"Retiring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... candle on the iron point at the bottom; Chrysantheme puts forth all her strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousme pricks her fingers, pouts and whimpers. Such is the inevitable scene that takes place every evening, and delays our retiring to rest under the dark blue gauze net for a good quarter of an hour; while the cicalas on the roof seem to mock us ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... notoriety by one special effort. Human nature is so constituted that the man or woman who is unable to produce a series of successes may yet have the capacity to compass one—may possess the energy and the ability to make at least one strong impression before retiring wholly into the background. ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... these old bachelors; laughed at their nightcaps, at their drawing them down over their eyes, and so retiring to their couches. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... found them all plunged in such deep distress, that he did not consider it advisable to say anything. The evening closed in; it was time to retire. The countenance of Mr. Seagrave was not only gloomy, but morose. The hour for retiring to rest had long passed when Ready broke the silence by saying, "Surely, you do not intend to sit up all ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... reward for his kind helpingness about moving the ladder. So he turned away, just saying carelessly over his retiring shoulder: ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the country of the Remi, who submitted at his approach. He then crossed the Axona (Aisne), and pitched his camp in a strong position on the right bank. The enemy soon began to suffer from want of provisions, and they came to the resolution of breaking up their vast army, and retiring to their own territories. Hitherto Caesar had remained in his intrenchments, but he now broke up from his quarters and resumed the offensive. The Suessiones, the Bellovaci, and Ambiani were subdued in succession, or surrendered of their own accord; but a more formidable task awaited ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... authorities. They were advised by various parts of the room in divers tongues to dream of their wives, to be careful of themselves in bed, to avoid catching cold, and to attend to a number of personal wants before retiring. The symphony gradually collapsed, leaving me sitting in a state of complete wonderment, dead tired and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... impossible in one substance or form without its being torn apart and destroyed. If one should advance and approach the other, they would keep apart like two enemies, one retiring to his camp or fort, and the other posting himself outside. This happens with evil and good in a hypocrite; he harbors both, but the evil is inside and the good outside and so the two are separate and not mingled. It is plain then ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... could curb, much less sit calmly by and receive without retiring in bad order. Incident after incident at Frankfort might be cited, but what is ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... this entry (my last upon Indian soil) just before retiring to rest. To-morrow I sail for Colombo in the Campaspe. But I cannot leave Bombay without dwelling once more on Mr. Sanderson's great kindness. To-night, as we sat together for the last time upon the balcony of Craigie Cottage, I declare that my ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hypocrites freely. His wife had been dead about two years, when a presidential election came on. James Foster, unluckily, had been brought up with different political opinions from Mr. Hall; but, being very quiet and retiring in his disposition, he never had rendered himself obnoxious. Of course, Mr. Hall took great interest in the approaching election. He became very ambitious of his township giving a large vote on the side to which he belonged—and he used every ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... surprise recognises the officer at the posting-house—a fact which she makes known to Stella. In an ecstasy of excited expectation Stella dispatches a servant with the order to fetch the long-lost one, and Caecilie, retiring to the garden, communicates to Lucie the discovery of her father. In the rapidly succeeding Scenes that follow the three chief persons experience alternations of agony and bliss which find facile expression in many sighs, tears, and embraces. Fernando and ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... everyone else to bed: the household was so well accustomed to Percival's erratic comings and goings, that nobody attached any importance to his visits; and even old Mr. Heron appeared only for a few minutes to gossip with his son while he ate a comfortable supper, retiring at last, with a nod to his niece which Percival easily understood. It meant—"I will do now what you told me you wished—leave you together to have your talk out." And Percival felt ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vicinity, was now considered a safer retreat than the exposed camp-fire. On the first of these occasions she received him with some preoccupation, paying but little heed to the scant gossip he brought from Indian Spring, and retiring early under the plea of fatigue, that he might seek his own distant camp-fire, which, thanks to her stronger nerves and regained courage, she no longer required so near. On the second occasion, he found ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... he says these are what is called a "line," and that Uncle can take out this line and do splendidly. I don't quite understand yet who makes the appointment to be a street man or what influence it takes or what it means to have a territory, but Mr. Peters explained that there is a man who is retiring from being a street man and that Uncle can take his place and can have both sides of the Bowery, which sounds ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... raised significant eyebrows and shot out optical affirmations that nothing could be more effective than the verbal method the poet had adopted—although doubtless it was quite his own, so in keeping was it with his reserved, retiring, non-committal personality. Be that as it may, the dramatic scenes, the impassioned phrases, the virile original vocabulary that flowed from his set lips could never be delivered so potently by tones that matched ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... dries," when the sun, retiring to the summer solstice, is most distant, land winds and sea breezes are strong and regular, and the people suffer severely from cold. In the Gaboon heavy showers sometimes fall, July being the least subject to them, and the fiery sun, when it can disperse the clouds, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... with Diomed;[80] or else, dealing with him in a more retired spirituality, as Apollo sending the plague upon the Greeks,[81] when his quiver rattles at his shoulders as he moves, and yet the darts sent forth of it strike not as arrows, but as plague; or, finally, retiring completely into the material universe which they properly inhabit, and dealing with man through that, as Scamander with ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... "Memoirs" he tells a curious incident of this visit. On retiring to his room at night he lost his way, and appeared to wander, as Baroness Bunsen feared she might do on a similar occasion, along miles of corridors and stairs. At last, believing he recognised ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... courage; presiding over the jarring elements of his political council, alike deaf to the storms of all extremes, or directing the formation of a new government for a great people, the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by man; or, really, retiring from the supreme power to which his virtue had raised him over the nation he had created, and whose destinies he had guided as long as his aid was required,—retiring with the veneration of all parties, of all nations, of all mankind, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... guiltily behind trees, and when they were seen fled away into the woods. All this was very disquieting indeed, and in significant contrast to their behaviour of the year before. The party from the ship threw buttons and beads and bells to the retiring natives in order to try and induce them to come forward, but only four approached, one of whom was a relation of Guacanagari. These four consented to go into the boat and to be rowed out to the ship. Columbus then spoke to them through his ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... de Narbonne would talk to her, Maude resolved to utilise the occasion; though she felt there could be little indeed in common between her gentle, modest cousin, and this far from retiring young widow. That they could not have been intimate friends Maude was sure; but acquaintances they might be—and must be, unless the Lady de Narbonne had been too short a time at Pleshy to know Hawise. As Maude in speaking lifted her eyes to the lady's face, she saw ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... night of the 30th, the enemy commenced retiring under the protection of rear guard actions. On the 31st the enemy's forces had collapsed on the Grappa front. The Eighth army had driven the enemy back into the Belluno valley and the way was open for advances ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... Indeed, he got this entirely because it was discovered that Mademoiselle Sidonie, his accomplice, was really a Miss Adah Levine, who had graduated at a music-hall in East London, and that she had announced her intention of retiring to the land of her birth, and ascending to the apex of her profession on the strength of her Parisian reputation. Then it was that the reaction in favour of Narcisse set in; the boulevards could not ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... Before retiring to England King Theodore spent the most of his exile in Flanders and the Low Countries: and in Brussels, as it happened, I had word of him and learned—but without making myself known to him—that he was ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... was the first time I had escorted her or any other girl to a party; Mrs. Willett had smiled over the proceeding, but Nancy and I took it most seriously, as symbolic of things to come. I can see Powell Street, where Nancy lived, at four o'clock on a mild and cloudy December afternoon, the decorous, retiring houses, Nancy on one side of the pavement by the iron fences and I on the other by the tree boxes. I can't remember her dress, only the exquisite sense of her slimness and daintiness comes back ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Lady Mabel, "can enjoy Gonsalvo of Cordova's fortune. On retiring to a monastery, he avowed that every soldier needed for repentance an interval of some years between his life and ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and taken service in X—, where he died. The son succeeded him, and, quite unlike most French gentlemen of birth whom I have known, was a stern and cold Calvinist, rigid in the performance of his duty, retiring in his manners, mingling little with the Court, and a close friend and favourite of Duke Victor; whom he ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Year 1695 when the strong Fortress of Namur, taken by the French in 1692 and since made by them much stronger, was invested by the Earl of Athlone. After very many vigorous Attacks, with the Loss of many Men, the Town was taken, the Garrison retiring into the Castle. Into which soon after, notwithstanding all the Circumspection of the Besiegers, Mareschal Bouflers found means, with some Dragoons, ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... her to accept. The young lady's arguments were too forcible to admit of gainsaying, for the servant did not dare to venture within reach of either the hands or feet of her small but vigorous opponent. The presence of the tray prevented her from defending herself in any way, and she was about retiring, worsted, from the encounter, when the entrance of the gentlemen gave a new turn to the position of affairs. The child saw them at once; her screams of rage changed into a cry of joy, and the face which had been distorted with passion suddenly ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... before Henry's return, who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The day was bright, her courage high; at four o'clock, the sun was now two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to dress half an hour earlier ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... said Brownster, "that she said—I mean, sir, I thought that you might like something to eat, and if you want to enjoy a cigar before retiring, as many gentlemen do, you need not mind smoking here. These rooms are so well ventilated, sir, that every particle of odor will be out in no time." Placing the tray upon ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... mode, without architectural beauty, boasting little attempt at exterior embellishment, but smelling aloud of Money; just such a maison de ville as a decent bourgeois banker might be expected to build him when he contemplates retiring after doing the Rothschilds a wicked one ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... by a loss of nearly 600 men. Greene, cautiously avoiding another Camden, retreated with his forces intact. With his small army, less than 2000 strong, Cornwallis declined to follow Greene into the back country, and retiring to Hillsborough, N.C., raised the royal standard, offered protection to the inhabitants, and for the moment appeared to be master of Georgia and the two Carolinas. In a few weeks, however, he abandoned the heart ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... formerly lived in Ravenswood Castle, and knew, as she said, the ways of the nobility, was in no whit wanting in arranging matters, as well as circumstances permitted, according to the etiquette of the times. The cooper's house was so roomy that each guest had his separate retiring-room, to which they were ushered with all due ceremony, while the plentiful supper was in the act of being placed upon ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the ages, a faculty which usually runs side by side with an overweening vanity and an amazing self-consciousness. Sometimes the possessor of that most astounding and mysterious intuition is also possessed of a humble and retiring disposition. But ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and beat. A poet, whether a Milton or a Blackmore, will ever find that his muse will visit his "slumbers nightly." His fate is much harder than that of the great minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who on retiring to rest could throw aside his political intrigues with his clothes; but Sir Robert, to judge by his portrait and anecdotes of him, had a sleekiness and good-humour, and an unalterable equanimity of countenance, not the portion of men of genius: indeed one of these has regretted that his sleep ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Owing to the nature of the services of the day, the evening was spent in conversation among the elders, while the younger element promenaded the spacious gallery, or occupied alcoves, nooks, and corners about the grounds. On retiring for the night, the men yielded the house to the women guests, sleeping on the upper and lower verandas, while the ranger contingent, scorning beds or shelter, unrolled their blankets under the spreading live-oaks ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... afternoon, we camped in the evening under some beautiful live-oak trees, beside a clear, running creek. This was in Tehama, Tehama County. There, before retiring, and following our family devotions, I dedicated my little instrument to the Lord's work, praying as I did so that he would use it absolutely, together with me and my voice, in helping to win precious souls for ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... all records and remains of feasts, David became an adept. Neat, unsuspicious looking parcels were made and conveyed, after retiring hours, to a near-by vacant lot, where once had been visible an excavation for a cellar, but this had been filled to street level with tin cans, paper bags, butter bowls, cracker cases, egg shells, and pie plates ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... is in contemplation to abandon the town of Bahia, without any security being given not again to resume hostilities against the subjects and territories of His Imperial Majesty, and as you may not be aware of the difficulty of retiring—whilst hopes may have been held out to you that this is practicable—I must, for the sake of humanity, caution you against any attempt to remove yourselves by sea, unless I have a perfect understanding as to the future intentions of the naval forces which may accompany ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... taste! According to Marcellus Sidetes, of whose poem {Greek per lukanrw'pou} a fragment exists, men are attacked with this madness chiefly in the beginning of the year, and become most furious in February; retiring for the night to lone cemeteries, and living precisely in the ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Gustave, summoning his slave and retiring to a point where he could watch the wine card. Walter brought the consomme, and then busied himself at the other tables. They would never be occupied, but it was just as well to pretend, so he set hideous colored wine-glasses, red, green, and amber, at the various places, and polished them ostentatiously ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... often told in raillery, "you might grate potatoes on it." The lid of his left eye, as the reader knows, was like the lid of a salt-box, always closed; and when he risked a wink with the right, it certainly gave him the look of a man shutting out the world, and retiring into himself for the purpose of self-examination. No, no; beauty is in the mind; in the soul; otherwise Phelim never could have been such a prodigy of comeliness among the girls. This was the distinction the fair sex drew in his favor. "Phelim," ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... English were suddenly blown into the air and buried together in the ruin. After the smother had fairly cleared away, our troops met with very little difficulty in mounting the breach and scouring the ramparts, the French throwing down their arms and retiring into the town itself, where after a brief contest in the streets, the whole surviving garrison surrendered; but it was not without the loss of many of the bravest men on our side ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... it appeared that he was from Wyoming Territory; he treated the young ladies as representative of Boston and its prejudices, though apparently they were not Bostonians. There were several serious and retiring couples, of whom one or other was an invalid, and several who were poor, and preferred the plated gentility of Mrs. Harmon's hotel—it was called the St. Albans; Mrs. Harmon liked the name—to the genuine poverty of such housekeeping as they could have set up. About each ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... the fate of Corsica was struck at the battle of Ponte Nuovo, of which some particulars are given in a former chapter.[24] This defeat entirely demoralised the island militia, and crushed Paoli's hopes of maintaining the nationality of Corsica. Retiring to Corte, and thence, almost as a fugitive, to Vivario, in the heart of the mountains, though he might still have maintained a guerilla warfare against the French, he resolved to abandon a forlorn hope, and, pressed ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... customers below if they are dry," continued the other, beckoning for the publican to retire by the way he entered, with the air of one who felt certain of being obeyed. As soon as the door was closed on the retiring landlord, he turned to his remaining companion, and continued, "You seem as much struck aback as unbelieving Joe himself, at what you ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Bunyip Bluegum, 'may stand excused from a too strict insistence on verisimilitude, so that the general gaiety is thereby promoted. And now,' he added, 'before retiring to rest, let us all join in song,' and grasping each ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... possible casualty, and though more enlightened as to torpedoes and their accepted effects, I wasn't to show my people a bad example. When lying in bed in the middle of the night, having read the warning letter before retiring, I thought:—'Suppose one of these nasty things goes off and blows the flagship up at this moment. How pleasant! What cowardly things these are; no fair fight, up you go, unshriven. I have heard that a man who is hanged is likely to go to heaven; I wonder if the same chance would be given ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers—hers—hers ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Channel, by the name of Duty Point. Near the end of this walk there lurked a soft and silent bower, made by Nature, and with all of Nature's art secluded. The ledge that wound along the rock-front widened, and the rock fell back and left a little cove, retiring into moss and ferny shade. Here the maid was well accustomed every day to sit and think, gazing down at the calm, gray sea, and filled with rich content ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... public calamity; yet, to those who were personally acquainted with the departed, it is invested with no ordinary sadness. Long, long shall they remember the playful fancy, the rich humor, the warm, genial heart of their friend. His simple, open frankness endeared him to every one, though his retiring disposition prevented him from making many intimate friendships. To those who enjoyed this higher privilege, his death must have caused the most poignant regret. Yet what can even their sorrow be to that of the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... better kind of people die, or are at the point of death, their nearest relations generally walk off: retiring into the country for a little change, and leaving the body to be disposed of, without any superintendence from them. The procession is usually formed, and the coffin borne, and the funeral conducted, by a body ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... conversazione, how could I hope to escape? At first, it was a little awkward, when I went to a party, to see people who were talking together glance at me and murmur on with increased interest. Sometimes, when the wave of talk retreated a little, I would catch the prattle of some retiring rill to this effect: "But who are these Hurribattles? What an odd name! I wonder if that had anything ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... turquoise chiffon for an easy wrap, she took up a novel, and, switching on her green-shaded reading-lamp, sat down to enjoy a quiet hour before retiring. Quickly she became engrossed in the story, and though the stable-chimes sounded each half-hour she remained ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... other hand, is heard the noise of the domestic animals of the village. Cows, calves, goats, and pigs seemed to make a habit of exercising their vocal organs thoroughly before retiring. Dogs bark at the moon; cats chase rats through openings of the palm-leaf roofs, threatening every moment to fall, pursued and pursuers, down upon the hammocks. Vampires flutter around from room to room, occasionally ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... She was born at Igto in 1764, and died at Bamberg in 1825. She received instruction from her father, J. N. Steiner, of which she later made good use. Having married an apothecary, she went for a time to Salsburg, and again, after nine years in Prague, spent eighteen years in Salsburg, retiring finally to Bamberg. In the Gallery at Bamberg may be seen her portrait of the founder, J. Hemmerlein; in the Nostitz Gallery, Prague, a portrait of the Archduke Charles; in Strahow Abbey, Prague, a "Madonna"; and in the church at Owencez, near ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... not see before me a most cheery and merry company? Yes, another cup of coffee as I smoke and talk. It is cold outside, and somehow coffee soothes a man's nerves after such an ordeal. Well, then, here we are, firm, and not thinking of retiring yet awhile. On the line to Haumont, they, our comrades, hold their battered trenches, and, like ourselves, have taught the enemy a severe lesson. Then, passing to our right, you get to the Bois de Caures, which this ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... to take from the compound-interest notes their legal-tender quality, from the date of their maturity, and to sell six per cent bonds, redeemable at the pleasure of the Government, for the purpose of retiring both the compound-interest notes and the plain legal-tenders. He believed that the entire debt might be funded at five per cent, while the average of the annual interest now stood at 6-62/100 per cent. He pointed to harmony between the different parts ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... after midnight, so rested us that, being young and foolish, we went ashore with our host of the afternoon, merely for a farewell glimpse of Bongao, retiring at ever so little o'clock in the morning, and not very long before the engines began to puff and pant, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the windows of more than one shop were half opened, as if its owner had made a sort of compromise between his interests and his conscience; and the masters of the only three inns in the town were to be seen standing before their doors, regarding the retiring countrymen with eyes that plainly betrayed they were seeking customers among a people who were always much more ready to sell than to buy. A few noisy and thoughtless seamen, belonging to the vessels in the haven, together with some half dozen notorious tavern-hunters were, however, the sole fruits ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... this time, Mrs Lupin sobbed, and was retiring to a chair to give her grief free vent, when the traveller caught her in his arms, and she uttered a glad ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... his lips. Every step seemed to hint a vague defiance. "What does it matter to me," it seemed to say, "what you think of me? You are of too little account to have the power to ruffle my temper." As the last echo of the retiring footsteps was lost in the great marble silence, Cranbrook heaved a sigh, and, suddenly remembering his errand, walked rapidly down the corridor. He paused before a round-arched, doorless portal, which led into a large sunny room. In the embrazure of one of the windows, a young girl ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... its cloven flower. Some days after, I found it alone, among the rack of the higher clouds, and howling of glacier winds; and, as I described it, piercing through an edge of avalanche which in its retiring had left the new ground brown and lifeless, and as if burnt by recent fire. The plant was poor and feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its efforts,—but it was then that I comprehended its ideal ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... house that had been temporarily granted to us for rest, and there pled before God for them all. The noise and the discharge of muskets gradually receded, as if the Inland people were retiring; and towards evening the people around us returned to their villages. We were afterwards informed that five or six men had been shot dead; that their bodies had been carried by the conquerors from the field of battle, and cooked and eaten ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... affected at the misfortune of his neighbour, who, by the failure of a banker with whom he had trusted the greater part of his fortune;—by an unlucky run at play,—or by other losses, is reduced to a state of affluence, to the necessity of laying down his carriage;— leaving the town;—and retiring into the country upon a few hundreds a-year;—than by the total ruin of the industrious tradesman over the way, who is dragged to prison, and his numerous family of young and helpless ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... (whom I find you frequently mention) that being invited to dine with the then Lords Hallifax, Anglesey, and Shaftsbury; immediately after Dinner, instead of Conversation, the Cards were called for, where the bad or good Success produced the usual Passions of Gaming. Mr. Locke retiring to a Window, and writing, my Lord Anglesey desired to know what he was writing: Why, my Lords, answered he, I could not sleep last Night for the Pleasure and Improvement I expected from the Conversation of the greatest Men of the Age. This so sensibly stung them, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... month. I am saying nothing about that! The night before that Saturday I was playing cards with you, and saw you, otherwise I should be after you too! It isn't the woman that matters, old chap! It is the mean, nasty, low spirit of jealousy that matters. The retiring young man was not pleased when they got the better of him, you see! His vanity, don't you see? He wanted revenge. Then, those thick lips of his suggest passion. So there you have it: wounded self-love and passion. That is quite enough motive for a murder. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... show how completely the inferior currency will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among the masses and causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to add to the money capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of retiring our paper money, that the return of gold and silver to the avenues of trade may be invited and a demand created which will cause the retention at home of at least so much of the productions of our rich and inexhaustible ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... puts his pipes to his knee, And with flourish so free sets each couple in motion; With a cheer and a bound, the lads patter the ground, The maids move around just like swans on the ocean: Cheeks bright as the rose—feet light as the doe's, Now coyly retiring, now boldly advancing— Search the world all around, from the sky to the ground, No such sight can be found as an ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... life is to see thee constantly, and to behold in thy traits the faithful image of my beloved husband, who is no more. When you have buried me and joined my ashes with those of your father, nothing will then prevent you from retiring into the monastic life. But so long as I breathe, support me by your presence, and do not draw down upon you the wrath of God by bringing such evils upon me who have given you no offence." This singularly tender petition was granted, but Chrysostom turned his home into a monastery, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... their necks, and housed them all before the dispossessed tenant returned from a slow and wearisome night's hunting. The evicted vixen, seeking to enter her home, speedily recognised that in her distressed condition she was no match for her savage, active enemy, and so, reluctantly retiring, took up her quarters ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... boys that they had only just fallen asleep when a crash like that of mighty thunder brought them startled out of the land of dreams. Instinctively both reached for their belts and pistols, which they had placed close to their hands on retiring. There was no need for their use, however, for the author of the deafening racket was only Chris who, with a grin on his face, was beating on a tin-pan close to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... asleep, Fred sat by his mother with slate and book, deep in the mysteries of reading, writing, and ciphering; and then the mother and son talked over their little plans, and hallowed their nightly rest by prayer; and when, before retiring, his mother knelt with him by his little bed and prayed, the child often sobbed with a strange emotion, for which he could give no reason. Something there is in the voice of real prayer that thrills ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... have the child die on your hands, or turn into a gutter waif. The child needs entire looking after up to a point where he can begin little by little to look after himself. And after he has learned to dress himself it does not necessarily mean he can select his own food, his hour of retiring, his habits of ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... there was no rushing after anything, either worldly or intellectual. It was a home of constant activity, issuing from, and retiring to, a centre of deep repose. There was an earnest application of excellent sense to the daily duties of life, to the minutest courtesy and kindness, as well as to the real interests of others. Everything great and everything ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... to watch the happy passengers bound for France, some of them, in their holiday spirits, already fraternizing together on the sunny deck, and fussing with camp-stools and magazines and novels and bottles of bitter beer, or retiring before the funnel to smoke the ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... young man very badly around the store, the uncle sent him to Europe to complete his education by travel. He went with the retiring Governor Pownal, whose taste for social enjoyment was very much in accord with his own. In England, he attended the funeral of George the Second, and saw the coronation of George the Third, little thinking the while that he would some day make violent ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and had dispersed the feebler spirits among the onlookers. The Lord Mayor assisted her Majesty to alight at the door of the Guildhall, where the Lady Mayoress was waiting to be presented by her husband. We have a full description of the Council-room and retiring-room, with their draperies of crimson and gold, including the toilet-table, covered with white satin, and embroidered with the initials V. R., a crown and wreath in gold, at which the maiden Queen was understood to receive the last ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... fresh men were constantly awaiting their turn at the face with pick and shovel. The diggers did no more than five minutes' work, hacking and spading at top speed, yielding their tools to the next comer and retiring, panting and blowing and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Gibbon's energetic phrase, 'to the water's edge.' For some years he had to content himself with raids and harrying excursions, making Messina, which he won from the Moors by the aid of their Christian serfs and vassals, the basis of his operations, and retiring from time to time across the Faro with booty to Reggio. The Mussulmans had never thoroughly subdued the north-eastern highlands of Sicily. Satisfied with occupying the whole western and southern sections of the island, with planting their government firmly at Palermo, destroying Syracuse, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... household knows the counter-charm. Each evening, before retiring, the careful wife sees that a hocho, or kitchen knife, is laid upon the kitchen floor, and covered with a kanadarai, or brazen wash- basin, on the upturned bottom of which is placed a single straw sandal, of the noiseless sort called zori, also turned upside down. She believes ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... bravery will tell; and in case of need at any time to charge the enemy, the cheering accents of his voice will infuse strength into those in front; or when the critical moment of retreat arrives, his sage conduct in retiring will go far, we may well conclude, towards saving his ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... Jumel lost a considerable part of his fortune, and madame returned alone to New York, bringing with her a prodigious quantity of grand furniture and paintings. Retiring to a seat in the upper part of Manhattan Island, which she possest in her own right,[46] she began with native energy the task of restoring her husband's broken fortunes. She cultivated her farm; she looked vigilantly to the remains of the estate; she economized. In 1828, when M. Jumel ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Arrangements were at last made for watching both within and without the house during the night—messengers were dispatched to the contiguous villages, and all that could be done for the recovery of the runaway was attempted. It was already past twelve o'clock when Dr. Mayhew insisted upon my retiring to rest. I did not oppose his wish. He was ill at ease, and angry with himself. Maintaining the silence which I had kept during the evening, I gave him my hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... men," said the queen, as she watched him retiring from her presence; "and it is now too late, for in a year the king will be ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fellow-workman's sister, Mademoiselle Godard, of rue Richelieu, he met a clerk, Zelie Lorain, the daughter of a porter. He fell in love with her, married her, and had by her two children, Julien and Prudence. He lived near the Courcelles gate, and as an economical worker of retiring disposition he was made the butt of J.-J. Bixiou's jests in the Treasury Department. Necessity gave him fortitude and originality. After giving up his position in December, 1824, Minard opened a trade in adulterated teas and chocolates, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... world persisted in pointing to the large revenue stamp that seemed to cling to him. A stronger man would have fought against odds like those and won for himself a place that would suffer no denial. But Weston was physically a delicate man. By nature he was retiring, rather than aggressive. If those who were his equals would have none of him because of his father's faults, then he would not seek them. Equally distasteful were those who equalled him in wealth alone, for by a strange contradiction, the very fact that the rumshop ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... arm, And lay it at its ease with gentle care, With handkerchief in hand, depending low: The better hand, more busy, gives the nose Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye With opera glass to watch the moving scene, And recognise the slow-retiring fair. Now this is fulsome, and offends me more Than in a Churchman slovenly neglect And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind May be indifferent to her house of clay, And slight the hovel as beneath her care. But how a body so fantastic, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Retiring to San Lorenzo, after the fight in Callao Bay on the 28th of February, Lord Cochrane occupied the island, and from it blockaded Callao for five weeks. On the island he found thirty-seven Chilian soldiers, whom the Spaniards had made prisoners eight years before. "The unhappy men," he said, "had ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic mining camp were paralysed. Events invariably ceased their progress and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring fearfully into its bulb at the song of the wind which came racing over the lonesome, bitter, northward ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... went thither, and found that there was a channel of the sea that did enter into the lake, and setting our boats at one of the banks of the chanell, the wilde men with one of their boates came vnto vs, and brought vp pieces of Seales ready sodden, puttiug them vpon pieces of wood: then retiring themselues, they would make signes vnto vs, that they did giue them vs. We sent two men vnto them with hatchets, kniues, beads, and other such like ware, whereat they were very glad, and by and by in clusters they came to the shore where wee were, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... personal property in so amiable a fashion; but occasionally Peggy's pickles took an irresistibly comical character. The story was preserved in the archives of the family of one evening when the three girls had been sent upstairs to wash their abundant locks and dry them thoroughly before retiring to bed. A fire was kindled in the old nursery, which was now used as a sewing-room, and Mrs Asplin, who understood nothing if it was not the art of making young folks happy, had promised a supper of roast apples and cream when the drying ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... appear more worthy of commanding; never were more activity and prudence, more boldness and more resource seen than in Cromwell. He is wounded at the battle of York; and while the first dressing is being put on his wound, he learns that his general, Manchester, is retiring, and that the battle is lost. He hastens to Manchester's side; he finds him fleeing with some officers; he takes him by the arm, and says to him with an air of confidence and grandeur: "You are mistaken, my lord; it is not on this side ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... but gambling. Even the literary tchinovnik gives such parties in his room—though, in his case, everything is done delicately and with a certain refinement, so that the thing has something of a retiring ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... men left soon afterwards. Mr. Bullsom mixed himself a whisky-and-soda, and stood for a few minutes on the hearthrug before retiring. ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 1844, was educated at Eton and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and studied medicine in London at St Bartholomew's hospital. He was afterwards assistant physician at the Children's hospital, Great Ormond Street, and physician at the Great Northern hospital, retiring in 1882. Two years later he married Mary, daughter of Alfred Waterhouse, R.A. As a poet Robert Bridges stands rather apart from the current of modern English verse, but his work has had great influence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... permitted. At table her host was on her right, and Lady Alice opposite, next to the rector, who was the only invited guest; Errington was always expected, and had returned from a distant canvassing expedition, for the present member for West Clayshire was believed to be on the point of retiring on account of ill health, and Mr. Errington of Garston Hall, intended to offer himself for election to ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... The devil made answer, "I povas ion fari por vi, mizerulo! can do nothing for you, poor La vilagxanoj estas venkintaj wretch![1] The villagers have min; kaj mi retiras min de la beaten me; and I am retiring from aferoj. Neniam, ecx en miaj plej business. Never, even in my most eltrovemaj tagoj, mi elpensis ingenious[2] days, did I invent tiel mortigan turmenton por such a deadly[3] torment for a progresema homo, kiel sukcesi ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... 1586 the Synod of Fife met at St. Andrews, and James Melville as the retiring Moderator had to preach the opening sermon. It was a full meeting. The Archbishop with a 'grait pontificalite and big countenance' was seated by the preacher's side. The subject of discourse was the evil that had been done to the Church from the time of its planting by the ambitious spirit and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... sir!" roared back the squire, but none the less retiring two steps. "Your father's son can't bully Lambert Meredith. But for his cowardice, and others like him, but for the men of all sides and no side, we'd have prevented the Assembly's approving the damned resolves ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... thrashing, but I'll cut off your spending money and do several other things that you won't like;" and, thus speaking, the father of the twins opened the door to the hall and shoved them both out towards the stairs with more force than they had felt for some time. The two lads lost no time in retiring ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... which the Germans rendered themselves guilty of every sort of atrocity and barbarity. They are all most positive that there was no firing upon the German troops by the civil population. It seems to be generally believed that the massacre was due to resistance of retiring Belgian troops and the destruction of bridges and tunnels to cover their retreat. Whatever the provocation, the behaviour of the Germans was that of savages. We were shown photographs showing the corpses ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... The Pont de l'Institut, notwithstanding the efforts of the garde municipale or mounted police, was greatly crowded. A party of dragoons, on sorrel ponies barely fourteen hands high, rode up and began to clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the municipal guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set themselves, with ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the operation. The crowd grew angry, and stones began to be thrown at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... in a pair of roomy pantaloons, and a baggy shirt of neutral tint—perhaps he had made a vow not to change it whilst the siege of the hot weather lasted,—now confronted the advancing sunlight, before which the long shadows of the buildings were slowly retiring. A marketing mother of a family paused at a provision-store, and looking weakly in at the white- aproned butcher among his meats and flies, passes without an effort to purchase. Hurried and wearied shop-girls ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a spreading pine. The encampment was formed almost exactly in a similar manner to that in which they had slept on the night of their exploits at North River. They talked less, however, than on that occasion, and slept more soundly. Before retiring to rest, and while Harry was extended, half asleep and half awake, on his green blanket, enjoying the delightful repose that follows a hard day's march and a good supper, Hamilton drew near to the Indian, who sat sullenly smoking ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... before Kerama called a halt. The boys rode back to the hotel with Hassan, grateful for the relief of concentrating on thousands of tiny wires. They told the dragoman to go on home, then went into the dining room for dinner before retiring for the night. Winston, who never seemed to tire when working, had stayed with Kerama and Farid to continue discussions ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... terrific, and uncertain. Go to the stricken hearthstones, and we exclaim, "Oh, that this cup might pass from us!" Visit the solemn battle-field, and in anguish we murmur, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken us?" Retiring to the high mountain of our faith, we see in this painful view the magnitude of our cause, and that slowly but surely this contest will end triumphantly. From this point we mark the milestones that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in Norfolk. A famous ecclesiast, when on his way to the coast, was forced to spend the night in the King's Lynn Inn, owing to a violent snowstorm. Retiring to bed directly after supper, he tried to forget his disappointment in reading a volume of sermons he had bought at a second-hand ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... raising his voice at every phrase, for all the while the landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, when the last glimmer of light had vanished from the arch, and the last footstep died away in the interior, Leon turned to his wife ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hunger and suffering came to a horrible climax. The mob of Paris stormed the palace of the Tuilleries. The faithful Swiss bodyguards tried to defend their master, but Louis, unable to make up his mind, gave order to "cease firing" just when the crowd was retiring. The people, drunk with blood and noise and cheap wine, murdered the Swiss to the last man, then invaded the palace, and went after Louis who had escaped into the meeting hall of the Assembly, where ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... called to the bar in 1826, and joined the Northern circuit. On the evening that he first appeared at mess, when the company were retiring for the night, he was observed to be carefully picking out the longest candle. An old King's Counsel, who noticed that he had a volume under his arm, remonstrated with him on the danger of reading in bed, upon ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Maximus thought himselfe most assured, and so established in the empire, as he doubted no perils, he liued carelesse of his owne safegard, and therfore dismissed his British souldiers, who retiring into the northwest parts of Gallia, placed themselues there among their countriemen, which were brought ouer by the emperour [Sidenote: Eutropius. 388.] Constantius, whilest Maximus passing the residue of his time in delights and pleasures, was surprised in the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... he pleased. The germ theory was unfathomed. Suitable food for an invalid was anything the invalid could afford to buy. Fresh air, and more especially fresh night air, was regarded as dangerous, and people hermetically sealed themselves in before retiring. Not daily as at present was the world gladdened by the tidings that science had unearthed some new and particularly unpleasant disease. It never occurred to a mother that she should sterilize the slipper before spanking her offspring. Babies ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... asked for; and when Budge, in saying his prayers, said "an' bless that nice lady that Uncle Harry 'spects," I interrupted his devotions with a hearty hug. The children had been awake so far beyond their usual hour for retiring that they dropped asleep without giving any special notice of their intention to do so. Asleep, their faces were simply angelic. As I stood, candle in hand, gazing gratefully upon them, I remembered a sadly neglected duty. I hurried to the library and wrote the following ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... coarse and imperious expression showed as low habits of mind as her exaggerated dress and gesture did of education. Nor could there be a greater contrast to my mother, who, though understanding her claims and place with the certainty of a lady, was soft and retiring in an ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... wonderful to read of the stirring scenes, thrilling deeds, and narrow escapes, and then look at the quiet, modest, retiring, but dignified little man who had done ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... 14. Mardonios then was retiring out of the way, and when he was already upon a road a message came to him saying that another body of troops in advance of the rest 14 had come to Megara, consisting of a thousand Lacedemonians. Being thus informed he took counsel with himself, desiring if possible first ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... spent amid games and pastimes till the hour for retiring, when they conducted her to a warm and elegantly furnished room, so comfortable that it made her long, for a moment, for her sister to share it with her; for, despite the difference in their natures, Error loved her sister. The soft couch, however, soon lulled her to sleep. ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... all modest on us now," urged the demon sister. "One retiring violet in the family ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... to which we must not, however, attach too much value. Vide Laverdiere in loco. While it seems probable that the former occupants were of the Iroquois family, it is impossible to determine whether on retiring they joined the Five Nations in the State of New York, or merged themselves with the Hurons, who ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... that small minority of undemonstrative retiring natures, who are always at peace with themselves, and who are conscious of a feeling of humiliation at the mere thought of making a request, no matter what its nature may be. So promotion had come to him tardily, and by virtue of the slowly-working ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... The idea of retiring to the shores of America was first suggested to his followers by their pastor, John Robinson, whose influence over his flock was almost unexampled. This influence was derived from the purity of his life, and the holy ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... paths man after man who had escaped from the wreck across a half-mile of almost impassable marsh. Never did I see such objects,—some stripped to their shirts, some fully clothed, but all having every garment literally pasted to them—bodies with mud. Across the river, the Rebels were retiring, having done their work, but were still shelling, from greater and greater distances, the wood through which I rode. Arrived at the spot nearest the wreck (a point opposite to what we called the Brickyard Station), I saw the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... was always small, comprising only about forty soldiers besides an armorer, gunner and surgeon. There was also a chaplain of the Recollet order, Father Elizee, who is described as a man so retiring by nature as to meddle with nothing outside his ministerial duty. This was not the case with the other missionary priests, however, who influenced by patriotic motives and encouraged by the French authorities took quite an energetic part in helping on the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... to Vailima. He was quite unacquainted with white ways of living, and, when shown to his bedroom, looked askance at the neat, comfortable bed that had been prepared for him. In the morning it was found that he had scorned the bed, and, retiring to the piazza, had rolled himself up in his mat and lain down to pleasant dreams. At table, although he had never before seen knives and forks, he picked up their use instantly by quietly observing ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... those who did so were too drunk to use them, and the French troopers rode through the mob, sabring them right and left, and trampling them under foot, and then, riding forward without a pause, set out in pursuit of the retiring columns. As they came clattering along the road the colonel ordered the last two companies to halt, and when the head of the squadron was within fifty yards of them, and the troopers were beginning to check their ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered those unable to realise what an abiding sense ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... of war, yet no one apparently desired peace more than he did. A prophet induced him to turn his face again to the westward. This man, by name Tlapane, was called a "senoga"—one who holds intercourse with the gods. He probably had a touch of insanity, for he was in the habit of retiring no one knew whither, but perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric state until the moon was full. Then, returning to the tribe quite emaciated, he excited himself, as others do who pretend to the prophetic AFFLATUS, until he was in ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... policy. During the eighties, and in a lesser degree in the nineties, Japan had apart from everything else been content to act in a modest and retiring way, because she wished at all costs to avoid testing too severely her immature strength. But owing to the successive collapses of her rivals, she now found herself not only forced to attack as the safest course of action, but driven to the view that the Power that ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... was not likely to be broken by one defeat; and Ellen, accordingly, confident that the stranger would make a second attempt, determined that no effort on her part should be wanting to its success. On reaching her chamber, therefore, instead of retiring to rest (of which, from her sleepless thoughts of the preceding night, she stood greatly in need), she sat watching for the abatement of the storm. Her meditations were now calmer than at any time since her first meeting with the angler. She felt as if her fate was ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... return till a comparatively late hour; and the necessity of sitting up after her usual time of retiring, by making the old lady irritable, had the effect of giving some additional force to the suggestions of Mr. Calvert. When Margaret did return, she came alone. Stevens had attended her only to the wicket. She did not expect to find her mother ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... conducted the ladies to their places on the Gump, and with a courtly bow left them, themselves retiring to a little distance. The next troop then came up, in this the gentlemen were all attired in black, trimmed with silver, silver helmets with black plumes, black stockings and silver shoes. Their ladies were dressed in pink embroidered in gold, with waving pink ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... too far. It's impossible to shy properly when one's such a long way off," declared Charlotte Perry, retiring disconsolately after a series of bad shots. "It's your turn now, Gwen. I wish you better luck ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying, 'I told you what it would come to!' they began to lose heart, and to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! Sir Walter Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that, being come into the castle ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... had taken a hurried departure, and that was the end of it. He had reason to believe that a child had been there, and possibly a woman as well. While they had not found such tell-tale evidence as a hair-pin, still the little silver thimble which he himself had discovered on a shelf just before retiring, and which he had not mentioned to the others, because he hated to get Lub wide-awake again, seemed to be pretty strong ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... valiant man, who was so exhausted by many and severe wounds, that he was already unable to support himself; he likewise perceived that the rest were slackening their efforts, and that some, deserted by those in the rear, were retiring from the battle and avoiding the weapons; that the enemy [on the other hand], though advancing from the lower ground, were not relaxing in front, and were [at the same time] pressing hard on both flanks; he also perceived that the affair was at a crisis, and that ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... being given on the weather side, it might fall without fear of crushing him. He laboured away without cessation until he had cut through nearly half the tree, when his arms began to ache. He stopped, retiring to a little distance to contemplate his work. "Another two hours will do it, and I should like to get it down before ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... Before retiring, he placed his bundle and his clothing under his pillow, and stowed away his watch and money ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... go to the bridge, let me tell of that night in that miserable place of filth. At the time of retiring my host said to me through my interpreter that I could have choice of beds—that I could either sleep on the counter, which consisted of a couple of boards laid carelessly across boxes, or that I could sleep behind the counter on the ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... shocked. "She is excessively modest and retiring. She says it is actual suffering for her to speak in public. You know she only ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... in complete sympathy with the retiring ministers, and he regarded it as a profound mistake for England to quarrel with Russia on behalf of a Power which had no business in Europe at all. From his point of view the presence at the Colonial Office of so sympathetic a Minister as Carnarvon was ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... retiring for the night a large man, whose quiet she had disturbed, whispered in his neighbor's ear: "Isn't it ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... On retiring to my room that afternoon I could not help laughing at my absurd antipathy against Bourgonef. All his remarks had disclosed a generous, ardent, and refined nature. While my antipathy had specially fastened upon a certain falseness in his smile—a falseness the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... given up to civil engineers, who have offices there, but usually live elsewhere. In like manner, Lord Harcourt, moving westwards from Lincoln's Inn Fields, established himself in Cavendish Square. Lord Henley, on retiring from the family mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields, settled in Grosvenor Square. Lord Camden lived in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. On being entrusted with the sole custody of the seals, Lord Apsley (better known as Lord Chancellor ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... nickered on till half-past one. Time on time the enemy tried to be at us, but the imperious guns rebuked him, and he was still. At length the regiments withdrew. The hot guns limbered up and left Rietfontein to burn itself out. The sweating gunners covered the last retiring detachment, then lit their pipes. The Boers made a half-hearted attempt to get in both on left and right; but the Volunteers on the left, the cavalry on the right, a shell or two from the centre, checked them as by machinery. We ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield," and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive, retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... came.[618] Towards noon, however, Bradstreet was sent with a detachment of regulars and provincials to take possession of the saw-mill at the Falls, which Montcalm had abandoned the evening before. Bradstreet rebuilt the bridges destroyed by the retiring enemy, and sent word to his commander that the way was open; on which Abercromby again put his army in motion, reached the Falls late in the afternoon, and occupied the deserted encampment of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... contested South Fox in the Conservative interest three time unsuccessfully. Undeterred, he went on contesting things: invariably beaten, he invariably came up smiling and ready to try again. His imperturbability was a valuable asset; he never lost heart or dreamed of retiring from the arena, nor did he ever cease to impress his party as being their most useful and acceptable representative. His business history was chequered and his exact financial equivalent uncertain, but he had tremendously ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive authority of Sherlock Holmes, nor the keen brilliancy of Monsieur Lecoq. Muller is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of much humbleness of mien. A naturally retiring, modest disposition, and two external causes are the reasons for Muller's humbleness of manner, which is his chief characteristic. One cause is the fact that in early youth a miscarriage of justice gave him several years in prison, an experience which cast a stigma on ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... Schwarzenberg was buried in the Tillage church at Spandow, his entrails in a separate case beside him. The sudden and unexpected death of the Stadtholder excited uncommon attention through Germany, and a report was circulated that upon the count's retiring to Spandow on account of ill health the Elector had caused him to be arrested, and secretly beheaded in prison. Even as late as the times of Frederick the Great this report was commonly believed, and Frederick, when he wished ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... was hotly engaged. The battle was of the most obstinate character, Fitz. Lee exerting himself to the utmost to push the enemy, and Custer seeming to have no thought of retiring." ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... in the living quarters they had fitted out at the top of the spaceport building before retiring, both sprawled wearily in chairs that had come from one of the better hotels of Eglonsby, their drinks between them on a low table, the top of which was inlaid with something that looked like ivory but wasn't. On the floor beside ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... heavy ordnance of the galleon and the Adventure; and half an hour's bombardment will make 'em glad enough to come to terms wi' us. Now, the one half of you charge back along, down the street; the other half will follow, retiring backward and facing the enemy. Now, have at 'em, my hearts, for here they come! Clear the way with your arrows first; and then give ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... for retiring for the night, my uncle was shown to his room, in a venerable old tower. It was the oldest part of the chateau, and had in ancient times been the Donjon or stronghold; of course the chamber was none of the best. The Marquis had put ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... tastes by wearing his own hair instead of the wig then (1732) universally the fashion.[38] On coming of age, he inherited a Shropshire farm, called the Leasowes, in the parish of Hales Owen and an annuity of some three hundred pounds. He was of an indolent, retiring, and somewhat melancholy temperament; and, instead of pursuing a professional career, he settled down upon his property and, about the year 1745, began to turn it into a ferme ornee. There he wooed the rustic muse in elegy, ode, and pastoral ballad, sounding ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... events on which my resignation depended, having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... part of his clothing, and I had much difficulty in undressing him. Knowing that the Emperor greatly enjoyed a bath after a fatiguing day, I had it prepared; but as he felt unusually fatigued, and in addition to this began to shiver considerably, his Majesty preferred retiring to his bed, which I hurriedly warmed. Hardly had the Emperor retired, however, than he had Baron Fain, one of his secretaries, summoned to read his accumulated correspondence, which was very voluminous. After this he took his bath, but had remained in it only a few moments when he ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... and not long afterwards she and Winifred went out together, while when the others were retiring she detained Agatha for a minute or ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... predominant position has, by making full use of its power to elect aldermen in sympathy with itself, succeeded in perpetuating its predominance, although defeated at the polls. The minority of the councillors, with the assistance of the non-retiring aldermen, has not only elected further aldermen from members of the same party, but has controlled the policy of the Council. The Act referred to merely prevents aldermen in municipal councils from voting in the election of other aldermen, but does not go to the root ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... and retiring disposition is illustrated by the following little incident. Carl Philip Emmanuel, his third son, was cembalist in the royal orchestra of Frederick the Great. His Majesty was very fond of music and played the flute to some ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... prepare, prepare The renovating draught! He comes by stealth (For so unconscious worth is ever seen) With thoughts uplifted but retiring mien. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the elaborate gift-pieces that had come from the workshops of Murano, but one had as yet approached this, and it had been sent with the homage of the Senate, by a retiring ambassador of "His Most Christian Majesty," to the Queen of France, and it bore, from Titian's hand, the portrait of her royal husband. This goblet, then, must surpass that one in magnificence, for it was the Veronese's ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull |
