"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each blessing you possess, and do you speak frequent words of commendation to those about you? Do those you claim to love often hear you talking in love's language, Or is your softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest, While the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tongue in motion; a vast deal of bantering; criticising of countenances; of mutual accusation and retort took place. Some had drunk deep, and some were unshaven, so that there were suspicious faces enough in the assembly. I alone could not enter with ease and vivacity into the joke. I felt tongue-tied—embarrassed. A recollection of what I had seen and felt the preceding ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... refused to do this, and justified his position by numerous quotations from the Koran, while declaring that Mahomet would certainly come to my companion's assistance, which, in spite of the gravity of his position, provoked a smiling retort from Denviers. Little did we know what the termination of the fight would be, or the strange part in it which Marie Lovetski ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... no one else," retort I, hastily. "I have told no one—no one at least from whom you could ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes an unfair advantage, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... apt to make companions irritable one to another; but under hard circumstances, a traveller does his duty best who doubles his kindliness of manner to those about him, and takes harsh words gently, and without retort. He should make it a point of duty to do so. It is at those times very superfluous to show too much punctiliousness about keeping up one's dignity, and so forth; since the difficulty lies not in taking up quarrels, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... ostrich, and the refusal to see that which is pointed out or which stares one clearly in the face, cannot go far to establish one's case or as a method of defense. And the same thing applies to that oft-repeated and tiresome retort: "You do not (or perhaps you cannot) understand our theories and viewpoints." Or that other evasive accusation, rather than reply: "Your lack of understanding is of itself proof positive that our theories are absolutely correct in every detail." Or "Your attack or criticism just completely and ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... owing to the inflamed passions which have been roused between the editors. Our sympathies are, we need not say, with Mr. Pott, still we wish he would somewhat temper his language, out of respect for the dead. Here is his crushing retort— ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... say that," was the colorless retort. "The point is, Weyburn, that you was convicted. There ain't no gettin' 'round that. You've worn the stripes, and you'll just have to make up your mind to live it down before you can ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... like that? Great Heaven! With just such accent he had heard a wrangling woman retort upon her husband at the street corner. Is there then no essential difference between a woman of this world and one of that? Does the same nature lie ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... moreover, the only means of uniting the speculative with the practical interest. Our opponent, who must not be considered here as a critic solely, we can be ready to meet with a non liquet which cannot fail to disconcert him; while we cannot deny his right to a similar retort, as we have on our side the advantage of the support of the subjective maxim of reason, and can therefore look upon all his sophistical arguments ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... with, and the child exclaimed, "That's a good top." "Why do you not then play with it?" he was answered. "Set you it up for me, and I will play with it." This is just the fancy which we might expect in a lively child, with a shrewdness in the retort above its years. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... approximation. The approximation may be of any kind assignable—approximation in time or in space, or approximation in kind, which in common speech means 'copying.'] If my critics challenge this latter assumption, I retort upon them with the former. Our whole notion of a standing reality grows up in the form of an ideal limit to the series of successive termini to which our thoughts have led us and still are leading us. Each terminus proves provisional by leaving us unsatisfied. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... its name implies, is the carbonaceous residue left on heating any animal matters in a retort; and contains, in addition to the carbon, a large proportion of phosphates and other mineral salts, which, however, can be extracted by dilute acids. Animal charcoal possesses to a remarkable degree the property of removing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the mate, leaving the landlord wiping down the counter with one hand while he mechanically stroked his moustache with the other. By the time a suitable retort occurred to him the couple were out ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... calm sedentary life was enlivened by an occasional sunbeam; and when I was hard at work with my graver, my mind was nourished by the minds of others. Giannone, the poet, read his commentaries on Shakespeare to us, and Mercure always had a witty retort in that faulty French which is so amusing in an Italian mouth. Calamatta would listen in silence, his eyes glued to his drawing of the 'Joconde,' at which he worked on ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... causes none had operated so powerfully in originating and perpetuating this state of things as the elaborate system of blood-feud and vengeance.' And he gives one instance of a quarrel that arose from the theft of a hen from a villager, who retaliated by appropriating a cow. The retort was by taking a horse, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... compliment, protesting, for example, that women were by no means helpless creatures, but, on the contrary, the rulers of the stronger sex, and so of the world,—then she would have merely smiled sarcastically and relapsed into silence; but there was something like a challenge in his unexpected retort. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... we are sure of the fact of progress, the atheist comes down on us with the retort that we thereby confess ourselves naive and credulous optimists. As well say that when we express our confidence that the North Western Railway will carry us to Manchester, we thereby imply the belief that Manchester is the Earthly Paradise. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... House of Lords, and the Duke, noticing the scarcely suppressed excitement, turned to one of his colleagues and whispered: 'What can I have said which seems to have made so great a disturbance?' Quick came the dry retort of the candid friend: 'You have announced the fall of your Government, that is all.' The consternation was almost comic. 'Never was there an act of more egregious folly, or one so universally condemned,' says Charles Greville. 'I came to town last night ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... him with a pound of rice, meaning that he can sell the result as compost for the kitchen-garden, and with the price buy another meal: hence the saying Khakh-i-pai kahu the soil at the lettuce-root. The Isfahanis retort with the name of a station or halting-place between the two cities where, under presence of making travellers stow away their riding-gear, many a Shirazi had been raped: hence "Zin o takaltu tu bi-bar" carry within saddle and saddle-cloth! A favourite Persian punishment for strangers ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... memory of them, but since you demand it, I will repeat them just as they fell from her lips," was Mr. Brotherson's bitter retort. "She said, 'You of all men should recognise the unseemliness of these proposals. Had your letters given me any hint of the feelings you have just expressed, you would never have had this opportunity of approaching me.' That was all; but her indignation was ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... had succeeded in framing a suitable retort, Dorr came up, with a ponderous joke, and claimed ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Lawrence, accompanied by Maj. Sedjwick, to make peace and negotiate an exchange of prisoners, He announced this as his last official act, and exhorted the people in a speech he made to them, to live in peace with each other, while they shouted in angry retort, "Give us back Barber and the men that have been ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... After he had stopped pressing against her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work. Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... my black bag is ready, Jessie," was the husband's retort to this tirade. "And you might hurry John ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... modest men who knew their own limitations, but they had a way of being condescending to Science, which naturally annoyed the scientific men. These latter professed a theory of the structure of knowledge which the philosophers could easily show to be grotesque, but the retort was always ready to hand that at any rate Science seemed somehow to be getting somewhere while Philosophy appeared to lead ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... were enough to make Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or to retort with futile protests. She sank into ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said "Thank you, Lorton!" and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell—Min and I being still ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... countenance of her husband, which was firm and resolved in its expression. In her confusion she could find no retort. The emperor waited awhile, and seeing that she did not speak, he turned toward the two followers, who stood, without moving, at ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... at this retort, so at last the woman agreed to comb his hair, for she did not want to see the Malaki angry. By and by the Malaki felt sleepy while his hair was being combed; and he said to the Bia, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... was about to retort, when the door opened, and the spiritual adviser of the establishment, Dr Catton, entered. He was a small thin man, with sallow complexion, and that peculiar pucker about the mouth which seems a characteristic of those ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... that no notice was taken of the retort, he drew a little aside, and folded his arms, muttering, "This whim will soon be over. She can't last long. I can pull the strings of this stiff-necked puppet as ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Yellow might retort by quoting Mr. Grant Allen, in his book on The Colour Sense, to the effect that the blueness of sea and sky is mainly poetical illusion or inaccuracy, and that sea and sky are found blue only in one experiment out of fourteen. At morning and evening they are usually in great part ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... him to an unwarrantable extreme. If for the sake of giving animation to the dialogue his predecessors occasionally employed an alternation of single-line speeches, in which question and answer, objection and retort, fly about like arrows from side to side, Euripides makes so immoderate and arbitrary use of this poetical device that very frequently one-half of his lines might be left out without detriment to the sense. At another time he pours himself ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... retort direct and no trafficker in the finer shades of sarcasm, cleared his throat and lifted up his voice. ''Ere, why don't you speak when you're spoke to, you lop-eared lager-beer barrel, you. Take your fice out o' that 'orse-flesh cat's-meat sossidge an' speak ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... that's a feature!: The {canonical} first parry in a debate about a purported bug. The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a {misfeature}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... and retort in an endless wandering from the question the theorists of the two schools. Neither understand that humanity, to use a Biblical expression, is one and constant in its generations,—that is, that everything in it, at every period ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... mild retort and civil salutation John Henry Overholt rose and went towards the door, quite forgetting to shake hands with Mr. Burnside, though the latter made a motion to do so. Mr. Burnside always gave his hand in a friendly way, even when he had flatly refused to do what people had ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... hobby, and he was in a fair way of riding it to death. Although he was easy going, and rather lazy when circumstances gave him the chance to be, yet he straightened suddenly at Frank's sharp fling at his delusion, and was on the point of flashing a keen retort. Before he could speak, however, Frank had turned in ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... idea of any one thinking that he, who had lived in the water all his life, couldn't get out when he pleased! But Striped Chipmunk looked really in earnest, so Grandfather Frog swallowed the quick retort on the tip of his tongue, thanked Striped Chipmunk, and hurried away to look for the spring, for he was very, very thirsty. Besides, he was very, very hot, and he hurried still faster as he thought of the cool bath he would have when ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... laughter from every one in the room. Pao-ch'ai, however, was present at the time so Lin Tai-y did not retort, but went and ensconced herself in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of deep melancholy thought, which interfered with and controlled the natural flow of lively spirits which the practice of the joyous science especially required. She lacked also, even in her gayest sallies, the decided boldness and effrontery of her sisterhood, who were seldom at a loss to retort a saucy jest, or turn the laugh against any who interrupted ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... supposing that Lecoq had failed to foresee it; for it had never once been out of the young detective's mind; and he had racked his brain again and again to find some satisfactory explanation. At the present moment he would undoubtedly have made some angry retort to the governor's sneering criticism, as people are wont to do when their antagonists discover the weak spot in their armor, had not M. Segmuller ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... well if Miss Van Arsdale herself would answer you," was the inspector's quiet retort. "What you have said may constitute all that we have against you, but it is not all ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... Towards the close of his life he used to remark, that when he first came to this country, the topic of sermons was "Jesus Christ and Him crucified; now it was nothing but niggers and rum." He was good at retort. Early one Monday morning he was going home from the market, with some mackerel which he had just purchased strung upon his cane. "Mr. Milton," said some passer-by, "them mackerel was caught Sunday." "Well," was the reply, "that ain't ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... By a retort of this kind I admit that I hoped greatly to embarrass the Bishop, and enjoy seeing his face redden with confusion. But he was nowise disconcerted, and I confess to-day that this circumstance proved to me that there was but little truth in the rumours that were current ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... took fright and agreed with the fool, and renounced his friend. And whosoever or whatsoever was praised in the fool's presence, he had the same retort for all. ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... scolded, and watched her precious charge as well as she could; for when the opera received a singer, neither father nor mother could longer claim her. One of the besieging roues said that Sophie walked on roses. "Yes," was the mother's keen retort, "but see to it that you do not plant thorns amid the roses." Sophie's fascinations were the theme of universal talk among the gay and licentious idlers of the court, and heavy bets were made as to who should be ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... retort; "and that's the way you take sides against me, and encourage the miserable little beggar in his impudent ways? Now then, you Herrick, you've got to go down on your knees and beg my pardon, and then tell me everything the skipper and the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... say (carelessly, I believe), that all women were babblers. She retorted, that she knew men who were not less babblers than women. I perceived at once that she alluded to myself; and being somewhat piqued at the sharpness of her retort, I said, "Now let us see which of us shall speak first." "Agreed," quoth she; "but what shall be the forfeit?" "A leaf of betel," said I. Our wager being thus made, we both addressed ourselves to ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... be formed by mixing intimately eight parts of common salt, and three parts of the black oxide of manganese in powder; put this mixture into a retort, then pour four parts of sulphuric acid, diluted with an equal weight of water, and afterwards allowed to cool upon the salt and manganese; the gas will then be immediately liberated, and the operation may be quickened by a moderate heat. A tube leading from the mouth of the retort ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... jackal, or hyena, sahiba!" he smiled. "I do not eat carrion!" He seemed to think that that was a very good retort, for he showed his wonderful white teeth until his handsome face was the epitome of self-satisfied amusement. His horse blocked the way again, and all retreat was cut off, for his escort were behind her, and three of them had ridden ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... to hear their teacher thus snubbed. They hoped a retort and even a wrangle might follow; but Miss Gibbs had too much common sense, and, restraining herself, stalked away with as unconcerned an ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... The audience laughed in high good-humour over the man's declamations; but they bridled and cried aloud under the woman's pungent sallies. She picked out the sore points. She had the honour of the village at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily out of the crowd, and received a smarting retort for their trouble. A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of these mountebanks; but as soon as the show-woman caught a whisper ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reply to Cox's attack, said, with a contemptuous look at me: "Massachusetts does not send her Hector to the field," to which I answered that it was not necessary to send Hector to the field when the attack was led by Thersites. The retort seemed to strike the House favorably, and was printed in the papers throughout the country, and Cox let me and Massachusetts ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... passed through me as I listened to Summerlee. It was disgraceful that he should speak thus of the leader who had been the source of all our fame and given us such an experience as no men have ever enjoyed. I had opened my mouth to utter some hot retort, when Lord John got ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... are words of power; they are more powerful, may be, than those I have spoken before. Venus of Milo is, may be, more real than Roman law or the principles of 1789. It may be objected—how many times has the retort been heard!—that beauty itself is relative; that by the Chinese it is conceived as quite other than the European's ideal.... But it is not the relativity of art confounds me; its transitoriness, again its brevity, its dust and ashes—that ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Rose would retort curtly: "What can I buy with your wisdom? Will it give me wherewith to eat and to drink, and to clothe myself? No! Very well then, what ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... The Knights were beside themselves with pride and triumph. Katy was kissed and hugged, and made to tell her story over and over again, while rows of exulting girls sat on the wood-house roof to crow over the discomfited Millerites: and when, later, the foe rallied and began to retort over the fence, Clover, armed with a tack-hammer, was lifted up in the arms of one of the tall girls to rap the intruding knuckles as they appeared on the top. This she did with such good-will that the Millerites were glad to drop ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... the greater part of his spiritual progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... language shall yet be spoken in the British Isles; I promise you that.' He is one of the few Americans I cannot understand. He has eyes so heavy that he never looks quite awake, and he is as quick as an Italian's blade in retort. He has a large and scholarly intellect, and it is almost impossible to make him serious. You never see him in his chair on the floor of the Senate, although he sometimes drifts across the room with a cigar ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... drooping heads, knowing that they were guilty; only Kukubenko, the hetman of the Nezamisky kuren, answered back. "Stop, father!" said he; "although it is not lawful to make a retort when the Koschevoi speaks before the whole army, yet it is necessary to say that that was not the state of the case. You have not been quite just in your reprimand. The Cossacks would have been guilty, and deserving of death, had they got drunk on the march, or when engaged ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... In one case you get an answer addressed to your understanding; in the other, an answer which smites like a slap in the face. Thus, when a pert skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, Martin stunned his querist with the retort,—"He was building hell for such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." And everybody will recollect the story of the self-complacent cardinal who went to confess to a holy monk, and thought by self-accusation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... to come round, but it was characteristic of him that he could for three or four days breathe a little easier by having left her under the impression that he perhaps might. At the same time he couldn't not have said—what had conduced to bring out, in retort, her own last word, the word on which they had parted—"Do you mean to say you yourself would now be willing to marry and live with a man of whom you could feel, the thing done, that he'd be all the while thinking of you in the ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... retort that I was in love with Nancy Rufford and that my indifference was therefore discreditable. Well, I am not seeking to avoid discredit. I was in love with Nancy Rufford as I am in love with the poor child's memory, quietly and quite tenderly in my American ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... and the other yellow, as generally found. If these two elements are mixed together under ordinary conditions no change occurs. The result is simply a mixture of carbon and sulfur. But, if this mixture is heated in a retort which excludes the air, the carbon and sulfur unite into a chemical compound called carbon disulfid. This compound is neither black, yellow, nor solid; but it is a colorless, limpid liquid; and yet it contains absolutely nothing except ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... Cried out the much-elated ass. "Yes," said the lion; "bravely bray'd! Had I not known yourself and race, I should have been myself afraid!" The donkey, had he dared, With anger would have flared At this retort, though justly made; For who could suffer boasts to pass ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch, delivered with such adroit garnish of apparent good breeding as to present no handle for retort. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... revenge, and took every opportunity to make him feel their power; but still, they were rather afraid of him, because he had a desperate temper, and would propose a duel with knives at the second word. At the slightest retort Tchertop-hanov's eyes blazed, his voice broke.... Ah, er—er—er,' he stammered, 'damn my soul!'... and nothing could stop him. And, moreover, he was a man of stainless character, who had never had a hand ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... course, the French are an artistic people. You can allow them liberties like that." Every now and then in the papers one runs across some anecdote from France in which the Frenchman is permitted to make the retort at the expense ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... prophets of old. I don't believe she ever says her prayers without infusing a little patronage into her petitions. The other day Grandmother Evarts actually inquired of me, of ME! concerning a knitting-stitch. I had half a mind to retort, "Would you like a lesson in bridge, dear old soul?" She never heard of bridge, and I suppose she would have thought I meant bridge-building. I sometimes wonder why it is that all my brother's family are so singularly ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the PAST few!" she replied, with a bitterness which overrode her satisfaction in the effectiveness of the retort. "Surprised! I'd like to know who wouldn't be surprised when half the town acts like it's gone crazy. People PRAISIN' that fellow, that nobody in their sober minds and senses never in their lives had a good word for before! Why, there was more talk yesterday about his ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... be questioned whether this was the wisest course, but wisdom is often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural man has asserted himself by a retort in kind. But the wrong was committed; his resignation was accepted; the vulgar letter, not fit to be spread out on these pages, is enrolled in the records of the nation, and the first deep wound was inflicted ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... retort with which she had learned to parry these personalities was not forthcoming. She felt as she had that day five years ago in his father's office, when she told him what she thought of him. He smiled up at her with the same irresponsible light in his brown eyes, the same eager desire ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... exacts from Admetos the promise that he will never place a stepmother over them. His allegiance to this vow is an act, and it shall be for Alkestis the test of his entire loyalty. And the good Herakles, who enjoys a glorious jest amazingly, and who by that jest can benevolently retort upon Admetos for his concealment of Alkestis' death—for now the position is reversed and the king shall receive her living, and yet believe her dead—Herakles contrives to put Admetos to that precise test which is alone ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... theory regarding the interior of Australia. He always referred slightingly to Sturt, Cunningham, and Leichhardt, and his perversity on the subject of the junction of the Darling and the Murray drew even from the gentle Sturt a richly-deserved and unanswerable retort. On his second expedition, which was supposed to establish the identity of the Darling with the junction seen by Sturt, Mitchell excused himself from further exploration of the lower Darling as he expressed himself satisfied that ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... story about him which you do not know. That Benvenuto of yours, before he was imprisoned, came to words with a gentleman of Cardinal Santa Fiore, [2] about some trifle which the latter had said to him. Now Benvenuto's retort was so swaggeringly insolent that it amounted to throwing down a cartel. The gentleman referred the matter to the Cardinal, who said that if he once laid hands on Benvenuto he would soon clear his head of such folly. When the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... revenge upon those people who were taking her daughter from her, and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell. It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's great friends, who were not of the same monde ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... of Kernels without burning them, I ground them in a Marble Mortar, and afterwards put them in a Glass Retort well luted; I placed it in a Reverberatory Furnace, and fixed to it a large Receiver; and after having luted the Joints well, I gave it the first ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... Hall," said Collet, driven to retort as she rarely did, "if you'd had the world to make, it'd ha' been mortal grand, and all turned out spic-span: look you, the old saw saith, 'Bachelors' wives be always well-learned,' and your lads be angels, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... easily by argumentative ability, tact, and intellectual keenness, unaided by passion, have strikingly contrasted with the costly victories of advocates less self-restrained. Though naturally witty and quick at retort, he has never used the weapon in a way to wound the feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... to this, the sole realities of this world are things that can be seen, touched, felt—a retort and its contents. Beyond this all is null and void, a lie, a cheat. Ah! your wretched retorts and crucibles! If I followed out this thought, I should be ready to break every ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... But whatever retort he may have contemplated was checked by the accents of Authority and the tapping of an imperative ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... worse was she who was to have been the full-blown barmaid. Instead was this magnificent girl, nearly as tall as her brother, with her small oval face crowning the column of her neck, her eyes merry, her mouth laughing at some brotherly retort that Hermann had just made. Aunt Barbara took her in with one second's survey—her face, her neck, her beautiful dress, her whole air of ease and good-breeding, and gave a despairing glance at her own prickly tea-gown. For the moment, amiably accustomed as she ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... coolers beneath the floor; these had water from the canal circulating around them; the covers being then put on to exclude the air, the mass of charcoal was rapidly cooled. As soon as a slip cylinder was removed from a retort a freshly charged one would take its place, and thus the process was continued. The slip cylinders were taken out of the coolers in succession by the cranes, and swung over a long and broad table upon which their contents were dropped; here the sticks of charcoal were separately examined and the ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... a devil," was his retort, as he stooped to pick up her parasol from the road. "There's not much left of it," he remarked, handing it ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Wordsworth, but wrongly, I believe. I should, of course, exclude from the collection living writers; only the select dead would be requisitioned. They cannot retort. And the entertaining volume would illustrate that curious artistic law—the survival of the unfittest, of which we are only dimly beginning to realise the significance. It is like the immortality of the invalid, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... [64:2] Of course only the Long Recension was at that time known. Rivet replies to Campianus that Calvin's objections were not against Ignatius but the Jesuits who had corrupted him. [64:3] This is the usual retort theological, but as I have quoted the words of Calvin the reader may judge for himself. Dr. ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... from the windows and the yards, different words and voices, now uneasy and malicious, now thoughtful and gay, found their way to the mother's ears. But this time she felt a desire to retort, to thank, to explain, to participate in the strangely variegated ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Eastern potentate to whom the King of England had sent a man without a beard as his ambassador. The Eastern monarch flew into a passion when the beardless visitor was presented. "Had my master measured wisdom by the beard," was the ready retort, "he would have ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... bigger, burlier, redder, and browner, especially about the nose, and made certain exceedingly impolite inquiries as to what he was about, to allow the owner's tackle to be smashed about in that fashion. To which the bigger and browner man growled out a retort that he'd nothing to do with the gang, as things hadn't been handed over to him yet. And then he grew frantic too, and kicked the fallen yard, and yelled up to the riggers that the said piece of wood was sprung, that they'd have to get ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... cabin-boy's quick, facetious retort, which caused Darvall to smile and had the effect of rousing the ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... with him at a pig-fair," or rebuked a young barrister because he did not "squandher his carcass" (i.e., gesticulate) enough. But we cannot trace the paternity of these sayings any more than we can that of the lightning retort of the man to whom one of the "quality" had given a glass of whisky. "That's made another man of you, Patsy," remarked the donor. "'Deed an' it has, sor," Patsy flashed back, "an' that other man would ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... as "Divine worship": how Mr. Jones went so far, in his Washington's Birthday Speech, as to compliment the architectural effect of "the old meeting-house on the green, that venerable monument of an earnest period of dissent," to which Mr. Hopkins made the retort courteous by giving thanks, in his prayer on the same occasion, for "the gracious memories of fraternal intercourse which still hallowed the little brown chapel beside the cemetery": how all these strokes and counterstrokes ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... an unbeliever, a materialist, yourself," was the bold retort. "Do as you please, but you can't drag me into your money calculations." The swift slam of the door left them ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Testament, and presents the result. Practically, this amounts to the verdict that it is sufficient for the Christian to accept the Messiahship of Christ and to submit to his rule of conduct. The orthodox critics complained that he had omitted the epistles in his summary of doctrine; his retort is obvious: if the gospels lead to the conclusion just stated, the epistles cannot be allowed, however weighty, to establish a contrary one. Of course, Locke was called a 'Socinian'; but the effect of his work remained, and we should remark that if it looked ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... do not yet think the Australian savage is more? vicious in his propensities or more virulent in his passions than are the larger number of the lower classes of what are called civilized communities. Well might they retort to our accusations, the motives and animus by which too many of our countrymen have been actuated ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of la Charente a nervous chill. "You may tell her," Lucien went on, "that I now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... ought to have taken security of him at the time, so that had he fostered the wish, he might have lacked the ability to deceive. To meet that retort, I must beg you to listen to certain things, which I should never have said in his presence, except for your utter want of feeling towards me, or your extraordinary ingratitude. Try and recall the posture of your affairs, when I 24 extricated ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... sensation tingling in his veins, and his head was hot, for times had altered now, and he was not quite the same lad as the one who had submitted to be tyrannised over in town. He was about to utter some angry retort, but ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... to you till you are well on your legs again, when he will some fine morning insult you without provocation, and make you wish that his generous goodness to you had not closed your lips against retort. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... enough for a cheap sport," returned the constable. It was so overwhelming a retort that after the constable had turned the key in the padlock, and taken himself and his lantern to the floor above, Winthrop could hear him repeating it to the volunteer firemen. They received it with ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... which is too good to be lost. The French for daughter-in-law is belle fille, literally "beautiful girl." To Fougas' address "Ma belle fille!" Mme. Langevin replies: "I am not beautiful, and I am not a girl." It suggests the similar retort received by Faust from Marguerite, when he addressed her as beautiful ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... excesses of a body of zealous and able allies who covered Roundheads and Presbyterians with ridicule. If a Whig raised his voice against the impiety and licentiousness of the fashionable writers, his mouth was instantly stopped by the retort, You are one of those who groan at a light quotation from Scripture, and raise estates out of the plunder of the Church, who shudder at a double entendre, and chop off the heads of kings. A Baxter, a Burnet, even a Tillotson, would have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... least make him unregretted. This speech also has taught another lesson, and that lesson is, that the bar can be the theatre of the highest rank of eloquence, and that all which is regarded as the limit of forensic excellence, is a gratuitous degradation of its own dignity. The sharp retort, the sly innuendo, the dexterous hint, the hard, keen subtlety, the rough common sense, all valuable in their degree, and all profitable to their possessor, are only of an inferior grade. Let the true orator come forth, and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Gethryn discovered a suitable retort, but, coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to repartees, refrained from ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... not immediately retort. He carried out his bluff, unbuckling and buckling one of the straps, then mildly straightened ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... that her admired Miss Pat needed any other recommendation than her own pleasant self, and she defended Patricia so stoutly against this statement that Ted declared he was green with jealousy and began a counter-charge of neglect of his talents, which moved Judith to swift retort and afforded great diversion to their end ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... angel, Honor!" but he had not understood the deep meaning of her thought, he did not know, that, when we love, truly and devotedly, or even cherish and esteem some one, an unkind word or a cruel retort, from those lips to us, makes a breach, which no forgiving phrases can ever right again. When the heart that loves has been wounded by the hand it adores, no remedy can ever fully heal the rankled spot, where ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... is, that words used in retort, although more violent and disrespectful than those first used, will not satisfy,—words ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson
... man smiled at the retort, but she could not see the gleam of sunshine as it passed rapidly over his face; lingering a moment in the soft depths of his sweet blue eyes. There was no smile however in his voice, but the previous solemnity, as ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... words that now passed were to John Grimbal's credit. He made an astonishing and unexpected utterance. Indeed, the spoken word surprised him as much as his listener, and he swore at himself for a fool when Will's retort reached ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of style in presence of the sea or a range of mountains or in reading Shakespeare. His munificent and gorgeous genius was as far above style as the statesmanship of Pericles or the sanctity of Joan of Arc was above good manners. The world has not endorsed Ben Jonson's retort to those who commended Shakespeare for never having "blotted out" a line: "Would he had blotted out a thousand!" We feel that so vast a genius is beyond the perfection of control we look for in a stylist. There may be badly-written ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... they will set us free, dear boy; it may not be God's will," was the substance of Gaunt's reply to this oft-repeated question; at which the little fellow would look at his father in surprise and retort: ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... with a stove in it is a retort in which the power of strong men is evaporated, where their vitality is exhausted, and their wills enfeebled. Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal System on a pecuniary basis—and money is the foundation ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... heard. Farrington stood a drink in his turn. After a while O'Halloran and Paddy Leonard came in and the story was repeated to them. O'Halloran stood tailors of malt, hot, all round and told the story of the retort he had made to the chief clerk when he was in Callan's of Fownes's Street; but, as the retort was after the manner of the liberal shepherds in the eclogues, he had to admit that it was not as clever as Farrington's retort. At this ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... no retort to offer such directness. This child was frequently disconcerting. Prudence attacked her ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... the old unconditional use of the word aeonian. The argument is—that we must retain the old sense of eternal, because else we lose upon one scale what we had gained upon the other. But what then? would be the reasonable man's retort. We are not to accept or to reject a new construction (if otherwise the more colorable) of the word aeonian, simply because the consequences might seem such as upon the whole to displease us. We may gain nothing; for by the new interpretation our loss may ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare's Touchstone—the retort courteous—the quip modest— the reply churlish—the reproof valiant—the countercheck quarrelsome—the lie circumstantial and the lie direct—are of immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, and the education, of a whole people. ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... A sharp retort rose to her lips, but she repressed it, and her lip curled with scorn as she answered his sallies in the coolest terms that common civility allowed. He might as well have tried his cutting speeches on an iceberg for all ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... sluice are put into a buckskin or cloth, and pressed, so that the liquid metal passes through, and the amalgam is retained. The amalgam is then heated, to drive off the mercury. This may be done either in an open pan or in a close retort. In the former, the quicksilver is lost; in the latter, it is saved. The pan is generally preferred. Often a shovel or plate of iron is used. Three pounds of amalgam, from which the liquid metal has been carefully pressed out, will yield one pound of gold. The gold remaining ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... very material. In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the Federal constitution apportions the representatives. In this point of view, the Southern States might retort the complaint, by insisting, that the principle laid down by the convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own inhabitants; and consequently, that the slaves, as inhabitants, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of a fly that for a moment had buzzed by his side. The cruel indifference of his manner stung me into quick retort. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... clearly distinguish the Cretan and Spartan laws, of which the exclusive aim is war, from those other laws of Zeus and Apollo which are said to be divine, and to comprehend all virtue. Secondly, we may retort on him his own complaint against Sparta and Crete, that he has himself given us a code of laws, which for the most part have a military character; and that we cannot point to 'obvious examples of similar institutions which are concerned with pleasure;' at least there is only one such, ...
— Laws • Plato
... his pastor's eyes. For an instant a wild desire to refuse help, to even command Neil to see that the programme was a failure, entered his heart. But it was only momentary; Donald was incapable of being petty. But he could not resist the retort, "I couldn't think of assuming such honours in the presence of the clergyman and the schoolmaster, but I can at least produce the cause of this serious mishap." He put his fingers to his lips and gave three sharp whistles, ending in a long musical note. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... occasion, in the gaieties of the Carnival. To the end, however, their Roman circle was more American than English. "Is Mr Browning an American?" asked an English lady of the American ambassador. "Is it possible that you ask me that?" came the prompt and crushing retort; "why, there is not a village in the United States so small that they could not tell you that Robert Browning is an Englishman, and they wish he were an American." Spiritualism, in the main an American institution, became during the later years a centre of fervid interest to the one and ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... is now strong in the mind of the United States to be quit of the turmoil, the complication, the violence, the expense, and, above all, the unintelligibility of the European problems, is easily understood. No one can feel more intensely than the writer how natural it is to retort to the folly and impracticability of the European statesmen,—Rot, then, in your own malice, and ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... mouth to retort: he pops the half chocolate into it]. You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day. You shall live ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... made some critical remark about the place accorded Balzac's letters to Madam Hanska, which caused Georgia to retort that perhaps it would be better if people arranged their own libraries, and then they could put things where they wanted them. Then after she had given a resting place to what she denounced as some very disreputable French novels, ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... Her retort was met with boisterous laughter and mocking cries of "Down with the doors!" "Break ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... not old or strong or experienced enough to keep this strange young man in order, and just as she was meditating some blighting retort he ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to quote from a former remark of Gaston de Bois, and retort, "You have done that already, and the transaction was not particularly profitable," ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... at least. But, O, poor souls, Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox, Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone? Then is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust Thus to retort your manifest appeal, And put your trial in the villain's mouth Which here you ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... vengeance on the judge for the judicial misconduct which branded the latter poet a murderer; and Fielding, in 'Tom Jones,' illustrating by a current story the offensive levity of the judge's demeanor at capital trials, makes him thus retort on a horse-stealer: "Ay! thou art a lucky fellow; I have traveled the circuit these forty years, and never found a horse in my life; but I'll tell thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for thou didst not only find a horse, but ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Nonsense!" was the retort. "My daughter has been accustomed to a better style of living than you could afford her, and I decline to consider the proposition for a moment. You're in no condition to support a wife, sir! Figures do not lie, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo |
