"Retractation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... general drift of the book. The danger of ecclesiastical censures drew from Dr. Clarke a declaration in which he promised not to preach any more on such subjects, and also an explanation which almost amounted to a retractation; this he immediately followed by a paper delivered to the Bishop of London, half recanting and half explaining his explanations. These documents appear to have satisfied nobody except perhaps the bishops. The Lower House resolved 'that the paper ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... his story, related all that the child had had to suffer. After being questioned by the Commissary she had to appear before the judges of the local tribunal. The entire magistracy pursued her, and endeavoured to wring a retractation from her. But the obstinacy of her dream was stronger than the common sense of all the civil authorities put together. Two doctors who were sent by the Prefect to make a careful examination of the girl came, as all doctors would have done, to the honest opinion that it was a case of nervous trouble, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... continued to ripen, and grow milder, and understand more generously the mingled characters of men. In the early days he once read me a bitter lecture; and I remember leaving his house in a fine spring afternoon, with the physical darkness of despair upon my eyesight. Long after he made me a formal retractation of the sermon and a formal apology for the pain he had inflicted; adding drolly, but truly, "You see, at that time I was so much younger than you!" And yet even in those days there was much to learn from him; and above all his fine spirit of piety, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all, were the superficialities of the situation; its deeper aspects were, Imogen felt, as yet unfaced. Her mother seemed quite content to let Imogen's silence stand for apology and retractation, quite willing to go on, for the little further that they had to go together, in an ambiguous relation. This was, indeed, Imogen felt, her mother's strength; she could, apparently, put up with any amount of ambiguity and probably ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... came; and it was marked outwardly by a curious retractation of his severe language about Rome, published in a paper called the Conservative Journal, in January 1843; and more distinctly, by his resignation of St. Mary's in September 1843, a step contemplated for some time, and by his ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... after some consideration, decides to accept this retractation, and retreats with dignity to his stall, the door of which he carefully fastens after him. Exit Farmer BANKS, L., as LYDIA BANKS enters R., accompanied by Chorus. The Bull exhibits the liveliest interest in her proceedings, as he looks on, with his forelegs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... withdrawing his demand for a retractation, Luther agreed to write a letter to the Pope, acknowledging that he had been too hasty and severe, and promising to publish a declaration to German Christendom urging and admonishing reverence to the Romish Church. His cause, and the charges brought against him, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... poet, and whose fame has passed into the Phillis or Amaryllis ideal of Highland accomplishment and grace. Macdonald was married to a scold, and though his actual relations with Morag were of the Platonic kind, he was persuaded to a retractation, entitled the "Disparagement of Morag," which is sometimes recited as a companion piece to the present. The consideration of brevity must plead our apology with the Celtic readers for omitting many stanzas of the best modern composition in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... for her early friend induced Marie de Medicis to make, in this instance, a most unbecoming concession, is certain; while it is no less matter of record that, probably to prevent any opportunity of retractation on the part of Madame de Verneuil, she lavished upon her from that day the most flattering marks of friendship, and publicly treated her with a distinction which was envied by many of the greatest ladies at Court, even although it ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... resolved to be reconciled, in appearance, to a Church whose truth, once acknowledged by him, convicted him of sacrilege and of dishonour. This ticklish job could best be performed, not by a staid priest of the old Gallican school, who might have insisted upon a categorical retractation of errors, upon his making amends and upon his doing penance; not by a young Ultramontane of the new school, against whom M. de Talleyrand would at once have been very prejudiced, but by a priest who was a man of the world, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Commons, to be anti-Christian, avowing it to be "not only a lawful but eminent form of government, and professing himself ready to conform to any polity that could be deduced from Scripture as being of Divine authority." The court was satisfied, and suppressed the book, while publishing Mr. Eliot's retractation. Some have sneered at his conduct on this occasion as an act of moral cowardice; but it would be very hard if every man were bound to stand to all the political views expressed in an essay never meant for the general eye, ten years old, and written in the enthusiasm of the commencement ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Spirit was in him, (M. Olinde Rodrigues,) one of the persons interrogated had the temerity to answer by certain expressions of incredulity. The fit was extremely violent, and Dr Fuster, in order to save the patient, had recourse to a formal retractation from the inconsiderate respondent, who, on his part, was full of affliction for the mischief he had occasioned. Such, even on men of serious thought and elevated understanding, may be the effect produced by a belief carried to a certain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... however in this extraordinary suggestion is its irreverence. It assumes that the Gospel according to St. John was composed like any ordinary modern book: capable therefore of being improved in the second edition, by recension, addition, omission, retractation, or what not. For we may not presume to limit the changes effected in a second edition. And yet the true Author of the Gospel is confessedly God the Holy Ghost: and I know of no reason for supposing that His works are imperfect when they proceed ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... exactly, as you say, in my premiere jeunesse, for I was fifty yesterday, let me assure you that if Mr. Brown intends to call me out, I shall go out. If he intends to let me alone, I shall be better pleased to be let alone; as for a word, or a line of retractation or apology, I ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope |
