"Retrospect" Quotes from Famous Books
... Dome, one of the great granite mountains, began to dominate the world; but though the cascades were in his kingdom they could not be governed by him, because spirits are not ruled by earthly kings. There was Vernal Fall, gentle in majesty; and Nevada, a wild and untamed water spirit; and retrospect glimpses of ... — The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... natures of brother and sister were strongly similar—light- hearted and happy, laughing and gay, keen to enjoy life, but reading some part of its mysteries, understanding some of its sorrows and showing at times evidences of searching thought and grave retrospect. ... — Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]—read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that ... — Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cold light of dawn his perturbations of the previous night appeared in retrospect as rather boyish and unnecessary. His sudden and unexpected meeting with Helen and their talk together had tended to make him over-sentimental, that was all. He and she were to be friends, of course, but there was ... — The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... is severe in his criticisms. In his "retrospect, pointing out the mistakes that were made," ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... forgotten and our contests of political opinion are no longer remembered, nothing in the retrospect of our public service will be as fortunate and comforting as the recollection of official duty well performed and the memory of a constant devotion to the ... — Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... was not more than two minutes in length, but it seemed a good hour to Buffle, whose acquaintanceship the delicacy of the trigger of his beloved pistol caused his past life to pass in retrospect before him several times before they reached the light. The light proved to be in the saloon whose locality had provoked the quarrel. The saloon was full, the door was open, and there was a buzz of astonishment, which culminated in a volley of ejaculations, in which strength predominated ... — Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... She had listened to his heartbeats; with her own abundant strength she had shielded him, fought for him, drawn him, by very force of her will, back to life; the anguish she had suffered during those long hours became, in retrospect, a poignant pleasure. ... — Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... with the night of the first attempt of his suppressed poetical genius to manifest itself, and gave Hollington a comprehensive account of each detail of his subsequent experiences, down to the reading of the letters and the spiritual retrospect they had induced. He did not tell the story dramatically; he had no fire left in him; he stated it in a matter-of-fact way, which was impressive because of the speaker's indisputable belief in his own words. Hollington ... — What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... changes in one's way of life are not decided as casually as trading in the old car for a model of the current year. Usually the decision to pioneer backward is reached so gradually that those who take the step can hardly tell in retrospect just when the die was cast. A vacation or summer in the country may have put it in mind. Then a period of vague indecision follows when city and country appear about equally attractive. Suddenly some chance ... — If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... historical retrospect greater and more revolutionary changes are seen to have occurred during the nineteenth century than in any century preceding. In these changes no department of thought and activity has failed to share, and theological thought has been quite as much affected as scientific ... — Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... moment: that, say, in which Hamlet turns on Caudius and kills him—rather, leads him out to kill him. To that you are led by a little sparse dialog, ominous enough, and pregnant with dire significance, between two or three actors; many long speeches in which the story is told in retrospect; much chanting by the chorus—Horatio multiplied by a dozen or so—to make you feel Hamlet's long indecision, and to allow you no escape from the knowledge that Claudius' crime would bring about its karmic punishment. It is a unity: one thunderbolt from Zeus;—first ... — The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Home." That was supposed to be woman's domain, where she was the sovereign power; there she was helper, sustainer, director, the dear dispenser of favors. The woman's kingdom, queen of the home. Gradually the words led her down long lanes of retrospect, led by the rose-leaf touch of the baby's fingers; they kept her strong. What kingdom had she ever made her own? She, poor, bedraggled, complaining suppliant, a beggar where she should have been a queen! Home and the heart of her husband—there lay her woman's kingdom, ... — McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Carteret's motion for an address, beseeching his majesty to remove sir Robert Walpole from his presence and councils for ever. The speech that ushered in this memorable motion would not have disgraced a Cicero. It contained a retrospect of all the public measures which had been pursued since the revolution. It explained the nature of every treaty, whether right or wrong, which had been concluded under the present administration. It described the political connexions subsisting between the different powers in Europe. ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... In retrospect, the Great Rebellion seems the mightiest battle and the most glorious victory in the annals of time. The battle-field was a thousand miles in length; the combatants numbered two million men; the ... — The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... which he had learnt above all others is that which he teaches above all others—love. I think, brothers, we can picture the old white-haired Bishop of Ephesus, borne day after day upon a litter into his church, and ever saying the same tender words, "little children, love one another." What a retrospect there was for S. John to look back along that stretch of years! What memories must have filled the old man's heart of those days when he was a sunny-haired stripling, working with his brothers in the fishing boat, and casting net, and pulling oar over the bright ... — The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... happily fills up what would otherwise have been the only void in the scene, so thickly is it studed and storied with objects and recollections. Altogether, we have rarely seen a topographical panorama of such diversified character: it has reminiscences of history and poetry to lead us through the retrospect of chivalrous ages, princely contests for crowns that rarely sat lightly on their wearers, and the last flickering hopes of defeated ambition and ill-starred fortune. Yet, how powerfully, not to say painfully, are these pages ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... In retrospect one feels almost sorry for them: the Great War must have come almost as a relief. Not one of them was what you would call a bad man. Some of them suffered over forcible feeding and the Cat and Mouse Act as acutely as ... — Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... end of the dinner conversation and hilarity were growing apace. Men were forgetting the scramble of existence in the recollection of old college days, when their blood was like wine and the world a thing of adventure. Mellowed by retrospect, they laughed over incidents that had caused heart-burnings at the time; and as they laughed more than one felt a swelling of the throat. It was, perhaps, just an odd streak of sentiment (and the man who is without such is a sorry ... — The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... well astern; the long string of empty bathhouses slid by, water foamed under the swelling sail. Gliding with the bark, dreamy retrospect met and joined hands with solider prospect. Carlisle threw round a measuring eye, and perceived that she had covered more distance than she had thought; had passed the limits of the board-walk and the ... — V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... largess bestowed, perhaps exclusively, on the sense of sight, and this bounty contributes essentially to the acquirement and retention of knowledge. They are the unfading transcripts of vision, and they exhibit the original picture to the retrospect of memory. They are but little under the immediate direction of the will, and cannot be arbitrarily summoned or dismissed, but owe their introduction to a different source, to be explained hereafter. They perform important offices, although they are not the materials to rear ... — On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... their new home, while Mr. and Mrs. Mallery went on to New York. Theodore had been there perhaps a dozen times since he took that first surreptitious trip with Mr. Hastings, but in these visits he had always been a hurried business man, with little leisure or taste for retrospect. Now, however, it was different, and traversing the streets with his wife leaning on his arm, he had a fancy for going backward, and painting pictures from the past for her amusement. The hotel to which he had escorted Mr. Hastings on that day had advanced ... — Three People • Pansy
... Theologico-Politicus, and the scathing criticism on the perversions of the teaching of Christ in that treatise may have suggested certain passages in a poem presently to be noted.[172] Yet, so far as his own contemporary testimony goes, we are led to conclude that in his retrospect he has assigned to an earlier period experiences which were of gradual growth, and which only at a later date were realised with the vividness he ascribes to them. If we turn to his actual life during the same period, it is equally hard to trace in it the ... — The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... "In the retrospect, nothing. It seems to me already as but an infinitesimal point. Things that engrossed me, and seemed of such moment, that overshadowed the duty of obeying my conscience—what were they, and where? Ah, where? They endured but a moment. Reality and ... — A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... Retrospect may involve regret, but can scarcely involve anxiety. To one who fully appreciates the actual, and above all the potential, importance of this society in its bearing upon the general progress of scientific research in every field of physical ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... cheered up. "For opportunities lost," he said. "The lost opportunities—how sad a theme, how melancholy a retrospect! Tell ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... our retrospect of American literature before 1861 with a brief notice of one of the most striking literary phenomena of the time—the Leaves of Grass of Walt Whitman, published at Brooklyn in 1855. The author, born at West Hills, Long Island, in 1819, had been printer, ... — Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... form some idea of what must be its power on those who were within the charmed ring; who were actually under the wand of the enchanter, for whom there was music in that voice, fascination in that eye, and habitual command in that spare but lustrous countenance; and who can trace again in this retrospect the colours and shadows which in those years which fixed their destiny, passed, though in less distinct hues, into their own lives, and made them what ... — Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... itself a sufficient cause for gratitude, on account of the happiness it has actually conferred and the example it has unanswerably given But to me, my fellow-citizens, looking forward to the far-distant future with ardent prayers and confiding hopes, this retrospect presents a ground for still deeper delight. It impresses on my mind a firm belief that the perpetuity of our institutions depends upon ourselves; that if we maintain the principles on which they were established they are ... — United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... retrospect commune O'er what that still cold heart and brain have won: A hymn of life in lispings first begun, Ending in ... — The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... said Mr. Deane, spreading himself in his chair a little, and entering with great readiness into a retrospect of his own career. "But I'll tell you how I got on. It wasn't by getting astride a stick and thinking it would turn into a horse if I sat on it long enough. I kept my eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasn't too fond of my own back, ... — The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... 'Paracelsus' was affixed a preface, now long discarded, but which acquires fresh interest in a retrospect of the author's completed work; for it lays down the constant principle of dramatic creation by which that work was to be inspired. It also anticipates probable criticism of the artistic form which on this, and so many subsequent occasions, ... — Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... revengeful for the moment. She realized now that he meant this—that in his heart was no least feeling for all that had gone before—no sweet memories, no binding thoughts of happy hours, days, weeks, years, that were so glittering and wonderful to her in retrospect. Great Heavens, it was really true! His love was dead; he had said it! But for the nonce she could not believe it; she would not. It really ... — The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... a human life can be told in very few words. A youth of golden dreams and visions; a few years of struggle or of neglected opportunities; then retrospect ... — The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... abbe paused, smiling as if in retrospect, and kept looking into the fire and turning about in his hand ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... concerned further with the girl's singular history. He hated the irregular, the pretentious. His own life, so clear, so well regulated, made her daily performances the more monstrous. The whole had become so foolish in retrospect that he refrained from speaking of it, even to ... — The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... within fifteen years it has grown to its present impressive proportions, and has now its own magnificent church building, costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and entirely paid for when its consecration service on January 6 shall be celebrated. This is certainly a very remarkable retrospect. ... — Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, I certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from Glatz. One year's patience might have appeased the irritated monarch, and, taking a retrospect of all that has passed, I now find it would have been a fortunate circumstance, had the good and faithful Schell and I never met, since he also fell into a train of misfortunes, which I shall hereafter relate, and from which he could ... — The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... and here for the first time gave herself up to him with tears, with twinges of her conscience, and at the same time with such ardour and tenderness, that the poor secretary lost his head completely—was plunged entirely into that senile love, which no longer knows either reason or retrospect; which compels a man to lose the last ... — Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a hard or a cruel woman ... she was very kind and loved her son with a long clutching love ... but her life with her husband had contained so many disturbances of comfortable courses, thrilling enough at the time, but terrifying when viewed in retrospect, that her nature, inclined to quiet, fixed ways and to acceptance, with slight resistance, of whatever came to her, made all the efforts that were possible to it to keep her life and her son's life in peace. She hated change of any sort, whether of circumstances or of friends, and ... — The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... coward for a father, a scarecrow, a butt for a gang of miners' boys! This, this was her father! Why, even crippled old Jim, the wood-chopper, seen in retrospect and haloed by copper-colored dreams of romantic ... — The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... crush out at one blow, in the interest of the reigning Valois, not the Huguenots only but the rival houses of Guise and Bourbon. The word, the act, from hour to hour through what presented itself at the time as a long-continued season of frivolity, suggested in retrospect alike to friend and foe the close connexion of a mathematical problem. And yet that damning coincidence of date, day and hour apparently so exactly timed, in the famous letter to the Governor of Lyons, by which Charles, the trap being now ready, seems ... — Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... come into a condition of vast perplexities. For the first time in my life, at least so it seems to me now in this retrospect, I looked at my ... — Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... that. It is enough; too much. What, in the reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but empty shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party that has fed and ... — This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... sky is changed; O world! What pictures and what harmonies are thine! The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, So like the soul of me, what if 't were me? A melancholy better than all mirth. Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect, Or at the foresight of obscurer years? Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty Superior to all its gaudy skirts. And, that no day of life may lack romance, The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down A private beam into ... — Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... same thing occurs at Sebenico. The hotel porters are not allowed to carry baggage to and from the steamers or the station; we were told there was a law against it, which a man sitting by said was just enough, for the odd-job men must live! The retrospect from the railway is fine. The southern end of the inlet is in the foreground, with a training-ship upon it; the city on its hill lies to the right, crowned by Fort S. Anna, and higher still the Fort S. Giovanni; while to ... — The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... beginning of it," Jed Dawkins answered. He looked toward his two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the three crewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at the edge of the clearing. "We thought it was the end of everything," he said in retrospect, "but we found out quick that things had ... — Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... walks exerted a beneficial influence on his own darkened mind. It is one thing to struggle from idea to idea; it is another when material objects mingle with the retrospect; they seem to supply stepping-stones in the gradual resuscitation of memory ... — A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... my belief that after the passing of this depression, when we can examine it in retrospect, we shall need to consider a number of other questions as to what action may be taken by the Government to remove Possible governmental influences which make for instability and to better organize mitigation of the effect of depression. It is as yet too soon to constructively ... — Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... page. He tried, too, to serve and help his simple country neighbours, as indeed he had desired to do even at Eton, by showing them many small, thoughtful, and unobtrusive kindnesses, just as his father had done. But he lived much, like all poetical natures, in tender retrospect; and the ending of the bright days brought with it a heartache that even nature, which he worshipped like a poet, was powerless to console. But he loved his woods and sloping fields, and the clear river passing under its high banks ... — Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... by retrospect, humped his way through the crowd at the gates of the Aqueduct. There was not a friendly eye in that crowd. He stuffed his ears with indifference. He would not bear their remarks as they recognized him. He summoned all his nerve to look them in the face unflinchingly—that nerve that had ... — Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... reached the Achilles Statue, and a hurried retrospect showed me the terrier some thirty paces away, exchanging discourtesies with an Aberdeen. The two were walking round each other with a terrible deliberation, and from their respective demeanours it was transparently clear that only an immediate ... — Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... having felt sorry for everybody else, Charity began to feel pleasantly sorry for Jim Dyckman. Her own rebuke of him for assaulting Cheever had absolved him. In the retrospect, the attack took on a knightliness of devotion. She recalled his lonely dogging of her footsteps. If he had played the dog, after all, she loved dogs. What was so faithful, trustworthy, and lovable ... — We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... from a retrospect of the history which this and the preceding chapter contain, but they will more fitly form a part of a subsequent chapter of this volume, when a sketch of the results achieved by Psychological Medicine will be given, as ... — Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... be in the retrospect more distinct to him was the process by which he had become aware that Kate's acquaintance with her was greater than he had gathered. She had written of it in due course as a new and amusing one, and he had written back that he ... — The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... in vindication of the national rights and honor. The present condition of the country is similar in some respects to that which existed immediately after the close of the war with Great Britain in 1815, and the occasion is deemed to be a proper one to take a retrospect of the measures of public policy which followed that war. There was at that period of our history a departure from our earlier policy. The enlargement of the powers of the Federal Government by construction, which ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... girl, mistress of many gay frocks, could make herself! There was an implied crime-partnership in her glance which revolted him. Dick Langdon must have talked in his own home. Crane's conscience—well, he hardly had one perhaps, at least it was always subevident; to put it in another way, the retrospect of his manipulated diplomacy never bothered him; but this gratuitous sharing in his evil triumph was disquieting. The malicious glitter of the girl's small black eyes contrasted strongly with the honest, unaffected look that was forever in the ... — Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... complex; but, whether the sympathies of the reader be for or against the standpoint of the Irish Loyalists, the actual events which make up what may be called the Ulster Movement would be wholly unintelligible without some introductory retrospect. Indeed, to those who set out to judge Irish political conditions without troubling themselves about anything more ancient than their own memory can recall, the most fundamental factor of all—the line of cleavage between Ulster and the rest of the island—- is more than unintelligible. ... — Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Alamo after eleven days inside, that seemed in the retrospect almost as many months. He flattened himself against the wall, and stood there for a minute or two, looking and listening. He thought he might hear Crockett again inside, but evidently the Tennesseean had gone back at once. In front of him was only the darkness, pierced ... — The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the two went together to spend the forenoon in Walden woods, calling on Emerson by the way to inquire what the best road might be. Emerson prudently detained them until after the townspeople were safely in their churches, and then accompanied them. It is a pleasant retrospect to think of those two mighty men, so like and yet so unlike, together with their amiable and gifted friend, going off on this Sunday excursion. Mr. Hillard was a fortunate companion for him, for no one could serve better as a mean between two extremes. ... — Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... accompanied me thus far, will not need to be informed that I have designedly omitted many of those remarks on scenery, manners, and institutions, which were naturally suggested to my own mind by a retrospect of my sojourn in the United States. On various subjects of great interest and importance, it would be difficult for me to add anything new or valuable to the information contained in other and well known works; while on those points to which my attention was chiefly directed, I have endeavored, ... — A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... asunder into the several churches of the Lutheran and the Reformed confessions; there are many even now to deplore it as a disastrous set-back to the progress of the kingdom of Christ. But in the calmness of our long retrospect it is easy for us to recognize that whatever jurisdiction should have been established over an undivided Protestant church would inevitably have proved itself, in no long time, just such a yoke as neither the men ... — A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Longfellow, and Lowell; of Prescott, Ticknor, Motley, Sparks, and Bancroft; of Verplanck, Hillard, and Whipple; of Stuart and Robinson; of Norton, Palfrey, Peabody, and Bowen; and, lastly, that of Emerson himself, and how much American classic literature would be left for a new edition of "Miller's Retrospect"? ... — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... insignificant they look now—for fear of criticism, for fear of being thought odd, for fear of the opinion of worldly companions, for fear of being pitied or laughed at, over and over again you have run away. The things that seemed important when they were present seem pitifully insignificant in the retrospect. ... — Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... and words of Christ, obedience to His precepts, delight in His ways, preservation from their own iniquities, and consistent behaviour, as evidences that their faith was living, and their hope warranted; and in this way the retrospect conduced to their encouragement. Moreover, they all concur in declaring that, while they left their infirmities behind them, they should take their graces along with them, and that ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... my former letter I made some rather disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, but I want to take them all back. Life is a series of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on which I crossed seems a veritable floating palace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing only I am certain—I shall never, never have the courage ... — Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... life, to his moderation and goodwill, and to the impressive effect of his preaching and teaching upon the people of the city.[12] Vadian, the Humanist and reformer of St. Gall, too, in spite of his disapproval of some of Denck's ideas, speaking of him in retrospect after his death, called him "a most gifted youth, possessed of all excellencies." But his teaching was too strange and unusual to be allowed currency even in free Strasbourg. After being granted a public discussion he was ordered ... — Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... poignancy of beauty. The memory of suffering endured is often the last thing from which we would be parted, while humdrum happiness we are quite willing to forget. Because we realize completely only in retrospect, it may well be that the present exists chiefly for the sake of the future. Then let the days come with veiled faces, accept their gifts whose value we are so little able to appraise! There is a profound and practical truth in Christ's saying, ... — Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... rigorously scrutinized, tortured, and blackened, should never have heard that act of power complained of. The present Lord Barrington who opposed him, saw his fall, and the secret committee appointed' to canvass his life, when a retrospect of twenty years was desired and only ten allowed, would certainly have pleaded for the longer term, had he had any thing to say, in behalf of his father's sentence. Would so warm a patriot then, though so obedient a courtier now, have suppressed the charge to this hour? This Lord ... — Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. The Brown episode has no special bearing on the main tragedy, though now in retrospect it seems closely related to it. Samuel Clemens, coming up the river on the A. T. Lacey, two days behind the Pennsylvania, heard a voice shout as they approached the ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... message without getting caught at it. I recollected now how cautious he had been to hand me no paper, and how openly and obviously he had dropped each specimen into my book; because he knew someone was watching him and expecting him to slip in a message. He had, as I could see now in the retrospect, been conspicuously careful that nothing suspicious should pass from his ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... he was first in the army, and knowing the distress it caused his family at home, his mind was so troubled that he wrote to his mother: "Oh, what agony I have endured! What sleepless nights I have passed since the perusal of that letter! The review of my past life, especially the retrospect of the last two years, has at last quite startled me, and at the same time disgusted me." And again: "Oh, that I had the last two years allotted to ... — Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... other countries where the art has been cultivated and esteemed. In order, therefore, to acquire an accurate knowledge of the state of musical taste and science which now prevails among us, it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect; and as much of the music still popular was composed during the earliest period of the art in England, we shall rapidly trace its history from the times of those early masters, whose names are still held in remembrance and repute, down to the ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... conversation grew gradually more and more Indian; it always does under similar circumstances. A sea voyage is half retrospect, half prospect; it has no personal identity. You leave Liverpool for New York at the English standpoint, and are full of what you did in London or Manchester; half-way over, you begin to discuss American custom-houses and New York hotels; by the time ... — Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... in the present, not in the future, nor much even in the past, till the world has been some time with him, and he by degrees shares the common heritage of retrospect and anticipation. This is the great secret of the quiet happiness which strikes almost all visitors to a ... — The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... sad, too much Of retrospect have I; And well for me, that I, sometimes, Can put those ... — The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... for the latest brief doings in current fiction; and usually in the background—and often long in abeyance—was something in the way of memoirs or biography, many-volumed, which could fill the empty hours either through retrospect or anticipation. ... — Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... service one happens upon experiences that, though they make no immediate impression, become more prominent than the most dramatic events, when the period is past and can be viewed in retrospect. Sub-consciousness, wiser than the surface brain, penetrates to the inner sanctuary of true values, photographs something typical of war's many aspects, places the negative in the dark room of memory, and fades into inertia until ... — Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... speculators' creeds and customs may amuse himself, however, with reminiscences like the preceding only in a sense of that proud historic retrospect which concerns past radiant records of "the street." He may, if so minded, con other pages of its noble archives, and dazzle his young brain with admiration for the shining exploits of "Black Friday," an occasion when greed held one of its most sickening ... — The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... Bridget rode a fiery little chestnut. Maule had already had opportunity to admire the famous O'Hara seat. They had hunted together once or twice on the Campagna, that winter when they had met in Rome. It was difficult to avoid retrospect, but Bridget seemed determined to keep it within conventional limits. They found plenty, however, to talk about in their immediate surroundings. Perhaps it was the effort to throw off the load on her heart that made Bridget gaily confiding. She drew humorous pictures of the comic ... — Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the city of Alexandria was intense and universal when the Roman army entered it to reinstate Cleopatra's father upon his throne. A very large portion of the inhabitants were pleased with having the former king restored. In fact, it appears, by a retrospect of the history of kings that when a legitimate hereditary sovereign or dynasty is deposed and expelled by a rebellious population, no matter how intolerable may have been the tyranny, or how atrocious the crimes by which the patience of the subject was exhausted, the lapse of ... — Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... prosperous; and prosperity does not bind, it merely assembles people—at dinners and dances. It is adversity that binds—beside the gravestone, beneath the desolated roof. Could you come here and see what I have seen, the retrospect of suffering, the long, lingering convalescence, the small outlook of vigor to come, and the steadfast sodality of affliction and affection and fortitude, your kind but unenlightened heart would be wrung, as mine has been, and ... — Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... I have not been able to steal a moment from the rich and varied objects before me to write about them. I will, therefore, take a brief retrospect of the ground. ... — At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... energy, and lift our politics to a broader view of the people's essential interests. It is a record of singular variety and singular distinction. But I shall not attempt to review it. It speaks for itself and will be of increasing influence as the years go by. This is not the time for retrospect. It is time, rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes concerning the present and ... — In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... decease of James Howell, and in 1668 the death of Davenant opened the situation of poet-laureate. These two offices, with a salary of L200 paid quarterly, and the celebrated annual butt of canary, were conferred upon Dryden 18th August 1670.[29] The grant bore a retrospect to the term after Davenant's demise, and is declared to be to "John Dryden, master of arts, in consideration of his many acceptable services theretofore done to his present Majesty, and from an observation of his learning and eminent abilities, and his great skill and elegant ... — The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... several attempts. They say it is different in other parts of the region. But when you have plank roads and first-class hotels and all the modern conveniences, I don't call that going into the woods and camping out. The real thing is not very much fun except in the retrospect, when you can thank your stars that you got out alive. For the greater part it is a snare and a delusion. But if you still pine for the forests and streams and the free out-of-door life, I don't wish to discourage you, and you know I never ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... were almost unnoticed of Barlow. All up the climb the retrospect was with him, claiming his thoughts. Just that—all that was in evidence, a pigment in the skin, caste; and yet reacting away back to God's mandate against the union of the white and black. And verily a sin to be visited even unto the third and ... — Caste • W. A. Fraser
... overflowing schedule at the University of South Dakota. It has been my companion on many journeys and six states have witnessed its progress toward completion. In spite of the time consumed it seems in retrospect not far short of presumptuous to have tried in three or four years to put into acceptable English what Dio spent twelve in writing down. Yet the task was not quite the same, for half of this historian's books have been caught up and whirled away ... — Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... Whartons would now probably be great people and Britain a great nation. But the Evil One had been allowed to prevail, and everything had gone astray, and Sir Alured now had nothing of this world to console him but a hazy retrospect of past glories, and a delight in the beauty of his own river, his own park, and his own house. Sir Alured, with all his foibles and with all his faults, was a pure-minded, simple gentleman, who could not tell a lie, who could not do a wrong, and who was earnest in his desire to make those ... — The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... proceeded upon a botanising tour about the neighbourhood, in the hope of making some discovery that might prove useful to us. For my own part, happening to think of the question which had been started in the morning, as to the day of the week, I began to make a retrospect of all that had taken place since the fearful night of the mutiny, and to endeavour to fix the order of subsequent events, so as to arrive at the number of days we had been at sea, and upon the island. In the course of these calculations, and while Browne ... — The Island Home • Richard Archer
... higher opinion of my fellow-citizens, if such a thing could be. They were indeed very charming people, and such of them as I mostly saw were readers and lovers of books. Society in Columbus at that day had a pleasant refinement which I think I do not exaggerate in the fond retrospect. It had the finality which it seems to have had nowhere since the war; it had certain fixed ideals, which were none the less graceful and becoming because they were the simple old American ideals, now vanished, or fast vanishing, before the knowledge of good ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sacque. This dame, who seemed more merry than refined, hailed me, seized me, and tried to seat me in her lap; a jolly and coarse old girl from whom, in my hour of sentiment, I fled with craven shrinking: to whom, upon a retrospect, I do more justice. The two lepers (both women) sat in the midst of their visitors, even the children (to my grief) touching them freely; the elder chatting at intervals—the girl in the same black weed and bowed in the same attitude as ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lead to retrospect: after a year of the greatest of all wars it is natural to indulge in a stock-taking of the national spirit, and comforting to find that, in spite of disillusions and disappointments, the alternation of exultations and agonies, the soul ... — Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... contemplation is profitable only as a legitimate topic of contrition. How much wiser and more profitable to anticipate the serious judgment which sooner or later we must pass upon our actions, and so to shape our conduct in advance, that the retrospect, when it comes, may be a source of joy and congratulation, rather than of shame and repentance. How much wiser to direct our bark to some definite and well selected channel, than to float at random along the current of events, the sport of every idle ... — In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed and agonized, With widening retrospect that bred despair. Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, A vicious parent shaming still its child Poor, anxious penitence, is quick dissolved; Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, Die ... — Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... numbers of Popish priests and bishops you have, in the faithful discharge of your pious duty, committed to chains, imprisonment, transportation, and the scaffold—think of all these things, I say, and take comfort to your soul by the retrospect. Would you wish to receive the rites and consolations ... — Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... mindful of us: He will bless us." In that joyful assurance there is both retrospect and prospect. There is the trodden pathway of Providence, and there is the star of hope! The eyes are steadied and refreshed in sacred memories, and then they gaze into the future with serene and happy confidence. ... — My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... I would have purchased a franc's worth of iodine for almost anybody on earth. Not then. On the contrary, I grew positively low-spirited when, after three more days, the lamentations began to diminish in volume. They were sweet music to my ears, at the time. They are sweeter by far, in retrospect. If only one could extract the same amount of innocent and durable pleasure out of all ... — Alone • Norman Douglas
... cinquante ans depuis que j'ai premier vu Madame Warens,' what a yearning of the soul is implied in that short sentence! Was all that had happened to him, all that he had thought and felt in that sad interval of time, to be accounted nothing? Was that long, dim, faded retrospect of years happy or miserable—a blank that was not to make his eyes fail and his heart faint within him in trying to grasp all that had once filled it and that had since vanished, because it was not a prospect into futurity? Was he wrong in finding more to interest him in it than ... — Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the satisfaction with which we look back upon a right action far more than compensates for any pain with which it may have been attended. The 'mens sibi conscia recti' is the highest reward which a man can have, as, on the other hand, the retrospect on base, unjust, or cruel actions constitutes the most acute of torments. Now, when a man looks back upon his past actions, what he regards is not so much the result of his acts as the intention and the motives by which the intention was actuated. ... — Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... in retrospect it seems that the blind musician stood in some peculiar and significant relation to the more ordinary life about him. But for him, I should probably have omitted to describe my night among the Turks. He ... — A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... Charlotte's school, he had recently done so with success, and had seen the ladies feel toward him, as he felt under his instructress in the art. Some nature, however, is required for every piece of art. Wilfrid knew that he had been brutal in his representation of the part, and the retrospect of his conduct at Brookfield did not satisfy his remorseless critical judgement. In consequence, when he again saw Lady Charlotte, his admiration of that one prized characteristic of hers paralyzed him. She looked, and moved, and spoke, as if the earth were ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stirs him to lofty enterprise—a man prompt, capable, and calm, wanting nothing in soldiership except good-fortune. Ever tempted to reverie, he yet refuses, even for one little hour, to yield up the weal of Flanders to idle thought or vacant retrospect. Having once put his hand to the plough of action, with clear foresight, not blindfold bravery, his language is—'Though I indulge no more the dream of living, as I hoped I might have lived, a life of temperate and thoughtful joy, yet I repine not, and from this time forth will cast ... — Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... retrospect, in all conscience, to which we had just listened, and the prophetic utterance wherewith it had been wound up, while powerfully suggestive of a highly novel and picturesque experience in store for us, was certainly ... — A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... remembers the pangs of doubt, the apprehension, the painful forebodings, nay, the despair itself into which an absence protracted beyond custom, and not to be accounted for, has thrown him, will be able, from a retrospect of his reflections on such an occasion, to imagine what must have been the danger of this boy, and what the courage he must have had to encounter it—and will, while pondering with admiration upon his fortitude and manliness, tremble for his fate. This writer ... — The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... to attempt to discover the vast changes that are likely to come as a direct consequence of the present Armageddon, it is necessary to refer in brief retrospect to some of the main causes and features of the great European war. Meanwhile, I think the general feeling amongst all thoughtful men is best expressed in the phrase, "Never again." Never again must we have to face the possibility of such a world-wide catastrophe. Never again must ... — Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... preliminary instructions. Cardinal Mercier presents these under "propaedeutics," even for his grown-up scholars, placing logic properly so called in its own rank as the complement of the other treatises of speculative philosophy, seen in retrospect, a science ... — The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... gathering, little noted at the time, assumes strange significance in retrospect. At one platform Patrick Pearse, then headmaster of St. Enda's school, spoke in Irish. What he said ... — John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... never ceased, nor was there hope of emerging from its sordidness into the high places where were breathing space and vision. One could never hope when night came to glance back over the day and see in retrospect a finished piece of work. There was no such thing as writing finis beneath any chapter of the ponderous tome of ... — The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... professions, whilst the inveterate habits of sovereignty convert the wish into claim and positive right, and an incompliance with it into crime and treason;—these facts, these passions, these moral verities, on which the whole tragedy is founded, are all prepared for, and will to the retrospect be found implied, in these first four or five lines of the play. They let us know that the trial is but a trick; and that the grossness of the old king's rage is in part the natural result of a silly trick suddenly and most unexpectedly baffled ... — Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... actions wait, are well The prompter's hand is on his bell; The coming heroes, lovers, kings, Are idly lounging at the wings; Behind the curtain's mystic fold The glowing future lies unrolled,— And yet, one moment for the Past; One retrospect,—the first and last. ... — East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... vaguely aware of pressure of our clothing. Usually it is not sufficiently noticeable to cause much annoyance, but occasionally it is, as is demonstrated at night when we take off a shoe with such a sigh of relief that we realize in retrospect it had been vaguely troubling us ... — How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... "associations" would be very charming, that it would be an infinite pleasure to rest her eyes upon the things she had read about in the poets and historians. She was very fond of the poets and historians, of the picturesque, of the past, of retrospect, of mementos and reverberations of greatness; so that on coming into the English world, where strangeness and familiarity would go hand in hand, she was prepared for a multitude of fresh emotions. They began very ... — An International Episode • Henry James
... people. It is plainer still that he embodied the resolute purpose which underlay the fluctuations upon the surface of their political life. The English military historians, Wood and Edmonds, in their retrospect over the course of the war, well sum up its dramatic aspect when they say: "Against the great military genius of certain of the Southern leaders fate opposed the unbroken resolution and passionate devotion to the Union, which he worshipped, ... — Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... entertaining and more philosophical than that which arises from beholding the musty ruins of Rome. Here everything would inspire the reflecting traveller with the most philanthropic ideas; his imagination, instead of submitting to the painful and useless retrospect of revolutions, desolations, and plagues, would, on the contrary, wisely spring forward to the anticipated fields of future cultivation and improvement, to the future extent of those generations which are to replenish and embellish this boundless continent. There the half-ruined amphitheatres, ... — Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... On a retrospect, among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, including the spectacles of the Southern Cross, the Cloud of Magellan, and the other constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, the glacier leading its blue stream of ice overhanging the sea in a bold precipice, the lagoon-islands ... — The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Tresilian and the other judges; and, with the approbation of the present judges, declared the answers for which these magistrates had been impeached to be just and legal:[****] and they carried so far their retrospect as to reverse, on the petition of Lord Spenser, earl of Glocester, the attainder pronounced against the two Spensers in the reign of Edward II.[*****] The ancient history of England is nothing but a catalogue of reversals: every thing is in fluctuation and movement: one faction is continually ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... get 'em back. Lost two of our best men,—scalped at Bloody Creek,—and had to drop a dozen redskins in their tracks,—me and another man,—lyin' flat in er wagon and firin' under the flaps o' the canvas. I don't know ez they waz wuth it," he added in gloomy retrospect; "but I've got to get rid of 'em, I reckon, somehow, afore I work ... — Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... windfall pure and simple. The years of petty pickering suddenly seemed more horrid to her in retrospect than she had ever realized they were in the living. It was hateful to have reckoned in car fares and to so often have appeared to do the niggardly thing before the unspoken reproach ... — Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... up like a little dog, but tired as he was he could not sleep—not at first. He was nothing but a baby boy, but he had quite a retrospect or panorama passing before his eyes as he lay on the dirty caravan floor. He saw the old court at home; he saw the pretty farm of Warren's Grove; he saw that tiring day in London when it seemed to both Cecile and himself that ... — The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... is taken becomes canonised, and the looks of the homeliest babe seem in the retrospect 'heavenly the three last days of his life.' But it appears that James and Mary had indeed been children more than usually engaging; a record was preserved a long while in the family of their remarks and 'little ... — Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... storm had scoured the air, and the world was bright as a new pin. In the shaded solitude of the after-deck, Mr. Carstairs's agent sat in an easy-chair with a cigarette, and thought over the remarkable happenings of his first night in Hunston. In retrospect young Editor Smith seemed to be but the ordered instrument of fate, dispatched in a rowboat to draw him against his will from the yacht to the town, where all his business was neatly arranged for ... — Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... should have attained to a greater size, and a more muscular body. Perhaps, instead of placing the causes which effect disparity of stature among various nations in the difference of food, this instance ought to teach us to have retrospect likewise to the original races from which those tribes are descended, that fell under our examination. Let us, for instance, suppose, that the people of New Caledonia are the offspring of a nation, who, by living ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... man again, physically and mentally sound, doing all reverence to the memory of his dead wife—a flawless angel in the retrospect—while finding natural solace in the company of living women who were also young and fair. The living women were much in evidence from the first; nothing but the sea could keep them from trying to comfort him. A big fellow, with a square, hard face, and a fist to fell an ox—that was ... — Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... eyes, and let them answer for going on in their practice.[5] My province is much larger than at first sight men would imagine, and I shall lose no part of my jurisdiction, which extends not only to futurity, but also is retrospect to things past; and the behaviour of persons who have long ago acted their parts, is as much liable to my examination, as that of ... — The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "Clarion" office. It was suggested to Hal that the success of the function warranted its being established as a regular feature of the shop. Later this was done. One of the participants, however, was very ill-pleased with the morning's entertainment. Dr. Surtaine saw, in retrospect and in prospect, his son being led astray into various radical and harebrained vagaries of journalism. None of those at the breakfast had foreseen more clearly than the wise and sharpened quack what serious difficulties beset ... — The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... back over the way which the Lord has led us these forty years in the wilderness, we sometimes find in retrospect the Marahs no sadder than the Elims. Nay, there are times when the Elims are ... — Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... the tuft-headed Circassian girls of cheap museums; the vistas of shabby cross streets; the survival of an old hip-roofed house here and there at their angles; the Swiss chalet, histrionic decorativeness of the stations in prospect or retrospect; the vagaries of the lines that narrowed together or stretched apart according to the width of the avenue, but always in wanton disregard of the life that dwelt, and bought and sold, and rejoiced or sorrowed, ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Then all was anxious terror that I would not be there in time to see one look, or to hear one word. Now there was nothing imaginary—all was real misery. There now remained not even a chance of happiness, but what depended on the retrospect of better days ... — A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... head. He leaned back, half closed his eyes, put his finger-tips together, and almost smiled as if something in retrospect pleased ... — The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Technique: /n./ [TMRC] A visionary quality which enables one to ignore the standard approach and come up with a totally unexpected new algorithm. An attack on a problem from an offbeat angle that no one has ever thought of before, but that in retrospect makes total sense. ... — The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... after intervening contrast, something which has originally given pleasure. Furthermore this sound psychological principle finds an analogy in our own life: with its early years of striving, its middle period of development and its closing years of climactic retrospect and satisfaction. There is a corresponding structural treatment in the denoument of a drama. In the classic composers, the Recapitulation is almost always a literal repetition of the Exposition, although Beethoven began to be freer, e.g., in the climax of the Coriolanus overture, where he modifies ... — Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... retrospect it seemed the pleasantest she had yet spent with her friends, though she had set out in such a different mood. Her mind was relieved of two anxieties; she felt sure that the girls had not taken ill ... — New Grub Street • George Gissing
... stores the best they had, and a luxurious supper was spread upon the grass. The meal might have been one of ten courses, it occupied so long; it provoked so much mirth, such a rippling stream of reminiscence; finally, such a sweetly solemn retrospect of the sorrows and mercies and triumphs of the campaign they had shared together. This latter feeling ... — Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... from it at first chiefly an impression of quantity. Then he sees that this quantity is really wealth; that the dim confusion of faces is a magnificent composition, and that some of the details of this composition are extremely beautiful. It is impossible however in a retrospect of Venice to specify one's happiest hours, though as one looks backward certain ineffaceable moments start here and there into vividness. How is it possible to forget one's visits to the sacristy of the Frari, however frequent they may have been, and the great work of ... — Italian Hours • Henry James
... referred to in the last letter was given at the Royal Institution, February 10, 1860. The following letter was written in reply to Mr. Huxley's request for information about breeding, hybridisation, etc. It is of interest as giving a vivid retrospect of the writer's experience on ... — The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... all that was stirring and vivid around him undoubtedly hindered him in the race for university honours; though his success was sufficient to inspirit him at the time, and to give him abiding pleasure in the retrospect. He twice gained the Chancellor's medal for English verse, with poems admirably planned, and containing passages of real beauty, but which may not be republished in the teeth of the panegyric which, within ten years after they ... — Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan |