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Reactionary   Listen
noun
Reactionary  n.  (pl. reactionaries)  One who favors reaction, or seeks to undo political progress or revolution.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reactionary" Quotes from Famous Books



... just at the time when the German-Catholic agitation, set in motion by Czersky and Ronge as a highly meritorious and liberal movement, was causing a great commotion. It was now made out that by Tannhauser I had provoked a reactionary tendency, and that precisely as Meyerbeer with his Huguenots had glorified Protestantism, so I with my latest opera would ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... said, halting in front of the Greek, a reactionary pallor on his countenance, "the effort thou art making to get away from God proves how greatly He is a terror to thee. The Academy is only a multitude thou hast called together to help hide thee from Christ. Thou art an organizer of Sin—a disciple of Satan"—he was speaking not loud ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... was not in any way promoted by this Government, but had its origin in what seems to have been a reactionary and revolutionary policy on the part of Queen Liliuokalani, which put in serious peril not only the large and preponderating interests of the United States in the islands, but all foreign interests, and, indeed, the decent administration of civil affairs and the peace of the islands. It ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... that regime, none was more ardent a fighter than young Francisco Ferrer. The Republican ideal,—I hope no one will confound it with the Republicanism of this country. Whatever objection I, as an Anarchist, have to the Republicans of Latin countries, I know they tower high above the corrupt and reactionary party which, in America, is destroying every vestige of liberty and justice. One has but to think of the Mazzinis, the Garibaldis, the scores of others, to realize that their efforts were directed, not ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... removing permanently to cosmopolitan New York more than once during his absence North. If he should be fully convinced after his return that Mara was lost to him, unless he became a part of her implacable and reactionary coterie, it might be better for his peace of mind ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... movement towards fusion. The result was that the Jews in Egypt, not being hampered by reactionary endeavours from the side of conservative parties, and with an adaptability peculiar to their race, soon acquired the language of the people in whose midst they dwelt. They conversed and wrote in Greek; they moulded and shaped their own thoughts into Greek form; they clothed ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... pillars of the state. Yet Southey, reactionary as he was in politics, never ceased to believe in social Progress. [Footnote: See his Colloquies; and Shelley, writing in 1811, says that Southey "looks forward to a state when all shall be perfected and matter become subjected to the omnipotence ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... be shot." The Secretary, in seconding the resolution, humorously alluded to the doctor's gown, hood, and cap, in which Mr. Roosevelt received his degree, as a possible example of what America sometimes regards as the gilded trappings of a feudal and reactionary Europe.—L.F.A. ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... Jagan helped to organize the Peoples Progressive Party of British Guyana. Twice Jagan won a popular electoral majority and was established as Prime Minister of the British Colony. His two periods of administrative responsibility were badgered and hectored by every reactionary force that could be mobilized inside and outside British Guyana, from the British appointed governor to the domestic and foreign business interests and the urban trade unions. Before a third election British and American governments, business and labor interests got together. Money was funnelled ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... Holland chuckled. "An ultra-conservative—reactionary might be the better term—organization devoted to witch hunting and such in its efforts to maintain the status quo, major. Once again, history repeats itself. Such groups invariably evolve when basic change threatens a socio-economic system." ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... also produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old; new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his treatment ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... "It is reactionary—a miserable subterfuge—a treacherous attempt to return to the old order of things! A conspiracy to re-shackle, re-enslave American womanhood with the sordid chains of domestic cares! To drive her back into the kitchen, the laundry, the ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... the human intellect and advance mankind. Berlin is the concentration of the strong will of a state which has made itself great out of the weak will of sundry inferior states, homogeneous in their disunity more than in any positive quality, and which stands for a political ideal more nearly reactionary, more nearly mediaeval, than any other modern state. Berlin is not German as Paris is French, and Rome is not so exclusively Italian. In fact, her greatness, accomplished and destined, lies in just the fact ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... monarchical principles and of religious orthodoxy, and attacked the views, which he had once held and expressed in 'Wat Tyler' (written in 1794, and piratically published in 1817), with the bitterness of a reactionary. He had also, as Byron believed, circulated, if not invented, a report that Byron and Shelley had formed "a league of incest" at Geneva, in 1816-17, with "two girls," Mary Godwin (Mrs. Shelley) and Jane Clairmont. Byron ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... reduced virtue to a profit-and-loss account. Carlyle took issue with modern liberalism; he ridiculed the self-gratulation of the time, all the talk about progress of the species, unexampled prosperity, etc. But he was reactionary without being conservative. He had studied the French Revolution, and he saw the fateful, irresistible approach of democracy. He had no faith in government "by counting noses," and he hated talking parliaments; but neither did ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... righteousness, left among men. Any organisation that became big enough to influence the polls became complex enough to be undermined, broken up, or bought outright by capable rich men. Socialistic and Popular, Reactionary and Purity Parties were all at last mere Stock Exchange counters, selling their principles to pay for their electioneering. And the great concern of the rich was naturally to keep property intact, the board clear for the game of trade. Just as the feudal ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... reactionary product of his time. Humanity continuing in one direction acquires success, and finally through an overweening pride in its own powers, relaxation enters, and self- indulgence takes the place of effort. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... during the prevalence of enlightment and humanity, the Jews were acted upon by the intellectual and cultural stimulus proceeding from the peoples with whom they entered into close relations. Momentary aberrations and reactionary incidents are not taken into account here. On its side, Jewry made its personality felt among the nations by its independent, intellectual activity, its theory of life, its literature, by the very fact, indeed, of its ideal staunchness and tenacity, ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... who had gained early notoriety by renting his subjects to foreign armies, now revived corporal punishment together with the stocks and other feudal institutions. In Wurtemberg serfdom was re-established. Throughout Germany the reactionary suggestions of Prince Metternich were carried into effect. A good opportunity for Metternich to assert his ascendency was presented by the first session of the new German Diet. Late in the year the delegates from all the States ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... upshot of all this," so I have been told more than once and by more than one person, "will be simply that all you will succeed in doing will be to drive people to the wildest Catholicism." And I have been accused of being a reactionary and even a Jesuit. Be it ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... of which the powers of the Triple Entente, and especially Russia, have made themselves the champions have not provoked this bloody struggle. It was imposed on them by the reactionary spirit of the Germanic world, which desired to consolidate its hegemony, based on the sufferings of the weak, impossible to describe, and on the contempt of right, which was proclaimed as a system ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... popularity of Burke when his predictions with regard to the French Revolution were realized. During all the years that have intervened since reconstruction days, the conservative has had as a resource for leadership his harking back to those days. The demagogue and the reactionary — enemies of the children of light — have always been able to inflame the populace with appeals to the memories and issues of the past. Such men have forgot ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... legislation, we have long recognised the high position held by your nation. But in the more vital matter of the relation of the individual to the supreme governing power, we have always held, and still believe, that Germany is sadly reactionary. For half a century your professors, in the employ of an educational system controlled by a bureaucratic Government, have taught what we condemn as a false philosophy of government. Your histories, your books on philosophy, ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson

... would neutralize the excitement that is already there, and that there would be a grand peace! (Laughter). But, not to trifle with it, woman is excitable. Woman is yet to be educated. Woman is yet to experience the reactionary influence of being a public legislator and thinker. And let her sphere be extended beyond the family and the school, so that she should be interested in, and actively engaged in, promoting the welfare of the whole community, and in the course ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... oppose to the muskets and bayonets of their soldiers but the bare breasts of a brave but peaceful people. No matter. Fifty, a hundred, five hundred of you killed at the first volley, and the day is won! The reactionary Government of Italy—all the reactionary Governments of Europe—will be borne down lay the righteous ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... Moreover we are now in the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... with Felix Mottl, had "signed" Miss Fremstad, and was holding Miss Farrar, in a sense his protge, in reserve till she should "ripen" for America. The acquisition of Caruso was perhaps Mr. Conried's greatest asset financially, though it led to a reactionary policy touching the opera itself which, however pleasing to the boxholders, nevertheless cost the institution a loss of artistic prestige. I emphasize the fact that Mr. Conried acquired the contract with Signor Caruso from Mr. Grau because from that day to this careless newspaper ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... educated class from which a literature could proceed. And the culture of the South, such as it was, was becoming old-fashioned and local, as the section was isolated more and more from the rest of the Union and from the enlightened public opinion of Europe by its reactionary prejudices and its sensitiveness on the subject of slavery. Nothing can be imagined more ridiculously provincial than the sophomorical editorials in the Southern press just before the outbreak of the war, or than the backward and ill-informed articles ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... unexpected by them. But whatever defects there be in Carlyle, his readers will at least understand the significance of the Revolution, and why it is that the terrible, but temporary excesses which stained its progress have been so unduly magnified by reactionary politicians, while the cruelties of the White Terror[163] are ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... corn laws the tariff legislation of Great Britain was guided by a new policy, that of free trade, and it has been followed ever since. The reactionary tendencies of Continental Europe after the fall of Napoleon reached also to England, where they controlled the conduct of political affairs until Canning, in 1822, became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His policy was liberal and did much in forming the public opinion that at length found ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... old as ours there finally comes to be in politics a fundamental division. There is the constructive and progressive on the one side, and the destructive and reactionary on the other side. These are merely the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature at work in human society. Usually it is found that one of these parties is naturally the Governing Party, and the other one is ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... King's thanks, he retired to his estate in the department of Orne, which had long been burdened with mortgages; and, in 1807, he married Henriette Le Chantre de la Chanterie, with the concurrence of the Royalists, whose "pet" he was. He pretended to take part in the reactionary revolutionary movement of the West in 1809, implicated his wife in the matter, compromised her, ruined her, and then disappeared. Returning in secrecy to his country, under the assumed name of Lemarchand, he aided the authorities in getting at the bottom of the plot, and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... white men in the state who opposed any reactionary step unless it were of general application. They were conscientious men, who had learned the ten commandments and wished to do right; but this class was a small minority, and their objections were soon silenced ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... movements than Modernists and Modernists than Evolutionists. Religious people are apt to be afraid of the new world; they doubt the possibility of eliminating war, poverty and injustice—customs as deeply rooted in the social world as belief in Jesus is in the religious world. If the chief reactionary bulwark of the past is abandoned, there will be greater possibility of accepting ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... quite eager to see the common man prosperous, happy, and with money to spend in a bar. All sections of the party are aggressively patriotic and favourably inclined to the idea of an upstanding, well-fed, and well-exercised population in uniform. Of course there are reactionary landowners and old-fashioned country clergy, full of localised self-importance, jealous even of the cottager who can read, but they have neither the power nor the ability to retard the constructive forces in the party as a ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... awakened to the brutal soulless trade-war of modern life.... I was walking with a young student of philosophy I had met by chance across the noisy board of a Spanish pension, discussing the exhibition we had just seen as a strangely meek setting for the fiery reactionary speech. I had remarked on the very "primitive" look much of the work of these young Basque painters had, shown by some in the almost affectionate technique, in the dainty caressing brush-work, in others by that inadequacy of the means ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... best type of the non-resistant quasi-ascetic, is the exception that proves the rule; he may be persecuted, but he persecutes not again. He is the best authenticated type living of primitive Christian. That the religion of Jesus was a purely reactionary movement, suggested by the smug complacency and voluptuous condition of the times, most thinking men agree. Where rich Pharisees adopt a standard of life that can only be maintained by devouring widows' houses and oppressing the orphan, the needs of the hour bring to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... said her friend, excessively distressed at the inferior position, but his depression only inspired her with a reactionary ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... least of one of them, was due to the fact that the British Government was of opinion that the war was practically over. Again, they were relieved of the inconvenient and harassing presence of Kruger, the dour, reactionary old farmer, who had brought on the war and had now left his country to its fate; who had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing since he had set out on the Great Trek of 1836; and whose mind ran in a channel so ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... Guizot was pleased to designate it, his revolutionary opinions. The intrigue of the French government was successful, so far that the Queen of Spain was married to a Spanish Bourbon, brother to Don Enrique, a man whom the queen personally hated, a bigoted devotee and reactionary, whose fanaticism against liberty was morbid, and who was an avowed Carlist, openly denying the right of the Queen of Spain to the throne. Whatever could be supposed as likely to influence the fortunes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... The relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the message of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. The powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from breaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... most delicate and circumspect treatment, the foot-ball of a personal and party brawl which was in the highest degree apt to inflame the passions and to obscure the judgment of everybody concerned in it. Since my return from the South, the evil effects of Mr. Johnson's conduct in encouraging the reactionary spirit prevalent among the Southern whites had become more and more evident and alarming from day to day. Charles Sumner told me that his personal experience with the President had been very much like mine. When Sumner left Washington in the spring, he had received ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... said. "You're going to bring out of bed with you that hard reactionary bureaucratic spirit which all but ruined Russia and is in process of ruining Germany. It will be just as if the TSARITSA got loose and began to have her own way again. By the way, Francesca, what does one do when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various

... dispatches under consideration, Adams received a second communication from the Russian minister, expounding the reactionary ideas of the Holy Alliance. [Footnote: Ford, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings (2d series), XV., 378, 395, 402-408.] To the secretary of state this was a challenge to defend the American ideas of liberty. Convinces that his Country ought to decline the overture of Great Britain and avow ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... he was proud of the friendly confidence she had had in him. She was the only daughter of a distinguished gentleman, a solemn jurist, and a violent Conservative, a minister in the most reactionary cabinets of the reign of Isabel II. She had been educated at the same school as Josephina, who in spite of the fact that Concha was four years her senior, retained a vivid recollection of her lively companion. "For mischief and deviltry you can't beat Conchita ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... began to grow weary. "So much for your vaunted Revolution! You are more wretched than ever before," whispered the reactionary in the ears of the worker. And little by little the rich took courage, emerged from their hiding-places, and flaunted their luxury in the face of the starving multitude. They dressed up like scented fops and said to the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... risk of petrifying society in its inherited shape. With him, as with the child or the Oriental, wisdom and science belong to the infancy of civilization, and the maxims of antiquity leave nothing to be learnt. Under both aspects the Old Believer is reactionary, opposed to the very principle of progress—the hero of routine and a martyr to prejudice. His gaze turns naturally to the past, and if reform ever enters his mind, he dreams of a return to the good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... successfully than his predecessors not to set the population against him and to preserve the loyalty of his army, it may be said with absolute certainty that any large success on his part would bring crowding to his banner the same crowd of stupid reactionary officers who brought to nothing any mild desire for moderation that may have been felt by General Denikin. If the area he controls increases, his power of control over his subordinates will decrease, and the forces that led to Denikin's collapse ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... Were there no reactionary movements to warn us of the terrible reassertion of autocratic power so soon to deluge earth with horror? Yes, though there were few democratic defeats to measure against the splendid record of advance. Russia stood, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... arranged for, but the Burgomaster hoped that the resourceful English lady might have something new and tasteful to suggest in the way of loyal greeting. The Prince was known to the outside world, if at all, as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating modern progress, as it were, with a wooden sword; to his own people he was known as a kindly old gentleman with a certain endearing stateliness which had nothing of standoffishness about ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... levity. But, feeling an instant compunction, he began to assume an air of statesman-like moodiness, as one draws on a glove. "His massive intellect will stand any amount of work. It's his nerves that I am afraid of. The reactionary gang, with that abusive brute Cheeseman at their head, insult ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... the modern note in his preaching; proud that its ushers must each Sabbath morning turn away many late-comers. Indeed, the whole parish had been born to a new spiritual life since that day when the worship at St. Antipas had been kept simple to bareness by a stubborn and perverse reactionary. In this happier day St. Antipas was known for its advanced ritual, for a service so beautifully enriched that a new spiritual warmth pervaded the entire parish. The doctrine of the Real Presence ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... no. At least, not yet. But things are moving that way; and our reactionary government is helping the movement—that, and the letter they ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... is not in her noblest mood. She is laboring under a reaction which extends over France and great part of Europe, and which furnishes the key at this moment to the state of European affairs. This movement, like all great movements, reactionary or progressive, is complex in its nature. In the political sphere it presents itself as the lassitude and despondency which, as usual, have ensued after great political efforts, such as were made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... survival of the fittest—not necessarily the ideally fit, but the fittest to meet the conditions under which it must prove a survivor. The conditions which Spain created here to mould Filipino character were mediaeval, monarchical, and reactionary. The aristocracy is a land-holding one, untrained in the responsibilities of land-holders who grow up a legitimate part of the body politic of their country. Previous to American occupation the aristocracy was excluded from any share in the government, and the Spaniards were exceedingly ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... am," said Winn, who hadn't the faintest idea what a reactionary was, but rather liked the sound of it. "We'll talk about it as much as you like. How about lunch ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... to notice that Buddhism and Jainism though probably born out of a reactionary movement against this artificial creed, yet could not but be influenced by some of its fundamental principles which, whether distinctly formulated or not, were at least tacitly implied in all sacrificial performances. Thus we see that Buddhism regarded ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... these in this respect are the men who represent the extreme conservative or reactionary spirit, who as a rule are as ignorant of English as the great reformers are the reverse. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... conceived in the spirit of a lawyer and judge, and were passed in an alliance with the wing of the Republican party that was most impervious to the new reforms, and were hence open to the attack that they were in spirit and intent reactionary. ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... that time saw in the constitution only a cage whose bars prevented them from dealing a decisive blow, but whatever they could reach through the openings they tore and injured as far as lay in their power. The words "reactionary" and "liberal" had become catch terms which severed families and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... sense of hearing of any living thing. I refer to Pearl, the mare. Pearl was an elderly mare, white in color and therefore known as Pearl. She was most gentle and kind. She was a reliable family animal too—had a colt every year—but in her affiliations she was a pronounced reactionary. She went through life listening for somebody to say Whoa! Her ears were permanently slanted backward on that very account. She belonged to the Whoa Lodge, which has ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... and the "classes". We all know the regular process of logical fence of the journalist, i.e., thrust and parry, which is repeated whenever such questions turn up. The Radical calls his opponent Tory and reactionary. The wicked Tory, it is said, thinks only of the class interest; believes that the nation exists for the sake of the House of Lords; lives in a little citadel provided with all the good things, which he is ready to defend against every attempt ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... made by the government, not by the people Accession of Edward VI Cranmer's Church reforms: open communion; abolition of the Mass; new English liturgy Marriage among the clergy; the Forty-two Articles Accession of Mary Persecution of the Reformers Reactionary measures Arrest, weakness, and recantation of Cranmer His noble death; his character Death of Mary Accession of Elizabeth, and return of exiles to England The Elizabethan Age Conservative reforms and conciliatory measures ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... probability a corruption or familiarisation of the word Mercia, with a Roman pun included. We learn from early manuscripts that the place was called Vilula Misericordiae. It was originally a nunnery, founded by Queen Bertha, but done away with by King Penda, the reactionary to Paganism after St. Augustine. Then comes your uncle's place—Lesser Hill. Though it is so close to the Castle, it is not connected with it. It is a freehold, and, so far as we know, of equal age. It has always ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... designs of the monarchs against Poland were notorious; and it was clear that a vast conspiracy was being hatched against the free States of the Continent. Would not England, then, endeavour to stop the formation of this reactionary league? ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... removed. A permanent revulsion was operant in her, which intensified as time wore on. How fright could have effected such a change of idiosyncrasy learned physicians alone can say; but I believe such cases of reactionary instinct ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... flowing through the veins of the tribune of the people. Danton answered him with a smile: 'In that case we must draw off the count's blood from the tribune of the people, that he may either be cured of his reactionary disease ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... to indicate the nature of the struggle which will confront the public of this country for the achievement of political and industrial democracy when the war is over. The economic roots of Militarism and of the confederacy of reactionary influences which are found supporting it—Imperialism, Protectionism, Conservatism, Bureaucracy, Capitalism—are subjected to a critical analysis. The safeguarding and furtherance of the interests of ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... sordid, harassing toil; toil, moreover, for which Gashwiler, the beneficiary, showed but the scantest appreciation. Indeed, the day opened with a disagreement between the forward-looking clerk and his hide-bound reactionary. Gashwiler had reached the store at his accustomed hour of 8:30 to find Merton embellishing the bulletin board in front with legends setting forth especial bargains of the day ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... destroy tradition they were revolutionaries, but in claiming to return to a remote past they showed themselves extremely reactionary. ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... executive secretary of the National Consumers' League for years and before that as State Factory Inspector of Illinois, had an unsurpassed knowledge of the conditions that affect women and children, gave a scathing review of the failure of Congress to enact protective laws and of the reactionary decisions of Supreme Courts. "Do we ask what this has to do with Municipal suffrage?" she ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... does not necessarily last indefinitely, though it may continue for years. As soon as some check has been put upon the rising tide of feeling, and a reaction is evident, those who before had been silent begin to voice their reactionary feeling, while those who shortly before had been in the ascendant begin to take their turn of silent dissent. Thus the waves are accentuated, both in their rise and in their relapse, by the abdicating proclivity ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... them exercised by the women I admire and love. It is all very well to say that the presence of woman at the ballot-box would purify it, and restrain the manners of the men around it; but I have seen enough of the world to learn that all human influence is reciprocal and reactionary. Man and the ballot-box might gain, but woman would lose, and men and the ballot-box themselves would lose in the long run. The ballot-box is the bass, and it should be man's business to sing it, while woman should give him home melody with ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... than the other," said Harry, carelessly. "I bet the squire's a bigger pot than the county council in that county. Verner is pretty well rooted; all these rural places are what you call reactionary. Damning aristocrats ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... from which resulted the attempt to establish society on the basis of the freedom of labour, which we call the Commune of Paris of 1871. Whatever mistakes or imprudences were made in this attempt, and all wars blossom thick with such mistakes, I will leave the reactionary enemies of the people's cause to put forward: the immediate and obvious result was the slaughter of thousands of brave and honest revolutionists at the hands of the respectable classes, the loss in fact of an army for ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... that the French Government has protested against the reactionary iniquities of the Tuscan Grand Duke, and every day I expect eagerly some helping hand to be stretched out to Rome. I have looked for this from the very first, and certainly it is significant that the Prince of Canino, the late President of the Roman Republic, should be in favour at the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... This reactionary movement was greatly aided by the personal character of George III, for he, being despotic as well as superstitious, was equally anxious to extend the prerogative and strengthen the church. Every liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even the mere ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... the communist believes that communism will be the outcome; neither theorist would see the slightest advantage in trying to hasten the slow but sure progress of events by deeds of violence; in fact, both theorists would regret such deeds as certain to prove reactionary and retard the march ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... banishment, and was followed by no loss of social caste. The general and his exemplary wife continued to live amidst their numerous friends as happily as before. The interchange of literary and philosophic ideas shared the hours in their attractive parlor with the revolutionary and reactionary politics of the time. The profound attachments, stamped with reverence and the rarest truthfullness, which in those years united many admirable persons with Madame Swetchine, were frequently reporting themselves, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... beginning of this reactionary wave, the North had become wholly Protestant. It has been estimated that nine-tenths of the people of Germany were of the new faith; half the population of France had adopted it; even in Italy protest and disbelief were widespread and active. Only in Spain did the Inquisition ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... not only what they are at this stage of development, but what they may become when development has been completed. Nothing is more essential than the courage, the joy, and the insight which grow out of such an Idealism, and no spiritual possession is more easily lost. The spiritual depression of a reactionary period, the routine of work, the immersion in the stream of events, the decline of moral energy, conspire to blight this noble use of the imagination, and to chill the faith which makes creative living and working possible. The familiar companionship of the ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... between Miss Whittaker and his brother officer he had gained by his unaided observations and his silent deductions. These had been logical; for, on the whole, his knowledge was accurate. It was at least what he might have termed a good working knowledge. He had calculated on a passionate reactionary impulse on Gertrude's part, consequent on Severn's simulated offence. He knew that, in a generous woman, such an impulse, if left to itself, would not go very far. But on this point it was that his policy bore. He would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... who, however, would have nothing to say to him. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances in Paris. The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in England. Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered and vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried on an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind. He had lately married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the marriage. The Duke ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... Flavian had already designed for himself would be a work, then, partly conservative or reactionary, in its dealing with the instrument of the literary art; partly popular and revolutionary, asserting, so to term them, the rights of the proletariate of speech. More than fifty years before, the younger Pliny, himself ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... and a new popular literature appeared in which the sufferings of the people were portrayed with fervor and passion. In 1868-69 there were numerous demonstrations and riots by way of protest against the reactionary policy ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... both joined the Catholic Church, and from that time on nothing more was heard of Friedrich Schlegel's radicalism. He came to hold opinions which were for the most part the exact opposite of those he had held in his youth. The vociferous friend of individual liberty became a reactionary champion of authority. Of course he grew ashamed of Lucinda and excluded it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... be difficult to exaggerate the benefit of this measure to the nation, through the service, despite the subsequent reactionary legislation. By a single act a large number of officers were advanced from the most subordinate and irresponsible positions to those which called all their faculties into play. "Responsibility," said one of the most experienced admirals the world has known, "is the test of a man's ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... people as he suggests frequently in this story, Cooper believed that the promise of the July Revolution was betrayed, and that the new government of King Louis Philippe proved little better than the old reactionary one of King Charles X; in this he shared the views of his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, the hero of the American Revolution, who as head of the French National Guard had been one of the leaders of the July ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... enfui de cette maison," and adds that the whole atmosphere of the piece is sickly with conscious virtue.[252] For ourselves we are ready for once even to sympathise with Palissot, the hack-writer of the reactionary parties, when he says that The Natural Son had neither invention, nor style, nor characters, nor any other single unit of a truly dramatic work. The reader who seeks to realise the nullity of the genre ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... Catte's Hall. The old rudeness gave way gradually, as the colleges swallowed up the irregular halls, and as the scholars unattached, infando nomine Chamber-Dekyns, ceased to exist. Learning, however, dwindled, as colleges increased, under the clerical and reactionary rule ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... the comity of nations. Then outbreaks of this kind in Saga, in Higo, in Akizuki, and in Choshu occurred, but they were all put down without difficulty or delay. The promptness with which the government dealt with these factions boded no good to the reactionary movements that were ready to break out ...
— Japan • David Murray

... Already a reactionary policy is being enacted in several countries where for years the State-School was the only one to share in the public treasury. In Holland, the Parliament of June, 1920, by a vote of 72 against 3, passed a new school-law which recognizes and subsidizes all separate primary, high and normal schools. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... Street in 1912, one of the most notable pictures was called "Rebellion." The catalogue told us that it represented "the collision of two forces, that of the revolutionary element made up of enthusiasm and red lyricism against the force of inertia and the reactionary resistance of tradition." The picture showed a crowd of scarlet figures rushing forward in a wedge. Before them went successive wedge-shaped lines, impinging upon dull blue. They represented, we were told, the vibratory ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... early aids in former Senator Robinson of Indiana. Robinson was closely tied up with the Ku Klux Klan. Through Robinson and through other politicians reached with the cry "Save America," he got a long list of prominent sponsors and gradually increased it until now it reads like a Who's Who of reactionary industrialists and innocent politicians. With letters of introduction from Senator Robinson, Steele's high pressure gang set out to collect in the ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... time, however, was hampered then and thereafter by the series of untoward events beginning with the San Domingo upheaval and ending with John Brown's raid. In particular the rise of the Garrisonian agitation and the quickly ensuing Nat Turner's revolt occasioned together a wave of reactionary legislation the whole South over, prohibiting the literary instruction of negroes, stiffening the patrol system, restricting manumissions, and diminishing the already limited liberties of free negroes. The temper of administration, however, was not appreciably affected, for this clearly appears ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... made my system of morality appear rather shaky. It is, in reality, as solid as the rock. These little liberties which I allow myself are by way of a recompense for my strict adherence to the general code. So in politics I indulge in reactionary remarks so that I may not have the appearance of a Liberal understrapper. I don't want people to take me for being more of a dupe than I am in reality; I would not upon any account trade upon my opinions, and what I especially dread is to appear in my own eyes to be passing bad money. Jesus ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... A reactionary sentiment of our day is to make an idol of the great figure-head of Puritanism. We had lately (April 25, 1899) a celebration of the Tercentenary of Cromwell; in the place of his birth he has been made use of (by a strange stroke of irony) as an apostle of education. Projects ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... both lovers was insisted upon. In the ideal justice, it makes no difference whether the crime committed is against oppression or against liberty. In the latter case, punishment assumes the form of a liberal revolt; in the former, it appears reactionary. This is why Galds, holding the balance even, with the impartiality which is the root of his character, seems in Brbara to advocate a static philosophy, whereas in most of his work he is the liberal whom Spain, a backward ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos

... thus work upon the sentiments of the nation; but "the authorities" forbade this and every other movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude on the part of Italy—this "reactionary rigorism against every manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and Greece, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... industry and strength. And it was strange how little the analogy of the miserable year 1806 shook military self-confidence, despite the startling points of resemblance. Now, as then, the complaint was of the one-sided reactionary training of the officers, which must separate them from the forward movement of the people; now, as then, there was a kind of hidebound narrow-mindedness, too often degenerating into overweening self-conceit, making them a laughing-stock to civilians; ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... alleged that he has at least served the reactionary party. I much doubt it. What internal factions has he suppressed? Secret societies have swarmed in Rome during his reign. What remonstrances from without has he silenced? Europe continues to complain unanimously, and day by day lifts up its voice a tone or ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... intensified both, until the more advanced leaders in the two countries cared little whether the process of German regeneration was begun under Hohenzollern or Hapsburg leadership. Into this surcharged atmosphere came Metternich with his exaggerated statements about the great reactionary party in France. The effect was to raise the elements. He declared, besides, that the Spanish war had absorbed so much of Napoleon's effective military strength that not more than two hundred thousand men were available for use in central Europe, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... pocket, and a letter to my colonel, I set forth for Metz. I had breakfasted with Colonel Mahon, who, amid much good advice for my future guidance, gave me, half slyly, to understand that the days of Jacobinism had almost run their course, and that a reactionary movement had already set in. The republic, he added, was as strong, perhaps stronger than ever, but that men had grown weary of mob tyranny, and were, day by day, reverting to the old loyalty, in respect for whatever pretended to culture, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, the brilliant essays of liberalism of Pius IX., the Republic, the siege of Rome, the reactionary government of late years, have alike supplied matter for Master Pasquin, which he has shaped according to the fashion of the times. He still pursues his ancient avocation. Res acu tetigit. But the point ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... constitutions? Ruskin asks a pertinent question. What is it after all but "sentiment," he inquires, that prevents a man from killing his grandmother in time of hunger? Sentiment is the most respectable thing in human psychology. No one believes in it more thoroughly than your reactionary Tory. But he wears his heart on his sleeve with a difference. He is so greedily patriotic that he would keep all the patriotism in the world to himself. That he should love his country is natural and noble, a theme ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... reactionary politician, the chief of the Thirty Tyrants, is placed amongst the atheists on the strength of a passage in a satyric drama, Sisyphus. The drama is lost, but our authority quotes the objectionable passage in extenso; it is a piece of no less than ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... opening. He found it. On the first floor of his house lived a rich man, a nobleman and a royalist, whose coachman, also a reactionary, occupied a garret-room on the sixth floor, facing the street. Monsieur Patissot supposed that by paying (every conscience can be bought) he could obtain the use of the room for the day. He proposed five francs to this citizen of the whip for the use of his room from noon ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... neither his old associates nor with the times. His investments were timid and conservative, his faith in the town that had been named for his father frequently wavered. He was in everything a reactionary, refusing to see that neither the sheep of the old Spanish settlers nor the gold of the early pioneers meant so much to this fragrant, sun-washed table land as did wheat and grapes and apple trees. Monroe came to laugh at "old Monroe's" ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... two daughters were born, and their education was a heavy drain upon their parents' means. In 1845 Pierre and his wife retired from business with forty thousand francs at the most. Instigated by the Marquis de Carnavant, they went in for politics, and soon regular meetings of the reactionary party came to be held in their "yellow drawing-room." Advised, however, by their son Eugene, they resolved to support the cause of the Bonapartes, and at the time of the Coup d'Etat of 1851 Pierre was the leader ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... yourself. If the commercial interests, ruined by the embargo, as they claimed, had belonged to the individualistic rural States, or if Jefferson had been from the trading States, sectional differences might not have been so prominent during the continuation of this policy, and the reactionary laws leading to unification might not have been so apparent. The chief protestor against marching a Federal army into the sovereign State of Pennsylvania a score of years before was now stationing gunboats off the coast of the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... OF TRENT: CARAFFA.—The Council of Trent was governed in its conclusions by this Catholic reactionary and reforming party. It allowed no curtailing of the prerogatives of the Pope. On points of doctrine in dispute within the pale of the Church, it adopted formulas which the different schools might ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Succession of Nicholas I. Order Restored Character of Nicholas His Policy Polish Insurrection Reactionary Measures Europe Excluded Turco-Russian Understanding Beginning of the Great Diplomatic Game Nature of the Eastern Question Intellectual Expansion ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... communist stepped on it, and started his talk. "Tovarishshi," he said, "the time has come."... They all applauded, though nobody knew what was going to be next, and the speaker could even have been a reactionary. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... humble man of heart, who never left his cloisters at Jarrow, spread over Europe, so that, though it sound incredible, our Northumbria narrowly missed in its day to become the pole-star of Western culture. But he was a disinterested genius, and his pupil, Alcuin, a pushing dull man and a born reactionary; so that, while Alcuin scored the personal success and went off to teach in the court of Charlemagne, the great chance ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... much right in the party as has anybody else, certainly as much as certain people from Birmingham. They can't turn us out, and we, the Tory Free Traders, have as much right to dictate the policy of the Conservative Party as have any reactionary Fair Traders." In 1904 the Conservative Party already recognized Churchill as one working outside the breastworks. Just before the Easter vacation of that year, when he rose to speak a remarkable demonstration was made ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... scheming bishops and intriguing politicians, each striving for his own advancement, or the advancement of his party. George III. during his early years had frequent changes of governors and tutors, several of whom were intense Jacobites, holding reactionary opinions. Being dull of intellect, his education tended to make him ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... The rebellious spirit of Tom Paine expressed itself in logical formulae as inflexible to the pace of life as did the more contented Hamilton's. This is a determinant which burrows beneath our ordinary classification of progressive and reactionary to the spiritual habits of ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... demand for immediate legislation by the People,—this twentieth-century appeal to the Agora and Forum methods which antedate the era of Christ. It is true the world outgrew them two thousand years ago, and they were discarded; but, living in a progressive and not a reactionary period, all that, we are assured, is changed! The heart is no longer on the right-hand side of the body. To secure desired results it is only necessary to start quite fresh, as a mere preliminary discarding ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... generally blamed for signing the death warrant of the two atrocious villains who did the deed, and for allowing them to be executed. The fact that he was blamed, and very bitterly, gives some idea of the stupid and senseless prejudice against the popes which was the result of Antonelli's narrow and reactionary policy. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... for anything but agreement or reactionary argument from the old, and this was neither, but a subtlety that she left matched in degree her own though it was probably unsound; and to cover her emotions she lifted her glass to her lips. But really wine was very horrid. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... state church as a weapon with which to combat the rising tide of popular discontent with existing social and political forms and functions. This was especially true after the accession to the throne of Prussia of that romantic and reactionary prince, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Tories, are children; they are even reactionary! They powerfully object to changes. What they most admire in a pantomime is the oldest part of it, the only true pantomime—the harlequinade! Hence the very nature of children is a proof that what ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett

... The reactionary tendency made its appearance in Dostoevsky almost contemporaneously with its appearance in Turgeneff and Gontcharoff, unhappily. The first romance in which it presented itself was "Crime and Punishment," the masterpiece ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... from Egypt to summarize the information, afforded by recent discoveries, upon the history of Western Asia under the kings of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, we noted that the Asiatic empire of Egypt was regained by the reactionary kings of the XIXth Dynasty, after its temporary loss owing to the vagaries of Akhunaten. Palestine remained Egyptian throughout the period of the judges until the foundation of the kingdom of Judah. With the decline of military spirit ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... much good political writing. For Bolingbroke had returned to England, and as he was not allowed to resume his seat in the Lords, he could make his power felt only through his pen. As he was thoroughly cured of his Jacobite sympathies, the doctrine he proclaimed was a Toryism stripped of the reactionary element. He proposed to make the State dominate over all the interests—land, Church, trade, and the like. That this might be done, and the government by a class for a class abolished, he appealed to the crown. The elevation of the State over the dominant ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... has been correctly reported he is even more of a reactionary than most of his opponents imagined. In the course of the debate on the Sunday Closing Bill he is said to have delivered himself as follows:—"Drunkenness is diminishing, and I say Thank God; long may it continue." The pious ejaculation would seem to be an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various

... down with considerable bloodshed. In January, 1919, soon after the defeat of the Spartacides in Berlin, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, their leaders, were put to death, and their minority party seemed to diminish in strength. In the latter part of May, 1919, the majority Socialists of the reactionary Ebert-Scheidemann group were at first opposed to the signing of the Treaty of Paris, whereas the Spartacans, and also the Independent Socialists under the leadership of Hugo Haase and Karl Kautsky, tried to force their opponents to sign it, so that the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... you could hear the advanced views of this "old" lady of eighty. Indeed, generally speaking, I find that nowadays the only real progressives are the "old" people. It seems to be the fashion with the "young" to be reactionary. Luccia, however, has been a radical and a rebel since her girlhood, and, years before the word "feminist" was invented, was fighting the battle of the freedom of woman. And what a splendid Democrat she is, and how thoroughly she understands and fearlessly faces the ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... time went by till Emily returned to town. The Ministry had just then resigned, but I think that "this great reactionary success," as it was called by the writer in the "People's Banner," affected one member of the Lower House much less than the return to London of Mrs. Lopez. Arthur Fletcher had determined that he would renew his suit as soon as a year should have expired since the tragedy which had ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... There were marked tendencies towards Liberalism and towards unification in different parts of Germany; and, if the Liberal party could have produced one man of firmness and decision, these forces might have triumphed over the reactionary Prussian clique. In this conflict Morier was bound to be a passionate sympathiser with the parties which included so many of his personal friends and which advocated principles so dear to his heart. With the triumph of his friends, too, were associated the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... tell you something,'' he writes (Conversations with Eckermann. Vol. 1). "All periods considered regressive or transitional are subjective. Conversely all progressive periods look outward. The whole of contemporary civilization is reactionary, because subjective.... The thing of importance is everywhere the individual who is trying to show off his lordliness. Nowhere is any mentionable effort to be found that subordinates itself through love of ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... of the race as a whole. It would, however, be to small purpose if we did not ask what can be done to develop the innate good and correct the bad in a race so puissant and numerous? This mass is not inert; it has great reactionary force, modifying and influencing all about it. The Negro's excellences have entered into American character and life already; so have his weaknesses. He has brought cheer, love, emotion and religion in saving measure to the land. He has given it wealth by his brawn and liberty ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... early in July (perhaps the Fourth), 1795, and was meant to influence the decision of the National Convention on the Constitution then under discussion. This Constitution, adopted September 23d, presently swept away by Napoleon, contained some features which appeared to Paine reactionary. Those to which he most objected are quoted by him in his speech in the Convention, which is bound up in the same pamphlet, and follows this "Dissertation" in the present volume. In the Constitution as adopted Paine's ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... public, my dear,' she protested. 'I personally do not believe that your books are harmful, though their originality is certainly daring, and their realism startling; but there exists a considerable body of opinion, as you know, that strongly objects to your books. It may be reactionary opinion, bigoted opinion, ignorant opinion, what you like, but it exists, and it is not afraid ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... military and political co-operation has brought together Mohammedan and Christian; Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox; negro, white and yellow; African, Indian, and European; monarchist, republican, Socialist, reactionary—there seems hardly a racial, religious, or political difference that has stood in the way of rapid and effective ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... ominous disaffection of the lesser German States, and the rampant, angry Socialism of the lower and middle classes throughout the Empire, which had become steadily more and more virulent from the time of the reactionary elections of the early part of 1907, in which the Socialists felt that they had been tricked by the Court party. In reality Germany had two mouthpieces. The Court defied Britain; the people refused to ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... for her loneliness—this woman who had ridiculed the life of England and declared that it was stifling her—had said that the glory of war was in her blood. She had called him a fool because he dared to say that carnage was wrong. He had thought her an advanced thinker; she was a reactionary of the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... edition of the Essay, published in the year of Rousseau's death (1778), he incongruously placed in the midst of his disquisitions on the philosopher of the first century, a long and acrimonious note upon the perversities of the reactionary philosopher of the eighteenth. He was believed by those who talked to him to be in dread of the appearance of the Confessions, and we may accept this readily enough, without assuming that Diderot was conscious of hidden enormities which he was afraid of seeing publicly uncovered. Rousseau, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... citizens, gentlemen, and, in more than one instance, authors of real genius, these Liberals stand alone, and are not to be confounded with the perverse Radicals of a subsequent epoch. Moreover, their aspirations were, as we have seen, more reactionary than experimental; for the rights for which they conspired had been in a great measure enjoyed under Europe's modern conqueror, then impotent in action, but most efficient in remembrance, although isolated on his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... of public opinion, however, lead to an indirect effect of much greater importance. The false impression becomes the basis of action, and an apparent triumph for reaction makes a "reactionary" policy much more easy of achievement. Similarly an apparent triumph for a "progressive" policy facilitates its adoption. For the House of Commons is still the most powerful factor in determining our political destinies, and hence these false results have a very material effect in the shaping of ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... assured that the principles of your administration must be altered, and that, on the first occasion which you offer for complaint I shall do what I am not doing now. These complaints are of two kinds, and have as their object either the continuation of the relations of Holland with England, or reactionary speeches and edicts which are contrary to what I ought to expect from you. For the future your whole conduct must tend to inculcate in the minds of the Dutch friendship for France. I should not have taken Brabant, and I should even have increased Holland by several millions of inhabitants, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... seemed a proper investiture of his comedy, and like them has made that language characteristic of the comedy's personages and illustrative of its incidents. He has been brave enough not to fear being called a reactionary, knowing that there is always progress in the ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... a shrewd sceptical eye at him, sized him up and down and sucked in its cheek refusing to be impressed. While by untoward accident, his misfortune rather than his fault, the earliest of his moral sweepings brought him into collision with the most reactionary element in the community, namely the inhabitants of the black cottages upon ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... prehistoric man Remains of man found in caverns Unfavourable influence on scientific activity of the political conditions of the early part of the nineteenth century Change effected by the French Revolution of to {??} Rallying of the reactionary clerical influence ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... Committee of the Whole, but got no further. The next year Cuthbert introduced a similar bill with the same result, and again in 1803. The reason for the failure of these attempts was that any legislation on slavery would in view of the decisions of the courts be reactionary and change for the worse the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various



Words linked to "Reactionary" :   conservative, Colonel Blimp, ultraconservative, blimp, conservativist, far-right, bourbon, reaction, extreme right-winger, right, reactionist



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