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Irretrievably   /ɪrətrˈivəbli/   Listen
Irretrievably

adverb
1.
In an irretrievable manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Irretrievably" Quotes from Famous Books



... lamentable failure had attended the assault made when the enemy's works were blown up in the morning. Blunder after blunder had rendered the assault abortive, and all the opportunities opened by our expedition to the north side were irretrievably lost, so General Meade at once arrested ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... in my sorrow have recourse to, at what ever known risks. "We must pay our tribute to Time": ah yes, yes;—and yet I will believe, so long as we continue together in this sphere of things there will always be a potential Letter coming out of New England for me, and the world not fallen irretrievably dumb.—The best is, I am about going into Scotland, in two days, into deep solitude, for a couple of months beside the Solway sea: I absolutely need to have the dust blown out of me, and my mad nerves rested (there is nothing else quite gone wrong): this unblest ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... serious objections to the use of wax in this country, which were discovered during the early voyages to California. The intense heat of the Isthmus of Panama melted the wax, and letters were irretrievably glued together, to the loss of the address and the confusion of the postmaster. So the glued envelope—common, cheap, and necessary—became the almost prevailing fashion for all notes as ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... driven it back with a whip—and she believed that she could always do it. The wealth, the life of luxury that he offered, appealed to her strongly; but she kept her head and remembered that he was dependent on his father's bounty, and she had no intention of compromising herself irretrievably under such circumstances. If he had the disposal of the old man's immense riches then the temptation might be over-powering; but until he had she would wait. And ever the memory of Wargrave obtruded itself, rather to her annoyance; but angry as she was with ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... any important matter connected with the process of Cookery be not attended to at the exact moment it is required, nothing can afterwards rectify it. A little delay in attending to this thing, or a little delay in attending to that thing, and whatever is being cooked is irretrievably spoiled. And, moreover, it is not to be forgotten that cookery is of signal benefit in inculcating the advantages of a wise economy. With proper Cookery nothing should be allowed to go to waste, nothing should be thrown away, unless it be absolutely useless. There ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... up together with a prolonged rustling as of a peacock displaying his plumes; and I found myself irretrievably their captive. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... had: Lord George proposed, and Charles eagerly seconded, a night surprise at Nairn. But the delays on the march, and the arrival of dawn, made Murray command a retreat, and Charles's faith in him was irretrievably gone for the time, though he later expressed in writing a more worthy opinion. With 10,000 well-fed men against 5,000 who were starving, Cumberland had every chance of victory at Culloden. The Macdonalds, placed on the left wing, would not charge. Keppoch's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most men how they begin to think, and many an intellect has been lamed irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"—the weakest-kneed of all whimsies that have come ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... which taxes her energies to the uttermost, there is no time for courtesies and amenities. The better instincts of her nature necessarily remain in abeyance. But they reassert themselves, unless she be irretrievably spoilt, when ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... fill her with horror. Why not try to save herself now, while there was yet time? She still had a chance. A drowning man will grasp even at a straw. She was not irretrievably lost. The devil might still be cheated of a victim. This man believed in her; he offered to make her his honored wife. He forgave the past and held out a generous hand to save her. A revulsion of feeling suddenly shook the girl to the innermost ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... creature-comforts, and hated every thing that excited or put one out of one's way, just as I would have hated a blister. Then, the devil would have it—for as certainly as marriages are made in heaven, flirtations have something to say to the other place—that I should fall most irretrievably in love with Lady Agnes Moreton. Bless my soul, it absolutely puts me in a perspiration this hot day, just to think over all I went through on her account; for, strange to say, the more I appeared to prosper in her good graces, the more did she exact on my part; ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... wounded whilst striving to restore order, and inspire their broken troops with fresh courage. Many other officers of rank fell dead upon the field while similarly engaged; the panic was universal, and the day irretrievably lost. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... voice or voices, was looking over his garden gate—where he now looked more frequently than into his books—fancying that Grace might be abroad with some friends. He was now irretrievably committed in heart to Grace Melbury, though he was by no means sure that she was so far committed to him. That the Idea had for once completely fulfilled itself in the objective substance—which he had hitherto ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... in some degree blend with the married state. Nor is it desirable that a relation in which the formation of habits plays so large a part should be deferred until character has lost its flexibility, and until habits have been irretrievably hardened. ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a treaty or to assemble an army; and with a rash confidence, derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians should evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... their rear, a large portion met their death in the attempt to cross it; such as escaped threw themselves by a flank movement into the neighbouring Veii. The victorious Celts stood between the remnant of the beaten army and the capital. The latter was irretrievably abandoned to the enemy; the small force that was left behind, or that had fled thither, was not sufficient to garrison the walls, and three days after the battle the victors marched through the open gates into Rome. Had they done so at first, as they might have done, not only the city, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes—eyes haunted by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's young womanhood—all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on that day ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... considered as dead. Having secured the banner of St. John, Aluch Ali took the prior's ship in tow, and was making the best of his way out of a battle which his skilful eye soon discovered to be irretrievably lost. He had not, however, sailed far when he was in turn descried by the Marquess of Santa Cruz, who, with his squadron of reserve, was moving about redressing the wrongs of Christian fortune. Aluch Ali had no mind ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... was soon forwarded to the camp, from Paslew, with an explanation of the affair, while at the same time he demanded their aid for the discovery and punishment of the offenders. But D'Arcy and Aske were too well pleased to see Paslew's crafty and selfish plans frustrated, whilst he was irretrievably committed to their cause. Tired of waiting the tardy result of negotiations with their sovereign, these ambitious spirits were glad to behold their army once more menacing the royalist position, hoping it would either quicken or terminate these ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... exposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the feeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advance to a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin, without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably lost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow him free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of strong sagacity, who foresaw the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... That is foolish. You deserve that Mademoiselle Kayser should have ridiculed, deceived and ruined you irretrievably, and that your name should never be uttered again. When one has the opportunity to possess a wife like yours, one adores her on bended knees, you understand me, and one doesn't destroy her true happiness to divert it in favor of the crowd. And what pleasure! ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... to his feet; John Steele looked at him, at the wavering face, the uncertain eyes. No doubt existed now in his mind; Gillett had not secured the paper, or he would have given it to his patron when they were alone. That fact was patent; the document was gone, irretrievably; there could be no hope of recovering it. The bitter knowledge that it had really once existed would not serve John Steele long. But with seeming resolution he went on: "I had the story from his own lips," deliberately, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... difficult is it to judge their emotions from their almost expressionless countenance, that I was at a loss to know how terrible might be their wrath as they learned that their great secret, upon which rested the fate of their race, might now be irretrievably lost. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... study; never to trust him with a handbook, a note-book, or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his power to prevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself. The result is that the various vital faculties which education might be supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless, resourceless, without ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... to any other. But the discovery of her position led me to another discovery which the reader will wonder, as I did myself, that I had not made before. This was the momentous discovery that my heart was irretrievably lost to her—that I loved her with all the intensity of a first passion, which, like every other passion in my heart, was absorbing during its prevalence. I could name my feelings to myself only when I perceived that such feelings ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... span of an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour for Sally the cat was completely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in the fire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of penitence and despair; Mrs. Gosnold was out of her chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, and in full possession of all facts materially bearing upon the ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... at La Ferte I was confronted by a perfect type: the apotheosis of injured nobility, the humiliated victim of perfectly unfortunate circumstances, the utterly respectable gentleman who had seen better days. There was about him, moreover, something irretrievably English, nay even pathetically Victorian—it was as if a page of Dickens was shaking my friend's hand. "Count Bragard, I want you to meet my friend Cummings"—he saluted me in modulated and courteous accents of indisputable culture, gracefully extending his pale hand. "I have heard a ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... acting some of her own potentialities of motive and of passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance rich material and abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her destiny required her to throw herself irretrievably away she did it with a splendid appreciation of large and definite movement that was ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... its secretary, in 1833, to publish his "History," a defense of its members and their measures. Even this did not remove the stigma. The delegates had in their own communities always retained their reputation for high personal character, but politically they were irretrievably ruined by their participation in the Hartford gathering. They had dealt their party in their states a mortal blow, and the Hartford Convention has been well named "the grave of the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... The elk was irretrievably lost. In vain we searched for a way by which we might reach the bottom of the gorge; we were soon convinced that the cliff was ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... The Revolution, however, brought into existence several distinct parties, and developed the natural disintegrating tendency of the Filipinos to split up into factions on any matter of common concern. The Spanish reform party, led by Pedro A. Paterno, collapsed when all hope was irretrievably lost, and its leader passed over to Aguinaldo's party of sovereign independence. To-day there is practically only one organized party—the Federal—because there is no legislative assembly or authorized channel for the legitimate expression of opposite views. The Federal ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... gentleman's income be sunk irretrievably for ever from a hundred pounds to fifty, and that he hath no other method to supply the deficiency, I desire to know, my Lord, whether such a person hath any other course to take than to sink half his expenses in every article of economy, to save himself ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... fortnight the labours of fourteen years were annihilated. Forty-four persons were murdered, 369 dwellings consumed, 261 pillaged, and 172,000 head of live-stock carried off into Kafirland and irretrievably lost; and what aggravated the wickedness of the invasion was the fact that during a great part of the year the Governor had been engaged in special negotiations for a new—and to the Kafirs most advantageous—system of relations, with which ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... result of it was, that, notwithstanding the most unparalleled and desperate exertions made by Brutus to keep his men to the work, and to maintain his ground, his troops were borne down and overwhelmed by the irresistible onsets of his enemies, and his cause was irretrievably ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... I care for you, don't you, dear, because you're your mother's daughter, if for no other reason, and there are plenty of other reasons"—and she leant over and kissed her with some emotion, and the argument was spilt irretrievably about the place ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... statesmen about her urged her to sign the warrant; the peace of the country demanded the execution of the laws in a case of such unquestionable guilt. They told her, too, that Essex wished to die, that he knew that he was hopelessly and irretrievably ruined, and that life, if granted to him, was a boon which would compromise her own safety and confer no benefit on him. Still Elizabeth waited and waited in an agony of suspense, in hopes that the ring would come; ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... marks the difference of the two plays, namely, the fate of Faust. Marlowe's Faust is utterly and irretrievably damned. On the old theory of an essential antagonism between the secular and the sacred, and upon the old cast-iron theology to which the intellect of man was enjoined to conform, there is no escape whatsoever for the rebel. So the play leads on to the sublimely terrific passage ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... an ugly girl whining. If I'd been irretrievably ugly I'd never have forgiven my parents for bringing me into the world. But you're starting life without any handicap—" Marjorie's little fist clinched, "If you expect me to weep with you you'll be disappointed. Go or stay, just as you like." And picking ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... nearly twelve when he reached home. Now, once more, would begin the gruesome process of deception—flinching of soul, and brazening of visage. It would be better when the whole thievish business was irretrievably begun and ordered ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... tramp roaming the streets of a great city; broken in mind, body and heart; bitter, discouraged, and so nearly ready to fall in with Kellow's criminal suggestion as actually to let him give me the money which, if I had kept it or spent it as he directed, would have committed me irretrievably to ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... manuscripts were collected and arranged, containing the Law, the earlier Prophets, and the inspired Hymns used for the purpose of devotion. Some compositions, however, which respected the remotest period of their commonwealth, especially the Book of Jasher and the Wars of the Lord, were irretrievably lost. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... frequently than of deficient memory; and, indeed, every one finds that many of the ideas which he desired to retain have slipped irretrievably away; that the acquisitions of the mind are sometimes equally fugitive with the gifts of fortune; and that a short intermission of attention more certainly lessens ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... circled around, and came again to the opening by which it had entered, it might continue on another eventless revolution, or it might, according to the whim of the eddy, be cast forth once more, irretrievably, into the clutch of the awful sluice. Sometimes two logs, after a pause in what seemed like a secret death-struggle, would crowd each other out and go over the falls together. And sometimes, on the other hand, all would make the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... overboard: their bodies were picked up next day, and gave the first intimation of their fate. Two of the pirates were subsequently caught and executed; but the property, worth 10,000 dollars, was irretrievably lost. ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... satin-smooth and golden-strong; but if it be of rusty iron, parting every now and then and letting the poor prisoner violently loose, and again suddenly caught hold of, bringing him up with a jerk, galling his tender limbs and irretrievably ruining his temper,—it is all the same; there is no help for it. And really to look around the world and see the people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling,—the narrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ill-tempered, fretful, peevish, passionate, careworn, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... for its preservation. There is no sense or utility in exhibiting a blank tablet, and I have seen without scruple or remorse such superannuated vestiges employed in repairing the church fabric. But this, be it understood, is only when the stone is irretrievably beyond memento mori service, and on the clear condition that it is employed in the furtherance of religious work. It is true that a stone is only a stone, whatever it may have been used for, but a peculiar sanctity is in most minds associated with the ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... the prophets had spoken as the irresistible emissary of the Most High—had not only failed to recover from the injuries she had received at the hands, first of the Medes, and then of the Scythians, but had with each advancing year seen more severe wounds inflicted upon her, and hastening her irretrievably to her ruin. And besides this, Egypt and Chaldaea, the ancient kingdoms which had for a short time bent beneath her yoke, had now once more arisen, and were astonishing the world by their renewed vigour. Psammetichus, it is true, after having stretched his arm across the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... party as an organized force from the speech in the summer of 1901 in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman set himself against the stream of militant sentiment and challenged in a classic phrase the methods of the war. From the day of this speech, which was supposed at the time to have irretrievably ruined his political career, the name of the party-leader, hitherto greeted with indifference, became a recognized signal for the cheers of a political meeting, and a man with no marked genius but that of character and the insight which character gave into the minds of ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... still sheltered and educated, constantly epitomize one of the haunting problems of life; why do we permit the waste of this most precious human faculty, this consummate possession of civilization? When we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be treasured, it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... need not coagulate. There is no physiological absurdity in supposing such a general arrest of function, originating in the nervous system, and continuing an indefinite period without life being extinguished. If a swimmer be taken with cramp and sink, he is irretrievably dead in five minutes. But if he sink from a fit of epilepsy, he may remain a longer time under water, yet recover. But epilepsy is a form of loss of consciousness beginning in the nervous system—a kind of fit which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... submit? If you do not submit you are lost. You are condemned irretrievably to perversions, to debility, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably down to some horrible, unknown crash ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... this in silence. It startled her, however, greatly, to find her own view of things held by her much less sharp-sighted mother. She pondered on what was best to do. Should she sit still and quietly see her father lost irretrievably in the bad habits which were creeping upon him? But what step could she take? She asked herself this question evening ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... and foolish and provoking situation at such gatherings is due to the multitude of tongues only those know who have wasted time and money in attending them. Usually three or more languages are officially accepted and most of the time is irretrievably lost in misunderstandings and more ...
— Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education • Richard Bartholdt and A. Christen

... commander, Gylippus, passed over into Italy with a little squadron of four ships, with the view merely of preserving the Greek cities in that country, supposing that Syracuse, and, with her, the other Greek cities in Sicily, were irretrievably lost. At Tarentum he learned to his great surprise and satisfaction that the Athenian wall of circumvallation at Syracuse had not yet been completed on the northern side. He now sailed through the straits of Messana, which were left completely unguarded, and arrived ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... those who have been allured to authority and pillage by the sort of revolution just gone through.... The cardinal set out this morning for Paris, and will arrive shortly before my despatch, as he goes extremely quickly. The wretched man feels that if he fails he will be irretrievably lost, and that all will be lost for Rome. He is eager to know his lot. I tried at Rome to bring the Pope to sign the Concordat only; and if he had granted me that point, I should not have left Rome; but ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... and entering at last through the golden gates into the city of God, so in this later work his purpose was to depict the career of a man whose face from the first was turned in the opposite direction, going on from bad to worse, ever becoming more and more irretrievably evil, fitter and fitter for the bottomless pit; his life full of sin and his death without repentance; reaping the fruit of his sins in hopeless sinfulness. That this was the original purpose of the work, Bunyan tells us in his preface. It came into his mind, he says, as in the former book he had ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... fault rather to aim at an excess of iron as tending to clean the ore from antimony, any of the latter that (from an insufficiency of iron) may be left in the slag from the first process being irretrievably lost; whereas, if the iron be in excess, that which is combined with the crude antimony resulting from the first process is easily got rid of by adding 3 to 5 lbs. or so of ore ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... had to endure. It is enough to say that, with desperate infatuation, I made a solemn promise to my creditors to satisfy them all on the first day of the ensuing month, and on the fulfilment of that promise it depended, whether my character as a gentleman was still preserved or irretrievably lost. Ellen, I cannot attempt to describe to you what I suffered at that time. The wrestling with an impossibility, the struggle after what was unattainable, the incapability of resigning myself to what seemed inevitable, the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... read the admirable series of memoirs which Young then published, and might thereby have learned how the study of the phenomena of diffraction led to the belief that the undulation theory, which, since the works of Newton seemed irretrievably condemned, was, on the contrary, beginning quite a new life. A little later—in 1808—he might have witnessed the discovery made by Malus of polarization by reflexion, and would have been able to note, no doubt with stupefaction, ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... must be able to reverence her. And there must be no selfishness, no getting entangled in engagements that must bring trouble on others; to marry for money is degrading, but a woman may redeem it by being a good wife; to marry without money means debt, which is irretrievably degrading, and is altogether ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... is rendered poisonous by such breath as this man mingled with Zenobia's. Yet his reflections possessed their share of truth. It was a woeful thought, that a woman of Zenobia's diversified capacity should have fancied herself irretrievably defeated on the broad battlefield of life, and with no refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely because Love had gone against her. It is nonsense, and a miserable wrong,—the result, like so many others, of masculine egotism,—that the success or failure of woman's ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... mister—call me plain John Cross," replied the preacher—in the midst of a second fit of choking, the result of his vain effort to disgorge that portion of the pernicious liquid which had irretrievably descended into his bowels. With a surprise admirably affected, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... The warmth of a fire, of sunlight, of a cozy room, or the cold of a star-lit winter night have an emotional significance almost, if not quite, equal to that of the visual sensations from these objects. Touch seems to be irretrievably bound up with grasping and using, but the touch of a well-loved person may be a free and glowing experience, sharing with sight in beauty. The movement sensations during a run in the open air or in dancing are not only free from all practical ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into "measures" for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost. ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... if should suffer myself by it; and now good-bye, Jemmy Murray, to the dioual I pitch the whole thing! Rapin' hooks!" And as he spoke, off went the furious little extortioner, irretrievably offended. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... Bates for President. He was not displeased to have Lincoln nominated, but his battle had been to defeat Seward, and when Lincoln turned to Seward for secretary of state, which meant, as Greeley believed, the domination of the Weed machine to punish his revolt against Seward, Greeley became irretrievably embittered ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... of Ducos, made similar suggestions; they recognized the scientific possibility of the problem, but they were irretrievably handicapped by the shortcomings of photography. Even when substantially instantaneous photographs were evolved at a somewhat later date they were limited to the use of wet plates, which have to be prepared by the photographer and used immediately, and were ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... "you ought to be proud of us." And there was a sorrowing Italian who had with him a string of seven children who had tunnelled and burrowed their way down the packed aisle of the smoking car and had got irretrievably scattered. The father was distracted. Here and there, down the length of the car, someone would discover an urchin and hold him up for inspection. "Is this one of them?" he would cry, and Italy would give assent. "Right!" And the children were agglomerated ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... triumph over the woman who hated her with a deadly hatred. Not so, I assure you, for my vengeance is even more complete than I ever dared to hope, and your 'promised wife,' my fine young man, will never flaunt her colors in triumph over me here in New York, for her reputation has been irretrievably ruined, and the city shall ring with the vile story ere another twenty-four ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... may lead them to attempt. You feel, with deep annoyance, that a paroxysm of shyness has often made you speak entirely at random, and express the very opposite sentiments to those you really feel, committing yourself irretrievably to, perhaps, falsehood and folly, because you could not exercise self-control. Try to bring vividly before your mental eye all that you have suffered in the recollection of past weaknesses of this kind, and that will give you energy ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... just before the election, which was on the 7th of August; and if it was manufactured just before the election, Keys tells a falsehood when he says he saw it on the last of May or first of June. Either Keys or the General is irretrievably in for it; and in the General's very condescending language, I say "Let ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... with Mr. Dale's convictions as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honour, tended much to compose the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler sex would expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have been irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in jeopardy by the squire's refusal, it was not that the parson wanted tenderness of heart, but experience in womankind; and he believed, very erroneously, that Miss Jemima Hazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of that kind would produce a lasting ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... uprooted by the accurate and devastating fire of our artillery. This was the heaviest bombardment of the battle; some of the Turkish trenches were simply swept out of existence, and the defenders irretrievably buried in the debris. One of the attacking divisions was Irish, who as a pleasing change from road-making in that malarial hole, Salonica, gave of their best with the bayonet, in which bright pastime they were capably aided and abetted by the 60th Division. It is the fashion to speak of ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... feelings she watched him leave the room.... Inevitable re-action set in, doubts overwhelmed her. Had she done what was best or had she blundered irretrievably? She went unsteadily to a chair, extraordinarily tired, exhausted in her new weakness by the emotional strain through which she had passed. She was beginning to be a little aghast at what she had done, at the force that she had set moving. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... dealings of a country market; and although thrift and energy, even under such depressing conditions, might eventually win a competence, the most ardent ambition could hardly hope for more. Never was an obscure existence more irretrievably marked out than for these children of the Ohio; and yet, before either had grown grey, the names of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and of Stonewall Jackson, Lieutenant-General in the Confederate ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... upon two wheels for some distance, and the boys knew that if a stone of any size was met the waggon must be irretrievably wrecked, and they saw in anticipation the flames overtaking it, scorching up the valuables it contained, and ending by reaching the ammunition, when everything ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... What interest had Arthur to lie about the value of Wyncote if it was irretrievably lost to us? As my father ended, he glanced at me with more or less of his old keenness of look, smiling a little as he regarded me. The pause which came after was brief, as I have said; for my reflections, such as they were, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... mother if she happened to speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of all dread with her was lest her father should add to his present misfortune the wretchedness of doing something irretrievably disgraceful. The battered school-book of Tom's which she held on her knees could give her no fortitude under the pressure of that dread; and again and again her eyes had filled with tears, as they wandered vaguely, seeing neither the chestnut-trees, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... youth, of helping to mould those young minds, and of impressing them with one's own character and ideals was very dear to me. However, the fates were against us. A serious epidemic broke out in the school and three of the boys died. It never recovered from the blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably swallowed up. And yet, if it were not for the loss of the charming companionship of the boys, I could rejoice over my own misfortune, for, with my strong tastes for botany and zoology, I find an unlimited field of work ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... after betraying his confidence. These his enemies might consider the occasion favorable for a bold stroke. If they acted without the connivance of Charles he might be grateful to those who satisfied his enmity without irretrievably compromising his honor. Louis therefore asked to be allowed to move into the castle, where his archers could at any rate defend him against a surprise. On the next day the conference began; all that he could demand was offered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... baronet with brains and a very difficult temper, falls a captive to Marian's proud and compelling beauty. Then, just before the War flames up, secret service claims him, and he returns from a dangerous mission irretrievably crippled. Marian fails him. True, she disdains to be released, but out of pride not out of love. It is little grey suppressed Stella (her light has been hidden under the dull bushel of a Town Clerk's office) who comes into her kingdom and wins back an ultra-sensitive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various

... allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any sensible man, should accept conditions that could not be altered; certainly not be hopelessly melancholy about it. I don't believe anything in the world would make me hopelessly melancholy. And don't let anything ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... irretrievably lost one credit through tardiness set Sissy's lips in a tight line of determination to guard jealously every one of the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet II. Sixty thousand Greeks were driven through the streets like cattle and sold as slaves. The nuns were torn from the monasteries and compelled to enter the harems of their conquerors. The churches were plundered, and the gold and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... themselves chiefly representing the worst members of the class they claim to depict, was the cause of her ruin. She had so recklessly trifled with her reputation, that although her immediate friends did not believe the worst, yet with the world her character was irretrievably lost. At five-and-twenty she had already sacrificed her own peace; she had brought shame on her husband's name, and had filled with the bitterest grief, the heart of an indulgent father. Happily, her mother was ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... was that Gould was irretrievably ruined. That he was secretly selling gold at an exorbitant price was not known; even his own intimates, except perhaps Fisk and Belden, were ignorant of it. All that was known was that he had made contracts for ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... OFTEN FATAL.—Begin well, and the habit of doing well will become quite as easy as the habit of doing badly. "Well begun is half ended," says the proverb; "and a good beginning is half the battle." Many promising young men have irretrievably injured themselves by a first false step at the commencement of life; while others, of much less promising talents, have succeeded simply by beginning well, and going onward. The good, practical beginning is, to a certain extent, a pledge, a promise, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... unpainted upon. It is pure photography in every sense of the word, and the resultant picture one hardly to be surpassed in any way. I have rather laid a stress on this point, well knowing how pictures are at times irretrievably ruined by the barbarous hand of would-be artists, who by far exceed the true artists in number; and the hint on retouching should not be lost sight of, either, at a period when the tendency is to stereotype every one in marble-like texture, or rather lack of texture, as if the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... to her?" interrupted Gabrielle, her face taking on again a shining whiteness. But, as though suddenly remembering something, she laughed that strange laugh which might have come from a soul irretrievably lost. "And is married ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... fire; and the majority of so-called love-stories are merely disastrous conflagrations of that sort. In such cases the new love is no sooner found than the old becomes grievous, a burden; by a malignant witchcraft the old charms have grown veritably repellent, and "all the heaven that was" irretrievably disenchanted. Which is the illusion, one wonders,—the original enchantment or ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... that he acted as he talks), or under Lieutenant von Foerstner" (the hero of Zabern), "odious as the latter is, for my soul's good I would choose him: for I think that in the end, I should be less likely to be irretrievably ruined." ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... had been over arrogant of late; but the result did not come up to expectations. By midday the chateau had been ransacked from attic to cellar; every kind of valuable property had been destroyed, priceless works of art irretrievably damaged. But priceless works of art had no market in Paris these days; and the property of real value—the Sucy diamonds namely—which had excited the cupidity or the patriotic wrath of citizens Gourdon and ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... I cried out, "what am I to do? Am I then irretrievably ruined?—and have I also ruined the poor child whom I wanted ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... men. Domestic labor was confined to the blacks, and such was the prejudice that if he, who was the most popular man in his district, were to keep a white servant in his house, his character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... Micmacs lives at Bear River, and is addicted to the bottle. One day a young girl, who was a summer guest at this place, sat down on an overturned canoe which this chief (now known as James Meuse) had just completed; and, as the bark bent with her weight, the wily Indian pretended that the boat was irretrievably ruined. The girl's father, asking what amount would compensate for the damage, received reply, "Ten, twenty, dollar"; and receiving thirty dollars from the generous stranger, Redskin remarked afterwards that he "wished more girl come sit on boat", and probably turned ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... serving him in a silent, quiet life, and then cover over all this unrest with the idea that God was too abundant in mercy to cast off any for whom he died to save. Day and night this terrible thought followed me for months, "I am a lost soul! irretrievably lost. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... animals may be occupied in robbing, and then with screams and yells, flinging sticks and stones, the hunters rush upon the affrighted thieves, till, in their hurry and confusion to escape, they become irretrievably entangled in the meshes. But few of these islanders carry spear or bow, though I imagine all possess them. They were most unpleasantly inquisitive, and by their stares, jabber, and pointings, incessantly wanting me to show them everything ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... American court, the proceeding would have been irreproachably regular. This being so, by the acknowledgment of the English themselves, who will be willing to admit that any will be found bold enough to cause an irretrievably fatal rupture to grow out of a quarrel of this kind, concerning the mode of procedure. England has consulted her legal advisers; America will consult hers also. Do disputes in which the national honor is involved admit of consultations of this sort? Are lawyers or judges ever asked whether ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... this didn't get any pleasure out of it. But it's the same all round. It is money and luxury and the struggle to live which are driving us all on and killing the artist's natural joy in his work. And presently, as that odd little Frenchman said to me last year, we shall have dropped irretrievably into ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... he wanted, and why did he want it? Were there not other women whom the world would say were as good? Was it ever known that a man had died, or become irretrievably broken and destroyed by disappointed love? Was it not one of those things that a man should shake off from him, and have done with it? He asked himself these, and many such-like questions, and tried to philosophise with himself on the matter. Had he no will of his own, by which ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... practice, and, satisfied with to-day, says in his heart, Apres nous le Deluge. No one disturbs him; his landlord has a certain respect and pity for him—respect, perhaps, for an old family that has tilled his land for a century, but which he now sees is slowly but irretrievably passing away. So the decayed farmer dozes out ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... never marry her? Would not my ring be as binding on her finger as his? Would not the parson's word make me and her one flesh and one bone as irretrievably as though I were ten times an earl? I am a man and she a woman. What law of God, or of man,—what law of nature can prevent us from being man and wife? I say that I can marry her,—and with ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... quickly deposited as an impalpable sludge. Into this the huge beast began to sink deeper and deeper before it could halt in its rush, and when with frightened bellowings it had come to a stop, it was bogged irretrievably. Madly it struggled, wildly it screamed and trumpeted. The harbour-water and the slime were churned into one stinking compost, and the golden castle in which we clung lurched so wildly that we were torn from it and shot ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... him plenty to do; wire-pulling, speech-making, private bargaining,—all these were rife, for everybody knew that with the first of January, when Lentulus became consul, the fortunes of Caesar were to be made or marred irretrievably. There were rumours, always rumours, now of Caesar, now of Pompeius. The proconsul was going to march on Rome at once, and put all his enemies to the sword. Pompeius was to be proclaimed dictator and exterminate all who adhered to the anti-senatorial party. And into this melee of factions Drusus ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... his intended precautions, he had gone irretrievably into disclosures that were fetching the case up to Dorothy or young Foster Durgin. In his eagerness to pursue a new theory, he had permitted Wicks to draw him farther than he had ever intended to go. There was no escape. He decided to ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp, and all determined to die bravely at their posts. And then the entranced audience, with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh, it was too much; we lost our character typo irretrievably that day; half suppressed titters from the squire's pew were not to be borne. In that unhappy moment we sinned away some quarter of a century's unrivalled reputation for good manners and musical taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us, never did he vouchsafe us another ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... most nearly resembling these. The passion of love has its rise in positive pleasure; it is, like all things which grow out of pleasure, capable of being mixed with a mode of uneasiness, that is, when an idea of its object is excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost it. This mixed sense of pleasure I have not called pain, because it turns upon actual pleasure, and because it is, both in its cause and in most of its effects, of a nature ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... to Frankfort, and connected by manifold links of person and office with the privileged character of the city. Perhaps he might feel a sort of narrow local patriotism in recalling these scenes to public notice by description, at a time when they had been irretrievably extinguished as realities. But, after making every allowance for their local value to a Frankfort family, and for their memorable splendor, we may venture to suppose that by far the most impressive remembrances which had gathered ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... could lay hold of, and by confinement and harsh treatment, made him stand security for the suffering proprietors, for sums they never owed; and when these proprietors were made to appear to be irretrievably involved in debt to the State and to individuals, and had no hope of release from prison by any other means, they consented to sign the bynamahs, or sale deeds for lands, which their families had possessed for centuries. Those ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... hear no account of changes, &c., on which I can at all rely. The Government, since the abandonment of their Bill, seem to have lost their senses. They have done, I think, everything they ought not. In my opinion, they are irretrievably gone. I have no idea that they can long stand against the storm they have been so instrumental in raising against themselves; and this is the persuasion among many of those ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... an extensive scale, and had knowledge enough of the transactions of Mark Gardner and his set, not to be very solicitous of the acquaintance of Colonel Martindale, while he dreaded that the London beauty would irretrievably fill his ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... valuable, properly taken, but an irritating oil to consume the bones is destructive. How awful the case of the rich man when refused a drop of water to cool that fire which he had created while living, and into which he had irretrievably plunged himself.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... doing good to Egypt, and with the hope of deserving well of the Egyptian people of the future, unwilling to pursue the easy line of moral culpability which is implied in saying pleasant things of that noisy portion of the Egyptian people of to-day, who, if they could have their way, would irretrievably and utterly ruin Egypt's future. In the Guildhall address, I ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... the efforts of the queen and king, the power of the papacy was effectually suppressed in England, and invincible barriers fixed against its reestablishment. For though the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastics was for the present restored, their property, on which their power much depended, was irretrievably lost, and no ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship "Orontes," and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fled out with a guilty yelp. I groaned and snatched the turnips off. Kate threw open the oven door and dragged out the pies. Pies and turnips were ruined as irretrievably as the turkey. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the house weary, discouraged, ashamed. What had she done? There was no denying that she had compromised herself irretrievably. He would ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... but respectable family. I communicated our attachment to my friends, who pronounced me a fool, and did not hesitate to attribute my affection for her to art on the part of the lady, and intrigue on that of her relatives. I was at the time deeply, almost irretrievably, embarrassed. Be this as it may, I knew that the imputations against Maria, for such was her name, as well as against her relatives, were utterly false; and as a proof I did so, I followed her to France, where, indeed, I had ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... harmony with the religious instincts of the nation at large. The Church of England stood from that moment isolated and alone among all the Churches of the Christian world. The Reformation had severed it irretrievably from those which still clung to the obedience of the Papacy. By its rejection of all but episcopal orders the Act of Uniformity severed it as irretrievably from the general body of the Protestant Churches whether Lutheran or Reformed. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... already done that long ago," she said. "I know that I am in your hands, utterly and irretrievably, Mr. Flockart, and the only way I can regain my freedom is by boldly ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... been married by a special license, and that she was now legally and irretrievably the wife of Amede Henri, Prince d'Orleans, de Bourgogne and several other ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... good men comes the reflection that either this immorality must cease its ravages, or this nation will be irretrievably disgraced. Were it possible to search out these unhappy men, some of them wearing the convict's garb, and some wandering as fugitives in foreign lands, henceforth to be men "without a country," and question ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... which irretrievably committed her energies and fortunes to the stage was a singular one, yet it is not unreasonable to assume that, had not this occurred, her ardent predilections would have found some other outlet to the result to which she aspired. ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... poor Turkish steamers go to the Crimea, but to beard the Russian Fleet and tempt it to come out of Sebastopol, which would thus constitute the much desired contingency for our combined Fleets to attack it, and so engage us irretrievably! ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... turmoil, these tears, these oaths and blows, came from nothing more serious than this, that Jenny, to make her height less remarkable, must wear no heels. It was ludicrous, it was absurd, but none the less the whole expedition, carried to the very point of completion, must fail, utterly and irretrievably fail, because Jenny would not for one day go without her heels. The Princess must remain in her prison at Innspruck; the Chevalier must lose his wife; the exertions of Wogan and his friends, their risks, their ingenuity, must bear no fruit because Jenny would not show herself three inches short of ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... year a canopy of cinder-laden cloud hung over the island. Sand and ashes irretrievably overwhelmed thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faroe islands, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were deluged with volcanic dust, which perceptibly contaminated even the pure skies of England and Holland. Mephitic vapours tainted the atmosphere of the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... section. It need only be noted here that the constitutional problem was no more acute in December 1912 than in March 1909. Whatever the difficulties, they had been faced and accepted by all the other Dominions. Australia was irretrievably and proudly committed to her {314} own navy—'His Majesty's Royal Australian Navy'; New Zealand announced her dissatisfaction with the original contribution policy; General Botha declared that South Africa would prefer 'a navy of our own.' ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... inward wish, that he had acted with more caution, discretion or prudence; but even a hankering wish of this sort is a weakness, although it may be an amiable and an excusable weakness. To wish at all for an impossibility, such as the recalling of time that is irretrievably gone by, must be a weakness. But, even if we could recall it, to assert that [—illegible—] is in perfect ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... delightful, like the stretching of a stiffened limb. I cannot put the pain into exact words. It was not attended by any horror; it seemed a sense of infinite grief and loss and loneliness, a deep yearning to be delivered and made free. I felt suddenly as though everything I loved had gone from me, irretrievably gone and lost. I looked round me, and I could discern through a mist the bases of some black and sinister rocks, that towered up intolerably above me; in between them were channels full of stones and drifted snow. Anything more stupendous than those black-ribbed crags, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a matter of fact, an extraordinary amount of loose thinking concerning the precise relations between science, ethics and religion. The churches, having become irretrievably discredited in their doctrinal teaching (their very ministers, in the persons of Stanley and Jowett, openly avowing disbelief in their articles and creeds), religion has come to be looked upon as a sort ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... both her hands in his. "I am he; I am he in dread of whom all London shivers, and it was to tell you that—that I stopped you, Barbara. To tell you and to test, if not your love, at least your good intentions as my wife. The world tells me that I cannot win your love, that it has been given irretrievably to another. But your fidelity I must prove before you wear my name. I am placing my life, my safety, my honor, in the sweet jeopardy of your hands. My life is forfeit, as you know. My life is henceforth in your hands." She was shrinking ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... he groaned; "utterly and irretrievably disgraced and discredited in my native State! There isn't a man in the sage-brush hills who would believe ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... of mortgages and insurances, and all the horrible evils attendant upon them. Lawyers upon lawyers posted down from London; composition after composition was made, and Lady Lyndon's income hampered almost irretrievably to satisfy these cormorants. To do her justice, she behaved with tolerable kindness at this season of trouble; for whenever I wanted money I had to coax her, and whenever I coaxed her I was sure of bringing this weak and light-minded woman to good-humour: who was ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... for the picture that had got in the way, and at once perceived that it would never get in the way again, since it was irretrievably ruined. However, he was not overcome by wrath over this incident, because the picture was not of any particular value. It was only a highly colored print of three cats in a basket, which had come with a Sunday newspaper, and had been cheaply framed and hung up in the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... as long as I was on board. Imbued with that conviction, one of the men, thinking he had found a good opportunity of fulfilling the wishes of the priest, came up to me as I was standing at the extreme end of the forecastle, and pushed me so roughly that I was thrown over. I should have been irretrievably lost, but the sharp point of an anchor, hanging along the side of the ship, catching in my clothes, prevented me from falling in the sea, and proved truly my sheet-anchor. Some men came to my assistance, and I was saved. A corporal then pointed out to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... more powerful neighbour, and the whole population mourned the approaching loss of their Parliament and their autonomy. Almost every section had special reasons for opposing the measure. For the Jacobites an Act of Union meant that Scotland was irretrievably committed to the Hanoverian succession, and whatever force the Jacobites might be able to raise after the queen's death must take action in the shape of a rebellion against the de facto government. ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... do no such thing. In the first place, I can't spare you; and in the next, if we can irretrievably disgrace Medwin, so that he may be shunned by everybody, I do not think the weak head of my Clara can withstand the storm; and she will gradually learn to despise him, too. So take no further notice ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... feel that I have mentioned hitherto nothing but what by comparison might be thought of a vulgar quality. All the other advantages that I have enumerated, had they been yet wanting, might have been acquired; had they been forfeited, might have been reconquered; had they been even irretrievably lost, might, by a philosophic effort, have been dispensed with; compensations might have been found for any of them, many equivalents, or if not, consolations at least, for their absence. But now it remains to speak of other blessings too mighty to be valued, not merely as transcending ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... of our race—had still much driving-power. Nowadays, I seriously think I observe in most young men of the middle class around me a distinct and disastrous weakening of the impulse. They don't fall in love as frankly, as honestly, as irretrievably as they used to do. They shilly-shally, they pick and choose, they discuss, they criticise. They say themselves these futile foolish things about the club, and the flat, and the cost of living. They believe in Malthus. Fancy a young ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen



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