"Retract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sinners, and break all the commands, yet come to particulars, and I know not one of twenty that will cordially or seriously take with almost any sin. Yea, what you have granted in a general, you retract and deny it in all the particulars, which declares both that even that which you seem to know, you are altogether strangers to the real truth of it, and that you are over blinded with a fond love of yourselves. I know not to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do you not see that it alarms the lady and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... straightforward and peremptory warning was justified by its effects; that Bismarck was taken aback and discomfited by the resolute attitude of the French ministry, supported enthusiastically by the Chamber of Deputies; and that Prince Antoine was thereby so intimidated as to compel his son Leopold to retract his acceptance of the Spanish crown. On the other hand, this stern language alarmed cautious deputies, and though it stirred Paris to a pitch of wild excitement it was read with uneasiness in the cooler air of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... pass the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... chisel, with words, ideas, theories, systems. Civilization is atrocious! It denies bread to the men who give it luxury. It starves them on sneers and curses, the beggarly rascal! My words may be strong, but I shall not retract them. Well, this great but neglected man comes to us; we recognize his greatness; we salute him with respect; we listen to him. He says to us: 'Gentlemen, my life and talents are worth so much; on my productions I will pay you such or such percentage.' Very good; what do we do? Instantly, ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... Stanley's bill, were those of Mr Balfe, chairman of the "committee of grievances;" a discharged dragoon, who was contradicted in almost every statement he made by the most respectable persons on their oaths, and who was obliged to retract some voluntarily; and of Mr Byrne, of the value of whose opinion, or whose statements, we can form some estimate, from the following extract from the evidence of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... from him some information respecting the terms and consequences of the censure which was then pronounced against him. He was afraid that it might compromise his personal safety if he went to Italy; that he would be compelled to retract his opinions; that the censure might extend to Austria; that the sale of his work would be ruined; and that he must either abandon his country ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... compromise, make a compromise; be thrown off one's balance, stagger like a drunken man; be afraid &c 860; let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would' [Macbeth]; falter, waver vacillate &c 149; change &c 140; retract &c 607; fluctuate; pendulate^; alternate &c (oscillate) 314; keep off and on, play fast and loose; blow hot and cold &c (caprice) 608. shuffle, palter, blink; trim. Adj. irresolute, infirm of purpose, double-minded, half-hearted; undecided, unresolved, undetermined; shilly-shally; fidgety, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... now twelve years since he began almost constant travelling, winter and summer, in the interior of Alaska. He has described nothing that he has not seen; ventured no judgment that he has not well digested, and has nothing to retract or even modify; but he would repeat and emphasise a caution of the original preface. Alaska is not one country but many countries, and so widely do they differ from one another in almost every respect that no general statements ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... and her heart suddenly chilled. She had wondered how far she might go with this clever churchman, and now she knew that she had gone too far. But to retract—to have him relate this conversation and her retraction to the Beaubien—were fatal! She had set her trap—and walked into it. She groped blindly for an answer. Then, raising her eyes and meeting his searching glance, she murmured feebly, "Whenever ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... outrageous at this contempt of his authority, got his hat with the intention of compelling her to return and retract, in their presence, what she had said; but the daughter, being the more light-footed of the two, reached home before he could overtake her, where, backed by her mother, she maintained her resolution, and succeeded, ere long, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... had been in February. After three months' deliberation I had published my retractation of the violent charges which I had made against Rome: I could not be wrong in doing so much as this; but I did no more at the time: I did not retract my Anglican teaching. My second act had been in September in the same year: after much sorrowful lingering and hesitation, I had resigned my Living. I tried indeed, before I did so, to keep Littlemore for myself, even tho it was still to remain an integral part of St. Mary's.[6] I ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... kneel! Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes, Have pity on thy self-abhorring child! If not for me, yet for my innocent wife, 270 Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, Permitting me again ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra del Fuego endeavoured to explain ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... said Margaret coloring prettily. She was half-frightened at the significance of her own words, when she had spoken them. But it was too late to retract. It took Wyvis Brand a moment only to leap the brook, and to find himself at her side. Then, taking off his hat and bowing low, he presented her with the flowers that he had gathered. She thanked him with ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been as brothers, and we know not their language: but I do come to demand you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will join in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... world may smile at the sanguine utterances of the first four lectures: but it has not been wholly my own fault that they have remained unfulfilled; nor do I retract one word of hope for the success of other masters, nor a single promise made to the sincerity of the student's labor, on the lines here indicated. It would have been necessary to my success, that I should have accepted permanent residence in Oxford, and scattered none of my energy ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... after he had given the license aforesaid, and that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil aforesaid for the use of the Company; and wholly failing in his attempts to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... intended to give the culprit an occasion for apology, of which they foresaw he would not avail himself. With regard to the second, it is true that Shelley was amenable to kindness, and that gentle and wise treatment from men whom he respected might possibly have brought him to retract his syllabus. But it must be remembered that he despised the Oxford dons with all his heart; and they were probably aware of this. He was a dexterous, impassioned reasoner, whom they little cared to encounter in argument on such a topic. During his short ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... hoss power suction, K. VANDERBILT is your man. I ones thought I could never take a locker to this 'ere honest old heart, but as I cast my gaze over this audience, and observe among the Bulls and Bears, a cuple of Dears, I will retract that, payin' in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... lists, and conducted Huon to Charlemagne. The Emperor, however, listening to nothing but his resentment and grief for the death of his son, refused to be satisfied; and under the plea that Huon had not succeeded in making his accuser retract his charge seemed resolved to confiscate his estates and to banish him forever from France. It was not till after long entreaties on the part of Duke Namo and the rest that he consented to grant Huon his pardon, under conditions which ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... (83) It remains only to call attention to the fact that I have written nothing which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and approval of my country's rulers; and that I am willing to retract anything which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws, or prejudicial to the public good. (84) I know that I am a man, and as a man liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and have striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... abandonment of armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... to reply to a critic who suggested that in emphasizing the role of the secret societies in World Revolution I had abandoned my former thesis of the Orleaniste conspiracy. I wish therefore to state that I do not retract one word I wrote in The French Revolution on the Orleaniste conspiracy, I merely supply a further explanation of its efficiency by enlarging on the aid it received from the party I referred to as the Subversives—outcome of the masonic lodges. It was because the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... deathbed he was admonished to retract his extraordinary narrative. No reliance was placed on his words, and even at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were learned men who maintained that his whole story was an excellently planned romance. The narrative taken down in prison ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... espoused the cause of Warbeck, and attended him upon an invasion of England, though he would not formally retract his judgment of Perkin, wherein he had engaged himself so far, yet in his private opinion, upon often speech with the Englishmen, and diverse other advertisements, began to suspect him for a counterfeit. Wherefore in a noble fashion he called him unto him, and recounted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... James II. and crowned William and Mary. It was ably refuted by the Jesuit Suarez in his reply to a Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings by the James I.; and a Spanish monk who had asserted it in Madrid, under Philip II., was compelled by the Inquisition to retract it publicly in the place where he had asserted it. All republicans reject it, and the Church has never sanctioned it. The Sovereign Pontiffs have claimed and exercised the right to deprive princes of their principality, and to absolve their subjects from the oath of fidelity. Whether ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... views a stubborn fact from a new angle, it is amazing how all its contours and edges change shape! Immediately my dishpan began to glow with a kind of philosophic halo! The warm, soapy water became a sovereign medicine to retract hot blood from the head; the homely act of washing and drying cups and saucers became a symbol of the order and cleanliness that man imposes on the unruly world about him. I tore down my book rack and reading lamp ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... tell yet; there is much that you will need done. I am very glad that you have decided in this way, Olive dear, though I know it was a sacrifice; but your art will become none the less precious through delay, and your decision shows a desire to retract some hasty judgments, and do justice to a peculiar old man, who, with all his faults and vagaries, has a heart ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... secretly prevailed upon his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt his conscience greatly eased after this action—which, too, he could always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of form, so far as the property it involved ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he said, still addressing Estella, 'it is probably a matter of indifference to you, as it is merely an opinion expressed by myself which I wish to retract. When I first had the pleasure of meeting you, I took it upon myself to speak of a guest in your father's house, fortunately in the presence of that guest himself, and I now wish to tell you that what I said does not apply ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... and liberty to protest that I have. A German physician told me plainly that he thought that within six months I would change my view, and with the new light go over to the position of his native land, and even thought that I might retract all my studies, that are apparently prejudiced in favor of the republic and self-government and the liberty of the press. Well, if I do change my views and am converted to his viewpoint, I certainly will ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... the loftiest cathedral in England. Nay, more; if the child of love be acknowledged by the father at the time when he is baptized—if he present the mother to strangers of respectability as his wife, the laws of Scotland will not allow him to retract the justice which has, in these actions, been done to the female whom he has wronged, or the offspring of their mutual love. This General Tresham, or Witherington, treated my unhappy mother as his wife before Gray and others, quartered her as ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... art mine! Did we not interchange vows in our innocent childhood? are we not one in the sight of God? and shall thy cold-hearted, cold-blooded father divide us? Be generous, my love, be just; take not away a gift, last treasure of thy Guido—retract not thy vows—let us defy the world, and setting at naught the calculations of age, find in our mutual affection a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... to Jack's own eyes and he stood apart while the mother and daughter kissed. After that, and when they had gone on a little before him and Eddy, Mrs. Upton turned to him, and if she readjusted herself she didn't, as it were, retract, for the smile again rested on him while Eddy presented him to her. He saw then that she had suffered, though with a suffering different from any that he would have thought of as obvious. How or what she had suffered he could not tell, but the pale, weary features, for all their smile, reassured ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... engrossed by one whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done. I can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... whose essence is to expand a place within its own sphere of activity. One of them will necessarily nullify the other, for every existing thing aims at the greatest possible development of its own forces. A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing comedy with comedy the least perilous and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it, meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her and thought it time ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... general charges he had nothing to retract. His representations had not been too strongly stated, for the most disgraceful circumstances were those which rested upon public notoriety, or upon his own personal knowledge. It had been stated that he had overestimated the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... in Canaan, but it occurred to him suddenly that even in Canaan there might be social gradations, and that the tramp-boy, rare little chap though he seemed to be, was probably miles away from the daughter of the promoter, Mr. Crittenton Madeira. "I retract, Piney," he ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... negro or colored, male or female quadroon, mulatto, samboes, half breeds or mules, mongrels or conglomerates" in public institutions. Larwill was at once called to account for his action and a resolution was introduced calling upon him to retract. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... of character, want of charm—is flatly a falsehood.[509] Neither mouth nor eyes can beat it in that respect; and if it has less variety individually, it gives perhaps more general character to the face than either. However, he is, if I mistake not, obliged to retract partially ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... he—a clearer, more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my pledge—that—" he paused and the silence was tremendous. He went on, each word distinct and by itself—"if I am elected"—a ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... foes in that palpable road to honour which the world's hard eyes can see, and the world's cold heart can measure; but prouder is it to feel that you have never advanced one step to the goal, which remembrance would retract. No, my friend, wait your time, confident that it must come, when conscience and ambition can go hand-in-hand—when the broad objects of a luminous and enlarged policy lie before you like a chart, and you can calculate every step of the way without peril of ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like to retract my refusal of your very kind invitation for to-morrow evening. I have explained to you my weak avoidance of crowds. I have determined to overcome it in this case, and I want your permission ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... another hint at the same time: that as soon as the pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... him. Nothing was more evident than that he thought her silly. But as she paused, too, standing beneath the street-lamp, and he saw her with her nonchalant tilt of her head,—that handsome head poised on her strong, erect body,—her force and value were so impressed upon him that he had to retract. But she was provoking, no getting ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... suits, and conciliate differences. And no suit is to be commenced before the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... accuse unbelievers of insincerity, because they sometimes waver in their principles, alter their minds in sickness, and retract at death. When the body is disordered, the faculty of reasoning is commonly disordered with it. At the approach of death, man, weak and decayed, is sometimes himself sensible that Reason abandons him, and that Prejudice ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... cast an imputation upon me, Jocelyn Mounchensey," he cried with concentrated fury, "which you shall be compelled to retract as publicly as you have made it. To insult an officer of the Crown, in the discharge of his duty, is to insult the Crown itself, as you will find. In the King's name, I command you to hold your peace, or, in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... late to retract, Rigdon perceived with dismay that, instead of acquiring a silly bondsman, he had subjected himself to a superior will; he was now himself a slave, bound by fear and interest, his two great guides through life. Smith consequently became, instead of Rigdon, "the elect of God," ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... in private conversation with the Prince, condemned this resolution, and endeavoured to instil some suspicion of the courage and fidelity of those who had promoted it. The Prince was easily persuaded that he had been too complaisant in consenting to a retreat, but would not retract the consent he had given, unless he could bring back those to whom he had given it over to his own sentiments; which he hoped he might be able to do, since the Secretary had altered his opinion. With this view he called another meeting of the Council, in the evening, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... * *!" My heart sank. If it had been any other spot in England! But it was too late to retract. Sandy saw what was the matter, and tried to turn the subject; but I was peremptory, almost rude with him. I felt I must keep up my present excitement, or lose my heart, and my caste, for ever; and as the hour for the committee was at ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... It also favours the inclusion in the wound of a foreign body, such as the broken point of a knife, or a piece of glass. The bleeding from scalp wounds is often profuse and difficult to control, because the vessels, fixed as they are in the dense subcutaneous tissue, cannot retract and contract so as to bring about the natural arrest of haemorrhage, and it is difficult to apply forceps or ligatures to their cut ends, suture ligatures are more efficient. On account of the free arterial anastomosis in the deeper layers of the integument, large flaps of scalp ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... of the Chaldaeans. Let our gods fight. I have spoken; thou hast heard; I add nothing and retract nothing." ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... painting. He has the serenity of Virgil, but wants the fire of Homer. There is nothing in his Parnassus which struck me, but the ludicrous impropriety of Apollo's playing upon a fiddle, for the entertainment of the nine muses. [Upon better information I must retract this censure; in as much, as I find there was really a Musical Instrument among the antients of this Figure, as appears by a small statue in Bronze, to be still seen ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... desponding; the physician had spoken of the case as hopeless, and likely to terminate rapidly; and Gilbert, who was always at the worst in the morning, had shown no symptom that could lead his father to retract his first impression. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... long before I have either house or wife," said Edmund, in the same tone, "but mind, Marian, it is a bargain, unless you grow so fond of the Lyddells as to retract." ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and even severe, but we think we have expressed the sentiments and feelings of the people of Maine, suffering under protracted injuries. This State should take a firm, deliberate, and dignified stand, and one which it will not retract. While it awards to the General Government all its legitimate powers, it will not be forgetful of its own. We call upon the President and Congress. We invoke that aid and sympathy of our sister States which Maine has always accorded to them. We ask, nay we demand, in the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... Lionel Verner was growing to love her? Sometimes she would glance at another phase of the picture: That Lionel had been growing to love her; but that Sibylla Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract. She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away, or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory, regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances were ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... remain in riper years.—Another parliamentary election. O my God elect me 'through sanctification of Thy Spirit.'—My mind suffers keenly in consequence of a conversation with ——. Thou, Lord, knowest exactly where the error lies; let it be discovered. If I am in the wrong make me willing to retract. I want to be a Christian in deed and truth.—It was impressed upon my mind to call upon Miss M. H., and urge her to seek salvation, having long been a hearer of the Gospel. I scarcely knew how to break through, as I had no particular acquaintance with her. However, passing by the same day, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... though, having printed the ghastly falsehood in my original article, I can hardly hope now for absolution from the outraged South, I can at least retract, as I hereby do, and can, moreover, thank Mr. H.E. Jones, of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, for having saved me from a double sin; for had he not given me the simple illustration of the grocery store, I might have repeated, now, my ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved his hand and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... take notice that though I confess that this way removes all notions of a miraculous conduct, yet I do not retract what I have said formerly, that the system of occasional causes does not bring in God acting miraculously. (See M. Leibniz's article in Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants, July 1698.) I am as much persuaded as ever I was ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... appointing this commission, between his sense of what was due to the character and services of Columbus, and his anxiety to retract with delicacy the powers vested in him. A pretext at length was furnished by the recent request of the admiral that a person of talents and probity, learned in the law, might be sent out to act as chief judge; ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... confession which I care to hear. You made it once, though you are not willing to repeat it. But I have your word, Sylvia; I am content. Not all the world could make me believe that you would willingly retract that word." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... for cruelty, implies, in such a state as Parthia, considerable powers of management. His dealings with Augustus indicate much suppleness and dexterity. If he did not in the course of his long reign advance the Parthian frontier, at any rate he was not obliged to retract it. Apparently, he ceded nothing to the Scyths as the price of their assistance. He maintained the Parthian supremacy over Northern Media. He lost no inch of territory to the Romans. It was undoubtedly a prudent step on his part to soothe the irritated vanity of Rome by a surrender of useless ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... what it was to feel despicable. He would, in this moment, have relinquished all his hope to be able to retract those words. He was like a beaten dog before her; and the excess of ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... "Waverley," Sir Walter Scott remarks:—"These introductory chapters have been a good deal censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or cancel." So if, in giving certain loose hints rather than sketches of characters and manners in a very interesting town, ardently beloved by all who have ever had any near connection with it, during a former generation of its inhabitants, I should ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard—he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... policy, if it must be, by force, the mongrel measure of concession and obstinacy which the Court had carried against the proposals of Necker. That victory was reversed, and the success of the Commons was complete. They had brought the three orders into one; they had compelled the king to retract his declaration and to restore his disgraced minister; they had exposed the weakness of their oppressors, and they had the nation ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... space; by the shiver that came over her frame; by the start of terror; by the look that did not dare to turn behind. Bitterly he repented his confession; bitterly he felt that between his sufferings and human sympathy there could be no gentle and holy commune; vainly he sought to retract,—to undo what he had done, to declare all was but the chimera ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... good opinion: recommended Logan's[36]—one poet should always speak for another. The mission, I suppose, was a little display on the part of good Mrs. Coutts of authority over her high aristocratic suitor. I do not suspect her of turning devote, and retract my consent given as above, unless she remains ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... he makes the amende honorable. "I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one." To ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... often before. I so far thought of my father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as much ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be an oath of some weight in a city ruled by one of his descendants—I cannot retract a word ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... my fifties I killed more men of your kidney than I am proud of. Retract? I never retract;" and the marquis snapped his fingers under ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... embarrassing to all present, Mr HAGERUP pointed out the two only possible alternatives with reference to the decision; to retract, or to rupture. The latter alternative he evidently found most acceptable, and in Norway's real interest, he warned them as to what the issue might be. He proposed that the decision with respect to these eventualities—which ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... arose, "We shall see," said they of the Sorbonne, "what sort of folks hold to Luther. Why, that fellow is worse than Luther!" In April, 1521, the University solemnly condemned Luther's writings, ordering that they should be publicly burned, and that the author should be compelled to retract. The Syndic of the Sorbonne, Noel Bedier, who, to give his name a classical twang, was called Beda, had been the principal and the most eager actor in this procedure; he was a theologian full of subtlety, obstinacy, harshness, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... your opinion on this head. When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us; and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... arms tightly round her father's neck, he considered it the better part of valour to take back his words. "All right," he said, "rather than be garroted,—I retract! You're a beautiful and dignified lady, and your notions of convention ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... spurious, and containing many other falsehoods, so as to shake men's souls with rumours, and arouse popular prejudices. The army was tampered with; the nobles and clergy were in treaty with Holland. James not only refused to retract his policy till it was too late; but refused, too, the offer of Louis to send ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... most charming person; and Lady Leonora, on her side, asked Meta who was that very elegant conversible girl. "Flora May," was the delighted answer, now that the aunt had committed herself by commendation. And she did not retract it; she pronounced Flora to be something quite out of the common way, and supposed that she had had ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Professor Hodge asserts, that "slavery may exist without those laws which interfere with their (the slaves) marital or parental right" Now, this is a point of immense importance in the discussion of the question, whether slavery is sinful; and I, therefore, respectfully ask him either to retract the assertion, or to prove its correctness. Ten thousands of his fellow-citizens, to whom the assertion is utterly incredible, unite with me in this request. If he can show, that slavery does not "interfere with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pardon me. It is not that I am more exempt from youthful folly than others. Born with a heart too susceptible for my peace, I am continually guilty of irregularities, that I immediately wish, but am unable to retract. But friendship, in however frail a bosom she resides, cannot permit her own follies to dispense her from guarding those she loves ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... did not know whether she was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... better proof of the revolution in the public opinion, as to the powers of the monarch, and of the force, too, of that opinion. Six weeks ago, we saw the King displaying the plentitude of his omnipotence, as hitherto conceived, to enforce these two acts. At this day, he is forced to retract them by the public voice; for as to the opposition of the parliament, that body is too little esteemed to produce this effect in any case where the public do not throw ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... firmly. "This is no time for dealing with such a matter. I have enough on my hands to keep the enemy at a distance, and I want every one's help. But as soon as we are relieved— if we ever are—I am bound, unless Captain Roby and the corporal retract all they have said and attribute it to delirium—I am bound, I say, to call the attention of my superiors to the matter. I shall do so unwillingly, but I must. Out of respect to your brother officers, and for ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... are hardly likely to yield to Mr. Foxton in our love of Plato, for whom we have expressed, and that very recently, (April, 1848,) no stinted admiration: and what we have there affirmed we are by no means disposed to retract,—that no ancient author has approached, in the expression of ethical truth, so near to the maxims and sometimes the very expressions, of the Gospel. Nevertheless, we as strongly affirm, that he who contrasts (whatever the occasional sublimity ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... contents are now gradually forming themselves into the spore or "gonidium," as Carpenter calls it, in distinction from the true sexual spores, which he terms "oospores." At the extreme end of the filament (which is obtusely conical in shape) the chlorophyl grains retract from the old cellulose wall, leaving a very evident clear space. In a less noticeable degree, this is also the case in the other parts of the circumference of the cell, and, apparently, the granular contents have secreted a separate envelope entirely distinct from the parent filament. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... I been charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent and nothing to conceal—nothing to retract and nothing to countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which charge others with crime. Further, my lords, I could not acknowledge culpability ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... could obtain admission. He was a great favourite with some of the west country gentlemen of that faction, by reason of his unbending impudence. No opposition could for a moment cause him either to blush, or retract one item that he had advanced. Therefore the Duke of Argyle and his friends made such use of him as sportsmen often do of terriers, to start the game, and make a great yelping noise to let them know whither the chase is proceeding. They ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... look fierce like that. Nobody but Lydia believes him. Now that you are back again, I am sure that he will retract.' ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... reason she worked with such unflinching industry, just as she had worked in the last month or two at the Grange, trying to shut her eyes to that hateful future which lay so close before her. Mr. Whitelaw had no reason to retract what he had said in his pride of heart about Ellen Carley's proficiency in the dairy. She proved herself all that he had boasted, and the dairy flourished under the new management. There was more butter, and butter of a superior quality, sent to market than under ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... ear, sir,' said the old man in a hurried whisper. 'I have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can only plead that I have done all for the best—that it is too late to retract, if I could (though I cannot)—and that I hope to triumph yet. All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave. I would ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... "What a fool I am!" he groaned. "The tale was unspeakable. It is enough to ruin any reputation. And Wilkie's not the man to retract either; he'll tell me the mistake's my own and I'll have to grin and ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... she poured forth her supplications and urged her request. But it was all in vain that she wept and prayed. Paul Bussa turned a deaf ear to her pleadings; declared that his word was pledged, that nothing should ever persuade him to retract it; and he insisted that, as a dutiful daughter, she should submit herself to his will. Seeing him thus immovable, Francesca rose from her knees, withdrew in silence from his presence, and retiring into her little oratory, prostrated herself ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... than one day to compass a man!' Yesterday you had such a sentimental pathetic air, when I permitted myself to administer a little correction to my serf, that I took you in all simplicity for a philanthropist. I retract it now. You are one of those tyrants who are only moved for the victims of another. Pure professional jealousy! But," continued he, "there is one thing which astonishes me still more, and that is, that you Gilbert, you ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... warn you that I am not going to tell you the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper; you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and tell you that I am a titiretero, (player of marionettes,) and that I practised ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... controversy between the mendicant and other orders was revived towards the end of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass, who maintained opinions still more extreme than those of Fitz-Ralph; but he was compelled publicly and solemnly to retract them before Commissioners appointed for that purpose in the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... believed him in perfect health. But it would require a heart of stone and an outrageous cupidity to feel no sorrow at the terrible fate which my uncle and his daughter may have met. As to what I have said of avarice, that passion whose consequences are so fruitful, I retract nothing; only I might have treated the subject more seriously had I known it to be a personal question. But I have, at least, proved that I am not of those who receive an inheritance with cynical joy. Now, my dear Louis, forgive me if I ask a question which may revive ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... retract my words in asking you if you feared to go to the fort as courier, for your volunteering as driver proves that ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... confute, and therefore referred me to the Cardinal, but I found he understood those things no better than her Majesty. He spoke to me with the haughtiest air in the world, refused to hear my justification, and commanded me in the King's name to retract publicly the next day in full assembly. You may imagine how difficult it was for me to resolve what to do. However, I did not break out beyond the bounds of modest respect, and, finding that my submission ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... so much, tries to retract a little.] Disgrace was too strong a word—I didn't mean that. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. Good God, can't you see it? And if you love me, why don't ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... anchor itself and lie by when occasion offers. It is provided with two long cables, prettily set with spiral filaments or tendrils, by means of which it can make fast to any point. When not in use, it can retract them, and stow them away in two sacs or pouches within the body, where they may be seen coiled up, through the transparent walls. The mouth is a simple opening at one pole of the globular body. No arms are needed. The beroe ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... ungenerous sneer as soon as he spoke. But his blood was up, and before Drew's menacing attitude he would not retract. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... perfect brute," he said hurriedly. "At first I thought you were simply playing a game with me; but, without knowing it, we drifted into earnestness. If any word of mine has seriously vexed you, I apologize and retract." ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... Vienna, after the sanction was granted, steps were taken to retract it; I went to the Arch-Duke Stephen, the Palatine of Hungary, the first constitutional authority of Hungary,—the elective viceroy, and told him he ought to return to Hungary if he ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... your Majesty's pardon,' said Berenger, anxious to retract his false step. 'It was your goodness and the gracious Queen's that made me hope ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Burton, be on his death-bed unable to speak I perhaps already dead—and that he may wish to have the grace to retract and recant his former errors, and to join the Catholic Church, and also to receive the Sacraments of Penance, Extreme Unction, and Holy Eucharist, he might perhaps be able to sign this paper, or make the sign of the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... the directors of the Scottish company were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in administering and taking an oath de fideli in this kingdom, and that they should be impeached for the same. Meanwhile, Roderick Mackenzie, from whom they had received their chief information, began to retract his evidence, and was ordered into custody; but he made his escape and could not be retaken, although the king at their request issued a proclamation for that purpose. The Scots were extremely incensed against the king when they understood he had disowned their company, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... it possible but that reflecting men, who perceived this truth, should mistrust those Representatives of the People, who could not have acted less prudently, had they been utterly unconscious of it! But they had committed themselves and did not retract; either from unabating devotion to their cause, or from false honour, and that self-injuring consistency, the favourite sister of obstinacy, which the mixed conscience of mankind is but too apt to produce. Meanwhile the tactics of Parliament must continue in exercise ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... communications to me. God knows I wish to love and respect you, but when, under solemn circumstances, you utter, by your own admission, a deliberate falsehood to a man of the purest truth and honor; when you knowingly and wilfully mislead him for selfish and ambitious purposes;—nay, I will retract these words, and suppose it is from an anxiety to secure me rank and happiness,—I say, father, when you thus forget all that constitutes the integrity and dignity of man, and stoop to the discreditable meanness of falsehood, I ask you, is ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to truth, it is not my intention to retract, in the smallest degree, the opinion I have ever professed, that the restoration of the ancient monarchy of France would be the best possible means not only of securing the different states of Europe from the dangers of republican anarchy, but of promoting the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... have set spies upon my track. You have told these husbands that their wives need watching. You have turned them against me and against their wives, who are as pure and virtuous as the snow which you never see. (God, forgive me!) All this, my friend, in order to get even with me. I don't ask you to retract anything you've said. I only intend you to know that I can crush you as I would a peanut, if you know what ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... appreciation of your character. I remember now what my present is. I had an awful night in consequence of it. I felt as though one of my limbs was being severed from my body. Nevertheless, my dear, I don't retract nor go back, for that is not my way. I give you this most noble gift with a distinct object. I have lately been examining all your foreheads. Although I have appeared to take little notice of you, I have watched you as day by day I have enjoyed the excellent food provided by your ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy which could not ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... swaying plumage of the pines. The shock of his discovery left him suddenly feeling very sad and very much alone. It was as if he had buried the friend of half a century. Yet even to bring Janoah back he could not retract the words he had uttered or exchange the light he followed for Janoah's sinister beckonings. In spite of a certain reasonableness in the pessimist's logic; in spite of circumstances he was incapable of explaining; in spite, even, of Cynthia Galbraith, a latent belief in Robert Morton's integrity ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... before him and fully examined, that he would take back what he had said. "No atonement," the letter concluded, "will be accepted, that is not first approved of by the plaintiff in the suit." Barber was not (p. 186) disposed either to retract or to investigate the accuracy of the facts he had stated. He published the letter, however, with the usual solemn declaration that seems to be kept in type in all newspaper offices, that in doing what he had done he had been actuated solely by the noblest motives; that he had not published ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... was even pleased with the apprehended ingenuity of my discoveries. But the whole was a mistake, which, whilst it will be a warning to myself, may furnish an instructive lesson to others. At the same time, I do not retract the character which I have given of the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Whoever was the author of that performance, it does credit to his abilities and to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that follows "a revoke"? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the shame that attends on "a false score"? Would they be so ready to assert what they know they must retract, if they had a recent recollection of being called on "to take down ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... began to feel very uncomfortable; he did not like the style of thing at all, and half repented of having pledged himself; but it was now too late to retract, and an irresistible power seemed to draw him onwards. The old men led them to the castle chapel. Lights already burned on the high altar; monuments of gleaming white marble, ornamented with weapons ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusions, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this work? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... conversing with me, gave me clearly to understand that he did not think the Jacobins guilty. I mentioned this to the First Consul, but nothing could make him retract his opinion. "Fouche," said he, "has good reason for his silence. He is serving his own party. It is very natural that he should seek to screen a set of men who are polluted with blood and crimes! He was one of their leaders. Do not I know what he did at Lyons ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... in what would seem to us a very harsh way; but from the standpoint of the council he was given every advantage. By special favor he was granted a public hearing. The council was anxious that Huss should retract; but no form of retraction could be arranged to which he would agree. The council, in accordance with the usages of the time, demanded that he should recognize the error of all the propositions which they had selected from his writings, that he should ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... form in a certain measure one great whole, and mutually supply each other; and because too, the author having in part first explored unknown regions, and having of course sometimes found it necessary to retract hypotheses started in his earlier writings, his works cannot well be separated. He wrote mostly in German; sometimes in Latin; while comparatively very few of his numerous books are in the Bohemian language. In this way only could they gain that kind of universality, which ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... what, Shall her Grace fancy herself as hail at Fourscore as she was at Forty? Accordingly, he lends her his Hand, and she is led very dangerously ill into his Paper. The next Morning he is obliged to retract it, and so the Publick are Gainers ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... the day, had set forth to argue the matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... misrepresentations had in the beginning been due to inexperience and ignorance of an undertaking which it required scientific knowledge to successfully carry out. When the truth had been gradually borne in upon him as the work progressed, he felt that it was too late to explain or retract if he would raise more money and keep his position. The real cost he believed would frighten possible investors and with the peculiar sanguineness of the short-sighted, he thought that it would ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... perhaps by an unfortunate experience. And in proportion as that was possible, the chances increased that the accuser might, as the examinations advanced, and the winning character of the accused party began to develop itself, begin to see his error, and to retract his own over-hasty suspicions. But now we saw at a glance that for this hope there was no countenance whatever, since one solitary circumstance sufficed to establish a conspiracy. The deposition bore—that the lace had been secreted and afterwards detected in a ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... present occasion by a consciousness of the spirited and generous condescension she was exerting. Mr. Falkland led her up to the astonished count; and she, gently laying her hand upon the arm of her lover, exclaimed with the most attractive grace, "Will you allow me to retract the precipitate haughtiness into which I was betrayed?" The enraptured count, scarcely able to believe his senses, threw himself upon his knees before her, and stammered out his reply, signifying that ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the field, Elsie among them, had hoped, they said, that the wool-comber would retract from his dangerous position. Recalling their words, Jacqueline asked herself would she choose to have him retract? She reminded herself of the only martyr whose memory she loved, the glorious girl from Domremy, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... not stoop to retract your meaning," rejoined Bertrand. "And since you are content to refer it to my pleasure, I ought not to value myself too low. So I will give and engage for my freedom one hundred ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... "Come, come; I retract my sneers. You begin to excite my admiration. I shall undoubtedly shoot you before I'm taken, but it shall be your comfort to die ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jonathan J. Twang sat down amid immense cheers; at the conclusion of which, Mr. Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods, requested—he, Peter P. Pellican, being from Orleans—that Mr. Jonathan J. Twang would retract certain words derogatory to the state represented by Peter P. Pellican. Mr. Jonathan J. Twang replied in the following determined refusal:—"I beg to inform the last speaker, Mr. Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods, that I'll see him tee-totatiously tarred, feathered, and physicked ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... passing fair, waxed wroth out of wit. "Thou must forego that ho ever do you a vassal's service; he is worthier than my brother Gunther, the full noble man. Thou must retract what I have heard thee say. Certes, it wondereth me, sith he be thy vassal and thou hast so much power over us twain, why he hath rendered thee no tribute so long a time. By right I should be spared ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... denial of baptism to be the initiating ordinance. And indeed Mr. D'Anvers told me, that you must retract that opinion, and that he had, or would speak to you to do it; yet by some it is still so acknowledged to be; and in particular, by your great helper, Mr. Denne, who strives to maintain it by several arguments; but your denial may be a sufficient ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... personally, was of course nothing; but no power should keep him from carrying through his plans precisely as he had arranged them. He elbowed his way into the lobby to find Uncle Elbert's daughter and make her retract ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I am," she said, "My word is pledged. I cannot retract it. I have suffered a good man to place his whole faith upon it,—a man who loves me with his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... seem to be the better for your work, at any rate. You're getting absolutely fat. If Newlyn brings you health as well as fame, I hope you'll retract some of the many hard things you have ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... of gratification. If artful, she will conceal her faults; if not so, there will be no occasion to bring them to light. And even if, after a long courtship, something wrong should be discovered, either you have proceeded too far in honour to retract, or are so blinded by your own feelings as to extenuate it. Now, it is only the parents and near relations of a young woman who can be witnesses to her real character, unless it be, indeed, her own maid, whom one could not ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the steeds with those fierce fires inflam'd, "Within their breasts, which through their nostrils glow. "Scarce bear they my control, when mad with heat "Their high necks spurn the rein. But, oh! my son, "Beware lest I a fatal gift bestow. "Retract, while yet thou may'st, thy rash demand. "Sure tokens thou requir'st to prove thee sprung "From me,—the genuine offspring of my blood: "My anxious trembling is a token true; "Paternal terrors plainly prove the sire. "Lo! on my features fix thine eyes; as ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... already explained to you my unfortunate mistake. There was and is no harm that I can see in dining with a woman of her attainments. But I shall put up no defense. You have convicted me. I retract nothing I have said. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... comparison,—knowing well, that, according to the laws of literature, they who speak first hold the fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and wholly my own, and as I have good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... of the conclusion of the Homilies the question has been set at rest. Hilgenfeld, who had hitherto been a determined advocate of the negative theory, at once gave up his ground [Endnote 288:1]; and Volkmar, who had somewhat less to retract, admitted and admits [Endnote 288:2] that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be considered as proved. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' stands alone in still resisting this conviction [Endnote 288:3], but the result ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... making known at the same time the other who had been her accomplice, who now, being touched of God, was very penitent, I thought it best for me to suffer and be silent. There was a very pious man who knew all her history, from the beginning to the end of it, who wrote to her, that if she did not retract her lies, he would publish the account of her wicked life, to make known both her gross iniquity and my innocence. She continued some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, with many other falsehoods. Some time after she had such a cruel remorse of conscience on this ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... if his opponents were forced to do likewise. He promised, too, that if Miltitz wrote advising the Pope to appoint a German bishop to try the case and to convince him of his error he would be willing to retract his theses, to submit to the Church, and to advise all his supporters to remain loyal to the Holy See. At the same time he prepared a letter for transmission to Rome, in which he addressed the Pope in ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the same year, launched against the English theologian bulls pointing out eighteen erroneous propositions contained in his writings, and enjoining that the culprit should be put in prison if he refused to retract. The University of Oxford, being already a power at that time, proud of its privileges, jealous in maintaining solidarity between its members, imbued with those ideas of opposition to the Pope which were increasing in England, considered the decree as ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... which always accompanied the "shripal" or auspicious fruit; while among Hindus from the very earliest ages cocoanuts have been sent by the bride to the bridegroom, sometimes as earnest of an offer of marriage, sometimes in token of acceptance. After this ceremony is complete the parties cannot retract, the ceremony being considered equivalent to a "nikah" or actual registration by the Kazi; and this fact again discovers the Hindu origin of the Mahomedan Rangaris and of their customs, for among foreign Musulmans the betrothal is a mere period ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... hope, dear Countess, that you will not, under the pretext of "discretion," inflict upon me the immense punishment of seeing you less often this time than formerly, and that you will not retract any of your kindness, on which ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... bare and ragged gown, and an old square cap. Dr Cole preached, and more than twenty times during the sermon, the Archbishop was seen to have the water in his eyes. Then they did desire him to get up into the pulpit, and openly to retract his preaching, and show all the people that he ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... not satisfied with that, visited your petty spite upon a girl who is the soul of truth and honor. You may say what you choose about me, but you shall not hurt Grace, and if you don't immediately retract what you have written I will take measures which may prove most unpleasant ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower |
