"Unsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and look upon you as a mere liar." "Madam," replied Mesrour, "if nurse is so very certain that Nouzhatoul-aouadat is alive, and Abou Hassan dead, I will lay her what she dares of it." The nurse was as ready as he; "I dare," said she, "take you at your word: let us see if you dare unsay it." Mesrour stood to his word; and they laid a piece of gold brocade with silver flowers before the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals to beseech all true Union men to yield to Disunionists; reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... last letter that I, Tom Brixton, shall ever write. (I put down my name now, in case I never finish it.) O dearest mother! what would I not now give to unsay all the hard things I have ever said to you, and to undo all the evil I have done. But this cannot be. 'Twice bought!' It is strange how these words run in my mind. I was condemned to death at the gold-fields—my comrades bought me off. Fred—dear Fred—who has been true and ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... irrevocable oath, attesting the river Styx, terrible to the gods themselves. Then she made know her request. The god would have stopped her as she spake, but she was too quick for him. The words escaped, and he could neither unsay his promise nor her request. In deep distress he left her and returned to the upper regions. There he clothed himself in his splendors, not putting on all his terrors, as when he overthrew the giants, but what is known among the gods as his lesser panoply. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... you to live," cried poor Dudley; "oh! Roy you couldn't be so mean as to leave me all alone. Oh, do unsay that prayer of ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... means that you can say and unsay things at pleasure: that you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public: that you have one story for us, and another ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... depend on your friendship and discretion, equally with your honour, I confessed, I repented a rash promise, and let you see my regret deep enough that my son-in-law will never be what Dora deserves—I said, or let you see as much, no matter which; I am no equivocator, nor do I now unsay or retract a word. You have my secret; but remember when first I had the folly to tell it you, same time I warned you—I warned you, Harry, like the moth from the candle—I warned you in vain. In another tone I warn ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... remark. But he had indicated it rather definitely. It would undoubtedly lessen him to her, make him human. She had admired him because he was different. Now he was like everybody else saying an "I love you" to a woman. Perhaps he should unsay it. Again, a dreamy laugh. But it made him happy. A drifting, childish happiness. He looked at her. Her eyes struck him as marvelously large and bright. Yet in a curious way he seemed unaware of her. No excitement came ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... when they told the poor invalid of her loss, and even now I seem to hear the bitter, wailing cry which broke from her white lips, as she begged them to unsay what they had said, and tell her Nellie was not dead—that she would come ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... suddenly, wishing that she could unsay that last speech, for the little mother had come into the kitchen in time to hear it. There was a ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, YOU I mean, landlord, YOU, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... endorsed that official assurance; yet though the Vaal turned not back Great Britain did; and to that magnanimous forgetting of the nation's oft-repeated pledge was due in part this new war and its intolerable prolonging. It does not pay thus to say and then unsay. Thereby all confidence, all sense ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... for my lord and his hawking-party; and as he was staring about, who shou'd he see ushered into a fine house, and hear being call'd by a fine name, but my aunt Winifred—old Winifred Winbuttle, the housekeeper! Very well—I cou'dn't say or unsay this, you know; so I directly gets leave of my lord to come myself, and stare about; for thinks I, if I am made a fool of, I'm only where I was, you know. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... the Frenchman, in tones of blended astonishment and grief; "ah! unsay what you have said, I cannot point my sword against the breast of my best benefactor—against him to whom I owe both honor and life. Can I forget that night on the plains of Arras? Ah! my God! what a mistake; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... bargain, and is not satisfied with any thing in himself, that draweth back, or consenteth not, and with the little skill or strength he hath is writing down his name, and saying, even so I take him; and is holding at this, peremptorily resolving never to go back, or unsay what he hath said; but, on the contrary, is firmly purposed to adhere, and as he groweth in strength, to grip more firmly, and adhere to him, he may conclude that the bargain is closed already, and that he hath faith already; for here ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... Gospel light: But in my gloomy dungeon laid, didst thou not visit me, And solemnly avow that I from wicked plots was free? How canst thou, then, unto my charge such grievous actions lay, And all thou hast so solemn said as solemnly unsay?" ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Sophia and Charles Batty. She would not go to the concert—yes, she would go and make Charles miserable. She was enraged at the folly of her own remark, at Rose's self-possession, and at her possible possession of Francis Sales. She could not unsay what she had said and, having said it, she did not know how to go on living with Aunt Rose; but she was going to Wellsborough again and this time she need not come back: yet she must come back to see Francis ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Ramshorn. "If you had asked me, I should have said he insisted the holy eucharist meant neither more nor less than any other meal to which some said a grace. The man has not an atom of consistency in his nature. He will say and unsay as fast as one sentence can follow the other, and if you tax him with it, he will support both sides: at least, that is my experience with him. I speak ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty was altogether a blunder, which, as being a Tory and ministerial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... him up, and he stares at her a minute over his shoulder. "It's no use, Katie," says he. "What's turned you hard and cold I don't know; but you can't unsay what's been ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... unsay all you have said concerning yonder ship; and, as you have had running enough to get on the weather-side of Mrs de Lacey, you must improve your advantage, by making matters a little worse than I have represented them to be. Tell me, that I may judge of your qualifications, did you in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Sir, because I love to give you pleasure. And say not a word more, for your own sake, till you see her. You'll have the less to unsay, Sir Jacob, and the less to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal of all means of expression, in reference to it. Listen to me then in this. You have said some intemperate things ... fancies,—which you will not say over again, nor unsay, but forget at once, and for ever, having said at all; and which (so) will die out between you and me alone, like a misprint between you and the printer. And this you will do for my sake who am your friend (and you have none truer)—and this I ask, because it is a condition ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... wouldn't be so changeable," I said. "I can't bear people that say a thing and then try to unsay it. I don't believe they do mean to be ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... sure; and even if such be the case, is it the fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of others, what is that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... was the very last man to alter; the whole world might go to pieces sooner than he change. And yet, in this instance, having become thoroughly convinced that he had been treating a deserving man with injustice, he had the moral courage to reverse his conduct, to unsay what he had before said, and to incur the risk of being called fickle or changeable by doing what he now believed to be the right thing. So he at once laid the poor man on his own couch, for the colonel had fainted after making his confession. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... at any rate for the present. You will own that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... hangs upon your smiles! Watches your eye, to say or to unsay, Whate'er you please! I ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... reason so calmly told by a member of our Queen's Council! He should unsay the words!" one of the maids of honor cried hotly. "There could be no color for it: the Signor Fabrici hath proven that he ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Liberal Association in the Ulster Hall at Belfast. It was the hall in which his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had used the famous phrase "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right." Belfast was determined that the son should not unsay what the father had said in this consecrated building; it would be, as an Ulster member put it in the House of Commons, "a profanation." On this first round, Ulster won; Mr. Churchill spoke at Belfast, but not in the Ulster Hall. There were angry demonstrations against him; his ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... this thing be? My wife! the mother of my child! It is a lie! I can't believe it; I won't believe it. Have pity on me, woman, and think again, and unsay your words; for, if 't is so, there will be murder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... he, in truth, had convinced himself of Farquhart's guilt, absurd as it seemed. The Lady Barbara could only lie on her bed and moan and sob, and cry that she loved Lord Farquhart; that she wished she could unsay her words. She could not deny the truth of what she had told, though nothing could induce her to tell the story over. But all of her stuttering, stammering evasions of the truth seemed only to fix the guilt more ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... signify meekness by a lamb, lechery by a goat, and craftiness by a fox; so we liken ignorance to an ass, and brutality to a bear, and fury to a tiger; therefore I made use of these similes to express my sentiments (look you), and what I said before Cot, I will not unsay before ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... all that she knew;—all that I knew. You knew all that her mother knew. No, Lord Scroope. It cannot be that you should be so unutterably a villain. You are your own masther. Unsay what you have said to me, and her ears shall never be wounded or her heart broken by a ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... I'm very sorry, but I can't unsay it. I don't believe that neither of you ever gave the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to yourself: "I will be a traveller, a statesman, an engineer;" if you never unsay it; if you bend all your powers in that direction; if you take advantage of all helps that come in your way and reject all that do not, you will sometime reach your goal. For the world turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... having throttled it. Afraid of being tortured, she fled or hid herself. Her husband, her father, went weeping to Sainte-Baume, hoping of course to soften the inquisitors. But Madeline durst not unsay her words; ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... than entertain such hard conditions." "So much the worse for France," rejoined the English general; "for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks. The allies will never unsay their preliminary demands." And he set out for England without even waiting for a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that," she said; "doubt ye not! there is nought to unsay. But hearken! I am nothing wise in war like Thiodolf or Otter of the Laxings, or as Heriulf the Ancient was, though he was nought so wise as they be. Nevertheless ye shall do well to take me for your captain, while this House is ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... listening? What did he hear? You fool, you fool, you may have ruined yourself—and me, and me. And why has he left us together? He has some reason for it—some end to serve: his own or the King's. Try and think what you said: no, not now, there is no time, but when you are with the King, and unsay it, unsay it. And Stephen, remember, he is the King, he is the Master of France, the maker of France, and he is dying. ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... neat little sentence of your own as coming from him if you don't happen to have taken very profuse notes, because as sure as you do he will spring up in some tiresome meeting in less than a week and unsay every single word that you said. ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds and words,—the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay,—the kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past reality. There were particular times in their past history that he remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly,—doing some ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... explanations, for the explanations had not been given; and when the explanations came, though they said many things which showed that Dr. Hampden did not mean to be unorthodox and unevangelical, but only anti-scholastic and anti-Roman, they did not unsay a word which he had said. And what this was, what had been Dr. Hampden's professed theological theory up to the time when the University heard the news of his appointment, the "Elucidations" represent as fairly ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... with you, madam," I repeated. "I love you too well. I have done you so much wrong, meaning to do right, that I dare not now risk an act which I know to be wrong. Oh," I cried, as my distress grew, "oh, unsay those words, Aurelia! You could not mean them, they ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... interest, as much as common justice, demanded that they should have a voice in the councils of the nation, such as would truly proclaim their wants, their rights, their wrongs; and I have seen no reason since then to unsay my words. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Maremma's dew, Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs To loathed lameness! All beholding sun, Strike in thine envy those life darting eyes With thine own blinding beams! Lucr. Peace! Peace! For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words. When high God grants he punishes such prayers. Cen. (Leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven) He does his will, I mine! This in addition, That if she have a child— Lucr. Horrible thought! Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thou, Quick Nature! I ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... woman too many years to mend now. I am down, and down I must be. I have made my bed, and I must lie on it, and die on it too. Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ, whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true. Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel, Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... said the archdeacon. "Your wife knows better than that. You tell her what I call her, and if she complains of the name I'll unsay it." It may therefore be supposed that Dr Thorne, and Mrs Thorne, and the archdeacon, knew each other intimately, and understood each other's feelings ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Laxley; 'I meet him, he insults me, and to get out of the consequences tells me he's the son of a tailor, and a tailor himself; knowing that it ties my hands. Very well, he puts himself hors de combat to save his bones. Let him unsay it, and choose whether he 'll apologize or not, and I'll treat him accordingly. At present I'm not bound to do more than respect the house I find he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one side to another, skip from one side to another; go to the rightabout; box the compass, shift one's ground, go upon another tack. apostatize, change sides, go over, rat; recant, retract; revoke; rescind &c. (abrogate) 756; recall; forswear, unsay; come over, come round to an opinion; crawfish *[U. S.], crawl* [U. S.]. draw in one's horns, eat one's words; eat the leek, swallow the leek; swerve, flinch, back out of, retrace one's steps, think better of it; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... think no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for her. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... effected, however, and the manner in which it was effected was something curious. Mr. Lushington, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit which he made at Patna, and while the transaction was recent or nearly recent, must be a mistake: that he believed (what is amazing indeed for any belief) that not Mr. Hastings, but he himself, interpreted. Mr. Lushington completely ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not accept the services of this wretched woman. I loathe myself for what I have done. [Coming to AGNES.] Look up! Look at me! [Proudly—lifting her veil.] I decline your help—I decline it. [To GERTRUDE and AMOS.] You hear me—you— and you? I unsay all that I've said to her. It's too degrading. I will not have such an act upon my conscience. [To AGNES.] Understand me! If you rejoin this man I shall consider it a fresh outrage upon me. I hope you will keep with ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... only reconciled to the prince by his assurance that something should be done or said in parliament to save her reputation, by those very friends who had emphatically denied the marriage. Something was said by Sheridan, but he did not venture to unsay what had been said, or to affirm more than that another person who had been alluded to was without reproach, and was entitled to the truest and most general respect. With this Mrs. Fitzherbert seems to have been satisfied; and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... murder? "I vote we stick to him." "Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself. "What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her, yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real distress,—in absolutely dire sorrow,—she would cling to him with a constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... evening before! Here was the whole course of his life changed, yes, and his prospects put in jeopardy by this extraordinary decision. How could he explain what he had done to his wise old mother? How could he unsay all that he had said to her a few days before when he had shown her that this trip to Brazil was quite for the best and bade her a fond farewell? Could he explain it to anyone, even to himself? Did he honestly believe all the plausible things he had said ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... or else unsay what you have already uttered. What must be understood from this alarming language? Although there hangs a mystery over my birth, surely there rests upon it no dishonor. Acquaint me, then, once more I charge you, and now by the love and kindness that you have always ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... James after that conversation, and less mutinous against her lot. She wondered, of course, what was to become of them, how long she could hold him at arms' length, how she could bring herself to unsay what had been said in the dark of Martley Thicket. But she had boundless faith in Urquhart, and knew, among other things, that any request she made him would be made easy ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the day grew later and noon failed the golden place. But Sigurd said: "O Brynhild, remember how I swore That the sun should die in the heavens and day come back no more, Ere I forget thy wisdom and thine heart of inmost love. Lo now, shall I unsay it, though the Gods be great above, Though my life should last for ever, though I die tomorrow morn, Though I win the realm of the world, though I sink to the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... feeling about Janet? For it had gone, gone utterly, and with it all her pride, all her self-control. She was conscious only of a great need of somebody's strength, of somebody's thought and interest —of Janet's. Yet how could she unsay anything? She held out her hand, and Janet took it. "Good-by, then," ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... seeming brutal, Honor, I warn you that I'll not give you one minute's peace till you unsay those words—for Ladybird's sake." ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... her hand out: "Oh, Mr. Barrett! unsay it!" The nakedness of her spirit stood forth in a stinging tear. "The words ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had she left? He did not love her—he did not even care for her. She had lost the real love, and this brightness that she clung to darkened for her. He looked at her, steadily, gloomily, ashamed of what she had made him say, yet too sunken in his own pain, too indifferent to hers, to unsay it. And in her dispossession she did not dare make manifest the severance that she saw. He did not care for her, but she could not tell him so; she could not tell him to go. With horrid sickness of heart she made a feint that ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... more. You do not blame me for saying that I would be his wife? If you do, I will unsay it, let it cost me what it may. He is treating me so badly that I need not go far for an excuse." Then she looked into his face with all the eagerness of her gaze, clearly implying that she expected a serious answer. "Why do you ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... nothing. The creditors have been very kind to me; and I hope in time to pay all just debts. I have been much hurried with business, or should have written sooner. Indeed it is no pleasant task to me to write at all, on this occasion. I cannot unsay what I have said to you in former times, for I think the same of you as ever I did: but I know that I am not now a fit match for you as to fortune, and would not hold any man to his word, nor could value any man enough to marry ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... had told, nor with the necessity he wanted to lay me under of appearing what I was not: that every step he took was a wry one, a needless wry one: and since he thought it necessary to tell the people below any thing about me, I insisted that he should unsay all he had said, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... high advanc'd 90 The lower still I fall, onely Supream In miserie; such joy Ambition findes. But say I could repent and could obtaine By Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep: Which would but lead me to a worse relapse 100 And heavier fall: so should I purchase deare Short ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite. Fain would I hurl off this Dionysius that rides me; my thoughts crush me down till I groan; in far fields I hear the song of the reaper, while I slave and faint in this cell. The fever ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... drew have been effaced; the kingdoms that he set up have disappeared. But all the armies and statecraft of Europe cannot unsay what you ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... wrongly divided, and assigned to the wrong persons. It might have arisen from inadvertence; it might have arisen from the foolishness of some Jewish transcriber, who resolved, at all costs, to drag the book into harmony with Judaism, and make Job unsay his heresy. This view has the merit of fully clearing up the obscurity. Another, however, has been suggested by Eichorn, who originally followed Kennicott, but discovered, as he supposed, a less violent hypothesis, which was equally satisfactory. Eichorn imagines the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... claimed for mankind the divine attributes of free action! From you, who have taught my mind to soar above the petty bonds which one man in his littleness contrives for the subjection of his brother. Mackinnon—you who are so great!" And she now looked up into his face. "Mackinnon, unsay those words." ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... you told her so? Why have you taken upon yourself to judge for me in such a matter, as though I were a child? Mother, you must unsay what you have said." Lord Lufton, as he spoke, looked full into his mother's face; and he did so, not as though he were begging from her a favour, but issuing to her a command. She stood near him, with ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... fluttered and her bosom heaved, but she did not move, and Lucy was too much a Drayton to unsay what her father had said, or to undo ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... me, lady!" he exclaimed passionately,—"oh, hear me, before you dismiss me for ever from your presence. I cannot unsay what I have said—I have dared to tell you that I love you with the fondest, the deepest devotion—I have done so from the first moment I saw you; but hear my excuses. I felt myself alone and desolate in the world; I beheld you, bright, innocent, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... bureaucrats could not return the chicken to the egg from which it had been hatched. They could not unsay the fateful words which called into being the Imperial Duma. The Revolution had put into their souls a terrible fear of the wrath of the people. The Czar and his government had to permit the election of the Duma to ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love's world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or comparison and putting us quite beside ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... change with time, and terms with truth. To-day A statesman worships union, and to-night Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way For treason? honour change her livery? fright Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right? Religion, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ruffled with small cares to-day, And I said pettish words, and did not keep Long-suffering patience well, and now how deep My trouble for this sin! in vain I weep For foolish words I never can unsay. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... good-looking boys here, but none of them are like you. I wonder if you remember what you said to me that day. If you want to unsay it, you can do it by letter, you know. I think that would be the best way to do it. So don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Perhaps I would be glad. You don't know. What a long day that was! It seems as if it ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... President was surprised, the Secretary, after reading Lincoln's reply, was not less so. "Your resignation of the office of secretary of the treasury, sent me yesterday, is accepted," said the brief note. "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay, and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."[966] Secretary Blaine's hasty resignation in 1892, and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the empire of the world with the King ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... cried Mrs. Rowe-Martin, but she did not attempt to unsay the words. She meant them to sink in when she uttered them. It was commonly predicted in society that Challis Wrandall's wife would further elevate herself by wedding the most dependable nobleman who came along, and without ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... entertainment and trade to our nation than the Portuguese, which I thought very reasonable, as the Portuguese had always been injurious, and had done many vile things against them. Yet, unless we continue able to resist the Portuguese, they will soon unsay that speech for their own ease. When he had viewed our ship, with our ordnance and defensive preparations, we sent him and his train on shore in oar ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... good prose version of Henley's well known poem. As for regretting nothing, a man at forty would be glad to unsay and undo many things. At seventy, and decidedly at eighty-nine, these things have so diminished in importance that it is not worth ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... me never to speak of these things to thee," answered Resa; "unsay the wish, or some harm ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... eluded them with easy, baffling gait whenever they met it in the fens. Kedar was piqued at this. He drained a deep draught and buttoned his coat with an air of resolution. "Now, by my soul," quoth he, "I'll have that buck to-day or die myself!" Then he laughed at the old slave, who begged him to unsay the oath, for there was something unusual about that animal—as it ran it left no tracks, and it passed through the densest wood without halting at trees or undergrowth. "Bah!" retorted the huntsman. "Have up the dogs. If that buck is the fiend himself, I'll have ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... 'Never will I unsay,' she said. 'For it is right that such a King as thou should be punished, and I do believe this: that there can no agony come upon you such as shall come if you do believe me false ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... "Unsay, take back, those angry words," I said; and even as I did so the anchor went splash and I could hear the ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... ordered. "Does not Kepta keep his promises? Shall we give Dandtan into the jaws of our slaves, or will you unsay certain words of yours, ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... strengths of all his generation, Dim tribes of shamefaced soul and sun-swart cheek, Twice, urged with one desire, Son following hard on sire, With all the wrath of all a world to wreak, And all the rage of night Afire against the light Whose weakness makes her strong-winged empire weak, Stood up to unsay that saying, and fell Too far for song, though song were ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I to myself, have I repented of those cruel, scornful words I addressed to Dolores at our last interview; and now once more "I come to pluck the berries harsh and crude" of repentance and of expiation, to humble my insular pride in the dust and unsay all the unjust things I formerly spoke in ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... criticism has less to say than to unsay. Johnson's notorious attack upon it is only the extremest instance of the futility of applying to poetry the tests of prose and of the general incapacity of that generation to apply any other. Even {126} Warton, who really loved these early poems of Milton and did so much to ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... cheapest of all devices for purchasing a power that is not your own. You are then carried along by a towing-line attached to another vessel. There is no free power. Always your antagonist predetermines the course of your own movement; and you his. What he says, you unsay. He affirms, you deny. He knits, you unknit. Always you are servile to him; and he to you. Yet even that system of motion in reverse of another motion, of mere antistrophe or dancing backward what the strophe had danced forward, is better after all, you say, than standing stock still. For ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... hath come to the soul as a spirit of adoption, come again as a spirit of bondage to put the soul into his first fear; to wit, a fear of eternal damnation, because he cannot say and unsay, do and undo. As a spirit of adoption he told me that my sins were forgiven me, that I was included in the covenant of grace, that God was my Father through Christ, that I was under the promise of salvation, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with an angry expression, and when Nellie turned away from him, he made significant gestures to induce Donald to unsay what he had said, and persuade ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... huskier note he added: "Eighteen years ago a woman nearly spoiled my life. She was as beautiful as you, but her heart was tainted. Since then I have never believed in any woman—never till now. I have said that all were purchasable—at a price. I unsay that now. I have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I must confess it, sire, I have said too much to be able to unsay it. Rodrigo has noble qualities which I cannot hate; and, when a king commands, he ought to be obeyed. But to whatever [fate] you may have already doomed me, can you, before your eyes, tolerate this union? And when ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... attempt to induce the prophet to take back his ruthless sentence? "Come," he might say, "you remember what you said. If you unsay that sentence, I will set you free. I cannot, out of respect for my consort, allow such words to remain unretracted. There, you have your freedom in your own hands. One word of apology, and you may go your way; ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... But thou, thro' ever harrying thy wild beasts— Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance Becomes thee well—art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... even a sister's love; but I will try to make amends. Do not judge me harshly because I was so headlong. There is no use in trying to disguise the truth. What I have said so unwisely and prematurely I cannot unsay, and I shall always be true to my words. But I will wait patiently as long as you please; and if you find, in future years, that you cannot feel as I do, I will not complain or blame you, however ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... That saying I unsay: the wings Hear I not in praevenient winnowings Of coming songs, that lift my hair and stir it? What winds with music wet do the sweet storm foreshow! Utter stagnation Is the solstitial slumber of the spirit, The blear and blank negation of all life: But these sharp questionings mean strife, and ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... the flush of his fame were thy virtues unseen, By his blinding effulgence of genius hid: Could he now see thy face, with its sorrow serene, Much might he unsay—undo much that ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... lord! unsay those terrible words! I have been your faithful wife for twenty years, and have borne you three children; in sickness and in sorrow I have been with you; you cannot be so cruel as to turn me out of doors now. ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... was not so certain. Never yet had she had opportunity to unsay the cutting words with which she had met him that bitter night. Time and again in her heart of hearts had she planned how those unsaying words should be said, and said just as soon as ever he came, but he came rather ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... a hard thing for you, my dear. Your way is sweet to you. Offer it as a sacrifice; bind the sacrifice, even with cords, to the altar, if it be necessary. I mean, say to Bram Van Heemskirk words that you cannot unsay. Then there will be only one sorrow. It is hope and fear, and fear and hope, that make the heart sick. Be kind, and slay hope ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... passions that you cherish now, and make your heart a home for gentle feelings and happy thoughts; the task is hard, but I will give this fairy flower to help and counsel you. Bend hither, that I may place it in your breast; no hand can take it hence, till I unsay the spell ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you will. Dost repent heartily of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... "I do unsay them. I have foully lied. Thy wealth is the reward sent thee by Allah for thy glorious victories over ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... in the astrologer, "unsay those cruel words, you who know that rather than lift hands against you I would die ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps, three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could she live three days? She sprang to her feet. She must see him again—now—this minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why, he couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save to ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... is, child, that is troubling you," he said; "there can be nothing, nothing under heaven that could make me wish to unsay what I have said, nothing that could make us wish to undo what we have done. Nothing can rob me now of the knowledge that you love me. Tell ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... so? My Lord, my Sovereign, my poor father's friend, 350 The mighty in the field, the sage in Council, Unsay the words of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... itself had no security against faction, envy, and mistaken opposition. I was at present in a state of warfare: and were judges like these to give the meed of victory? How many creatures had the powerful and the proud obedient to their beck; ever ready to affirm, deny, say and unsay; and, by falsehood and defamation, involve in ruin men whose souls were the most pure, and principles ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... God lives in matter is pantheistic. The error, which says that Soul is in body, Mind is in matter, and good is in evil, must unsay it and cease from such 205:1 utterances; else God will continue to be hidden from hu- manity, and mortals will sin without knowing that they 205:3 are sinning, will lean on matter instead of Spirit, stumble with lameness, drop with drunkenness, consume with dis- case, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Go bid our moving plains of sand lie still, And stir not, when the stormy south blows high: From top to bottom thou hast tossed my soul, And now 'tis in the madness of the whirl, Requir'st a sudden stop? unsay thy lie; That may in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... with books in his hands. Thyrza felt ashamed. What must he think of her? It was almost rude to come in this way—without shadow of excuse. Doubtless he was punishing her by this cold manner. Yet he could not unsay what he had said yesterday; and his recognition of her just outside the Hall last night had been so friendly. She felt that her mode of addressing him had been too unceremonious; the 'Sir' of their former intercourse seemed demanded again. Yet to use it would ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... "had I the keys To hell, the damned should all come out and dance A morrice round the Mermaid Inn to-night." "Nay, sir, the damned are damned!" "Come, sit you down! Take some more wine! You'd have them all be damned Except Dick Cholmeley. What must I unsay To save him?" A quick eyelid dropt at Ben. "Now tell me, Master Bame!" "Sir, he derides The books of Moses!" "Bame, do you believe?— There's none to hear us but Beelzebub— Do you believe that we must taste ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... another, my heart, impulsive and wayward, Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum? 635 Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it; For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion, That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, 640 ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... "Insolent serf! unsay thy words, or maintain them with thy sword!—Crouch, like a low-born slave as thou art, and beg Macpherson's pardon, if thou darest not bare thy ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... relations to, in a great degree, is, the extreme weakness and tottering condition of our naval establishments. I do not mean to complain of the distribution of our naval establishments; though, at the same time, I by no means intend to unsay what I have said in respect to the expeditions to Spain, which I cannot approve of; but I repeat my expression that I consider our naval establishments to be in too weak and tottering a condition to answer the purpose ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... the industrious acquirements of my youth; therefore do I counsel all my readers so to employ their time. Riches, honours, the favours of fortune, may be showered by monarchs upon the most worthless; but monarchs can give and take, say and unsay, raise and pull down. Monarchs, however, can neither give wisdom nor virtue. Arbitrary power itself, in the presence of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... burned into his heart and conscience, and he knew that Tom Slade had not deigned to answer these charges and recriminations; would not answer them, any more than the rock of Gibraltar would deign to answer the petulant threats and menaces of the sea. Oh, if he could only unsay those words which he had hurled at Tom, his friend and companion! What mattered it who bunked in the cabins, so long as he knew what he knew now? How small and trifling seemed Tom's act of carelessness or forgetfulness, as he loomed up now in ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... became a fool of love again in very earnest, and was within a hair's breadth of sinking honor and all else in an outpouring of such words as a man may say once to one woman in all the world—and having said them may never unsay them. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... road. "And I say, Hodge Dawson," he exclaimed with flashing eyes, "that 'tis a shame for a lout like thee to so miscall thy thousand-time betters. And what's more, thou shalt unsay that, or I will make thee swallow thy words right ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... down: he took up the halfpenny off the flag, and walked away quite sober-like by the shock. Now, though as easy a man, you would think, as any in the wide world, there was no such thing as making him unsay one of these sort of vows, which he had learned to reverence when young, as I well remember teaching him to toss up for bog-berries on my knee. [VOWS.—It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted that the lower classes ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... bad things I have been guilty of; it won't unsay all the blasphemies and obscene words which have flowed from my lips," ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... him homeward with all possible tenderness, but I attempted neither to check his grief, to restore his equanimity, nor to unsay the hard truth. When we reached my hotel I tried to induce ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... began, you know," said Bobbie, honestly, "about coals and all that. Don't you think you'd better both unsay everything since the wave, and ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... watched her listening very suspiciously to Professor Crooklyn. My dear, it is her passion to foretell disasters—her passion! And when they are confirmed, she triumphs, of course. We shall have her domineering over us with sapient nods at every trifle occurring. The county will be unendurable. Unsay it, my Middleton! And don't answer like an oracle because I do all the talking. Pour out to me. You'll soon come to a stop and find the want of reason in the want of words. I assure you that's true. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that he begged nothing might be inscribed to him that was to reflect on Lord Orford, for that he was now leagued with all Lord Orford's friends: a message as abandoned as the book itself: but indeed there is no describing the impudence with which that set of people unsay what they have been saying all their lives,-I beg their pardons, I mean the honesty with which they recant! Pitt told me coolly, that he had read this book formerly, when he admired Lord Bolinbroke more than he does now. The book by no means answered my expectation: ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... repeating his disproved charges, whereupon Rev. J.F. Lovering of the Unitarian church came out with a reply, in which he characterized Mr. Blake's charges as "unmitigated falsehoods" and "an insult to every member of the convention," and demanded of the author to "unsay his words." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay, unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and graciously ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... other truths, because of the grim and dreadful face it carrieth in most men's apprehensions. But none of these things, however they may please the creature, can by any means in any measure, either cause God to undo, unsay, or undetermine what he hath concerning this, decreed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... coming to his recollection, he could hold his peace, and did so. There was nothing to come—not likely to be—that could unsay that revelation that he had been a married man, and did not know of his wife's death; not even that he and she had been divorced, which would have been nearly as bad. He knew the worst of it, at any rate, and Rosalind need ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... blessing such a watch would be," I thought, "in real life! To be able to unsay some heedless word—to undo some reckless deed! Might I see the ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... a God which I care not to worship. There must be many such.' 'Child! unsay those words! Ah! you do not mean them. I understand. I, too, have had such moments.' For an instant he was back in his native France, and a wistful, sad-eyed face came as a mist between him and ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... and when they did I fully believe they expected an instant answer in thunderbolts and flames. They gave me more room in the bed forthwith, and then the elder sat up and expressed his sense of my awfulness. I was already a little frightened at my temerity, but when he asked me categorically to unsay what I had said, what could I ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier letters had been misinterpreted. They had been made use of, he said, to authorize the very error against which they had been directed. They had been held to intend ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... she had said when it was too late to unsay it, clapped her hands over her mouth and groaned. Apologies could only make the matter worse, so she tried to hide her confusion by passing around the box of candy. It passed around so many times during the course of the afternoon that the ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... enough and more have I this day Spoken, which now I shame not to unsay. How should a woman work, to the utter end, Hate on a damned hater, feigned a friend; How pile perdition round him, hunter-wise, Too high for overleaping, save by lies? To me this hour was dreamed of long ago; A thing of ancient hate. 'Twas very slow ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... it, and I won't unsay it; besides, Pater, recollect it's a French question, and in France you would be considered noble. At all events, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... madamigella. I would unsay nothing now, if I could, unless to take away the pain I have given you. It has been more a relief than a shame to have all this known to you; and even if ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... I know your daring tongue Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd. In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length, That reacheth from the restful English Court As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?' Amongst much other talk that very time I heard you say that you had ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition] |
