"Revert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him!" J. P. was a very dignified gentleman and did not revert to his boyhood's slang except under extreme provocation. "He shouldn't have allowed you to urge him. And what about the brilliant prospect you gave up once just because his ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... factor or factors occasioning it being no longer in evidence or required. Again, at certain seasons, man is seized with waldliebe (forest-love) and longs to flee from the haunts of men, and, with gun and rod, to revert, as far as possible, to the state of his savage ancestors. The desire is safely hidden away in his subliminal consciousness until favoring circumstances tempt it forth. It is not alone in "sleep, dreams, hypnosis, trance, and ecstacy ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... which have mainly weighed with us, to revert to the subject of the Protestant Vindicator's charges, and to publish the subjoined lengthy documents. We consider, in the first place, our endeavours to expose falsehood as a solemn duty we owe ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... seek to alter her delicate mechanism. Under certain unfavourable conditions, cold or poor soil, the common oak will develop characteristics of the oak of the Quaternary period. The dog left to run wild in the forest will in a few generations revert to the type of his original wolf-like progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform, heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... Columbia was granted, as you well know, by Maryland to the United States for use as the seat of the Federal capital. When it ceases to be used for that purpose, it, with all its public fixtures, will revert by law to Maryland. But," and his eye brightened to the hue of cold steel in a way the writer will never forget, as he uttered, in a tone perfectly self-poised, undaunted, and slightly defiant, the words, "that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... desired, his was the design that pleased her—was still the only thing to do. The (to Somerset) surprising accident that the committee of architects should have pronounced the designs absolutely equal in point of merit, and thus have caused the final choice to revert after all to Paula, had been a joyous thing to him when he first heard of it, full of confidence in her favour. But the fact of her having again become the arbitrator, though it had made acceptance of his plans all the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... respects be allowed to cross, such small variation will be destroyed, at least to our senses,—a variation [clearly] just to be distinguished by long legs will have offspring not to be so distinguished. Free crossing great agent in producing uniformity in any breed. Introduce tendency to revert to parent form." ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... character, and left me but little time on my hands. And now, that I had got back to my post in the interior, the duties growing out of the recent treaties had been in no small degree multiplied. While preparing for the latter, the former were not, however, to be wholly neglected, or left unnoticed. I will revert ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... is essentially servile; instead of freeing it, they try to elude it. Not free enough themselves morally, but bound to the world partly by piety and partly by industrialism, they cannot think of rising to a detached contemplation of earthly things, and of life itself and evolution; they revert rather to sensibility, and seek some by-path of instinct or dramatic sympathy in which to wander. Having no stomach for the ultimate, they burrow downwards towards the primitive. But the longing to be primitive is a disease of culture; it is archaism in morals. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... their whole lives, suddenly jump up, and with infuriated gestures declare themselves the enemies of everything existing. When they have attained their little purpose,—or have failed to do so,—they revert naturally into their sucking-dove elements. It is so with Americans as frequently as with ourselves,—and there is no political subject on which it is considered more expedient to express pseudo-enthusiasm than on that of the sins of England. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of his audience unbroken and unrelaxed. It is no mere convention, however, which decrees that the flight of time is best indicated by an interact. When the curtain is down, the action on the stage remains, as it were, in suspense. The audience lets its attention revert to the affairs of real life; and it is quite willing, when the mimic world is once more revealed, to suppose that any reasonable space of time has elapsed while its thoughts were occupied with other matters. It is much more difficult for it to accept a wholly imaginary ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Augustine, comprised in the same [168] Decree of Election salvation and the means that conduce to it. To demonstrate this synchronism of destinations or of decrees with which we are concerned, we must revert to the expedient that I have employed more than once, which states that God, before decreeing anything, considered among other possible sequences of things that one which he afterwards approved. In the idea of this is represented how the first parents sin and corrupt ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... now proper to revert to our situation who had been left at Naco, when Cortes set sail from Truxillo for the Havanna and Mexico. We remained for some time at Naco, waiting intelligence for the sailing of Cortes, which Sandoval was to have sent us; but Saavedra maliciously suppressed the letters. Becoming ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... without distinction in the slight that she felt for the chatter and the airs of some. After that she made her exceptions among them; she begun to see how every one honored and admired the hard workers. She could not revert to her awe of them, even of the hardest workers; but she became more tolerant of the idlest and vaguest. She compared herself with the clever ones, and owned herself less clever, not without bitterness, but certainly with sincerity, and with a final humility that ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... for us but to vouch and call to warranty those principles of original justice from whence alone our title to everything valuable in society is derived? Can it be thought to arise from a superfluous, vain parade of displaying general and uncontroverted maxims, that we should revert at this time to the first principles of law, when we have directly under our consideration a whole body of statutes, which, I say, are so many contradictions, which their advocates allow to be so many exceptions from those very principles? ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... also made in all deeds that if these conditions were violated, the land and buildings thereon should revert to the original owners. There have been violations of this clause, and the courts of this state, and the Supreme Courts of the United States, having decided in favour of the provision, valuable property has been ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks. Let, therefore, the object of your meditation be above and not below, so that every time you revert to it in thought you will be lifted up; let it be pure and unmixed with any selfish element; so shall your heart become purified and drawn nearer to Truth, and not defiled and dragged more ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... so popular as simple song. Though communities are liable to periods of excitement, this is not their natural condition. Songs founded upon such, may be popular while the excitement lasts, but not much longer. Philosophers and inquiring individuals may revert to and dwell upon them, but the generality of the people will renounce them. Those who linger over them, will do so through a disposition to ascertain the causes which gave them birth, and how far these were natural in the circumstances. He who sings, feels that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the fighting in South Africa, and after the initial destruction of both the German Navy and its Army in England (as effective forces), we must revert to the wars of more than a century ago to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There can be no doubt that at the time of the invasion of England Germany's effective fighting strength was ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... and are we desirous, that future wars shall be conducted in accordance with buccaneering precedent, or with what has hitherto been the general practice of the nineteenth century? Your naval correspondents incline to revert to buccaneering and thus to the introduction into naval coast operations of a rigour long unknown to the operations of military forces on land; but they do so with a difference. Lord Charles Beresford (writing early in the controversy) asserts the permissibility ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... consequence of your sparing me what you might still further have inflicted, I will let the past rest, and as if it had never happened really to me; and speak of it to others, but as a circumstance which I wish not to revert to, but prefer should ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... are immediately the right of the king, as a consequence of his prerogative in church matters; whereby he is considered as the founder of all archbishopricks and bishopricks, to whom during the vacancy they revert. And for the same reason, before the dissolution of abbeys, the king had the custody of the temporalties of all such abbeys and priories as were of royal foundation (but not of those founded by subjects) on the death of the abbot or prior[a]. Another reason ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... turf-pits of Denmark, and in rock-tombs. Near these objects of bronze, ornaments of gold are often seen and, now and then, the remains of a woollen garment. It cannot be due to chance that all implements of bronze are similar and all are made according to the same alloy. Doubtless they revert to the same period of time and are anterior to the coming of the Romans into Gaul, for they are never discovered in the midst of debris of the Roman period. But what men used them? What ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... French company's rights was questioned. Its agreement to work some each year had not been kept. Its charter was to expire in October, 1904, but, for 5,000,000 francs, the Colombia President granted a six-year extension. Even with this the French franchise would revert to Colombia in 1910. Colombia wished delay. The United States transcontinental railroads did not want a canal, as it would divert from them heavy, bulky, and imperishable freight. They therefore joined Colombia in seeking delay, playing ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... third thing you may say; but before I say that for you, you must promise to make no reply, not even a monosyllable; and not to revert to the subject for four times seven ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... dead wood until the most necessary part of their apparel hangs in shreds,—is one of the delightful mysteries of these woods. I suspect that every man is at heart a roving animal, and likes, at intervals, to revert to the condition of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... there?" At last I removed my eyes from the teapot, and thought for a few moments about the marks; presently, however, I felt the whirl returning; the marks became almost effaced from my mind, and I was beginning to revert to my miserable ruminations, when suddenly methought I heard a voice say, "The marks! the marks! cling to the marks! or—" So I fixed my eyes again upon the marks, inspecting them more attentively, if possible, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... choice gift bestowed on man. It is a boundless source of pleasure to most all persons, unless their lives have been fraught with crimes of so daring a nature, that it makes the the heart revolt at the very thought of them. It is pleasant at times to revert to the scenes of by-gone days, and recall one beloved companion and another, that have passed away, and to think of the many happy interviews we have held ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... had been deprived of their father's crown by the treachery of their guardian, that a stranger should be king of Rome, who was not only not of a civic, but not even of an Italian family, yet now felt their indignation rise to a still higher pitch at the notion that the crown would not only not revert to them after Tarquin, but would descend even lower to a slave, so that in the same state about the hundredth year[50] after Romulus, descended from a deity, and a deity himself, occupied the throne as long as he lived, a slave, and one born of a slave, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... no countrymen of mine. It is true," he added pensively, "that when I am in the North I claim that a somewhat shadowy Scottish ancestry makes of me a Scot to the finger tips, but no sooner do I cross the Border upon my return to London than I revert violently to my English self. A kindly Providence has ordained that the central Scottish Office should be in London, and my urgent duties compel me to reside there permanently. Which is indeed fortunate. It is true that technically ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... VIII. made use of Cranmer when he wished to marry Anne Boleyn. They told her that if it could be proved that any one, however high his rank, had blasphemed God and the king, he could legally be executed, and that his property would revert to the Crown. So she suborned false witnesses, who swore at the trial of Naboth, already seized for high treason, that he had blasphemed God and the king. Sentence, according to law, was passed upon the innocent man, and according to law he was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... of the great Braccio family, the last of a collateral branch. She had inherited a very considerable estate, which, if she had no descendants, was to revert to the Princes of Gerano. She had married Don Girolamo in obedience to her guardians' advice, but not at all against her will, and she had become deeply attached to him during the short two years of their married life. He had never ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... hoarse murmurs, no reply. Alas for him! who friendless and alone, Remote from parents and from brethren dwells; From him grief snatches every coming joy Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts Revert for ever to his father's halls, Where first to him the radiant sun unclos'd The gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day, Brothers and sisters, leagu'd in pastime sweet, Around each other twin'd the bonds of love. I will not judge the counsel of the gods; Yet, truly, woman's lot doth merit ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... quickly draw his veil over such a scene, and cover it with oblivion would be the natural wish of every British and Irish heart, were it not that scenes still more disgraceful to both countries and more calamitous to one of them have succeeded—scenes which force the mind to revert with regret to those days of poverty and peace, when, as there existed little wealth to excite avarice, and little spirit to aggravate the ambition of party, that little remained inviolate, and the miserable cabin, though filled with objects of disgusting wretchedness, was yet the secure covering ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... taken in the spirit of its origin. Another very wise provision was made by our legislators, and which has prevented a great deal of suffering on the part of the slave. A few years ago, our wise legislature made a law to revert the power of emancipation from the board of magistrates where it had been very much abused, to the House itself. And such is the law at the present day, that no master can give his slaves their freedom, except by special act of the legislature, and that ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... tutelage of Old Jimmie, and his teachings were now too thoroughly the fiber of her very being, for her to alter permanently. She might change temporarily under the urge of an emotional revelation; but she would surely revert to her present self. There was ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... lay electorates become vacant by default of heirs, it shall revert to the Emperor, and be by him disposed of—Bohemia excepted, where the vacancy is to be supplied by ancient mode ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... ring, and his personal attachment to the doctor had so greatly increased, Cosmo found himself able to revert to the offer Jermyn once made of lending him a little money, which he had then declined. He would take the ring to Mr. Burns on his way home, and then ask Joan to repay Dr. Jermyn out of what he sent her for it. He told Jermyn therefore, as he sat by his ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... which betokened rain in the near future. The road was clean and dry, and there was no dust in the air except the thin cloud which floated behind us. We passed the Welsh Harp without a check, and not until we reached Edgeware did Winter revert to his second speed. We ran through the little town with only momentary slackening of pace, and so we sped onwards until we opened the stretch of road leading to Brockley Hill. Here Winter, seeing the road clear ahead, jammed on his highest speed and ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party. Always provided, old books showed the way of it! What meant old poets by their strictures? And when old poets had said their say of it, 230 How taught old painters in their pictures? We must revert to the proper channels, Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions: Here was food for our various ambitions, 235 As on each case, exactly stated— To encourage ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... who had read, she said, and admired his Scenes of Private Life, reproached him with losing, in the Shagreen Skin, the delicacy of sentiment contained in these earlier novels, and begged him to forsake his ironic, sceptical manner and revert to the higher manifestations of his talent. There was no signature to this communication; and the writer, who subscribed herself "The Stranger," begged him to abstain from any attempt to discover who she was, as there were paramount reasons why she should remain anonymous. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... in the presence of an event to which they are not accustomed, and in attaining an end which has presented itself by accident. Such are, for example, the arrangements which they make to defend their honey against the attacks of a great nocturnal Moth, the Death's Head. I shall have to revert to ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... the more so as you have a brother, the natural son of your father and of a woman who afterwards, during the exile of your father, became mistress to King Charles II., which accounts for your brother's high position at court; for it is to this brother, bastard though he be, that your peerage would revert. Do you wish this? I cannot think so. Well, all depends on you. The queen must be obeyed. You will not quit the house till to-morrow in a royal carriage, and to go to the House of Lords. My lord, will you be a peer of England; yes or no? The queen ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... manifested itself in acts of violence and brutality. Nor need I remind you here of the hatred and contempt that was heaped upon the so called "nigger teacher." This is history, known and read of all men. Pleasanter by far will it be, and certainly appropriate on this good Thanksgiving Day, to revert for a few moments to the splendid achievements, under God, of these ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... sweet-eyed Prudence, to the Ancient, the forge, and the thousand and one duties of the morrow. I bethought me, once more, of the storm, of the coming of Charmian, of the fierce struggle in the dark, of the Postilion, and of Charmian again. And yet, in despite of me, my thoughts would revert to George, and I would see myself even as the Pedler pictured me, out in some secluded corner of the woods, lying stiffly upon my back with glassy eyes staring up sightlessly through the whispering leaves above, while my blood soaked and soaked into ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... charms constitute sources of visual delight which can be imparted only by a view of the objects themselves. And is excitement awakened in contemplating the borders of this graceful and magnificent river? Yes. When we revert to the awful convulsions of the physical world, and the important revolutions of human society, of which the regions it flows through have been successively the theatre—when we meditate on the vast changes, the fearful struggles, the tragic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... Kar-gyu-pa[1062] said to have been founded by Marpa and his follower Milarapa, who set an example of solitary and wandering lives. It is sometimes described as a Nying-ma sect[1063] but appears to date from after Atisa's reforms, although it has a strong tendency to revert to older practices. It has several important sub-sects, such as the Karmapa found in Sikhim and Darjiling, as well as in Tibet, the Dugpa which is predominant in Bhotan and perhaps in Ladak,[1064] and the Dikung-pa, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... while to revert for a moment to the distinction drawn in a preceding paragraph between the pusher propeller and the tractor which revolved in front of the aviator and of his machine gun. It would seem almost incredible ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... avoiding the word lady to deserve it. She would writhe to believe that she could never quite make herself exact with the term. She would hate those who had been born and made to the title, and she would revert at times to common instincts ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... explained, to some degree, the circumstances attending the settlement of the mother and children of the Hseh family in the Jung mansion, and other incidental matters, we will now revert to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... variety of praise upon Maximilian, with a liberality that won tears of delight from the solitary young lady, as she now sat at midnight looking over these gracious testimonies to her lover's merit. A theme so delightful to Paulina could not be unseasonable at any time; and never did her thoughts revert to him more fondly than at this moment, when she so much needed his protecting arm. Yet the emperor, she was aware, must have some more special motive for enlarging upon this topic than his general favor to Maximilian. What this could be, in a case so closely ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the garden, bright moonlight and dark shadows. Overhead the heavens were glittering with a myriad stars. Well might Kathleen's thoughts revert to that other night when danger paced beside her. This night she had no dread, for Denis Quirk had been tried and tempered by the furnace of suffering. Nevertheless, the girl's heart was beating more rapidly than usual, because she ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... thoughts firmly and harmoniously fixed on the real objective spectacle of life and on the real subjective "soul," or personality, contemplating this spectacle, it is advisable to revert to the magical and mysterious associations called up by the classical word Nature. The mere utterance of the word "Nature" serves to bring us back to the things which are essential and organic, and to put into their proper place of comparative unreality all these "unities" and circles, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... arbitrary power. The people are paying the unrighteous tribute, (I wish I could say they were groaning under it, for that would seem as if they felt they are submitting to it,) in hopes that the nation will at length revert to justice. But before that time comes, it is to be feared they will be so accustomed to bondage, as to forget they were ever free. Swarms of locusts and caterpillars are maintained by this tribute ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... Civilisation" and Mill's "Liberty" were the most alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of the reading public, and Ernest and his friends were ignorant of their very existence. The Evangelical movement, with the exception to which I shall revert presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a tenth day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy. The "Vestiges" were forgotten before Ernest went up to Cambridge; the Catholic aggression scare had lost its terrors; Ritualism was still unknown ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the first step in our method has left us quite satisfied that a writer (and here I leave Mr. Watson and Mr. Davidson and revert to the general case) possesses enough share in the divine gift to be called "poet," we may, if we are bent upon truly "appreciating" him, proceed to taste his lines over and over, to dwell in detail upon his expression, upon its charms and splendours and felicities, its vigour and terseness ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... advertize, inadvertent, verse, aversion, adverse, adversity, adversary, version, anniversary, versatile, divers, diversity, conversation, perverse, universe, university, traverse, subversive, divorce; (2) vertebra, vertigo, controvert, revert, averse, versus, versification, animadversion, vice versa, controversy, tergiversation, obverse, transverse, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... himself a worthy workman! Simon Armour declared there was nothing the fellow could not do; and said to himself there never was such a baronet in the old Hall as his boy Dick would make. If only, he said, all the breeds worn out with breeding-in, would revert to the old blood of Tubal Cain, they might recover his lease of life. The day was coming, he said to himself, when there would be a sight to see at Mortgrange—a baronet that could shoe a horse better than any smith in the land! If his people then would not stand up for a landlord able to thrash ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... these invaluable pictures, does one's mind revert to the day when, before the hammer of Robins had resounded in these rooms—before his transcendent eloquence had been heard at Strawberry—Agnes Strickland, followed by all eyes, pondered over that group of portraits: how, as she slowly withdrew, we of the commonalty scarce worthy ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... they move me less, suit me better; but of these I begin to be tired, and shall for my amusement revert to more ancient times. The history of the Bourbons is become thread-bare, and their lustre too is extinguished, as suddenly as that of a farthing candle. This Revolution is by no means unprecedented, but being transacted ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Antirrhinum, artificially fertilised by its own pollen, all of which were as perfectly peloric as the parent plant. On the other hand, the same observer alludes to the tendency that these peloric plants have to revert to the usual form, as shown by the fact that when the peloric flowers were crossed with pollen from flowers of the ordinary shape, and vice versa, not one of the seedlings, in either case, bore peloric flowers. Hence, says Mr. ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... to visit you I left a little note behind addressed to the chief of the police here—no, you need not start—to be sent to him only if my return were unduly delayed. You can guess what that note contained. It is not necessary for us to revert to—unpleasant subjects." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a little humiliating for a middle-aged gentleman to find that on arriving in China he is expected to revert to the language of the nursery, and that he must request his Chinese servant to "go catchee me one piecee cuppee tea." On board the Admiral's yacht, it required a little reflection before the intimation that "bleakfast belong leady top-side" could be translated into the information that breakfast ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... debate some practical issue, however conjectural and remote, is involved. To realize this, revert with me to our question, and place yourselves this time in the world we live in, in the world that HAS a future, that is yet uncompleted whilst we speak. In this unfinished world the alternative of 'materialism ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... I revert, therefore, to the statement that to make the kind of spiritual progress which will overcome fear it will be often necessary to let go the thing we have outlived. Often the thing we have outlived will be something ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... would put it to the use I intended. I liked the idea. The society became incorporated so they could receive the deed, which was a trust, for should the property be used for other than what it was given for, it will revert. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... Emilia, our queen of to-day, deeming it proper to allow you an interval of rest to recruit your powers, gave you license to discourse of such matters as should most commend themselves to each in turn; and as thereby you are now rested, I judge that 'tis meet to revert to our accustomed rule. Wherefore I ordain that for to-morrow you do each of you take thought how you may discourse of the ensuing theme: to wit, of such as in matters of love, or otherwise, have done something with liberality ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lasted I know not, but it must have been a long while, as in after-times, when he would occasionally revert to his former life, all incidents he related were for years "when he was in his dungeon, or in the courtyard prison of the Capitol," where many of his ancestors ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Species.") I give only a paragraph on the general case of reversion, though I enter in detail on some cases of reversion of a special character. I have not as yet put all my facts on this subject in mass, so can come to no definite conclusion. But as single characters may revert, I must say that I see no improbability in several reverting. As I do not believe any well-founded experiments or facts are known, each must form his opinion from vague generalities. I think you confound two rather distinct considerations; a variation arises from any cause, and reversion is ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the prologue; they run, I think, thus, 'And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd'; add, 'not as he told, but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion.' This becomes the more needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters in the way of a conversation between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of information and FAITS-DIVERS have always a disjointed, broken-backed appearance; yet, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imagine what had occurred to account for his asking so strange a question. I replied that I knew of no such sect, and Van Rembold immediately changed the subject, nor did he revert to it. So that I never learned why he ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... Bailey, in his Dictionary, has designated it as a north country word: but it is evident that he misunderstood its entire meaning; for he has merely "to fettle to," and seems to have been ignorant of the use of the word "fettle" as a verb active. To revert to my former example of its use—An injured cart is fettled by the wheel-wright; the wheelwright ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... limited time does not diminish my affection for you, Annie, nor prevent my thinking of you and wishing for you. I long to see you through the dilatory nights. At dawn when I rise, and all day, my thoughts revert to you in expressions that you cannot hear or I repeat. I hope you will always appear to me as you are now painted on my heart, and that you will endeavour to improve and so conduct yourself as to make you happy and me joyful all our lives. Diligent and earnest ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... consequences also are terminable. Acts, therefore, can never be the means by which Brahma can be attained, for Brahma is interminable and eternal, not like the felicity of heaven which is changeful. The only means by which Jiva may revert to Brahma is by dispelling Ignorance through Knowledge; or, as the Upanishads declare, one attains to it as one gets one's forgotten necklace of gold, which all the while is on the neck though sought for with assiduity everywhere. K.P. Singha misunderstands it completely. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of anything of the sort and he was a careful business man. I do not think he would have loaned money without making some memorandum of it. He held several mortgages but they, of course, revert to ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... organic law of memory, dependent upon the revival of transmitted ancestral impressions. A prevailing idea though over-cultivation exhausts its organic correlate, and leads to defective nutrition of that part in the offspring. Hence they do not pursue the same idea as their fathers, but revert to a remoter ancestral historic idea, the organic correlate of which has lain fallow, thus gained strength. It is brought forth as new, receives additions by contiguity and similarity, is ardently pursued, over-cultivated, and in time supplanted by ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... difficult to describe the work of what is termed artistic printing. Every plate is a subject to be treated by itself, and no hard and fast rule can be applied. It is really a matter of artistic feeling, and to revert to the simile of the angler, one cannot explain how a trout should be played, but can only say that it depends on the fish, the water, and the circumstances. A fisherman can show you, if you are on the spot, and so ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... matter much. We of the Intelligence Department are soldiers, and believe in a policy of results: at the present moment we have lost a document: we are searching for it: action must be left to us.... And, Monsieur, I revert to my first question—what the devil was the police doing at Captain Brocq's—what business was it of theirs? Really, the detective service is arrogating to itself more and more powers—powers that cannot be sanctioned, that will not be granted ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... India. The old text in question is a document written in Anudruta Magadha characters. (We deny that these or any other characters—whether Devanagari, Pali, or Dravidian—ever used in India, are variations of, or derivatives from, the Phoenician.) To revert to the texts it is therein stated that the Sattapanni cave, then called "Sarasvati" and "Bamboo-cave," got its latter name in this wise. When our Lord first sat in it for Dhyana, it was a large six-chambered natural cave, 50 ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... and orators in their loftiest moods revert to language and modes of expression which have no meaning apart from this belief in the conscious animation of every object in the world. They may move us for the moment by their utterances; but we never take ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... that my two poor boys are in daily danger of themselves becoming 'unbodied spirits,' Emma, I continually revert to that terrible prophecy of yours uttered in the assembly chamber at Montgomery. Heaven knows I was then so little prepared to expect war or any reasonable fulfilment of the doom, that I could only look to see some great pestilence, fire, or other sweeping calamity falling on ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... children remained a constant subject of dissension. M. Dudevant was beginning to get into pecuniary difficulties in the management of his wife's estate. Sometimes he contemplated resigning it to her, and retiring to Gascony, to live with his widowed stepmother on the property which at her death would revert to him. But unfortunately he could not make up his mind to this course. No sooner had he drawn up an agreement consenting to a division of property, than he seemed to regret the sacrifice; upon which she ceased ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... of Purgatory is simply one of pain; they try to avoid thinking about it, because the subject is unpleasant, and people's thoughts do not naturally revert to painful subjects; they feel that it is a place to which they must go at least, if they escape worse; they must suffer, they cannot help it, and so the less they think about it beforehand, the better. Purgatory and suffering are to them synonymous terms; perhaps fear keeps them from some sins which, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... acclamation arose that scared the sea fowl. They who so short a time before had been ready to tear me limb from limb now with the greatest apparent delight hailed me as captain. How soon they might revert to their former mood was a question that I found not worth while to propound ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... had not been a very cheerful visit all round, because the old maidservant, Betty Harrison, had also been far from well. There had been a good deal of talk between the old women of dying, a subject to which their minds had been very prone to revert. Besides Mrs Love there were two other visitors, but they too failed to cheer the old couple up. One of the visitors, a laundress of the Temple called Mrs Oliphant, had done her best, poohpoohing such melancholy talk, and attributing ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... necessitates the consent of all the individuals who make up the social group. We know also that even in individual life old habits are not easily supplanted by new ones and that there is always a tendency to revert to the old. All historical evidence shows that revolutions are always followed by periods of reaction, and that this reaction is usually proportionate to the extent and suddenness ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... markets, and had to a great extent made their purchases before our Government, causing food to be scarcer and dearer for us than it needed to be. Thus writes Commissary-General Routh to the Treasury on the 19th of September:—"I now revert to the most important of our considerations, the state of our depots. We have no arrivals yet announced, either at Westport or Sligo, and the remains there must be nothing, or next to nothing. The bills of lading from Mr. Erichsen are all for small quantities, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... we may revert to our tables under adventitious deafness. In the tables relating to periods of successive recent years we find in respect to three schools, the New York and Western Pennsylvania institutions and the Maryland School, with certain fluctuations, no great change ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... harm in your pranks," the Emperor said. "I certainly should not encourage you to continue or repeat such conduct or to revert to it, but I see ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... definite projects, but solely because it was his nature to be in pursuit of some excellence and to scorn mere acquiescence in a life of every-day colour. He lived all but in loneliness, and when the change had had time to work upon him his thoughts began to revert to Adela, to her alone of those who stood on the other side of the gulf. She came before his eyes as a vision of purity; it was soothing to picture her face and to think of her walking in the spring meadows. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... revert to the other evening, after you took your leave. When we were alone he tried to make a jealous scene, with you as ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... To revert to the prison ship martyrs, their suffering was so great and their bravery so conspicuous that immediately after the War a popular attempt was made in 1792 and 1798 to provide a proper resting place for the bones of the victims, which were scattered in the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... arose regarding the title to Jersey that the whole thing finally reverted to the crown in 1702. When there was any trouble over titles in those days it was always settled by letting it revert to the crown. It has been some years now, however, since that ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... had not the younger Clegg seen Alice Haworth; and love, that mighty controller of human affairs and devices, most inopportunely frustrated their intentions. The elder Clegg, too, was induced to aid the design, hoping that, should a union take place, the inheritance might revert into the old channel. We have seen the result: the wilfulness and obduracy of Alice, and the infatuation of the lover, who had thought to dazzle her with the riches he purposely spread before her, prevented the success of their schemes. She peremptorily refused and repulsed him, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... obliterated the ravages and the remembrance of war—when commerce and civil competition shall have entirely succeeded to exaction and tyranny from a foreign force—(which it now holds forth so auspicious a promise of accomplishing)—and when literature shall revert within its former fruitful channels of enlightening the ignorant, gratifying the learned, and illustrating what is obscure among the treasures of former times—then I think Munich will be a proud and a flourishing city ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that," Levine spoke thoughtfully. "He's left Doc Fulton and is living on the reservation again. They always revert." ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... was required, that no separate species of warfare should be overdone, lest a nausea of sentiment should revert upon the authors, and thus lead to a reaction more sanguinary than the force of the philosophers could control. In all those cases Condorcet was the prime mover and the agent concerned. He communicated with Voltaire on every new theory, and advised him when and ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... to hear you laugh at me,—I do, indeed. It does me good to hear your voice again with some touch of satire in it. It brings back the old days,—the days to which I hope we may soon revert without pain. Shall it not be ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Trusting, therefore, that the practical administration of the war is drifting into the right policy, based on the true theory of its causes and legitimate termination, we may leave these merely political and military questions, and revert, in conclusion, to the possible remaining eventualities of the war. These may be, for the time, (1.) Seemingly prosperous and fortunate, or, (2.) Seemingly accompanied with disaster, discouragement, and dismay—ulterior even to the eventual triumph of our arms over the open enemies ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... gave it for Prince and Princess, his brother-in-law, Felix Bacciocchi, and his sister Elisa, to whom he had already entrusted the Duchy of Piombino. Lucca was thus elevated to a hereditary principality, a dependent of the French Empire, which should revert to the French crown in case the male line of the Bacciocchi should become extinct. It was a sort of revival of the old Germanic fiefs. Evidently the memory of Charlemagne continually filled Napoleon's thoughts. Elisa thenceforth bore ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... "Well, to revert to lesser points," said Lothair, "I do not say I want to return to England, for I dread returning to England, and do not know whether I shall ever go back there; and at any rate I doubt not my health ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... and when I proposed to bring out a new edition of the "Elements" I was strongly urged by my friends not to repeat these theoretical discussions, but to confine myself in the new treatise to those parts of the "Elements" which were most indispensable to a beginner. This was to revert, to a certain extent, to the original plan of the first edition; but I found, after omitting a great number of subjects, that the necessity of bringing up to the day those which remained, and adverting, however briefly, to new discoveries, made ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... exasperated country ever rise in its might and demand his blood. It was rumoured that the Seahound was ballasted with bars of solid gold and provisioned for a two years' cruise. Mr. Buller, however, claimed that the tendency of nature was to revert to original conditions, and that some fine morning Druce would hoist the black flag, sail away, ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... I must revert to a period when the British power, having conquered the plains of India and subdued its sovereigns, paused at the foot of the Himalayas and turned its tireless energy to internal progress and development. The "line ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... think I am fully persuaded as to the propriety of making agriculture the basis of life. I see it is altogether noblest, best, and pleasantest to do so. But I should like to revert to your remark that you understood the reason why the tillage of one man brings him in an abundance of all he needs, while the operations of another fail to make husbandry a profitable employment. I would gladly hear from you an explanation of both these points, so ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... turned wild on the pampas, such animals would probably soon become extinct, or under favourable circumstances might each lose those extreme qualities which would never be called into action, and in a few generations would revert to a common type, which must be that in which the various powers and faculties are so proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure food and secure safety,—that in which by the full exercise of every part of his organization the animal can alone continue ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings— ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Old Testament betrays both Egyptian and Babylonian influences; the social hygiene is a reflex of regulations the origin of which may be traced in the Pyramid Texts and in the papyri. The regulations in the Pentateuch codes revert in part to primitive times, in part represent advanced views of hygiene. There are doubts if the Pentateuch code really goes back to the days of Moses, but certainly someone "learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians" drew it up. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... no one's help," Maraton replied quietly. "I only want to give you this earliest notice because, in your way, you do represent the people—that it is my intention to revert to my first ideas. I have arranged a tour in the potteries next week. I go straight on to Newcastle, and from there to Glasgow. I intend to preach a universal strike. I intend, if I can, to bring the shipbuilders, the coalminers, the dockers, the railroad men, out on strike, while the Sheffield ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to extract my secret, they never failed to traduce the inventor and the invention. Among the learned Societies, the Royal Society of London played a very base part. When I have more space and time at my disposal, I will revert to this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... country which claims to be the freest and most highly civilized in the world should be the last to give up "the peculiar institution." How can devotion to liberty co-exist in the mind with advocacy of servitude? This, too, is a subject to which we must revert hereafter. At the period we are now treating, there were more white than black slaves, and the princely estates of later times had not been thought of. Indeed, in spite of their marriage to liberty, the colonists did not yet feel truly at home. Marriage of a more concrete kind ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... were quickly transferred to the French ships, and the soldiers were turned loose to loot the fort. The Indians fled, among them Moses Norton's gentle daughter, now in her twenty-second year. She could not revert to the loathsome habits of savage life; she dared not go to the fort filled with lawless foreign soldiers; and she perished of starvation outside the walls. Matonabbee had been absent when the French came. He returned to find the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... first human thing you've said. Raw? Wasn't it Darwin who said that we are all such a short distance, in time, removed from our common savage ancestors that it is a wonder we don't revert oftener than we do? They were plain unadulterated females. I believe men are ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton |
