"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ormond, who saw that Ida was about to make an angry retort, and judged that the discussion had gone far enough. "Come, you boys will be late if you don't make haste with your breakfast. Are you going to play football this ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... instead of playing with it and tossing it about in a way that shall expose its absurdity or show its value. Freedom is lost with too much responsibility and seriousness, and the truth is more likely to be struck out in a lively play of assertion and retort than when all the words and sentiments are weighed. A person very likely cannot tell what he does think till his thoughts are exposed to the air, and it is the bright fallacies and impulsive, rash ventures in conversation that are often most fruitful to talker and listeners. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... passed through me as I listened to Summerlee. It was disgraceful that he should speak thus of the leader who had been the source of all our fame and given us such an experience as no men have ever enjoyed. I had opened my mouth to utter some hot retort, when Lord John ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... other saints about the Eucharist?" Or, seeing that the Bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression, "one might almost as well interpret religion as a perversion of the respiratory function." And if it is pointed out that active interest in religion synchronises with adolescence, "the retort again is easy.... The interest in mechanics, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent years along with that in poetry and religion, is also a ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... say to him that he professes an art of making appearances, he will grapple with us and retort our argument upon ourselves; and when we call him an image-maker he will say, 'Pray what do you mean at all by an image?'—and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the ...
— Sophist • Plato
... His retort, addressed to his Danish friend, Lindholm, was written and sent in such heat that it is somewhat incoherent in form, and more full of abuse than of argument, besides involving him in contradictions. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... died without issue, her companions taunt her.... One often hears women abuse their husbands or other men in the most obscene language, even on the street, and the men do not dare to make the least retort." "The wife can at any time return to her mother's house, and remain there months, sending word to her husband that he may come to her if ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... At this unexpected retort, Madame de Bergenheim lost countenance and sat speechless before the young maiden, like a pupil who has just been punished ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been slandering me?" he demanded, angered suddenly by her retort. "I have stood in a relation to you which gives me a right to demand ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... to the porter that he had no soul about him, having left that indispensable article behind in the person of his grandchild? "Then you had better go back and fetch it. There is no admission at this gate for people without souls." Such might very well be the porter's retort; and foreseeing it any man of ordinary prudence would take the precaution of recovering his lost spiritual property before presenting himself to the Warden of the Dead. This theory would sufficiently account for the otherwise ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When your guns at Cavalli with final retort Have cut ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... despair would give the disputants "a few minutes' freedom of tongue." Then he would be amused by hearing one of them saying, "Turn your back to the sahib, and let him see it still wealed with the whipping Nikalseyn gave you!" Whereupon the other would retort, "You need not talk, for your back is ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... said he, "that I retort upon him the foul and false words he has uttered against me; that I trample upon his assertions with the same scorn I feel towards himself; and that before this hour to-morrow, I will confront him to death as through life. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of a cotton bag, closed all round, save for a small opening at the side, just sufficient to allow of the mother's passage. In shape, it resembles the body of an alembic, a chemist's retort with a short lateral neck, or, better still, the foot of a stocking, with the edges brought together, but for a little round hole left at one side. The outward appearances increase the likeness: one can almost see the traces of a knitting-needle working with coarse stitches. That is why, struck ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... prances, Like a Buffalo Bill buck-jumper, When you have a "regular stumper" (Such as "silver") do not care about Perfect rhyming; "there or thereabout" Is the Muse's maxim now. You may get (bards have, I trow) Rhyme's last minimum irreducible, From dye-vat, retort, or crucible. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... a grin instead of a retort. He appreciated her sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he left the room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with him: it had drawn the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, and remained fixed; so that he vanished ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... to retort. She hung down her head, and large scalding tears fell from her eyes. Count Kinsky placed her in the carriage, closed the door, and then returned to his own travelling-chariot, which was a few paces behind. The two equipages thundered down the streets together, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... meant to go this time, and at first she was rather glad of it, since he was in such a very bad temper. She felt that he had insulted her, and if he had stayed any longer she would doubtless have called him a brute, that being the woman's retort under the circumstances. She had not the slightest doubt of being quite reconciled with him before luncheon, of course, but in her heart she wished that she had not made him angry. It had been very pleasant to watch the storm together, and when they had come to the place, ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... like that? Great Heaven! With just such accent he had heard a wrangling woman retort upon her husband at the street corner. Is there then no essential difference between a woman of this world and one of that? Does the same nature lie beneath ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... was his retort. "Some day in the near future I'll remind you of those words. The first three weeks are not arduous, I'll agree. The next twelve or fourteen days are harder, though; there are more things to think ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... great ones, Dietel was very methodical. So he continued his occupation undisturbed till an inexperienced merchant's clerk from Ulm, who wanted to ride farther speedily, accosted him and asked for some special dish. Dietel drew his belt farther down and promptly snubbed the young man with the angry retort; "Everybody must wait for his meal. We make ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... retort, Lady Montbarry approached Agnes. The presence of Henry Westwick seemed at once to relieve and embolden her. 'Permit me to ask my question, Miss Lockwood,' she said, with graceful courtesy. 'It is nothing to embarrass you. When the courier ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... her quick mind to work upon that, and then make the inconsequent retort, which he accepted as perfectly sagacious, because, in fact, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... no difference in Burke's relations with him. In 1787 a coldness arose between them. Burke had delivered a strong invective against the French Treaty. Wilberforce said, "We can make allowance for the honourable gentleman, because we remember him in better days." The retort greatly nettled Burke, but the feeling soon passed away, and they both found a special satisfaction in the dinner to which Wilberforce invited Burke every session. "He was a great man," says Wilberforce. "I could ...
— Burke • John Morley
... longitude was longitude," would be the captain's retort. "Variation and deviation are used in setting courses ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... at the retort, and not without hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet's ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence from interfering ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... collected was heated in a retort which expelled the quicksilver in vapor, which was condensed and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... thy treasures," said a tyrant to a philosopher. "Nay, that thou canst not," was the retort; "for, in the first place, I have none that thou knowest of. My treasure is in heaven, and ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... word. Words are hushed in great encounters. Debate with a pirate, a body-snatcher, would be folly; no arguments, therefore, were wasted, on the top of Nebo, by Michael, over the grave of Moses. "The Lord rebuke thee," was his retort; his heavenly form stopping the way, his baffling right arm hindering the accursed design, were the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... a phrase he had used that afternoon to the dark-eyed girl at the garden-party: "What risks we run when we scramble into the chariot of the gods!" And at the same instant he heard her retort, and saw her fine gesture of defiance. How could he ever have doubted that the thing was worth doing at whatever cost? Something in him—some secret lurking element of weakness and evasion—shrank out of sight in the light of her question: "Do you act on that?" and ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... without raising his voice. His manner, even more than his words, expressed fixed determination. Farwell lifted his eyebrows, and puckered his lips in a silent whistle. His diplomacy was turning out badly, and he repressed an inclination to retort. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... retort. Usually she was too busy to waste the time. But she allowed herself the luxury of a half ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... been talking of a fly that for a moment had buzzed by his side. The cruel indifference of his manner stung me into quick retort. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fierce retort. "D'you think I want to lose Jill? But she'll have to go some day. It's inevitable. And the only thing she could ever really love is a playmate. The finest lover in the world would never find the trick of ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... never met any one half as good as Uncle Max,' was my warm retort. 'He is the most unselfish ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the English mad; and one of Winchester's secretaries told Cauchon it was clear that he favored the girl—a charge repeated by the Cardinal's chaplain. "Thou art a liar," exclaimed the Bishop. "And thou," was the retort, "art a traitor to the King." These grave personages seemed to be on the point of going ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... answered it with a look of concentrated spite. Probably she would have risked her dignity to retort, had not Parson Babbage advanced down the ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... air bespoke a vast and settled contempt for such inanities and his iron descended against the side of the victim below him—he would not deign to reply. Not so with Johnny, who could not refrain from hot retort. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... our passage across the world, if very short, is yet too serious to be wasted in frivolous disrespect for ourselves, and angry disrespect for others. All this was actually his mind. And hence the little difficulty he had in keeping his retort to the archbishop, as to his other ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the amalgam, which was gathered and put into a stout leathern bag with a cloth bottom, and the unabsorbed mercury drained out. The amalgam, resembling lead in appearance, being now cut up into cakes, and placed under an immense retort, fire was applied; the mercury, in form of vapor, was driven through a hole in the bottom of the platform into water, where it was condensed, while the silver remained pure in the retort. This is called ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and distressed him, it was so difficult to answer. However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my metier at present." And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... the subject of his scorn had passed, and he was neither to be goaded into retort nor terrified into entreaties. Folding his arms with calmness, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... most poorly paid of all the professions," was the retort of Fred Rangely, who was lounging in a big easy chair; "except literature, that is. Even sin is said to get death for its wage, and ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... generally laughed. She did not remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl did once allow herself the retort—"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes—Alan is away a great deal—people trust him so much—he has so ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distinctly,—all added fresh subject for mirth to the torn cloak and shattered shoe, which have afforded legitimate subjects of raillery against the poor scholar from Juvenal's time downward. It was never known that Sampson either exhibited irritability at this ill usage, or made the least attempt to retort upon his tormentors. He slunk from college by the most secret paths he could discover, and plunged himself into his miserable lodging, where, for eighteenpence a week, he was allowed the benefit of a straw mattress, and, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Verdad sospechosa, which was adapted by Corneille as the Menteur. Alarcon had the misfortune to be a hunchback, to be embittered by his deformity, and to be constantly engaged in personal quarrels with his rivals; but his attitude in these polemics is always dignified, and his crushing retort to Lope de Vega in Los pechos privilegiados is an unsurpassable example of cold, scornful invective. More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcon is preoccupied with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... The table was set—she couldn't help wondering where he had found the kitchen knives and forks—the bacon was sizzling, the tin of biscuits open, and the coffee bubbling and gurgling in its glass retort. ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... have been, by no will of their own, left behind. It is to these, in no small degree, that the safety and equanimity of London have been due. And it is as well that here tribute should be paid to those who have endured without retort the sneers of the malicious and ill-informed as well as the multiplicity of extra duties the war has ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Lauragais, and was a very singular and eccentric person. He was a great Anglomane, and was the first introducer into France of horseraces 'a l'Anglaise; it was to him that Louis XV.—not pleased at his insolent Anglomanie— made so excellent a retort. The King had asked him after one of his journeys, what he had learned in England? Lauragais answered, with a kind of republican dignity, "A panser" (penser).—"Les chavaux?" inquired the King. On ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... chemistry?" asked Lindsley. But the trapper did not answer. He got out the retort, and in five minutes the oxygen was bubbling furiously through the wash bottle into the India-rubber receiver. Edwards stood at the window scanning the road toward Gager's with his telescope until it grew dark, which in that latitude was at about ten o'clock. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... The retort is effective, but it does not make Mr. Lloyd George beloved by the people to whom it is addressed. Twitting on facts ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he sometimes delights the House of Commons. Jesse had spoken of the proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that infested ancient buildings; the words derived additional significance from the fact that, as he used them, the Prime Minister directed on Jesse those luminous, large, searching eyes of his, with all their infinite capacity for expressing ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Jack, dear, and giving the captain a chance to practice command, for fear he'll not get a show in battle." The roar that saluted this retort subdued the bumptious cavalier, and he affected deep interest in the whispered questions of one of the young women in the rear ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... time past still been making a feint of running the race that wins. The retort, the interruption, the call, the reply, the surprise, had yet kept a spoilt tradition of suddenness and life. You had, indeed, to wait for an interruption in dialogue—it is true you had to wait for it; so had the interrupted ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... these two; noiseless conversations, be it understood, in which the snappy dialogue went unuttered. His sarcasm to Bulger in the matter of that ten-dollar loan was biting, ruthless, witty, invariably leaving the debtor in direst confusion with nothing to retort. Bean always had the last word, both with Bulger and Breede, turning from ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... indiscreet acts during the past twenty-four hours? The latter was not unlikely; I knew her whims and her faults by this time. In either case, I had come to feel decidedly uncomfortable, so much so, in fact, that I was content to let the innuendo pass without a retort. It behooved me to keep my temper ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... forth with fluency and zest Gracious solicitude Punctiliously civil and polite An air of sphinx-like mystery Consumed by zeal Awaited with lively interest Sledge-hammer blows against humbug This recalls a happy retort Preeminently a case in point Exquisite precision and finish Incomparably better informed A keen eye for incongruities Polite to the point of deference To the last degree improbable People with rampant ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... age, the son of a man who was at that time a candidate for office. And what I saw made me pity the Commonwealth. I saw the child dancing to the castanets, and it was a dance which one of our wretched, shameless slaves would not have danced.' On another occasion he showed a power of quick retort. As censor he had degraded a man named Asellus, whom Mummius afterwards restored to the equites. Asellus impeached Scipio, and taunted him with the unluckiness of his censorship—its mortality, &c. 'No wonder,' ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... Christopher,—trained and renowned for a useful evasiveness of retort in those far-off London days, answered mechanically: "Waiting for the fortune to ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the armed forces. Is the army to be a British army, with authority at the will of the Federal Government to enter every part of the new Union, or is Ireland to have an independent force of her own? This, again—and every specific criticism is open to the same retort—may be called a detail, but it is a detail which touches the root of the whole matter. If the Federal, that is in effect the English, Government is to retain the same control over the whole army as at present—if ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... By this time he was at the gas machine. He soon saw nothing was the matter save that new material must be placed in the retort where the vapor was generated. He refilled it, the gas was manufactured once more, and ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... meadow where her cottage stood. Before they reached it, the blind woman, whose name was Tibbie (Isobel) Dyster, had put many questions to her, and without asking one indiscreet, had yet, by her gift for fitting and fusing things in the retort of her own brain, come to a tolerably correct knowledge of her character, circumstances, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... lost out o' sight of land, John," is the cruel retort, "and that old shoe-box of yours 'ud be scared to death without a harbor to run into every time the sun clouded over. Expect to navigate to Africy with an alarm-clock and ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... escape from his presence; "Katherine secretly, you openly. Better that I had never had children. Look here, Eliza: let this matter remain in abeyance for six or twelve months, things resting as they are. By that time you may have come to your senses; or I (yes, I see you are ready to retort it) to mine. If not—well, we shall only then be where ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... the speaker from it; but it was so obvious that I could not clear myself of the imputation cast upon me in that way that I surrendered the idea in the very instant in which it occurred to me. I searched in my own mind for a retort, but I searched in vain; and I spent a good part of that night in the invention of scorching phrases. But the exercise afforded me no relief, and on the following day I sat down and wrote my first newspaper article. We had in our new-made borough, in those days, one ineffective, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... perused the preceding pages. Considering that it was Perron's own employer who kept the Imperial House in penury and durance, it was the extreme of impudence for one of Perron's compatriots to retort the charge upon the English, to whom Shah Alam was indebted for such brief gleams of good fortune as he had ever enjoyed, and whose only offence against him had been a fruitless attempt to withhold him from that premature return to Dehli, which had been the beginning of his worst misfortunes. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... been sitting at the same table with him, and as they walked along together Redoutez declared that he was finally in possession of the famous secret. Arriving in his laboratory, he threw pieces of iron into a retort, made a projection, and obtained crystals the colour of blood. The other examined the salts and made a flippant remark. The alchemist, furious, threw himself upon him, struck him with a hammer, and had to be overpowered and ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... remarks on the same subject cannot be forgotten; and other critics of the highest reputation have concurred in ascribing to Collins a conception and genius scarcely exceeded by any English poet. To say that Sir Egerton Brydges's Essay exaggerates the merit of some of his productions may produce the retort which has been made to Johnson's criticism, that he was too deficient in feeling to be capable of appreciating the excellence of the pieces which he censures. It is not, however, inconsistent with a high respect for Collins, to ascribe every possible praise to that unrivaled production, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... characters are thrilled, like housewives reminded by their husband that they have forgotten to order it at the "lowest summer prices." No doubt the author will say that after all coal is coal, and may be reminded of the plaintive retort by the little girl in Punch that "mother said the last lot was nearly all slates." Willie talks of making a million out of the purchase; he is fortified in his views by the fact that the Great Central Railway is going to run through part of the property. Writers of fiction are apt ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... work, replied, "Is not that Lorenzo there? Can he do nothing? And I marvel at you as well." Then the Wardens answered, "He will do naught without thee"; and Filippo retorted, "But I could do well without him." This retort, so acute and double-edged, was enough for them, and they went their way, convinced that Filippo was ill from nothing but the desire to work alone. They sent his friends, therefore, to get him out of bed, with the intention of removing ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... similar parliamentary style. He would not say, he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not say, he was disgusted (cheers). He would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against him (renewed cheering); he would not allude to men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread, boned the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Salmasius in mental power as he was inferior to him in extent of book knowledge. But the conditions of retort which he had chosen to accept neutralised this superiority. His greater power was spent in a greater force of invective. Instead of setting out the case of the Parliament in all the strength of which it was capable, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the worse for Scripture,' was the unguarded, yet honest, retort of Mr. Penrose; and Dr. Hale laid a kind hand on the young minister's shoulder ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... an oil found in certain plants, mostly from the camphor laurel. This oil is separated from the plant, and then undergoes the process of refining. It is mixed with water, and then boiled in a sort of retort. It makes steam, which is allowed to escape through a small aperture, which is then closed, and the camphor becomes solid in the upper part of the vessel. This is the article ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... same debate, that he produced that happy retort upon Mr. Pitt, which, for good-humored point and seasonableness, has seldom, if ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... aimed at the negro man, and outrage every sense of decency in foul language addressed to the negro woman; but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst. The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known overseer of the cotton region, who was always coarse and often brutal, sure to be profane, and scarcely knowing the border-line ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for a time Lewis tried to rally Nita about what he styled her sympathy with the chamois-hunter, but Nita did not retort with her wonted sprightliness; the flow of her spirits was obviously checked, and did not return during their ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... The ready retort with which she had learned to parry these personalities was not forthcoming. She felt as she had that day five years ago in his father's office, when she told him what she thought of him. He smiled up at her with the same irresponsible light in his ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... "What fools you women are," said he, angrily: "you know nothing of business. I would work my fingers to the bone for you: I would give up my life for you: but you can't expect a man to sacrifice his honor for a woman." Her retort is one of the greatest in literature. "Millions ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... an unbeliever, a materialist, yourself," was the bold retort. "Do as you please, but you can't drag me into your money calculations." The swift slam of the door left them ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... heart, even this thought, Let Christ go, if He will: so when I was fallen under the guilt for this, the remembrance of my other thought, and of the effect thereof, would also come upon me with this retort, which also carried rebuke along with it, Now you may see that God doth know the most secret ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... fingers from time to time, taking aim, boring the ceiling with his gaze, filing the prison bars. By his restlessness, he had tired out the soldiers who watched him through the little window, and who, several times, in despair, had threatened to shoot. Tsiganok would retort, coarsely and derisively, and the quarrel would end peacefully because the dispute would soon turn into boorish, unoffending abuse, after which shooting would ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... shoulders, made some critical remark about the place accorded Balzac's letters to Madam Hanska, which caused Georgia to retort that perhaps it would be better if people arranged their own libraries, and then they could put things where they wanted them. Then after she had given a resting place to what she denounced as some very disreputable French ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... lips to say that it was time that the questioner was in his bed, but it is not safe upon a campaign to be ironical at the expense of khaki-clad men. He contented himself, therefore, with the bald statement that it was after two. But no retort that he could have devised could have had a more crushing effect. The voice turned drunken also, and the man caught at the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forever to reach it," was the half-growled retort. "I ain't chasin' sunsets. Here's Happy Walley—my Happy Walley, right below us, and the smoke you see curlin' up th'oo the trees is ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... retort he may have contemplated was checked by the accents of Authority and the tapping of an ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... quickness and aptness in retort, have gathered about his name in England. Many of them indicate a mere spirit of boyish fun. Early in his Ambassadorship he was spending a few days at Stratford-on-Avon, his hostess being an American woman who had beautifully ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... A retort from Leonard was welcome in Ethel's ears, and she quite developed his conversational powers, in an argument on the sagacity of all canine varieties. It was too late to send the little animal home; and he fondled and played with it till ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... extended marine of Great Britain, which the desperate act of declaring war invited? Would Canada compensate the middle States for New York, or the Western States for New Orleans? They would not be deceived! A war of invasion might invite a retort of invasion. When Americans visited the peaceable, and, to Americans, the innocent colonies of Great Britain, with the horrors of war, could Americans be assured that their own coast would not be visited with like horrors. At such a crisis ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... that words used in retort, although more violent and disrespectful than those first used, will not satisfy,—words being no satisfaction ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson
... down in extenso because some fifty books will be discussed in this work, which emanate from German universities. A neutral reader may retort: You also are not impartial, for you are an Englishman! Having anticipated the question, the author ventures to give an answer. If he could make a destructive attack on Britain's policy—the attack would be made without the least hesitation. Such an attack, if ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... of some Yankee skippers who've given a bad name to your infernal shipping, an' I reckon I've run up against one. But no fear! I recognize you as our saviour, an' won't say a word, sir. The retort courteous, as the saying is, would be a crack on the jaw of such a fellow, but I don't say as I'll do it, sir. There's some fellows as needs rippin' up the back, but you bein' captain of this here ship, I won't ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... his position in his chair. "What could I say, if it were discussed?" he made vague retort. "I'm merely one of the Directors. You are our Chairman, but you see he hasn't found it of any use to discuss it with you. There are hard and fast rules about these things. They run their natural course. You are not ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... certain honoured guest, he parenthetically explains that this academical convive is the "Baron de B.-W.!" Erreur! I, the Baron de B.-W., being of sound mind and body, hereby declare that the Baron himself was not present. And why? Well, do my readers remember the honest milk-maid's retort to the coxcomb who said he wouldn't marry her? Good. Then, substituting "me" for "you," and "he" for "she," the Baron can adopt the maiden's reply. After this, other reasons would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... discovered a suitable retort, but, coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to repartees, ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... were no other articles of furniture in the room. A pair of skeletons stood facing each other, one at each side of the mirror, and their ghastly appearance, duplicated in the mirror, added to the unnatural effect. Near the table was a small portable furnace upon which stood a peculiarly shaped retort, and from this, issued a ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... tried their rifles at a mark, Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five; Sometimes their wits at sally and retort, With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle; Or parties scaled the near acclivities Competing seekers of a rumored lake, Whose unauthenticated waves we named Lake Probability,—our carbuncle, Long sought, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... face fell at the retort; then he broke into a laugh. He adored Undine's "smartness," which was of precisely the same quality as his own. "Oh, that's another thing: you can always trust me ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... marvelous rapidity; and the other progressed in fits and starts and stops? Why did a million and a half Canadians—or one-fourth the native population—leave Canada for the United States? The Canadian retort always is—for the same reason that two million Americans have left the United States for Canada—to better their position. But the point is—why was it these million and a half Canadians found better opportunities ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... stolen Borrowing of slaves Bourne, George, anecdote of Boy killed Boys' fight to amuse their drivers Bowie Knives Boys' retort Brandings Branding with hot iron Brasses "Breeders" Breeding of slaves prevented "Breeding wenches" " " comparative value of Bribes for begetting slaves Brick-yards "Broken-winded" slaves Brutality to slaves Brutes and slaves treated alike Burial of slaves Burning of McIntosh Burning slaves Burning ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the charge our enemies bring against us. We feel, but don't reason, they say. We have much reason to retort, 'You reason, but have no feeling and little comprehension for those that have.' Come, I will be serious now," and his expression became grave and firm. "Cousin Sophy, Mr. Houghton will never give me a penny, nor would I take a gift from him even if starving, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... why Henriette greeted this observation with a peal of silvery laughter that fairly made the welkin ring. All I know is that it so irritated me that I left the room to keep from making a retort that might seriously have disturbed our friendship. Later in the day, Mrs. Van Raffles rang for me and I ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... and never surely without great profit from his having been "drawn." His apparent triumph—if it be even apparent—still leaves, it will be noted, convenient cover for retort in the riddled face of the opposite stronghold. The last word in these cases is for nobody who can't pretend to an ABSOLUTE test. The terms here used, obviously, are matters of appreciation, and there is no short cut ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... relish the retort; for he replied stiffly, "If so, they are at least at the other end of the world, and not likely to trouble you. That is surely something in ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and so moved his tender regard for his friend's honour, that he declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which he did consider, under the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and no quarrels are your quarrels. That is about the truth, I fancy!" was the smart retort; which our champion rendered more emphatic by a playful lunge that caused the big bully to ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... her husband and I would quarrel. She knew well how opposite our sympathies were; she could not understand that our arguments were wholly lacking in personal animus. When I told him of the Allies' growing superiority in aircraft Rhubarb would retort by showing me clippings about the German trench fortifications, the "pill boxes" made of solid cement. I would speak of the deadly curtain fire of the British; he would counter with mysterious allusions to Krupp. And his ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... the PAST few!" she replied, with a bitterness which overrode her satisfaction in the effectiveness of the retort. "Surprised! I'd like to know who wouldn't be surprised when half the town acts like it's gone crazy. People PRAISIN' that fellow, that nobody in their sober minds and senses never in their lives had a good word for before! Why, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... throat cut before to-morrow morning; and you've talked such nonsense, sir, that I don't know whether that wouldn't be the best thing for me to do." I never saw a Padgett, M.P., collapse more completely than did this unfortunate specimen of the race under a retort which, however wanting in urbanity, was ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... attack, how can we blame him? Are we not quite as bad in hitting back? To be sure, he began it. But did he? How do we know what roused him? Then, too, he might have poured volleys of abuse upon us, and not provoked an angry retort, if the temper had not been latent within us, to begin with. So it is with minor matters. In direct proportion to our freedom from others is our power for appreciating their good points; just in proportion to our slavery to their tricks ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... less at the justice of the retort than at the humiliation of being put out of countenance by a woman from whom he desired no less a gift ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "That's a good retort," I admitted. "A few days; that's all. And we can't get out to procure any more; and we can't go shooting, because the wood's infested with these ruff—I beg pardon—with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... Allspice's appeal to the consciences and the pockets of the pudding-eating public. 'If you are wise,' said the admonitory placard, 'you will lose no time in joining Allspice's Plum-pudding Club.' Remembering the retort of a celebrated quack: 'Give me all the fools that come this way for my customers, and you are welcome to the wise men,' we must own we felt rather doubtful of the prosperity of the puddings; but having an interest ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed from none less that Mrs. Marvin ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... heard, but said nothing. She knew the boys were a little inclined to boast, and she thought Virginia's sharp tongue might have a good effect. But the retort had grown somewhat sharper than was pleasant, and, fearing a quarrel might follow if she did not interrupt the ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you speak frequent words of commendation to those about you? Do those you claim to love often hear you talking in love's language, Or is your softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest, While the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with those you ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the indignant retort. "When I got up the man was still on the stairs leading to this floor, and I picked up the great shears which had tumbled out of me hand and heaved thim at him. I had brought the shears up to cut ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... weeds grow thick among the flowers, And make the best of sunny hours; The drums are silent; fifes are mute; No tones are raised in high dispute; No hearty laughter's cheerful sound Announces fun and frolic round. Here's comic Alan's wit wants sport; And dark-eyed Bessie's quick retort Is spent on Nellie, mild and sweet; And dulness reigns along the street. The table's lessened numbers bring No warm discussion's changeful ring, Of hard-won goal, or slashing play, Or colours blue, or brown, or gray. The chairs stand ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... converse over his master's wine?"—"Not unwillingly," replied the nag. "But in any case he would have Isuke and this lazy groom make better and more frequent use of broom and bucket. The good offices of Abe Dono are requested." By this retort courteous the two noblemen were silenced and amused. Uncertain as to the course of further converse with the beast Okumura made salutation, mounted and departed homewards. As he gave the horse into the groom's charge he said—"It is for Kakunai to keep in mind the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... none of your cheek,' was the shockingly feeble retort which alone occurred to him. The other said nothing. ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... no doubt, Mistress Hall," said Collet, driven to retort as she rarely did, "if you'd had the world to make, it'd ha' been mortal grand, and all turned out spic-span: look you, the old saw saith, 'Bachelors' wives be always well-learned,' and your lads be angels, that's sure, seein' ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... different temperatures; a certain degree of heat will, therefore, dispose a metal to combine with oxygen, whilst, on the contrary, the former will be compelled to part with the latter, when the temperature is further increased. I have put some oxyd of manganese into a retort, which is an earthen vessel with a bent neck, such as you see here. (PLATE VII. Fig. 2.) —The retort containing the manganese you cannot see, as I have enclosed it in this furnace, where it is now red-hot. But, ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... respect to the great Apostle," writes one of them, "one may be allowed to express his regret that St. Paul has not said less about the Church and more about the Kingdom."[28] To which I hope one may be forgiven if he is tempted to retort that the great apostle probably knew what he was about as well as his modern critic can tell him. We shall do well to pause, and pause again, before we accept any interpretation of the facts of the New Testament which implies that we to-day have a better understanding ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... to retort in any other way, yet in uncontrollable recklessness, she exclaimed, "They never shall see me hang, then!" and swallowed the arsenic she had ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Gas Works with its immense gas-holders, retort-houses, its own special canal and railway approaches, covers an area of about twenty-six acres, extending almost from Dartmouth Street to Aston Road. Though there can be no grand architectural features about such an establishment ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... having borrowed some intelligence in this matter from them, but nobody could say they knew of the thing itself what I writ. This, I confess, however, do trouble me, for that he seemed to speak it as a quick retort, and it must sure be Will. Howe, who did not see anything of what I writ, though I told him indeed that I would write; but in this, I think, there is no great hurt. I find him, though he cannot but owne ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... fresh roar of laughter, and the boys watched Dominic Braydon, who stood frowning, to see if he would make some sharp retort, verbal or physical, and perhaps get thrashed again. But he concealed his annoyance, and ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Frenchman. "It is a poor valor to insult a helpless captor. Can he retort upon his own victim? But it is for you to think of what I say. True, I am not reco'nize on the parade; that my frien's who come here do not present me to their ladies; that Meestaire Nash has reboff' me in the pomp-room; still, am I not known for being ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... of retort referred to is merely a large tube, closed at one end, and with a screw coupling at the other; the dimensions may be conveniently about 5 inches by 10. The screw threads should be filled with fireclay (as recommended by Faraday) before the joint is screwed up. Before ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... careful to speak of their own services as "Divine worship": how Mr. Jones went so far, in his Washington's Birthday Speech, as to compliment the architectural effect of "the old meeting-house on the green, that venerable monument of an earnest period of dissent," to which Mr. Hopkins made the retort courteous by giving thanks, in his prayer on the same occasion, for "the gracious memories of fraternal intercourse which still hallowed the little brown chapel beside the cemetery": how all these strokes and counterstrokes ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... more in their estimation than does Mr. Jefferson's evident devotion to them all or my impartial compliments and gallantry. But beware! Madame de St. Andre is no woman if she does not try to retaliate for that retort of yours." ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... divined that he wished to be cheeky. His mentor had said so much to Fluff and him about the propriety of not putting on "lift" or "side" in the presence of an older boy, that he had choked back a retort which occurred to him. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... and Julian the Apostate; but, above all, Settle and Shadwell, whom, under the names of Doeg and Og, he has depicted in the liveliest colours his poignant satire could afford. They who have patience to look into the lampoons which these worthies had published against Dryden, will, in reading his retort, be reminded of the combats between the giants and knights of romance. His antagonists came on with infinite zeal and fury, discharged their ill-aimed blows on every side, and exhausted their strength ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... did not expect her return so soon; but, oddly enough, it did not strike her as being singular to see her there. Vexed as she had felt with her all day for going, and rather glad, in her woman's way, to have something entirely different from the genuine casus belli to hang a retort upon, my wife said: "Well, Harriet, I should have thought another dress would have done quite as well for your picnic as that best black silk you have on." My wife was the elder of the twain, and had always assumed a little of the air of counsellor to her sister. Black silks were thought a great ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various |
