"Reactionary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Gouache, boldly. It needed no ordinary courage to make such a statement to the incarnate chief of reactionary politics in those days—within the walls of the Vatican, not a hundred yards from the private apartments of the Holy Father. But Cardinal Antonelli smiled blandly, and seemed not in the least surprised ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old; new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his treatment and diction, he ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... oppose but, instead, actually approved the enactment of the recent "bone-dry" prohibition legislation forbidding transportation of alcoholic beverages into states which prohibit the sale and manufacture of intoxicants, on the ground that its drastic measure would have a "reactionary effect" and thus result in the return of a number of the present "dry" states into the "wet" column. Vaporings of this sort sound very much like the old sour grape story and have their origin in the fertile brain of the publicity manager of the ...
— Government By The Brewers? • Adolph Keitel
... of reports showed a man who, beginning as a reactionary of an extreme type, advocating the most ruthless measures toward convicts, finally felt the pressure of the wave of prison reform which is gathering force just now, and adjusted his reports and addresses so as to make himself appear as a leading apostle of the new ideas. But though his public ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... frequently contradictory laws are met with. According to the bill for the new civil laws of Germany, the administration of the wife's property falls to the husband, unless the wife has secured her property to herself by special contract. This is a reactionary attitude, long since discarded by many other countries. On the other hand, the wife is allowed to retain what she has earned by her own personal labor, and without assistance of her husband, or by the independent conduct ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... denying, I am inclined to think Peter's choice a wise one. Nobody can wonder that the idea of retaining Moscow as his capital was most repugnant to him. The existence of his work in those hostile surroundings—in a place which to this day has remained obstinately reactionary—could never have been anything but precarious and uncertain. It must, after his death at least, if not during his life, have been at the mercy of those popular insurrections before which the sovereign power, as established in the Kremlin, had already so ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... with tradition and the logic of things, Ionic speculation was developed before the Doric. The Eleatic school followed from the two former, although its development was contemporary with the more perfect stage of these, and its influence upon them was to some extent reactionary. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... conferring of suffrage upon the negro, dim-visioned in the sudden light of a new liberty, to be a most dangerous experiment; he foresaw that the ballot which the North gave to them as a protection against their arrogant masters, would prove a two-edged sword with a terrible reactionary force in the hands of an untrained race just freed from mental leading-strings; he knew the difficulty to be inherent, a difficulty which the existence of slavery must necessarily have produced. He maintained that although ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... be a premium put upon individual initiative and individual capacity, and an ample reward for the great directing intelligences alone competent to manage the great business operations of to-day. It is well to keep in mind that exactly as the anarchist is the worst enemy of liberty and the reactionary the worst enemy of order, so the men who defend the rights of property have most to fear from the wrongdoers of great wealth, and the men who are championing popular rights have most to fear from the demagogues who in the name of popular ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... an enormous black velvet mantle, and plied us with numerous questions regarding the Queen, her family, and her government. She lives on the hill among her dependents, exerts great influence, and has done good service in resisting the reactionary tendencies of her brother-in-law Masupha, a ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... "God Save the Queen," in imitation of the British national anthem, and the satirical piece entitled "Swellfoot, the Tyrant." In the following words he attacked the prime minister, Lord Castleragh, whose reactionary counsels were transforming England into a state analogous to that of ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... about it. Life was supplying Kate Barrington with a valuable amount of "data." On every hand the emergent or the reactionary woman offered herself for observation, although to say that Kate was able to take a detached and objective view of it would be going altogether too far. The truth was, she threw herself into every friend's trouble, and she counted as friends all who turned to her, or all whom she was called ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... meeting towards the end of May, and that Nekhludoff was to be sure and come to "donner un coup d'epaule," at the important debates concerning the schools and the roads, as a strong opposition by the reactionary ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Spanish statesman; minister of Ferdinand VII.; a violent enemy of liberal principles and measures, and a reactionary; obnoxious to the people; arrested for treachery, escaped into France by bribing his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of a past generation. He had learned his medicine under that obsolete and forgotten system by which a youth was apprenticed to a surgeon, in the days when the study of anatomy was often approached through a violated grave. His views upon his own profession are even more reactionary than in politics. Fifty years have brought him little and deprived him of less. Vaccination was well within the teaching of his youth, though I think he has a secret preference for inoculation. Bleeding he would practise freely but for public opinion. Chloroform he regards as a dangerous ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... penance for both lovers was insisted upon. In the ideal justice, it makes no difference whether the crime committed is against oppression or against liberty. In the latter case, punishment assumes the form of a liberal revolt; in the former, it appears reactionary. This is why Galds, holding the balance even, with the impartiality which is the root of his character, seems in Brbara to advocate a static philosophy, whereas in most of his work he is the liberal whom Spain, a ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... we must remember that the Democratic Platform was hardly less progressive than that of the Progressives themselves. Counting the Wilson and the Roosevelt vote together, we find 10,412,000 votes were cast for Progressive principles against 3,483,000 votes for the reactionary Conservatives. And yet the gray wolves of the Republican Party, and its Old Guard, and its Machine, proclaimed to the country that its obsolescent doctrines represented the desires and the ideals of the United ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... far from being a moss-grown reactionary. Everything was not for the best. Despotic bureaucracy... abuses... corruption... and so on. Capable men were wanted. Enlightened intelligences. Devoted hearts. But absolute power should be preserved—the tool ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... lyric poetry there are two extremes to be avoided. One is the musical tendency to obscure the sense, as in "sing-song" rendering; the other is the reactionary effort made by many would-be sensible people to make prose of the poetry by excluding all the music and rhythm in emphasizing the literal meaning. The following rule will be found a safe guide. Use the rhythm and quality pertaining to the full ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... politics, and, strangely enough, of his religion. He has been made responsible for movements in Churches about which opinions naturally differ, but of which it is certain Scott never dreamed. Those who suspect and blame his work because it is reactionary, illiberal, and offensive to modern ideas of progress, are, of course, mainly such persons as believe in 'the march of intellect,' and think meanly of each successive stage as soon as it is left behind. The spokesman of this party is Mark Twain, who wrote a burlesque of the Holy Grail, and ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... legs. Her face was well-coloured, her mouth, firm and rather wide, her nose well-shaped, her hair dark. She spoke in a decided voice, and did not mince her words. It was to her that her husband, Sir James, owed his reactionary principles ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all know each other, Pardeau. Call a spade a spade. Wyckoff was a reactionary scoundrel whom you did away with for ...
— The Clean and Wholesome Land • Ralph Sholto
... orientation, is to be brought about must be on the part of individuals. There is no hope for large numbers acting together, or for any kind of group-impulse. Group-impulse among Caucasians is nearly always frightened, conservative, reactionary, or derisive of the forward step. There is hardly an exception to this in the whole history ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... had moaned. My feelings as I lifted her to a bunk were mixed. Being a reactionary, I still felt that woman's place was not in the Army or Navy. Yet I confess that the woman—or girl, rather—was ornamental. She was of the Iberian type. She was beautiful, and looked helpless. Some atavistic trait of the protective instinct in man made me take a little more ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... determination that was final, he ended the debate in his own mind between futilely reactionary sentiment and ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... Were there no reactionary movements to warn us of the terrible reassertion of autocratic power so soon to deluge earth with horror? Yes, though there were few democratic defeats to measure against the splendid record of advance. Russia stood, as she has so long stood, the dragon of repression. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... illustrious martyrs. As scholars, citizens, gentlemen, and, in more than one instance, authors of real genius, these Liberals stand alone, and are not to be confounded with the perverse Radicals of a subsequent epoch. Moreover, their aspirations were, as we have seen, more reactionary than experimental; for the rights for which they conspired had been in a great measure enjoyed under Europe's modern conqueror, then impotent in action, but most efficient in remembrance, although isolated on his prison-rock. Foresti's companion in misfortune has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her," said Aubrey. "This man I was talking with at the Crillon—I wish I could tell you his name—heard it directly from...Well, you know who." He turned to Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. "There's a mission in Russia at this minute ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... of service for the entire number being a little less than three years. On the whole, the most notable of the group of 19th Century incumbents was Don Miguel Tacon, who ruled from June 1, 1834, until April 16, 1838. His record would seem to place him quite decidedly in the "reactionary" class, but he was a man of action who left behind him monuments that remain to his credit even now. One historian, Mr. Kimball, who wrote in 1850, describes him as one in whom short-sightedness, narrow views, and jealous and weak mind, were joined to an uncommon stubbornness ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... personal and party brawl which was in the highest degree apt to inflame the passions and to obscure the judgment of everybody concerned in it. Since my return from the South, the evil effects of Mr. Johnson's conduct in encouraging the reactionary spirit prevalent among the Southern whites had become more and more evident and alarming from day to day. Charles Sumner told me that his personal experience with the President had been very much like mine. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... great to-do about the matter. The affair was just serio-comic enough to attract nation-wide attention. And the story was a good one—the story of the anarchist-shoemaker who invoked the use of archaic, reactionary laws, in his battle against his less radical antagonists, the Single Taxers ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... revolution. But a conviction of the necessity of immediate change gradually came to all. The Czar himself brought matters to an issue. His vacillation, his appointment of ministers who were not only reactionary, but were suspected of being German tools, were too much for even honest supporters of the Imperial regime. Some of these reactionaries, it is true, were easily driven from power. In 1915 Sukhomlinov and Maklakov were overthrown ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... liberties, university freedom, and liberalism in government and religion. The governments in this Alliance redirected and restricted the people's schools, as much as could be done, to make them conform in purpose to their reactionary ideas. In consequence, the development of popular education in Germany, as well as in France and other continental lands, was for a time checked. The great start obtained by Prussia and the German States before 1820, though, was such that what ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... fact that the reaction employed the institutional state church as a weapon with which to combat the rising tide of popular discontent with existing social and political forms and functions. This was especially true after the accession to the throne of Prussia of that romantic and reactionary prince, Frederick William ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... HENRY CHAPLIN has been correctly reported he is even more of a reactionary than most of his opponents imagined. In the course of the debate on the Sunday Closing Bill he is said to have delivered himself as follows:—"Drunkenness is diminishing, and I say Thank God; long may it continue." The pious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... generally, and one can easily believe that her tenacity in adhering to it would have been proof against any ordeal whether of persecution or persuasion. This trait was not more strikingly illustrated by the strength and fervency of her Whiggism amid the reactionary tide produced by the excesses of the French Revolution than by the circumstances of her marriage. The only child of a small landed proprietor in Yorkshire, she had no lack of opportunities for gratifying her father's ambition by marrying in a rank far above her own. Nor was it her ardent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Already a reactionary policy is being enacted in several countries where for years the State-School was the only one to share in the public treasury. In Holland, the Parliament of June, 1920, by a vote of 72 against 3, passed a new school-law which recognizes and subsidizes ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... have occasionally thought it wise to warn the more adventurous spirits among us against these dangers, in sufficiently plain language; and I have sometimes jestingly said that I expected, if I lived long enough, to be looked on as a reactionary by some of my more ardent friends. But nothing short of midsummer madness can account for the fiction that I am waiting till it is safe to join openly a revolt, hatched by some person or persons unknown, against an intellectual movement with which ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... other words, faced with the fact that while Ireland has been waiting for Home Rule we have taken the first great step in granting Home Rule to India. Surely this is a fact that presents a new challenge to the reactionary Unionist of the United Kingdom. Does he really contend that Ireland is incapable of receiving the same liberties as we are granting to India? Or will he make the wicked and dangerous suggestion that we are only ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... times the institution of marriage is menaced by two opposite forces; on the one hand, by a revolutionary type of socialism, and on the other, by the reactionary influence of self-interested individualism. (a) It is contended by some advanced socialists that among {226} the poor and the toiling home life is practically non-existent; indeed, under present industrial ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... state which has made itself great out of the weak will of sundry inferior states, homogeneous in their disunity more than in any positive quality, and which stands for a political ideal more nearly reactionary, more nearly mediaeval, than any other modern state. Berlin is not German as Paris is French, and Rome is not so exclusively Italian. In fact, her greatness, accomplished and destined, lies in just the fact that she is not and never can be exclusively Italian. Human interests too ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... sometimes unwilling to consider the scruples of groups of individuals on the faculty, along lines of economic morals, they have nevertheless taken no official steps to suppress the expression of such scruples. They have withstood any reactionary pressure from individuals of their board, and have always allowed the faculty entire academic freedom. In matters pertaining to the college classes, they are usually content to ratify the appointments on the faculty, and approve the alterations in the curriculum ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... this reactionary tendency sometimes given is that the Negro is only a generation from slavery. It should not be forgotten that individuals of every other race in history have at some time been held slaves. The bondage of Israel is to-day only an epic poem. The Greek Slave adorns ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Army Committees were formed by the soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old regime officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps had its committee, over all of which was elected the Army Committee. The Central Army Committee cooperated ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... himself powerfully; a reactionary swell helped him too much, and next moment the three men went, heads, hands, and brushes, plunging against ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... these in this respect are the men who represent the extreme conservative or reactionary spirit, who as a rule are as ignorant of English as the great reformers are the reverse. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... intellect has vitiated much of their symbology, and the sentiment of sheer wonder is stimulated rather than that of orderly imagination. To read the "Arabian Nights" or the "Bhagavad-Gita" is a sort of dissipation; upon the unhackneyed mind of the child it leaves a reactionary sense of depression. The life which it embodies is distorted, over-colored, and exciting; it has not the serene and balanced power of the Western productions. Moreover, these books were not written with the grave philosophic purpose that animated ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... under George III., was a corrupt and discredited body; and the Treaty of Paris was affirmed by 319 votes to 65. It had fallen to the lot of Governor Palliser—a fine reactionary in the view he took of his charge—to frame local orders for carrying out the provisions of the Treaty of Paris. His orders were clear and unambiguous. The French right of fishing within the permitted area was declared to be concurrent. The English jurisdiction was affirmed except in disputes ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... child who has passed through that dreary mill will be far less effective, even as a day-labourer, than the child whose school-life has been one of continuous and many-sided growth. It is strange that the reactionary members of the "upper classes" should be too short-sighted to discern this obvious truth. But perhaps they have a secret conviction that by so educating the "lower orders" as to make them slow and stupid, helpless and lifeless, they will be the better ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... under the new conditions, Krueger, who represented the extreme reactionary party, was elected President, although he had accepted office under the British Government, while Joubert, who had declined any dealings with them, was defeated, being suspected of sympathising with the Uitlanders. His defeat ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... I expected, the Commercial side has been the chief topic of conversation among boys and masters. The latter are, I fear, reactionary—realising, no doubt, their incompetence to deal with business subjects. The boys are enthusiastic. I am constantly approached in the corridors by lads who say it has always been their ambition to become a Tipton or a Whiteridge, or a Gilling and Warow, as the case may be. One little fellow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... not slavery, and may be introduced without a violation of their pledge. Although formally admitting negro testimony, they think that negro testimony will be taken practically for what they themselves consider it "worth." What particular shape the reactionary movement will assume it is at present unnecessary to inquire. There are a hundred ways of framing apprenticeship, vagrancy, or contract laws, which will serve the purpose. Even the mere reorganization of the militia upon the old footing will go far towards accomplishing the ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... Gladstone's pamphlet on the Vatican Decrees is likely to produce a reactionary effect upon the patronage of the Romanists in his future support as the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... own profession to assail his theories and, secretly and openly, certain of them charged that the result in Dr. Earl's case was but the natural one where "standard methods" of practice were set aside for the, as yet, "unscientific paths of suggestive therapeutics," as these reactionary medical men denominated Earl's system, for he had cured through suggestive methods a score of patients who had been condemned to the operating table by other surgeons, and as a result he had aroused the resentment of such ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... have availed nothing; but appeals—downright tearful appeals from mamma, husky, hand-gripping appeals from papa—that is what has made escape impossible. A huge act of unselfishness has been compelled; a lifetime of reactionary egotism is inevitable and legitimate. I was wrong when I said Malim was typical. He has to the good an ingenuity which assists naturally in the solution of the problem of self and circumstance. A year or two ago chance brought him in contact with Kit. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... this," so I have been told more than once and by more than one person, "will be simply that all you will succeed in doing will be to drive people to the wildest Catholicism." And I have been accused of being a reactionary and even a Jesuit. Be it so! And ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... writer's object to indicate the nature of the struggle which will confront the public of this country for the achievement of political and industrial democracy when the war is over. The economic roots of Militarism and of the confederacy of reactionary influences which are found supporting it—Imperialism, Protectionism, Conservatism, Bureaucracy, Capitalism—are subjected to a critical analysis. The safeguarding and furtherance of the interests of Improperty and Profiteering ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... political independence of the State, that made a country really free. Unfortunately, just as their proposals began to gain followers, Spain became involved in war with England, because the Spanish King, then as now a Bourbon and so related to a number of other reactionary rulers, had united in the family compact by which the royal relatives were to stamp out liberal ideas in their own dominions, and as allies to crush England, the source of the dissatisfaction which threatened ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... the manner in which this disputation at Marburg was conducted with the previous character of the contest, in which the one party had denounced their opponents as diabolical fanatics, and the other as reactionary Papists and worshippers of 'a god made of bread,' it will be evident that some results of importance at least had been attained by the discussion itself and the mode in which it had been held. The ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... to that family soon after Richard's birth. Friedrich, during his later years, cannot have had much spare time for amateur theatricals or any other amusement. Napoleon was fighting his last desperate fights against the combined forces of reactionary Europe; all the powers of feudalism had combined to crush an emperor who had no royal blood in his veins; he raged over Germany like an infuriated beast with a genius for military tactics, scattering armies which dispersed only to join together and face him ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... that nominated Woodrow Wilson had adjourned, a convention wholly dominated by reactionary bosses, it seemed as if progress and every fine thing for which the Progressives had worked had been put finally to sleep. Behind the selection of the Princetonian and his candidacy lay the Old Guard who thought the Professor could be used as a shield ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... representatives have been withdrawn from the scene either by age or death; others have followed the multitude, and conformed to the reigning 'churchmanship.' It is the old story enacted in the Catholic revival of the end of the sixteenth century, and at other times before and since. The reactionary clergy have succeeded in getting themselves regarded as the Swiss Guard of the throne. They stand between Royalty and Revolution. All the places in the gift of the crown—and all the places are in the gift of the crown—are filled ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... minds of honest workmen, but among an underpaid intelligentsia. Neither political party offered any relief; the old lines no longer held, and new lines of cleavage had come. Progressive Republicans and Democrats had united against reactionary members of both parties. There were no great leaders, no men ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ultra-conservative—reactionary might be the better term—organization devoted to witch hunting and such in its efforts to maintain the status quo, major. Once again, history repeats itself. Such groups invariably evolve when basic change threatens a socio-economic system." He looked at Nadine. "I must be going, my dear. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... secure bases of noble achievement. If we are not yet prepared to be inducted into our national mission, through providential favor, then let us come to it through the inverse method: through Ulterior and Reactionary Consequence. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... This reactionary movement was greatly aided by the personal character of George III, for he, being despotic as well as superstitious, was equally anxious to extend the prerogative and strengthen the church. Every liberal sentiment, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... costumes and thus work upon the sentiments of the nation; but "the authorities" forbade this and every other movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude on the part of Italy—this "reactionary rigorism against every manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... upon the other side, the irresponsible, more than half-hysterical action of a group of terrified and incompetent politicians. These men had been swept into great positions, which they were totally unfitted to fill, by a tidal wave of reactionary public feeling, and of the blind selfishness of a decadence born of long freedom from any form of national discipline; of liberties too easily won and but half-understood; of superficial education as to rights, and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... picturesquely good and pious as was Ludmilla, in these days of mail-orders, wholesale departments, banking accounts and cheque-books. There was another lady of the P[vr]emysl family, and she, according to all accounts, was neither good nor pious. She was a reactionary, a thorough-paced pagan, and it was this lady who caused trouble in the household. The lady's name was Dragomira; she had married Bo[vr]ivoj's second son, and had been left a widow with three sons. This did not have the usual soothing ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... says, "that the system of education on which we lavish funds with such generous, even prodigal, hand, falls short of fulfilling its true democratic function; and that particularly in the so-called higher branches its tendency appears daily more reactionary, more feudal. It is not an agreeable reflection that so many of our university graduates lack the trained ability to see clearly, and to think clearly, concisely, constructively; that there is perhaps more showing of cynicism than good faith, seemingly more distrust of men than confidence ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... suddenness with which the metaphorical can had, metaphorically speaking, been tied to his caudal appendage. Every large business office has its Skinner—a queer combination of decency, honesty, brains and brutality, a worshiper at the shrine of Mammon in the temple of the great god Business, a reactionary Republican, treasurer of his church and eventually a total loss from diabetes, brought on by lack of exercise and ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... who never calls himself one. He is singularly like the radical reformer. The radical has had no experience and does not want it. The other class of reformer has had plenty of experience but it does him no good. I refer to the reactionary—who will be surprised to find himself put in exactly the same class as the Bolshevist. He wants to go back to some previous condition, not because it was the best condition, but because he thinks he knows about ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... balance of parties altered: Vincke, until a few months ago the leader of the Liberals, found himself at Frankfort regarded as an extreme Conservative; and Frankfort was moderate compared to Berlin. At this time an ordinary English Radical would have been looked upon in Germany as almost reactionary. Bismarck did not seek election for either of the Assemblies; he felt that he could do no good by taking part in the deliberations of a Parliament, the very meeting of which seemed to him an offence against ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... got what they wanted, that is to say the emancipation of the land, they were ready to think that the Revolution was in safety and at an end. They were in no position to see the enmity of the exiles, the dangerous selfishness of Austria and Prussia, the disloyal machinations of the court, the reactionary sentiment of La Vendee, the absolute unworkableness of the new constitution. Arthur Young, in the height of the agitations of the Constituent Assembly, found himself at Moulins, the capital of the Bourbonnais, and on the great post-road to Italy. He went to the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... complete it by needful supplementary legislation; who have spared no exertion to deprive it of moral force; who have themselves again and again attempted its repeal by the enactment of incompatible provisions, and who, by the inevitable reactionary effect of their own violence on the subject, awakened the country to perception of the true constitutional principle of leaving the matter involved to the discretion of the people of the respective existing or ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that reactionary movement which arises against grand and difficult works when the strong hand that undertook them is no longer by to maintain them; but this movement was of short duration and to little purpose. Brought up in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... away of the National power to exercise this theoretical right of control until it practically vanished. After the Civil War, with the portentous growth of industrial combinations in this country, came a period of reactionary decisions by the courts which, as regards corporations, culminated in what is known ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... reaction flung the mind into religious revolt from the outworn dogmas and overgrown pretensions of the monkish ideal, so did it drive the healthy reaction of art into its own extravagances of protest. And we shall see how even a genius like Holbein's was unable to entirely free itself from this reactionary defect. For with all his astonishing powers, imaginative and technical, he never wholly overcame that defect of making his figures too short and too thick-set for grace, which amounted to a deformity in the full-length figures ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... Germany the movement in favour of representative institutions made rapid headway; a National Assembly for Germany was constituted, and Schleswig was claimed as an integral part of the German dominions. In Italy also the Revolution, though premature, was serious. The Pope, not yet reactionary, declared war against Austria; the Milanese rose against Radetzky, the Austrian Governor, and King Charles Albert of Sardinia marched to their assistance. A republic was proclaimed in Venice, but these successes were afterwards nullified, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... hours this night, though of late, she had been sleeping unusually well.... Why had the realization been so slow in coming? An answer was ready enough: Because David was an old acquaintance. But another thought came: For years, except in rare reactionary hours, such as that afternoon in Beth's studio, she had put away the thought of man as a mate.... For years, she had tried to become a block instead of a battery; tried to give the full portion of her life to the thing called work, and hated herself ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... danger in Anarchism is not that some Anarchists believe in violence, and that from time to time there are cowardly assassinations which are as futile as they are cowardly. The real danger lies first in the reactionary principle that the interests of society must be subordinated to the interests of the individual, and, second, in holding out a hope to the working class that its freedom from oppression and exploitation may be brought about by ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... Duke of Sussex prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret societies then existing in Italy—even those of the reactionary party—than did most of the initiated. In an amusing passage in his memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the chief was the landlord, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... had been the measures taken by the king to secure the peace of his good city of Nimes, they had nevertheless been reactionary; consequently the Catholics, feeling the authorities were now on their side, returned in crowds: the householders reclaimed their houses, the priests their churches; while, rendered ravenous by the bitter bread of exile, both the clergy and the laity pillaged the treasury. Their return ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... on the other point, should march against Custine, give him battle, surround Mayence, and after taking it, renew the preceding invasion. These two armies of operation were sustained in the intermediate position by considerable forces. Dumouriez, engrossed by ambitious and reactionary designs, at a moment when he ought only to have thought of the perils of France, proposed to himself to re-establish the monarchy of 1791, in spite of the convention and Europe. What Bouille could not do for ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... clears the air, and should persuade Mr. Dexter and his reactionary friends to think twice before again inaugurating a crusade which can only recoil upon their own heads. I enclose 5 shillings, if only as a protest against this un-English 'hitting below the belt,' ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and religion, on foundation principles; to construct for its practice a theoria, an aesthetik. In the later history of German romanticism, the medieval revival in letters and art was carried out with a philosophic consistency into other domains of thought and made accessory to reactionary statecraft and theology, to Junkerism and Catholicism. Meanwhile, though the literary movement in Germany in the eighteenth century did not quite come to a head, it was more critical, learned, and conscious of its own purposes and methods than the kindred movement in England. The English ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... plausibility to these assumptions is summed up in the now current phrase about the "masses" and the "classes". We all know the regular process of logical fence of the journalist, i.e., thrust and parry, which is repeated whenever such questions turn up. The Radical calls his opponent Tory and reactionary. The wicked Tory, it is said, thinks only of the class interest; believes that the nation exists for the sake of the House of Lords; lives in a little citadel provided with all the good things, which he is ready to defend against every attempt at a juster distribution; ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Southey became conservative pillars of the state. Yet Southey, reactionary as he was in politics, never ceased to believe in social Progress. [Footnote: See his Colloquies; and Shelley, writing in 1811, says that Southey "looks forward to a state when all shall be perfected and matter become subjected to the omnipotence of mind" (Dowden, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... progress and evolution, just as the communist believes that communism will be the outcome; neither theorist would see the slightest advantage in trying to hasten the slow but sure progress of events by deeds of violence; in fact, both theorists would regret such deeds as certain to prove reactionary and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... different. Aunt Marcia calls her a 'reactionary,' because she is very high church and great friends with all the clergy. She is a very quiet little thing, short and fair, with a long thin nose and eyes that look you through. Her two great passions are—curates, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who was a quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted by Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the official breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so very reactionary to ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... didn't care about any one else, but didn't think she ought to marry me, and so on. I couldn't get her to say why for a long time, but at last it came out. Some one, that idiotic Englishwoman, I suppose, had put it into the dear girl's head that it was her duty not to ally herself with 'a reactionary' (I think that was the word) and in this case that meant poor harmless me. I argued till I must have been blue in the face, but I couldn't get her to give in: she says now that she thought she would make me give in. And so ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... class of Kentuckians, many of them descendants of slave owners, are prone to be reactionary in their attitude towards those who toil, this is reflected in low wages and inferior working conditions, a condition which affects both white and black labor alike, in many sections of the state. (Bibliography: Rev. John R. Cox (colored) Catlettsburg, Kentucky. Born 1852 (does ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... of the few countries which no longer tolerate capital punishment. It was abolished thirty years ago, and, in spite of the strenuous efforts of the reactionary party, it is not likely to be re-established. Quite recently, Mr. C. Loosjes wrote a pamphlet in advocacy of the reenactment of capital punishment, and his position at the Ministry of Justice gave to this work ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... the other," said Harry, carelessly. "I bet the squire's a bigger pot than the county council in that county. Verner is pretty well rooted; all these rural places are what you call reactionary. Damning aristocrats won't ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... mere wild revolutionists; no inference could be more wide of the fact. Whatever may have been the character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no thoughtful student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and sneers of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more keen-sighted legislative bodies have ever met than this first French Constitutional Assembly. In it were such men as Sieyes, Bailly, Necker, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, DuPont de Nemours and a multitude of others who, ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... moral and material, are being turned against us by some of those to whom we have imparted an elementary aptitude for using them. And thus we have the strange spectacle, in certain parts of India, of a party capable of resorting to methods that are both reactionary and revolutionary, of men who offer prayers and sacrifices to ferocious divinities and denounce the Government by seditious journalism, preaching primitive superstition in the very modern form of leading ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... Ciceronian age which, whether under political pressure or not, they all adopted. Even Ovid, never ungenerous though not always discriminating in his praise, dismisses him in a list of Latin poets with a single couplet of vague eulogy. In the reactionary circles of the Empire, Lucretius found recognition; but the critics who, according to Tacitus, ranked him above Virgil may be reasonably suspected of doing so more from caprice than from rational conviction. Had the poem itself ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... The mikado meanwhile had placed himself at the head of the reactionary party, pensioned the tycoon, and made rapid advancement in European manners and customs. In 1868, Satsuma and his party broke out into open rebellion against the mikado. But the prince's levies were no match for the imperial troops, armed with the snider, and the result ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... nothing, and go to their work. Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This is how it appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated—'Well done!' Universal suffrage is re-established—'Also well done!' The reactionary majority has been driven away—'Admirable!' Thiers is arrested—'Capital!' Changarnier is seized—'Bravo!' Round each placard there are claqueurs. Ratapoil explains his coup d'etat to Jacques Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the powers of the Triple Entente, and especially Russia, have made themselves the champions have not provoked this bloody struggle. It was imposed on them by the reactionary spirit of the Germanic world, which desired to consolidate its hegemony, based on the sufferings of the weak, impossible to describe, and on the contempt of right, which was proclaimed as ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Christian is a reactionary product of his time. Humanity continuing in one direction acquires success, and finally through an overweening pride in its own powers, relaxation enters, and self- indulgence takes the place ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... and the bad in all men. The world has learned since the days of the Christ that by far the best means of obtaining the largest results of unalloyed good is by appealing to the best that there is in men rather than to the worst. In no respect is the reactionary character of Mr. Dixon's crusade more apparent than in his attempt to attain his ends through his appeals to the worst that ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... plenty of ill-natured talk either way, whether Oliver gives her up or doesn't. The real thing to bear in mind is that if Oliver yields to your wishes, mamma—as you certainly deserve that he should, after all you have done for him—he will be delivered from an ignorant and reactionary wife who might have spoiled his career. I like to call a spade a spade. Oliver belongs to his party, and his party have a right to count upon him. He has no right to jeopardize either his opinions or his money; we ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Buddha in order that he himself might get the post of honor. But hell opened and swallowed him up. He appears to have had convictions of Jain tendency, for before his intrigue he preached against Buddha, and formulated reactionary propositions which inculcated a stricter asceticism than that taught by ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... Excentriques. The two first were themselves emphatically "eccentrics"—one an apostle of dandyism (he actually wrote a book about Brummel, whom he had met early), a disdainful critic of rather untrustworthy vigour, and a stalwart reactionary to Catholicism and Royalism; the other a devotee of the exact opposite of dandyism, as the title of his best-known book, Les Va-nu-pieds, shows, and a Republican to the point of admiring the Commune. The opposition has at least the advantage of disproving prejudice, in any unfavourable ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... than his predecessors not to set the population against him and to preserve the loyalty of his army, it may be said with absolute certainty that any large success on his part would bring crowding to his banner the same crowd of stupid reactionary officers who brought to nothing any mild desire for moderation that may have been felt by General Denikin. If the area he controls increases, his power of control over his subordinates will decrease, and the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... America. He had thought too long the other way. Being of a choleric cast, he would at times be warmed into regrettable outbursts of opinion that were reactionary in the extreme. Thus when he discussed with Gideon and Harvey D. the latest number of the magazine—containing the fearless exposure of Washington's chicanery—he spoke in terms most slighting of Emmanuel Schilsky. He meant his words to lap over to Merle Whipple, but as the others were ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... bring her excitability into politics, it is likely that it would neutralize the excitement that is already there, and that there would be a grand peace! (Laughter). But, not to trifle with it, woman is excitable. Woman is yet to be educated. Woman is yet to experience the reactionary influence of being a public legislator and thinker. And let her sphere be extended beyond the family and the school, so that she should be interested in, and actively engaged in, promoting the welfare of the whole community, and in the course of three generations the reaction on her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... greater rebellion; and though you sell your prayer-book to buy Bakunine, and esteem yourself revolutionary to a point of madness, you shall find one who calls you reactionary. The scorners came in together—Moe Tchatzsky, the syndicalist and direct actionist, and Jane Schott, the writer of impressionistic prose—and they sat silently sneering ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... asks a pertinent question. What is it after all but "sentiment," he inquires, that prevents a man from killing his grandmother in time of hunger? Sentiment is the most respectable thing in human psychology. No one believes in it more thoroughly than your reactionary Tory. But he wears his heart on his sleeve with a difference. He is so greedily patriotic that he would keep all the patriotism in the world to himself. That he should love his country is natural and noble, a theme so high as to be worthy of Mr Kipling or even ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... predictions with regard to the French Revolution were realized. During all the years that have intervened since reconstruction days, the conservative has had as a resource for leadership his harking back to those days. The demagogue and the reactionary — enemies of the children of light — have always been able to inflame the populace with appeals to the memories and issues of the past. Such men have ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... death warrant of the two atrocious villains who did the deed, and for allowing them to be executed. The fact that he was blamed, and very bitterly, gives some idea of the stupid and senseless prejudice against the popes which was the result of Antonelli's narrow and reactionary policy. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... He was chief counsel for Warren Hastings, and his famous speech in defense of his client is well known. He became Chief Justice and was raised to the peerage in 1802. He opposed all efforts to modernize the criminal code, insisting upon the reactionary ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... be afraid of the new world; they doubt the possibility of eliminating war, poverty and injustice—customs as deeply rooted in the social world as belief in Jesus is in the religious world. If the chief reactionary bulwark of the past is abandoned, there will be greater possibility of accepting ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... upon the voters of France by the then Minister of the Interior, M. Allain-Targe, who issued a circular commanding all the prefects in France to stand 'neutral' between Republican candidates of all shades, but to exert themselves for the defeat of all 'reactionary' candidates; in spite of all this, the elections of October and November 1885 sent up about two hundred monarchical members, whose seats could by no trick or device be stolen from them, to the Chamber of Deputies, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... allayed their worst fears. She still smiled, and seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither spoke nor prayed in public, but she led the singing always. Now the anxious and the sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and hear; and seeing and hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared express. She was more handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened with a light they had never seen before, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Christian, while the Cantonal legislation was in many cases frankly and even aggressively anti-Semitic. Until 1827 the Swiss Commercial Treaties contained no hint of religious differentiation, but in that year, availing themselves of the reactionary and clerical sympathies of the government of Charles X, the Federal Authorities negotiated a Treaty with France containing a "National treatment" clause, under which the powers of the separate Cantons to deal as they pleased with Jews were, in effect, reserved. But this was not ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... corn laws the tariff legislation of Great Britain was guided by a new policy, that of free trade, and it has been followed ever since. The reactionary tendencies of Continental Europe after the fall of Napoleon reached also to England, where they controlled the conduct of political affairs until Canning, in 1822, became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His policy was liberal and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... difficult to exaggerate the benefit of this measure to the nation, through the service, despite the subsequent reactionary legislation. By a single act a large number of officers were advanced from the most subordinate and irresponsible positions to those which called all their faculties into play. "Responsibility," said one of the most experienced admirals the world has known, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... been at Court before, and in consequence were not so well drilled as the Bishops. Some of them bowed too often, and too hurriedly, and before they need, beginning with the Lord Functionary whom they mistook for royalty; and they walked out sideways instead of backwards, reactionary methods of progress not being in their blood. Still, taking them for all in all, they were a very learned-looking body, and their presence in such uncongenial surroundings showed that they ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... was more ardent a fighter than young Francisco Ferrer. The Republican ideal,—I hope no one will confound it with the Republicanism of this country. Whatever objection I, as an Anarchist, have to the Republicans of Latin countries, I know they tower high above the corrupt and reactionary party which, in America, is destroying every vestige of liberty and justice. One has but to think of the Mazzinis, the Garibaldis, the scores of others, to realize that their efforts were directed, not merely towards ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... it and create a popular stir that might lead to a triumph. Whence the suggestion came is not known, but its execution, so far as the libretto was concerned, was left to Gieseke. Under the Emperor Leopold II the Austrian government had adopted a reactionary policy toward the order of Freemasons, which was suspected of making propaganda for liberal ideas in politics and religion. Both Schikaneder and Mozart belonged to the order, Mozart, indeed, being so enthusiastic ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... 1912, one of the most notable pictures was called "Rebellion." The catalogue told us that it represented "the collision of two forces, that of the revolutionary element made up of enthusiasm and red lyricism against the force of inertia and the reactionary resistance of tradition." The picture showed a crowd of scarlet figures rushing forward in a wedge. Before them went successive wedge-shaped lines, impinging upon dull blue. They represented, we were told, the vibratory waves of the revolutionary element in motion. The force of inertia ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... in land thoroughly tilled by forces of discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure: England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever since the war been struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days will shatter that crust in a ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... refuge of Germany in distress. How often had German thought turned to France, without ceasing to slander her! Even since seventy, what an attraction emanated from the town which had been shattered and smoking under the German guns! The most revolutionary and the most reactionary forms of thought and art had found alternately and sometimes at once example and inspiration there. Like so many other great German musicians in distress, Christophe turned towards Paris.... What did he know of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the election of 1907 spoke of himself rather as the successful leader of a popular electoral campaign than as the inheritor of a divine right. The vast majority of the Russian nation passionately desires a sovereign parliament, and a reactionary Duma finds itself steadily pushed by circumstances towards that position. The most ultramontane Roman Catholics demand temporal power for the Pope, no longer as an ideal system of world government, but as an expedient for ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... OF TRENT: CARAFFA.—The Council of Trent was governed in its conclusions by this Catholic reactionary and reforming party. It allowed no curtailing of the prerogatives of the Pope. On points of doctrine in dispute within the pale of the Church, it adopted formulas which the different schools might accept. Practical reforms, for example in respect to the education of the clergy, were adopted; ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... regarding them Their identification with the implements of prehistoric man Remains of man found in caverns Unfavourable influence on scientific activity of the political conditions of the early part of the nineteenth century Change effected by the French Revolution of to {??} Rallying of the reactionary clerical ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... though their Socialism is very little developed, though their chief remedy for poverty has hitherto consisted in the land-allotment system, which was superseded {235} by the introduction of manufacture, though their chief practical propositions are apparently of a reactionary nature, yet these very measures involve the alternative that they must either succumb to the power of competition once more and restore the old state of things, or they must themselves entirely overcome competition and abolish ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... primal tenet in his creed was like the ancient mariner's, to harm neither man nor bird nor beast; and he exemplified this doctrine with incredible consistency for full fifty years. He lived a blameless life. Many laughed at him for his unpractical theories; but the example of one such man, even in a reactionary way, is worth more to the community than the practical efforts of ten ordinary men. He has besides the distinction of being the person, whom, during the middle portion of his life, Emerson most liked to ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... to the office since 1825. The sequestered estates of American citizens, which had been the cause of long and fruitless correspondence, were ordered to be restored to their owners. All these liberal steps were taken in the face of a violent opposition directed by the reactionary slaveholders of Havana, who are vainly striving to stay the march of ideas which has terminated slavery in Christendom, Cuba only excepted. Unhappily, however, this baneful influence has thus far succeeded in defeating the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... language which to him seemed a proper investiture of his comedy, and like them has made that language characteristic of the comedy's personages and illustrative of its incidents. He has been brave enough not to fear being called a reactionary, knowing that there is always progress in the successful ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... he heard that the old gang had triumphed. Mr. Alderman Crood was elected Mayor of Hathelsborough by a majority of two votes. A couple of the wobblers on the Council had given way at the last moment and thrown in their lot with the reactionary, ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... matter of evening costume, you see, Jeeves is hidebound and reactionary. I had had trouble with him before about soft-bosomed shirts. And while these mess-jackets had, as I say, been all the rage—tout ce qu'il y a de chic—on the Cote d'Azur, I had never concealed it from myself, even when treading the measure at ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... his "Nest of Gentlefolk" made him not only famous but universally popular. In 1862 the publication of his masterpiece "Fathers and Children" dealt his reputation a blow. The revolutionary elements in Russia regarded his hero, Bazarov, as a calumny and a libel; whereas the reactionary elements in Russia looked upon "Fathers and Children" as a glorification of Nihilism. Thus he satisfied nobody. He fell between two stools. This, perhaps, could only happen in Russia to this extent; and for that same reason as that which made Russian criticism didactic. ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... on this pretext one or two couples slipped away into the card-room. But Louise, and the Bishop, and pretty Laure de Rastignac besought Lucien to continue, and this time he caught the attention of his audience with Chenier's spirited reactionary Iambes. Several persons, carried away by his impassioned delivery, applauded the reading without understanding the sense. People of this sort are impressed by vociferation, as a coarse palate is ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... a verbal inspiration could have been secured—secured, observe, against gradual changes in language and against the reactionary corruption of concurrent versions, which it would be impossible to guarantee as also enjoying such an inspiration (since, in that case, what barrier would divide mine or anybody's wilfully false translations from that pretending to authority? I repeat what? None is conceivable, since what ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... French critic of absolute government which they could hardly exercise at home, where their real limitations were better known. The French revolution bore on the entire thought of Europe, alike by sympathy and antipathy, producing the reactionary philosophies of Burke in England and of Hegel in Germany, and the endeavour to formulate a new and safer line of Radicalism by Bentham. Philosophical Radicalism expressed in the main by the distinct but related Manchester school had two generations of development in England, and was felt as a real ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various |
