"Retrace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told you," said the priest earnestly. "You are the one to do the thinking now. All I can do is to point out the road by which you may best retrace your way. You have told me just what I expected to hear; I admire your honesty in telling it—not to me, but to yourself. Don't you see that your reason for deserting your Faith was but a reason for greater loyalty? The oldest ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... day-light lasted or they could perceive the faintest trace to follow. Already half-convinced that he knew the ultimate destination of the fugitives, Keith yet dare not venture on pressing forward during the night, thus possibly losing the trail and being compelled to retrace their steps. It was better to proceed slow and sure. Besides, judging from the condition of their own horses, the pursued would be compelled to halt somewhere to rest their stock also. Their trail even revealed ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... before long the soldier found that he had lost all traces of the raiding party. He cast around without success and wasted much time in endeavouring to pick up the trail again. At last to his annoyance he was forced to turn back and retrace ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... is very much the case now. Getting through these we meet the war hedge again, and after a conscientious struggle with various forms of vegetation in a muddled, tangled state, Sasu says, "No good, path done got stopped up," so we turn and retrace our steps all the way, cross the river, and horrify Herr Liebert by invading his house again. We explain the situation. Grave headshaking between him and Sasu about the practicability of any other route, because there is no other path. I do not like to say "so much the better," ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... PRUSSIA.—Prussia now stood by herself. Out of alarm at the progress of the French arms, and anger because French troops had been led across her territory without her consent, she had preferred to join the coalition. Austerlitz moved her to retrace her steps. She received Hanover as the price of a renewed alliance. England now declared war against Prussia. But Fox, who was an advocate of peace, had come into power in England (Jan. 23, 1806); and Prussia discovered that Napoleon, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... train at the railway station and crossing the Rhine, I missed my letter-case containing a note for two hundred marks; it had slipped out of my overcoat pocket. Two gentlemen who had joined us on the way from the Drachenfels immediately offered to retrace their steps, a somewhat arduous undertaking, to hunt for the lost object. After a few hours they returned, and handed me the letter-case with its contents intact. Two stone-cutters at work on the summit of the mountain had found it. They restored it at once, and the honest fellows ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... nothing approaching his ideal was discovered. On September 13th Cape Gracias-a-Dios was sighted. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate; not until December 5th, however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It now became his intention to plant a colony on the River Veragua, which was afterward to give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had hardly put about when he was caught in a storm ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... is as a party, and how entirely he would destroy himself by becoming their leader, and who moreover has been exceedingly disgusted at the way in which he was taken up by Molesworth, and provoked to death at being taken under his protection at Devonport—desires earnestly to retrace his steps and to disavow the alliance they have offered him, and which they have so prematurely and ostentatiously proclaimed. He now wants to put himself in a neutral and, if he can, a dignified position. Yesterday ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... search of father and mother, while they lie under the influence of a dream, and hold discourse with them. "Your child," you will say, "has already trodden the path of death! Oh my parents, it behoves you to speedily retrace your steps and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and now it has come upon me. How abominably disloyal and treacherous I was in my madness! Never was there a better knight born of mother than he. Never shall he receive harm through me if I can in any way prevent it. I command you all to retrace your steps." Back they go disconsolate, carrying the lifeless seneschal on the shield reversed. The Count, whose wound was not mortal, lived on for some time after. Thus was ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... have turned in some other direction? In the shadow of a sand-dune they halted finally to discuss the situation. Should they go on? Or explore further to the east and west? Might it not even be better to retrace their way to the springs, and wait the coming of Lacy? All in front of them the vast sand plain stretched out, almost as level as a floor. So far as the eye would carry there was no visible sign of any depression or change ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... movements and the presence of two or three sledges he judged that a party must either have lately arrived, or be on the point of departing. As nothing further seemed to happen, he made up his mind that they must be arrivals; and then, seeing little to be gained by waiting further, he was about to retrace his steps when his attention was arrested by the appearance of two women. They came out of a house, and one, the taller of the two, went up to a group of men standing near, while the other, who looked like a peasant's wife, hung ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... dejection in his manner, and, treading his way absent-mindedly past the Lone Jack contingent with no word of explanation to his companion, began to retrace his steps toward the hostelry on ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... you; as Mrs. Boomsby is not up here, I think I will go down," I replied, beginning to retrace my steps. ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... accepted instant dissolution as a forfeit. Mliss slid down the tree. For a few moments nothing transpired but the munching of the pine nuts. "Do you feel better?" she asked, with some solicitude. The master confessed to a recuperated feeling, and then, gravely thanking her, proceeded to retrace his steps. As he expected, he had not gone far before she called him. He turned. She was standing there quite white, with tears in her widely opened orbs. The master felt that the right moment had come. Going up to her, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... instructed Ganymede, as I stood ready to mount, "you will retrace your steps with the others, and, finding the road to Lavedan, you will ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... he was threatened with some kind of seizure; anyway, something about him apparently interested her enough to slowly retrace her steps. ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... moving to Niagara. She was handsome, and Allen soon got into her good graces, so that be married and took her home, to be a joint partner with Sally, the squaw, whom she had never heard of till she got home and found her in full possession; but it was too late for her to retrace the hasty steps she had taken, for her father had left her in the care of a tender husband and gone on. She, however, found that she enjoyed at least an equal half of her husband's affections, and made herself contented. Her father's ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... from his rocky perch, and it proved to be no small one. He might have clambered down the face of the cliff, but that would mean abandoning his horse. In the end he was forced to retrace his steps along the twisting ledge ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... river in the quarter, nor did I imagine there was any; the conclusion I arrived at therefore was, that I had lost my way, and that my most eligible course was, to endeavour to find the main stream, and by following it, retrace my course to ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... wind, that from some remote, ancestral source of feeling a strange melancholy welled up and mingled with our desire for the solitude. In it was the instinctive fear which makes the sheep and cattle of the green lands retrace their steps at the sight of regions over which hangs the shadow ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... continued, leaning his head upon his bony fingers, "a man of letters, I believe. I congratulate you. You have stepped into the whirlpool from which no man can retrace his steps. Yet even this is better, is it not, than the Methodism? You were not cut out, I ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... this late hour, or haunted only by those who had come to dread the town marshal, we met no one and saw no lights. I fell to thinking, for my part, of the evening I had spent searching Blois for Mademoiselle, and of the difference between then and now. Nor did I fail while on this track to retrace it still farther to the evening of our arrival at my mother's; whence, as a source, such kindly and gentle thoughts welled up in my mind as were natural, and the unfailing affection of that gracious woman required. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the khan, and the whole host, conscious of their peril, commenced a precipitate retreat, in their haste abandoning many guns and much of their baggage. The Russians pursued the foe, but were not able to overtake them, so rapidly did they retrace ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... strain, Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, And flattery's voice is vain; Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, Like the long-wandering dove, Thy weary heart may faint for rest, As mine, on changeless love; And while these sculptured lines retrace The hours now dancing by, This vision of thy girlish grace May ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... be the creed of our political faith,—the text of civil instruction,—the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... garden of delight; They make the dark and dreary hours Open and blossom into flowers! I would not sleep! I love to be Again in their fair company; But ere my lips can bid them stay, They pass and vanish quite away! Alas! our memories may retrace Each circumstance of time and place, Season and scene come back again, And outward things unchanged remain; The rest we cannot reinstate; Ourselves we can not re-create; Nor set our souls to the same ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... at random. Mr. Fernald quietly walked up the aisle to the platform. Mr. Moller arose and for a moment the two spoke in low tones. Then the principal nodded, smiled and turned to retrace his steps. As he did so his smiling regard fell upon the occupants of the two front rows. A look of puzzlement banished the smile. Bewilderment followed that. Westcott faltered and stopped altogether. A horrible silence ensued. Then Mr. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... square manner—that is, the particles of air would move toward the point where they begin to rise upward in due north and south lines, according as they came from the southern or northern hemisphere, and the upper currents or counter trades would retrace their paths also parallel with the meridians or longitude lines. But because the earth revolves from west to east, the course of the trade winds is oblique to the equator, those in the northern hemisphere blowing from northeast to southwest, those in the southern from southeast ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... considering the first head, I began with stating in what the elevation of the laboring class does not consist, and then proceeded to show positively what it is, what it does consist in. I want time to retrace the ground over which we then travelled. I must trust to your memories. I was obliged by my narrow limits to confine myself chiefly to the consideration of the intellectual elevation which the laborer is to propose; though, in treating this topic, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... he knew, but while it did he must be alone. He walked far out on a road that led through the rich damp plain, and it was not till the sun was sinking low that he began to retrace ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... stuffs for their families, their contiguity to an Indian village, and the fact that an Indian war path passed near their dwellings, soon determined them to retrace their steps.[15] Before they carried this determination into effect, the family of Files became the victims of savage cruelty. At a time when all the family were at their cabin, except an elder son, they were discovered by a party of Indians, supposed ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... grief and anxiety our dear parents will endure this night," answered Catharine, "that distresses my mind; but," she added, in more cheerful tones, "let us not despair, no doubt to-morrow we shall be able to retrace our steps." ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... that they could not get away—the shallops were forced to turn about and retrace their passage. The pursuing boat swung, also—like a shadow of the first. Sir Walter's heart ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... again, now that I recollected them, until the sky had cleared, and I could see my way well before me. The atmosphere was still brightening slowly over the tossing, distant waves: I determined to wait until it had lost all its obscurity, before I ventured to retrace ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... foresee the future, perhaps too in every mind another thought was dimly present, how that in the future, when the heroic age of France should have taken the half-fabulous color with which it is tinged for us to-day, men's imaginations would more than once seek to retrace the picture of the pageant which they ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... discussion, they politely refused an invitation, in the absent Agha's name, to spend the night in his guest house, and started out to retrace some kilometres of the track they had just travelled. This, thought the Agha's head gatekeeper, was a foolish decision, no matter how pressing might be the soldier's business with Ben Raana, for already it was past sunset, and there was no moon. These men were strangers, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... choice that is continually being renewed. There are points—at all events there seem to be—all along the way, where we may branch off, and we perceive many possible directions though we are unable to take more than one. To retrace one's steps, and follow to the end the faintly distinguishable directions, appears to be the essential element in poetic imagination. Of course, Shakespeare was neither Macbeth, nor Hamlet, nor Othello; ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... the Guards, who had died under circumstances of singular gallantry—alas! leaving a wife and two charming children. On nearing the spot where I had been told the body was lying, I was informed that it had been arranged to convey the remains to England. There was nothing for it but to retrace one's steps, but by this time the firing which had been unpleasantly heavy on the way out, had waxed in intensity, when suddenly emerging from the shelter of a wood, I found myself between the two lines of opposing forces. A British sergeant roared lustily to ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... farmyard in the wetting, drizzling rain to the place where she expected to find Kester; but he was not there, so she had to retrace her steps to the cow-house, and, making her way up a rough kind of ladder-staircase fixed straight against the wall, she surprised Kester as he sat in the wool-loft, looking over the fleeces reserved for the home-spinning, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the backslider is one of the hardest problems in spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old organ seems more difficult and hopeless than to develop a new one; and the backslider's terrible lot is to have to retrace with enfeebled feet each step of the way along which he strayed; to make up inch by inch the leeway he has lost, carrying with him a dead-weight of acquired reluctance, and scarce knowing whether to be stimulated or discouraged by the oppressive ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... portrayed the glorious actions of his ancestors. There was the silent prince, the founder of the Batavian commonwealth, passing the Meuse with his warriors. There was the more impetuous Maurice leading the charge at Nieuport. A little further on, the hero might retrace the eventful story of his own life. He was a child at his widowed mother's knee. He was at the altar with Diary's hand in his. He was landing at Torbay. He was swimming through the Boyne. There, too, was a boat amidst the ice and the breakers; and above ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... alarmed every minute, he began to retrace his steps. Then it was he encountered the two Swine-men I had seen dancing on the night of my arrival; blood-stained they were about the mouth, and intensely excited. They came crashing through the ferns, and stopped with fierce faces ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... herself as she used to be before the tempter crept into the Eden of her heart; to look despairingly up to the height whence she had fallen, so wrecked in moral strength that she had not the power to retrace a single step! Peace departed, virtue lost, health undermined, affection squandered, ruthlessly murdering the peace of one whose life through all the time of its sad earth-sojourning is linked with hers; cursing the home she should have blessed and brightened, making of that fair garden, wherein ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... beside him, her strength failed her, and her courage—courage that she had been storing for this dread undertaking throughout the whole of that dreadful day. Now that she was there, she would have given her life to have been able to retrace her steps, to lose herself in the wild, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was that night for royalty! Filled with remorse for having signed the fatal decree, and knowing not how to retrace his steps or to retrieve the effects of his rash act, the king passed the hours in agony. With a heavy heart and a throbbing brow, he paced the length of his royal bedchamber, and thus did ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... whither I am going." She plunged into the forest. January frowned and raised his staff above his head. In the twinkling of an eye the sky was overcast, the fire went out, the snow fell, and the wind blew. Katinka could not see the way before her. She lost herself, and vainly tried to retrace her steps. The snow fell and the wind blew. She called her mother, she cursed her sister, she cursed God. The snow fell and the wind blew. Katinka froze, her limbs stiffened, and she fell motionless. The snow still fell ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... of food; many also returned home. There is a story to the effect that he himself would also have turned back but for the fact that the road already traversed was longer and more difficult than the portion left before him. For this reason he did not retrace his steps, but suddenly appearing south of the Alps spread astonishment and ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... and obstinate on the part of the Russians, but without scientific combination. Bagration was roughly repulsed, and again compelled to retrace his steps. He finally crossed the Boristhenes at Novoi-Bikof, where he re-entered the Russian interior, in order finally to unite with ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... I began to retrace my steps. My two Bapedi were in constant dread of their lives, for an old and deadly feud existed between their tribe and the Swazis. They followed me like my shadow, sometimes in a most embarrassing manner. Having been on my forward journey hospitably entertained at ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... How had this miserable misunderstanding arisen? What was it all about? Her mind glanced back, but she could not remember, could not begin to retrace the bewildering steps. Worse yet, she hardly seemed to want to now, for Hugo could not possibly speak to her in this way if he loved her ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... their comrades.[1] By this act of vigour it was thought that subordination had been restored; but Cromwell soon discovered that the Levellers constituted two-thirds of the military force, and that it was necessary for him to retrace his steps, if he wished to retain his former influence. With that view he made a public acknowledgment of his error, and a solemn promise to stand or fall with the army. The conversion of the sinner was hailed with acclamations of joy, a solemn fast was kept to celebrate ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... sufficiently attended to the facts, and so far are not unexceptionable witnesses to them. Nevertheless they did their work, and in virtue of it we are raised to a higher stage—we are lifted forward a mighty step which we can never again retrace. Personal purity is not the whole for which we have to care: it is but one feature in the ideal character of man. The monks may have thought it was all, or more nearly all than it is; and therefore their lives may seem to us poor, mean, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... warm and under cover: how was it possible to make them resume their arms, and turn them from their asylums during that night of rest, whose inexpressible sweets they had just begun to taste? Who could persuade them to interrupt it, to retrace their steps, and return once more into the darkness and frozen ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... movements for a moment to smile, with a fathers fondness, at the display of womanly grace and beauty that his child presented. Remember the heats of July, my daughter; nor venture further than thou canst retrace before the meridian. Where is thy parasol, girl? thou wilt lose tine polish of that brow, under this sun and southern breeze, unless thou guard it with ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... alarmed now, and realising our perilous situation, we did the only thing there was to do—we turned the dogs loose and abandoned the sled and went back along the trail we had followed as fast as we could. We knew that we could safely retrace our steps and that the trail would lead us to the bank after a while. We knew not where the trail would lead us in the other direction. As a matter of fact, it led to the mail cabin, two miles farther on, and the mail-carrier was at that time occupying ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... my way back to where the path had crumbled and rotten rock had given way under the burro's weight. It was possible for me to retrace my steps, but I did not. I was sure that my destination could not be much further. A lightly clad native girl could not have gone so far as Huascan itself. No, probably that day ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... critical moment, the absence, possibly, from harm, leading to the hope of immunity—all, perhaps, enter into the explanation of the secret promptings which have led to the first false step, to the first planting of the feet in the path which leads to destruction. Once the step is taken, to retrace it seems impossible. The line which society draws, and which it proclaims no man shall overstep without punishment, may be approached very closely, but once on the wrong side, once the fateful step is taken, the act is irretrievable; to attempt ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... remotest point on the canal the moment of triumph is known. The victors plant on their agile boat the conquered flag, and instead of thinking to rest their weary arms, take up the oars again and retrace their course ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... his sword he severed the head of the snake from its body, and then turned to retrace his steps towards the village he ...
— The Enchanted Castle - A Book of Fairy Tales from Flowerland • Hartwell James
... blocked up by trees thrown across, and a mound of huge stones lying in their way. When the stratagem of the enemy now became apparent, there is seen at the same time a body of troops on the eminence over the glen. Hastening back, then, they proceed to retrace the road by which they had entered; they found that also shut up by such another fence, and men in arms. Then, without orders, they halted; amazement took possession of their minds, and a strange kind of numbness seized their limbs: ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... at the first post-house," said Solling, jumping out and beginning to retrace his steps to the village, which they had now left some distance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... paces and walked fifty paces. He ran fifty and walked fifty. He saw her, atop a rolling of the ground. She came to a full stop. He ran. He saw her turn to retrace her steps. He flung to the safety of the blast-rifle and let off a roaring blast at the ground for her ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... look over what I now write, I might be amused with stories of long-forgotten jealousies and various interests extinguished by the lapse of time, or perhaps silenced in the grave; still it would be melancholy to retrace the days of my youth and to bring before my imagination the blooming faces and the gaiety and brilliancy of those who once shone the meteors of society, but who would then be so changed in form and mind, and with myself rapidly descending to our ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... continued their endeavours to retrace their path, but without success. Still more dark and dismal grew those mazes—more wet and miry the morass. Night came, but it brought no stars to enable them to find their road back to their dwellings, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... slipped out into the hall again, hoping to retrace his steps downstairs and escape ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... people will soon compel him and his advisers to utter that word," said Nugent. "Austria can no longer retrace her steps; she must advance. Austria must lead Germany in the sacred struggle for liberty; she can no longer ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... of Erik. First, confounded by the strange sight, they thought that a wood was sailing; and then they saw that guile lurked under the leaves. Therefore, tardily repenting their rashness, they tried to retrace their incautious voyage: but while they were trying to steer about, they saw the enemy boarding them; Erik, however, put his ship ashore, and slung stones against the enemy from afar. Thus most of the Sclavs ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... hesitated to advance. He had not seen her since the day he had felt tempted to kill her as she lay in her white robes at his feet. He wondered if it were not better to retrace his steps and depart ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... They retrace their steps, and Mrs. Grandon apologizes to her guest, who is sweetness itself, quite different from the Irene Stanwood of the past. There is a stir, and everybody admits that it is time ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts of an ox or a gazelle—the shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the breast, the heart, the liver, the head, properly prepared for the spit; but it was equally easy to retrace the whole history of the animal—its birth, its life in the pasture-lands, its slaughter, the cutting up of the carcass, and the presentation of the joints. So also as regarded the cakes and bread-offerings, there was no reason why the whole process of tillage, harvesting, corn-threshing, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... glance strayed over the stretch of lawn, still green, then turned to rest on the house, a comfortable three-story structure of wood, painted dark green, with lighter green trimmings. Her mother's sudden appearance at the window caused Marjorie to retrace her steps. Luncheon ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... arrives at his greatest distance from the equator, or about the twenty-first of June, called, also the summer solstice, (from the Latin sol, the sun and sto, to stop or stand still,) because when the sun reaches this point he seems to stand still for some time, and then appears to retrace his steps. The days are then longer than at ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Appian Way were paved with similar blocks of the same sort of stone. In the fog they went wrong three several times where side-roads branched off at a thin angle. In each case they failed to discover their mistake until they had gone on for some distance; in each case they had to retrace their steps for fear of getting wholly lost if they tried a cross-road; in each ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... nineteenth century the ink industry was confined to the few. Since then, it has developed into one of magnificent proportions. The new departure, due to the discovery and development of the "Aniline" family of fugitive colors, is noteworthy as being a step backward which may take years to retrace. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... surprise in his eyes as he perceived her and that he would pass on without further notice. Yet, just as he reached a point opposite her chair, he flashed one glance toward her; and almost as quickly turned about to retrace his steps. Shivering and rather miserable she watched him idly, and now the surprise was ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... retrace her steps to the road, a man walked out of the inner space enclosed by all that was left of the dismantled house. A cry of alarm escaped her. Was she the victim of destiny, or the sport of chance? There was the wild lord whom she had vowed ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... West. The immediate return of the latter to the westward was dictated by reasons, already given in his own words, the weight of which he doubtless felt more forcibly because he found himself actually so far away from the centre of the blockade and from his base at Key West. When he began thus to retrace his steps, he was still ignorant of Cervera's arrival. The following night, indeed, he heard from a passing vessel the rumor of the Spanish squadron's regaining Cadiz, with which the Navy Department had ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... retrace her steps, and she went back leisurably, peering for trout and plucking on the way a trail of the bryony, berried with orange and scarlet and yellow and palest green, to exhibit to Arthur Miles. She found him seated on the ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... proper description of the course of affairs, I must retrace my steps a little. In the important political events coinciding with the death of Leo the Great, and the constitution of the kingdom of Italy by the barbarian Odoacer, A.D. 476-490, the bishops of Rome seem to have taken but little ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... frenzy has inspir'd my mind! My tortur'd mem'ry cannot it retrace; No relique now of former days I find, But horrors, ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... must be so, else why, years after, Do we retrace And mix with shadowy, recollected ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... regards the general principles of numerical tuition, it may be sufficient to state, that we should begin with unity, and proceed very gradually, by slow and sure steps, through the simplest forms of combinations to the more comprehensive. Trace and retrace your first steps—the children can never be too thoroughly familiar with the first principles or facts ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... situation, felt bound by the Conscription Act, and felt liberty, in view of his oath to execute the laws, to do no more than detail us from active service to hospital duty, or to the charge of the coloured refugees. For more than a week have we lain here, refusing to engage in hospital service; shall we retrace the steps of the past week? Or shall we go South as overseers of the blacks on the confiscated estates of the rebels, to act under military commanders and to report to such? What would become of our testimony and our determination to ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... the power of analysis; it can watch its own operations and retrace its steps, until it arrives at the original data of consciousness; but analysis cannot comprise the whole of the logical process. Before there can be analysis there must be something to be analyzed; ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... back to New Boston, where friends were awaiting him, with little hope of his return? He had traversed many miles since the preceding night, and had gone through a country that was totally unknown to him. To attempt to retrace his footsteps without the aid of a horse was like attempting ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... accepted, and having been supplied with provisions, he prepared to retrace his steps to Quebec. His intended victims, the Mohawks, harassed the retreat, killing and taking prisoners; while sixty of his men perished from hunger and exposure before he came in sight of the St. Lawrence, and many more fell before ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... poor people were drawn up waiting for the opening of the local bakery. We got into George's Street, thinking to turn down Dame Street and get from thence near enough to Sackville Street to see if the rumours about its destruction were true, but here also we were halted by the military, and had to retrace our steps. ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... innocence, and now pardon our love. I read your letters, from my name at the beginning, to yours at the end, and from yours back to mine, and between the lines, for any doubtful spot: and oh, rash! But I would not retrace the step for my own sake. I am certain of your love for me, though . . .' She paused: 'Yes, I am certain of it. And if I am a burden ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I replied: "I will do so." Then putting my foot in the stirrup in his presence, I set off upon my travels without further leave-taking. The man noted down my act and words, and reported them to the Duke, who was highly incensed, and showed a strong inclination to make me retrace ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Lucy—on the contrary, Nettie peremptorily left Miss Wodehouse, shaking hands with her in so resolute a manner that her gentle adviser felt somehow a kind of necessity upon her to pursue her way home; and, only when Nettie was nearly out of sight, turned again with hesitation to retrace her steps towards St Roque's. Nettie, meanwhile, went on at a pace which Miss Wodehouse could not possibly have kept up with, clasping her tiny hands together with a swell of scorn and disdain unusual ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... youth; Painful was the sacrifice, but pleasant the service: a thousand objects would revive the remembrance of past occupations and occurrences; a thousand circumstances rush into her memory; her susceptible mind would often retrace the scenes once so familiar, now to be abandoned for ever; affection would often recal the names of Bethuel and Laban, and filial tenderness would weep at the thought of maternal anxiety. She was about to commit her happiness to the disposal ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... turn down stream and retrace our way while we can see. It is dusk already—I had no idea it ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... independence, but it has to be said that Canning did not live to see the success of his own policy. Before the battle of Navarino had been fought, the career of the great statesman had come to an end. We shall have to retrace our steps, for there is much still left untold in ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with God," said the father. "We must leave nothing undone in our search for him. We will ask Uncle Philip's advice and get him to help us. Let us retrace our steps, now, for it is time for ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... adventurers crowding into the field, and ready to follow on his track. He even took from the mariners their charts, [172] and boasts, in a letter to the sovereigns, that none of his pilots would be able to retrace the route to and from Veragua, nor to ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... which unites the ancient with the modern schools of painting. Their works, considered as a subordinate branch of pictorial art, though frequently grotesque and barbarous, are singularly characteristic of the epoch in which they lived, whether we retrace the art to its Byzantine origin in the earliest ages of Christianity, or follow it to its most complete and harmonious development in the two centuries which preceded the discovery of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... Aaron Burr. Such wholesale removals, however, did not arrest the progress of the Republican party. After Johnson's "swing around the circle," Conservatives were reduced to a few prominent men who could not consistently retrace their steps, and to hungry office-holders who were known as "the bread and butter brigade."[1097] The Post, a loyal advocate of the President's policy, thought it a melancholy reflection "That its most damaging opponent is the President, who makes a judicious ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... him, effectually roused him from his trance. Outlet there was none. All around him towered mountains, reaching to the skies. The path was so winding, that, as he looked round bewildered, he could not even imagine how he came there. To retrace his steps, seemed quite as difficult as to proceed. The sun too had declined, or was effectually concealed by the towering rocks, for sudden darkness seemed around him. There was but one way, and Stanley prepared to scale the precipitous crag before ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... Quincy as the latter started to come up the path, and saw him retrace his steps, and naturally thought, as most men would, that the reason Quincy did not come in was because he did not wish ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Before the end of 1855 he imparted to his mother his decision about taking Orders. The Rubicon was crossed; but on which road he was to reach his goal was not settled for many years. Twice he had to retrace his steps from a false start and begin a fresh career. The year 1856 saw him still working at Oxford, in the office of Street, the architect. Two more years (1857-8) saw him labouring at easel pictures under the influence of Rossetti, though he also published his first volume ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... spare in frantic reproaches? or what crueller sight met me in our city's overthrow? I charge my comrades with Ascanius and lord Anchises, and the gods of Teucria, hiding them in the winding vale. Myself I regain the city, girding on my shining armour; fixed to renew every danger, to retrace my way throughout Troy, and fling myself again on its perils. First of all I regain the walls and the dim gateway whence my steps had issued; I scan and follow back my footprints with searching gaze in the night. Everywhere my spirit shudders, dismayed at the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... so much prying into fine hiding-places and lurking corners, I struck a trail well traversed by small antelope and hartebeest, which we followed. It led me into a jungle, and down a watercourse bisecting it; but, after following it for an hour, I lost it, and, in endeavouring to retrace it, lost my way. However, my pocket-compass stood me in good stead; and by it I steered for the open plain, in the centre of which stood the camp. But it was terribly hard work—this of plunging through an African jungle, ruinous to clothes, and trying to the cuticle. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... to end in a cedar swamp, as the farther he went the thicker the hemlocks and cedars became; so, as we had no desire to commence our settlement by a night's lodging in a swamp— where, to use the expression of our driver, the cedars grew as thick as hairs on a cat's back,—we agreed to retrace our steps. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Dolly sharply with her heel and began to retrace her way over the trail. Peter turned his horse and followed, with the feeling of utter helplessness that a man has when confronted with the granite obstinacy of women. Judith had meanwhile expected that the announcement ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... farther than he had intended. The thought of returning came as a relief. The next time he would have more confidence and could proceed with less of a strain. And so, step by step, he began to retrace the path. He was forced to keep his cheek almost flat to the rock. The dry dust sifted into his nostrils and peppered his eyes so that he was beginning to suffer acutely from the inflammation. His arms, too, began to pain him as he had been unable to relieve them at all ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... with treasures rare, So, favored Countess, all that thou dost say Is nothing to thy secrets left unsaid; Thy printed souvenirs are but the spray Above the depths of ocean's briny bed. For, oh! how often must thy mind retrace Soft phrases whispered in the Tuscan tongue, Love's changes sweeping o'er his mobile face, And kisses sweeter far than he had sung; The gleam of passion in his glorious eyes, The hours of inspiration when he wrote, Recalled to Earth in sudden, sweet surprise At feeling thy white arms about his throat; ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... to retrace our steps to take up a series of galleries all along the outer curve of the building. They are devoted to illustrations, miniatures, stained glass, plaques, and the many expressions of graphic art we know as black ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... killed. An examination, however, showed us that the mule had fallen over an embankment and broken his neck. Following a well beaten trail we did not discover that the command had left it until we had gone some two or three miles past the carcass of the dead mule. We therefore began to retrace our steps. It should be understood that the course taken by the command was due east, at right angles to that which they should have taken in following me in the morning. Returning, we carefully examined each side of the ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Trinity, expecting to come to the river later. The next day they proceeded down the narrow sand strip that now bounds the west side of Humboldt Bay, but when they reached the harbor entrance from the ocean they were compelled to retrace their steps and try the east shore. The following day they headed the bay, camping at a beautiful plateau on the edge of the redwood belt, giving a fine view of a noble landlocked harbor and a rich stretch of bottom land reaching ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... 4. Greek puts already such a branch-work forth as will soon extend to a vista opening far and wide, and he will pass out where it ends and retrace the paths he has trod through life's ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... retrace our steps to the start, for the pleasure, strangely mixed though it be, of feeling our small feet plant themselves afresh and artlessly stumble forward again—the first began long ago, far off, and yet glimmers at me there as out of a thin golden haze, with ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... to retrace my route, for I had left a trail like a behemoth's. And one thought I chewed all the way back to the meadow. If I could have done it over again I should have called, and so have drawn whatever thing it was toward me. That would ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... about twelve miles to the northward; which he did not doubt to be the channel of the river. He had pushed on after this success, in the hope of gaining a further knowledge of the country; but another still more extensive marsh checked him, and obliged him to retrace his steps. He was no less surprised at the account I gave of the termination of the river, than I was at its so speedily re-forming, and it was determined to lose no time in the further examination of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... pebbly-bedded streams have a way of doing), and on a sudden the traveller misses it. There, before him, is a river bed, wide, white, and stony, but where is the river? If he be a curious traveller he will retrace his steps, and will find the stream racing with some impetuosity towards a bend, where it dwindles by apparent miracle into nothing. The curious traveller, naturally growing more curious than common in the presence of these phenomena, will, at some risk to his neck, descend ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... undertaking was one of great danger. The descent into the kingdom of Pluto, she said, was easy, but, to return to the upper world—that was a task difficult for mortals to accomplish. Few there were who had entered the gloomy realms of Dis, to whom it had been permitted ever to retrace their steps. ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... And, you, too! You took hold of this field work and ran it like a man. I said you'd make a hand, and you have. The day is coming when people like you, who went from poverty to affluence overnight, will retrace that journey. That's the time when the truly dramatic story of the Texas oil boom will be written. Then will come the real tragedy, and you mustn't be caught in it. Money isn't a servant, Buddy; it is a master, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... they resolved to encounter the enemy. The invaders were seized with a sudden panic, possibly as much occasioned by the rage of the conflagration as the desperation of the foe; and, retiring to Mount Tmolus, took advantage of the night to retrace their march along ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and as he gazed courage and hope awoke in his eyes. What if, after all, he could undo the past? What if, after all, he could retrace the false step he had taken, and place himself again where ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men. "Come on," he was shouting. The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of his imprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden who ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... discussing the scheme, route and details of our proposed journey. Expenditure being practically no object, there were several plans open to us. We might sail up the coast and go by Kilwa, as I had done on the search for the Holy Flower, or we might retrace the line of our retreat from the Mazitu country which ran through Zululand. Again, we might advance by whatever road we selected with a small army of drilled and disciplined retainers, trusting to force to break a ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... two years and a half wandering, you will be pleased to hear that I have at last arrived at home, so far as this life is concerned, and am once more quietly and happily settled with Mr. Judson. When I retrace the scenes through which I have passed, the immense space I have traversed, and the various dangers, seen and unseen, from which I have been preserved, my heart is filled with gratitude and praise to that Being, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... mountain, the rising smoke glowed incandescent with the light of an invisible fire beneath, Bob, blinded by this glow, had great difficulty in making his way. Once he found that he had somehow crept out on the great bald roundness of a granite dome, and had to retrace his steps. Twice he lost his footing utterly, but fortunately fell but a short distance. At last he found himself in the V ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... much of what we were! To the world they are but as a certain number of pages,—good or bad,—tedious or diverting; but to ourselves, the authors, they are as marks in the wild maze of life by which we can retrace our steps, and be with our youth again. What would I not give to feel as I felt, to hope as I hoped, to believe as I believed, when this work was first launched upon the world! But time gives while it takes away; and amongst its recompenses ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unintelligent dreams. Through all this realm of truth and poetry men have passed and repassed these many years, I said to myself; and I began to wonder how many of those now long asleep really saw or heard this great glad world of sun and summer! I began slowly to retrace my steps, and as I reached the summit of the hill and looked beyond I saw the cattle standing knee-deep in the brook that loiters across the fields, and I heard the faint bleating of sheep ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... islands were discovered by the ship 'Duff,' when on a missionary voyage in the year 1797. We shall have to retrace our steps to come to the large islands in our chart; but Easter Island is so near, it may be as well to call; although we may gain nothing by the visit, for it is a sterile spot inhabited by demi-savages, who worship ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will be seen that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the River Eyder, the perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... interview with Dulcibel, walking on in order that he might avoid her further company. After going a short distance he turned and saw that she was riding rapidly homeward. Then he began to retrace his steps. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... long years. In his case they have become aborted and incapable of rejuvenescence. But his rudiment of a moral nature feels twinges of remorse. He ought not to have reversed the sequence of functions, and he knows it. But he cannot retrace his steps. He made the development of character impossible when he made wealth his first and chief aim. If he has a million dollars he tries to insure his soul by leaving in his will one-tenth to build a ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... Long-knife, satisfied, too, perhaps, that the cheapness of the victory rendered it more valuable than a greater triumph achieved at a greater loss, gave up at once their original design of carrying the war into other villages, and resolved to retrace ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... if you are ready to retrace your steps, let us go back and look at the town souvenirs of the revolution; among them the portrait of Washington in the frame that used to hold that ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... see the true state of affairs from the point of view of Constantinople if we retrace our ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... said, turning to retrace his steps. "I shall go down to the Lancone Defile. God be ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... snows, when out of the dark leaped a hundred lances, a hundred faces, a hundred shrieking, bloodthirsty savages. Now they realize the mistake of having landed, of having abandoned the skin boat back on the beach there! But no time to retrace steps! Only a wild dash through the dark, catching by each other to keep together, up to a high precipitous rock they know is somewhere here, with the sea behind, sheer drop on each side, and but one narrow approach! Here they make their stand, muskets and sword in hand, beating ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... discriminating, Densher continued slowly to wander; yet without keeping at bay for long the sense of having rounded his corner. He had so rounded it that he felt himself lose even the option of taking advantage of Milly's absence to retrace his steps. If he might have turned tail, vulgarly speaking, five minutes before, he couldn't turn tail now; he must simply wait there with his consciousness charged to the brim. Quickly enough moreover that issue was closed from without; in the course of three minutes more Miss ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... and as some of my people had just discovered, in the apartment of the Tartar General at Sinho, a letter stating that they were determined to capture the 'big barbarian himself' this time, I thought it better to retrace my steps. The second action took place on the 14th, and on the 15th I rode out to see the General, and had a conference with him. On the 17th I went to the gulf to see Gros. I have had dozens of letters from the Chinese authorities, and I have answered some of them, not in a way to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... peasant closed his door, And where she passed, fair dames, in scorn and pride, Shuddered, and drew their rustling robes aside. At last a yearning seemed to fill her soul, A longing that was stronger than control: Once more, just once again, to see the place That knew her young and innocent; to retrace The long and weary southern path; to gaze Upon the haven of her childish days; Once more beneath the convent roof to lie; Once more to look upon her home—and die! Weary and worn—her comrades, chill remorse And black despair, yet a strange silent force Within her heart, that drew her more and ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... he might perhaps lessen his sufferings by walking, he went straight on through the vegetables again. He lost himself among them. He went along a narrow footway, turned down another, was forced to retrace his steps, bungled in doing so, and once more found himself amidst piles of greenery. Some heaps were so high that people seemed to be walking between walls of bundles and bunches. Only their heads slightly overtopped these ramparts, and passed along showing whitely or blackly according ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... troublous sights and sounds set free; In such a twilight hour of breath, Shall one retrace his life, or see, Through shadows, the ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... Hecate's gloomy arms once more! Ye gods! And is it thus that Beroe Finds Cadmus' daughter, after sixteen years Of bitter separation! Full of joy I came from Epidaurus; but with shame To Epidaurus must retrace my steps.— Despair I take with me. Alas, my people! E'en to the second Deluge now the plague May rage at will, may pile mount Oeta high With corpses upon corpses, and may turn All Greece into one mighty charnel-house, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sure. From time immemorial the dweller on the Nile has been led to regard his river in the light of a benignant deity. If he wished to travel down its course he had but to entrust his vessel to the stream, and this would carry him. If, again, he wished to retrace his course, he had but to raise a sail, and the prevalent wind, conquering the flood, would bear him against the stream. This constant north wind, following the Nile valley, and thence trending still southward ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of my book on the "Renaissance in Italy" does not pretend to retrace the history of the Italian arts, but rather to define their relation to the main movement of Renaissance culture. Keeping this, the chief object of my whole work, steadily in view, I have tried to explain the dependence of the arts on mediaeval Christianity at their commencement, their ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... he sprang from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not merely the exact spot from which he had gleaned a thought in any given book, but also the conditions of his own mind at far-off periods. By an undreamed-of privilege, his memory could thus retrace the progress and entire life history of his mind from the earliest acquired ideas down to the latest ones to unfold, from the most confused down to the most lucid. His brain, which while still young was habituated to the difficult mechanism of the concentration of human forces, drew from this rich ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... him. And he would even climb up to his beloved platform without waiting for the excuse of an attack, and there, crouching down like a cat ready to spring, as soon as he saw any one appear in the distance without giving the signal, he would try his skill upon the target, and make the man retrace his steps. This he called sweeping ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... of clay and alabaster slabs were no longer covered with wedges by the Assyrian scribes. They had recounted their victories and conquests at length, but not one among them, so far as we know, cared to retrace the dismal history of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... summit of the mountain, she came even immediately below me and conversed on the most fastidious topics with the gardener; but to the top of that wall she would not dedicate a glance! At last she began to retrace her steps in the direction of the cottage; whereupon, becoming quite desperate, I broke off a piece of plaster, took a happy aim, and hit her with it in the nape of the neck. She clapped her hand to the place, turned about, looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... barely had time to go up to the door and retrace her steps! What did it mean? Not at home? But Mr Vanburgh was always at home. According to report, his farthest expedition was into the garden, where surely he would be able to receive a visitor on a bright spring afternoon. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... among the islands until they reached the mouth of the Ogeechee, up which they turned, but night overtook them, and they were forced to drop their anchor. The Indians had been left behind somewhere, and with the return of day it became necessary to retrace their course for some hours in order to learn where they were. That night was spent at Sterling's Bluff, with the Scotch who had settled upon it, and the next morning they proceeded to Fort Argyle. As they rowed up the river, a bear left one of the islands, and swam across ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... indolence and reverie that the climate of Italy inspires, was to be replaced by a positive destiny. They visited Pompei together, the most curious ruin of antiquity. At Rome, seldom any thing is found but the remains of public monuments, and these monuments only retrace the political history of past ages; but at Pompei it is the private life of the ancients which offers itself to the view, such as it was. The Volcano, which has covered this city with ashes, has preserved ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... days now he had traveled without fear. Sometimes the Time Observatory would pinpoint an age and hover over it while his companions took painstaking historical notes. Sometimes it would retrace its course and circle back. A new age would come under scrutiny and more ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... electrostatic telegraphs up to an epoch at which telegraphy had already entered upon a more practical road, and it now remains for us to retrace our steps toward those apparatus that are based upon the use of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... would they come, leaning heavily upon the staff—but they knew their accustomed places, the places which were so soon to know them no more forever; when the service was over, they would retrace their steps to the door of the now deserted church, and backward turning, would cast one longing, lingering look behind, then set their peaceful faces towards their home, the long rough journey ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... first to jaunt to Rochdale. Now Matthews is gone, and Hobhouse in Ireland, I have hardly one left there to bid me welcome, except my inviter. At three-and-twenty I am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? It is true I am young enough to begin again, but with whom can I retrace the laughing part of life? It is odd how few of my friends have died a quiet death,—I mean, in their beds. But a quiet life is of more consequence. Yet one loves squabbling and jostling better than yawning. This last word ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... lure us on to their own stronghold, and had we fallen into the trap, it would perhaps have resembled, on a smaller scale, the Olustee of the following year. With a good deal of reluctance, however, I caused the recall to be sounded, and, after a slight halt, we began to retrace ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... denounced, me as a person under a dangerous influence, and that if I would listen more to some other opinions all would be well. My answer invariably has been that I had never discovered anything in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicions in my mind of his insincerity; that, if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the administration, abundant proofs would occur to him that truth and right decisions were the sole objects of my pursuit; that there were as many instances within his own knowledge ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... find her way back to that minute spot in the field where her nest is made, a feat quite impossible to you or me, so indistinguishable to our eye is that square inch of ground in which her hole is made; or if the fur seal could not in spring retrace its course to the islands upon which it breeds, through a thousand leagues of pathless sea water, how soon the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... to the pay of his chief foreman it would have changed the ratio between that and the wages of the others, unless theirs, too, was increased. In that event, a reproof was likely to come from the directors, and he would find it hard to retrace his steps. ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... if they were about to retrace their way along the steep incline by which they had approached the camp. Halting abruptly at the question, before either could speak Fred continued, "You talk a good deal like a man who has not been trained as most of the Indians I have seen around ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... Maria, do you never retrace in your memory the time we passed here when together? to mine it recurs for ever! And yet I think I rather recollect a dream, or some visionary fancy, than a reality.-That I should ever have been known to Lord Orville,-that ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... be likely to mistake my meaning, and to suppose that I look back with any fond regret at the departure of the feudal system, or that I should wish to bring the present generation under its influence. Mankind does not so retrace its steps. But still, though the course of our race is onwards, the nature of man does not change. There is the same need for protection and countenance on the one side, and for reverence and attachment on the other, that there ever has been; and the fact ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... Lefevre! There is a depth of life—life on the lees—that is worse than death! If I could retrace my steps to the beginning of this, taking my knowledge with me, then—! But no, I must go my appointed way, and face what is beyond.... But let me tell you ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... when we must put our 'fate to the touch, to win or lose it all;' there are times when doubt, hesitation, caution is certain destruction. You are crossing a frozen pond, firm by the shore, but as you near the centre, the ice beneath your feet begins to crack; hesitate, attempt to retrace your steps, and you are gone. Did you ever cross a rapid stream on an unhewn foot-log? You looked down at the swift current, stopped, turned back, and over you went. You would climb a steep mountain-side. Half-way up, look not from the dizzy hight, but press on, grasping every tough laurel ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... because He is the image of the Father; and a defaced image cannot be repaired by its own action, but by the action of him who seeks to restore it. Our action then should be, to put ourselves into a position to suffer the action of God, and to allow the Word to retrace His image in us. An image, if it could move, would by its movement prevent the sculptor's perfecting it. Every movement of our own hinders the work of the Heavenly Sculptor, and ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... any returning," he said gravely. "None of us can go backwards. Yesterday is but a step away, but can we retrace that step? No, ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell |
