"Retract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... captive balloons have been disagreeably overhead all through the hot morning. His big guns have suddenly become nervously active. Then, a little murmur along the pits and trenches, and from somewhere over behind us, this air-shark drives up the sky. The enemy's balloons splutter a little, retract, and go rushing down, and we send a spray of bullets as they drop. Then against our aerostat, and with the wind driving them clean overhead of us, come the antagonistic flying-machines. I incline to imagine there will be a steel prow with a cutting edge at either end of the ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Beaumarchais may be estimated from the assertion that France, by the treaty of Paris (1763) was limited to a certain number of ships of war. On the application of the Duke of Choiseul, he was obliged to retract this ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... "I know what you mean, and if you put me on my mettle, I'll retract. After all, it was no great credit to him, because blood will tell, and he ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... Meletius presided as the first patriarch that was present; in it one hundred and fifty Catholic bishops, and thirty-six of the Macedonian sect, made their appearance; but all these latter chose rather to withdraw than to retract their error, or confess the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The council approved of the election of St. Gregory of Nazianzen to the see of Constantinople, though he resigned it to satisfy the scruples and complaints of some, who, by mistake, thought it made against the Nicene canon, which forbade ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... with wild gesture, she turned and left the house. The spell of stupefied silence was broken with her disappearance. Old Gueldmar prepared to rush after her and force her to retract her evil speech,—Errington was furious, and Britta cried bitterly. The lazy Lorimer was excited ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... it is true and genuine, and cannot be outgrown, that it will stand both the wear of time and the test of growing power of thought, and that those who have taught these beliefs will never have to retract or be ashamed of them, or own that they were passed off, though inadequate, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... considerably short of the highest. Since the publication of the conclusion of the Homilies the question has been set at rest. Hilgenfeld, who had hitherto been a determined advocate of the negative theory, at once gave up his ground [Endnote 288:1]; and Volkmar, who had somewhat less to retract, admitted and admits [Endnote 288:2] that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be considered as proved. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' stands alone in still resisting this conviction [Endnote 288:3], but ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... from 1827; Collected Writings, 1881; Anti-Savarese, edited with an appendix by P. Knoodt), who in 1857 was compelled to retract his views, invokes the spirit of Descartes in opposition to the Hegelian pantheism. In agreement with Descartes, Guenther starts from self-consciousness (in the ego being and thought are identical), and brings not only the Creator ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... usual, excepting Jane. During the first evening, he became convinced that she was certainly altered by the air of Paris. How very much she had improved in appearance and manner! He had never before thought her so very beautiful as many others had done—but he must now retract all he had ever said on the subject. He supposed the good taste with which she was dressed must have some effect; but it seemed as if her beauty were now in its perfection. When he last saw her, there was something almost childish in her appearance and expression, which she had now lost entirely. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... denial of baptism to be the initiating ordinance. And indeed Mr. D'Anvers told me, that you must retract that opinion, and that he had, or would speak to you to do it; yet by some it is still so acknowledged to be; and in particular, by your great helper, Mr. Denne, who strives to maintain it by several arguments; but your ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... about it; but the Doctor was of course prepared to admit that her quietness might mean volumes. She had told Morris Townsend that she would not mention him to her father, and she saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion. It was no more than decently civil, of course, that after having dined in Washington Square, Morris should call there again; and it was no more than natural that, having been kindly received on this occasion, he should continue to present ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... probably would have been content with less, if less had been offered. It was addressed to the earl of Tyrconnel, not only in the first lines, but in a formal dedication, filled with the highest strains of panegyric. These praises in a short time he found himself inclined to retract, being discarded by the man on whom he had bestowed them, and whom he said, he then discovered, had ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... faculty. I supposed the case to be absolutely singular, and I should be no more entitled to credit in proclaiming it, than if I should maintain that a certain billet of wood possessed the faculty of articulate speech. It was now, however, too late to retract. I had been guilty of a solemn and deliberate concealment. I was now in the path in which there was no turning back, and I must ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... her arms tightly round her father's neck, he considered it the better part of valour to take back his words. "All right," he said, "rather than be garroted,—I retract! You're a beautiful and dignified lady, and your notions of convention and etiquette are ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... heaven, at all events in the Catholic world of the Faubourgs St. Germain and St. Honore. The credit of this victory was ascribed, in the main, to the female grace which had succeeded in getting round the aged prince, and inducing him to retract the whole of his revolutionary past, but some of it went to the youthful ecclesiastic who had displayed so much tact in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion a project in which it was so easy to fail. M. Dupanloup was from that day one of the first ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the hills are full, And newer fashions blow, Doth not retract a single spice For ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... 'I retract—you are sane and clear. I am sure she thinks there won't be any harm,' I added. 'That's ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... thoroughly committed herself to any man, or any cause, is the least tractable and reasonable. I hope this statement will not offend my sweet friends, because it is so true that I cannot conscientiously retract it. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... the climax; I could not retract what I had said. I made up a fanciful story; with precise details: I had given the custodian of the building a hundred francs to be allowed to go about the building by myself; the shrine was being repaired, but I happened to be there at the breakfast hour of the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... obtained for cruelty, implies, in such a state as Parthia, considerable powers of management. His dealings with Augustus indicate much suppleness and dexterity. If he did not in the course of his long reign advance the Parthian frontier, at any rate he was not obliged to retract it. Apparently, he ceded nothing to the Scyths as the price of their assistance. He maintained the Parthian supremacy over Northern Media. He lost no inch of territory to the Romans. It was undoubtedly a prudent step on his part ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... he, very slowly,—"if you wish to retract your letter to me, you now have my leave to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... "Well now, should reason force you to admit That love is just as childish, every whit; To own that whimpering at your mistress' door Is e'en as weak as building on the floor; Say, will you put conviction into act, And, like young Polemo, at once retract; Take off the signs and trappings of disease, Your leg-bands, tippets, furs, and muffatees, As he slipped off his chaplets, when the word Of sober wisdom all ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... unbecoming." Whether Tungche took this very decided step in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two empresses reinstating Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank and dignity, and thus reasserting the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... that even in your dying hour, I would never forgive you: I retract. If my pardon can console your last moments, remember that it is yours. I have made no alteration in my will; if you can accept the benefits which may accrue to you by my death, take them; but so surely as you ever attempt to approach the innocent girl who has been so long endangered ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... practice is commonly shameful disgrace, with an obligation to retract and render satisfaction: for seldom doth calumny pass long without being detected and confuted. "He that walketh uprightly, walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known:" and, "The lip of truth shall be established for ever; but a lying lip ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... everlasting blissful existence from which there is no return into the sphere of transmigration. The characteristics of the released soul are similar to those of Brahman; it participates in all the latter's glorious qualities and powers, excepting only Brahman's power to emit, rule, and retract the entire world. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... being justly reproved by his wife for a delinquency he had not himself remarked; irate at his wife's imputation, and fearful of having forfeited her respect, he starts out to redeem his reputation in her eyes, and to maker her retract any insinuation she had made. Erec is simply angry with himself, but he expends his wrath upon his defenceless wife until he is reassured of her love and respect ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... fell sideways, so that he no longer looked at her. They spoke no more. She believed that he knew she had been lying; but she had been caught unawares, and could not retract her assertions. Without a further word she began to prepare a basin of water, and washed herself. Then she went to ask that tea might be brought to the bedroom. They drank the tea in silence, both very grave. When they had finished, Sally took the tray to the end of the passage, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Moors," that we envied not the eagle or any other bird his wings, and showed cause why we preferred our own feet. Had Puck wings? If he had, we retract, and would sport Puck. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the review of Burke was the best prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the "Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... forming his opinions and that he has a right to their expression. It is now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... a human—image; he had resigned her, and he repented. The light of day served, if not to dissipate, at least to sober, the turbulence and fervor of the preceding night. But was it indeed too late to retract his resolve? "Too late!" terrible words! Of what do we not repent, when the Ghost of the Deed returns to us to say, "Thou hast ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... see how he was to retract his request for her presence. His stunned brain refused to cope with such harassing details. The thing must be said; and no doubt he would find strength to say it aright. For him that was enough; and he deliberately turned his ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... "ay, sir, how soon afterwards? After the deed was done, ha? or after I was so far committed that I could not retract? And let me ask you, why it was that I was not to be informed till afterwards, when every other person here present knew it long before—I, who remained by the bloody waters of the Boyne when you acted as the King's running footman, and heralded ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Confession are all articles of faith, and all articles of faith are fundamental. Our Church can never have a genuine internal harmony, except in the confession, without reservation or ambiguity of these articles, one and all. This is our deep conviction, and we hereby retract, before God and His Church, formally, as we have already earnestly and repeatedly done indirectly, everything we have written or said in conflict with this our present conviction. This we are not ashamed to do. We thank God, who has led us to see the truth, and we thank Him for freeing us from the ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... became a little restive under this treatment, Pope indirectly admitted the truth by claiming only twelve books in an advertisement to his works, and in a note to the Dunciad, but did not explicitly retract the other statement. Broome could not effectively rebuke his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope to attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too much, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... amply caressed; and from that time, ate everything which was offered to him: perhaps he had suffered from sea-sickness. I indulged him twice a week with some lavender water put into a cup made of stiff paper, but never allowed him to have it when his claws were pushed forth; so that he learned to retract them at ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... that he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert a position." ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... other Motives, may be one Reason why we are naturally averse to the launching out into a Man's Praise till his Head is laid in the Dust. Whilst he is capable of changing, we may be forced to retract our Opinions. He may forfeit the Esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different Light from what he does at present. In short, as the Life of any Man cannot be call'd happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... temperament and an energetic character. It can, however, anchor itself and lie by when occasion offers. It is provided with two long cables, prettily set with spiral filaments or tendrils, by means of which it can make fast to any point. When not in use, it can retract them, and stow them away in two sacs or pouches within the body, where they may be seen coiled up, through the transparent walls. The mouth is a simple opening at one pole of the globular body. No arms are needed. The beroe is spared the labour and ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence, declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the slightest advance ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." Several of his disciples were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to follow him. Jesus did not retract; he only added: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." The twelve remained faithful, notwithstanding this strange preaching. It gave to Cephas, in particular, an opportunity of ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... again joined in heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you to-morrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?" ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... which partly belonged to the property, while the shorter side was bounded to the north by the house of Ittabsi, and to the south by the house of Likimm, were signed and sealed by Nebo-usatu, who pledged himself not to retract the deed or make any subsequent claim, and they were then handed over to Nebo-liu." The troubles of the latter, however, were not yet at an end. "Ilu-rabu-bel-sant, Sennacherib, and Labasu, the sons of Rakhaz the [priest] of the great god, said to Nebo-liu: 'Seventy-three shekels ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... other. Underneath all that roughness of speech and violence of statement, there was great tenderness and understanding. He spoke his mind, and more than his mind, but he was generous and quick to retract and quicker to console. "I'm an Ulsterman," he said once. "Ulster to the marrow, an' begod ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of saying that he's not afraid of his party. If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him no other credit, but I give ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... principally to have valued himself on this piece, because it contains some scenes executed in rhyme, in what was then called the heroic manner. Upon this opinion, which Dryden lived to retract, I have ventured to offer my sentiments in the Life of the Author. In other respects, though not slow in perceiving and avouching his own merit, our author seems to consider the "Rival Ladies" as ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... weaknesses, political, military, and official, of their countrymen. Their work is something quite new in Germany, and worthy of comparison with the best in any country. It is not elegant, it is Rabelaisian; and though I have nothing to retract in regard to coarseness, and no wish to commend the attitude taken toward German political and social life, in fairness one is bound to call attention to the pictorial work in this particular paper as of a very high order, and to recognize its ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... dear Anna, go to London,' I said, 'and implore my mother to retract this wish, unsay her words. I would rather give up the world, than take it without your cheerful acquiescence. Your happiness is every thing to me. You ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... is, yet to retract the hand, the mind heeds not, until. Before the mortal vision lies no path, when comes to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Wilkinson again warned his friend that he might be going too far with Mrs. Cox; that he might say that which he could neither fulfil nor retract. For Wilkinson clearly conceived it to be impossible that Bertram should really intend to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Massilians applied to his party, and his pupil, Vincent of Lerins, author of Commonitorium, written 434. The chief Augustinians were Hilary and Prosper of Aquitaine. The discussion was not continuous. About 475 it broke out again when Lucidus was condemned at a council at Lyons and forced to retract his predestinarian views; and again about 520. The matter received what is regarded as its solution in the Council of Orange, 529, confirmed by Boniface II in 531. By the decrees of this council so much of the Augustinian ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... which the young Countess gave to Mary,' said the cook in her turn, 'that made Juliette angry. In her rage, and not knowing well what she was about, she began to tell lies, and then it was impossible to retract without acknowledging her guilt. The proverb is true which says that, once the devil has us by the hair, he will ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... Lord was ill-favouredly clad, in a bare and ragged gown, and an old square cap. Dr Cole preached, and more than twenty times during the sermon, the Archbishop was seen to have the water in his eyes. Then they did desire him to get up into the pulpit, and openly to retract his preaching, and show all the people that he was become ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and willfully," said Leone. "I will never retract, never go back, but go on to the ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... several newspaper attacks which he had resented greatly also. His uncle's reputation as a public man he had been Quixotic enough to take to heart as a personal matter of family honor and, as everyone knows, family honor is a thing to uphold. He had demanded that McCorquodale retract his statement. McCorquodale had refused ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... action will, in the fullness of time, recoil so appallingly upon your own head that it will kill you. I know you are one of those that faithlessness, remorse and contempt would kill.—Don't look so beseechingly at me; I cannot retract a word of what I have said. But I can tell you now what I had decided upon before I came. I will look after your future. I am not rich; but, as sure as I stand here before you, you shall live free from care—you shall have everything that ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... father threw down his brush, declaring he would paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties, and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the picture, saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very existence. And then he threw out dark and confused hints of supernatural agency, by which, if his living features ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... it may be stated that it is more serious when arteries are severed. If the wound in an artery is in the direction of its length, the blood escapes more freely than if the vessel is completely severed, because in the latter instance the severed ends retract, curl in, and may aid very much in arresting the flow. When the blood merely oozes from the wound, and even when it flows in a small stream, the forming of the clot arrests the hemorrhage in ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them—like an unready horse, they ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... it up, papa went and concluded, what appeared to him, an excellent bargain, with the lawyer, who was too anxious to serve his employer, not to try and make light of the reports, and not only this, but to fix papa so, that he could not possibly retract. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... painted in 1771, West departed from the venerated custom of clothing pictorial characters in Greek or Roman costume. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had endeavored to dissuade him, later said, "I retract my objections. I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... "I retract them," broke in the distracted man. "You mustn't think anything of what I said; it is only the pain that has made me mad. For God's sake, at least let us part friends, for then, perhaps, some day we ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... I retract my wishes about crying, for when I do begin, I cry in such a very disagreeable way—no spring shower, but a perfect tempest of tears. Philip's unexpected generosity upset me, and I sobbed till I frightened him, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... town, and asked me to do him a great service by taking it to the editor of the morning paper. If the editor refused to print it, I was to tell him that he would be answerable to Ordinsky "in person." He declared that he would never retract one word, and that he was quite prepared to lose all his pupils. In spite of the fact that nobody ever mentioned his article to him after it appeared—full of typographical errors which he thought intentional—he got a certain satisfaction from believing that ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... for surely to suggest a new and unpleasant train of ideas is an infamous abuse of a tete-a-tete. I told my friend so; and, as he declined to retract or apologize, or in any wise explain himself, departed with the conviction that, though a clever man and an original thinker, he was by no means an exhilarating or instructive companion. I should have borne him a grudge to this day, but as I was walking home, decidedly disconsolate (there's ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course you have chosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger—a person of most insolent behaviour to your brother and others—to prefer your ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... assured, his tale ran thus at first, Nor can he now retract what then he said; Not I alone but all our townsfolk heard it. E'en should he vary somewhat in his story, He cannot make the death of Laius In any wise jump with the oracle. For Loxias said expressly he was ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... homage for the provinces which he had entrusted to their care; and they had ceded to him the districts of Corah and Allahabad. On the plea that the Mogul was not really independent, but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings determined to retract these concessions. He accordingly declared that the English would pay no more tribute, and sent troops to occupy Allahabad and Corah. The situation of these places was such that there would be little advantage and great expense ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it; meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her, and thought ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... else," replied the officer, "I shall live so much the longer." This answer touched Cassius's pride and military sense of honor. Rather than concur in a counsel which was thus, on the part of one of its advocates at least, dictated by what he considered an inglorious love of life, he preferred to retract his opinion. It was agreed by the council that the army should maintain its ground and give the enemy battle. The officers then repaired to ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture: I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... love, do not look fierce like that. Nobody but Lydia believes him. Now that you are back again, I am sure that he will retract.' ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... do wonders for poor Lizzie Hepburn. If you saw her you would be quite sorry for her. She is such an interesting girl, so beautiful, and she has a great deal of character, quite different from Christina. I have asked them down, and of course I can't retract my invitations; they may have gone down to Miss Peck already, for aught I know. Promise to come down to Bourhill and see poor Lizzie, then I am sure you will say I ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... very earliest ages cocoanuts have been sent by the bride to the bridegroom, sometimes as earnest of an offer of marriage, sometimes in token of acceptance. After this ceremony is complete the parties cannot retract, the ceremony being considered equivalent to a "nikah" or actual registration by the Kazi; and this fact again discovers the Hindu origin of the Mahomedan Rangaris and of their customs, for among foreign Musulmans the betrothal is a mere period ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... the Gazette of France[317]; and Renaudot, in the account he gave, named the English before the Swedes, and spoke of the affair as accommodated. Grotius was very angry at this: he sent to tell him, to name the Swedes first in another Gazette, and to retract what he had said of the accommodation: Renaudot was even threatened, that if he did not give this satisfaction to the Swedes, he would be made to feel to his cost that Sweden was powerful enough to do herself justice. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... his theological tract, and rubbing his spectacles mournfully.—"I hear him, child: I hear him. I retract my vindication of Man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on the other side of the screen,—it is all ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... imputation upon me, Jocelyn Mounchensey," he cried with concentrated fury, "which you shall be compelled to retract as publicly as you have made it. To insult an officer of the Crown, in the discharge of his duty, is to insult the Crown itself, as you will find. In the King's name, I command you to hold your peace, or, in the King's name, I will instantly arrest you; and I forbid ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... must go. Will you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. You will ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... very evening, after dinner, the lights turned on by the servant with the electric lever. He stands beside this lever. He quickly seizes the last sentence of the cornered guilty man, and, before the latter can think or retract, cries: 'Tell it in the dark, then!' and plunges the room in darkness. The natural impulse of that defaulter under those circumstances would be to blurt out with it; at least so I believe. Such was his vacillating, impulsive nature. And for the same reason the attempt to escape ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... "I retract my remark unreservedly," said my curate; "it was unjust and unfair. It is curious that I have never yet made an unkind remark but I met with ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... your ears that you hear not, and blot out of your memory the record of what I have said. If there is anything that is not consonant with the Christian religion, as this has been revealed to the world and as it is guarded and interpreted by the Church to which these powers were committed, then I retract and disavow it explicitly and ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... after the sanction was granted, steps were taken to retract it; I went to the Arch-Duke Stephen, the Palatine of Hungary, the first constitutional authority of Hungary,—the elective viceroy, and told him he ought to return to Hungary if he wished to preserve ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... this lawsuit, it is one in which the plaintiff is really the defendant. Sir Charles has written a defamatory letter, which has closed every house in this county to his victim. If, as I now feel sure, you disapprove the libel, pray persuade him to retract it. The rest our ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... an arbitrary and despotic assembly. I see and I feel the delicacy and difficulty of the ground upon which we stand in this question. I could wish, indeed, that they who advised the Crown had not left Parliament in this very ungraceful distress, in which they can neither retract with dignity nor persist with justice. Another parliament might have satisfied the people without lowering themselves. But our situation is not in our own choice: our conduct in that situation is all that is in our own option. The substance ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... charges he had nothing to retract. His representations had not been too strongly stated, for the most disgraceful circumstances were those which rested upon public notoriety, or upon his own personal knowledge. It had been stated that he had overestimated ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... us. You cannot interpret classic marbles without knowing and loving your Pindar and AEschylus, neither can you interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study of books which have hitherto been the ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... said, but I never have been able personally to verify the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its claws ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... with their shipping, whether publick and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity for seeking of shelter and harbor, to retract and enter into any of the rivers, creeks, bays, ports, roads or shores belonging to the other party, they shall be received with all humanity and kindness, and enjoy all friendly protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves, at reasonable ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... hope I shall never be called upon to speak to you again, for you are the cruelest, most contemptible girl I have ever known; but, if I hear anything further of this, I will take you to Miss Archer, to the Board of Education, if necessary, and make you retract every word. Come ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... skill. The peculiar danger of his situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of everlasting ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... monuments had been erected in the Cathedral since the Stuarts mounted the throne. Dean VALENTINE CAREY was also Bishop of Exeter, d. 1626, a High Churchman, He "imprudently commended the soul of a dead person to the mercies of God, which he was forced to retract." There was a brass to him with mitre and his ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... by policy, if it must be, by force, the mongrel measure of concession and obstinacy which the Court had carried against the proposals of Necker. That victory was reversed, and the success of the Commons was complete. They had brought the three orders into one; they had compelled the king to retract his declaration and to restore his disgraced minister; they had exposed the weakness of their oppressors, and they had the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... was too late to retract, Rigdon perceived with dismay that, instead of acquiring a silly bondsman, he had subjected himself to a superior will; he was now himself a slave, bound by fear and interest, his two great guides through life. Smith consequently became, instead of Rigdon, "the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... contemplated its great objects more broadly. I hope I have read with deeper interest the sentiments of the great men who framed it. I hope I have studied with more care the condition of the country when the convention assembled to form it. And yet I do not know that I have much to retract or to change ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... stone and an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical joy. Now, my dear Louis, forgive me if I ask a question which may ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... justice his opinions on the American war are introduced, as if in his late work he had belied his conduct and opinions in the debates which arose upon that great event. On the American war he never had any opinions which he has seen occasion to retract, or which he has ever retracted. He, indeed, differs essentially from Mr. Fox as to the cause of that war. Mr. Fox has been pleased to say that the Americans rebelled "because they thought they had not enjoyed liberty enough." This cause of the war, from him, I have heard of for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have to do is to tell your parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk would ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... dread, unknown, Yet solemn fact; I see the seeds of folly sown In wayward years, maturely grown, Nor can retract. ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved his hand and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia, immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish one of these, though two of the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... passage of M. Renan's writings, by which he feels justified in making his statement, I shall wait for further enlightenment, contenting myself, for the present, with remarking that if M. Renan were to retract and do penance in Notre-Dame to-morrow for any contributions to Biblical criticism that may be specially his property, the main results of that criticism, as they are set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... said, "I do not retract my opinion. What the Rajah really is I don't pretend to know, but I am quite sure that the character of a smiling host is not his real one, and that for some reason or other he is simply playing ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... a possible offender in mind," replied Mr. Morton more evenly. "In a case of this kind we must proceed with such absolute caution and reserve that we will not be obliged to retract afterwards in ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a javelin of pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand times to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be your destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to your welcome home." Without one retorting word, or frown from her brow, she yielded to the entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness of her former character she went along with the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... look. For the first time his words implied a sense of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... and count them." "For God's sake," the merchant screamed, "I can never endure it." "We will see about that," the favorite said, coldly, "and if you die under it, it was allotted you by fate; I am not going to retract my orders." ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... useful part in life without qualifying them for that which is great and brilliant. If it be true, as we have heard, that he has declined advantageous prospects in business, for the sake of indulging his poetical humour; we hope it is not yet too late to prevail upon him to retract his resolution. With the help of COCKER and common industry, he may become a respectable Scrivener: but it is not all the ZEPHYRS, and AURORAS, and CORYDONS, and THYRSIS's; aye, nor his "junketing Queen MAB" and "drudging Goblins," that will ever make ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... is sore. Former disappointments were so heavy; the hopes which were blasted were so like my present ones, that the dread of a like result will intrude upon my thoughts. And now your dream! Indeed, I know not what to do. I believe I ought still to retract—ought, at least, to postpone ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... had risen to Jack's own eyes and he stood apart while the mother and daughter kissed. After that, and when they had gone on a little before him and Eddy, Mrs. Upton turned to him, and if she readjusted herself she didn't, as it were, retract, for the smile again rested on him while Eddy presented him to her. He saw then that she had suffered, though with a suffering different from any that he would have thought of as obvious. How or what she had suffered ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... pronounced false, and made use of violent and insulting language, dealing largely in personalities, to which Mr. A. made no reply. After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up to Vinyard, and requested him to retract, which he refused to do, repeating the offensive words. Mr. Arndt then made a blow at Vinyard, who stepped back a pace, drew a pistol, and ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... well tell you now that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's disadvantage were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I retract what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and particularly beg his pardon for my advertisement in the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... child, the man is punished with slavery, unless he will take the woman for his wife, and maintain her. Adams knew an instance of a young man, who, having refused to marry a woman by whom he had a child, was on that account condemned to slavery. He afterwards repented, but was not then permitted to retract his refusal, and was ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... remain silent if his opponents were forced to do likewise. He promised, too, that if Miltitz wrote advising the Pope to appoint a German bishop to try the case and to convince him of his error he would be willing to retract his theses, to submit to the Church, and to advise all his supporters to remain loyal to the Holy See. At the same time he prepared a letter for transmission to Rome, in which he addressed the Pope ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... Whose Snayly motion of the moouing hand, (Although it goe) yet seeme to me to stand; 50 As though at Adam it had first set out And had been stealing all this while about, And when it backe to the first point should come, It shall be then iust at the generall Doome. The Seas into themselues retract their flowes. The changing Winde from euery quarter blowes, Declining Winter in the Spring doth call, The Starrs rise to vs, as from vs they fall; Those Birdes we see, that leaue vs in the Prime, Againe ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... that he consented that the old pirate ship, and so many bales of cloth, should be given to Mackra, and then sank into the arms of intoxication. England now pressed Mackra to hasten away, lest the ruffian, upon his becoming sober, should not only retract his word, but give liberty to the crew to cut him ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... only one confession which I care to hear. You made it once, though you are not willing to repeat it. But I have your word, Sylvia; I am content. Not all the world could make me believe that you would willingly retract that word." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... clinch the matter before his partner could retract this somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the sample-room and made resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, and surveyed him calmly ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... man limped away with astonishing quickness to hide his acquisition, lest, mayhap, his guests should repent them and retract their liberality. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in my mind. It was not that I fully understood what he was working for, but I was conscious of a great desire to prove to him that I could do something, exhibit some tenacity, approve myself to him. I wanted to make him retract what he had said about me; and, further on, I had a dim sense of an initiation into ideas, familiar enough, but which had only been words to me hitherto—power, purpose, seriousness. They had been ideas ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... coquet with; will and will not, chaser-balancer[obs3]; go halfway, compromise, make a compromise; be thrown off one's balance, stagger like a drunken man; be afraid &c. 860; let "I dare not" wait upon "I would" [Macbeth]; falter, waver vacillate &c. 149; change &c. 140; retract &c. 607; fluctuate; pendulate[obs3]; alternate &c. (oscillate) 314; keep off and on, play fast and loose; blow hot and cold &c. (caprice) 608. shuffle, palter, blink; trim. Adj. irresolute, infirm of purpose, double-minded, half-hearted; undecided, unresolved, undetermined; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do you not see that it alarms the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... in affairs of the heart it is the woman, not the man, who takes the first step; and that she takes it without thereby incurring any responsibility, and with the power to disavow or retract it whenever she desires to do so. According to my father, it is the woman who first declares her passion through the medium of furtive glances that, later, she disavows to her own conscience if necessary, and of which he to whom they are directed divines, rather ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... remarked, "if that's the way you handle your private affairs it doesn't look promising for whoever employs you. No, I'll retract that, and on second thought reverse that judgment. I'll say that if you invariably put your employer's interests before your own your sole chance to succeed is to become a member of any firm you work for. I suggest that you ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... "Oh, no; I retract what I have said if it is to have that effect. It is only my own expressions that seem tiresome. I could not be happy without your voice in my ears, though you repeat from morn till eve the old, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... anger, and advanced with his arm raised on Gotzkowsky, who looked at him quietly and firmly. "You lie! retract!" thundered the king. ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... dramatic effect, he declares that the grand scene between the prophet and Fides in the third act, where John of Leyden, by the sheer force of intonation of voice and play of feature, forces his mother to retract her recognition of him and to fall at his feet, was created, so to speak, by Madame Viardot and himself on the inspiration of the moment and without any preliminary conference or arrangement. How wonderful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... necessary here to reply to a critic who suggested that in emphasizing the role of the secret societies in World Revolution I had abandoned my former thesis of the Orleaniste conspiracy. I wish therefore to state that I do not retract one word I wrote in The French Revolution on the Orleaniste conspiracy, I merely supply a further explanation of its efficiency by enlarging on the aid it received from the party I referred to as the Subversives—outcome of the masonic lodges. It was because the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... emotion. Mrs. Ashleigh I saw frequently at my own house; she honestly confessed that Lilian had not shown that grief at the cancelling of our engagement which would alone justify Mrs. Ashleigh in asking me again to see her daughter, and retract my conclusions against our union. She said that Lilian was quiet, not uncheerful, never spoke of me nor of Margrave, but seemed absent and pre-occupied as before, taking pleasure in nothing that had been wont to please her; not in music, nor books, nor that tranquil ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... am,' she persisted, going on now in sheer desperation, having proceeded too far to retract. 'My petals are delicately fair, with just a faint rosy blush, my pistils and stamens of a tender yellow, and my form, if ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... he swore he worshipped entrechats, and held a silk leg the most admirable work of the manufactures. "Sir, you're a gentleman," says he; "you're a nobleman, sir; you 're a prince, you 're a star of the first magnitude." Cries Jorian, "Retract that, scum! you see nothing large but what you dare to think neighbours you," and quarrels the inebriate dog. And this is the maker and destroyer of reputations in his day! I study Hickson as a miraculous engine of the very simplest contrivance; he is himself the epitome of a verdict ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dunvegan. I only designed to express what I thought generally admitted,—that the house of Rasay allowed the superiority of the house of Dunvegan. Even this I now find to be erroneous, and will therefore omit or retract it in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... said, haughtily, "that is an expression which I must request you to retract. I have already assured you, on the word of ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... battle lost that seemed won. The words, "disgrace to the family, to your mother and myself," kept ringing in his ears and he resolved to leave the town, go to the oil regions, go west, go anywhere, get rich, come back and make his people retract ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... he, "is the million I intended for you, if you had seen fit to be my son! Now it's too late for you to retract. The voice of Nature calls me to ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... creature I am! Leaving the hospital has made me grow so much younger every day that I am almost afraid I may come to contemplate short frocks. But really it's the first time I've looked nice for an eternity, and now I entirely retract and repent me of all I said about wishing to be a man. Being a girl, I'll put up with it, and if all the old mushroom says on that head also is true—— But then men are such ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... therefore I excepted them; but I do not know there are any errors of mine in it, and therefore cannot except them. But," added I, "if thou pleasest to show me any error of mine in it, I shall readily both acknowledge and retract it;" and thereupon I desired him to give me an instance, in any one passage in that book, wherein he thought I had erred. He said he needed not go to particulars, but charge me with the general contents of the whole book. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... "I retract every foolish word I said a few minutes since. Henceforth it shall be war to the knife between me and my tenantry, as ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... shall go to Court," said the lover, in despair. "Harsh as our mistress is, she cannot fail to be moved by the tears and the beauty of Jacinta. She will retract, for a few hours at least, this cruel edict which has caused ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt his conscience greatly eased after this action—which, too, he could always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of form, so far as the property ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thousand years; but those who are can, I make no question, furnish you with parallel instances." He concluded, therefore, that, had he taken any such hasty resolutions against his nephew, he hoped he would consider better, and retract them. The gentleman answered with great warmth, and talked much of courage and his country, till, perceiving it grew late, he asked Adams, "What place he intended for that night?" He told him, "He waited there for the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... late. The wrong that's been done needs a more radical remedy than you or I could bring to it. Bienville has lied, and I must force him to retract. Nothing ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... "there was a cradle in the way, which the sheriff-Officer gently took up, and by direction of the tenant's wife removed. I made no remark about it at all, but a local paper published a lying story, which the publisher had to retract, that I had said 'Throw ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... quarrel about it; I am ready to retract. Good-night, mademoiselle. Apropos, did you know that M. Camille Langis had returned ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... misunderstood about Stavordale, because just what you tell me you approve of is what I meant to propose, or if I had any conception beyond it, it was from a sudden thought which I retract. I have said a few words to Charles, but I do not find that he has more intercourse with him than you have. He says that there can be no doubt of the validity and payment of the debt, and there is no ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... misrepresentations had in the beginning been due to inexperience and ignorance of an undertaking which it required scientific knowledge to successfully carry out. When the truth had been gradually borne in upon him as the work progressed, he felt that it was too late to explain or retract if he would raise more money and keep his position. The real cost he believed would frighten possible investors and with the peculiar sanguineness of the short-sighted, he thought that ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... and endeavoured to instil some suspicion of the courage and fidelity of those who had promoted it. The Prince was easily persuaded that he had been too complaisant in consenting to a retreat, but would not retract the consent he had given, unless he could bring back those to whom he had given it over to his own sentiments; which he hoped he might be able to do, since the Secretary had altered his opinion. With this view he called another meeting ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... slaveholders. Amid all of this excess of the enthusiast there was the method of a calculating mind. He aimed to kindle a conflagration because he had icebergs to melt. "The public shall not be imposed upon," he replied to one of his critics, "and men and things shall be called by their right names. I retract nothing, I blot out nothing. My language is exactly such as suits me; it will displease many, I know; to displease them is my intention." He was philosopher enough to see that he could reach the national conscience only by exciting the national ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... fair, waxed wroth out of wit. "Thou must forego that ho ever do you a vassal's service; he is worthier than my brother Gunther, the full noble man. Thou must retract what I have heard thee say. Certes, it wondereth me, sith he be thy vassal and thou hast so much power over us twain, why he hath rendered thee no tribute so long a time. By right I should be spared thy ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... passed through my mind. Was I truly under the ban of Heaven? Was I to prove the destruction of every vessel I sailed aboard? This was the fourth time I had been shipwrecked. "Oh, my oath! my oath!" I ejaculated. "Could I but retract it! But how is that to be done?" Uttered once, there it must remain engraven in the book of heaven. As I lay on that sea-tossed raft, in the middle of the Atlantic, I pondered deeply of those things in my own wild untutored way. Did but men ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... is right; she is his sister." But did not that clamorous press, that bellowed and hallooed on the rabble to rob, murder, and destroy,—did it not recall its words, apologize for its naughty language, and retract every charge groundlessly made? Like a convicted felon, did it cry peccavi—I have sinned, been misled, or misinformed? No; not a sign of repentance has been manifested, not an apology made, not a word of retraction ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... the duke's seconds said, 'We render justice to the honorable character of M. Charles Robert; but his grace of Lucenay cannot, ought not, will not retract.' 'Then, gentlemen,' responded my seconds, 'M. de Lucenay still continues to insist that M. Charles Robert has a cough?' 'Yes, gentlemen; but he does not intend it as an attack upon M. Robert's reputation.' 'Then let him retract.' 'No, gentlemen; M. de Lucenay recognizes M. Robert ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... this vow, and am content That it be so. Ah me!—yet, if the door Shut on our heaven might be asunder rent Even now, and I could see the way we went, I might retract my vow, and say no more I ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady to be brought down.' Every ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... either knowing that the other had done so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday News, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did. But the mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and flowers which was carried one ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Mr. Surtaine revised his project. Horsewhipping would be no more than the offending editor deserved. However, he should have his chance. Let him repent and retract publicly, and the castigation should be remitted. Forthwith the avenger sat him down to a task of composition. The apology which, after sundry corrections and emendations, he finally produced in fair copy, was not alone complete and explicit: ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of discrediting the Jews and of justifying the Russian governmental anti-Jewish policy before the world. After the collapse of the Beilis prosecution, which involved the absurd charge of ritual murder, Lutostansky approached several prominent wealthy Jews with an offer to retract his new charges against the Jews, provided they would pay him a certain amount of money for his book. The Jews declined to have anything to do with the charlatan who had caused so much harm to the ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... could he renounce her, when she came forth to him,—smiling, speaking freshly and lightly, and with the colour on her cheeks which showed that she had done her part? How could he retract a step? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... having the opportunity of observing freshly-taken red coral, saw that its branches were beset with what looked like delicate and beautiful flowers each having eight petals. It was true that these "flowers" could protrude and retract themselves, but their motions were hardly more extensive, or more varied, than those of the leaves of the sensitive plant; and therefore they could not be held to militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Office, had brought the fact before the notice of that body, repeating de Soto's remarks and denouncing him as a heretic. The unfortunate man was thereupon seized, thrown into prison, and, under the direction of the villain Alvarez, dreadfully tortured, ostensibly to compel him to retract his words against the Inquisition, but really to enable Alvarez to wring from de Soto the cipher, as the price of his ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... undeciphered dreams, has long lost its momentum and yielded to a contrary tendency. Just as the hypostasis of some terms in experience is sanctioned by reason, when the objects so fixed and externalised can serve as causes and explanations for the order of events, so the criticism which tends to retract that hypostasis is sanctioned by reason when the hypostasis has exceeded its function and the external object conceived is loaded with useless ornament. The transcendental and functional secret of such hypostases, however, is seldom appreciated ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana |
