"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for my lagging wits that would not furnish a retort. "Never too old to sit at your feet," I assured him, and I went away knowing that I had been slow, and that the honors were with him, but knowing, also, that somehow I liked the man, and that I should drink his health when I opened my ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... convive is the "Baron de B.-W.!" Erreur! I, the Baron de B.-W., being of sound mind and body, hereby declare that the Baron himself was not present. And why? Well, do my readers remember the honest milk-maid's retort to the coxcomb who said he wouldn't marry her? Good. Then, substituting "me" for "you," and "he" for "she," the Baron can adopt the maiden's reply. After this, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... no retort. Despite his sharp walk, he was still terribly agitated and preoccupied, and the phenomena of the lamplit studio had not yet fully impressed his mind. He saw them, including Agg, as hallucinations gradually turning ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this. Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact in time. It never paid in the long run to quarrel ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... learning, with no knowledge of the subjects to which the methods are to be applied. Since many who are actually most proficient in various branches of subject matter are wholly innocent of these methods, this state of affairs gives opportunity for the retort that pedagogy, as an alleged science of methods of the mind in learning, is futile;—a mere screen for concealing the necessity a teacher is under of profound and accurate acquaintance with ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... was the discouraging retort, as Lark, with pronounced distaste, took the slip of paper and sat down in the corner to read the "blooming thing," as she muttered ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... sight of certain characteristics which I had begun to ponder over critically. I believed with all my heart that circumstances were blameable for much that did not quite please me. Upon the question of his magnanimity, as well as of his courage, there could not be two opinions. He would neither retort nor defend himself. I perceived some grandeur in his conduct, without, however, appreciating it cordially, as I did a refinement of discretion about him that kept him from brushing good taste while launched in ostentatious displays. He had a fine tact and a keen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... There was no possible retort. "You speak as though I were a child in a new frock," he said, ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... collar and his best coat. His shoes were laced, too. This was the Sunday-morning longshoreman that was the pleasantest to look at. "Where d' y' git hold of such stuff?" was his retort. (Yet Barber smiled as he put on his hat. The boy was coming to time in great shape these days, behaving himself, doing his work, learning to answer a man right. A blind person could see the improvement. Who could say truthfully that ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... shall conclude she will not have anything to do with you," came the quick retort. And then her fascinating mouth twitched at the corners in a way that threatened to undo van Hert entirely. He looked away with a half-fierce expression. "If you don't want me to crush you in my arms out here in a public ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Bosambo, resisting the temptation to retort in an alien tongue, and realizing perhaps that he would need all the strength of his more extensive vocabulary to convince ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... perhaps half a minute, while a sense of dismay took possession of her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was fully warranted. She had insisted upon his carrying out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took pleasure in seeing him do what was honorable, but to preserve the credit of another man. And now it was with intense repugnance that she recognized that there was ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... dog! O viper vile! The "solus" in thy most mervailous face; The "solus" in thy teeth, and in thy throat, And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy, And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth! I do retort the "solus" in thy bowels; For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up, And flashing ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... reproof. The little old lady, all in black, with a neat bonnet edged with white, stood on the steps midway between her son and her granddaughter, and smiled icily at the girl. Milly recognized that smile. It was more deadly to her than a curse—symbol of mocking age. She tossed her head, the sole retort that youth was permitted to ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... evil. Why then should it be deemed incredible, that there may be one or more spiritual intelligences of similar natures and propensities, who may in like manner be permitted to tempt men to the practice of sin? Surely we may retort upon our opponents the charge of absurdity, and justly accuse them of gross inconsistency, in admitting, without difficulty, the existence and operation of these qualities in a material being, and yet denying them in an immaterial one (in direct contradiction to the authority of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... Dick's retort. "I suppose an uncle would expect a little more yielding of number one to ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... to be wondered at that Lincoln's single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation. He did not attempt to shine forth in debate by either a stinging retort or a witty epigram, or by a sudden burst of inspired eloquence. On the contrary, he took up his task as a quiet but earnest and patient apprentice in the great workshop of national legislation, and performed his share of duty ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... with despondency protest that they have not faith enough, get along so slow, are too weak, &c, the following sharp retort of Hick will prove a bright lining to their dark cloud of failing, and lead them to plod ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... result of the journalistic tocsin, the forebodings of Dr. Surtaine and his associates as to the effects of publicity bade fair to be justified. Undeniably there was danger of the disease scattering, through the medium of runaways from the stricken houses. But the "Clarion" had its retort pat for the tribe of "I-told-you-so," admitting the prospect of some primary harm to save a great disaster later. More than one hundred lives, it pointed out, giving names and dates, had already been sacrificed to the shibboleth ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... who was often so brisk in his attack on the wits, had no power of retort; so that he was always ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... meals—clumsy sarcasms which my lady turned many a time, or which, sometimes, she affected not to hear, or which now and again would hit their mark and make the poor victim wince (as you could see by her flushing face and eyes filling with tears), or which again worked her up to anger and retort, when, in answer to one of these heavy bolts, she would flash back with a quivering reply. The pair were not happy; nor indeed was it happy to be with them. Alas that youthful love and truth should end in bitterness and bankruptcy! To see ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his help, she would never have been able to make. This went on until they were almost entirely estranged. He was wont to say that "now his sister was up in the world, she had got the big head," and she to retort that her brother "wanted to use her ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... married a monkey—a hourang-howtang, instead of a man. There—now you're vexed! One can't open one's mouth." My mother knew where to strike; and this attack upon his pigtail was certain to provoke my father, who would retort in no measured language, till she, in her turn, lost her temper, and then out she would sing, in a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... light retort. "Mrs. Lancaster is going to choose one or two for luck. Between ourselves, as her prospective son-in-law I naturally desire to win her favour, as well as her entire confidence in my ability to provide suitably for her daughter. Besides, ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... not immediately retort. He carried out his bluff, unbuckling and buckling one of the straps, then mildly straightened up and ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that. Nary tooth ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... been marked by a falling off in fire all along the line, but an increasing bombardment from the retreating Germans at certain points stimulated the Americans to a quick retort. From their positions north of Stenay to southeast of the town the Americans began to bombard fixed targets. The firing reached a volume at times almost equivalent to ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... him, it was so difficult to answer. However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my metier at present." And Marjory, who had spent ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... crush him with a final retort; but even as he began to deliver it his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, for at that instant the door opened and there entered a party of four, with Elkan Lubliner in the van. A moment later, however, Milton Jassy pushed his ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... his house, when he was packing fruit for market, I heard him, his voice raised for my benefit, thus admonishing his son who was casually using some of the newer hampers: "Allus wear out the old, fust." But I must not attribute to his son the unfilial retort which another youth made under similar circumstances, when told to fetch some more hampers from a shed some distance away: "No, father, you fetch them, allus wear out the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... have to do," cried Dr. Skihi with sparkling eyes, "is to get in a convenient posture; allow me to set off this retort of mine behind you—" here he produced a "glass concern" from a side pocket, to the horror of his friends—"and heigh, presto! you will find yourself flying home like ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... the edge of the table). Your lunch will be cold, Julia. (Julia is about to retort furiously when she is checked by the reappearance of Cuthbertson at ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... fearful look leap into the woman's eyes, and it checked his heated retort. "I don't mean to find fault with you," he declared, evenly. "I have the greatest respect for your ability ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Rose turned to retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the circumstances under which she had made poor ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... This request afforded the Commander-in-chief a fair retort on Major General Tryon. That officer had addressed a letter to him enclosing the bills brought into Parliament, and containing, to use the language of General Washington himself, "the more extraordinary and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Ward's enigmatic retort, and though I begged an explanation I got none. Instead, she quickened the horse's gait and ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... I shall go where I please, and do what I please," was her contemptuous retort. "Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you see how utterly unsuited we are? I don't ask you to be a gentleman—but just a man, and be ashamed even to wish to detain a woman ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... had sent for the players, either that there might be no intermission in the diversions of the place, or, perhaps, to retort upon Miss Stewart, by the presence of Nell Gwyn, part of the uneasiness she felt from hers. Prince Rupert found charms in the person of another player called Hughes, who brought down and greatly subdued ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... heart of a question, and for extricating the essential points from the midst of confused details and clashing arguments. He displayed, too, more strongly every day his capacity for close, logical reasoning and for telling retort, backed by a passion and energy none the less effective from being but slowly called into activity. In a word, the unequalled power of stating facts or principles, which was the predominant quality ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of perfuming their hair with oil of benzoin, which they distil themselves from the gum by a process doubtless of their own invention. In procuring it a priuk, or earthen rice-pot, covered close, is used for a retort. A small bamboo is inserted in the side of the vessel, and well luted with clay and ashes, from which the oil drops as it comes over. Along with the benzoin they put into the retort a mixture of sugar-cane and other articles that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... kind," was the retort. "I have only to inform the British minister how remiss you were in your obligations. I should go free, whereas you would be discharged. But what I demand to know is, what the devil is the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... you have," was the angry retort; and taking no notice of his visitor's proffered hand, the man stamped his foot impatiently on the uncarpeted floor. "No one ever comes to see me about anything else but business. And I don't want them to," he added with a grim chuckle. "Well, let ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... period in which Mr. Henry showed the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in public; but there was a deep-seated irritation visible underneath. With me, from whom he had less concealment, he was often grossly unjust, and even for his wife he would sometimes have a sharp retort: perhaps when she had ruffled him with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon no tangible occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the man's annoyance bursting spontaneously forth. When he would thus forget himself (a thing so strangely out of keeping with the terms of their relation), there went ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... His question drew the retort he hoped for, and she exclaimed savagely, "I hate those silly old cheerfulness calendars! And deliver me from people who follow their advice! It's just as foolish to go through life smiling at every kind of circumstances that fate hands out as it would be to wear ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... self-determination of nationalities," as the basis of a propaganda to bring about the dismemberment of Russia and its reduction to a chaotic medley of small, helpless states. To Lenine's statements about the readiness of the German working class to rebel, Kerensky made retort that Lenine should have remained in Germany while on his way to Russia and preached ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... non-occurrence, of certain phenomena at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden revelation of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the scientific mind is enough to take away the breath of any one unfamiliar with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the assumption that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious end, in any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical events, things that actually happened; and, as such, must needs be exactly those subjects about which ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... explained to him that tumbling down is a flaw in a kite, just as foundering at sea is a vile habit in a ship, and that each of these descents, however picturesque to childhood's eye, implies a construction originally derective, or some little subsequent mismanagement. It appeared by Reginald's retort that when his kite tumbled he had the tumultuous joy of flying it again, but, by its keeping the air like this, monotony reigned; so he now proposed that his new friend should fasten the string to the pump-handle, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... defend General Buell against what I believed to be most unjust charges. On one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted—of disloyalty. This brought from General Buell a very severe retort, which I saw in the New York World some time before I received the letter itself. I could very well understand his grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained by an officer who, at the time, was at the head of the army. I replied to him, but not through the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... of having burglarized Bulgaria upon an invention which should not have deceived Mr. Labouchere. How that ostentatiously manufactured alias ever imposed on Truth passes comprehension. Is it any wonder that at one of our numerous mid-day lunches "Colonel" Norton fired the following rhyming retort at Field?— ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... (i.e. 'good') to pleasures in general, when he cannot deny that they are different? What common property in all of them does he mean to indicate by the term 'good'? If he continues to assert that there is some trivial sense in which pleasure is one, Socrates may retort by saying that knowledge is one, but the result will be that such merely verbal and trivial conceptions, whether of knowledge or pleasure, will spoil the discussion, and will prove the incapacity of the two disputants. In order to avoid ...
— Philebus • Plato
... if to make some retort, when suddenly Oku re-appeared carrying a tray in which was a tempting spread ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... but am deceiving myself. If true, it presupposes that which it is to effect, in other words, it puts the cause before the effect. An orthodox Lutheran theologian of the old school would probably retort: My sins are actually forgiven by virtue of the atonement, because all men without exception are redeemed through the merits of Jesus Christ. If this be true, then why not be consistent and say: All men are justified because all are redeemed, consequently there ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... tied up in a piece of bark in the manner in which I have before stated that they cook their fish. If the natives are taunted with eating such a disgusting species of food as these grubs appear to Europeans they invariably retort by accusing us of eating raw oysters, which they regard with ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... know of. Thought I'd squat right here, and watch your sleeves!" was the significant retort, and the youth laid a cocked six-shooter on the ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... angry as he was, withheld him from the conflict; Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers. Congreve, a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. His chief artifice of controversy is to retort upon his adversary his own words: he is very angry, and, hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons, allows himself in the use of every term of contumely and contempt; but he has the sword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... which twitched at his lips. Unpleasant as was the nature of his errand, he, the most unsmiling of men, had already twice over been moved to merriment. Stephen was reflecting on the incongruity of the fact, when Pixie again answered his unspoken retort. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... thing that our minds should be so in tune, and is there not an object in all this? Did I believe as you do, I should say that it was Heaven working in us—no: do not answer that the working comes from lower down. I take no credit for reading that upon your lips; the retort is too easy and obvious. I am content to say, however, that the work is that of instinct and nature, or, if you will, of fate, pointing out a road by which together we might ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... coteaux, past maize-fields and meadows, through odds and ends of villages, into valleys more irregular, and among hills higher and steeper. Of Bielle, a village where it halts for a moment, there is a well-turned story told against Henry IV. It is one of the few cases where he was at a loss for a retort. He admired the four marble columns in the church, and asked for them; a kingly asking is usually equivalent to a command. But the inhabitants made reply both dexterous and firm, and it proved unanswerable. "Our hearts and our possessions are yours," they said; "do with them as you will. But ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... to retort, perhaps heatedly, but Cleggett, generous even while determined to have his own way, hastened to add: "Do not think, Mr. Barnstable, that I minimize your work, or your assistance—but, after all, what am I demanding ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... stood. Before they reached it, the blind woman, whose name was Tibbie (Isobel) Dyster, had put many questions to her, and without asking one indiscreet, had yet, by her gift for fitting and fusing things in the retort of her own brain, come to a tolerably correct knowledge of her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... working features. He saw and appreciated the terror he was causing, the suffering. But he could draw no further retort. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... to retort when the studio door opened and Olga entered. He turned quickly toward her and she went to ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... the best interests of the people of this country. The war is wrong and incredibly foolish and can bring no advantage to the working man. Why should he go and be killed or maimed for life? Will it put an extra penny in his pocket or his widow's? No. Oh!"—he checked my retort—"I know everything you would say. I see the arguments every day in all your great newspapers. But the fact remains that I don't see eye to eye with you, or those you represent. You think one way, I think another. We ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... chapter I mentioned bookbinders among the Enemies of Books, and I tremble to think what a stinging retort might be made if some irate bibliopegist were to turn the scales on the printer, and place HIM in the same category. On the sins of printers, and the unnatural neglect which has often shortened the lives of their ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... the word they saw the scene dissolve into a new one. Through a squall of wind and rain, out from the line of ships, four of their consorts glided away eastward, flashing and howling, in chase of the overmatched gunboats, that flashed and howled in retort as they fled. On the west a Federal flotilla in Mississippi Sound, steaming up athwart Grant's Pass, opened on Fort Powell and awoke its thunders. Ah, ah! Kincaid's Battery at last! Red, white ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the time Jim Langford is welcome—but not when he don't know the dif' between a bar and a stable. Hop it now, and tie your little bull outside," was Mackenzie's ready retort. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... water to separate the acids; dry, mix with half an ounce of sal ammoniac, and place in a suitable vessel. Afterwards you must take a pound of alum, a pound of Hungary crystals, four ounces of verdigris, four ounces of cinnabar, and two ounces of sulphur. Pulverise and mix, and place in a retort of such size that the above matters will only half fill it. This retort must be placed over a furnace with four draughts, for the heat must be raised to the fourth degree. At first your fire must be slow so as to extract the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace." Malone, on the authority of a nameless friend, asserts that it was not at the house of a nobleman, that the gentleman's remark was uttered in a low tone, and that Johnson made no retort at all. As Mrs. Piozzi could hardly have invented the story, the sole question is, whether Mr. Thrale or Malone's friend was right. She has written in the margin: "It was the house of Thomas Fitzmaurice, son to Lord Shelburne, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... added fresh subject for mirth to the torn cloak and shattered shoe, which have afforded legitimate subjects of raillery against the poor scholar from Juvenal's time downward. It was never known that Sampson either exhibited irritability at this ill usage, or made the least attempt to retort upon his tormentors. He slunk from college by the most secret paths he could discover, and plunged himself into his miserable lodging, where, for eighteenpence a week, he was allowed the benefit of a straw mattress, and, if his landlady was in good humour, permission to study his task ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... answer quick you'll both cast loose but the longer I keep you in suspense the longer you'll lay hold," was his quizzical retort. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 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
... better man and a bigger." After delivering this, like the word of command upon parade, the Colonel was crossing the turf, a yard or two higher up than Hope's workshop, when the spirit of revenge moved Bartley to retort upon his insulter. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... 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 on the ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... stockings, and this retort maddened her. She hated her mother bitterly. After a few weeks of enforced domestic life, she had had enough of her home. The commonness, the triviality, the immediate meaninglessness of it all drove her to frenzy. She talked and stormed ideas, she corrected and nagged at the children, she turned ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the retort. "Horns or antlers both mean deer in these parts." Next the boy gave a slight start. "Say! I thought I heard the branches ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... you don't understand your business, Swift!" was the instant retort. "You pretend to be a navigator, or have men who are, and yet when I give you simple and explicit directions for finding a sunken wreck you can't do it, and you cruise all around looking for it like a dog that has lost the scent! You don't know your ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... "enemies" the Congress and Cabinet that supported and maintained the war for the Union. These and other unfortunate allusions, such as that to the "poison of Abolitionism," enabled General Hayes to effectively retort at Sidney, and at other points. So much of the Sidney speech as refers to Judge Thurman's Waverly speech is reproduced in ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... eighteen," she would have answered nonchalantly to any one else; for him there woke from the depths of her nature a fierce retort: ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Holy Spirit dwells will always be characterized by gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness, and forbearance. The rude, sarcastic spirit, the brusque manner, the sharp retort, the unkind cut—all these belong to the flesh, but they have nothing in common with the gentle teaching ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lightning flash which had illuminated the beribboned diploma in Miss Priscilla's mind had passed to Virginia also, the girl bit back a retort that was trembling on her lips. "I wonder if she can be getting to know things?" thought the older woman as she watched her, and she added half resentfully, "I've sometimes suspected that Gabriel Pendleton ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... evenings for him, merely by being in the same room with him. The unfortunate object of his hatred tried all the same to meet us whenever he could: friction ensued, but Andre would insist upon aggravating us. One evening Frohlich lost patience. After some insulting retort, he tried to chase him from our table by striking him with a stick: the result was a fight in which Frolich's friends felt they must take part, though they all seemed to do so with some reluctance. A mad longing to join the fray ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... hurt, was tempted to retort with the announcement that she needn't be "left alone"; she might get married! But she was silent; she never knew what to say when assailed by the older woman's tongue. She just wrote Maurice, helplessly, that ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... she returned the retort courteous and now it was Rimrock who blushed. Then he laughed and ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Thinking the retort implied a shade of jealousy, he felt encouraged to persevere. "You may thank your own imprudence for having overheard words so offensive to you," responded he. "But Rosa, dearest, you cannot, with all your efforts, drive from you the pleasant memories ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... it was a bully good institution,"' said Evelyn. Through two glass tubes water, raised almost to the boiling point by an alcohol flame, began to mount from one retort into another ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Raleigh grunted, disdaining, retort, and passed forth to his waiting cab. The day had commenced inauspiciously. The night before, smoking his final cigarette in his upper berth in the wagon-lit, he had tempted Providence by laying out for himself a programme and a time schedule; and it looked as if Providence had been ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... sulphide of calcium to produce a phosphorescent composition, as follows: One hundred parts, by weight, of the shells, prepared as above, are intimately mixed with twenty parts, by weight, of sulphur. This mixture is placed in a crucible or retort and heated to a white heat for four or five hours, when it is to be removed and forty parts more of sulphur, one and one-half parts of calcium phosphide, and one-half part of chemically pure sulphide of calcium added. The mixture is then heated for about ninety minutes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... carbon which are well-known are (1) coke, the residue left when coal has been subjected to a great heat in a closed retort, but from which all the bye-products of coal have been allowed to escape; (2) soot and lamp-black, the former of which is useful as a manure in consequence of ammonia being present in it, whilst the latter is a specially prepared ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend, even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted, by the eye ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... here Writes me: That man, how dearly ever parted,[9] How much in having, or without or in, Cannot make boast to have that which he hath Nor feels not what he owes but by reflection, As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them, and they retort that heat ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... effectually broken and separated. The filaments are then carried through a coarse card or picker. The shives are thus separated, and two tons of stalks reduced to half a ton of linten, which may be either taken at once to the retort or baled for shipment. When the flax is thus reduced by the farmer to linten, the article is reputed to be worth to the manufacturer four cents a pound, or at least twenty dollars for the product of an acre yielding a single ton ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... this sense was first used in 1783 in connexion with the invention of the brothers Montgolfier, but the word was in earlier use (derived from Ital. ballone, a large ball) as meaning an actual ball or ball-game, a primitive explosive bomb or firework, a form of chemical retort or receiver, and an ornamental globe in architecture; and from the appearance and shape of an air balloon the word is also given by analogy to other things, such as a "balloon skirt" in dress, "balloon training" in horticulture. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the "hen-house" looked as if he wished very much to retort in kind. The glare he gave his visitor prophesied direful things. But he did not retort; nor, to her surprise, did he raise his voice or order her off the premises. Instead his tone, when he spoke again, ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... took up his pen and wrote the retort which shook the old State from mountain to sea, and which enhanced the chances of the white supremacy advocates who were then planning for an uprising in November. "Punish sin because it is sin," concluded the editor, "and not because the one who commits it is black." ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... God, who should have no such dealings against "that wicked woman." To some Catholics, Elizabeth: to Knox, Mary was as Jezebel, and might laudably be assassinated. In idolaters nothing can surprise us; when persecuted they, in their unchristian fashion, may retort with the dagger or the bowl. But that Knox should have frequently maintained the doctrine of death to religious opponents is a strange and deplorable circumstance. In reforming the Church of Christ he omitted ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... boiling, respect for the age of the man who addressed him restrained Calvert from voicing the hot retort which sprang to his lips or striking his adversary to the ground. His hands opened and closed tensely as he kept himself in check. Disregarding the curt command, Carter, still holding Trusia in his arms, leaped lightly from the car and would have carried her ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... malpractice, fracas, entailment, perfectibility, glacier, fire-warden, safety-valve, savings-bank, gaseous, lithographic, peninsular, repealable, retaliatory, dyspeptic, missionary, nervine, meteoric, mineralogical, reimbursable; to quarantine, revolutionize, retort, patent, explode, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... his position in his chair. "What could I say, if it were discussed?" he made vague retort. "I'm merely one of the Directors. You are our Chairman, but you see he hasn't found it of any use to discuss it with you. There are hard and fast rules about these things. They run their natural course. You are not ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... cinnamon, used in medicine, is extracted from the plant itself, which is placed in a vessel full of water, and left to steep for eight to ten days. The whole mass is then transferred to a retort and distilled over a slow fire. In a short time, on the surface of the water thus distilled a quantity of oil collects, and this is then skimmed off with ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... mouth to retort, but caught a warning glance from Barbara and subsided. Then conversation languished and Lucy looked across longingly at her sister, to see if she had done her duty. But not being able to catch her eye, she sighed, and supposing she had not yet fulfilled her ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... understand chemistry?" asked Lindsley. But the trapper did not answer. He got out the retort, and in five minutes the oxygen was bubbling furiously through the wash bottle into the India-rubber receiver. Edwards stood at the window scanning the road toward Gager's with his telescope until it grew dark, which in that latitude was at about ten o'clock. Then the magic lantern was removed ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... La Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen or more young and pretty shepherdesses, her daughter's friends or relations, two or three respectable matrons, neighbors with well-oiled tongues, quick at retort, and unyielding observers of the ancient customs. Then she selected a dozen sturdy champions, her relations and friends; and, lastly, the old hemp-beater of the parish, a fine and fluent talker, if ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... scarlet and Miss Dorner, full of astonishment, looked at her glowing face. She expected a fitting retort, ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... At this unexpected retort, Madame de Bergenheim lost countenance and sat speechless before the young maiden, like a pupil who has just been punished ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... intercepted his lordship's letters to little purpose; but she had great natural business talents, reduced by one half the expenses of his household, kept everything in good order, and, when her violences roused his wrath, turned it off with some ready retort or witticism. She was very devout, and would cross herself three times at the Angelus. One instance, of a different kind of devotion, from Byron's own account, is sufficiently graphic:—"In the autumn one day, going to the Lido with my gondoliers, we were ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your intelligence an injustice—Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you know—almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you mind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... retort arose to Larry's lips, but he checked it. "A quarrel won't do any good," he thought. "But what a bulldog that fellow is—as bad as Quartermaster Yarrow, who caused me so much trouble ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... had children. Look here, Eliza: let this matter remain in abeyance for six or twelve months, things resting as they are. By that time you may have come to your senses; or I (yes, I see you are ready to retort it) to mine. If not—well, we shall only then be ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... sank before the quiet force in the girl's face and voice. With all the will in the world she was too weak to oppose this new strength in Esther. And before her mortified pride could frame a retort, the girl had left ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... assertion of knowledge that God spake to Moses, but by the admission that even their knowledge did not reach to the determination of the question of the origin of Jesus' mission, lay themselves open to the sudden thrust of keen-eyed, honest humility's sharp rapier-like retort. 'Herein is a marvellous thing,' that you Know-alls, whose business it is to know where a professed miracle-worker comes from, 'know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes.' 'Now we know' (to use your own words) 'that God heareth not sinners, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Richard and, giving me his piece to reload, turned to minister to Pluto's hurt. Where he lay whining and whimpering. Suddenly an arrow struck the rock hard beside me and then came a whizzing shower, whereupon we took such shelter as offered and whence we might retort upon them with our shot. And after some while, as we lay thus, staring down into the gorge, came the report of a musket and a ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... flat pan, had now poured the whole into a large test-tube, and was holding it in the flame of the burner. At the moment that it reached the boiling point it became colourless. He carefully placed the whole of the liquid in a retort to which he attached a condensor. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... advantages of a happy retort, the importance of a felicitous phrase, or of quick thought and ready speech. It might be said that the preceding speaker was ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... I'm not willing to have you dictate to the Lord what—what I must do, and so whip me in line with the scourge of prayer." Peter Junior paused, as he looked in his father's face and saw the shocked and sorrowful expression there instead of the passionate retort he expected. "I am wrong to talk so, father; forgive me; but—have patience a little. God gave to man the power ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... willing to work for my living," had been Hetty's stubborn retort to all the arguments brought to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon |
