"Retrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what must be said, but putting it as gently and kindly as she could, told Elizabeth, what mistresses often think it below their dignity to tell to servants, the plain truth—namely, that circumstances obliged herself and Miss Hilary to retrench their expenses as much as they possibly could. That they were going to live in two little rooms at Richmond, where they would board with the inmates ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... dispatch to M. Pageot we gave the views of our Government on this question. Mr. Forsyth not having thought proper to accept a copy of that dispatch, and having said that the Government of the United States could not receive a communication in such a form, I have nothing to add. I am forced to retrench myself behind that dispatch. If the Government of the United States does not give this assurance, we shall be obliged to think that this misunderstanding is not the result of an error, and the business will ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... In the first year of his reign, he directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors, as they were contained, since the time of Adrian, in the Gregorian Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... this, he lay under other very great Inconveniencies. For he was neither Master of Time enough to consider, correct, and polish what he wrote, to alter it, to add to it, and to retrench from it, nor had he Friends to consult upon whose Capacity and Integrity he could depend. And tho' a Person of very good Judgment may succeed very well without consulting his Friends, if he takes time enough to correct what he writes; ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... make defensive alliances with other Powers," they said. "Meantime—retrench, reduce, cut down, and give us more freedom in our race. Freedom, freedom—that's the thing; and peace for the ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... is easily said. Retrench, is it? Well, come over here and do it. I would like to see once how you would begin. Listen, now! Lately I bought a pair of children's shoes at the bazaar for three abaces.[43] The lad threw them to the ceiling. "I want boots at two and a half rubles," said ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... royal power to so high a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenour of the feudal constitutions, that it still behoved him to be debased by new affronts and disgraces, ere his barons could entertain the view of conspiring against him, in order to retrench his prerogatives. The church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most powerful and vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John's imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence and scorn, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. 9, 1759. Murphy (Life, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year 1759, says:—'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses. He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went into lodgings [See post, July 1, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he had first moved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the Inner Temple-lane, where he lived in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so incumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present therefore an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behaviour, are the height of good-breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... them by her;—that tho' the imposition was too gross not to be easily seen through, yet the forms of the courts of judicature could not be dispensed with, and the continual demands made upon him had laid him under such inconveniencies as obliged him even to lessen the number of his servants, and retrench his table:—she added, that he spoke of his dear Natura with the utmost tenderness, and was under a very great concern that the necessity of his affairs would not permit to send him any more such supplies as were requisite for the prosecution of ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... reverses of Napoleon's fortune had been so rapid, that the possessors of great places, and of great preferment, had not had time to retrench their way of living. When the Bourbons were recalled, they were obliged to come to a reckoning with their means, and all these ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... bankers intact. The truth is, I have, in my interview with the squire, drawn in advance upon the, material success I have a perfect justification to anticipate, and I cannot allow the old gentleman to suppose that I retrench for the purpose of giving a large array of figures to your bankers' book. It would be sheer madness. I cannot do it. I cannot afford to do it. When you are on a runaway horse, I prefer to say a racehorse,—Richie, you must ride him. You dare not throw up the reins. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Languages to one another would be to litle purpose, if the less qualifi'd and accomplisht were not capable of judging of it, since tis for them principally I am most concern'd, I believ'd therefore it would be necessary intirely to retrench all that strange variety of characters, whose od and fantasticall figures do strangely divert the imaginations of those, who are not well qualifi'd to conceive them. Neither do I intend to humour my selfe in ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... afford it. Taxes are much too high as it is. We ought to retrench, and not let the city council spend another cent. Uh——Don't you think that was a grand paper Mrs. Westlake read about Tolstoy? I was so glad she pointed out how all his silly ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of the soldiers had put on them after having stripped them of their own rich habits, she ordered others lined with furs to be made for them, to defend them from the coldness of the season; and not content to retrench a great part of her own table, sold several fine jewels, and other trinkets the prince had bestowed on her, to supply them with wine, and whatever necessaries she supposed them to be accustomed to. That she might be certain those entrusted ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... returned to town thoughtful and crestfallen. My money was nearly spent, for I had lived freely and without calculation. The dream of love was over, and the reign of pleasure at an end. I determined to retrench while I had yet a trifle left; so selling my equipage and horses for half their value, I quietly put the money in my pocket and turned pedestrian. I had not a doubt that, with my great expectations, I could at any time raise ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... wineshop, the longest head among them declared that such depression could admit of but one construction—the Marquise was ruined. His lordship the Marquis was away in Spain with the Duc d'Angouleme (so they said in the papers), and beyond a doubt her ladyship had come to Saint-Lange to retrench after a run of ill-luck on the Bourse. The Marquis was one of the greatest gamblers on the face of the globe. Perhaps the estate would be cut up and sold in little lots. There would be some good ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... cease without concessions upon both sides. We agree to this readily in the abstract, but we seldom do so when any given concession is in question. We are all for concession in the general, but for none in the particular, as people who say that they will retrench when they are living beyond their income, but will not consent to any proposed retrenchment. Thus many shake their heads and say that it is impossible to live in the present age and not be aware of many difficulties in connection with the Christian religion; they have studied the question more ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... lost or stolen, which he might sometimes be apt to imagine, were there no written state of his expence; and beside, a calculation of oeconomy so as not to exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench in some particulars less necessary than others. This he did not attempt ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... MATT. We retrench the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jackdaw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... born. I did not see her then. Her husband lost all his money on a race, and came to smash, as you English say. She wrote to me. She was in absolute need of money, she said; Eugen had not been able to give her any. He had said they must retrench. Retrench! was that what she married him for! There was a set of turquoises that she must have, or another woman would get them, and then she would die. And her milliner, a most unreasonable woman, had sent word that ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... memorable one in Mr. Brougham's parliamentary life. Early in the session, upon the debate of the battle of Navarino, we find him expressing his readiness to support the ministry as long as the members who composed it showed a determination to retrench the expenditure of the country, to improve its domestic arrangements, and to adopt a truly British system of foreign policy. It was on this occasion that Mr. Brougham used the expression which has since become so familiar—"The schoolmaster is abroad." On Feb. 7, ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... shaken off provincial dust! Madame George Sand, with that carelessness one almost always finds in great artists, sent to Monsieur Emile de Girardin that enormous packet of four-and-twenty volumes, at the same time authorizing him to retrench at least one-third of the manuscript, if he thought fit. But Madame de Girardin (who is extremely astute) thought, that, if the work were published without the numerous dull chapters of the first part, it would command too brilliant a success; and Her ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... were the employer and I the employee," he grumbled smilingly. "But I daresay he is right. Already I spend 500 francs a year on morphia, I must really retrench. So run away, dearest, I have a good friend here to cheer ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... think of the expense! and in these bad times. You know I cannot find a tenant for the Woreington farm. I am afraid I shall have to provide the capital and farm it myself. Now, in the face of such losses, don't you think that we should retrench?" ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... ascribeable to a general administration of religious ordinances."—Webster's Essays, p. 336. "Retrench as much as possible without obscureing the sense."—James Brown's Amer. Gram., 1821, p. 11. "Changable, subject to change; Unchangeable, immutable."—Walker's Rhym. Dict. "Tameable, susceptive of taming; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and mine. On a public (or at least on a foreign) interest, it is the duty of a good citizen to be lofty, exacting, almost insolent. And, on this principle, when the ancient style and title of the kingdom fell under revision, if—as I do not deny—it was advisable to retrench all obsolete pretensions as so many memorials of a greatness that in that particular manifestation was now extinct, and therefore, pro tanto, rather presumtions of weakness than of strength as being mementoes of our losses, yet, on the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Corporation strongly recommended to the parents and guardians of such as were to take degrees that year, "considering the awful judgments of God upon the land," to "retrench Commencement expenses, so as may best correspond with the frowns of Divine Providence, and that they take effectual care to have their sons' chambers cleared of company, and their entertainments finished, on the evening ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... resort, Which whilome of Requests was called the Court; But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight, And full of hum and buzz from noon till night. Up stairs and down you run, as for a race, And each man wears three nations in his face. So big you look, though claret you retrench, That, arm'd with bottled ale, you huff the French. But all your entertainment still is fed 30 By villains in your own dull island bred. Would you return to us, we dare engage To show you better rogues upon the stage. You know no poison but plain ratsbane ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... next week future plans were practically settled so far as the young people were concerned. Rowena had been right in her surmise about the boys, for, like most fathers, Mr Saxon was prepared to retrench in any and every direction rather than interfere with the education of his sons. It was a family tradition that the eldest son should go into the army; therefore, at all costs, Hereward must continue that tradition. The Saxons had for generations ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... been laid on some of those same articles might reasonably claim some allowance to be made. Every new advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to retrench the quantity of his consumption; and if, upon the whole, he pays the same, his property, computed by the standard of what he voluntarily pays, must remain the same. But I am willing to forego that fair advantage in the inquiry. I am willing that the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not gainsay ye. But Mr. Carson spoke to me after th' fire, and says he, 'I shall ha' to retrench, and be very careful in my expenditure during these bad times, I assure ye'; so yo see th' masters ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... probably have to retrench in attention to the American section if I keep on giving pages to this section. But in spite of their great merit, the work of Kallstenius, Schultzberg, Carlberg, and Osslund will have to go with only meager reference. Osslund's pictures are somewhat ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... who themselves disdaining To approach thy Temples, give thee in command What to the smallest tittle thou shalt say 450 To thy Adorers; thou with trembling fear, Or like a Fawning Parasite obey'st; Then to thy self ascrib'st the truth fore-told. But this thy glory shall be soon retrench'd; No more shalt thou by oracling abuse The Gentiles; henceforth Oracles are ceast, And thou no more with Pomp and Sacrifice Shalt be enquir'd at Delphos or elsewhere, At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. God hath now sent his ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... father. I have not shown you my plan. You think badly of me now, but you won't, indeed you won't presently. I am all system, I assure you. I see my way so clearly. I'll retrench without being mean, and I'll economize without being stingy. Don't I use fine words, father? That's because I ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... help you start housekeeping, but there have been a great many failures in the last few months, and he says he is obliged to cut down all his expenses in order to tide over the depression in the market. We are trying to retrench in every possible way, and, for this reason, I fear we shall hardly be able to go down to your wedding. This is a terrible disappointment to us both, and your father is particularly distressed because he will not be able to add to your income this year. Of course, if you should change your mind ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... what was then in her possession. On leaving M. de St. Vallier, she went to the Convent of the Community of Miramion, so named from Mme. de Miramion, their Foundress, who was still living. Sister wished to confer with this illustrious woman on the subject of her rules, and to add or retrench, as the holy religieuse might suggest. But Mme. de Miramion, having been informed that M. de St. Vallier wished to give rules to the Congregation himself, in order not to displease the Bishop, she refused to take any ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... portion of this expenditure, which was to cease when we left the city home. What portion of it could be justly credited to the farm was to be decided by comparative comforts after a year of experience. I did not plan our exodus for the sake of economy, or because I found it necessary to retrench; our rate of living was no higher than we were willing and able to afford. Our object was to change occupation and mode of life without financial loss, and without moulting a single comfort. We wished to end our days close to the land, and we hoped ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... must fall back on authorship for revenue, and he must retrench. In the present low stage of his fortunes he could no longer afford to live in the Hartford house. He decided to take the family abroad, where living was cheaper, and where he might be able to work with ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... which Chatham, and at that time even Fox, looked upon France, and he went to war in the just hope of avenging the disgrace of the Seven Years' War, but from no sympathy with the American cause. When he was required to retrench his personal expenditure, he objected, and insisted that much of the loss should be made to fall on his pensioners. The liberal concessions which he allowed were in many cases made at the expense, not ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... to retrench his household expenditure, and shortly his handsome tapestries and costly goods were all sold off, and he was reduced to the necessity of economizing most rigidly. But deeply as he felt the loss of those comforts ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... taste was superfine, As proved by bills that had no end; I never had a decent coat— I never had a coin to spend! She forced me to resign my club, Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... four great public perils. Your political system bears that within it that will destroy it. It is incumbent upon you to transform your government root and branch, the army, the clergy, and the magistracy: to suppress here, retrench there, remodel everything, or perish through these four institutions, which you consider as lasting elements, but which are elements ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife had been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to allow of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The business has been declining of late years, the cheap advertising stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up to the last week, the only surplus property possessed ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Country stay, There frugally wear out your Summer-Suit, } And in Frize Jerkin after Beagles toot, } Or in Mountero Caps at Fel-fares shoot: } Nay, some are so obdurate in their Sin, That they swear never to come up again; But all their charge of Clothes and Treat retrench. To Gloves and Stockings for some Country-Wench. Even they who in the Summer had Mishaps, Send up to Town for Physick, for their Claps. The Ladies too, are as resolv'd as they, } And having Debts unknown to them, they stay, } And ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... worried look as he came home each night caused Beatrice to cast about for something noble and remarkable to do. The conclusion she reached was that it was her duty to retrench; she was not going to have floor-scrubbing duchesses corner all the economy feats. She would make it the mode to live simply, even be penurious in some ways—now that she had the Villa Rosa and a season's budget of frocks. She began looking over the monthly bills in deadly earnest. The result ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Hereford Cathedral from his attacks. O'Neill little guessed that he had been arrested merely to keep him from blowing up the cathedral this night. The arrest had an excellent effect upon his mind, for he was a young man of good sense: it made him resolve to retrench his expenses in time, to live more like a glover and less like a gentleman; and to aim more at establishing credit, and less at gaining popularity. He found, from experience, that good friends will not ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... have commenced to abandon the slaves too sick to keep up. Besides, food threatens to fail; soldiers and pagazis would revolt if their rations were diminished. They dare not retrench from them, and then so ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... sublation[obs3]; abstraction &c. (taking) 789; garbling,, &c. v. mutilation, detruncation[obs3]; amputation; abscission, excision, recision; curtailment &c. 201; minuend, subtrahend; decrease &c. 36; abrasion. V. subduct, subtract; deduct, deduce; bate, retrench; remove, withdraw, take from, take away; detract. garble, mutilate, amputate, detruncate[obs3]; cut off, cut away, cut out; abscind[obs3], excise; pare, thin, prune, decimate; abrade, scrape, file; geld, castrate; eliminate. diminish &c. 36; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to be brought up short, but she dreaded the thought of his being so distressed; she didn't want him to give up the few little comforts he allowed himself, and she knew it would hurt him cruelly to have to retrench in ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... it, I can assure you. And I can't get the proud old Scot to retrench. Why doesn't he let that baronial hall of his, instead of sticking to it and mortgaging it in order to keep up appearances and entertain half the gentry in the county? Why doesn't he take a five-roomed ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... A hard proposition. In the furnace. Made willing in the day of God's power. Testimony to God's abundant faithfulness. A Bible-woman of exceptional power given. God meeting the Home message—"Retrench." Abundant funds provided. A beautiful instance of "God's wireless." A case of "While they are yet speaking I will hear." The life made easier. A child's fever restrained. Blessing in the work, converts given. A God-suggested ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... say, in the language of current economic theory, while men are reluctant to retrench their expenditures in any direction, they are more reluctant to retrench in some directions than in others; so that while any accustomed consumption is reluctantly given up, there are certain lines of consumption which are given up with relatively extreme ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... himself, and little suspected what he really was. But then, supposing he divulged his secret, what about debts which he had contracted, and extravagant habits which he had formed? No! he would begin and save, retrench his expenses, and if possible get these debts paid off; and then he might see his way to speak of the girl in the Black Forest, if she ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... his inheritance; that must be the clever boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of youth. He will reform and retrench. But this man! No, I shall have him for life. And should he fail in this project, and have but this encumbered property—a landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears—why, he is my slave, and I can foreclose when I wish, or if he prove useless;—no, I risk nothing. And if ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no resolutions but for good reasons, either from propriety or the necessity of relaxing the mind, etc. Thus, in accustoming one's self to retrench the useless little by little, one accustoms one's self to offer what is not proper ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... clamber, So when the circle we have run, The curtain falls and all is done. I might have mention'd several facts, Like episodes between the acts; And tell who loses and who wins, Who gets a cold, who breaks his shins; How Dan caught nothing in his net, And how the boat was overset. For brevity I have retrench'd How in the lake the Dean was drench'd: It would be an exploit to brag on, How valiant George rode o'er the Dragon; How steady in the storm he sat, And saved his oar, but lost his hat: How Nim (no hunter e'er could match him) Still brings us hares, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... induce them to refrain from robbing any caravans or parties travelling in the neighbourhood of their territories. The expenses of the war in Afghanistan had been enormous; and it becoming necessary to retrench, it was unwisely determined to begin by cutting off the pay of these chiefs. They resented the measure, and assembling in vast numbers, took every opportunity of attacking the British troops passing through the defiles of their mountainous country. ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... Matt. We retrench the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jackdaw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, for Money was made for the Free-hearted and Generous, ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... Saint-Amand, truthful? "This intelligent woman, far from being too much heeded, was not enough so. There was in her a veritable love for the public welfare, a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To-day, it is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of her worldly power and add a great deal to that of her soul." M. Saint-Amand believes her sincere when she ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... lord," answered Mr Jamieson. "Do your duty and try to serve Him. There is no use denying it, you are not free from blame for this state of things, and I am very certain, that may be said of the greater number of landlords of this country, so the only advice I can give is to retrench for the future, and when you come back, to set manfully to work to get ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... got to retrench. Every superfluous expenditure must be cut off. As for the park and free library, that seems wild now, doesn't it? I don't regret abandoning the scheme. The people of this town never did appreciate public ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various |
