"Retraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were now opened, and he found himself on the brink of a frightful precipice, which his delusions had hitherto concealed from him. His ministers and counsellors, equally astonished, saw no resource but in a sudden and precipitate retraction of all those fatal measures by which he had created to himself so many enemies, foreign and domestic. He paid court to the Dutch, and offered to enter into any alliance with them for common security: he replaced in all the counties the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... a cause, his anger, though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice. He felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... himself a reviser, and the only pastor in the Company (the Old Testament Company), thus gives his experience, "Never, even once, did the odium theologicum appear. Nothing was said at any time that required retraction or apology {41}." ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... are merciful to you. Your name and your inexperience excites our pity. Were you but a common prisoner we would offer you in short words the choice between retraction or death. But we are willing to reason with you, for we do not wish to see a noble family become extinct through the ignorance or ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... action and reaction. The lad's look must have warned Miss Heth that all this went rather far. In fact, she began a sort of retraction, a hurried little soothing away of her impolitic and fairly conclusive remarks. But Dalhousie interrupted her, rising unsteadily in the boat, his young face ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... two generations selling that infernal stuff, and the curse has never come into the family! I will investigate it, and if I find I am wrong I will make the retraction just as publicly ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... to do as you wish, and, to please you, I will make an apology.' 'There is some truth in your observation,' replied the captain, 'and I have pointed the same out to the master; but still, this is a breach of discipline which cannot be passed over, and requires a public retraction before the whole ship's company. I therefore insist upon your retracting what you have said.' 'Certainly, sir,' replied the youngster. 'Mr Owen,' continued he, turning to the master, 'I said that you were not fit to carry guts to a bear. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and largely through the influence of an image of the Sacred Heart, which he had carved as a schoolboy, it is claimed that a reconciliation with the Church was effected. There has been considerable pragmatical discussion as to what form of retraction from him was necessary, since he had been, after studying in Europe, a frank freethinker, but such futile polemics may safely be left to the learned doctors. That he was reconciled with the Church would seem to be evidenced by the fact that just before the execution he gave ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Secretary of the Navy—after slyly pulling down the blinds—so bravely patted him on the back—that the South renewed her hope, in the seeming certainty of war between the two countries. But she had calculated justly neither the power of retraction in American policy, nor Secretary Seward's vast capacity for eating his own words; and the rendition of her commissioners—with their perfectly quiet landing upon British soil—was, at last, accepted as sure token of how little they would ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... since, especially, the idolatry practised under the obedience of mystical Babylon is rather in false and will-worship of the true God, and rather commended as profitable than enjoined as absolutely necessary, and the corruptions there maintained are rather in a superfluous addition than retraction in any ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of De Valette were not without foundation, and his keen observation had detected symptoms of retraction in some who were at first most forward in their proffers of service. The decision of the magistrates had been very generally condemned by the graver part of the community; its advocates were principally found among the young and enterprising, who gladly embraced any opportunity ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... what an insight he has given into the guilt of satire before maturity, before experience, before knowledge; if the original unprovoked intruder upon the peace of others be thus taught a love of privacy and a facility of retraction; if Turnus have found ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... his table, leaving Don wondering what was up. Possibly, he thought, the coach wanted to make some sort of retraction of his accusation of Saturday, although Don didn't believe that Mr. Robey was the sort to funk a public apology. If it wasn't that it could only be that he was to be offered his place on the team again. Don sighed. That would be beastly, for he would have ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the expense of a canton which had actually got a bad reputation for lax enforcement of the law. Be this as it may, the passage gave offence to a patriotic Swiss named Amstein, who aired his grievance in print and demanded a retraction. When Schiller paid no attention to this, Amstein appealed to one Walter, a fussy official living at Ludwigsburg. Walter took up the case of the traduced canton with great zeal, and brought it to the attention of the duke. The result was a summons to Schiller, a sharp reproof, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... peculiarities of their style; (2) their use of popular language on scientific questions; (3) the corruption of the text; (4) the number of spurious books; (5) the retraction by the fathers of their own previous statements; (6) their careless use of profane learning; (7) the describing things as they appear, not as they are; (8) their ambiguous use ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Bono wrote to tell me that Possano had left Lyons never to return, and that he had signed a full and satisfactory retraction. I was not surprised to hear of his flight, but the other circumstance I could not understand. I therefore hastened to call on Bono, who showed me the document, which was certainly ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... houses, cities, families, countries. It hath even overspread the whole nation, and filled all with darkness, horror, confusion, trouble, and anguish. Once being a holy nation by profession of a covenant with God, and our open, manifest, universal retraction of that, by an unholy, ungodly, and wicked conversation, this hath brought the sword against a hypocritical nation, and this will bring that far greater, incomparably more intolerable day of wrath upon the children of disobedience. Therefore let me exhort all of you, in the name of the Lord, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an old party name, made itself criminally liable by reviewing cases of hard dealing by the bank among the farmers, and only escaped prosecution by the amplest retraction and the most contrite apology. As Mr Williams remarked, there was no use in dwelling on the unpopularity of the bank, that didn't need pointing out; folks down Moneida way could put any newspaper wise ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... became the editor of a religious journal in which he expressed, in very moderate terms, an opinion that was not favorable to slave-holding. The supporters of the institution were aroused at once. They demanded a retraction. "I have sworn eternal hostility to slavery, and by the blessing of God I will never go back," was his reply. He also declared, "We have slaves here, but I am ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... this response, some of the assessors[80] were for burning her without further delay; which would have been sufficient satisfaction for the doctors, whose authority she rejected, but not for the English, who required a retraction that should defame King Charles. They had recourse to a new admonition and a new preacher, Master Pierre Morice, which was attended by no better result. It was in vain that he dwelt upon the authority ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was to approach him and address him as "Peter Van Buskirk." He bitterly resented it, which was most unreasonable of him. I recall times when the three of us struggled in the haymow for hours at a time, Peter Van Buskirk, furiously angry, striving to force an apology or retraction, and Henry and I having a glorious time ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... once to execute the orders," advanced with Russell the now threadbare and customary arguments on the Proclamation of Neutrality, and received the usual refusal to alter British policy[634]. If Seward was sincere in asking for a retraction of belligerent rights to the South he much mistook European attitude; if he was but making use of Northern victories to return to a high tone of warning to Europe—a tone serviceable in causing foreign governments to step warily—his time was well chosen. Certainly at Washington Lyons did ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... entertained some doubts concerning the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.) Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals who confess their guilt and infamy; the other ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... me, and before it I was powerless. When I told her frankly I did not love her, had never loved her, had no intention of ever loving her, she merely bleated, "You are cruel!" and wept. When I attempted to restrain her paroxysms of anguish, she took it as a retraction of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... the scuta and terga which opens and shuts for the exsertion and retraction of the cirri, I have called the Occludent margin. In the terga of Lepas (fig. III) and some other genera, the occludent margin is highly protuberant and arched, or even ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... capable of being suddenly thrown out by the insect when alarmed. When we consider this singular apparatus, which in some species is nearly half an inch long, the arrangement of muscles for its protrusion and retraction, its perfect concealment during repose, its blood-red colour, and the suddenness with which it can be thrown out, we must, I think, be led to the conclusion that it serves as a protection to the larva, by startling and frightening ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... as it has been veraciously observed, the truth of an insult is the barb which prevents its retraction. Patricia spoke the truth: Rudolph Musgrave and all those rationally reliant upon Rudolph Musgrave for support, had lived for some five years upon the money which they owed to Patricia. He saw about him other scions of old families who accepted ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... out any soul from entering in. There is no qualification or condition prescribed by the gospel, and without which if he come, he is actually welcomed and received by Christ, whatsoever you suppose he wants. It is true, men's own security and unbelief will exclude them from Christ, but that is no retraction on the gospel's part. It is a bar set on a man's own heart, that shuts him up from coming to the patent entry of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in replying to an editorial in The New York Courier and Inquirer, criticised severely the conduct of its proprietor, James Watson Webb, a noted Whig editor of that day. At this, the latter, being deeply offended and failing to obtain a retraction by Cilley of the offensive words, challenged him to mortal combat. The bearer of this challenge was William J. Graves, a prominent Whig member of the House. Mr. Cilley in his letter to Mr. Graves, in which he declined to receive the challenge of Webb, said: "I decline to receive it because ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... repair. The spearhead was Lombard, and Lombard, dire reflection to one who had gained fame by maintaining the contrary, belonged to the West Germanic group of the Teutonic tongues. Wild thoughts went through his head. He recalled that Paris had seemed worth a mass, and considered a plenary retraction with a facsimile publication of the runes. But as he pondered this course the inexpediency of sacrificing so fair a theory to this mere brute fact seemed indisputable. He thought also of ascribing the doubled consonant and the modified vowel to the illiterate ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... do," said Hal decisively, "is to make amends. Mr. Sterne, the 'Clarion' is to print a full retraction of the attacks upon my ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... recantation was a thousand times worse than the thing recanted. He took it back by giving more. In the name of eulogy he flayed his victim. In his praise there was poison. He often advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction. He did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or suffer. Upon this very point of recanting, he wrote: "They say I must retract. Very willingly. I will declare the Pascal is always right. That if St. Luke and St. Mark contradict one another ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to themselves, and may indeed blind themselves to the necessary results of their policy. They often choose their language with care, so that it may not commit them beyond all hope of explanation or retraction. Brown, Innes, and the other separatist leaders in Kentucky were not actuated by the motives of personal corruption which influenced Wilkinson, Sebastian, and White to conspire with Gardoqui and Miro for the break-up of the Union. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... without tears in their eyes, requesting that Cato might show the reason and cause of his fixing such a stain upon so honorable a family. The citizens thought it a modest and moderate request. Cato, however, without any retraction or reserve, at once came forward, and standing up with his colleague interrogated Titus, as to whether he knew the story of the supper. Titus answering in the negative, Cato related it, and challenged Lucius to a formal denial of it. Lucius made no reply, whereupon the people adjudged ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... especially upon Oxford. And the nature of the assault does not allow any latitude in construing the word boys, nor any room for evasion as respects the total charge, except what goes the length of a total retraction. The charge is, that, in a requisition made at the very threshold of academic life, upon the under standing and the honor of the students, the university burdens their consciences to an extent, which, in after life, when reflection has ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... sufficiently. If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any softening in the expressions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Maguire, "against whom he turns his poniard. Not content with one foul murder, he turns against Caesar's friends. By devilish innuendo, he charges the honorable Mr. Kennedy and myself with bargaining to deceive the American people. I call on him for proof or retraction." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... friends, retracted that confession, and rejected the offered pardon. Events will show who of these friends and advisers advised him best, and befriended him most. In the mean time, if this brother, the witness, be one of these advisers, and advised the retraction, he has, most emphatically, the lives of his brothers resting upon his evidence and upon his conduct. Compare the situation of these two witnesses. Do you not see mighty motive enough on the one side, and want of all motive on ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... slightly savage, or pretend in their play to be savage, their ears are drawn back. That this is the true explanation may be inferred from the relation which exists in very many animals between their manner of fighting and the retraction of ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... freely with other boys of his age, he obtained no knowledge of the habit from others. He often heard allusions which he did not understand, and of which he did not, fortunately, discover the meaning. But he was afflicted with congenital phimosis, the prepuce being so tight that retraction was impossible. This, together with urinal irritation,—which occasioned nocturnal incontinence of urine,—constipation, and highly seasoned food, produced so much local irritation as to occasion frequent erections, and an increased secretion. He soon noticed that there was an accumulation ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... separateness. Save for the intense white recoil of the moon, the earth would stagger towards the sun. The moon holds us to our own cosmic individuality, as a world individual in space. She is the fierce center of retraction, of frictional withdrawal into separateness. She it is who sullenly stands with her back to us, and refuses to meet and mingle. She it is who burns white with the intense friction of her withdrawal into separation, that cold, proud white fire of furious, almost malignant ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... followers of Savonarola his want of constancy under torture, and his retraction of prophetic claims, had produced a consternation too profound to be at once displaced as it ultimately was by the suspicion, which soon grew into a positive datum, that any reported words of his which were in inexplicable contradiction to their faith in him, had not come from the lips of the prophet, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... colour. Its production causes pain and groans from the subject, and any violence towards it would appear also to affect her. A sudden flash of light, as in a flash-photograph, may or may not cause a retraction of the ectoplasm, but always causes a spasm of the subject. When re-absorbed, it leaves no trace upon the garments ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Were it otherwise, were finish possible, the variegated and lustrous surface would not exhibit it to the eye. The imagination itself is blunted by the resistance of the material, and by the necessity of absolute predetermination of all it would achieve. Retraction of all thought into determined and simple forms, such as might be fearlessly wrought, necessarily remained the characteristic of the school. The size of the edifice induced by other causes above stated, further limited the efforts ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... question of slavery to the people of the Territories, declaring that Congress should in no event intervene one way or the other, and that all controversies should be settled by the courts. Now the proposition of the majority report was to make a complete retraction of those two cardinal doctrines of the Cincinnati platform. The Northern mind had become thoroughly imbued with this great doctrine of popular sovereignty. You could not tear it out of their hearts unless you tore out their heart-strings themselves. "I repeat, that upon this question of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... for three o'clock, and after a long argument Enver Pasha was persuaded to agree to send only twenty-five French and twenty-five English to Gallipoli 'as a demonstration,' the War Minister arguing that any farther retraction would weaken discipline. It was also agreed to send only the youngest men, and Bedri Bey, the Constantinople chief of police, was at once sent for in order that he might be acquainted with the new limitation of the decision. But he at once protested. 'I don't want to send a lot of boys down ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... with the church did not take place. The "bit of a retraction" was never written. But none the less are Lefevre's last days reported to have been disturbed by harassing thoughts. The noble old man, who had consecrated to the translation of the Bible and to exegetical comment upon its books the energy of many years, and who had ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... pensively, "has so much to bear—and this has been very hard—because it was not a thing I could talk over—not even with my own mother!" Miss Forsyth had the knack of saying very little that was definite, and implying a great deal. This method saved her the unpleasantness of retraction, and had quite as deep an effect is if she came out plainly. She smiled confidingly down at the schoolma'am and went off to waltz with Bert Rogers, apparently quite satisfied with ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... la Nature, intimated his belief that "thunder-stones" were made by early races of men; but he did not press this view, and the reason for his reserve was obvious enough: he had already one quarrel with the theologians on his hands, which had cost him dear—public retraction and humiliation. His declaration, therefore, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the retraction or withdrawing of the senses. They are naturally directed outwards towards their objects. The Yogi endeavours to bring them into quiescence by diverting them from those objects and directing them inwards. From this, say the Sutras, comes ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... issuing of the number in which the objectionable article had appeared, Mr. Kopeck Louis d'Or Jones would call up the white-haired editor of Social Sifting on the telephone and tell him that he proposed to sue him for libel unless he printed an immediate retraction. Our client would thereupon refer him to Gottlieb, who would explain to Mr. Jones that the libel in question had no reference to him whatsoever; that he could hardly expect favorable items to appear about him unless he took a financial ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... his demand for a retraction and apology for this public ridicule, Bill Hayes apparently didn't feel it worth breaking up ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... his eyes, but her words were a mere whisper, and she felt that the worst was over; for her there could be no retraction. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... though beneath a reserve and formality not very easy to penetrate, a kind of scrupulous antique courtliness, suggesting to you a resuscitated gentleman of the school of Addison, particularly in his intercourse with ladies. He was caution personified,—never saying any thing that required retraction or modification: and though you might guess the contemptuous estimate which he had formed of some particular person's character or doings, he rarely permitted himself to express it. He would sometimes smile significantly at the recital, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... retraction of your charges against us, and pledge your word of honour never to repeat them, or to make any complaint, formal or otherwise, as to ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of August, 1838, contains a retraction by Parley P. Pratt of a letter he had written, in which he censured both Smith and Rigdon, "using great severity and harshness in regard to certain business transactions." In that letter Pratt confessed that "the whole scheme of speculation" in which the Mormon leaders were engaged was of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... attached friends (and Sterling possessed the happy magic that secures many such) who knew him best during this latter part of his career, would naturally be pained to have it represented, though only by implication, as a sort of deepening declension ending in a virtual retraction. Of such friends Carlyle was the most eminent, and perhaps the most highly valued, and, as co-trustee with Archdeacon Hare of Sterling's literary character and writings, he felt a kind of responsibility that no mistaken ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... dearest prospects of Italy, was nearly consummated, when a treacherous colleague revealed to the accredited agents both of Austria and the Pope the system of this mysterious revolutionary combination in and around Ferrara. The latter shrank from extreme measures, and was content with an oath of retraction; but the Austrian government gave instant orders to the chiefs of police, both there and at Venice, to arrest those whom the perjured Count Villa named as adherents of Carbonarism. The decree was executed with military force; and, without warning, preparation, or even a parting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... more than he knew; and for a tremulous instant he was near to losing it again by a passionate retraction of all he had been saying. But the cool purpose came to his rescue ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... fandangos, at which Bacchus rather than Terpsichore presided, often welcomed the new-born day. The few Americans[A] in San Antonio viewed with darkened brows the insolent cavaliers. The gauntlet was flung down—there was no retraction, no retreat. They knew that it was so, and girded themselves ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... him to the half-ruinous wing already mentioned, to a small kitchen, opening under a great sloping buttress, and presented him to his wife, an English woman, some ten years younger than himself. She received him with a dignified retraction of the feelers, but the moment she understood his needs, ministered to them, and had some breakfast ready for him by the time he had made his toilet. He sat down by her little fire, and drank some tea, but felt shivery, and could not eat. In dread lest, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... him into a furious passion. He threatened to sue Mr. Riddle for having the Visiter printed and sold in his office, and, as for me, I was to suffer all the pains and penalties which law and public scorn could inflict. He demanded a satisfactory retraction and apology as the least atonement he could accept for the insult. These Mr. Riddle promised in my name, and I did not hesitate ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... omitted in 1773. Yet in selections from Johnson's notes to Shakespeare that appear in anthologies some of these offending notes have been reprinted without any indication that the editors knew of their later retraction. In seventy-three notes Johnson adds comments to his original note; in eighty-eight, to the notes of other editors and critics. He revises seventy-five of his original notes and he omits ten comments ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... It was a retraction all right, and all that could be expected of the Pinkerton Press. In its decision and emphasis ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... of the Vicar of Christ was to send to Germany a special agent, the Saxon Charles von Miltitz, with instructions either to cajole the heretic into retraction or the Elector into surrendering him. In neither of these attempts was he successful. [Sidenote: January 1519] At an interview with Luther the utmost he could do was to secure a general statement that the accused man would ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... his death. But Maximilian, then in the neighborhood of Augsburg, gave him a safe-conduct, and Cajetan was obliged to receive him with civility. He even embraced him with tokens of affection, thinking to win him to retraction. Luther was much softened by these kindly manifestations, and was disposed to comply with almost anything if not required to deny the ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... them to threaten a counter-revolution; for they were still so near despotism, that they feared at each step again to fall into its toils. The people was a slave, freed but yesterday, and who still trembled at the clank of his chains. However, the offensive decree was repealed, and this retraction was rapturously hailed by the royalists and the national guard. The constitutionalists saw in it the augury of renewed harmony between the ruling powers of the state; the king saw in it the triumph of a fidelity that had been deadened, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... it seems to me I never loved you so fondly as at this moment, when you stand before me as the victor over my cowardly husband. Ah, I wish I could have witnessed that scene; you proud and grand, and he lying trembling like this miserable windspiel at your feet, repeating the words of retraction ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... not think he designedly published anything he believed to be false." At a later period Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop's history, retracted this praise but to such a retraction little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justice to say, "After all, he was a man of generosity and good nature."—Short Remarks on Bishop ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... limited his influence in the later years of his life. A knowledge of this shortcoming is, however, essential to a thorough comprehension of the man. It is frequently said that Godkin rarely, if ever, made a retraction or a rectification of personal charges shown to be incorrect. A thorough search of The Nation's columns would be necessary fully to substantiate this statement, but my own impression, covering as it ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... that the mind of Voltaire failed at the last came from the Abbe Gaultier and the Cure of Saint Sulpice. These good men arrived with a written retraction, which they desired Voltaire to sign. Waiting in the anteroom of the sick-chamber they sent in word that they wished to enter. "Assure them of my respect," said the stricken man. But the holy men were not to be thus turned away, so they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... haematoma resulted in connection with the wounded vessel, the general tendency in the effusion being to coagulation at the margins and subsequent contraction. Meanwhile the opening in the artery became more or less securely closed by the development of thrombus, and possibly by retraction of the inner and middle coats of the vessel. With the return of full circulatory force as shock passed off, or with the resumption of activity and consequent freer movement of the limb, the temporary thrombus became washed away. The newly formed wall of ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... that I have spent the last five days in repenting our quarrel. You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you see, I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from this present predicament, I shall in the future be guided (almost always) by your judgment. Could any woman make a more sweeping retraction than that? ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Presidential campaign of 1832, but that he was willing to consent, on very easy conditions, to a recharter. It was Mr. Clay's commanding influence that induced the directors of the Bank to press for a recharter in 1832, and force the President to retraction or a veto. So ignorant was this able and high-minded man of human nature and of the American people, that he supposed a popular enthusiasm could be kindled in behalf of a bank! Such was the infatuation of some of his friends, that they went to the expense ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... of it, my dear Eugie. Dudley and I will manage it. We'll see Diggs and get a retraction from him—that's sensible and simple. There's no scandal the better for dragging a ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... now become inevitable; for that people are too acute not to understand that a restitution of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which, from its very nature, neither admits of retraction ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... "Retraction of the thighs produced diffuse abdominal pain, more marked upon the right side than upon the left; careful examination of the hernial rings ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... induced Gibbon to visit temples of religion when he had nothing else to do, and to record his impressions of the sermons he was condemned to listen to, must forever remain among the minor mysteries of humanity; but about M. de Talleyrand's "retraction," as it has been called, strange to say, there is no mystery at all. It was a mere exemplification of "the ruling passion strong in death." He could no longer care for himself, which had been the chief business of his life; but he could do what was next thing to it—he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... of his remarkable bravery is the affair with Judge Cone. This gentleman considered himself insulted by a remark of Mr. Stephens and demanded a retraction. After accepting an explanation, he still insisted on a retraction, and Mr. Stephens refused to make it. Judge Cone, a tall and powerful man, then drew a knife on him and holding him down on the floor, cried out, "Retract, or I'll cut you to pieces." "Never!" answered Stephens, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... may check it in the light forms. Ice, a teaspoonful of salt and lemon juice may be tried. Inhalations of chloroform often relieve. Strong retraction of the tongue may give immediate relief. Spirits of camphor, one teaspoonful. Tincture of cayenne pepper one to two drops in water. Ten grains of musk by the rectum. Hoffman's anodyne one teaspoonful in ice water ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... greate charter" of 1618, no rents were to be paid until the expiration of seven years. This provision continued in effect under Charles I and during the interregnum, but the time limit was retracted in the instructions to Governor William Berkeley under Charles II. The retraction was confirmed under James II, the major reason being that it encouraged individuals to take up larger areas of land than ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the National authority confessed it had no right and no means to contest. The Republicans had been taunting Southern men with the intention of using only bluster and bravado, and if they should now fail to take a decisive step in the direction of Disunion, they felt that it would be a humiliating retraction of all they had said in the long struggle over slavery. It would be an invitation to the Abolitionists and fanatics of the North, to deal hereafter with the South, and with the question of slavery, in whatever manner might seem good in their sight. No weapon of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with moderate results. According to his observations and those of the nurse there was an intermittent coma. For hours little Virginia would lie unconscious, and restless, suffering failing strength and a slow retraction of the head and neck, or on other occasions she would rest in absolute peace, so that the disease, which depends so much upon strength, would later show improvement. The cause of this case, he believed, was either an ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... defeat by Wellington and Blucher "sunk" him to the level of Hannibal. For the account of the American crew and loss, James relies on the statements made in the Bermuda papers, of whose subsequent forced retraction he takes no notice, and of course largely overestimates both. On the same authority he states that the President's fire was "silenced," Commodore Decatur stating the exact reverse. The point is fortunately ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... that there was some doubt about even adults being damned at all. But either because the same people did not attend both services, or because the minister's perfect regularity in the morning was each week regarded as a retraction of his latest vagaries of an evening, no trouble ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... an ecclesiastic court and found guilty. In the trial, which covered several months, Mrs. Hutchinson defended herself at great length and with much skill; but what the clergymen demanded was an absolute retraction, and a promise that she would no longer usurp their special ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... order, and made to retract the offensive expressions, the community thus vindicates its character. Should, however, the most gross and offensive language be used by two members for any length of time without any interference, reprobation, retraction, or punishment, the community as a body must fairly be considered, by their ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... themselves in the little consultation room in the rear of the bank. "It affects your own personal affairs, and seeks to wreck the only concern in the city that is functioning and making money. Your interest in this bank demands a retraction of what you said at ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... uterus a few days before delivery at the full term. Chatard, Jr., mentions extrusion of the fetal membranes at the seventh month of pregnancy while the patient was taking a long afternoon walk, their subsequent retraction, and normal labor at term. Thurston tells of a case in which Nature had apparently effected the separation of the placenta without alarming hemorrhage, the ease being one of placenta praevia, terminating ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... flesh and spirit, That was my garland, and I was her all, Till thou, a stranger, stole her heart's allegiance, Suborned—Forgive me, I am old, a father, Whose doting passions blind. I am not jealous, Believe me, sir. When we Riberas give, We give without retraction or reserve, Were it our life-blood. I rejoice with thee That she is thine; nor am I quite bereft, I have some treasure still. I do repent So heartily of my discourteous speech, That I will crave your leave before I kiss ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... rheumatic subjects, unassociated with any acute disease, It may exist without any marked symptoms, except, perhaps, a sense of oppression and uneasiness in the chest, with palpitation. It produces a thickening and hardening of the membrane lining the heart, and generally causes a retraction, adhesion, and degeneration of some of the valves of the heart, thus ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa—a walk of half an hour—in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... Dartmouth. Yet Dartmouth wrote, 'I do not think he designedly published anything he believed to be false.' At a later period, Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop's history, retracted this praise; but to such a retraction little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justice to say, 'After all he was a man of generosity and good nature.'"—Short Remarks on ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various |
