ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... 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 of ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... came out of the Bibliotheque with a man who had been sitting at the same table with him, and as they walked along together Redoutez declared that he was finally in possession of the famous secret. Arriving in his laboratory, he threw pieces of iron into a retort, made a projection, and obtained crystals the colour of blood. The other examined the salts and made a flippant remark. The alchemist, furious, threw himself upon him, struck him with a hammer, and had to be overpowered and carried ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Victorine flashed to retort, but saw the smiling critic as pale as Anna and recalled the moment's truer business, the list still darting innumerably around them always out of reach. The carriage had to push into the very surge, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... ought to be made for a moment of irritation. My character was traduced by Captain Hawkins, supposing that I was dead; so much so, that even the ship's company cried out shame. I am aware, that no language of a superior officer can warrant a retort from an inferior; but, as what I intended to imply by that language is not yet known, although Captain Hawkins has given an explanation to his, I shall merely say, that I meant no more by my insinuations, than Captain ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... pool of blood had been found, and some tufts of wool. That also, I pointed out, could be explained in a perfectly natural way. Further, the nights upon which sheep disappeared were invariably very dark, cloudy nights with no moon. This I met with the obvious retort that those were the nights which a commonplace sheep-stealer would naturally choose for his work. On one occasion a gap had been made in a wall, and some of the stones scattered for a considerable distance. Human agency ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... king to death. Georges punned on his name, and addressed him as "Monsieur Tue-Roi."[50] When called up for sentence, the judge missed the miniature, and asked him what he had done with it? "And you," answered the prisoner, "what have you done with the original?"—a retort which nothing could prevent the audience from applauding. Georges and eighteen more were condemned to death; and he, and eleven besides, suffered the penalty with heroic firmness. Of the rest, among whom were two sons of the noble house of Polignac, some were permitted to escape ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... tourists, have often been taunted with their ignorance and want of culture, and the perfunctory manner in which they hurry through and "do" the art galleries of Europe. There is a large amount of truth, no doubt, in the charge, but they might very well retort on their critics that no one had come forward to meet their wants, or to assist in dispelling their ignorance. No doubt there are guide-books, very excellent ones in their way, but on all matters of art very little better than mere indices; something fuller ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... The retort is effective, but it does not make Mr. Lloyd George beloved by the people to whom it is addressed. Twitting on facts has ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... 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 ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... cheated you, someone else would," was Ethel's inadequate muttered retort, unheard by ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... scarlet and Miss Dorner, full of astonishment, looked at her glowing face. She expected a fitting retort, ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... 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
... scoffes in vildest base contempt, Or is there said or done, ought I repent, But can retort even to your grinning teeths, Your worst of spights, tho Princesse lofty steps May not be tract, yet may they tread ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... more, thou dost talk nothing (i.e. nonsense) to me." Gonzalo replies that he did so purposely "to minister occasion to those gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing." They retort that they were not laughing at his humour, but at himself. "Who," he replies, "in this merry fooling am nothing to you" meaning, apparently, that he is acting the fool intentionally and out ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... 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 to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your intelligence an injustice—Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you know—almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you mind telling me how you happened to think of letting ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the magazines. On her telling him that she never followed anything of that sort, he undertook a defence of the serial system, which she presently reminded him that she had not attacked. He was not discouraged by this retort, but glided gracefully off to the question of Mount Desert; conversation on some subject or other being evidently a necessity of his nature. He talked very quickly and softly, with words, and even sentences, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Raleigh grunted, disdaining, retort, and passed forth to his waiting cab. The day had commenced inauspiciously. The night before, smoking his final cigarette in his upper berth in the wagon-lit, he had tempted Providence by laying out for himself a programme and a time schedule; and it looked as if Providence had been unable ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... content. She was so happy at the thought that Flora was really gone that she felt very good and amiable; she liked herself all the better for having such nice, comfortable, kindly thoughts about everyone. Even Eric could scarcely have extracted a sharp retort from ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... maintained for one year at the royal expense. The vexation of the Bishop of Burgos augmented visibly at this fresh claim for assistance, and he roundly declared such a concession would cost the Crown more than an armada of twenty thousand men, which provoked the pertinent retort from Las Casas: "Does it appear to your lordship that after you have killed off the Indians, I should now lead Christians to death? Well, I shall not." As the Bishop, according to Las Casas, was no fool, he hoped that he understood ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Pliny, and all the rest of you? He might be less savage in his attacks on our order." "And equally a pity," Pliny gallantly responded, "that he could not modify his views on your sex by knowing such ladies as are in this room." Tacitus bowed gravely to Quadratilla as their host said this. A retort trembled on the wicked old lips, but Calpurnia, seeing it, made haste to ask if any of them had ever talked with Juvenal. "I asked Martial once," she said, "to bring him to see us, but he never came. I cannot help feeling that, ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... at this invidious and unnecessary comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer. I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd place where he did, just after a most eloquent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... hearty?" said the captain, making an effort to come to me; but I then became aware of the fact that we were surrounded by savages, for one great fellow struck the captain on the arm with his club, and in retort the skipper gave him a kick which sent him on ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... lip, probably to keep back some hasty retort, and thought rapidly for a moment. She looked straight at him with eyes that stirred and dazzled him. He was handsome in a coarse way, like a fine young animal, well groomed, well fed, magnetic, forceful; but his boldness, being of a sort to which she had not been ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... He would have cut the same figure as 'a forlorn scullion from a greasy eating-house at Rotterdam, if suddenly called away in vision to act as seneschal to the festival of Belshazzar the King, before a thousand of his lords.' And what, we may retort, would Taylor, or Browne, or De Quincey himself, have done, had one of them been wanted to write down the project of Wood's halfpence in Ireland? He would have resembled a king in his coronation robes compelled to lead a forlorn hope up the scaling ladders. The fact is, that Swift required for his ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... shust to be politeful to Mrs. Nelson," was Dutchy's quick retort. "I know, I know, and it is too pad. Why is he not here? Pecause he haf gone out. Why haf he gone out? For der defelopment of der appetite. How does he defelop der appetite? He walks barefoots in der snow. Ach! don't ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the flowers, And make the best of sunny hours; The drums are silent; fifes are mute; No tones are raised in high dispute; No hearty laughter's cheerful sound Announces fun and frolic round. Here's comic Alan's wit wants sport; And dark-eyed Bessie's quick retort Is spent on Nellie, mild and sweet; And dulness reigns along the street. The table's lessened numbers bring No warm discussion's changeful ring, Of hard-won goal, or slashing play, Or colours blue, or brown, or gray. The chairs stand round like rows of pins; ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... I fell asleep over my dinner; and my wife, seeing my condition of fatigue, got into the habit of carving our frugal joints, a habit which has become permanent. Thus, when I say, as a bit of pleasantry, that where the lady carves, you learn who is the master of the house, Lady Watkin will retort by mentioning this old story of past and ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... 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 were heard ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Celia Craig's cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered. She meditated. Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are bitter, try to remember that we are ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... of the critics, and he takes in this volume, not in this poem only, a full and a characteristically good-humoured revenge. The Epilogue follows up the pendant to Pacchiarotto. There is the same jolly humour, the same combative self-assertiveness, the same retort Tu quoque, with a yet more earnest and ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... alchemists of old. But their failure to transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but, being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for the plain man of science ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... 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 ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... girls know about driving!" was the retort from the small piece of masculine science ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 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 of his own To serve him; thy reward was of ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... 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 the good ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. "Perhaps she hasn't had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate that she must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her husband ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... to your rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant not the offence you would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more, since the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion, who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly—tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best of it, moved on, and joined Egerton, and in a few minutes more ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... instead of a retort. He appreciated her sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he left the room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with him: it had drawn the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, and remained fixed; ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... imagine that I rise under some little feeling of irritation to reply to the personal reflections which have been introduced into the discussion. It would be easy to reply to these reflections. It would be still easier to retort them: but I should think either course unworthy of me and of this great occasion. If ever I should so far forget myself as to wander from the subject of debate to matters concerning only myself, it will not, I hope, be at a time when the dearest interests of our country ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... herb-doctor, without noticing the retort, overbearing though it was, began his panegyrics anew, and in a tone more assured than before, going so far now as to say that his specific was sometimes almost as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases of physical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases when, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... eh?" was the sneering retort. "All right. I will go; and I'll not come near you again. But I'll make you bitterly repent of your treatment of me yet, or my name ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... can retort the door of the kitchen is opened; and the voices of the others are heard returning. Crofts, unable to recover his presence of mind, hurries out of the cottage. The clergyman appears at the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Germany; Germany chose, and let the Armenian massacres go on. But she was in a difficulty. What if the Turkish Government retorted (perhaps it did so retort), 'You are not consistent. Why do you mind about the slaughter of a few Armenians? What about Belgium ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... one would think I'd married a monkey—a hourang-howtang, instead of a man. There—now you're vexed! One can't open one's mouth." My mother knew where to strike; and this attack upon his pigtail was certain to provoke my father, who would retort in no measured language, till she, in her turn, lost her temper, and then out she would sing, in a sort ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... army. Marie Graevenitz, after sobbing her heart out, flies into a 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 Ruth as she was named at court, German being considered ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... knowledge of the ways and the men and women of New York. I did not, I explained, wish to be unkind, but the memory of that latter-day Petronius was one of the most mirth-provoking memories of my boyhood. Was he fair game for a chapter of a flippant nature? But why not? was the retort. He ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... works of the company, at their different stations, were erected. From this period various improvements were gradually introduced into almost every part of the apparatus. In 1816, Mr. Clegg obtained the patent for his horizontal rotative retort; his apparatus for purifying coal gas with cream of lime; for his rotative gas meter; and self-acting governor; and altogether by his exertions the London and Westminster Company's affairs assumed a new ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... that one of the most characteristic follies of young men, unmarried, or in the opinion of prudent mammas, unmarriageable, is, when they arrive at the age of indiscretion, to dogmatize on what they call the appropriate sphere of woman. You remember the thundering retort which came, like a box on the ears, to one of these philosophers, when he was wisely discoursing vaguely on his favorite theme. "And pray, my young sir," asked a stern matron of forty, "will you please to tell us what is the appropriate sphere of woman?" Thus confronted, he only babbled ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... in the shop. Mr Verloc made no comment. He made no retort, and yet the retort was obvious. But he refrained from pointing out to his wife that the idea of making Stevie the companion of his walks was her own, and nobody else's. At that moment, to an impartial observer, Mr Verloc would have appeared more than ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... passion. With many vices and 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
... retort, he urged the mare to a down-headed trot. In fact, the staunch little brown mare staggered on tired legs and her sides heaved like bellows. The grey horse of Red Jim Perris was in ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... 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 ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... our Government," including as "enemies" the Congress and Cabinet that supported and maintained the war for the Union. These and other unfortunate allusions, such as that to the "poison of Abolitionism," enabled General Hayes to effectively retort at Sidney, and at other points. So much of the Sidney speech as refers to Judge Thurman's Waverly speech is reproduced in ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... traitors nor pirates. He supported his opinion by arguments before the council; these were answered by Dr. Littleton, who succeeded him in the office from which he was dismissed; and the prisoners were executed as traitors. The Jacobites did not fail to retort those arts upon the government which their adversaries had so successfully practised in the late reign. They inveighed against the vindictive spirit of the administration, and taxed it with encouraging informers and false witnesses—a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... him back to the Station in the Rue Mouffetard," was Chauvelin's curt retort; "there to give notice that I might require a few armed men presently. But he should be somewhere about here by now, looking for us. Anyway, I have my ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... than the Liberal party; and Mr. Hyndman's classical quotation, 'Non olet'—'It does not smell,' meaning that there is no difference in the flavour of Tory and Whig gold once it comes into the Socialist treasury, was a sufficient retort to the accusations of moral corruption which were levelled at him. But the Tory money job, as it was called, was none the less a huge mistake in tactics. Before it took place, the Federation loomed large in the imagination of the ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... George offered no retort. Despite his sharp walk, he was still terribly agitated and preoccupied, and the phenomena of the lamplit studio had not yet fully impressed his mind. He saw them, including Agg, as hallucinations gradually turning to realities. He could not be worried with Agg. His sole desire ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... lion's ambuscade. "Has not my service glorious Made both of us victorious?" Cried out the much-elated ass. "Yes," said the lion; "bravely bray'd! Had I not known yourself and race, I should have been myself afraid!" The donkey, had he dared, With anger would have flared At this retort, though justly made; For who could suffer boasts to pass So ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... came the dry retort. "I'll have a few good fights on my own account, then, for it's a personal grievance when the men turn down ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... cleared her 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... brass yourself!" would be the irate retort of the old woman, nodding her head that was adorned with a red and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... to retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the circumstances under which she had made ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... And in retort to his wife's "your," he laid a faint emphasis on the word "now," to imply that those women were always inventing some fresh imaginary woe ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... instant, it seemed as if the girl were going to flash out a bitter retort that might have betrayed her. Then she showed the same self-control as before, and went, without a word, into the next room. She was absent for a few minutes, and when she reappeared, carried what was unmistakably a bundle of soiled linen, going away with this on one arm, the volumes of music ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... past weeks of all the honors which England had apportioned them. Permit me as one who had the opportunity to do much for the propagation of your dramatic works, especially of your finest drama, "Candida," in Western Germany and in Holland, to present as quiet and as moderate a retort as is possible. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... without raising his voice. His manner, even more than his words, expressed fixed determination. Farwell lifted his eyebrows, and puckered his lips in a silent whistle. His diplomacy was turning out badly, and he repressed an inclination to retort. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... 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 ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... Lentsue's sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria, were not at war with him. It was defined, by an uncanny white man's mode of reasoning, that the war was a white man's business in which the blacks should take no part beyond merely suffering its effects. The Natives' retort to this declaration was in the words of a Sechuana proverb, viz., "You cannot sever the jawbones from the head and expect to keep those parts alive separately." It was this principle, we presume, that guided Lentsue's action. Still from the standpoint of white South Africa, the Chief's operations ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He 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 every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... hot retort, and Crofter, to cover the embarrassment which he felt at this seeming contretemps, hummed softly and instituted a painstaking search for the vessel referred to. He experienced little difficulty in finding it, for it was one of two huge ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... retort. Usually she was too busy to waste the time. But she allowed herself the luxury of a half ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... says to you something uncomplimentary of yourself or your near relations, instead of your doing what you ought to do, and pitying poor Snarling, and recommending him some wholesome medicine, you are strongly tempted to retort in kind: and thus you sink yourself to Snarling's level, and you carry on the row. Your proper course is either to speak kindly to poor Snarling, or not to speak to him at all. There is something unsound about the man whom you never heard say ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... But whatever retort he may have contemplated was checked by the accents of Authority and the tapping of an imperative pencil on ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... follies. Often, as in your case, they are great oppressions, as well as great absurdities. But still an injury is not always a reason for retaliation; nor is the folly of others with regard to us a reason for imitating it with regard to them. Before we attempt to retort, we ought to consider whether we may not injure ourselves even more than our adversary; since, in the contest who shall go the greatest length in absurdity, the victor is generally the greatest sufferer. Besides, when there is an unfortunate emulation in restraints ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of expatriated Americans. Althea was accustomed to these assaults and met them with weary dignity, at times expostulating: 'It is all very well for you, Aunt Julia, who have Uncle Tom and the girls; I have nobody, and all my friends are married.' But this brought upon her an invariable retort: 'Well, why don't you get married then? Franklin Winslow Kane asks nothing better.' This retort angered Althea, but she was too fond of Franklin Winslow Kane to reply that perhaps she, herself, did ask something ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... his companions had made them Christians, they did their best, or their worst, to insist that they could not be truly Christians, unless they submitted to the outward sign of being Jews. Paul points a scathing finger at them when he bids the Philippians 'beware,' and he permits himself a bitter retort when he lays hold of the Jewish contemptuous word for Gentiles which stigmatised them as 'dogs,' that is profane and unclean, and hurls it back at the givers. But he is not indulging in mere bitter retorts when he brings against these teachers the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Vicar of God, who should have no such dealings against "that wicked woman." To some Catholics, Elizabeth: to Knox, Mary was as Jezebel, and might laudably be assassinated. In idolaters nothing can surprise us; when persecuted they, in their unchristian fashion, may retort with the dagger or the bowl. But that Knox should have frequently maintained the doctrine of death to religious opponents is a strange and deplorable circumstance. In reforming the Church of Christ he ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Anglesey and O'Connell, to whom it is glory enough (of his sort) to be on a kind of par with the Viceroy, and to have a power equal to that of the Government. Anglesey issues proclamation after proclamation, the other speeches and letters in retort. His breakfasts and dinners are put down, but he finds other places to harangue at, and letters he can always publish; but he does not appear in quite so triumphant an attitude as he did. The O'Connell tribute is said to have failed; no men ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... difficult, not only because of faulty memory, but because we like to make the tale more like a story, because, let us say, of the artist in us. Life is so incomplete and unfinished! We so rarely retort as we should have! And a bald recital of most events is not interesting and so,—the proportions are altered, humor is introduced, the conversation becomes more witty, especially our share, and the adventure is ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... the note to the fort came closer—partly to call attention to themselves, partly to claim credit, partly because the outer silence frightened them. They elbowed Ismail and Darya Khan, and one of them received a savage blow in the stomach by way of retort from Ismail. Before that spark could ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... dilemma. When she has 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, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the retort, but Betty added: "I only wanted to know if it was safe for me to come over and help ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... neck," said Tetchen. "That would be the best thing." Even this did not bring forth an angry retort from Madame Staubach. About an hour after that Peter came in. He had already heard that the bird had flown. Some messenger from Jacob Heisse's house had brought him the tidings to ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... the Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... The retort was in the nature of the tac-au-tac riposte beloved of the skilled swordsman. It was succeeded by a tense silence. Mrs. Haxton glared at the Baron. The ghost of a smile flickered on Irene's lips as she glanced at Dick. Von Kerber swished one of his boots viciously with a riding-whip. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... face grew red at the Judge's words. He quickly faced about as if to retort, but checked himself, and, ignoring the Elder said directly to Dan, "Yes, and I may as well tell you that I wouldn't be here today, but I am caught late with my harvesting, and short of hands. I drove into town to see if I could ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... exemption from sensibility which has sometimes been mistaken for philosophy, and has conferred reputation upon little men. In a word, he exhibited his emotions in a fine, simple, natural manner. Contrary to the usual habits of wits, no retort or reply by Lamb, however smart in character, ever gave pain. It is clear that ill nature is not wit, and that there may be sparkling flowers which are not surrounded by thorns. Lamb's dissent was very intelligible, but never superfluously demonstrative; often, indeed, expressed ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... way, an' I ain't goin' to have anything said against it," Sarah Barnard would retort stanchly, and her sister would sniff back again. Charlotte was as loyal as her mother; she did not like it if even her lover intimated anything in ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... The exchange in part two of The Merry-Thought is not, however, half so satisfactory. The woman takes umbrage at her admirer's suggestions that the glass on which he writes is "the Emblem" of her mind in being "brittle, slipp'ry, [and] pois'nous," and writes in retort: ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... "I retort in your own words—Is it likely? He does not know why he is being employed or what I want with the man I wish traced. At present he is working, as far as that goes, in the dark. I might have put him on a false scent, just as cleverly and unsuspiciously as ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... The common wombat felt the sting of the remark and determined upon a crushing repartee. While the other chuckled over his achievement (about an hour and a half) the common wombat laboriously constructed his retort. "Yah! hairy-nose!" he said, when the reply was properly finished and polished. And then he chuckled, while the other thought it over. The hairy-nosed wombat thought it over and the common wombat thought it over (chuckling the while) ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of the old actor capitally suggests the Spanish mummer. And the painter's cousin, Esperanza! What cousins he boasts! We recall The Three Cousins, with its laughing trio and the rich colour scheme. Our recollection, too, of The Piquant Retort, and its brown and scarlet harmonies; of the Promenade After the Bull-fight, which has the classical balance and spaced charm of Velasquez; and that startling Street of Love overbalances any picture except one in this exhibition, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... interrupted Mrs. Ormond, who saw that Ida was about to make an angry retort, and judged that the discussion had gone far enough. "Come, you boys will be late if you don't make haste with your breakfast. Are you going to play ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... was not accustomed to such treatment, even from a woman; but without a word by way of retort he steadied the hammock in its descent of the twisting path as if his very life depended upon the stranger's comfort. The women, children and very old men of the harbor—all who had not gone to the scene of the wreck save the bedridden—came ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... at her with a scowl. She knew quite well that he had married her for the child's sake alone. A savage retort was on his tongue, but Mrs ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... will,' said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for the sound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the refusal; for if Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been so heavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to demand abstinence from bread, on his part, for the remainder of that meal at ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... for a useful evasiveness of retort in those far-off London days, answered mechanically: "Waiting for the fortune ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... retort, sir," he said. "Do me the kindness to tell me your notion of a dream. Do you think it should be consistent throughout, or should there be strong intrinsic proof of its ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... 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 buy her of him. Of course, after this, the remainder of our ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood |
