"Retrograde" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannot solve alone, but which at once becomes clear when germinal selection is added. For the determinants of organs that have no further value for the organism, must, as we have already explained, embark on a gradual course of retrograde development. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... been out of sight for almost two days. In her eagerness to catch something the schooner had gone far beyond the highway toward which she had first shaped her course, but this retrograde movement brought her back to it. On the morning of the third day the thrilling cry "Sail ho!" came from aloft, and in an instant the deck was in commotion, the man at the wheel so far forgetting himself ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Peregrine and his mistress, neither of whom could form the least rational conjecture about the cause of such strange disturbance, which increased as the animal approached their apartment. At length the bourrique's retrograde motion was obstructed by the door, which it forced open in a twinkling, with one kick, and entered with such complication of sound as terrified the lady almost into a fit, and threw her lover into ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... two retrograde movements in the interpretation of myths. F. Max Mueller, dazzled by the wealth of Sanskrit mythological material, revived the solar theory, with a peculiar appendage;[1526] the defects of his theory must not blind us to the great service he performed in ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... us As of a father: for let the world take note You are the most immediate to our throne; And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his son Do I impart toward you. For your intent In going back to school in Wittenberg, It is most retrograde to our desire: And we beseech you bend you to remain Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... society and write literature in the course of the day's employment. The newspapers and popular opinion had given her to understand that these were the true Americans, and caused her to ask herself whether the circle to which she herself belonged was not retrograde from a nobler ideal. In what way she did not precisely understand, except that she and her friends did not altogether disdain nice social usages and conventional womanly ways. But, nevertheless, the impression had remained in her ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... retrograde movement of the Germans began, those who could not see the nature of the fighting believed that the German line of communication, the one from Aix-la-Chapelle through Belgium, had proved too long, and that the left ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... contenting itself with a succession of scenes, arranged merely in order of time, that should carry a comprehensive story to its finish. We shall see this influence operating disastrously in plays other than History, and must mark it as a retrograde movement in the development of perfect drama. One extremely valuable contribution of these History Plays was their insistence upon absolute humanness in the characters. To present a Prince Hal, a King John or ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... know from the information I obtain upon the spot, that the impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were but too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and making hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark from the altar of Seventy-six, unextinguished and unextinguishable through the long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of the Union, the genuine name ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... be the consequence of that want of discipline, which is incident to the savage state, the remark applies with equal justice, whether he fought singly or in a body. He was easily panic-struck, because the impulse of the forward movement was necessary to keep him strung to effort; and the retrograde immediately became a rout, because daring, without constancy, collapses ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... the eyes of the Emperor Francis, constituted the life of the State, everything was antiquated and self-contradictory. In all that affected the mental life of the people the years that followed the peace of Luneville were distinctly retrograde. Education was placed more than ever in the hands of the priests; the censorship of the press was given to the police; a commission was charged with the examination of all the books printed during the reign ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... of endurance as that world itself. And that endurance is limited. We must indeed be on our guard against taking episodes for decisive crises. But every episode carries us forward, and retrogressions are unable to undo that progress. The Gospel since the Reformation, in spite of retrograde movements which have not been wanting, is working itself out of the forms which it was once compelled to assume, and a true comprehension of its history will also contribute to hasten ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... from the time of the Regency downwards between the Crown and the provincial parlements turned, under other names and in other forms, upon this very issue of the unification of the law. The Crown was with the progressive party, but it lacked the strength and courage to set aside retrograde local sentiment as the Constituent Assembly was able ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... our principal safeguard is found, not in Legislature, but in the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies are liable to ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... to the Slave Trade and Slavery, the British people are exalted in the scale of humanity; and they cannot but feel so, if they look into themselves, and duly consider their relation to God and their fellow-creatures. That was a noble advance; but a retrograde movement will assuredly be made, if ever the principle, which has been here defended, should be either avowedly abandoned or but ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... forces: 1. Removal of obstacles. 2. Desire for the solicitude of the parents. 3. Desire for the pleasurable [especially of the woman]. 4. Auto-erotism. 5-6. Improvement and re-creation. 7. Death wish. The following scheme shows the retrograde (titanic) as well as the anagogic aspect of these powers, which later corresponds to an intro-determination of the types, and a species of sublimation ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... herself respectable under our roof, living amongst Christian women and joining in their prayers and hymn, night and morning, but not a trace of the softened, repentant spirit could one see, and finally a distinct retrograde movement accompanied with physical disability forced us to send her home. I despair of Mrs. Deh except when I look into the face of her daughter, the good, pure girl whose life's prayer it is that her mother should be saved. She cannot admit that this ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... of contrivances that are impracticable, and improvements that are retrograde; forming, altogether, a whimsical instance of the confusion of arrangement, the delay of expedition, the incommodiousness of accommodation, and the infernal trouble of endeavouring to save it—he has now a score or two of workmen about him, and ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... stand there in the road like so many sticks? Their hunger was making itself felt again; they had a resentful recollection of the savory contents of the kettle dumped out prematurely upon the ground, and they could see no necessity for this headlong retrograde movement, which appeared to them idiotic and cowardly. What chicken-livers ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... is gained by Pat's being up with the pike and shillelagh on any or no occasion. God forbid Scotland should retrograde towards such a state—much better that the Deil, as in Burns's song, danced away with the whole excisemen in the country. We do not want to hear her prate of her number of millions of men, and her old ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... love, and caused the restoration of the Emperor to become the hope of the nation. In spite of the obstacles experienced by the ministry, in spite of the affronts to which they had been subjected, in spite of the retrograde steps which they had been compelled to take, they still clung to the baneful system which they had fostered; and, bigoted to these plans, they continued to persevere in those errors which recalled Napoleon from his exile, just as Napoleon persevered ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say they, "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... madame. You are doing miracles," he answered in a whisper. "And yet, look at his brow, how noble in shape! Isn't it like the classic or traditional brow given by sculptors to Lycurgus and the Greek sages? The revolution of July has an evidently retrograde tendency," said the doctor (who might in his student days have made a barricade himself), after carefully considering ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... position this advance of the allies was not to be perceived except by the approach of the thunder of the artillery. The French centre yet stood immoveable; at least we could not observe from the city any change which denoted a retrograde movement. The sanguinary character of this tremendous conflict might be inferred from the thousands of wounded, who hobbled, crawled, and were carried in at the gates. Among the latter were many officers of rank. If you ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... the satellites so picked up would be direct: that is, would move round the planet in the direction of his axial rotation. Others, on the chances, would be retrograde: that is, would move against his axial rotation. They would describe orbits making the same various angles with the ecliptic as do the asteroids; and we may be sure they would be of ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... by this retrograde movement on the part of the enemy to make a push for the beach, hoping that Bob would hear the rifle-shots (especially the double report, which I had arranged with him on a former occasion should be a signal of warning or ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... those who had been outstripped by the popular tide, and who belonged to the first period of the revolution, united to second this slight retrograde movement. The monarchists, at whose head were Lally- Tollendal and Malouet, two of the principal members of the Mounier and Necker party; Feuillants, directed by the old triumvirate, Duport, Lameth, and Barnave; lastly, Lafayette, who had immense reputation ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... farmer is essential—of what nature should the security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used. But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that his remedy is to retrograde—to undo what he has done—to take out of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince, or state. Therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it, so as they be still progressive and not retrograde; which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they rise not with their service, they will take order, to make their service fall with them. But since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... see—we see so very, very little." There was then a pause for awhile, during which Mr. Arabin continued to turn over his shillings and half-crowns. "If we believe in Scripture, we can hardly think that mankind in general will now be allowed to retrograde." ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in the plane of the original equator of the solar rotation, and in the direction of that rotation. But there are exceptions; the comets, which intersect the equatorial plane in every angle of direction form one, and the most distant of the planets forms another. The satellites of Uranus are retrograde. They move from east to west in orbits highly inclined to that of their primary, and on both accounts are exceptions to the order of the other secondary bodies. Our author is so perplexed by this inconsistency that he first doubts the fact, ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... we unite with Pro-Re-Nata of Washington, D. C., in expressing an emphatic protest against this retrograde movement; that we earnestly hope that better counsels will prevail; that, at a time when so conservative an institution as the British Medical Association has voted to open its doors to women, the stigma of retrogression will ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... must continue to improve, if the inhabitants persist in declining to cultivate tobacco. It is painfully true of Eastern Virginia—if we except the cities—that if not just at this time retrograding, the change from a retrograde to a stationary condition has been but recent, and some time must necessarily elapse before any marked evidence of an advance will be perceptible. There are even yet to be found, on the borders of James River and in other parts of Virginia, the wealthy, intelligent, and hospitable ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the example of a single individual redeeming by brilliant personal qualities the vice of subalternity, to which his position condemned him; not a single one who has ever evinced any grand national aspiration. Around them in the obscurity of their courts, gather idle or retrograde courtiers, men who call themselves noble, but who have never been able to constitute an aristocracy. An aristocracy is a compact independent body, representing in itself an idea, and from one extremity of the country to another, governed, more or less, by one and the same inspiration: ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... successive improvement and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... enemies amongst the Codini, or retrograde party. Hand-grenades were thrown against the door of his house, as also at those of other ministers, but without doing harm. One evening my daughters were dressing to go to a ball that was to take place at the Palazzo delle Crocelle, close to us, in a street parallel to ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... over Man—you write like a metamorphosed (in retrograde direction) naturalist, and you the author of the best paper that ever appeared in the Anthropological Review! Eheu! Eheu! ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Royal mob who had hooted down the constitutionalist speakers, and imposed their opinion on the club. This led to disruption. The moderate Jacobins left, and, at the neighbouring Feuillants, founded a new society that was gradually to become more and more retrograde. The few advanced Jacobins retained possession of the old club, with its great affiliation of country clubs, infused a radical element into its membership, and soon, making of Robespierre its mouthpiece and its prophet, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... general, much easier to escape pursuit at the isles of Polynesia. Those of them which have felt a civilizing influence present the same difficulty to the runaway with the Peruvian ports, the advanced natives being quite as mercenary and keen of knife and scent as the retrograde Spaniards; while, owing to the bad odor in which all Europeans lie, in the minds of aboriginal savages who have chanced to hear aught of them, to desert the ship among primitive Polynesians, is, in most cases, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... go back!" exclaimed the latter, recovering himself, and beginning his retrograde movement; but a few hitches showed that he could not escape the cougar in this fashion, if he really meant business, and it looked very ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... taken in such haste is seen, of course, in a model-property, such as that of Count [vC]ekoni['c] in the north of the Banat, where the new tenants, seeking as elsewhere to satisfy only their own wants and paying no heed to any possible exports, allow a highly developed property to go in a retrograde direction. If the Dobrovoljci had been skilled agriculturists there would have been no harm in settling them on this excellent estate; and with a Co-operative Association the 3000 joch of sugar that were grown there during the War would ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... pitying the ignorance of the Englishman, who was contented with the swampy jungles of an unknown and savage neck of land, little thinking that inside of a half century all his products would come to this same despised district for a market, while his own colonies would retrograde and gradually pass into the hands of ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... returned to the earth rattling among the branches of the trees directly over the heads of the troops stationed in the rear of their captain. Much of the success of an attack, made by irregular soldiers, depends on the direction in which they are first got in motion. In the present instance it was retrograde, and in less than a minute after the bellowing report of the swivel among the rocks and caverns, the whole weight of the attack from the left rested on the prowess of the single arm of the veteran. Benjamin received a severe ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... power extended to all gives us government by the masses, the only irresponsible form of government, under which tyranny is unlimited, for it calls itself law. Besides, I regard the family and not the individual as the true social unit. In this respect, at the risk of being thought retrograde, I side with Bossuet and Bonald instead of going with modern innovators. Since election has become the only social instrument, if I myself were to exercise it no contradiction between my acts and my words should be inferred. An engineer points out that a bridge is about ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... many nights this seems to be the case, but at length the astronomer suspects that the planet must be commencing to move backwards. A few nights more, and the fact is confirmed beyond possibility of doubt, and the extraordinary discovery of the direct and the retrograde movement of Mars ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... transport was required for other purposes, not to mention that a man's new coat always looks better on his own back than it does on a mule's, the different regiments marched there for it in succession. It did not come to our turn until we had taken a stride to the front, as far as La Bastide; our retrograde movement, therefore, obliged us to bid adieu to our division for ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... done, constantly leads to something better. What is mechanical, reducible to rule, or capable of demonstration, is progressive, and admits of gradual improvement: what is not mechanical, or definite, but depends on feeling, taste, and genius, very soon becomes stationary, or retrograde, and loses more than it gains by transfusion. The contrary opinion is a vulgar error, which has grown up, like many others, from transferring an analogy of one kind to something quite distinct, without taking into the account the difference in ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... will be no retrograde movement. Highly educated women have acquired such a footing that they may do what ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... caution was necessary in the presence of so wary a foe, and it was not until this had been duly impressed upon the two sailors that Oliver began the retrograde movement so slowly and softly that his companions could hardly realise the fact that ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... like to have men about them younger than themselves—it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the signs of a republic in the last stage of decadence, that the youth imitate and rival ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was going to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... people should feed on poisons [Lachesis, arrow-poison, obtained from a serpent (Pulte). Crotalus horridus, rattlesnake's venom (Neidhard). The less dangerous Pediculus capitis is the favorite remedy of Dr. Mure, the English "Apostle of Homoeopathy." These are examples of the retrograde current setting towards barbarism] against which a part of the Discourse at the beginning ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... specified in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has too often occurred in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule. It is very difficult to say why one civilised nation rises, becomes more powerful, and spreads more widely, than another; or why ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Then the sheriff turned and said something to them in a low voice, and they forthwith faced about and deliberately marched back toward their lodgings. In this retrograde movement the sheriff acted as rear guard, and he had not gone above a dozen steps, before a rotten egg burst on one shoulder of his fine new coat, and as he wheeled around an apple took him in the stomach, and at the same moment the cocked hat of Justice Goodrich ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... of credit—perhaps not more than he merited. Few other Federal commanders can claim that epithet; and, though some people persisted in considering Murfreesburg a Pyrrhic victory, it is certain that he held his ground manfully, and eventually advanced, where defeat, or even a retrograde movement, would have ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... to another stage, another step forward. The instant society becomes organized in clans, natural selection cannot let these clans be broken up and die out,—the clan becomes the chief object or care of natural selection, because if you destroy it you retrograde again, you lose all you have gained; consequently, those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were so modified that the individual conduct would be subordinated to some extent to the needs of ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... novel in his hand the catastrophe of his terrible history. In contemplating this obstinate and inflexible character thus struggling with impossibility, his officers would observe to each other that, having arrived at the summit of his glory, he no doubt foresaw that from his first retrograde step would date its decline; that for this reason he continued immovable, clinging to, and lingering a few moments longer ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... his battalion to the redoubt, where he had been instructed to find the ladders, he marched directly past it, and led them into the field without a single ladder or fascine. When the day dawned, and he was sent back for these instruments, he headed his corps in its retrograde movement, but left it to return as it could to the front; and when sought for to guide the attack, he was nowhere to be found. That a regiment thus abused and deserted by its commanding officer should fall into confusion, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... then Himself in Presence summon'd, And, subtly sifting on all sides, so plied Interrogation till it hit the Mark, And all the Truth was told. Then Sage and Shah Struck out with Hand and Foot in his Redress. And First with Reason, which is also Best; Reason that rights the Retrograde—completes The Imperfect—Reason that unties the Knot: For Reason is the Fountain from of old From which the Prophets drew, and none beside. Who boasts of other Inspiration lies— There are no other Prophets than ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the climes o'erspread. —For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain, Gave like the rest a golden age to man, Ascribed perfection to his infant state, Science unsought and all his arts innate; Supposed the experience of the growing race Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace, Obscure his vision as his lights increast, And sink him from an angel to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Biron and Romeo;" he is almost as poetical as they, quite as philosophical, only a little madder. After all, Love's sectaries are a reason unto themselves. We have gone retrograde to the noble heresy, since the days when Sidney proselyted our nation to this mixed health and disease: the kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis, in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... their brigadier well knew his business. An order was sent him which, had it been obeyed, would have ensured inevitable disaster to the brigade, if not a catastrophe to the army. He was bade to retire by, possibly, his division commander. Macdonald knew better than attempt a retrograde movement in the face of so fleet and daring a foe. It would have spelled annihilation. The sturdy Highlandman said, "I'll no do it. I'll see them d——d first. We maun just fight." And meanwhile Major-General A. Hunter was scurrying ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... lived before, some evidence Should that existence to the present bind; Some innate inkling of experience Should still imbue and permeate the mind, If we, progressing, pass from state to state, Or retrograde, as turns the wheel ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... as beneficent. We see its workings in history, in the rise and fall of nations; we witness the morally, no less than the physically, unfit fall out of the ranks. Progress here and there may seem to stop, but the course of things is "never wholly retrograde". Is not that hope strong in every man of us, going before us as an unquenchable light, encouraging us to persevere even to the end, because we shall not be deprived of the fruits of our toil, and no demon ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... that the earth, besides its annual motion which carries it round the sun from west to east in the space of a year, has also a singular revolution which was quite unknown till within these late years. Its poles have a very slow retrograde motion from east to west, whence it happens that their position every day does not correspond exactly with the same point of the heavens. This difference, which is so insensible in a year, becomes pretty considerable in time; ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... days were ended by a bitter storm. The French Revolution broke out. An electric shock ran through the nations; whatever there was of corrupt and retrograde, and, at the same time, a great deal of what there was of best and noblest, in European society shuddered at the outburst of long-pent-up social fires. Men's feelings were excited in a way that we, in this generation, can hardly comprehend. Party wrath and virulence were expressed in a manner ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... grey hairs in heaven, but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, we do but outlive those perfections in this world, to be recalled unto them by a greater miracle in the next, and run on here but to be retrograde hereafter. Were there any hopes to outlive vice, or a point to be superannuated from sin, it were worthy our knees to implore the days of Methuselah. But age doth not rectify, but incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions into worser habits, and (like diseases) brings ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... lost) then religion also may decay. A lower race may borrow religious ideas from a higher and adapt them to their own position, i.e. degrade them. And the progress of religion may still have been upwards on the whole, although retrograde movements have taken place in certain races. On these and other grounds it is now held with growing certainty that fetishism cannot be the original form of religion, and that the higher stages of it are not to be derived from that one. The races among whom fetishism is found exhibit a well-known ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... the guidance of Navarrete's theory, tried the same backward method which has been later applied to the problem, but with quite different results from those reached by more recent investigators. He says, "By setting out from Nipe which is the point where Columbus struck Cuba and proceeding in a retrograde direction along his course, we may surely trace his path, and shall be convinced that Guanahani is ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... composition of soil which had brought it to perfection[2.1], and insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its lamentable inferiority in strength and beauty to all the auriculas around it. I am afraid, in some instances at least, this analogy holds true with respect to mind. No one will make a comparison, in point of mental ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... connected, as already intimated with the story of the Mounted Police. It is inevitable in the progress of human history that higher civilizations should supersede the lower. Wherever the contrary has been the case and a lower civilization overran the higher the movement of humanity was retrograde. Hence, if the Indian type of civilization in Western Canada was to be superseded by the British type and this change effected without injustice and hardship for the original dwellers in the country, the Government of the Dominion must proceed by process ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... especially as the Indians of Apalache did them considerable injury by frequent assaults, and always retreated to their fortresses in the marshes, the Spaniards determined upon returning towards the sea. On the second day of their retrograde march, they were attacked by the Indians while passing across a morass, and several both men and horses were wounded, without being able to take vengeance on their enemies, as they always fled into the water. These Indians ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... year the vernal equinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectly round. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in a different way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which then experiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Pole a little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, this flattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect, which we should perceive if we had ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... retrograde a little in the narrative, in order to show what events led to the disastrous catastrophe I have just related. Captain Reud, having been lying for many, many weeks, apparently unconscious of objects around him, one morning said, in a faint, low voice, when Dr Thompson and Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... philtre! Vade retrograde Sathanas!" exclaimed the elder half rising from his chair, but here the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... 1914 the Serbian army had been obliged to withdraw, leaving Valjevo to the Austrians. The retrograde movement had to continue; Belgrade was abandoned at the end of November, and the people from those northern and western parts of the country could not resign themselves to waiting for the enemy, after the manner in which he ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... to be a law of life that nothing can stand completely still and changeless. All must vary, must progress or retrograde; the very rocks in the bowels of the earth undergo organic alterations, while the eternal hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... did Air, Blood, Youth in 's equipage. Wiping the sweat from of her face that ran, With hair all wet she pussing thus began; Bright June, July and August hot are mine, In th' first Sol doth in crabbed Cancer shine. His progress to the North now's fully done, Then retrograde must be my burning Sun, Who to his Southward Tropick still is bent, Yet doth his parching heat but more augment Though he decline, because his flames so fair, Have throughly dry'd the earth, and heat the air. Like as an Oven that long time hath been heat, Whose vehemency ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Rome and during the Dark Ages the practice of lettering, at least in so far as the Roman form was concerned, was distinctly retrograde. With the advent of the Renaissance, however, the purest classic forms were revived; and indeed the Italian Renaissance seems to have been the golden age of lettering. With the old Roman fragments of the best period constantly before their eyes the Renaissance artists of Italy seem to have ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... Dresden, when the arrival of Napoleon was known. I represented the necessity of moving toward Dippoldiswalde to choose a favorable battle-field. It was supposed to be a retreat that I was proposing; and a mistaken idea of honor prevented a retrograde movement without fighting, which would have been the means of avoiding the catastrophe of the next day, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... succeeded in undermining the basis of society?" asked Kolosoff, ironically quoting an expression used by a retrograde newspaper in attacking trial by jury. "Acquitted the culprits and condemned the innocent, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... full of scorn for patriotism, which he holds the most retrograde of emotions. He may as usefully declaim against friendship, comradeship, the love of man for woman or of mother for child. The lowest savage regards himself, and cannot but regard himself, as a member of some sort of political aggregation. This feeling is one of ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Lord Jesus replied, and told him the number of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as also their triangular, square, and sextile aspect; their progressive and retrograde motion; their size and several prognostications; and other things which the reason ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... a retrograde movement in the doctrine of the leucocytes has gained ground surprisingly, especially in the last few years. Ever since Virchow's description of the lymphocytes, observers have tried to separate the various forms of leucocytes ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... with his eyes fixed upon the reptile, he made a retrograde movement to extricate himself from the unpleasantness of at least his damp location; but he was not a little surprised to find the snake approaching still nearer to him. This puzzled him exceedingly; he could not understand ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... intended attack to General Washington, it is certain we were betrayed; for, on arriving near his encampment, we found his cannon mounted, his troops under arms, and at every point so perfectly prepared to receive us, that we were compelled, like fools, to make a retrograde movement, without inflicting on our enemy any manner ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... foreign commerce together have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Rallies him, with his usual gayety, on several passages in his letters. Reasons why Clarissa's heart cannot be broken by what she has suffered. Passionate girls easily subdued. Sedate ones hardly ever pardon. He has some retrograde motions: yet is in earnest to marry Clarissa. Gravely concludes, that a person intending to marry should never be a rake. His gay resolutions. Renews, however, his promises not to molest her. A charming encouragement ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... which no charge of inefficiency or corruption could be brought. The change decreed by China was in accord with the new national sentiment, but by all the foreign powers interested it was felt that it would be a retrograde step if the customs were taken out of the control of Sir Robert Hart (q.v.), who had been since 1863 inspector-general of the customs. The British secretary of state for foreign affairs (Sir Edward Grey) at once protested against the decree of the 6th of May, pointing out that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... straits of the Atlantick Ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where —— —— resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.' Piozzi Letters, i. 137. A little later he wrote:—'I have done thinking of —— whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... and gave them aloud these new orders, but, in a whisper, he instructed them to begin the retrograde movement, and to let the troops occupy the positions he had selected for them on the extensive ground he ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... this: would not Florentines be moved by the visible association of such cruel ignominy with two venerable men like Bernardo del Nero and Niccolo Ridolfi, who had taken their bias long before the new order of things had come to make Mediceanism retrograde—with two brilliant popular young men like Tornabuoni and Pucci, whose absence would be felt as a haunting vacancy wherever there was a meeting of chief Florentines? It was useless: such pity as could be awakened now was of that hopeless sort ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... salamander and fishes. But what gave special interest to these discoveries was the fact, ascertained by careful study, that not all of these beings were gifted with normally developed organs of vision, but that in some these organs had undergone a retrograde development, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... philosophy from the incubus of innate ideas." Like Luther and the leaders of the great French Revolution, he broke with the Past; and he threw overboard the whole cargo of human tradition. The result has been an immense movement of the mind which we love to call Progress, when it has often been retrograde; together with a mighty development of egotism resulting from the ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... to make him retrograde a few steps, so that he could be made to shy enough to leave the dangerous vicinity, and once more started ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... that all fire has need of nourishment, without which it cannot possibly subsist; that the sun, moon, and all the stars are fed either with fresh or salt waters; and the reason that Cleanthes gives why the sun is retrograde, and does not go beyond the tropics in the summer or winter, is that he may not be too far from his sustenance. This I shall fully examine hereafter; but at present we may conclude that whatever may cease to be cannot of its own nature be eternal; that if fire wants sustenance, it will cease ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... colonizing enterprise, of Spanish romance, or of the fact that Spain produced great painters, great dramatists, and one great novelist in the brief period of her glory. We use them deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at this period committed itself to a policy of immoral, retrograde, and cowardly repression of the most generous of human impulses under the pressure of selfish terror; because the Spaniards abandoned themselves to a dark fiend of religious fanaticism; because they were ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... virtue passing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as we do slavery, by its demoralizing effect ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... generally, have been taught to look for other resources than those which can be derived from order, frugality, and industry. They are generally armed; and they are made to expect much from the use of arms. Nihil non arrogant armis. Besides this, the retrograde order of society has something flattering to the dispositions of mankind. The life of adventurers, gamesters, gypsies, beggars, and robbers is not unpleasant. It requires restraint to keep men from falling into that habit. The shifting tides of fear and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the other cage was after us again! Migul tried to elude it, to shake it off. But he had less success than formerly. It seemed to cling. We sped in the retrograde, constantly accelerating back to the Beginning. Then came a retardation, for a swift turn. In the haze and murk of the Beginning, Migul told us he could elude ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... think of! Your reference to classification (viz. I presume to such cases as Aspicarpa) is EXCELLENT, for the monstrous Begonia no doubt in all details would be Begonia. I did not think of this, nor of the RETROGRADE step from separated sexes to an hermaphrodite state; nor of the lessened fertility of the monster. Proh ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... both sides, of course. 'Idaho' Jack, professional gambler, for instance, frankly considered that the whole town was going to unmentionable depths of propriety. The organisation of the League was regarded by him, and by many others, as a sad retrograde towards the bondage of the ancient and dying East; and that he could not get drunk when and where he pleased, 'Idaho,' as he was called, regarded as a ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... dejection increased, and he became more than ever convinced that his wisest course was to withdraw from the city. He would, I think, have carried out this fatal measure, notwithstanding that every officer on his staff was utterly opposed to any retrograde movement, had it not been his good fortune to have beside him a man sufficiently bold and resolute to stimulate his flagging energies. Baird-Smith's indomitable courage and determined perseverance were never more conspicuous than at that critical ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... and Bavarians, in the mean time, thunderstruck at the sudden arrival of the Austrians, whose numbers they were as yet unable to ascertain, had made a retrograde movement in their first terror. But this did not last long. "If we do not want to perish here to the last man, we must try to force a passage," said ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... whom he had just praised so highly, the chair of the stout man's wife encountered an obstacle in the immovability of the young noble; so, as at Marengo, eight or nine months later, when the general in command judged it time to resume the offensive, the retrograde movement was arrested. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... afternoon, when news was brought us that Bustamante, with his generals and troops, had returned, and had passed through the village, on their way back to Mexico! Some say that this retrograde march is in consequence of a movement made in Mexico by General Valencia—others that it has been caused by a message received from General Paredes. We paid a visit in the evening to the old curate, who was pretty much in the dark, morally and figuratively, in a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... fourteenth century must, therefore, be regarded as a period of depression in European civilization, of retrograde movement during which the wheels of progress had turned back. It even seemed as though Asia would once more and perhaps with final success reassert her dominion over helpless Europe. The Seljuk Turks who, in 1291, had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... reached that corps. Then he waited, seeing clearly that there was nothing to do but to fall back in as orderly a manner as possible, until he could gather a compact mass that would enable him, not only to stop the retrograde movement, but ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Sabbath,—a day I never pass pleasantly, but at Cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. Things are stagnant enough in town; as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well. Hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. I do nothing but eschew tobacco. [6] I wish parliament were assembled, that I may hear, and perhaps some day be heard;—but on this point I am not very sanguine. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... for the first time with an extensive retrograde metamorphosis as a consequence of a parasitic mode of life. Even in some Fish-lice (Cymothoa) the young are lively swimmers, and the adults stiff, stupid, heavy fellows, whose short clinging feet are capable of but little movement. ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... and the commencement of Dwapara, when the period came for many creatures superannuated by age to lay down their lives, the thousand-eyed deity of heaven poured no rain. The planet Vrihaspati began to move in a retrograde course, and Soma abandoning his own orbit, receded towards the south. Not even could a dew-drop be seen, what need then be said of clouds gathering together? The rivers all shrank into narrow streamlets. Everywhere lakes and wells and springs disappeared and lost ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... landed at Helvoet, and proceeded to Brussels, by Bergen-op-Zoom and Antwerp, both of which are very strongly fortified. The ravages of war are little remarked in a country so rich by nature; but everything seems at present stationary, or rather retrograde, where capital is required. The chateaux are deserted, and going to decay; no new houses are built, and those of older date are passing rapidly into the possession of a class inferior to those for whom we must suppose them to have been built. Even the old gentlewoman of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Christianity itself most eagerly embraced when its light was obscured by fables and superstitions? Why did the Roman Empire perish, with all the aid of a magnificent civilization; why did this civilization itself retrograde; why did its art and literature decline? Why did the grand triumphs of Protestantism stop in half a century after Luther delivered his message? What made the mediaeval popes so powerful? What gave such ascendency ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... on till the rod bent like a giant hoop and the line became rigid; but the fish was not to be checked. Its retrograde movement was slow, but steady ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... narrator of political events, which so frequently originate in rumours and party fictions. From this time, newspapers and periodical literature became distinct works—at present, there seems to be an attempt to revive this union; it is a retrograde step for ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... number of competing units. There are not wanting people who, having gained a dim perception that monopolies are an inevitable result of the modern concentration of industry, conclude that, after all, "the former days were better than these," and that our wisest course is a retrograde one. Fortunately, however, these people are comparatively few. It is a fact so plain that even the dullest can hardly fail to perceive it, that the consolidation and concentration of industry which have gone on everywhere ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... was added to the severity of the climate, their sufferings became intolerable. 6. With a heavy heart Julian at last gave orders to commence a retreat, and led his exhausted soldiers back over the desert plains which they had already passed with so much difficulty. The retrograde march was terribly harassed by the light cavalry of the Persians, a species of troops peculiarly fitted for desultory warfare. The difficulties of the Romans increased at every step, and the harassing attacks ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... generally, on one side, a body of older theologians, who since their youth have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, sundry professors who do not wish to rewrite their lectures, and a mass of unthinking ecclesiastical persons of little or no importance save in making up a retrograde majority in an ecclesiastical tribunal; on the other side we have as generally the thinking, open-minded, devoted men who have listened to the revelation of their own time as well as of times past, and who are evidently thinking the future thought ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... retrograde glance to the history of this period. It was only fifty years before that Columbus had dropped anchor off the coral reef of Samana Cay, and thrilled the Old World by announcing the discovery of the New. Elizabeth, the virgin Queen of England, was a proud, haughty girl just entering her teens, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... noticed that not far behind him there was another and much taller bush. Toward this bush he crept, but like a crawfish, feet foremost. Had his enemy stood otherwise than in a line with the first shelter which Topanashka had made use of, he would surely have sent an arrow during this retrograde performance. He continued to crawfish until the tall bush was between him and the smaller one. Once covered by the former, he raised his head ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... savages. The day after the retrograde movement of the cattle to Ruined Castle Creek, and just as Dr Leichhardt was about to start on a reconnoissance, the Blackfellows came down to where the horses were grazing, and speared one of them in the shoulder. This was the first ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... demontre une fois de plus, que cette manoeuvre, qui fait un assez bel effet a la parade, ne peut reussir a la guerre lorsqu'on est suivi par un ennemi actif. La premiere entraina la seconde dans un mouvement retrograde; de plus elle y apporta assez de confusion pour que ces deux lignes reunies crussent n'avoir d'autre parti a prendre que celui de la fuite," etc. Memoires, vol. i. p. 257. There can be no question as to the general soundness of this criticism, and we should not have continued the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... events, some food for man and beast. Furthermore, we had by now traversed almost two-thirds of the total distance; a large force of Boers was known to be intercepting our retreat, and we were convinced that any retrograde movement would bring on an attack ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... on two legs then, with retrograde motion, It stalk'd; on the Sentry impressing a notion That this hostile figure, of non-descript form, The fortress might take by manoeuvre ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to look for their country, found the sea impassable from the masses of volcanic ashes and pumice. They returned terrified to the shores of Europe; and the shock inflicted by the destruction of Atlantis upon the civilization of the world probably led to one of those retrograde periods in the history of our race in which they lost all ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... think, for the reasons above given, that the ideal is an unattainable one. Any closer union of the British Empire attempted with this object would absolutely fail. The unwieldy weapon would break in our hands. The ideal is as impracticable as it is puerile and retrograde. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... years; and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole and proper motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c. and so solve all appearances better than any way whatsoever: calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles, intricate eccentrics, &c. rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terrae, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions. And 'tis true ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... congenial predictions of his predecessors in the same line, might be left to receive not only the answer of his own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty years ago, but also that of the accumulated refutations which America has furnished for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde tendency so falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, we find that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral votes to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing organization ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... V, Sultan of Turkey, recently sent to this country a special embassy to announce his accession. The quick transition of the Government of the Ottoman Empire from one of retrograde tendencies to a constitutional government with a Parliament and with progressive modern policies of reform and public improvement is one of the important phenomena of our times. Constitutional government seems also to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... society, on the contrary, that is to say, in the super-organic evolution of Herbert Spencer, the intervention of other forces and the occurrence of other conditions sometimes causes a retrograde selection which always assures the survival of those who are best fitted for a given environment at a given time, but the controlling principle of this selection is in turn affected by the vicious conditions—if ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... blind from the birth, And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her Author more; From instrumental causes proud to draw Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake: But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised In the pure fountain of eternal ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... in distinct words that the principle of territorial prohibition was no violation of Southern rights; and denounced the proposition of Calhoun to put a "balance of power" clause into the Constitution as "a retrograde movement in an age of progress that would astonish the world." These repeated affirmations, taken in connection with his famous description of the Missouri Compromise in 1849, in which he declared it to have had "an origin akin to the Constitution," ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... else in black, received the intelligence with a profusion of thanks, hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so improper in the front row of a front box. "I would not (added he,) for ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... to approve of it, or anyhow to be indifferent about it. Such a little thing! It isn't as if Barry wanted you to become a Mormon or something.... And after all you can't accuse him of being retrograde, or Victorian, if you like to use that silly word, or lacking in ideals for social progress—can you? He belongs to nearly all your illegal political societies, doesn't he? Why, his house gets raided for leaflets from time to time. I don't think they ever find any, but they look, and that's something. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... an absolute military despotism. "A military republic, a government founded on mock elections and supported only by the sword," was nearly a quarter of a century since pronounced by Daniel Webster, when speaking of the South American States, as "a movement, indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous movement, from the regular and old-fashioned monarchical ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... Fouquet. The eight oars stopped, and resisting the water, created a retrograde motion. It stopped. The twelve rowers in the other did not, at first, perceive this maneuver, for they continued to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within musket-shot. Fouquet was ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dejection, with the purpose of following the trail of the party to the Madison. Carefully inspecting the faint traces left of their course of travel, I became satisfied that from some cause they had made a retrograde movement from this camp, and departed from the lake at a point further down stream. Taking this as an indication that there were obstructions above, I commenced retracing my steps along the beach. An hour of sunshine in the afternoon ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... might nullify a resolution adopted by a Norwegian authority of state would, according to the general principles of political and international law, impress upon Norway the stamp of a dependency, and 3) that it would therefore from a national point of view signify an enormous retrograde step as compared with the present arrangement of the ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he left behind him the reputation of a sovereign of the retrograde type. In his opinion Russia was to be saved from anarchical disorders and revolutionary agitation, not by the parliamentary institutions and so-called liberalism of western Europe, but by the three principles which the elder generation of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... steps, and the distance to be ultimately reached remains vague and undefinable. At the same time, it is well to be assured that improvements, moral and social, are really in progress; and that, on the whole, society is on the move not in a retrograde direction. Even with a stone tied to its leg, the world, as we have said, contrives 'to get on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... 1856, to the religious enlightenment of more than two hundred years ago, would be like measuring one of Gulliver's Lilliputians by Gulliver himself. I trust that the world has since improved, and that of whatever passing follies we may be guilty, we shall never retrograde to the old narrow views of truth. If mankind are capable of being taught any lesson, surely this is one—that persecution or dislike for opinion sake is a folly and an evil, and that we best perform the will of Him to whom we are commanded to be like, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the battle of Talavera my life presented nothing which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have deserted us when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that splendid victory we began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed hard by overwhelming masses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fall successively into their hands. The Spaniards were defeated wherever they ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... retrograde movement; they imitate the crabs: in other words, they are launched stern foremost. Whether great or small, long or short, whether clothed in patrician copper or smeared with plebeian tar, they all start on their ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... it may! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our novelties to retrograde into massive greatness, although I cannot avoid reminding them how often they revive the forgotten things of past times! It is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our ancestors! In the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of antique ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... permit, to the advance of the English, though they be my own countrymen; and be assured, Piercie Shafton will measure his length, being five feet ten inches, on the ground as he stands, rather than give two yards in retreat, according to the usual motion in which we retrograde." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... artisan, to enable him to govern himself, and make the best of his position. But any scheme, which, under the pretext of ameliorating his position, would place him again under tutelage, is a scheme of degradation and a retrograde movement. He is now a freeman, an enrolled member of a civilized state, where each individual has, to a great extent, the responsibility thrown upon himself for his own well-being; he must have prospective cares, and grow acquainted with the thoughtful virtue of prudence. That release ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... order of succession is precisely reversed, and that the age of the Iguanodon was long anterior to that of the Eocene Palaeophis and living boa, while the crocodile is in our own times the highest representative of its class, a retrograde movement in this important division of the vertebrata must be admitted. It may perhaps be accounted for by the power acquired by the placental mammalia, when they became dominant, a power before which the class of vertebrata next below them, as coming most directly in competition with ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... because our youth has a hold on us which it asserts whenever a disappointment knocks us down. Our old loves (with the bad natures I know in them) are always lurking to avenge themselves on the new by tempting us to a little retrograde infidelity. A schoolgirl in Fallow field, the tailor's daughter, had sighed for the bliss of Beckley Court. Beckley Court was her Elysium ere the ardent feminine brain conceived a loftier summit. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... It was only a move in that game of life which is always extending to a new deal, and of which women as onlookers necessarily see the most. Von Holzen wished Cornish, and others concerned, to know that he had destroyed the prescription. It was a concession in disguise—a retrograde movement—perhaps pour ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... stand up to plead for us, and that of his mere grace and love? Then this should teach Christians to be watchful and wary how they sin against God. This inference seems to run retrograde; but whoso duly considers it, will find it fairly fetched from the premises. Christianity teaches ingenuity, 36 and aptness to be sensible of kindnesses, and doth instruct us to a loathness to be overhard upon him from whom we have all at free ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... or epoch is not one of darkness, but of light; not of discouragement, but of hope. It is neither retrograde nor stagnant, but progressive to a degree never before witnessed in the history of man on so large a scale and involving all classes and so many people at ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... virtuoso? You are not even a composer or learned contrapuntist. A teacher of music wins much greater consideration, if he himself plays concertos and composes pretty things, and if he can calculate and give vent to his genius in double and triple fugues, and in inverse and retrograde canons. You cannot even accompany your pupils with the violin or flute, which is certainly very ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... only nervous despondency, my friend. But it is not so. All the while I am conscious of a retrograde instead of ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... have many moons, and that Saturn, besides having the greatest number of moons, would be likely to retain some of his inner rings unbroken; that the earth would be likely to have a long day and Jupiter a short one; that the extreme outer planets would be not unlikely to rotate in a retrograde direction; and so on, through a long list of interesting and striking details. Not only, therefore, are we driven to the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous nebula, but we find that the mere contraction of such a nebula, under ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... was placed in command of the Venezuelan troops. But the revolutionary government was too feebly organized to give efficiency to the military force. Divisions arose, and the cause of independence was on the retrograde, when the dreadful earthquake of 1812, and the subsequent invasion by the Spanish force under General Monteverde, for the time, precluded all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various |
