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More "Retract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... retract my words in asking you if you feared to go to the fort as courier, for your volunteering as driver proves that ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... late to retract, Rigdon perceived with dismay that, instead of acquiring a silly bondsman, he had subjected himself to a superior will; he was now himself a slave, bound by fear and interest, his two great guides through life. Smith consequently became, instead of Rigdon, "the elect of God," ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... be some, who, struck with the force of the arguments I have adduced on the one hand, and entangled in their favourite prejudices on the other, will remain in a kind of suspence; ashamed to retract their former opinions, but too honest to deny all weight and consideration to those I have defended. To these I have one word to say, and with that one word I will conclude. I will suppose you ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... you are robbed, as I will presently prove to you.... But no; I retract the word; we must avoid an expression which is violent; perhaps indeed incorrect; inasmuch as this spoliation, wrapped in the sophisms which disguise it, is practiced, we must believe, without the intention of the spoiler, and with the consent ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... am not returning to England to retract what I said to Nugent. I still leave him free to plead his own cause with Lucilla in his own person. I am still resolved not to distress myself and distress them, by returning to Dimchurch. But I have a longing that ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... possible offender in mind," replied Mr. Morton more evenly. "In a case of this kind we must proceed with such absolute caution and reserve that we will not be obliged to retract afterwards in ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... I been charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent and nothing to conceal—nothing to retract and nothing to countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... in this battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high emotions—and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas and emotions of genius. Only by conceiving ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Natural, and the Soft with the Strong and the Eloquent—-thatnever Sentiments were finer, and fuller of Life! never any were utter'd so sweetly!—-Even in what relates to the pious and frequent Addresses to God, I now retract (on these two last Revisals) the Consent I half gave, on a former, to the anonymous Writer's Proposal, who advis'd the Author to shorten those Beauties.——Whoever considers his Pamela with a View ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... serve to enrich you; but the other hundred and ninety pieces, which you would make me believe you hid in a pot of bran, might." "Sir," answered I, "I have told you the truth in regard to both sums: you would not have me retract, to make myself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... wanted to retract before his death, is a notion not uncommon among paradoxers. Nevertheless, there is no retraction in the third edition of the Principia, published when Newton was eighty-four years old! The moral of the above is, that a gentleman who prefers instructing William Herschel ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... many pious men among them, and myself." But God said: "I have vowed that 'He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed,' and a vow that has once passe My lips, I can not retract." Moses replied: "O Lord of the world! Has not Thou given us the law of absolution from a vow, whereby power is given to a learned man to absolve any one from his vows? But every judge who desires to have his decisions accounted valid, must subject himself to the law, and Thou ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... found their way into the great hall where the Emperor and the chief princes, bishops, and nobles of the land were sitting, when Dr Martin Luther, replied to the chancellor of Treves, the orator of the Diet, who demanded whether he would retract the opinions put forth in numerous books he had published ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... about me. Choose now, and abide by that choice without a shadow of turning, as I abide by mine. Take me as I am; help me willingly and unwillingly; and in the end receive the promised gift—years like the days you have called heaven upon earth. Or retract the vows you plighted, receive again the heart and name you gave me, and live unvexed by the stormy nature time alone can tame. Here is the ring. Shall I restore ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... became aware that his sister was present, and had heard his denunciation of her husband. But it was too late to retract, and he would not if he could. Truth-telling, like the cauterizing of the snake's bite, must sometimes be done, no matter what the immediate suffering. His eyes sought Winifred's, misty with apprehension, admiration, love. And Charlie? His temple pulse beat visibly in his effort to control his ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... why think her dead? The captain was wandering when he said those sad things; perhaps he will retract them when he is sane. Don't despair; ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... no joking matter," began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... with such a matter. I have enough on my hands to keep the enemy at a distance, and I want every one's help. But as soon as we are relieved— if we ever are—I am bound, unless Captain Roby and the corporal retract all they have said and attribute it to delirium—I am bound, I say, to call the attention of my superiors to the matter. I shall do so unwillingly, but I must. Out of respect to your brother officers, and for your sake as well, I cannot let this matter slide. It would ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... the usual pessaries are very inconvenient and ineffectual. A piece of soft sponge about two inches diameter introduced into the vagina gives great ease to these patients, and supports the uterus; it should have a string put through it to retract ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... its confidence in the administration. Lord John Russell opposed the amendment with great vehemence, pronouncing the acceptance of it, if it should be accepted, and the House should thus consent "to retract its previous vote, a lamentable proof of subserviency, which would disgrace it with the country." What Sir Robert now asked was, substantially, that they should now declare that to be expedient which they had declared to be inexpedient only three ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... more than the love of God. This answer did not quell the dissidents, but caused them to murmur more loudly against him, and Jesus, though he must have seen that he was about to lose some disciples, would retract nothing. The Scriptures are, he repeated, but the love of God. He that came to betray him said: and the Gentiles that haven't the Scriptures? Jesus answered that all men that have the love of God in ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... his wife. He had to retract all his former arguments and emphasize the one simple fact, namely, the love for his child, (regulated by ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Motives, may be one Reason why we are naturally averse to the launching out into a Man's Praise till his Head is laid in the Dust. Whilst he is capable of changing, we may be forced to retract our Opinions. He may forfeit the Esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different Light from what he does at present. In short, as the Life of any Man cannot be call'd happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced vicious or virtuous, before the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a limited power, may err without causing great mischief in the State. Congress may decide amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... considerably short of the highest. Since the publication of the conclusion of the Homilies the question has been set at rest. Hilgenfeld, who had hitherto been a determined advocate of the negative theory, at once gave up his ground [Endnote 288:1]; and Volkmar, who had somewhat less to retract, admitted and admits [Endnote 288:2] that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be considered as proved. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' stands alone in still resisting this conviction [Endnote 288:3], but the result I suspect will be only to show in stronger ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... gave voice to conscience. He had bidden her go, when, perchance, a word would have checked her. Should he write, or even go to her straightway and retract what he had said? His will prevailed, and he ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... of the Guard looked at them, then they looked at Grey Dick and gave him a wide berth. Also Ambrosio said something about having offered to fight a man and not a fiend. But it was too late to retract, for the Doge, taking, as was natural, no share in this small matter, had already ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... firmly repeated Nell; for she dared not retract, lest she awaken suspicion. "I am quite sure it was Cork I ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... betrayed by his confusion to answer as ALMORAN, smote his breast, and replied in an agony, 'It is hopeless!' Osmyn remarked his emotion and despair, with, a concern and astonishment that ALMORAN observed, and at once recollected his situation. He endeavoured to retract such expressions of trouble and despondency, as did not suit the character he hid assumed; and telling Osmyn that he thanked him for his friendship; and would improve the advantages it offered him, he directed him to acquaint the eunuchs that they were to admit him to ALMEIDA. ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... if the state of things did not admit of making war on him, he ought to be got rid of at any price and in any way whatsoever." For having, not published, but thought and with his own hand written out all this, and probably taught it to his pupils, Father Guignard was obliged to retract, and was afterwards hanged in the Place de Greve on the 7th of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... simple, general; you must say that you retract what you have said, and are very sorry for ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... was removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... to love her? Sometimes she would glance at another phase of the picture: That Lionel had been growing to love her; but that Sibylla Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract. She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away, or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory, regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances were not ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... accept your apology now. Neither your spirit nor mine is right. And I cannot retract. ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... control and correction by superior courts, and because it is "one of their three grand principles which disclaimeth the binding of themselves for the future unto their present judgement and practice, and avoucheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract."[268] Some who think that, after all recent changes, they more truly hold the opinions of Gillespie than we do, have laid it down very dogmatically that even although the constitution of a national church were in ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... the hearts of the whole country are with her. A few days ago some one said to me that every woman should stand with bared head before Susan B. Anthony. 'Yes,' I answered, 'and every man as well.' I would not retract these words. I believe that man has benefited by her work as much as woman. For ages he has been trying to carry the burden of life's responsibilities alone and when he has the efficient help of woman he will be grateful. Just now it is new ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... head. She was fast losing her composure. She would have given the world to retract what she had said, and accordingly she ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... I kneel, I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a man whose presence is a source of gratification. If artful, she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. Now, it is only the parents and near relations of a young woman who can be witnesses to her real character, unless it be, indeed, her own maid, whom one could ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Connection between Grace and Duty, in which he held that the right use of those intellectual and spiritual gifts which God has imparted to us is the condition of his further blessings. He was compelled to retract his heresy. Ten Broek, of Rotterdam, considered only the death of Christ expiatory, while his colleagues wished the same to be said of every act of his life. Because that rash theologian ventured to use the word "world," ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... of them back. Did they wish to insult him? He meant in the plainest, most unmistakable manner, and with the fullest knowledge of what he was doing, to take all the responsibility of the alleged insult on his own shoulders, and he had nothing to retract. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... against Dryden. See the account of it given in Macaulay's Comic Dramatists of the Restoration.] because in many things he has taxed me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... possibility has been discussed in the chapter on Affect.] His description seems perhaps to include cases which we would regard as perplexity states or absorbed manias. Activity is reduced, they lie in bed mute, do not answer, may retract shyly at any approach, but on the other hand may not ward off pin pricks. Sometimes there is catalepsy and lack of will, again there may be aimless resistance to external interference. They hold anything put into ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... "I will retract," said Leicester, whispering to me, and gazing ardently at Dorothy's ankles. "God has made something more beautiful than Mistress Vernon's arms. By Venus! I suppose that in His omnipotence He might ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... imagery, and according to differences of knowledge and mental cultivation. All language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from the Latin verb ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to be incapable of business. His revengeful eye and nervous movements denoted a troubled mind. When our hands met, I found the Mongo's cold and clammy. I refused wine under a plea of illness; and when, with incoherent phrases and distracted gestures, he declared his willingness to retract his refusal and accept a share of the Felix's cargo, I thought it best to adjourn the discussion until the following day. Whilst on the point of embarking, I was joined by the faithless servant, whom I bribed to aid me ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Frederic to exert his utmost skill. The peculiar danger of his situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... than the bad!' This is a bit of Faraday's innermost nature; and as I read these words I am almost constrained to retract what I have said regarding the fire and excitability of his character. But is he not all the more admirable, through his ability to tone down and subdue that fire and that excitability, so as to render himself able to write thus as a little child? I once ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... his general charges he had nothing to retract. His representations had not been too strongly stated, for the most disgraceful circumstances were those which rested upon public notoriety, or upon his own personal knowledge. It had been stated that he had overestimated the number of prisoners, ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince and people asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a temporal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... It is not that I am more exempt from youthful folly than others. Born with a heart too susceptible for my peace, I am continually guilty of irregularities, that I immediately wish, but am unable to retract. But friendship, in however frail a bosom she resides, cannot permit her own follies to dispense her from guarding those she ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... character. The style certainly suffers, for Malthus was not a master of the literary art; he inserts his additions with little care for the general effect. He tones down some of the more vivid phrases which had given offence, though he does not retract the substance. A famous passage[224] in the second edition, in which he speaks of 'nature's mighty feast,' where, unluckily, the 'table is already full,' and therefore unbidden guests are left to starve, was suppressed in the later ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... press in it, and therefore I excepted them; but I do not know there are any errors of mine in it, and therefore cannot except them. But," added I, "if thou pleasest to show me any error of mine in it, I shall readily both acknowledge and retract it;" and thereupon I desired him to give me an instance, in any one passage in that book, wherein he thought I had erred. He said he needed not go to particulars, but charge me with the general contents of the whole book. I replied that such a charge would be too general for me to give a particular ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... do with me: it was you who said just now that the Fates ordained everything. Have you thought better of it? Are you going to retract what you said? Are the Gods going to push Destiny aside and make ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... fourth century, to disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount was one.(384) The mention of two of the papers in it will explain the views ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... explains to his wife, "We will proceed no further in this business." Then must Lady Macbeth rebuke him as a coward, no longer trust his love, if he, when time and place so wait upon him, retract from his purpose. She lays on the strongest accent, yes, ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... Father of European History, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express." A nearer acquaintance with the great epic bard of Persia had now taught him therefore to retract the assertion he had made in his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, that "the hero, as it is called, of the poem, was that well known Hercules of the Persians, named Rustem; although there are several other heroes, or warriors, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... that he must die. But do kings use to die for captive slaves? Yet we were such when Jesus died to save's. Yea, when he made himself a sacrifice, It was that he might save his enemies. And though he was provoked to retract His blest resolves for such so good an act, By the abusive carriages of those That did both him, his love, and grace oppose; Yet he, as unconcerned with such things, Goes on, determines to make captives kings; Yea, many of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... innocent of all crime was murdered by a mob in that region. Mr. Loving denounced the murder and the murderers in his paper. He received an anonymous letter apparently written by an educated person, threatening him with death, if he did not retract what he had said. In the next issue of his paper he published an equally stern arraignment of the lynchers and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... disliked hastening its victory at the expense of bad feeling. He was shrewd, practical—maliciously practical, many thought. When, in the heat of one of his perorations, a flash of his hidden fires would arouse the distrust of the conservative, he would appear to retract and try to smother the flames in a cloud of conciliatory smoke. Only the restraining hand of Lincoln prevented him from committing fatal blunders at the outset of the Civil War, yet his handling of the ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... what heart find virtue? And why not consummate your sin? why pause ere your noble and virtuous resolution was put in force? why hesitate in the accomplishment of your designs? Why not fly with your honourable lover, and thus wring the fond hearts of your parents at once to the utmost? Why retract now, when it will be only to delude again? Miserable and deluded girl, what new whim has caused this sudden change? Wherefore wait till it be too late to repent—to persuade us that you are an unwilling abettor ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Devon ventured to use in support of Lord Stanley's bill, were those of Mr Balfe, chairman of the "committee of grievances;" a discharged dragoon, who was contradicted in almost every statement he made by the most respectable persons on their oaths, and who was obliged to retract some voluntarily; and of Mr Byrne, of the value of whose opinion, or whose statements, we can form some estimate, from the following extract from the evidence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... die in that battle; that he had long wished for death, and waited for an opportunity of obtaining it without staining his own character by the cowardice of suicide, or distressing me by an act of butchery. This event gave the finishing stroke to my afflictions;—yet let me retract;—another misfortune awaited me when I least expected one. The Chevalier de Menon died without a will, and his brothers refused to give up his estate, unless I could produce a witness of my marriage. I returned to Sicily, and, to my inexpressible ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken the ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... about it; but the Doctor was of course prepared to admit that her quietness might mean volumes. She had told Morris Townsend that she would not mention him to her father, and she saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion. It was no more than decently civil, of course, that after having dined in Washington Square, Morris should call there again; and it was no more than natural that, having been kindly received on this occasion, he should continue to present himself. He had ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... Don Augustin, "why set forth all these considerations? After my promise has been given, I never retract my word. But it is only to the Duke de Armada I have engaged myself, and he alone can free me from that engagement. Are you satisfied ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand times to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be your destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to your welcome home." Without one retorting word, or frown from her brow, she yielded to the entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness of her former character she went along with the silver lamp of age, to the home of candor and benevolence. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... another hint at the same time: that as soon as the pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... His head is hard as a flint, and his heart—never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, and lodgings. If you are willing to ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that the army amounted at least to 50,000 horse, besides a vast host of foot. The sultan would now have delayed his expedition, as the enemy possessed all the ferries of the Kistnah, but that his tents were pitched, and it would have been disgraceful to retract from his declarations He therefore marched with 7000 horse, all foreign, and encamped on the bank of the river opposite to the enemy, waiting to prepare floats to cross ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... day Coronado made a second call on Clara and her Aunt Maria, to retract, contradict, and disprove all that he had said in favor of the isthmus and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... alarm, and as the man hesitated and refused, struck him with his fist. This man afterwards gained great credit for his conduct, as it was thought that by it he had saved the whole camp from being thrown into an uproar. As Kleitus would not retract what he had said, his friends seized him and forced him out of the room. But he re-entered by another door, and in an offensive and insolent tone began to recite the passage from the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... alone and despairing. So many blows had struck her that she hardly knew from which she suffered most. How she longed to retract the words she had spoken, to take from Andree even the chance of the happiness which she still hoped she would refuse; but if she refused, would not the king's suspicions reawaken, and everything seem only the worse for this falsehood? She dared not ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... Westbrook. "You work up to your climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I don't know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush that I have so often ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... in what would seem to us a very harsh way; but from the standpoint of the council he was given every advantage. By special favor he was granted a public hearing. The council was anxious that Huss should retract; but no form of retraction could be arranged to which he would agree. The council, in accordance with the usages of the time, demanded that he should recognize the error of all the propositions which they had selected from his writings, that ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... them there if they will do me the honor to become my guests," returned Archdale. Then something that he had heard came back to him, and brought a sudden frown to his face, but it was too late to retract. So, after he had made his friends comfortable at an inn, for they were to dine before starting on their journey, he wrote his invitation and dispatched it by his servant with instructions to bring back an answer. "If the rumor I heard is true, he ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... myself even the poor consolation of a Frankfort cigar. So matters went on for nearly a year. I became a morose and melancholy man. This will account for all the bitter and ill-natured things I said of the Germans in some of my sketches, every word of which I now retract. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... as it left his lips, and felt the immeasurable depth of it, but he had not time to retract before every personal consideration was wiped from his mind by a cry from Isabel in a very different accent—"Lawrence! oh! look ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that Count Schwarzenberg is so inimically ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... as soon as he spoke. But his blood was up, and before Drew's menacing attitude he would not retract. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... that the King of England had determined to close with the proposal of a defensive alliance. De Witt had not expected so speedy a resolution, and his countenance indicated surprise as well as pleasure. But he did not retract; and it was speedily arranged that England and Holland should unite for the purpose of compelling Lewis to abide by the compromise which he had formerly offered. The next object of the two statesmen was to induce another government ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cause to cry Repentance to his liberty. No, thou knowest order, ethics, and has read All economics, know'st to lead A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show How far a figure ought to go, Forward or backward, sideward, and what pace Can give, and what retract a grace; What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees With those thy primitive decrees, To give subsistence to thy house, and proof What Genii support thy roof, Goodness and Greatness; not the oaken piles; For these and marbles have their whiles To last, but not their ever; virtue's ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... frankness evidently embarrassing to all present, Mr HAGERUP pointed out the two only possible alternatives with reference to the decision; to retract, or to rupture. The latter alternative he evidently found most acceptable, and in Norway's real interest, he warned them as to what the issue might be. He proposed that the decision with respect to these eventualities—which might exceed both the Constitution and the Act of ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... the future, I may as well tell you now that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside that ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... pass the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back to ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the highest stations. Besides, it is a presumption inherent in the Parisians to believe that they never can be mistaken. To reason with them on taste is useless; it is impossible to compel them to retract when they have once said "Cela ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... good that I may do, some little favor. And yet—Thy will be done," she added brokenly, then trembled lest that Will should refuse the one request which seemed to promise any relief; trembled, but did not retract. "I will wait, I will trust," she said, and looked into the depths beyond the stars with no fear that her prayer would fall back into itself like a sound which, finding no home, returns weary, and robbed of its meaning and strength. She knew that the something which fell upon her was forgiveness ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... articles, he replied, charged him with teaching things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but such unconditional ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... compelled either by force or by authority to affix their signatures to it. But, to talk of enforcing submission to a Roman Catholic confession is idle, so long as the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine do not retract their own adhesion to the Augsburg Confession lately given in with such protestations to a German prince. The charge of countenancing the breaking of images the prince would answer by pointing to the penalties he ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... party, and his pupil, Vincent of Lerins, author of Commonitorium, written 434. The chief Augustinians were Hilary and Prosper of Aquitaine. The discussion was not continuous. About 475 it broke out again when Lucidus was condemned at a council at Lyons and forced to retract his predestinarian views; and again about 520. The matter received what is regarded as its solution in the Council of Orange, 529, confirmed by Boniface II in 531. By the decrees of this council so much of the Augustinian system as could be combined with the teaching and practice of the Church ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... never did run smooth! When arrangements were just on the point of being concluded the Court suddenly desired to retract some of their promises, thinking too much had been given away. This was a cruel blow to the I.G., who well knew that the French would never agree to the proposed changes and that the painstaking work of weeks would topple over like a house of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... so often before. I so far thought of my father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as much as they do, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... salvation in this unexpected distress. Disarmed, reduced to silence by a sort of confession which he could retract at leisure, his wife was making herself his accomplice and rescuing him by ceasing ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... ventured to offer from my own experience; but as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with diffidence; and when better are suggested, shall retract them without regret. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... and your promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady—for one week, fare well." With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she thought ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... the present occasion by a consciousness of the spirited and generous condescension she was exerting. Mr. Falkland led her up to the astonished count; and she, gently laying her hand upon the arm of her lover, exclaimed with the most attractive grace, "Will you allow me to retract the precipitate haughtiness into which I was betrayed?" The enraptured count, scarcely able to believe his senses, threw himself upon his knees before her, and stammered out his reply, signifying that the precipitation had been all his own, that he only had any ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... one of the earliest utterances of modern Philosophy, and one which it has never found reason to retract, that the Self which knows can and does know itself better than aught else whatsoever, and in that knowledge can without end make confident and sure-footed advance. To itself the Self is the most certain and the most knowable of all realities—with this it is most acquainted, this it has light in ...
— Progress and History • Various
... me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... other causes preceding it, had rankled the bosoms of both General Jackson and himself, and estranged the warm friendship that had before existed between them. Adair thought that Jackson should withdraw, or modify, the language of his official report. General Jackson was not a man to readily retract; and was certainly not in the humor with Adair to retract anything he had said. He would do no more than approve the opinion of the Court of Inquiry. This, perhaps, was as much as General Adair should have asked ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... cards, and if he thinks them bad, he is at liberty to PUT them upon the pack, and his adversary scores one point to his game. This, however, should never be done. Either party saying—"I put," that is, I play, cannot retract, but must abide the event of the game, or pay ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... had loved each other. Underneath all that roughness of speech and violence of statement, there was great tenderness and understanding. He spoke his mind, and more than his mind, but he was generous and quick to retract and quicker to console. "I'm an Ulsterman," he said once. "Ulster to the marrow, an' begod I'm proud ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Diet is on record, and forms one of the most glorious pages in history. When finally urged by the Emperor to retract, he said firmly: "Sire, unless I am convinced of my error by the testimony of Scripture, or by manifest evidence, I cannot and will not retract, for we must never act contrary to our conscience. Such is my ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... replied Ronald, "hoping you would retract hard, cruel words that you never meant. I could not help it, father; she has no one but me; they would have forced her to marry some one ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... It is now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general statements about Alaska ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... tribunal, or an arbitrary and despotic assembly. I see and I feel the delicacy and difficulty of the ground upon which we stand in this question. I could wish, indeed, that they who advised the Crown had not left Parliament in this very ungraceful distress, in which they can neither retract with dignity nor persist with justice. Another parliament might have satisfied the people without lowering themselves. But our situation is not in our own choice: our conduct in that situation is all that is in our own option. The substance of the question is, to put bounds to your own power by the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... was even more desponding; the physician had spoken of the case as hopeless, and likely to terminate rapidly; and Gilbert, who was always at the worst in the morning, had shown no symptom that could lead his father to retract his first impression. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day before Raymond would return home. Cecil did not recollect this till the day had been unanimously agreed on, and it was with a little alarm; but after what she had asserted about her freedom of action, she could not retract before the eyes of the American lady; and, as she said to herself, she could receive her own ladies' party, without interfering with any one else, in the library, so that no one had a right to object. However, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... armed to the teeth and ready for any emergency. In the meantime, and just before the House met, General John E. Addison, who had found out what was going on and knew the seriousness of the affair, called on Moore, who was his friend, and urged him to retract what he had said and make a suitable apology, and for that purpose drew up a document for him to read to the House, but of this I was not at the time informed. As soon as the journal was read I rose in my seat and said, "Mr. Speaker." At the same moment Moore rose ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... been charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent and nothing to conceal—nothing to retract and nothing to countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which charge ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... from one Lieutenant Brodowsky. This gentleman is offended at finding his mother's name in my narrative, and demands I should retract my words. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... correction by superior courts, and because it is "one of their three grand principles which disclaimeth the binding of themselves for the future unto their present judgement and practice, and avoucheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract."[268] Some who think that, after all recent changes, they more truly hold the opinions of Gillespie than we do, have laid it down very dogmatically that even although the constitution of a national church were in all other respects scriptural, yet if it did not reserve this ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... hold the opinions you attribute to me, I wish not to engage my vanity so as never to retract, nor to deprive myself of the resource of a conversion on some future day ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... to eager little Frances she related the upshot of her intervention, she did not retract her former words about having ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Minerva, Nemesis, and the Queen of Sheba," said Henry, "and you're all five in one package. I retract everything I said. And if I may be permitted to kiss the hem of your garment, to show I'm properly humbled, why—in plain English, that idea has a ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... government on "all negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... crushing! Michael, too, whose opinion she trusted so entirely! 'Oh, I hope you don't mean it—that you are only joking,' she said, so earnestly that he felt a little sorry for his abruptness; but it was too late to retract; besides, Michael never retracted. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tell your parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... one in which the plaintiff is really the defendant. Sir Charles has written a defamatory letter, which has closed every house in this county to his victim. If, as I now feel sure, you disapprove the libel, pray persuade him to retract it. The rest our ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... between the mendicant and other orders was revived towards the end of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass, who maintained opinions still more extreme than those of Fitz-Ralph; but he was compelled publicly and solemnly to retract them before Commissioners appointed for that purpose in the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." Several of his disciples were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to follow him. Jesus did not retract; he only added: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." The twelve remained faithful, notwithstanding this strange preaching. It gave to Cephas, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... him a hundred blows with the bastinade, and I will stand by and count them." "For God's sake," the merchant screamed, "I can never endure it." "We will see about that," the favorite said, coldly, "and if you die under it, it was allotted you by fate; I am not going to retract my orders." ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment—"But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... your child do?" entreats the daughter, shaken by the sight of her father's passion. "Fight straightforwardly for Fricka," he orders her, in the excess of bitterness; "what she has chosen I choose likewise; of what good to me is a will of my own?" "Oh, retract that word!" she beseeches, "you love Siegmund.... Never shall your discordant dual directions enlist me against him. For your own sake, I know it, I will protect the Waelsung!" At this first intimation of rebellion in his child,—this incipient treachery of his own will,—Wotan becomes ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... and to that of the most authentic parts of the ancient; if we attend to the practice of nations in every quarter of the world, and in every condition, whether that of the barbarian or the polished, we shall find very little reason to retract this assertion. No constitution is formed by concert, no government is copied from a plan. The members of a small state contend for equality; the members of a greater, find themselves classed in a certain manner that lays a foundation ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my pledge—that—" he paused and the silence was tremendous. He went on, each word distinct and by itself—"if I am elected"—a ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... hastily, as if anxious to retract an error; "I said it then, and I say it now and so you will find it to be. The Tetons are in our neighbourhood, and happy will it prove for the boy if he ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be the better for your work, at any rate. You're getting absolutely fat. If Newlyn brings you health as well as fame, I hope you'll retract some of the many hard things you have said ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. But under this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... ill mannered as well as the most ungrateful person breathing in not returning my thanks sooner; and now that it is delay'd so long it has not answerd any end except that I have the pleasure of saying, I find no cause on a second and third reading to retract what I said in the former part of the Letter, my own opinion is worth but little; but I hope soon to have the pleasure of acquainting you with the approbation of those Critics which it is some ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... "That," said he, "is its parallel." Mr. Doolittle criticized the use of the word "whitewashing," and asked Mr. Sumner to qualify it, but the Massachusetts senator declared that he had "nothing to modify, nothing to qualify, nothing to retract. In former days there was one Kansas that suffered under a local power. There are now eleven Kansases suffering as one: therefore, as eleven is more than one so is the enormity of the present time more than the enormity of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that, with such mighty enemies, we can do nothing by halves. We cannot afford to retract, mutilate, or moderate our original determination. He who swerves from the straight road at the beginning is lost; he who stumbles at the first step is apt to fall down the whole staircase. If, on account of imaginable necessity, we postpone that most vital point, the assurance of our freedom, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of all that it said and of all that it omitted to say. She was at first half disposed to make protestations of forgiveness,—to assure him that not even within her own heart would she reproach him, should he feel himself bound to retract the promise he had made her. She longed to break out into love, but so to express her love that her lover should know that it was strong enough even to sacrifice itself for his sake. But though her heart longed to speak freely, her judgment told her that ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence, declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the slightest ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia, immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish one of these, though two of the three were as many ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... as wilful misrepresentations had in the beginning been due to inexperience and ignorance of an undertaking which it required scientific knowledge to successfully carry out. When the truth had been gradually borne in upon him as the work progressed, he felt that it was too late to explain or retract if he would raise more money and keep his position. The real cost he believed would frighten possible investors and with the peculiar sanguineness of the short-sighted, he thought that it would ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the week wind the same number of balls as her companions; and to conceal this, she pretended that she had delivered the proper number to the woman, who regularly called at the end of the week for the cotton. The woman persisted in her account, and the children in theirs; and Manon would not retract her assertion. The poor woman gave up the point; but she declared that she would the next time send her brother to make up the account, because he was sharper than herself, and would not be imposed upon so easily. The ensuing week the brother came, and ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... there is, yet to retract the hand, the mind heeds not, until. Before the mortal vision lies no path, when ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... dream. Then at other times her state of impatience was such, that it required all her self-restraint to prevent her from going and seeking him out, and (as man would do to man, or woman to woman) begging him to forgive her hasty words, and allow her to retract them, and bidding him accept of the love that was filling her whole heart. She wished Margaret had not advised her against such a manner of proceeding; she believed it was her friend's words that seemed to make such a simple action ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the task I set myself in this treatise. [20:5] (83) It remains only to call attention to the fact that I have written nothing which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and approval of my country's rulers; and that I am willing to retract anything which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws, or prejudicial to the public good. (84) I know that I am a man, and as a man liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and have striven to keep in entire accordance with the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... evening, after dinner, the lights turned on by the servant with the electric lever. He stands beside this lever. He quickly seizes the last sentence of the cornered guilty man, and, before the latter can think or retract, cries: 'Tell it in the dark, then!' and plunges the room in darkness. The natural impulse of that defaulter under those circumstances would be to blurt out with it; at least so I believe. Such was his vacillating, impulsive nature. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... once said that to Esher The only good rhyme was "magnesher;" This was not the fact, And he had to retract, Which he did—he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... perhaps he had suffered from sea-sickness. I indulged him twice a week with some lavender water put into a cup made of stiff paper, but never allowed him to have it when his claws were pushed forth; so that he learned to retract them at ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... will take the woman for his wife, and maintain her. Adams knew an instance of a young man, who, having refused to marry a woman by whom he had a child, was on that account condemned to slavery. He afterwards repented, but was not then permitted to retract his refusal, and was ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... for the present, the fee-simple thus belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt his conscience greatly eased after this action—which, too, he could always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of form, so far as the property it ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... press my suit, but any post may bring me orders to leave the coast, never again to return. Your own words betrayed me into uttering a prayer I might not otherwise have ventured so soon to urge; but now it has been made, do not compel me to retract it." ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Parthia, considerable powers of management. His dealings with Augustus indicate much suppleness and dexterity. If he did not in the course of his long reign advance the Parthian frontier, at any rate he was not obliged to retract it. Apparently, he ceded nothing to the Scyths as the price of their assistance. He maintained the Parthian supremacy over Northern Media. He lost no inch of territory to the Romans. It was undoubtedly ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... inheritance when I believed him in perfect health. But it would require a heart of stone and an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical joy. Now, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... embarrassed in appointing this commission, between his sense of what was due to the character and services of Columbus, and his anxiety to retract with delicacy the powers vested in him. A pretext at length was furnished by the recent request of the admiral that a person of talents and probity, learned in the law, might be sent out to act as chief ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... debate, balance; dally with, coquet with; will and will not, chaser-balancer^; go halfway, compromise, make a compromise; be thrown off one's balance, stagger like a drunken man; be afraid &c 860; let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would' [Macbeth]; falter, waver vacillate &c 149; change &c 140; retract &c 607; fluctuate; pendulate^; alternate &c (oscillate) 314; keep off and on, play fast and loose; blow hot and cold &c (caprice) 608. shuffle, palter, blink; trim. Adj. irresolute, infirm of purpose, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... lips. It was too late to retract, and though he deeply repented having placed himself in such a humiliating situation, he faithfully related to his stern auditor the cause of his distress. The old man listened to him attentively, a sarcastic ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... answered in the affirmative. "My life," rejoined she, "or a necklace of pearls shall be yours, in the moment you land me at the Tower of London." The man seeing the youth and agitation of the seeming boy, doubted his power to perform so magnificent a promise, and was half inclined to retract his assent; but Helen pointing to a jewel on her finger as a proof that she did not speak of things beyond her read, he no longer hesitated; and pledging his word that wind and tide in his favor, he would land her at ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... true ideas and high emotions—and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas and emotions of genius. Only by conceiving ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... the prince's confusion at this demand; he loved the mouse, but he detested the bride; he hesitated; he desired time to think upon the proposal. He would have been glad to consult his friends on such an occasion. "Nay, nay," cried the odious fairy, "if you demur, I retract my promise; I do not desire to force my favours on any man. Here, you my attendants, (cried she, stamping with her foot,) let my machine be driven up; Barbacela, queen of Emmets, is not used to contemptuous ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... France[317]; and Renaudot, in the account he gave, named the English before the Swedes, and spoke of the affair as accommodated. Grotius was very angry at this: he sent to tell him, to name the Swedes first in another Gazette, and to retract what he had said of the accommodation: Renaudot was even threatened, that if he did not give this satisfaction to the Swedes, he would be made to feel to his cost that Sweden was powerful enough to do herself ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... a place within its own sphere of activity. One of them will necessarily nullify the other, for every existing thing aims at the greatest possible development of its own forces. A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing comedy with comedy ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Curtis if you wish." Madge's face was a white mask lighted by the defiant gleam of eyes that seemed almost to flame. "Do not imagine, however, that I shall either explain or retract what I ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... fact that he was committing an act of extreme incivility in thus shouting out the identity of so august and important a personage. Yet he also knew that it was too late to retract his statement. He therefore, with his usual air of unconcern, determined to face the matter and ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and without either knowing that the other had done so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday News, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did. But the mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and flowers which was carried one afternoon ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... is more serious when arteries are severed. If the wound in an artery is in the direction of its length, the blood escapes more freely than if the vessel is completely severed, because in the latter instance the severed ends retract, curl in, and may aid very much in arresting the flow. When the blood merely oozes from the wound, and even when it flows in a small stream, the forming of the clot arrests the hemorrhage in a comparatively ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... repentance the gifts of His good grace, steadfastness of faith, loftiness of hope, and the widest charity to all men. That He may turn our haughty will to lament its faults, that it may deplore its past most vain elations, may retract its most bitter indignations, and detest its most insane delectations. That His virtue may abound in us, when our own is found wanting, and that He who freely consecrated our beginning by the sacrament of baptism, and advanced our progress to the seat of the Apostles without any desert of ours, ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... haughtily, "that is an expression which I must request you to retract. I have already assured you, on the word ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... forefathers having been provided with these formidable weapons, will probably reveal, by sneering, the line of his descent. For though he no longer intends, nor has the power, to use these teeth as weapons, he will unconsciously retract his "snarling muscles" (thus named by Sir C. Bell) (46. The Anatomy of Expression, 1844, pp. 110, 131.), so as to expose them ready for action, like a dog prepared ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... a confident and told two schoolfellows who were brothers, I could not keep it to myself, and was indeed proud though ashamed to speak of the pleasure. They both had bigger pricks than mine, and never had jeered at me because I could not retract my prepuce easily. Soon after they came to see me, we all went into the garden, each pulled my prepuce back, I theirs, and then we all ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... had to persuade his wife. He had to retract all his former arguments and emphasize the one simple fact, namely, the love for his child, (regulated by the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... his present courses. But all the persuasion and argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract; but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone, and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff, whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to take notice that though I confess that this way removes all notions of a miraculous conduct, yet I do not retract what I have said formerly, that the system of occasional causes does not bring in God acting miraculously. (See M. Leibniz's article in Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants, July 1698.) I am as much persuaded as ever I was that an action cannot be said to be miraculous, unless ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... degree of depressive retardation. [This possibility has been discussed in the chapter on Affect.] His description seems perhaps to include cases which we would regard as perplexity states or absorbed manias. Activity is reduced, they lie in bed mute, do not answer, may retract shyly at any approach, but on the other hand may not ward off pin pricks. Sometimes there is catalepsy and lack of will, again there may be aimless resistance to external interference. They hold ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... last assertion disproves the first!" I replied; "but I retract, I will not, even for the sake of a syllogism, abuse my own sex; women are never envious except when men make them so, by casting down among them the golden ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... and unconcerned, and arose, as if to yawn, when suddenly he threw himself on Bernard with the agility of a tiger and knocked him to the floor. From secret closets in the room sprang six able bodied men. They soon had Bernard securely bound. Belton then told Bernard that he must retract what he had said and agree to keep his revealed purpose a secret or he would never ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... "leaders" go for nothing, since Mr. Goldrich acknowledges "the priest is right; she is his sister." But did not that clamorous press, that bellowed and hallooed on the rabble to rob, murder, and destroy,—did it not recall its words, apologize for its naughty language, and retract every charge groundlessly made? Like a convicted felon, did it cry peccavi—I have sinned, been misled, or misinformed? No; not a sign of repentance has been manifested, not an apology made, not a word of retraction uttered by ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... persisted, going on now in sheer desperation, having proceeded too far to retract. 'My petals are delicately fair, with just a faint rosy blush, my pistils and stamens of a tender yellow, and my form, if fragile, is very ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... part of what can be known, but that as far as it goes it is true and genuine, and cannot be outgrown, that it will stand both the wear of time and the test of growing power of thought, and that those who have taught these beliefs will never have to retract or be ashamed of them, or own that they were passed off, though inadequate, upon the minds ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Marsigli in 1706. For this naturalist, having the opportunity of observing freshly-taken red coral, saw that its branches were beset with what looked like delicate and beautiful flowers, each having eight petals. It was true that these "flowers" could protrude and retract themselves, but their motions were hardly more extensive, or more varied, than those of the leaves of the sensitive plant; and therefore they could not be held to militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested by their form and their grouping upon the branches ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... world could boast. I soon found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms. His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... has often wit, happy allusions, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this work? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments could ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... it was too late, the terrible significance of his words. But having begun, he would not retract, ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... intellect, as stated above (Q. 3, A. 4). But rectitude of the will, by reason of which men are said to be clean of heart, is not necessary for the perfect operation of the intellect: for Augustine says (Retract. i, 4) "I do not approve of what I said in a prayer: O God, Who didst will none but the clean of heart to know the truth. For it can be answered that many who are not clean of heart, know many truths." Therefore rectitude of the will ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... may be one Reason why we are naturally averse to the launching out into a Man's Praise till his Head is laid in the Dust. Whilst he is capable of changing, we may be forced to retract our Opinions. He may forfeit the Esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different Light from what he does at present. In short, as the Life of any Man cannot be call'd happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced vicious or virtuous, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... nothing to the count. It is an old story. He has loved her long. But the count, who refused him once before, will not now retract his word, even to the ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... to disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount was one.(384) The mention of two of the papers in it will explain ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... could he renounce her, when she came forth to him,—smiling, speaking freshly and lightly, and with the colour on her cheeks which showed that she had done her part? How could he retract ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... records; and consequently they cannot be destroyed by any act of ours, but by a renunciation of the charge, which renunciation we cannot make, because the defendant has clearly and fully admitted it to be founded in fact. We cannot plead error; we cannot retract it. And why? Because he has admitted it. We therefore only remind your Lordships that the charge stands uncontradicted; and that the observation we intended to make upon it was to show your Lordships that the principles upon which he defends all such conduct are totally false and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... censors, in striking at the weaknesses, political, military, and official, of their countrymen. Their work is something quite new in Germany, and worthy of comparison with the best in any country. It is not elegant, it is Rabelaisian; and though I have nothing to retract in regard to coarseness, and no wish to commend the attitude taken toward German political and social life, in fairness one is bound to call attention to the pictorial work in this particular paper as of a very high order, and to recognize its power. If Heine ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... exhibition of irreconcilable views was quite unpardonable and irretrievable. 'Mr. Blenkinsopp,' he said gravely, turning to the awe-struck tobacco-pipe manufacturer with an expression of sympathetic dismay upon his practised face, 'I must retract all I have just been saying to you about our junior master. I was not aware of this. Mr. Le Breton must no longer retain his post as an assistant at ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... embargante cualesquier leyes e fueros e derechos e ordenamientos, constituciones e posesiones e prematicas- senciones, e usos e costumbres, ca en cuanto a est oatane yo los abrogo e derogo." (Marina, Teoria, tom. ii. p. 216.) This was the very essence of despotism, and John found it expedient to retract these expressions, on ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... spent the night in his clothes on deck. Sleep was impossible; and, in the hope that she would relent and creep on deck to find him and retract the hard things she had said, he haunted the companion till the stars paled and the day ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... and Elector, I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that Count Schwarzenberg is so inimically disposed toward the Electoral Prince that ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... by sternness, and replied, "Sir, the gentleman of whom you speak is my personal friend. The charge you bring against him is not true; the facts were these (mentioning them concisely but clearly), and now, sir, you must retract what you have said." The gentleman evidently taken aback, both Mr. Charless' statement of the case, and manner, immediately calmed down, made an explanation and withdrew. I could not resist a hearty laugh at the storm which had so suddenly burst upon us and had ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... "Oh, indeed! Humph! I retract my words about your young mind being jelly. I see there is some substance in it growing already. But no, Syd, you are not going to be a doctor; and here ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it will seal my fate. But I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost; I am here to regret nothing I have ever done—to retract nothing I have ever said. I am here to crave, with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of my country. Far from it, even here—here, where the thief the libertine, the murderer, have left their footprints ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... wished for death, and waited for an opportunity of obtaining it without staining his own character by the cowardice of suicide, or distressing me by an act of butchery. This event gave the finishing stroke to my afflictions;—yet let me retract;—another misfortune awaited me when I least expected one. The Chevalier de Menon died without a will, and his brothers refused to give up his estate, unless I could produce a witness of my marriage. I returned to Sicily, and, to my inexpressible ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... money could not serve to enrich you; but the other hundred and ninety pieces, which you would make me believe you hid in a pot of bran, might." "Sir," answered I, "I have told you the truth in regard to both sums: you would not have me retract, to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... better appearance than is usual in Savoy; their dress attracted the particular attention of our French companion, who had never before quitted his own country, and who had previously expressed a contempt for Savoy, which he now seemed willing to retract; and certainly it would be difficult to see a spot where primitive simplicity was more conspicuous. We determined to refresh ourselves here, and afterwards went through the village to the church, which was decorated with flowers for the festival; and during our walk ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... "I retract everything I said!" cried the Major, quite shamelessly. "Such a woman as that may do anything. She is looking this way. Pray ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... into a loan, if it would make the advance more convenient to the French finances, and facilitate the augmentation of the total sum, destined for the United States. I repeated the same thing to the Director-General of Finance, but their answer was, the King had passed his word and could not retract. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... lightnings strike you! How dare you pollute that holy name, Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... time, recoil so appallingly upon your own head that it will kill you. I know you are one of those that faithlessness, remorse and contempt would kill.—Don't look so beseechingly at me; I cannot retract a word of what I have said. But I can tell you now what I had decided upon before I came. I will look after your future. I am not rich; but, as sure as I stand here before you, you shall live free from care—you shall have everything that you need—for ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... were not so in fact. When it was absolutely necessary he showed himself in church with us; but our daily life, our pleasures, our pastimes were heathen, and when life began for us in earnest we offered a bleeding sacrifice to the gods. It was impossible to retract honestly, since a renegade Christian returning to the worship of the old gods is incapacitated by law from making a will. You know this; and when you ask me why I am content to live alone, without either wife or child—and I love children, even those of other people—a solitary man dragging out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... could not conduct their monarch to the scaffold without the deepest emotions of awe. A feeling of consternation oppressed every heart in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But it was too late to retract. Perhaps there was not an individual in that vast throng who did not shudder in view of the crime of that day. At one spot on the line of march, seven or eight young men, in the spirit of desperate heroism which the occasion excited, hoping that the pity of the multitude would ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... "I offer you my apologies. I came here in a furious temper and a little drunk. I retract all that I said. I'll drink to your club, if ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reputation as a public man he had been Quixotic enough to take to heart as a personal matter of family honor and, as everyone knows, family honor is a thing to uphold. He had demanded that McCorquodale retract his statement. McCorquodale had refused flatly ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the Emperor mourns the loss of his bravest hero, who firmly refuses to retract his rash words. A German song is heard, and Conrad von Wettin presents a young minstrel to the homesick Prince. The former begs for the favor of celebrating the coming festival in a German song. This is permitted and the festival ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... he cried, in deep distress. "I have compromised myself; I have gone too far to retract, and she would deem unmanly if I should keep silent and let the ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... for saying that prayers ought not to be addressed to saints, but only to God. A striking contrast was exhibited in October 1424, when a Stamford friar, John Russell, who had preached that any religious potest concumbere cum muliere and not mortally sin, was sentenced only to retract his doctrine. Further persecutions of a whole batch of Lollards took place in 1428. The records of convocation in Chicheley's time are a curious mixture of persecutions for heresy, which largely ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two empresses reinstating Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank and dignity, and thus reasserting the power of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... malicious falsehood," retorted Frank. "Fellows," he cried, turning to his adherents, "I ducked this sneak in a mud puddle for lying about me once. I want to now make the announcement in public that if within twenty-four hours he does not retract his words I shall whip him till he can't stand, leave the academy, and never come back till I have the proofs to vindicate ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... to retract, yet strongly drawn toward the possessor of so sweet and lovely a countenance as was pictured there, kept silence, gazing intently upon the ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... is much that you will need done. I am very glad that you have decided in this way, Olive dear, though I know it was a sacrifice; but your art will become none the less precious through delay, and your decision shows a desire to retract some hasty judgments, and do justice to a peculiar old man, who, with all his faults and vagaries, has a heart ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... earnest).—Rosabella, wilt thou forsake me? Wilt thou retract thy promise? Look, Rosabella, and be convinced: I, the bravo, and thy Flodoardo ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... "Then I retract my words in asking you if you feared to go to the fort as courier, for your volunteering as driver proves ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... again on the spot. "It wouldn't after all be difficult. We only want the directly opposite thing—and which is the only one the poor dear can give. Unless indeed," she suggested, "we simply retract—we back out." ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... present world may smile at the sanguine utterances of the first four lectures: but it has not been wholly my own fault that they have remained unfulfilled; nor do I retract one word of hope for the success of other masters, nor a single promise made to the sincerity of the student's labor, on the lines here indicated. It would have been necessary to my success, that I should have accepted permanent residence in ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... we not interchange vows in our innocent childhood? are we not one in the sight of God? and shall thy cold-hearted, cold-blooded father divide us? Be generous, my love, be just; take not away a gift, last treasure of thy Guido—retract not thy vows—let us defy the world, and setting at naught the calculations of age, find in our mutual affection ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... dear Reginald, and you are deprived of your rightful inheritance, it will be my pride and joy to try and make amends to you for your loss of fortune; and I am very sure that my father would not retract his promise under any circumstances which may occur." What lover could ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... and they hurried to his chamber to listen to his confession. Representatives from the four religious orders, with four civil officers, gathered about the supposed dying man. "You have death on your lips," they said; "be touched by your faults, and retract in our presence all that you have said to our injury." The Reformer listened in silence; then he bade his attendant raise him in his bed, and gazing steadily upon them as they stood waiting for his recantation, he said, in the firm, strong voice which had so often caused them to tremble, "I ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons it is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... command you. To serve your friend would have been, I deemed, a labour of love. I did not command you, and I now retract the trifling request which I find I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... himself if he hadn't made a great mistake; this privilege would doubtless even remain within the limits of its nature in exposing him to hours of intimate conviction of his madness. But he would live to retract his retractations—this was the first ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... had asked for that delay of two days in order that her majesty might devise the best means of saving the life of her son. The queen replied that had she not pledged her royal word, she would have found a way to smooth over that difficulty, but that, for no consideration, could she retract her promise or defraud Richard of the hope she ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... before he does his own. His head is hard as a flint, and his heart—never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... cried the emperor, "surely you will not retract your word in the face of the whole world, that ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... are not young men; we must not be so hasty. You carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt to do. Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and apologize. We move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would offer you ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Elector, I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that Count Schwarzenberg is so inimically disposed toward ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... singularly unnerved by the glances of those dark blue eyes, which like searchlights seemed to penetrate into every nook and cranny of his soul. But his recklessness and love of adventure having led him so far, it was now too late to retract or to reconsider the risks he might possibly be running. He therefore took the quill and dipped it into the crimson drop that welled ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... was dissuaded from his present courses. But all the persuasion and argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract; but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone, and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff, whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled from the city, and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... perhaps you are right. I retract all I have said against him. If he be half ruined I will offer him my advice—and my purse if he need it—for the sake of the memory of his mother, whom you resemble. Ah, 'tis thus we end all our disputes, naughty child! ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... you, there is no need for me to speak, John. This can all be settled in a few hours, when I have denounced father to his face, and compelled him to retract." ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... severely punished. He was compelled to make an apology, to retract his horrible ideas, to stifle the germ of these infant monstrosities; then he was condemned to spend six months in one of those ecclesiastical prisons called houses of retreat, where the guilty priest is exposed to every ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... Majesty to see the commerce of the world restored once more to that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity, and his readiness to abandon the system which has been forced upon him, whenever the enemy shall retract the principles which have rendered it necessary." The British envoy in these sentences reproduced verbatim the instructions he had received,[327] and the words italicized bar expressly the subsequent contention of the United States, that revocation by one party as to ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in mind," replied Mr. Morton more evenly. "In a case of this kind we must proceed with such absolute caution and reserve that we will not be obliged to retract afterwards in ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... clouds Gathered far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder 400 DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms 410 DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... century after the time, can deem the pretended hard usage Charles met with as a sufficient excuse for his breaking his faith in the first instance, much more must that prince himself, with all his prejudices and notions of his divine right, have thought it justifiable to retract concessions, which to him, no doubt, appeared far more unreasonable than the petition of right, and which, with much more colour, he might consider as extorted. These considerations were probably the cause ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... hesitated and refused, struck him with his fist. This man afterwards gained great credit for his conduct, as it was thought that by it he had saved the whole camp from being thrown into an uproar. As Kleitus would not retract what he had said, his friends seized him and forced him out of the room. But he re-entered by another door, and in an offensive and insolent tone began to recite the passage from the Andromache ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... honour is your own. I'll share Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. A word informs your brother I retract This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth Some better way of saving ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... of armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... That Lionel had been growing to love her; but that Sibylla Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract. She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away, or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory, regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Will any one be surprised at Deronda's concluding that she wished him to join her? Perhaps she wanted to make amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his recommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went to her side ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Haller," said Ransom, "I retract all. I assure you my remarks were only made upon the spur of the moment, when I was angry ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... hold the fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and wholly my own, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his extreme folly in delaying his marriage with her (to which the King had consented), in order to have fine liveries, and get the marriage celebrated at the King's mass, which gave time to Monsieur (incited by M. le Prince) to make representations to the King, which induced him to retract his consent, breaking off thus the marriage. Mademoiselle made a terrible uproar, but Puyguilhem, who since the death of his father had taken the name of Comte de Lauzun, made this great sacrifice with good grace, and with more wisdom than belonged to him. He had the company of the hundred ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... first number: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard". (Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. You will ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... from my design. They said no one would accompany me, for it was quite a tempest. I replied that I would pay those handsomely who would go with me. A person present asked me if I would give him three guineas for a boat. I replied I would. He could not for shame retract. He went out, and in about half an hour brought a person with him. We were obliged to have a lanthorn as far as the boat. We got on board, and went off. But such a passage I had never before witnessed. The wind was furious. The waves ran high. I could see nothing but white foam. The boat, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Mr. Peter Finnerty received the judgment of the Court of King's Bench, for a libel upon Lord Castlereagh. There never was a man who stood upon the floor of the Court for judgment who made a more able or a more brave defence than he did; he did not retract one sentence, one syllable of the original publication, but, on the contrary, he produced affidavits to prove the truth of every word that he had published about Lord Castlereagh's cruelty to the people of Ireland, when he was in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... chancellorship of Cambridge. About this time he became a great favourer of the Nonconformists. February 16, 1676, his grace, and James earl of Salisbury, Anthony earl of Shaftsbury, and Philip lord Wharton, were committed to the Tower by order of the House of Lords, for a contempt, in refusing to retract what they had said the day before, when the duke, immediately after his Majesty had ended his speech to both Houses, endeavoured to shew from law and reason, that the long prorogation was nulled, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... can retract that declaration, if he please," remarked another judge. "His confession, if taken, goes fully ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... in proportion as that was possible, the chances increased that the accuser might, as the examinations advanced, and the winning character of the accused party began to develop itself, begin to see his error, and to retract his own over-hasty suspicions. But now we saw at a glance that for this hope there was no countenance whatever, since one solitary circumstance sufficed to establish a conspiracy. The deposition bore—that the lace ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... in spite of his subservience, became a little restive under this treatment, Pope indirectly admitted the truth by claiming only twelve books in an advertisement to his works, and in a note to the Dunciad, but did not explicitly retract the other statement. Broome could not effectively rebuke his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope to attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too much, according to ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... in France able to show that this calculation is false, I summon him to appear; and I promise to retract all that I have wrongfully and wickedly uttered in ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... you have promised to confine your attention to a trifling number; by advertising that one or two are still wanting, or by decreasing your terms, attempt immediately to retract this promise. Apply to your first benefactors; hope they will permit you to accommodate a few pretty little masters, sons of Mr. Such-a-one, who may be of the greatest service to you. They will not deny you; they will consider it as a proof of your ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed. I think one great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance still easier. I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is withstood a moment, vibrating, and then all resistance is withdrawn by a sudden 'flashing open' of the gates, permitting easy entrance, and that the sudden ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and his nephew of Trautbach, in spite of their relationship they had a sharp combat on the borders of their own estates, in which both were severely wounded; but Sir Kasimir, with the misericorde in his grasp, forced Lassla to retract whatever he had said in dispraise of the Lady of Adlerstein. Wily old Gottfried took care that the tidings should be sent in a form that might at once move Christina with pity and gratitude towards her champion, and convince her sons that the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... liberties, that "it was at most a forty days' tyranny". His foolish speech was severely handled by Mansfield. In the commons Alderman Beckford, a hot-headed admirer of Chatham, said that "if the public was in danger the king had a dispensing power," and was forced by Grenville to retract his words. The debates on this matter injured the reputation of the ministry though they did not ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... I thought, "it's coming now. I've pushed it too far—never thought what I was doing: she will certainly accept me, and I cannot retract." It took me but a moment to see my danger and to make up my mind. A gentleman will always sustain his word. My voice was shaking a little from the greatness of the resolution I had made, but I managed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... as she paused, too, standing beneath the street-lamp, and he saw her with her nonchalant tilt of her head,—that handsome head poised on her strong, erect body,—her force and value were so impressed upon him that he had to retract. But she was provoking, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... Mr. Pitcairn and his coadjutors was intrusted to Mr. M'Lachlan's care. The press of England took the side of the oppressed, and the inexorable office was obliged to listen, to argue, and retract. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Not yet. Let ME go to the elector. We are intimate friends, and I will persuade him to retract his unrighteous exactions." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... July, 1520, three months before the coronation of Charles V., the pope issued his world-renowned bull against the intrepid monk. He condemned Luther as a heretic, forbade the reading of his writings, excommunicated him if he did not retract within sixty days, and all princes and states were commanded, under pain of incurring the same censure, to seize his person and punish him and his adherents. Many were overawed by these menaces of the holy father, who held the keys of heaven and of hell. The fate of Luther ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... performance is so favourably read as that of a writer who suppresses his name, and therefore resolved to remain concealed, till those by whom literary reputation is established had given their suffrages too publickly to retract them. At length my bookseller informed me that Aurantius, the standing patron of merit, had sent inquiries after me, and invited me to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... obstinacy which the Court had carried against the proposals of Necker. That victory was reversed, and the success of the Commons was complete. They had brought the three orders into one; they had compelled the king to retract his declaration and to restore his disgraced minister; they had exposed the weakness of their oppressors, and they had the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done. I can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood which I ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... guarded by unfriendly Montenegrins. Without preamble, I said, 'I have the honour of speaking to Mr Orlando Jones, I believe?' 'Who told you my name, sir?' he exclaimed, starting to his feet in great alarm: then, perceiving the mistake he had made in thus proving his own identity, he tried to retract, but stammered and broke down. I proceeded quietly to demand the restoration of the papers and jewels, fraudulently carried off by him from Mr Popham's office at Ragusa. He tried to shuffle off the charge. 'Very well,' said ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... their shipping, whether publick and of war, or private and of merchants, be forced, through stress of weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity for seeking of shelter and harbor, to retract and enter into any of the rivers, creeks, bays, ports, roads or shores belonging to the other party, they shall be received with all humanity and kindness, and enjoy all friendly protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves, at reasonable ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... kneel, I kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... public,) but because he wished that his colleagues should of their own accord yield to the authority of the senate, rather than suffer the tribunitian power to be suppliantly appealed to against them. That even then, if circumstances permitted, he would still give them time to retract an opinion too pertinaciously adhered to. But since the exigences of war do not await the counsels of men, that the public weal was of deeper importance to him than the good will of his colleagues, and ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... me retract? I thought your book an imposture: I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... have managed a bottle of Pommery between us, and it's never so good to my mind in the pints—but please yourself, of course. [The Guest feels that his moderation has missed fire, but dares not retract; they sit in silence for some time, without anything of importance happening, except that a strange Waiter swoops down and carries away ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... political consistency as an author, Coleridge remarked that with the exception of "two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and Unitarianism," he saw little or nothing in these outbursts of his youthful zeal to retract, and, with the exception of "some flame- coloured epithets" applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, "or rather to personifications"—for such, he says, they really were to him—as ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy,—what he calls "busy." No! he is not. He has just come in with news of such a charming pic-nic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below. Because he has brought in such a pleasant piece of news, I retract all I said just now. Did not somebody burn his hand for having said or done something he was sorry for? Well, I can't burn mine, because it would hurt me, and the scar would be ugly; but I'll retract all I said as fast as I can. Cosmo is quite as great ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... point for the present, reserving still a right to retract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in my progress ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... be marked out by the Federal Government for vengeance. If I had remained within their reach, I might have shared the fate of Wirz and other victims of calumnies which, once put in circulation during the war, their official authors dared not retract at its close. Now I and others, who, if captured in 1865, might probably have been hanged, are neither molested nor even suspected of any other offence than that of fighting, as our opponents fought, for the State to which our allegiance was due. However, I thought ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... "Come, I retract my charge of foolishness, for you are plainly a wench of rare discrimination. And yet you say I do not love you! Cynthia, you are beautiful, you are perfect in all things. You are that heavenly Helen of whom I wrote, some persons say, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... to persuade his wife. He had to retract all his former arguments and emphasize the one simple fact, namely, the love for his child, (regulated by ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... the Nunc Dimittis. My Lord was ill-favouredly clad, in a bare and ragged gown, and an old square cap. Dr Cole preached, and more than twenty times during the sermon, the Archbishop was seen to have the water in his eyes. Then they did desire him to get up into the pulpit, and openly to retract his preaching, and show all the people that he was become ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Clerambault's tragic struggle with his conscience as an attack of literary megalomania, brought on by undeserved success. It seemed as if he expressly chose words likely to wound Clerambault, and he ended by summoning him to retract his errors in a tone of the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Cossey," she answered coldly, "that I would give anything and everything over which I have control in the world, to save my father from seeing Honham sold over his head. I do not wish to retract those words, and I think that in them you will find an answer ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... to his cousin; and he repeated Mrs. Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy which could not be expected ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... modesty demands that the heretic should be admonished a first and second time: and if he be unwilling to retract, he must be reckoned as already "subverted," as we may gather from the words of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... been an unfavored suitor of mine, and when this Florinda complained of my having, what every honest girl in Venice should do, exposed her fraud to the authorities, she advised his master to seize me, partly in revenge, and partly with the vain hope of making me retract the complaint I have made. Thou hast heard of the bold violence of these cavaliers when thwarted in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... before. I so far thought of my father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as much as they ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Democratic National Convention, and both discharged the duties of the position in a satisfactory manner. Mrs. Cohen seconded the nomination of William J. Bryan. A newspaper correspondent published a sensational story in regard to her bold and noisy behavior, but afterwards he was compelled to retract publicly every word of it and admit that it ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the words were still in her mouth that it was a mistake. The girl shrank away and dropped the hand she had been fondling. There was absolute silence for a moment, the older woman dumb, unable to go on, unable to explain, unable to retract, or extricate herself in any way. The discussion had promised so well at first that both had entered into it with zest, and yet the moment it had become personal, loyalty had risen between them ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... the people of color. A Negro innocent of all crime was murdered by a mob in that region. Mr. Loving denounced the murder and the murderers in his paper. He received an anonymous letter apparently written by an educated person, threatening him with death, if he did not retract what he had said. In the next issue of his paper he published an equally stern arraignment of the lynchers and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... morning, fatigue gave voice to conscience. He had bidden her go, when, perchance, a word would have checked her. Should he write, or even go to her straightway and retract what he had said? His will prevailed, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... entertained a humiliating opinion of the sex that makes the world move round; he was beginning to doubt, and he would retract ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... serum, so that the yield of serum may be the largest possible. Amongst these that the blood should be received in longish vessels, which must be especially carefully cleaned, and free from all traces of fat. If the blood-clot does not spontaneously retract it must be freed from the side of the glass with a flat instrument like a paper-knife without injuring it. If no clot occurs in the cold, a result may perhaps follow ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... Burton, be on his death-bed unable to speak I perhaps already dead—and that he may wish to have the grace to retract and recant his former errors, and to join the Catholic Church, and also to receive the Sacraments of Penance, Extreme Unction, and Holy Eucharist, he might perhaps be able to sign this paper, or make the sign of the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... concluded, what appeared to him, an excellent bargain, with the lawyer, who was too anxious to serve his employer, not to try and make light of the reports, and not only this, but to fix papa so, that he could not possibly retract. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... sometimes," said Cecil. "You are always 'off' and 'on' with poor Jack. I believe, if he proposed, you would say 'No' one day and retract the next." ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... holy—for it was a human—image; he had resigned her, and he repented. The light of day served, if not to dissipate, at least to sober, the turbulence and fervor of the preceding night. But was it indeed too late to retract his resolve? "Too late!" terrible words! Of what do we not repent, when the Ghost of the Deed returns to us to say, "Thou ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the matter before his partner could retract this somewhat grudging consent, Morris Perlmutter stalked out of the sample-room and made resolutely for the glass-enclosed office, where Miss Cohen was busy writing in a ledger. She looked up as he entered, and surveyed him calmly with her large ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... matter," began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... brother, hastily, as if anxious to retract an error; "I said it then, and I say it now and so you will find it to be. The Tetons are in our neighbourhood, and happy will it prove for the boy if he ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... impulse, and then reflected as they passed down the aisle that he had no right to bring a stranger into Mrs. Wilson's pew. Having invited her, however, it was impossible to retract, and he showed her into the slip after Mrs. Wilson. As the latter turned to sit down, she became aware of the stranger. She paused, and looked at ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... kindness, and your promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady—for one week, fare well." With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... such as have themselves tried the trumpet and elbow method, and have discovered that, whatever may be true of transient notoriety, neither public fame nor private regard is to be won by such means. We do not retract what we have said in praise of diversity, and about the right of each to live according to its own nature, but we gladly perceive that in the case of the flowers also it is the meek ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... of proving it; and she will appear like an avenging fury armed with a flaming sword in the shape of a bumper of her noxious brew, stand over me until I drink it, and force me under pain of repeated doses to retract all the unkind remarks I have made about it. Mrs. Palling has a horrible way of getting the better of me in the end. I am beginning to think that a person who is always right is very trying to live with. So much wisdom gives me a sort of mental indigestion. I used ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... took in polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra del Fuego endeavoured to explain that their friend, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... Harris, and, if he found her obdurate, he said he thought himself at liberty to join us together without any further consent of the mother, which every parent, he said, had a right to refuse, but not retract when given, unless the party himself, by some conduct ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Commentaries, 355, note. Upon a simple and plain confession, the court hath nothing to do but to award judgment; but it is usually very backward in receiving and recording such confession out of tenderness to the life of the subject; and will generally advise the prisoner to retract it and plead to the indictment. 4 Blackst. Comm. 329. 2 Hale, P. ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... saw him in London, he was in a troubled state of mind about his affairs. His embarrassments were so pressing that he meditated breaking off the match; but it was within a month of the wedding-day, and he said he had gone too far to retract.—How it was that Sir Ralph Milbanke did not make it his business to ascertain all the conditions of a union with a man of Byron's reputation it is difficult to imagine. Every movement of the idolized poet was watched, anecdotes of his life and ways were ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... years thirty-six different refutations of his arguments had appeared; the Parliament of Paris burned the book, and the Grand Vicar of the archdiocese of Mechlin threw him into prison and kept him there until he was forced, not only to retract his statements, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... one confession which I care to hear. You made it once, though you are not willing to repeat it. But I have your word, Sylvia; I am content. Not all the world could make me believe that you would willingly retract ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... fact from a new angle, it is amazing how all its contours and edges change shape! Immediately my dishpan began to glow with a kind of philosophic halo! The warm, soapy water became a sovereign medicine to retract hot blood from the head; the homely act of washing and drying cups and saucers became a symbol of the order and cleanliness that man imposes on the unruly world about him. I tore down my book rack and reading lamp from over ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... from 1827; Collected Writings, 1881; Anti-Savarese, edited with an appendix by P. Knoodt), who in 1857 was compelled to retract his views, invokes the spirit of Descartes in opposition to the Hegelian pantheism. In agreement with Descartes, Guenther starts from self-consciousness (in the ego being and thought are identical), and brings not ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the court was crowded to excess. The prisoner, however, without appearing to take the trouble of listening to the indictment, pleaded guilty, and no representations on the part of the court availed to induce her to retract her plea. After much time had been wasted in a fruitless attempt to prevail upon her to reconsider her words, the court proceeded according to the usual form, to pass sentence. This having been done, the prisoner was about to be removed, when she ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... abhorred the institution of slavery, wounded the Southern men sorely. They were not indignant, but grieved rather. At any rate, such was their aspect, and for many days the remark was repeated or referred to with the hope, apparently, of inducing me to retract or qualify it. I allowed it to stand as a truth which ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... been a good and loyal wife to you, as my daughter says, and it seems she was right too, when she declared that you are capable of making your disapproval of her opinions a whip to scourge me with; but I warn you, if you do not instantly retract that cowardly insult, I shall walk straight out of your house, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... over his pages, after nearly a quarter of a century more of investigation and experience, the author is grateful that he finds nothing to retract or expunge. He has but to add such thoughts and illustrations as have occurred to him in the course of his subsequent studies. He hopes that the supplementary chapters now published will be found more suggestive and mature than ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I will stand by and count them." "For God's sake," the merchant screamed, "I can never endure it." "We will see about that," the favorite said, coldly, "and if you die under it, it was allotted you by fate; I am not going to retract my orders." ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... atoms a mock idol, long since decayed, or whether its fall shall overwhelm both the convention and the French people." And a few words from him sufficed to restore silence and subordination to the assembly, to restrain the friends of Danton, and to make Legendre himself retract. Soon after, Saint-Just entered the house, followed by other members of the committees. He read a long report against the members under arrest, in which he impugned their opinions, their political conduct, their private life, their ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... but, in the meanwhile, such are his good Intentions, not only to the little Poem, but, I believe, to myself also—personally unknown as we are to one another. Therefore, my dear Lady, though I cannot retract what I told you on such authority as I had,—nevertheless, as you were so far prejudiced in his favour because of such service as he formerly was to me, I feel bound to tell you of this fresh offer on his part: so that, as you were ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... Repentance to his liberty. No, thou know'st orders, ethics, and hast read All oeconomics, know'st to lead A house-dance neatly, and canst truly show How far a figure ought to go, Forward or backward, side-ward, and what pace Can give, and what retract a grace; What gesture, courtship, comeliness agrees, With those thy primitive decrees, To give subsistence to thy house, and proof What Genii support thy roof, Goodness and greatness, not the oaken piles; For these, and marbles have their whiles ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... I retract my wishes about crying, for when I do begin, I cry in such a very disagreeable way—no spring shower, but a perfect tempest of tears. Philip's unexpected generosity upset me, and I sobbed till I frightened him, and ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... now too angry, and I replied, "My lord, you well know that I once held my tongue for eighteen months, I therefore can be silent when I choose; but I can also speak when I choose, and now I do choose to speak. I have said it, and I will not retract my words." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Emperor, who was then hunting in the environs. In the mean time a distinguished friend of Cajetan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters—"Revoco" ("I retract"). Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. "God forbid!" answered Luther. "Where then do you mean to take refuge?" he went on to ask him. "Under heaven," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... desponding; the physician had spoken of the case as hopeless, and likely to terminate rapidly; and Gilbert, who was always at the worst in the morning, had shown no symptom that could lead his father to retract his ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... clearer, more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my pledge—that—" he paused and the silence was tremendous. He went on, each word distinct and ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... peremptory warning was justified by its effects; that Bismarck was taken aback and discomfited by the resolute attitude of the French ministry, supported enthusiastically by the Chamber of Deputies; and that Prince Antoine was thereby so intimidated as to compel his son Leopold to retract his acceptance of the Spanish crown. On the other hand, this stern language alarmed cautious deputies, and though it stirred Paris to a pitch of wild excitement it was read with uneasiness in the cooler air of the French provinces, where the prospect of imminent war met with scanty welcome.[44] ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... immediately to your daughter that you withdraw your opposition to her marriage, I will take care of the rest. You don't want her to turn nun—you know more about the horrors of it than I do. Marrying a commercial person is better than that. Give me a letter to her, signed and sealed, saying you retract and that she may marry me with your blessing, and I will take it to her at the convent and bring her out. There's your chance—I ...
— The American • Henry James
... appeared that the two letters had been written by the Comte Leon to his cousin, as he was styled, demanding that he would retract certain expressions respecting their relationship, which he was alleged to have made use of; and, his not complying, gave rise ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... possibly to "give way." But it is an undeniable fact that there exist no Theological dogmas on matters Geological,—no, not one! Theology cannot retreat from ground on which she has never set foot. She cannot retract, what she has never advanced, or recal the words which she has never spoken. The decrees of Theology are all confined to the Science of Theology,—and with that subject-matter, the other Sciences have simply no concern. Their office there, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... D'Estaing appeared off Newport on the 20th to announce that he should be obliged by instructions to go to Boston for provisions and water, and thus ended the first visit of the French to Newport, to the dismay of the inhabitants. Sullivan criticised D'Estaing severely, but was obliged by La Fayette to retract: indeed, it is a question whether the fault of failure lay in Sullivan's procrastination or in want of judgment on the part of the French commander, who nevertheless, on his return to France, interested himself to induce the government to send out twelve thousand men to America. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... exceedingly embarrassed in appointing this commission, between his sense of what was due to the character and services of Columbus, and his anxiety to retract with delicacy the powers vested in him. A pretext at length was furnished by the recent request of the admiral that a person of talents and probity, learned in the law, might be sent out to act as chief judge; and that an impartial umpire might ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... necessary for Happiness. For Happiness consists essentially in an operation of the intellect, as stated above (Q. 3, A. 4). But rectitude of the will, by reason of which men are said to be clean of heart, is not necessary for the perfect operation of the intellect: for Augustine says (Retract. i, 4) "I do not approve of what I said in a prayer: O God, Who didst will none but the clean of heart to know the truth. For it can be answered that many who are not clean of heart, know many truths." Therefore rectitude of the will is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... I do hold the opinions you attribute to me, I wish not to engage my vanity so as never to retract, nor to deprive myself of the resource of a conversion on some future ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... informed the Grand Pensionary that the King of England had determined to close with the proposal of a defensive alliance. De Witt had not expected so speedy a resolution, and his countenance indicated surprise as well as pleasure. But he did not retract; and it was speedily arranged that England and Holland should unite for the purpose of compelling Lewis to abide by the compromise which he had formerly offered. The next object of the two statesmen was to induce another government to become a party to their league. The ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... let us quarrel about it; I am ready to retract. Good-night, mademoiselle. Apropos, did you know that M. Camille ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... had gone through ten editions, and the demand for it had become so great as "to call forth twenty thousand copies during the year," the prudent author, intending to veer his course according to the trade-wind, thought it expedient to retract his former acknowledgement to "our best modern philologists," and to profess himself a modifier of the Great Compiler's code. Where then holds the anchor of his praise? Let the reader say, after weighing and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... virtuous resolution was put in force? why hesitate in the accomplishment of your designs? Why not fly with your honourable lover, and thus wring the fond hearts of your parents at once to the utmost? Why retract now, when it will be only to delude again? Miserable and deluded girl, what new whim has caused this sudden change? Wherefore wait till it be too late to repent—to persuade us that you are an unwilling abettor and assistant ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... taken care to point out to me how wicked it was to break a promise. I did not know what to do: all that evening I was in such a state of feverish excitement, that my grandmother was quite astonished. The fact was, that I was ashamed to retract my promise, and yet I trembled at the deed that I was about to do. I went into my room and got into bed. I remained awake; and about midnight I got up, and creeping softly into my grandfather's room, I went to his clothes, which were on a chair, and ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... at me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... and the Soft with the Strong and the Eloquent—-thatnever Sentiments were finer, and fuller of Life! never any were utter'd so sweetly!—-Even in what relates to the pious and frequent Addresses to God, I now retract (on these two last Revisals) the Consent I half gave, on a former, to the anonymous Writer's Proposal, who advis'd the Author to shorten those Beauties.——Whoever considers his Pamela with a View to find Matter for Censure, is in the Condition of a passionate Lover, who breaks in upon his ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... differences of knowledge and mental cultivation. All language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the principle is no older than the first edition of Mr. Ricardo's book; and when you make me this concession so readily under the notion that you are conceding nothing more than has long been established, I fear that you will seek to retract it, as soon as you are aware of its real import ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... arteries are severed. If the wound in an artery is in the direction of its length, the blood escapes more freely than if the vessel is completely severed, because in the latter instance the severed ends retract, curl in, and may aid very much in arresting the flow. When the blood merely oozes from the wound, and even when it flows in a small stream, the forming of the clot arrests the hemorrhage in ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... also favours the inclusion in the wound of a foreign body, such as the broken point of a knife, or a piece of glass. The bleeding from scalp wounds is often profuse and difficult to control, because the vessels, fixed as they are in the dense subcutaneous tissue, cannot retract and contract so as to bring about the natural arrest of haemorrhage, and it is difficult to apply forceps or ligatures to their cut ends, suture ligatures are more efficient. On account of the free arterial anastomosis ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... him retract," cried Porbus, striking Poussin on the shoulder. "The fruits of love wither in a day; those of art ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... personally hostile. On the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one, whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done: I can neither retract nor apologise for a charge of falsehood which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... discovered by a man whose presence is a source of gratification. If artful, she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. Now, it is only the parents and near relations of a young woman who can be witnesses to her real character, unless it be, indeed, her own maid, whom one could not condescend ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "I fear I cannot retract. The female bluebird is singularly devoid of sentiment, and takes life in the most serious and matter-of-fact way. Her nest and her young are all in all to her. John Burroughs, who is a very close observer, says she shows no affection for the male and no pleasure in his ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... when Tigellinus bent over him and inquired once again, "Wilt thou retract?" his white lips moved slightly, and from them ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... I have sufficiently recovered to retract my disbelief in kitchen soap, and—and in your skill," she added, with a ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... at the same time: that as soon as the pains were gone, she would retract the confession. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... "Then, I retract the scurvy things I said back there. I asked her to marry me three times and she refused me three times. What I said about the brambles was rotten. I'd ask her again if I thought she'd have me. There you are, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... hero whose fame stands in the records of a dozen battles, and at least half as many bloody duels. Besides, he is the favorite emissary and bosom friend of Houston. If I have the good fortune to kill him, I think it will tempt the president to retract his vow against venturing any more on ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... learned that Elizabeth had actually named commissioners to hear the pleadings on both sides, and written to summon the regent to produce before them whatever he could bring in justification of his conduct towards his sovereign, than she hastened to retract ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general statements about ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... putting off the engraver of a few of the drawings as the designer himself—as one of the 'illustrators' of the 'Miscellany'? Let Mr. Bentley but produce a single design for the 'Miscellany,' by 'Cruikshank the Younger' (by him so-called), and I will retract this indignant disclaimer and apologise. If Mr. Bentley cannot do this, he stands self-convicted of an attempt to impose upon the public by a mystification, for purposes as ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the modern newspaper. If a piece of news, no matter how thrilling, is untrue, it is worthless in the columns of a reputable journal. It is worse than worthless, because it makes the public lose confidence in the paper. And the ideal of all first-class newspapers to-day is never to be compelled to retract a published statement. This desire for accuracy does not bar a paper from publishing, for example, a rumor of the assassination of the German Crown Prince, but it does demand that the report be published only ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... ready for this walk, and they entered into it with pleasure. Could Anne have foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but, from some feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was too late to retract, and the whole six set forward together in the direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently considered the walk ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Yet to retract her promise she was ashamed. Only girls of low social position played fast and loose in that way. She went through ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... dressed in black, who having learned her situation, enticed her to a house in Hart-street, Covent-garden, where the ruin of the poor girl was finally effected. It was not until she had immersed herself in vice and folly that she reflected on her situation, and it was then too late to retract; and after suffering unheard of miseries, was, in the short space of three months, reduced to her present ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... I won't pass the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back to Bloomsbury ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... his chamber to listen to his confession. Representatives from the four religious orders, with four civil officers, gathered about the supposed dying man. "You have death on your lips," they said; "be touched by your faults, and retract in our presence all that you have said to our injury." The Reformer listened in silence; then he bade his attendant raise him in his bed, and gazing steadily upon them as they stood waiting for his recantation, he said, in the firm, strong voice which had so often caused them to tremble, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Al-Asr. (Pilgrimage iii. 80.) There is a difference too between the Hebrew and the Moslem rite. The Jewish operator, after snipping off the foreskin, rips up the prepuce with his sharp thumb-nails so that the external cutis does not retract far from the internal; and the wound, when healed, shows a narrow ring of cicatrice. This ripping is not done by Moslems. They use a stick as a probe passed round between glans and prepuce to ascertain the extent of the frenum and that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... this tribute to truth, it is not my intention to retract, in the smallest degree, the opinion I have ever professed, that the restoration of the ancient monarchy of France would be the best possible means not only of securing the different states of Europe from the dangers of republican anarchy, but of promoting the real interests, welfare, and ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... have done the same, Gaunt, had the insult been offered to you. Let the fellow retract his words, or ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... prize. Was it not Queen Elizabeth who gave a silver chess-man to one of her courtiers as a mark of her royal favour? I am ashamed to imitate such a pedantic coquet—but since I have said it, how can I retract?" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... on which he had recently entered, and on which he might naturally look as the course cut out for him by Providence, was suddenly closed against him for ever. He knew his uncle's temper too well to expect that he would relent, and he felt that to retract a statement which he knew to be true, or to express regret for having boldly told the truth as he had done, was out of the question. Besides, he was well aware that such a course would not now avail to restore him to his lost position. It ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... the more willing to adopt this course, because the most of his works form in a certain measure one great whole, and mutually supply each other; and because too, the author having in part first explored unknown regions, and having of course sometimes found it necessary to retract hypotheses started in his earlier writings, his works cannot well be separated. He wrote mostly in German; sometimes in Latin; while comparatively very few of his numerous books are in the Bohemian language. In this way only could they gain that kind of universality, which the subject required; ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... fewer and less elaborate illustrations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing to allow the book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains I have little to retrench, and nothing to retract. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Noir, striding toward Traverse and raising his hand over his head, with a fearful oath, "retract your ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... dream only after long absence." Of the work itself he says, "Except the two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical necessity and Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these 'outbursts' of my 'youthful' zeal to 'retract', and with the exception of some flame-coloured epithets applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and others, or rather to personifications (for such they really were to 'me') as little to regret. Qualis ab initio [Greek: ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... I have ventured to offer from my own experience; but as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with diffidence; and when better are suggested, shall retract them without regret. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... strongly urged to insert three papers on the Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has however determined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... expand a place within its own sphere of activity. One of them will necessarily nullify the other, for every existing thing aims at the greatest possible development of its own forces. A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing comedy with comedy the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the first edition appeared in January, 1831. Garrison registered his sublime vow in his opening editorial: "I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest,—I will not equivocate,—I will not excuse,—I will not retract a single inch,—and I will be heard." His battle cry was "Immediate, unconditional emancipation ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... or two at Bourhill will do wonders for poor Lizzie Hepburn. If you saw her you would be quite sorry for her. She is such an interesting girl, so beautiful, and she has a great deal of character, quite different from Christina. I have asked them down, and of course I can't retract my invitations; they may have gone down to Miss Peck already, for aught I know. Promise to come down to Bourhill and see poor Lizzie, then I am sure you will say I have ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... know what you mean, and if you put me on my mettle, I'll retract. After all, it was no great credit to him, because blood will tell, and he ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... it; but the Doctor was of course prepared to admit that her quietness might mean volumes. She had told Morris Townsend that she would not mention him to her father, and she saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion. It was no more than decently civil, of course, that after having dined in Washington Square, Morris should call there again; and it was no more than natural that, having been kindly received on this occasion, he should continue to present himself. He had had plenty ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... that he killed the deer, and that its horns were justly his. I will not retract that, but still do I count him mine enemy, even as his father ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken the pains to shew his ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... thing," said Editor Westbrook. "You work up to your climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I don't know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Comic Dramatists of the Restoration.] because in many things he has taxed me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... was quite unpardonable and irretrievable. 'Mr. Blenkinsopp,' he said gravely, turning to the awe-struck tobacco-pipe manufacturer with an expression of sympathetic dismay upon his practised face, 'I must retract all I have just been saying to you about our junior master. I was not aware of this. Mr. Le Breton must no longer retain his post as an assistant at ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer[875], ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... his knees at her feet. "Anything but that. I apologize, I retract; I will do penance; I will even eat ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Lord Beresford expressed regret to me and said that he would explain in another speech. I hadn't seen the old fellow for a long time till a fortnight ago. He greeted me cheerily, and I said, "I don't think I ought to shake hands with you till you retract what you said about our navy." He insisted on my dining with him. He invited Admiral Sims also, and those two sailors had a jolly evening of it. Sims's coming has straightened out all that naval misunderstanding and more. He is of immense help to them and to us. But I'm going to make old Beresford's ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... of his situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of everlasting sleep, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Rais'd with the Natural, and the Soft with the Strong and the Eloquent—-thatnever Sentiments were finer, and fuller of Life! never any were utter'd so sweetly!—-Even in what relates to the pious and frequent Addresses to God, I now retract (on these two last Revisals) the Consent I half gave, on a former, to the anonymous Writer's Proposal, who advis'd the Author to shorten those Beauties.——Whoever considers his Pamela with a View to find Matter for Censure, is in the Condition of a passionate ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... for I found the hides of several which I shot in Patagonia deeply scored. So do camels; and both these animals, when savage, draw their ears closely backwards. Guanacoes, as I have noticed, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, retract their ears. Even the hippopotamus, when threatening with its widely-open enormous mouth a comrade, draws back its small ears, just ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... cause pain. The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed. I think one great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance still easier. I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is withstood a moment, vibrating, and then all resistance is withdrawn by a sudden 'flashing open' of the gates, permitting easy entrance, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... expense of bad feeling. He was shrewd, practical—maliciously practical, many thought. When, in the heat of one of his perorations, a flash of his hidden fires would arouse the distrust of the conservative, he would appear to retract and try to smother the flames in a cloud of conciliatory smoke. Only the restraining hand of Lincoln prevented him from committing fatal blunders at the outset of the Civil War, yet his handling of the threatening episode ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... knowledge and mental cultivation. All language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. "To retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be. The very word "spirit" means "breath," from the Latin verb ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... plaintiff is really the defendant. Sir Charles has written a defamatory letter, which has closed every house in this county to his victim. If, as I now feel sure, you disapprove the libel, pray persuade him to retract it. The rest our ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... In that matter I was wrong. I retract; my honour is at stake. You had better beware you do not give way to ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... though, having printed the ghastly falsehood in my original article, I can hardly hope now for absolution from the outraged South, I can at least retract, as I hereby do, and can, moreover, thank Mr. H.E. Jones, of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, for having saved me from a double sin; for had he not given me the simple illustration of the grocery store, I might have repeated, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... withdraw your accusation, then?" demanded the youth, whose manner was such that Rexford was glad, for the time being, to retract his statement, or make any admission whatever, for he saw that in the boy's eyes which warned him to adopt a more conciliatory policy ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... serious in this matter, and she knew, that with all his indolence of nature, there were points on which he might be provoked, and that, being provoked, he had in him something dangerous, which her wisdom taught her to fear accordingly. She began, therefore, to retract her false step as fast as she could. "She was but speaking for the house's credit, and she couldna think of disturbing his honour in the morning sae early, when the young woman might as weel wait or call again; and to be sure, she might make a mistake between the twa sisters, for ane o' ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of course, Mr. Johnston demands that Major Penfield retract his charge of German influence being ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... "language in very many respects unbecoming." Whether Tungche took this very decided step in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two empresses reinstating Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank and dignity, and thus reasserting the power of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... many centuries, pervaded the bosoms of the French people, that they could not conduct their monarch to the scaffold without the deepest emotions of awe. A feeling of consternation oppressed every heart in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But it was too late to retract. Perhaps there was not an individual in that vast throng who did not shudder in view of the crime of that day. At one spot on the line of march, seven or eight young men, in the spirit of desperate heroism which the occasion excited, hoping that the pity of the multitude ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... labors. Miss Fannie Siebold, a vivacious young woman with auburn hair and with eyes that sparkle, was visiting friends in the place. She never lost an opportunity to show her interest in the little church. Her host, curious to see if she could not be made to retract from her offers, told her he would give her fifty cents if she would ride one of his ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... set on foot such a Journal in such times, to contribute towards it for many years, to bear patiently the reproach and poverty which it caused, and to look back and see that I have nothing to retract, and no intemperance and violence to reproach myself with, is a career of life which I must think to be extremely fortunate. Strange and ludicrous are the changes in human affairs. The Tories are now on the treadmill, and the well-paid Whigs are riding in chariots: ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... "Oh, no; I retract what I have said if it is to have that effect. It is only my own expressions that seem tiresome. I could not be happy without your voice in my ears, though you repeat from morn till ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... "Come, come; I retract my sneers. You begin to excite my admiration. I shall undoubtedly shoot you before I'm taken, but it shall be your comfort to ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... come here alone, and appeal to you. I resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course you have chosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger—a person of most insolent behaviour to your brother and others—to prefer your ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... though he should discover that they are false; and in resenting affronts with the utmost rigour, even when they were provoked by himself, he is taught, that it is his business to conquer in whatever cause, and that to desist from any of his attempts, or retract any of his assertions, is unworthy ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ against Sir ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... Christian valley of Achor, and one which every sin-sick soul seizes with avidity, as being far more comforting than embarrassing. And this opportunity remains a permanent institution with us—to confess, retract our wrongs as memory may recall them; and aids individuals in so thoroughly repenting of past sins that they are enabled to leave them in the rear, while they pass on to greater salvations. It often takes years for individuals ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... free for the manipulation of forceps, and the insertion of the bronchoscope or other instrument. During introduction, the fingers of the right hand retract the upper lip so as to prevent its being pinched between the laryngoscope and the teeth. The introduction of the direct laryngoscope and exposure of the larynx is best described in two stages. 1. Exposure and identification of the epiglottis. ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... burnt for saying that prayers ought not to be addressed to saints, but only to God. A striking contrast was exhibited in October 1424, when a Stamford friar, John Russell, who had preached that any religious potest concumbere cum muliere and not mortally sin, was sentenced only to retract his doctrine. Further persecutions of a whole batch of Lollards took place in 1428. The records of convocation in Chicheley's time are a curious mixture of persecutions for heresy, which largely consisted in attacks on clerical endowments, with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... related to my father and other relations by Mr. Symmes; but they had gone too far in making themselves parties to the quarrel either to retract or forgive; and I was forbidden to correspond with him, or to be seen ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... by superior courts, and because it is "one of their three grand principles which disclaimeth the binding of themselves for the future unto their present judgement and practice, and avoucheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract."[268] Some who think that, after all recent changes, they more truly hold the opinions of Gillespie than we do, have laid it down very dogmatically that even although the constitution of a national church were in all other respects scriptural, yet if it did not reserve this power to alter ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... spies upon my track. You have told these husbands that their wives need watching. You have turned them against me and against their wives, who are as pure and virtuous as the snow which you never see. (God, forgive me!) All this, my friend, in order to get even with me. I don't ask you to retract anything you've said. I only intend you to know that I can crush you as I would a peanut, if you know ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... espoused the cause of Warbeck, and attended him upon an invasion of England, though he would not formally retract his judgment of Perkin, wherein he had engaged himself so far, yet in his private opinion, upon often speech with the Englishmen, and diverse other advertisements, began to suspect him for a counterfeit. Wherefore in a noble fashion he called him unto him, and recounted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the proper motive of that action, and we esteem it vicious in him to be regardless of it. If we find, upon enquiry, that the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast, though checked in its operation by some circumstances unknown to us, we retract our blame, and have the same esteem for him, as if he had actually performed the action, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... tribute to truth, it is not my intention to retract, in the smallest degree, the opinion I have ever professed, that the restoration of the ancient monarchy of France would be the best possible means not only of securing the different states of Europe from the dangers of republican anarchy, but of promoting the real interests, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... executed. Thus only the truthful and conscientious suffered from the effects of this odious insanity. Some among the wretched people who had confessed witchcraft showed a subsequent disposition to retract. A man named Samuel Wardmell, having solemnly recanted his former statement, was tried, condemned, and executed. Despite this terrible warning, a few others followed the conscientious but fatal example. Every one of the sufferers during this dreadful period protested their innocence ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Chutney," cried the colonel. "I retract what I said. And how about the canoe? Can we ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... to care about—but he thinks he will. {236} He may very likely cool upon it: but, in the meanwhile, such are his good Intentions, not only to the little Poem, but, I believe, to myself also—personally unknown as we are to one another. Therefore, my dear Lady, though I cannot retract what I told you on such authority as I had,—nevertheless, as you were so far prejudiced in his favour because of such service as he formerly was to me, I feel bound to tell you of this fresh offer on his part: so that, as you were not unwilling to receive him on trial before, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... that she was going to have a step-father. Dely was astonished and indignant, but to no purpose. Mrs. German cried and rocked, and rocked and cried again, rather more saliently than when her husband died, but for all that she did not retract; and in due time she got into the stage with her elderly lover and went to Meriden, where they got married, and came home next day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... were Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... three essays for which he received prizes had been written to compel his father to retract the "stupid fellow" with which he had insulted him. At that time he had sat over his books day and night for weeks, and, thank Heaven, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper; you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and tell you that I am a titiretero, (player of marionettes,) and that I practised ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... may have had one or two hard thoughts about the heartlessness of your corporation, but I retract 'em now. You have a kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all. It does you credit. I was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed. It would not be honorable or praiseworthy,' says I, 'for ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... she persisted, going on now in sheer desperation, having proceeded too far to retract. 'My petals are delicately fair, with just a faint rosy blush, my pistils and stamens of a tender yellow, and my form, if fragile, is ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as much as they ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not know whether she was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. "It ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... but I never have been able personally to verify the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its claws within ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the teeth and ready for any emergency. In the meantime, and just before the House met, General John E. Addison, who had found out what was going on and knew the seriousness of the affair, called on Moore, who was his friend, and urged him to retract what he had said and make a suitable apology, and for that purpose drew up a document for him to read to the House, but of this I was not at the time informed. As soon as the journal was read I ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... though it had been paid for the three. When Broome, in spite of his subservience, became a little restive under this treatment, Pope indirectly admitted the truth by claiming only twelve books in an advertisement to his works, and in a note to the Dunciad, but did not explicitly retract the other statement. Broome could not effectively rebuke his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope to attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too much, according to Pope; and the poet's morality is ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... good fame, from the imputation cast upon it by you; which imputation, I am fain to believe, was uttered in a moment of hastiness; and which, after I have explained the circumstances of the case, you will be happy to retract. However, sir, permit me to continue. The black, I have every reason to believe, is in the service of Mr. Ferguson at Fern Vale; for he came over this morning, while you were absent at the bridge, with a message for that gentleman from ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... and if any thing can console me in my present situation, it is the circumstance of having presiding at my trial an officer so universally beloved by the whole corps. Still," and again his voice acquired its wonted firmness, and his cheek glowed with honest pride, "still, I say, I scorn to retract my words. Of the two first charges I am as innocent as the babe unborn. To the last I plead guilty; and vain would it be to say otherwise, since the gate was found open while I was on duty, and I know the penalty attached to the disobedience ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... was startling to her that Wilbur should suddenly utter the tragic ultimatum that their happiness was at an end, and hint at divorce. She considered that she loved him, and it had never occurred to her that he could ever cease to love her. Rather than retract a word of her own accusations she would have let him leave her, then and there, to live her own life without protection or support from him, but his calmer decision that they should continue to live together, yet apart, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the said court of Assistants, in manner aforesaid, shall be committed to close prison for one month, and then, unless they choose voluntarily to depart this jurisdiction, shall give bond for their good behaviour and appear at the next court, where, continuing obstinate, and refusing to retract and reform the aforesaid opinions, they shall be sentenced to banishment, upon pain of death. And any one magistrate, upon information given him of any such person, shall cause him to be apprehended, and shall commit any such person to prison, according to his discretion, until he come ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... difficulties and dangers of the situation increased daily. Revolt, popularly regarded as fomented by the Court Party, had broken out in Ireland; the King, evidently seeking power and opportunity to retract the concessions he had made, was seeking aid in all directions—Rome, France, Spain, and was intriguing in Scotland; the air was full of rumours of a plot of the Court to bring down the army in the ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... clamouring afar off, while the Book [Milton's Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce] hath been twice printed, twice bought up, and never once vouchsafed a friendly conference with the author, who would be glad and thankful to be shown an error, either by private dispute or public answer, and could retract as well as wise men before him: might also be worth the gaining, as one who heretofore hath done good service to the Church, by their own confession. ... However, if we know at all when to ascribe the occurrences ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of Bea, the son of Sul, and to the west by the entrance to a field which partly belonged to the property, while the shorter side was bounded to the north by the house of Ittabsi, and to the south by the house of Likimm, were signed and sealed by Nebo-usatu, who pledged himself not to retract the deed or make any subsequent claim, and they were then handed over to Nebo-liu." The troubles of the latter, however, were not yet at an end. "Ilu-rabu-bel-sant, Sennacherib, and Labasu, the sons of Rakhaz the [priest] of the great god, said to ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... passing fair, waxed wroth out of wit. "Thou must forego that ho ever do you a vassal's service; he is worthier than my brother Gunther, the full noble man. Thou must retract what I have heard thee say. Certes, it wondereth me, sith he be thy vassal and thou hast so much power over us twain, why he hath rendered thee no tribute so long a time. By right I should be spared thy ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... share my chamber, Poodle, now, remember, No more howling, No more growling! I had as lief a bull should bellow, As have for a chum such a noisy fellow. Stop that yell, now, One of us must quit this cell now! 'Tis hard to retract hospitality, But the door is open, thy way is free. But what ails the creature? Is this in the course of nature? Is it real? or one ...
— Faust • Goethe
... she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. Now, it is only the parents and near relations of a young woman who can be witnesses to her real character, unless it be, indeed, her own maid, whom one could not condescend ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... necessary that he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert a position." ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... persuade him to give it up, papa went and concluded, what appeared to him, an excellent bargain, with the lawyer, who was too anxious to serve his employer, not to try and make light of the reports, and not only this, but to fix papa so, that he could not possibly retract. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... sanctification of Thy Spirit.'—My mind suffers keenly in consequence of a conversation with ——. Thou, Lord, knowest exactly where the error lies; let it be discovered. If I am in the wrong make me willing to retract. I want to be a Christian in deed and truth.—It was impressed upon my mind to call upon Miss M. H., and urge her to seek salvation, having long been a hearer of the Gospel. I scarcely knew how to break through, as I had no particular acquaintance with her. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high emotions—and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... denied you the rank of artist," said Bakkus. "I retract. I apologize. No one but an artist would inflict on another human ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... believed him in perfect health. But it would require a heart of stone and an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical joy. Now, my dear Louis, forgive me if I ask a question which may revive your ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... lord and Elector, I sue for a favor in behalf of your most faithful servant, your poor Adam. I beg you out of consideration for me to retract these stringent orders, for I should be ruined if I were to execute them. Throughout the whole Mark, yea, throughout all Germany, they would raise the cry of murder against me, would everywhere blazon it, that ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... to offer from my own experience; but as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with diffidence; and when better are suggested, shall retract them without regret. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... cold in his veins; "but give him a hundred blows with the bastinade, and I will stand by and count them." "For God's sake," the merchant screamed, "I can never endure it." "We will see about that," the favorite said, coldly, "and if you die under it, it was allotted you by fate; I am not going to retract my orders." ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... same time the other who had been her accomplice, who now, being touched of God, was very penitent, I thought it best for me to suffer and be silent. There was a very pious man who knew all her history, from the beginning to the end of it, who wrote to her, that if she did not retract her lies, he would publish the account of her wicked life, to make known both her gross iniquity and my innocence. She continued some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, with many other ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... brush, declaring he would paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties, and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the picture, saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very existence. And then ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a temporal and spiritual alliance with the Western princes. After a separation and silence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... relenting; but finally consented, that his wife should be removed to her own apartment, and that Emily should attend her. Dreading equally, that this relief might arrive too late, and that Montoni might retract his concession, Emily scarcely staid to thank him for it, but, assisted by Annette, she quickly prepared Madame Montoni's bed, and they carried her a cordial, that might enable her feeble frame to sustain the fatigue of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... and F. W. H. Myers, who have gone. Sir William Crookes' work in other directions has been all-absorbing, so that all he has been able to tell us during the last few years, in relation to our present subject, is that he had nothing to add to, and nothing to retract from what he has said in the past. In his address as President of the British Association in 1898, Sir William Crookes said, after referring to his work of ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... knew it was wicked to steal, and the girl had taken care to point out to me how wicked it was to break a promise. I did not know what to do: all that evening I was in such a state of feverish excitement, that my grandmother was quite astonished. The fact was, that I was ashamed to retract my promise, and yet I trembled at the deed that I was about to do. I went into my room and got into bed. I remained awake; and about midnight I got up, and creeping softly into my grandfather's room, I went ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... wish," said he, very slowly,—"if you wish to retract your letter to me, you now have my leave ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... me, gave me clearly to understand that he did not think the Jacobins guilty. I mentioned this to the First Consul, but nothing could make him retract his opinion. "Fouche," said he, "has good reason for his silence. He is serving his own party. It is very natural that he should seek to screen a set of men who are polluted with blood and crimes! He was one of their leaders. Do not I know ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Theaetetus, you will have to be examined, for Theodorus has been praising you in a style of which I never heard the like.' 'He was only jesting.' 'Nay, that is not his way; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent which you have already given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him what he learns of Theodorus. ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... correspondent Remus, he was thrown into great alarm, and requested from him some information respecting the terms and consequences of the censure which was then pronounced against him. He was afraid that it might compromise his personal safety if he went to Italy; that he would be compelled to retract his opinions; that the censure might extend to Austria; that the sale of his work would be ruined; and that he must either abandon his country ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... correcting its mistake and discussing the question of suffrage, repeats the charge, and seeks to sustain it by garbled quotations and groundless assertions, which we stigmatized accordingly. The Watchman now calls upon us to retract the stigma. We prefer to prove that our censure is deserved, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... that my friends have disbelieved this statement. I pledge myself never to retract the fact here advanced, that the Abyssinians do feed in common upon live flesh, and that I myself for several years have been a partaker of that disagreeable and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... into a hated marriage, or unjustly expose her to disgrace and infamy. Her tears and intreaties would soon have softened his heart; and as far as he dared he shewed an inclination to comply with so reasonable a proposal; but his lady easily obliged him to retract and to deprive Miss Melvyn of all hopes of any mitigation of the sentence ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... reduced to vocatives, drawing back their accent as far as they can, consistently with the law which restricts the accent to the last three syllables. Thus while in Sanskrit a word like Agamemnn would in the vocative retract the accent on the first syllable gamemnon, the Greek could do no more than say Agammnon with the accent on the antepenultimate. In the same manner the vocative of Aristotels, can only be Aristteles, whereas in Sanskrit it would ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the real import of its major premiss. This explanation struck us at the time as one of the most profound and original efforts of metaphysical thought that we had ever perused, and we see no reason to retract that opinion now.[2] It appears all the more valuable when we contrast it with what is said by Mr Mill's two contemporaries—Hamilton and Whately: the first of whom retains the ancient theory of reasoning, as being only a methodized transition from a ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... curious to see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty was altogether ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... but even in the lower affairs of life, when a healthy man has said out what he means, he commonly means it more intensely. When Alec Trenholme had told his brother that he still intended to be a butcher, the thing for him was practically done, and that, not because he would have been ashamed to retract, but because he had ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... about Stavordale, because just what you tell me you approve of is what I meant to propose, or if I had any conception beyond it, it was from a sudden thought which I retract. I have said a few words to Charles, but I do not find that he has more intercourse with him than you have. He says that there can be no doubt of the validity and payment of the debt, and there is ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... catastrophe let us pause and see what monuments had been erected in the Cathedral since the Stuarts mounted the throne. Dean VALENTINE CAREY was also Bishop of Exeter, d. 1626, a High Churchman, He "imprudently commended the soul of a dead person to the mercies of God, which he was forced to retract." There was a brass to him with mitre and his arms, ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... resolution[509] calling for a report from the government on "all negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... match which was to explode the whole plot and cover its originators with shame and confusion. This he did in a quiet, business-like way because the public service required it. Congress, having committed itself by promoting his enemies, could not at once retract, but the officers themselves made haste to escape from public indignation by denials and apologies, and the final effect of the Conway Cabal was to establish Washington more firmly than ever in the confidence and affection of the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... the care which he took in polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... And no suit is to be commenced before the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... seizing those clasped hands, and raising herself in her bed, fixed her eyes earnestly upon Cecilia, and asked,—"Would you, Cecilia—tell me, would you if it were now, this moment, in your power—would you retract ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... opinions and that he has a right to their expression. It is now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general statements ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... with the same purpose as Hierocles in the fourth century, to disguise the peculiar character of Christ's miracles, and draw an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philosopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Subsequently to Blount's death, his friend Gildon, who lived to retract his opinions,(383) published a collection of treatises, entitled "The Oracles of Reason;" a work which may be considered as expressing the opinions of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... to go over and see Bernd some day. If you insulted his daughter and weren't in a clear state of mind, you could simply retract what you said. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... urged to insert three papers on the Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has however determined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are the faults ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... each act Yet makes no law in mercy bend, No pitfall from our feet retract, No storm ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... is your own. I'll share Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. A word informs your brother I retract This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth Some better way of ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... a gift; but he is much displeased, and made a very different answer: "Damsel, I thank you for the offer of your house, and esteem it highly, but, if you please, I should be very sorry to lie with you." "By my eyes," the damsel says, "then I retract my offer." And he, since it is unavoidable, lets her have her way, though his heart grieves to give consent. He feels only reluctance now; but greater distress will be his when it is time to go to bed. The damsel, too, who leads him away, will pass through sorrow and heaviness. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, or are ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, we might well concede to him the first place, and say that AEschylus was the second poet of the Greeks. But by the light of nearer criticism, and with a closer insight into the structure of the epic poems, we must retract this judgment, and assert that no other poet among the Greeks, either in grandeur of conception or splendor of execution, equals the untranslatable, unapproachable, inimitable AEschylus." [Footnote: "Classical ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... realize the thing you have proposed?" he added, in a different tone. "It's not too late to retract, even now." ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... say so," answered Canute; "we have been acting strangely enough during the last few days,—it is time for us to retract. It has really gone far when we can dig up, each his own grandfather, to make way for a railroad; when in order that our loads may be carried more easily forward, we can violate the resting-place of the dead. For is not overhauling ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... the chapter on Affect.] His description seems perhaps to include cases which we would regard as perplexity states or absorbed manias. Activity is reduced, they lie in bed mute, do not answer, may retract shyly at any approach, but on the other hand may not ward off pin pricks. Sometimes there is catalepsy and lack of will, again there may be aimless resistance to external interference. They hold ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... you worthy the hospitality of White's. You have, however, permitted yourself certain expressions concerning his lordship here, which we cannot allow to remain where you have left them. You must retract, sir, or make them good." His gravity, and the preciseness of his diction now, sorted most ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... (February 21, 1905) before a ward bishop's court in Ogden with "un-Christianlike conduct and apostasy," after two minor Church officials had called upon me at my home and received my acknowledgment of the authorship of the editorials, my refusal to retract them, and my statement that I did not "sustain" Joseph F. Smith as head of the Church, since he was "leaving the worship of God for the worship of Mammon and leading the people astray." On the night of February 24, I appeared ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... when George Anson offered to show it to him he refused to read it. I should have declined discussing the matter with him unless he did read it. Bradshaw behaved very well. After the shots, Gurwood asked if Horsman would retract. Anson said, 'No, not till Bradshaw did, or apologised.' Gurwood then said to Anson, 'Will you propose to him to do so? I cannot.' So he did. Bradshaw was deeply affected; owned he had been miserable ever since; said he could not live without honour, but would ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do you not see that it alarms the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... If a piece of news, no matter how thrilling, is untrue, it is worthless in the columns of a reputable journal. It is worse than worthless, because it makes the public lose confidence in the paper. And the ideal of all first-class newspapers to-day is never to be compelled to retract a published statement. This desire for accuracy does not bar a paper from publishing, for example, a rumor of the assassination of the German Crown Prince, but it does demand that the report be published only as ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... dishonorable influence on the minds of the members of Parliament that ever was practised in this kingdom. No attention even to exterior decorum, in the practice of corruption and intimidation employed on peers, was observed: several peers were obliged under menaces to retract their declarations and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to add that I can make no pretension to be a teacher of science. I trust that there is no material error of statement; if there is, I shall be the first to retract and correct it. I am quite confident that no correction that may be needed in detail will ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... heads, popish priests, bishops and cardinals, together with the principal nobility of Catholic Europe—these all came together to compel the recantation of Friar Martin Luther. But Luther said; "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything for my conscience is a captive to God's Word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience," and a great multitude of men in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Great Britain stood beside Luther and protested ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... such unflinching industry, just as she had worked in the last month or two at the Grange, trying to shut her eyes to that hateful future which lay so close before her. Mr. Whitelaw had no reason to retract what he had said in his pride of heart about Ellen Carley's proficiency in the dairy. She proved herself all that he had boasted, and the dairy flourished under the new management. There was more butter, and butter of a superior quality, sent ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... was positive that during one of these minutes the Princess had the vision of her particular alarm. "It's her lie, it's her lie that has mortally disagreed with her; she can keep down no longer her rebellion at it, and she has come to retract it, to disown it and denounce it—to give me full in my face the truth instead." This, for a concentrated instant, Maggie felt her helplessly gasp—but only to let it bring home the indignity, the pity of her state. She herself could but tentatively ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... fair ground of complaint. "When a man pays through the nose for his whistle, he ought to get it!" said the Squire, plainly showing that his idea as to the price fixed was very different from that entertained by his nephew. But he did not retract his offer. He was too anxious to accomplish the purchase to do that. He would go home, he said, and wait till the 20th. Then he would return to London. And he did ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... would seem to us a very harsh way; but from the standpoint of the council he was given every advantage. By special favor he was granted a public hearing. The council was anxious that Huss should retract; but no form of retraction could be arranged to which he would agree. The council, in accordance with the usages of the time, demanded that he should recognize the error of all the propositions which they had selected from his writings, that ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... reason disinclination to step into the cabinet over the bodies of his friends. It seems that Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne, who assists him, sent Canning to Lord Aberdeen to invoke his aid with Cardwell and prevail on him to retract. But Lord Aberdeen, though he told Canning that he disapproved (at variance here with what Graham and I considered to be his tone on Monday, but agreeing with a note he wrote in obscure terms the next morning), said he could not make such a request to ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... they were not to believe the Scriptures. He answered him that the Scriptures were no more than the love of God. This answer did not quell the dissidents, but caused them to murmur more loudly against him, and Jesus, though he must have seen that he was about to lose some disciples, would retract nothing. The Scriptures are, he repeated, but the love of God. He that came to betray him said: and the Gentiles that haven't the Scriptures? Jesus answered that all men that have the love of God in their hearts are beloved by God. Is it then ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... first real compliment you ever have paid me. I shall appropriate it immediately, before you have time to retract ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... spirits rose. She left the great road to ascend the side of Mount Pion. Her step was light, and without weariness she drew near the cave of Endora. For the first time fear possessed her. She saw the witch at the entrance. She had, however, gone too far to retract, neither did ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... responsibility in publishing this Volume; as to which he can only say, in addition to a reference to the general authority given by the Author, that to the best of his knowledge and judgment he has not permitted any thing to appear before the public which Mr. Coleridge saw reason to retract; and further express his hope and belief that, with such allowance for defects inherent in the nature of the work as may rightfully be expected from every really liberal mind, nothing contained in the following pages can fairly be a ground ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder 400 DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms 410 DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
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