"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With the first retort Ken had felt a hot trembling go over him, and having yielded to his anger he did not care ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... you do?" was the indignant retort. "What but push that board against my lily-pad and knock me in the water! I call that doing ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answered, 'Perhaps it would be as much to the purpose to ask, for what ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Californian serenely waved away all such gloss and with the seated giant hanging over him like a thunder-cloud said that the twins could never see anything straight enough to tell the truth about it if they wanted to and that just as certainly they often didn't want to. Pausing there and getting no retort, he ventured another ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... in retort. Usually she was too busy to waste the time. But she allowed herself the luxury of a ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... in this town till we get things on the basis of one bank, one newspaper, one wife and one country, and the way to do that is to get out in the open and fight. If I've got as much sense as a rabbit I say that Ab Handy is the man, and whether I'm right or wrong I'm going to run him." He seemed to retort to some objector: "Yes, and the first thing you know he'd come charging up to the Speaker's desk with a maximum freight-rate bill, or a stock-yards bill—and where would I be? I tell you he won't stand hitched. He'll swell up ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... that it would be difficult to find anywhere a more shameful exploitation, intellectual and economic, than that which has been practised on the Ulster Orangeman by his feudal masters. Were I to retort the abuse, with which my own creed is daily bespattered, I should describe him further as the only victim of clerical obscurantism to be found in Ireland. Herded behind the unbridged waters of the Boyne, he has been forced to live in a very Tibet of intellectual isolation. ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... discovered a suitable retort, but, coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to repartees, refrained from ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... Words are hushed in great encounters. Debate with a pirate, a body-snatcher, would be folly; no arguments, therefore, were wasted, on the top of Nebo, by Michael, over the grave of Moses. "The Lord rebuke thee," was his retort; his heavenly form stopping the way, his baffling right arm hindering the accursed design, were the invincible logic ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the retort, continuing: "I am not amazed, after seeing your surroundings at the Silt place, that you should become familiar with these common longshore characters. But this that I have just learned—only this forenoon in fact—astonishes me ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... committed a fault in giving expression to his astonishment. Porthos had taken advantage of it, to retort with a question. "Why," said he, "you know I am a bourgeois, in fact; my dress, then, has nothing astonishing in it, since it ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thought it all up a month ago for us Juniors because of our Senior oppression and after his great loss he went on just the same helping us practise and seemed to be as interested in us as if we had been explosives in a bottle or a test-tube or a retort. His great serenity of soul is a constant lesson to me. Good-night, Louise. You are a comfort; you settle my thoughts, though just ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... stung him to instant retort. "And in gude company I'd be. Fifty years syne Lord Erskine was laughed down in Parliament for proposing to give legal protection to dumb animals. But we're getting ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... took a quantity of this, into which we put four marks of silver and one of gold that had been undergoing the process of calcination for a month. We put this mixture cleverly into a sort of horn-shaped vessel, with another to serve as a retort; and placed the whole apparatus upon our furnace to produce congelation. This experiment lasted a year; but, not to remain idle, we amused ourselves with many other less important operations. We drew quite as much profit from these as from our ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... retort was on my lips, but a glance at his face prevented me from uttering it—it was, in its expression, the face of a ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... not stoop to the obvious retort. His pardner came round the pile and his eyes fell on their common sleeping-bag, the two Nulato rifles, and other "traps," that meant more to him than any objects ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that. Nary tooth in ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in the social register. Indeed the old gentleman was rather inclined to be very snobbish on this point, and when any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to what was or was not good form. The only person who ever succeeded in bowling him over ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... a grin instead of a retort. He appreciated her sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he left the room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with him: it had drawn the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, and remained fixed; so that he vanished with something of the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... she sometimes said, it was because Ethan "never listened." The charge was not wholly unfounded. When she spoke it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he had first formed the habit of not answering her, and finally of thinking of other things while she talked. Of late, however, since he had reasons for observing her more closely, her silence had begun to trouble him. He recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and wondered if Zeena ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... the lunch I mind. It's all these infernal clothes," was Van's retort. "I don't see what on earth I wore ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... shifted his position in his chair. "What could I say, if it were discussed?" he made vague retort. "I'm merely one of the Directors. You are our Chairman, but you see he hasn't found it of any use to discuss it with you. There are hard and fast rules about these things. They run their natural course. You are not a ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Nay, no man would have time to turn a knave. Truth would follow him in his first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the commencement of his career." It is shameful for a good man to retort on a slander, "I will have recourse to the only means that are congenial to guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution (Godwin's term for law and constraint) ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... to declare that when an Isfahan father would set up his son in business he provides him with a pound of rice, meaning that he can sell the result as compost for the kitchen-garden, and with the price buy another meal: hence the saying Khakh-i-pai kahu the soil at the lettuce-root. The Isfahanis retort with the name of a station or halting-place between the two cities where, under presence of making travellers stow away their riding-gear, many a Shirazi had been raped: hence "Zin o takaltu tu bi-bar" carry within saddle and saddle-cloth! A favourite Persian punishment for strangers ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... admit that I like the political cases best. There is a squalor about private crime, which, though I like it myself, is inferior to politics as a staple. Besides, one has heard of the heroes of the political trials before; and to read Raleigh's little retort when Coke complains of a want of words adequately to express his opinion of Raleigh; to be reminded how the worst of kings proved himself an admirable lawyer, and the possessor of manners which, in a humbler station, would assuredly have ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... a rich anger, "Your Fathers!" as if Scott's must either have been Presbyterians or Cavaliers, the retort is cleverly put by Sir Walter in the mouth of Jedediah. His ancestors of these days had been Quakers, and persecuted by ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... cried Mrs. Rushton, bristling in defence of her offspring. "It was an awful thing to do, of course, but Teddy didn't realize——" then, seeing the retort trembling on Aaron's lips, she went on hastily: "But go right up to your room now, and get a bath and change your clothes. Mansfield will get you some things of his to put on, and I'll have supper waiting for you when you ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... enough to realize that any taunt flung at the adored father would rebound upon his daughter with double force, and she winked exultingly to her companions as Polly made no attempt at retort, but went straight to her desk and bent her white, drawn little face over her speller. It would have given her an added delight if she had known that the book was upside down and its print blurred ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... the girls were loath to go. They climbed with reluctance up the steep sandy little path to the cliff. As they neared the top they could hear voices in altercation—a high-pitched, protesting, childish wail, and a blunt, uncompromising, scolding retort. On the road above stood an invalid carriage, piled up with innumerable parcels, and containing also a small boy. He was a charmingly pretty little fellow, with a very pale, delicately oval face, beautiful ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the latter, who watched the first blow of his adversary to make a good retort; "I have nothing to say to your majesty, unless it be that you have caused me to be arrested, and here ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the charge our enemies bring against us. We feel, but don't reason, they say. We have much reason to retort, 'You reason, but have no feeling and little comprehension for those that have.' Come, I will be serious now," and his expression became grave and firm. "Cousin Sophy, Mr. Houghton will never give me a penny, nor would I take a gift from him even if ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Jane did not retort, but it was noticeable that thereafter she kept her eyes more closely on her work and not dreamily upon the floor. Presently, from out that roomy kitchen rose a medley of odors that floated even to the workers ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... permission. As the Captain's most faithful dog Tray, you'd better shoot yourself; it'll save the town the trouble of hanging you later on!" He smoked calmly while Shorty, on guard without, growled a vilifying retort, and the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... resolute decision, stamped upon the whole expression of the large forehead, and the clear blue eye, make his profile one of the most striking I ever saw. He honoured me, to my great surprise, with a fine speech and a compliment; and then, with a look, which menaced to St. John the retort that ensued, he added: "And I shall always be glad to think that I owe your acquaintance to Mr. Secretary St. John, who, if he talked less about operas and singers,—thought less about Alcibiades and Pericles,—if he never complained of the load of business not ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Circean philtre of sweet sunbrewed wine, sparkling with rainbow bubbles and gleaming with the mockery of the deathless gods. Once for all in this scandalous and beautiful book, the lying optimism of the preachers receives its crushing blow. "Candide" is the final retort of all sane and generous spirits, full of magnanimity and laughter, to that morbid and shameful propitiation of the destinies which cries "peace when there is ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... companion although that gentleman is a far better creature than the cause of his fortunes; and one doubts if Lord Beaconsfield would have trusted even the least frank of his private negotiations to some of the men who enjoy the Prime Minister's political confidence. Nor can Mr. Lloyd George retort that he makes use of all kinds of energy to get his work done, for one knows very well that he is far more at his ease with these third-rate people than with people of a higher and more intellectual order. For culture he has not the very least of predilections; and the passion of morality becomes ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... last retort at the two men with whom she was chaffing, and, descending through the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... merely of exuberant satire on America in the sense that Dotheboys Hall or Mr. Bumble's Workhouse are exuberant satires on England. They are full also of sharp argument with America as if the man who wrote expected retort and was prepared with rejoinder. The rest of the book, like the rest of Dickens's books, possesses humour. This part of the book, like hardly any of Dickens's books, possesses wit. The republican gentleman who receives Martin on ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... imagines a retort. Elvire makes short work of his poetic theories, and declares that this professed interest in souls is a mere pretext for the gratification of sense. "Whom in heaven's name is he trying to take in?" He entreats music ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... small talk of average people; but the instant there was a manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched himself in silence. This was especially the case when he was reproached or aroused by his mother. It was often more provoking to her than any amount of retort or recrimination could have been. She had in her nature a certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its details; ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... You will easily find a better man and a bigger." After delivering this, like the word of command upon parade, the Colonel was crossing the turf, a yard or two higher up than Hope's workshop, when the spirit of revenge moved Bartley to retort upon his insulter. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... describes the operations of distillation, sublimation, filtration, various chemical apparatus, water-baths, sand-baths, cupels of bone-earth, of the use of which he gives a singularly clear description. A chemist reads with interest Djafar's antique method of obtaining nitric acid by distilling in a retort Cyprus vitriol, alum, and saltpetre. He sets forth its corrosive power, and shows how it may be made to dissolve even gold itself, by adding a portion of sal ammoniac. Djafar may thus be considered as having solved the grand alchemical problem of obtaining gold in a potable state. Of course, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an impulse of generosity, said: "Yes, we really ought to be grateful to Mrs. Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane furious, but at ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... That retort has frequently been cited. It was a happy inspiration, and the more I ponder it the more profoundly I feel that it was exactly the right thing ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow up and develop wholesomely. But, as ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... repeatedly alarmed as I had been in my flight through the country. Did all these persecutions persuade me to put an end to my silence? No: I suffered them with patience and submission; I did not make one attempt to retort them upon ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... with her if only to save their face, and when he made a very bright retort they laughed the heartier. They rose with Hugh. Ramsey said she wished she knew again how her brother was, and Hugh sent his servant to inquire. As all loitered aft, the bishop held them together ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... for him, I know,' said my father. 'You tell me I am always talking of my first-born; I might retort by saying you are always thinking of the other: but it is the way of women always to side with the second-born. There's what's her name in the Bible, by whose wiles the old blind man was induced to give ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to be attacked in return. He was a bully and a coward. He threw himself into a thorn-hedge, and was amazed that he came out covered with scratches and blood. While he shone in satirising many kinds of vice, he laid himself open to retort by his own want of delicacy. He, as well as Swift, was fond of alluding in his verse to polluted and forbidden things. There, and there alone, his taste deserted him; and there is something disgusting and unnatural in the combination of the elegant and the obscene—the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... I might retort truthfully and say I am not accustomed to have students address me in quite this manner. I'm glad, however, to find that you are sensible enough not to make an amusing show of yourself by imagining that you are making a noble fight for ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of construction oblige me to appropriate to myself, as my reward for a certain amount of labor bestowed on the investigation of a very important question of evidence, and a statement of my own practical conclusions. I take no offence, and attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my personal sensibilities in such a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... abashed and mute: She never before had been so near This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere; And she felt for a time at loss to know How to answer a thing so coarse and low. But to give reproof of a nobler sort Than the angry look, or the keen retort, At length she said, in a gentle tone, "Since it has happened that I am thrown, From the lighter element where I grew, Down to another, so hard and new, And beside a personage so august, Abased, I'll cover my head with dust, And quick ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us, the sure mark of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mischievously tickled at the retort, and not without hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet's ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence from interfering ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... obtain a battery with a constant current. It is known that the elements of modern batteries are generally composed of retort coal, zinc, and copper. Copper was absolutely wanting to the engineer, who, notwithstanding all his researches, had never been able to find any trace of it in Lincoln Island, and was therefore obliged to do without it. Retort coal, that is to say, the hard graphite ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... ain't. Not after they've been trod on!" was the swift retort, as the old lady pointed downwards toward the floor ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... she has been disturbed the reply has been that till quiet is restored nothing can be done, and when a peaceful Ireland has demanded legislation the absence of agitation has been adduced as a reason for the retort that the request is not widespread, and can, in consequence, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... into Ringfield's breast, the first he had ever known, and a common retort sprang ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... go, so will I," replied Betty, swallowing a sharp retort. Bob was badgered enough without a contribution from her. "Perhaps he will not miss us—we can get back ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... "An entertaining retort, in the narrow and deductive manner of the Middle Ages," replied the Professor, calmly, "but even upon your own basis I will illustrate my point. We are up in the sky. In your religion and all the religions, as far as I know (and I know everything), ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... feeling the sting of the rebuke, bit his under lip to check an angry retort, Ancyrus, the elder, rejoined suavely, trying to pour the oil of his honeyed words on the troubled water of the ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the words, were but momentary, but for that brief moment the angry retort was checked on Hortensius' lips, even as were the sneers and the bibulous scowls on the faces of those around. Taurus Antinor, towering above them all, and imbued with a strange dignity, seemed to be gazing into a space beyond the walls of the gorgeous dining-hall; ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... words just as he was going up the fore-ladder, and though he could not just then take his pipe from his mouth to utter a retort, he gave a fierce look with one of his ferrety eyes, which showed that he acknowledged himself deeply in his messmate's debt. His pipe sounded more shrill than usual, as he could not give any ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... my own history into our little discussions, but I am not conscious of aiming at any unusual concealments. At Vienna, and in Switzerland, we met as travellers; and now that you appear disposed to accuse me of concealment, I may retort, and say that, neither you nor your father ever expressly stated in my presence that you ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... of late years, to travel and take notes, as well as their transatlantic brethren; and, in return for the polite attentions of our travellers, describe England and Englishmen in the bitter language of recrimination and retort; and thus the enmity between the mother and daughter is kept alive and perpetuated. A publication of this kind fell lately into my hands, entitled, "The Glory and Shame of England." The writer, said to be a Christian minister, ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... amaze you to learn that I meant to achieve that much, at any rate," was Elsie's quiet retort as she turned to select a volume from the queer ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... to speak under his breath at the opening of the tent): Come to my aid, you, who have the art of quick retort and gay ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... this tune. And finally coming home, thinks that she has a great deal of reason on her side, and is not ashamed to retort ten cross words for one. 't Is no wonder neither, for she had been talking with Mistriss Sayall the Cupster, who had Cupt her but the Sunday before, and then told her that she could observe out of her physiognomy, and the course of her blood, several infallible signs, that she should come ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... at once enables A matron, who her husband's foible knows, By a few timely words to turn the tables, Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,— Even if it should comprise a pack of fables; 'T is to retort with firmness, and when he Suspects with one, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... impatient retort and strolled to a table by the fire where Sybil and her father were sipping long tumblers of hot milk, while Geoff gulped home-made ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... can behave with serenity in the presence of our most aggravating foe; his worst manifestation of himself fails to provoke us to retort in kind. We treat him politely, not because he deserves it, but because we owe it to ourselves to be gentle-mannered. Etiquette begins at self. There is no worthy deference to others that does not rest on the basis ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... bottom of the retort, in the bluish heap, began a movement, as though something alive were striving to free itself from bonds and rise. It heaved and struggled in the dusty mass, grew stronger, and instead of a shapeless writhing there came an upshooting pyramid, which gradually took ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... pays your debts; and it would not pay the full value of this and Juan's trip," was the coarse retort. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... be also triangular. Carry out this view, says Fitzjames, and you make our conceptions the measure of reality. Mysteries, therefore, become nonsense, and miracles an impossibility. In fact, Ward's logic would lead to Spinoza, not to the deity of Catholic belief. Ward might retort that Fitzjames's doctrines would lead to absolute scepticism or atheism. Fitzjames, in fact, still accepts Mill's philosophy in the fullest sense. All truth, he declares, may be reduced to the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... sat in his consulting-room, with a glass jar, retort, receiver, and spirit-lamp before him. The lamp was on the table, and made with its shaded light and that of the fire a pleasant glow, which took off some of the desolation of the bare consulting-room ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... another of the company, who, having been much delectified with the trial, had been particularly solicitous in his cries for order. Jenkins was not indisposed to the affray, and made an angry retort, which provoked another still more angry; but other parties interfering, the new difficulty was made to give place to that already in hand. The imputation upon Jenkins, that his ignorance of the claims of the clock to gentle treatment, alone, had induced it to speak ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... if I have said anything that sounds unfriendly, do not believe it of me; do not doubt that I love you. I think I should not have written thus but that in your last letter you expressed pity for me, and that stung me, I confess. And so I retort, you see, by pitying you, which is not admirable in me. Therefore let me say, if you care still to please me, do not, in any further letters you may write, ever express the least pity for me. Quite honestly ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... term of reproach. Fired at the insult, Rose-water gave May-day to understand that he utterly erred; for his mother, a black slave, had been one of the mistresses of a Virginia planter belonging to one of the oldest families in that state. Another insulting remark followed this innocent disclosure; retort followed retort; in a word, at last they came together in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... said Tetchen. "That would be the best thing." Even this did not bring forth an angry retort from Madame Staubach. About an hour after that Peter came in. He had already heard that the bird had flown. Some messenger from Jacob Heisse's house had brought him the tidings ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... same thing," was Ned's sharp retort, as he nursed his skinned and bruised fingers. "What are you doing ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... a stove in it is a retort in which the power of strong men is evaporated, where their vitality is exhausted, and their wills enfeebled. Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal System on a pecuniary basis—and money is the ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Gaunt, "I might retort and say that you are a changed man; for to be sure you did never use to interfere between me and my maids. Are you sure some mischief-making woman is not advising you? But there, do not let us chafe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... coal, and distilled it in a retort in an open fire. At first there came over only phlegm, afterwards a black oil, and then likewise, a spirit arose which I could no ways condense; but it forced my lute and broke my glasses. Once when it had forced my lute, coming ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... kill your husband?" Joe Doane would retort. "Now, if only you didn't have a husband—you could ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the young woman went on for the rest of the evening, and was complimented by her mother and sister when poor Harry took his leave. He was not ready of wit, and could not fling back the taunts which Hetty cast against him. Nay, had he been able to retort, he would have been silent. He was too generous to engage in that small war, and chose to take all Hester's sarcasms without an attempt to parry or evade them. Very likely the young lady watched and admired that magnanimity, while she ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to a Priest, when you may confess to God in secret. I will retort by asking, why do you build fine temples when you can worship God in the great temple of nature? Why pray in church when you can pray in your chamber? Why listen to a minister expounding the Word of God ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... cancel the obligation," was the quick retort, "by discovering the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the pain he had given. The retort did not affect him, but he hung his head and looked uncomfortable. His next speech ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... those people who were taking her daughter from her, and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell. It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's great friends, who were not of the same monde ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... prefer to, that DISsatisfactions decrease pari passu with such approximation. The approximation may be of any kind assignable—approximation in time or in space, or approximation in kind, which in common speech means 'copying.'] If my critics challenge this latter assumption, I retort upon them with the former. Our whole notion of a standing reality grows up in the form of an ideal limit to the series of successive termini to which our thoughts have led us and still are leading us. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... conclude, we are desirous ... to convey to Mr. Smith a little salutary advice ... to remind him that unmeasured severity of invective against others, will naturally produce, at the first favourable opportunity, a retort of similar harshness upon himself; and that unless he feels himself completely invulnerable, the conduct which he has hitherto pursued, is not only uncharitable and violent, but foolish. He should be told that, although he possesses some talents, they are by no means, as he supposes, of the first ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... roasted; they are best roasted tied up in a piece of bark in the manner in which I have before stated that they cook their fish. If the natives are taunted with eating such a disgusting species of food as these grubs appear to Europeans they invariably retort by accusing us of eating raw oysters, which ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... combat this notion, an orthodox bishop, Dmitri of Rostof, wrote a treatise on the image and likeness of God. A Raskolnik told this prelate, "We would as lief lose our heads as our beard."—"Will your heads grow again?" was the bishop's retort.] ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... no retort to offer such directness. This child was frequently disconcerting. Prudence attacked her ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... half of it," declared Boarface, and he and Ab faced each other menacingly. "It shall not be cut," was the fierce retort. "It is mine. ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... he has depicted in the liveliest colours his poignant satire could afford. They who have patience to look into the lampoons which these worthies had published against Dryden, will, in reading his retort, be reminded of the combats between the giants and knights of romance. His antagonists came on with infinite zeal and fury, discharged their ill-aimed blows on every side, and exhausted their strength in violent and ineffectual ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... This apt retort did not please the Chevalier, who instructed his lackey to give the poet a beating. Voltaire would have answered the insult with his sword, but his enemy disdained a duel with a man of inferior station. The Rohan family was influential, and preferred to maintain their ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... The retort happily hit the mark, for the fellow was the possessor of a richly tinted proboscis of carmine hue, that was somewhat of a landmark in the village. The crowd roared in approbation of the home thrust and the man, hastily elbowed his way through the crowd until ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his grey hairs than ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... belong to the common people, and earn your living playing tunes for them to dance by," answered the High Ki. And at this retort every one laughed, so that the handsome youths turned away with twin scowls upon their faces and departed amidst the ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... of AEsop, who still seemed to read as peacefully in his book as if he were alone in the room, appeared inclined to applaud the question of their chief, but Cocardasse was not in the least impressed by the retort. He replied to Staupitz's query with another—"Have you never heard of the secret thrust ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with a furious bark sprung against the wall as if he would seize some imaginary object that he fancied was there. "Did you see that?" was my reply. "What do you think of it?" "I see nothing in it," was his retort: "the dog heard some noise on the other side of the wall." At my serious urging, however, he consented to excise the part. I procured a poor worthless cur, and got him bitten by this dog, and carried the disease from this dog to the third victim: ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... it was slavery which was national, and freedom which was sectional? Or, "Is it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine that in some places people won't let you proclaim it?" But the remainder of Douglas's assault was by no means to be disposed of by quick retort. When Lincoln was pushed to formulate accurately his views concerning the proper status of the negro in the community, he had need of all his extraordinary care in statement. Herein lay problems that were vexing many honest ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... the man made his retort. He held up his blood-soaked fingers. "I'm going all right—I know that," he gasped, with a curse, "but I'll come back ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... youthful laziness and frowardness have found him out—how he would not learn the smith's craft from Professor Mimmy, and therefore does not know how even to begin mending the sword. Siegfried Bakoonin's retort is simple and crushing. He points out that the net result of Mimmy's academic skill is that he can neither make a decent sword himself nor even set one to rights when it is damaged. Reckless of the remonstrances of the scandalized professor, ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury, but even returned it, with an icy, cat-like ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... those opinions seemed contrary to yours, did you not endeavour to betray the sparks into an untenable position, by submitting them to the gentle sophistry of a poker nicely insinuated between the bars? or did you not quench with a sudden retort of small coal its impertinent congratulation at an unfortunate result? until, when its cordial glow, penetrating that unseemly shroud, has given evidence of self-conviction, you felt that you had dealt too harshly with an old friend, and hastened to make it up with him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the countenance of her husband, which was firm and resolved in its expression. In her confusion she could find no retort. The emperor waited awhile, and seeing that she did not speak, he turned toward the two followers, who stood, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a sharp look at him to see if the retort had any personal point; then he laughed also and offered chairs to ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... his shoulders and replied in scorn that to be sure his tongue was for use and not for silence like some folks'. And I marvelled where the Swabian, who was so slow of speech, found the words for retort and answer, till at length it was too much for him and he laid his hand on his hanger as a second and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "I cal'late you could do it about as well as you can with it on, Isaiah," he said, and walked away, leaving the cook and steward incoherently anxious to retort but lacking ammunition. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dangerous design of the Saxon ministry against him, to secure the originals; the existence and reality of which might otherwise have been denied. He observed, that every man has a right to prevent the mischief with which he is threatened, and to retort it upon its author; and that neither the constitutions nor the laws of the empire could obstruct the exertion of a right so superior to all others as that of self-preservation and self-defence; especially when the depository of these laws is so ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... never be brought to see that he had done anything wrong when he stole. Nor, indeed, did the Doctor think he had; but that gentleman was never very scrupulous when in want of a retort. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... retort, but it was plain to see that he entertained a different view of a case like the one ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... gardi, teni. Retainer vasalo. Retaliate revengxi. Retaliation revengxo. Retard prokrasti, malhelpi. Retardation prokrasto, malhelpo. Retentive persista, premorebla. Retina retino. Retinue sekvantaro. Retire reeniri. Retirement kvieteco. Retort respondi, reparoli. Retort (chem. vessel) retorto. Retouch (revise) korekti. Retrace reveni, repasxi. Retract malkonfesi. Retreat (place) rifugxejo. Retreat foriri, remarsxi. Retribution repago. Retrieve ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the money people who had no real existence in her reckoning—but ordinarily speaking she would never have lashed out at him with such vehemence. The fire in her voice and eyes entirely robbed the little man of power to retort. Nor was the tirade she uttered levelled at him alone, everyone present came in for a share. One small girl with a shock of curly hair whipping with scorpions the heads of ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed from none less that Mrs. Marvin ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... which, if it is to be regarded as reflecting personal idiosyncrasies in the slightest degree, the poet certainly makes himself out as the most insupportable of human companions. None the less did the publication of Elle et Lui, a quarter of a century later, provoke a savage retort from the deceased poet's brother, in Lui et Elle. Finally, in Lui, a third novelist, Madame Colet, presented the world with a separate version of the affair from one who imagined she could have made up to the poet for ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas |
