"Retrograde" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pro-Re-Nata of Washington, D. C., in expressing an emphatic protest against this retrograde movement; that we earnestly hope that better counsels will prevail; that, at a time when so conservative an institution as the British Medical Association has voted to open its doors to women, the stigma of retrogression ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... think, for the reasons above given, that the ideal is an unattainable one. Any closer union of the British Empire attempted with this object would absolutely fail. The unwieldy weapon would break in our hands. The ideal is as impracticable as it is puerile and retrograde. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... seemed to let go; there was an instant's pause, which sent a thrill of terror through every heart; then there began a slow retrograde movement, which rapidly increased, until, with a feeling of terror that is utterly indescribable the ill-fated people in that doomed car realized that they were being hurried swiftly toward ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cavalry, while Nevers slowly and reluctantly fell back upon the Prince of Conde, who was stationed with the light horse at the mill where the first skirmish had taken place. They were soon joined by the Constable, with the main body of the army. The whole French force now commenced its retrograde movement. It was, however, but too evident that they were enveloped. As they approached the fatal pass through which lay their only road to La Fire, and which was now in complete possession of the enemy, the signal of assault was given by Count Egmont. That general himself, at the head of two thousand ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... search of "fun"; practise irregular and indescribable gymnastics with variable success for half an hour or so. Shout from the bridge. I look up. Too far off to hear the words, but see Halicarnassus gesticulating furiously, and evidently laboring under great excitement. Retrograde as rapidly as circumstances will permit. Halicarnassus makes a speaking-trumpet of his hands, and roars, "I've FOUND—a FISH! LEFT—him for—YOU—to CATCH! Come QUICK!"—and, plunging headlong down the bank, disappears. I am touched to the heart by this sublime instance of self-denial ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Caracas, ten months to make the tour of the gulf of Mexico and reach Tortoise Shoals opposite the port of the Havannah, while forty or fifty days might be sufficient to carry it from the straits of Florida to the bank of Newfoundland. It would be difficult to fix the rapidity of the retrograde current from this bank to the shores of Africa; estimating the mean velocity of the waters at seven or eight miles in twenty-four hours, we may allow ten or eleven months for this last distance. Such are the effects ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... retrogression, since, as I have already confessed, I returned to the old superstition—to a personal God. This fact is, once for all, not to be stifled, as many enlightened and well-meaning friends would fain have had it. But I must expressly contradict the report that my retrograde movement has carried me as far as to the threshold of a Church, and that I have even been received into her lap. No: my religions convictions and views have remained free from any tincture of ecclesiasticism; no chiming ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... transportation and stores. During the night, General Banks fell back to Pleasant Hill, where another battle was fought on the 9th, and the enemy repulsed with great loss. During the night, General Banks continued his retrograde movement to Grand Ecore, and thence to Alexandria, which he reached on the 27th of April. Here a serious difficulty arose in getting Admiral Porter's fleet which accompanied the expedition, over the rapids, the water ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... safeguard is found, not in Legislature, but in the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies are ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... their signification,—all this fills the stage with an animated and varied movement. The only circumstance from which this piece might be judged to be less theatrical than other tragedies of Shakspeare is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and lay in the nature of the subject. The whole is intended to show that a calculating consideration, which exhausts all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, must cripple the power of acting; ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... fell on the river, but my retrograde march proved exceedingly toilsome; at every step I was obliged to bend the branches of the underwood to one side and another, or pressing them down under my feet, force my way through by main strength: some short spaces indeed intervened, that admitted of an easier passage; still my ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... army of the Prince of Conti, posted near the Maine, had been so weakened by the detachments sent from it to reinforce the army in Flanders, that it was obliged to retreat before the Austrians. This retrograde movement was effected with considerable loss, both of soldiers and baggage; but it does not appear that any decisive general engagement took place during the campaign between the French ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Treta and the commencement of Dwapara, when the period came for many creatures superannuated by age to lay down their lives, the thousand-eyed deity of heaven poured no rain. The planet Vrihaspati began to move in a retrograde course, and Soma abandoning his own orbit, receded towards the south. Not even could a dew-drop be seen, what need then be said of clouds gathering together? The rivers all shrank into narrow streamlets. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... see what control over this abrupt young man she really had she ventured a very slight retrograde arm-pressure, then a delicate touch to right, to left, and forward once more. It was most interesting; he backed up, guided right and left, and started forward or halted under perfect control. What had she been afraid of in him? She ventured to glance around, and, encountering ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... axis of vision nearer to the primary position. When the chin is elevated or depressed, this negative reflex adjustment is more pronounced and constant than when the movement is from side to side. In the majority of cases the retrograde movement of the eyes does not equal the head movement in extent, especially if ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... full of contrivances that are impracticable, and improvements that are retrograde; forming, altogether, a whimsical instance of the confusion of arrangement, the delay of expedition, the incommodiousness of accommodation, and the infernal trouble of endeavouring to save it—he has now a score or two of workmen about him, and intends pulling down some ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... reduced to practice, by men whom the visions of Rousseau had fired, and who were not afraid nor ashamed to wade through oceans of blood to the promised land of humanity and fine feeling. We in our days have seen the same result of sentimental doctrine in the barbarous love of the battle-field, the retrograde passion for methods of repression, the contempt for human life, the impatience of orderly and peaceful solution. We begin with introspection and the eternities, and end in blood and iron. Again, Rousseau's first piece was an anathema upon ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... that this movement, based always upon a misconception of equality, so far as it would change the duties of the sexes, is a retrograde.—["It has been frequently observed that among declining nations the social differences between the two sexes are first obliterated, and afterwards even the intellectual differences. The more masculine ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... retrograde a little in the narrative, in order to show what events led to the disastrous catastrophe I have just related. Captain Reud, having been lying for many, many weeks, apparently unconscious of objects around him, one ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Colonial self-government as though the Dominions really enjoyed the same self-government as the people of these islands, and by the parties in Germany whose programme it is, not to make Germany a truly constitutional country, but to assimilate the retrograde Prussian franchise to the broader representation of ...
— Progress and History • Various
... advances, a retrograde movement in the doctrine of the leucocytes has gained ground surprisingly, especially in the last few years. Ever since Virchow's description of the lymphocytes, observers have tried to separate the various forms of leucocytes one from another, and if possible to assign different places of origin ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... younger. But we should hardly judge by what we see—we see so very, very little." There was then a pause for awhile, during which Mr. Arabin continued to turn over his shillings and half-crowns. "If we believe in Scripture, we can hardly think that mankind in general will now be allowed to retrograde." ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of the world implied considerable acquaintance—how obtained I do not pretend to know—with the characters of men. Discovering that she was in danger of overstepping the limits of my patience, she drew back with a skill which performed the retrograde movement without permitting it to ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... is rather—a—retrograde? Why not read them something to set them thinking? It would be an interesting experiment to try the effect of that marvellous Last Scene in the Doll's House. I'd love to read it. It would be like a breath of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... few sentences from private letters which he wrote during the Revolutionary war. [It will be well to have these and other extracts written so you may read them verbatim.] 'I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things, and I solemnly protest that a pecuniary reward of twenty thousand pounds a year would not induce me to undergo what I do, and, after all, perhaps, lose my character.' Again: 'Our affairs are in a more distressed, ruinous, and deplorable ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... will be responsible solely to the State. Many Communists, including some of the best known, while recognizing the need of greater efficiency if the revolution is to survive at all, regard this step as definitely retrograde and likely in the long run to make the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... chaff, and to disunite the colonies, the "king's friends" were satisfied. This healing of the breach on the treasury benches, however, had the effect of widening it on the side of the opposition, who had been exulting in the strife. Fox rejoiced in the retrograde movement of the minister; but doubted the sincerity of the motion made, and predicted, that the Americans would reject them with disdain. He was followed by Colonel Barre, who indulged in bitter sarcasm upon Lord North's recent embarrassment and danger ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to your Lordships. I am sick of all the retrograde commonplaces about the weakness of concession to violence and so on. Persevering in our plan of reform is not a concession to violence. Reforms that we have publicly announced, adopted, and worked out for more than two years—how is it ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... belief, and with his eyes fixed upon the reptile, he made a retrograde movement to extricate himself from the unpleasantness of at least his damp location; but he was not a little surprised to find the snake approaching still nearer to him. This puzzled him exceedingly; he could not understand ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... early part of the nineteenth century, are wont to gather from text-books the idea that the policy of the manufacturing party in England has always been liberal, progressive and patriotic; whereas that of the landed interest has been retrograde and selfish. There cannot be a greater delusion. English manufacturers have been just as self-seeking and narrow-minded as other people—no more and no less; they have been quite as ready to sacrifice the interests of others when they ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... Peter Laurie must be mad to endeavour to deprive us of it.' I told them not to be alarmed, for they might depend on it the good sense of this court would not allow so great and useful an improvement in street paving to retrograde in the manner sought to be effected by this revolution. I shall content myself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... after a few years it fell into a veritable desuetude. Thus it happened that, while France at a short distance from this region was advancing with rapid strides towards the enfranchisement of the poorer classes, Varenne was executing a retrograde march and returning at full speed to the ancient tyranny of the country squires. It was easy enough for the Mauprats to pervert these poor folk; they feigned a friendly interest in them to mark their difference from the other nobles in the province whose manners still retained some ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... function, for they are composed of very delicate and highly flexible membrane, which can be easily bent or quite doubled back without being cracked. Nevertheless, the infolded rims, together with the points, must somewhat interfere with the retrograde movement of any small creature, as soon as the lobes begin to close. The circumferential part of the leaf of Aldrovanda thus differs greatly from that of Dionaea; nor can the points on the rim be considered as homologous with the spikes round ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... legend of their migrations, which has been preserved to us mainly by Livy, relates the story of these later retrograde movements as follows.(8) The Gallic confederacy, which was headed then as in the time of Caesar by the canton of the Bituriges (around Bourges), sent forth in the days of king Ambiatus two great hosts led by ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... difficult, encumbered with rocks and loose stones and covered with dense bush. From the summit of the ridge the enemy poured in a destructive fire, to which the British could only reply at a great disadvantage, and, after losing heavily, the column commenced to retire. Observing this retrograde movement, Major-General Nicolls sent the 8th Regiment in support and ordered Brigadier-General Campbell to proceed to ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... the troops stationed in the rear of their captain. Much of the success of an attack, made by irregular soldiers, depends on the direction in which they are first got in motion. In the present instance it was retrograde, and in less than a minute after the bellowing report of the swivel among the rocks and caverns, the whole weight of the attack from the left rested on the prowess of the single arm of the veteran. Benjamin received a severe contusion from the recoil of his gun, which produced ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... him along that he may ascend? If all need to be drawn upwards in order to climb, who is to draw him who stands above all? This time the question is out of place. In his case, the impulse will be retrograde. Here we have the thrice happy type of him who competes with his inferiors! This makes me think of a description given by Voisin of a competition arranged by one of the idiots in his asylum. This ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... epoch is not one of darkness, but of light; not of discouragement, but of hope. It is neither retrograde nor stagnant, but progressive to a degree never before witnessed in the history of man on so large a scale and involving all classes and so many people ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... monastic life to enter as a profession. They could become full members of a number of the York trade-guilds. The social position of women in the retrograde fifteenth century fully agrees with the absence of women from among those who achieved notability in the ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... this was probably the state of things in the Northern army at the beginning of the civil war, before discipline had been enforced by disaster. The campaign opened with a cleverly-won victory on the part of Black Hawk, and a rapid retrograde movement on the part of the militia, as to which we will be content to say with Mr. Lamon, "of drunkenness no public account makes any mention, and individual cowardice is never to be imputed to American troops." Ultimately, however, Black Hawk was ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... In the adjoining figure we represent a portion of the circular tracks in which the earth and Mars move in accordance with the Copernican doctrine. I show particularly the case where the earth comes directly between the planet and the sun, because it is on such occasions that the retrograde movement (for so this backward movement of Mars is termed) is at its highest. Mars is then advancing in the direction shown by the arrow-head, and the earth is also advancing in the same direction. We, on the earth, however, being ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... opinion to opinion, from plan to plan, and veers like a weather-cock to every point of the compass, with every breath of caprice that blows,—can never accomplish anything great or useful. Instead of being progressive in anything, he will be at best stationary, and, more probably, retrograde in all." ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... iv. c. 26. "From that time the hopes and strength of the English crown began to waver and retrograde, for the Picts recovered their own lands," &c. The Annals of the Four Masters mention a mortality among cattle throughout the whole world, and a severe frost, which followed this invasion: "The sea between Ireland and Scotland was frozen, so that there was a communication ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the ladders, he marched directly past it, and led them into the field without a single ladder or fascine. When the day dawned, and he was sent back for these instruments, he headed his corps in its retrograde movement, but left it to return as it could to the front; and when sought for to guide the attack, he was nowhere to be found. That a regiment thus abused and deserted by its commanding officer should fall into ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of state would, according to the general principles of political and international law, impress upon Norway the stamp of a dependency, and 3) that it would therefore from a national point of view signify an enormous retrograde step as compared with the present ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... pretended retrograde progress from perfection we must contradict the testimony of reason and of fact; and if the facts of history are in any measure uncertain, we must contradict the living fact of the organization of man; we must prove that he is born ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... to-day is full of scorn for patriotism, which he holds the most retrograde of emotions. He may as usefully declaim against friendship, comradeship, the love of man for woman or of mother for child. The lowest savage regards himself, and cannot but regard himself, as a member of some sort of political aggregation. This feeling is one of the primal instincts of humanity, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... commander would never have made. It is not to be denied, that the Americans were not satisfied with their situation. Some of their officers openly declared their discontent. But it was too late for a retrograde movement, nor is it likely, feeling as he did and sanguine as he was, that Gates would have believed any such movement necessary. The ground was equally unknown to both commanders; but Cornwallis had one advantage: he was ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... been later applied to the problem, but with quite different results from those reached by more recent investigators. He says, "By setting out from Nipe which is the point where Columbus struck Cuba and proceeding in a retrograde direction along his course, we may surely trace his path, and shall be convinced that Guanahani is no ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... V, Sultan of Turkey, recently sent to this country a special embassy to announce his accession. The quick transition of the Government of the Ottoman Empire from one of retrograde tendencies to a constitutional government with a Parliament and with progressive modern policies of reform and public improvement is one of the important phenomena of our times. Constitutional government seems also to have made further advance in Persia. These events have turned the eyes of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... away an old Constituent, Goupil de Prefeln, because he voted for the revision, also, his son-in-law, because he is his son-in-law. In the Bouches-du-Rhone, where the canton of Seignon, by mistake or through routine, swore "to maintain the constitution of the kingdom," it sets aside these retrograde elected representatives, commences proceedings against the "crime committed," and sends troops against Noves because the Noves elector, a justice who is denounced and in peril, has escaped from the electoral den.—After ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... schools lay in supposing that science and art are the same things, and that to advance in the one was necessarily to perfect the other. Whereas they are, in reality, things not only different, but so opposed, that to advance in the one is, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, to retrograde in the other. This is the point to which I would at present ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has too often occurred in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule. It is very difficult to say why one civilised nation rises, becomes more powerful, and spreads more widely, than another; or why the same nation progresses more quickly at one ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... glory was not extinguished by national degradation, but cherished through ages of slavery and shame. But the world is a world of progress. A nation cannot remain stationary; she must advance or retrograde. Turkey is not what she was, while Russia, with the rest of Christendom, has advanced; her faults grew with her strength, but did not die with her decay. It will not be sufficient for her merely to regain her former power; she must overtake Christendom in the progress made during her decadence. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their great disadvantage never to have had a much higher standard of religion, morals, civilisation, or industry set before them, than they had been able to evolve for themselves; and it is a law of nature that what is not progressive must be retrograde. The gentle Tahitian nature has entirely mastered the English turbulence, so that there is genuine absence of violence, there is no dishonesty; and drunkenness was then impossible; there is also a general habit of religious observance, but not including self- restraint as a duty, while ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mutterings, to which American ears have been heretofore altogether unused, have been heard in various quarters, touching the superior advantages of 'strong government,' the speakers, mostly of the higher or wealthier order of life, meaning thereby, the old and retrograde forms of monarchy, or something of that sort. Periods of disaster tend to reveal a latent lack of confidence in the permanency of existing things. Investigations in Sociology impeach the wisdom of our institutions, in common with that of all others that have been tried in the past, from another ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... passage of about twelve miles to the point where—resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island, to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might, with less reproach, entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified, but he did not succeed equally in escaping reproach. He had no cook, nor, I suppose, much provision, nor had the lady the common decencies of her tea-table; we picked up our sugar with our fingers. Boswell was ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... recollect by intervals, unequally and confused; but here I remember all as distinctly as if it existed at this moment. Imagination, which in my youth was perpetually anticipating the future, but now takes a retrograde course, makes some amends by these charming recollections for the deprivation of hope, which I have lost forever. I no longer see anything in the future that can tempt my wishes, it is a recollection of the past alone that ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... British people are exalted in the scale of humanity; and they cannot but feel so, if they look into themselves, and duly consider their relation to God and their fellow-creatures. That was a noble advance; but a retrograde movement will assuredly be made, if ever the principle, which has been here defended, should be either avowedly ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... catastrophe become known than Europe—so long ground under his heel—rose against Napoleon, who at once called upon France for fresh levies. Ney was given the command of the first Corps. On April 29, 1813, he drove the allies from Weissenfels toward Leipsic. On May 1st he again compelled a retrograde movement; and on May 2d he commanded the French centre at the battle of Lutzen, where, indeed, he bore the brunt of the fighting. The allies were compelled to retire, but they did not consider themselves ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... even in that mechanical routine which, in the eyes of the Emperor Francis, constituted the life of the State, everything was antiquated and self-contradictory. In all that affected the mental life of the people the years that followed the peace of Luneville were distinctly retrograde. Education was placed more than ever in the hands of the priests; the censorship of the press was given to the police; a commission was charged with the examination of all the books printed during the reign of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... fourteenth century must, therefore, be regarded as a period of depression in European civilization, of retrograde movement during which the wheels of progress had turned back. It even seemed as though Asia would once more and perhaps with final success reassert her dominion over helpless Europe. The Seljuk Turks who, in 1291, had conquered Acre, the last European stronghold in the Holy Land, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his natural taste for pictures to the limit of his capacities and opportunities. Berkins, however, had been born a gentleman, but had had to shift for himself, even when a lad, and he had caught at all chances; he was more sophisticated, he was a gentleman in a state of retrograde, and was in all points inferior to him whom he crossed in his descent. Berkins had bought a small place, a villa with some hundred acres attached to it, on the other side of Preston Park. There he had erected glass houses, and ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... day I never pass pleasantly, but at Cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. Things are stagnant enough in town; as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well. Hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. I do nothing but eschew tobacco. [6] I wish parliament were assembled, that I may hear, and perhaps some day be heard;—but on ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... stands out-doors from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. The girls are encouraged to use it: they are expected to determine the rotation of the sun on its axis by watching the spots—the same for the planet Jupiter; they determine the revolution of Titan by watching its motions, the retrograde and direct motion of the planets among the stars, the position of the sun with reference to its setting in winter and summer, the phases of Venus. All their book learning in astronomy should be mathematical. The astronomy ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... could scarcely see ten feet ahead of him, and it went on until it was stopped by a telegram from General Van Dorn, who had been appointed to command the Confederate Army of the West because Price and McCulloch could not agree. The new general, who declared that "all retrograde movements must be stopped at once," and that "henceforth the army must press on to victory," arrived on the 2d of March, drove Siegel out of Bentonville on the 5th, and on Friday and Saturday fought the battle of Pea Ridge—a thing that he might as well have let alone, for he did not do what he ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... minister unto the feeble-minded which marks our honored Dr. Morgan and her fellow workers, they took up the burden, determined to do their best. Yet, despite their great efforts, the class did not advance as other classes have done. Nor yet could it retrograde for it stood in a position where any backward movement was impossible. It was known throughout Exeter as the 'caudal ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... and told him the number of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as also their triangular, square, and sextile aspect; their progressive and retrograde motion; their size and several prognostications; and other things which the reason of man had ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... occasion of special humiliation to the parliaments. Then the hostility of the parliaments to the Jesuits was caused by the harshness with which the system of confessional tickets was at this time being carried out. Finally, the once powerful house of Austria, the protector of all retrograde interests, was now weakened by the Seven Years' War; and was unable to bring effective influence to bear on Lewis XV. At last he gave his consent to the destruction of the order. The commercial bankruptcy of one of their ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... some evidence Should that existence to the present bind; Some innate inkling of experience Should still imbue and permeate the mind, If we, progressing, pass from state to state, Or retrograde, as turns the ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... the government deprived the King of our confidence and love, and caused the restoration of the Emperor to become the hope of the nation. In spite of the obstacles experienced by the ministry, in spite of the affronts to which they had been subjected, in spite of the retrograde steps which they had been compelled to take, they still clung to the baneful system which they had fostered; and, bigoted to these plans, they continued to persevere in those errors which recalled Napoleon from his exile, just as Napoleon persevered ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... the hierarchy was, in most countries, extraordinary; for the Church acquired treasures and large properties in land, even to a greater extent than after the Crusades; but experience has demonstrated that such a state of things is ruinous to the people, and causes them to retrograde, as was evinced ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... length, how our glorious dreamer would now describe the face of society in our present Vanity Fair. After describing the consequences that had arisen from religion having become FASHIONABLE, he hints at the retrograde movement towards Popery, known under the name of Puseyism. 'It happened, in process of time, that a part of the pilgrims who remained in Vanity Fair, began to visit the cave of Giant Pope, and it became ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of slavery is predetermined in the councils of Omnipotence I cannot doubt. It is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement retrograde, before ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... in favour of the Indians. All were agreed that the actual state of things was intolerable, but they could not agree upon the remedy to be adopted. In reality no laws could cope with the situation. A weak, retrograde race of ignorant people was suddenly brought into contact with the strong, active Spaniards, who carried with them a civilisation to which the former were inertly refractory. There was but the one possible outcome, which has repeated itself throughout the world's history—the weaker race ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... in other words, on the nearness or "far-offness" of the bodies in question. Another complication is introduced into these matters by reason of the fact that the Nodes of the Moon's orbit do not occupy a fixed position, but have an annual retrograde motion of about 191/4 deg., in virtue of which a complete revolution of the Nodes round the ecliptic is accomplished in 18 years 218-7/8 ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... measures. The people of France, almost generally, have been taught to look for other resources than those which can be derived from order, frugality, and industry. They are generally armed; and they are made to expect much from the use of arms. Nihil non arrogant armis. Besides this, the retrograde order of society has something flattering to the dispositions of mankind. The life of adventurers, gamesters, gypsies, beggars, and robbers is not unpleasant. It requires restraint to keep men from falling into that habit. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... most rarefied form of matter—an ultra-gaseous condition of it—which Stoicism and the Christian Stoic Tertullian postulated. The meaning of 'God is Spirit' could not be understood till this insidious residue of materialism had been got rid of. It is a retrograde theory which we are asked to re-examine and perhaps accept. The moment we are asked to accept 'scientific evidence' for spiritual truth, the alleged spiritual truth becomes for us neither spiritual nor true. It is degraded into an event in the phenomenal world, and when so degraded it cannot be substantiated. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... strict injunctions, the men hauling the rope gave a sudden and violent pull, wrenching the pole from my grasp, and communicating to the plank a motion like that of a pendulum, which sent me flying out into space, with the immediate prospect of being dashed by the retrograde swing against the solid wall of rock. Happily, I preserved my presence of mind, and grasped instantly the only chance of escape. Tilting myself back as far as the rope and the ring on my belt allowed, and stretching out my legs horizontally, I awaited the contact. Half a second later ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... event of failure, recourse must be had to gastrostomy, and through the stomach it may be possible to dilate the stricture by the "retrograde" route. In aggravated cases, the gastrostomy opening must be retained in order to prevent ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... it escape running to weeds and waste? Or, if we neglect the opportunities for cultivating the mind, how shall it escape ignorance and feebleness? So, if we neglect the soul, how shall it escape the natural retrograde movement, the inevitable ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... Dr. Slop.—Confusion! cried my father (getting upon his legs a second time)—not one single thing has gone right this day! had I faith in astrology, brother, (which, by the bye, my father had) I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its place.—Why, I thought Dr. Slop had been above stairs with my wife, and so said you.—What can the fellow ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... sides, so plied Interrogation till it hit the Mark, And all the Truth was told. Then Sage and Shah Struck out with Hand and Foot in his Redress. And First with Reason, which is also Best; Reason that rights the Retrograde—completes The Imperfect—Reason that unties the Knot: For Reason is the Fountain from of old From which the Prophets drew, and none beside. Who boasts of other Inspiration lies— There are no other Prophets than ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... said Alec, who was surprised by the suddenness of this quick retrograde movement and of the quiet, suppressed excitement ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... part of General Thomas, and was very much afraid that while he was lying there at Nashville and not moving his army, Hood might cross the Tennessee River either above or below the city of Nashville, and get between him and the Ohio River, and make a retrograde movement of our army at Nashville a necessity, and very much embarrass and delay future operations of the armies. Laboring under this feeling and impression, I was telegraphing General Thomas daily, and almost hourly, urging him to move out and attack Hood, and finally became so impatient ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... and calm as ever. "My plan has been deeply calculated," he said, after a pause; "I have admitted into it, as a probable contingency, the defection of Bavaria. I am convinced that the plan of marching on Berlin is good. A retrograde movement, in the circumstances in which we are placed, is disastrous; and those who oppose my projects have undertaken a serious responsibility. However, I will think of it, and inform you of my final decision." [Footnote: Napoleon's ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... were two figures in geomancy, representing two constellations-the one signifying Mars retrograde, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... from their own resources and accumulated feelings, or who improve with age. He belongs to a class (common in Scotland and elsewhere) who get up school-exercises on any given subject in a masterly manner at twenty, and who at forty are either where they were—or retrograde, if they are men of sense and modesty. The reason is, their vanity is weaned, after the first hey-day and animal spirits of youth are flown, from making an affected display of knowledge, which, however useful, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... him. "Do not do that! Not yet! It is too great a shock in the retrograde. It was ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... yards wide, with pools of water, which was brackish; but we were too glad to find any water which we could use without detriment to object to it because it was not agreeable in taste, and therefore encamped. We have thus been a second time compelled to make a retrograde movement to the north after reaching the same latitude as in the first attempt to penetrate the desert; but I did not feel justified in incurring the extreme risk which would have attended any other course, though following ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... preservation in books, in memory, and in works of art and industry, of the ideas of ancient workers and thinkers; and the mental activity of living thinkers and inventors, whose work takes its start from this standpoint of stored-up thought. Rob any community of all its basic ideas, and it would quickly retrograde to a primitive condition of thought and organization, from which it might need ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... of a purchaser, returned to his speculation with redoubled ardour, and with fresh supplies of gold. His only chance of ultimate recovery was to push boldly forward, and to betray no fear of failure. One retrograde or timid step would open the eyes of men, and bring down ruin on the Pantamorphica. Planner became conscious of all this to his dismay, and he had nothing to do in the very extremity of his distress, but to proceed in his venture with the best spirits he could command, and to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... checked but not defeated at Corinth; and coupled with strange rumors of this came hints about "Stonewall Jackson," which indicated to the same persons that that rebel officer had advanced from the North-west and made an attempt to take McClellan's right wing in flank, necessitating a retrograde movement of that wing to bring him in front. Still, confidence was not lost, in McClellan or in the army. While his right wing fell back before an attack in force, his left might swing in towards Richmond and even take ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... had naturally many enemies amongst the Codini, or retrograde party. Hand-grenades were thrown against the door of his house, as also at those of other ministers, but without doing harm. One evening my daughters were dressing to go to a ball that was to take place at the Palazzo delle Crocelle, close to us, in a street parallel to ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... three officers, fell into their hands. Major-General Butler, with the 1st Ohio regiment, after entering the edge of the town, discovered that nothing was to be accomplished in his front, and at this point, yielding to the suggestions of several officers, I ordered a retrograde movement; but learning almost immediately from one of my staff that the battery No. 1 was in our possession, the order was countermanded; and I determined to hold the battery and defences already gained. General Butler, with the 1st Ohio regiment, then entered the town at a point farther to ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... Early's divisions of less than ten thousand men of all arms—was detached to watch the enemy; and the retrograde movement was completed so successfully that McClellan never suspected the evacuation. Two days later, his grand array—"an army with banners," bands braying and new arms glinting in the sun—moved down to the attack; and then, doubtless to his infinite disgust, he found ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of May 11, 1864, Lee had withdrawn his forces from a salient point called the "Horseshoe," in consequence of a retrograde or flank movement of the enemy opposite that point. A battery of artillery, consisting of four companies, which was to have occupied that point, was removed some two miles back. At early dawn, word was brought that Grant's ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... dancing, drinking, masking, and other pleasant things should be paid for, and the brief enjoyment forgotten, amidst the sufferings of the most painful retreat—excepting, of course, that of Corunna—effected by a British army during the whole war. We refer to the retrograde movement that followed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... judge of all women from Ariadne alone? The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of a retrograde movement." ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... anti-Semitism in which it found a congenial companion. Yet, the anti-Semitism of the West was after all only a weak aftermath of the infantile disease of Europe—the medieval Jew-hatred—whereas culturally retrograde Russia was still suffering from the same infection in its acute, "childish" form. The social and cultural anti-Semitism of the West did not undermine the modern foundations of Jewish civil equality. But ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... brought it to perfection[2.1], and insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its lamentable inferiority in strength and beauty to all the auriculas around it. I am afraid, in some instances at least, this analogy holds true with respect to mind. No one will make ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... whether a continual improvement in education might not compensate for a stationary or even retrograde condition of natural gifts, I made inquiry into the life history of twins, which resulted in proving the vastly preponderating effects ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... the water failed entirely by the end of the first day's retrograde march. Our fluid aliment was now nothing but gin; but this infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endure the sight of it. I found the temperature and the air stifling. Fatigue paralysed my limbs. More than once I dropped down motionless. Then there was a ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the people's will. The representative system is the most valuable system that has thus far been invented to make popular government possible and the introduction of more democracy, so-called, is a retrograde step. It is going back to the machinery of the New England town meeting and of the Republics of Greece and Rome, which we have given up because conditions have so changed as to ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... Science there is never a retrograde step, 74:30 never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead and living cannot commune together, for they are in separate states of existence, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... that, should another National Convention be convoked, and the Emperor of the French be arraigned, as the King of France was, he would, with as great pleasure, vote for the execution of Napoleon the First as he did for that of Louis XVI. He has waded too far in blood and crime to retrograde. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... meet for the first time with an extensive retrograde metamorphosis as a consequence of a parasitic mode of life. Even in some Fish-lice (Cymothoa) the young are lively swimmers, and the adults stiff, stupid, heavy fellows, whose short clinging feet are capable of but little movement. In the Bopyridae (Bopyrus, Phryxus, Kepone, etc., which might have ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... slavish tendency that found refuge under the name of Moral Force, that those of us who would vindicate our manhood cried wildly out again for the physical test; and we cried it long and repeatedly the more we smarted under the meanness of retrograde times. But the time is again inspiring, and the air must now be cleared. We have set up for the final test of the man of unconquerable spirit that test which is the first and last argument of tyranny—recourse to brute strength. We have surrounded with fictitious glory ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... virtue passing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... few retrograde steps, searching on the ground, as if conscious only of her loss, shaking off his hand when he touched her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... afternoon, they soon found themselves on the road along which the retreating German army had passed. Everywhere they could see marks of this flight, for such it really was, despite the order with which the retrograde movement had been conducted. In places the roadside was glutted with cast-off articles, such as had better be disposed of if haste and mobility were to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... then produces employment for the prisoners when there is no corn in the mill to grind. In the remote bastion are seen the tread-wheels on which the prisoners are employed in keeping up a constant retrograde motion, which works the machinery in the millhouse by means of an iron shaft with universal joints concealed below the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... ordinarily sensible, become blunderers. For a month the Marquis had been in this condition, half reasonable, half mad. Living with one thought prominent, all others were indistinct to him. To him love was every thing. His father, with his antiquated obstinacy, imbued with retrograde principles, disappeared like a ghost before the brilliant reality of passion. Besides, fear of a rival, dread of the brilliant Count Monte-Leone, who, full of love, as Henri had heard, aspired to nothing more than to become the husband of Aminta left him no other ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... had been resolved to send to the Emperor not only the request of the army for a new chief, but a declaration in their own name and that of the troops "that if any order came from St. Petersburg, to suspend hostilities and greet the invaders as friends"—for it had all along been believed that the retrograde movements were the result of the advice of the minister, Count Romanzow—"such an order would be regarded as one that did not express his Imperial Majesty's real sentiments and wishes, but had been extracted from his Majesty ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... not on the meridian of No. 9, nor did it remain on any meridian. But it was very nearly South and North,—an enormous motion in declination with a very slight RETROGRADE motion in Right Ascension. At five thousand miles the MOON showed as large as a circle two miles and a third in diameter would have shown on old Thornbush, as we always called her older sister. We longed for an eclipse of Thornbush ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... madame. You are doing miracles," he answered in a whisper. "And yet, look at his brow, how noble in shape! Isn't it like the classic or traditional brow given by sculptors to Lycurgus and the Greek sages? The revolution of July has an evidently retrograde tendency," said the doctor (who might in his student days have made a barricade himself), ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... their religion several times during their lives. Is not the solemn reception into Rome of instructed men and women among ourselves a matter of every day? In France it is otherwise, and when a change is made we shall generally find that the step is no retrograde one. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... But the retrograde movement towards the gate had begun—as unreasoningly, perhaps as blindly, as the simultaneous anger. Or, perhaps, the idea of the approach of the soldiers, and the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... measure, be the consequence of that want of discipline, which is incident to the savage state, the remark applies with equal justice, whether he fought singly or in a body. He was easily panic-struck, because the impulse of the forward movement was necessary to keep him strung to effort; and the retrograde immediately became a rout, because daring, without constancy, collapses with the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... rather than on lands, and because landlords did not anticipate that bread-stuffs brought from this country would interfere with the value of their rents. But England, with all her proud and selfish boasts about free-trade, may yet have to take a retrograde course, like France and Prussia, or her landed interests may be imperilled. The English aristocracy, who rule the country, cannot afford to have the value of their lands reduced one-half, for those lands are so heavily mortgaged that such ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... and progress would reign supreme; where men like Fetters and methods like his would no longer be tolerated. The forces of enlightenment, set in motion by his aid, and supported by just laws, should engage the retrograde forces represented by Fetters. Communities, like men, must either grow or decay, advance or decline; they could not stand still. Clarendon was decaying. Fetters was the parasite which, by sending out its roots toward rich and poor alike, struck at both extremes of society, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... task, unfair—perhaps it seems above all retrograde and ignorant—to express doubt and not to think hopefully of a cause in which so many lives have been spent with singular disinterestedness and self-devotion. Yet these adverse thoughts are in the air, not only amongst those who are unable to win in the race, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... As if people couldn't change their clothes without concert of action. Resolved, that nobody should put on a clean collar oftener than his neighbor does. I'm sick of every sort of reform. I should like to retrograde awhile. Let a dyspeptic ascertain that he can eat porridge three times a day and live, and straightway he insists that everybody ought to eat porridge and nothing else. I mean to get up a society every member of which shall be pledged to do just as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "by-paths all to the same great end. I look upon every one here, Ella, as a traveler placed upon the great highway called destiny—with a secret power within that impels him forward, but allows no pause nor retrograde. Along this highway are flowers, and briars, and thistles, and weeds, and shady woods, and barren rocks, and sterile bluffs, and glassy plots; but proportioned differently to each, as the Maker of all designs his path to be pleasant or otherwise. Beside this highway are perhaps a dozen minor ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... stage, another step forward. The instant society becomes organized in clans, natural selection cannot let these clans be broken up and die out,—the clan becomes the chief object or care of natural selection, because if you destroy it you retrograde again, you lose all you have gained; consequently, those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were so modified that the individual conduct would be subordinated to some extent to the needs of the clan,—those are the ones which ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... other Federal commanders can claim that epithet; and, though some people persisted in considering Murfreesburg a Pyrrhic victory, it is certain that he held his ground manfully, and eventually advanced, where defeat, or even a retrograde movement, would have ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence. Over the manner of conducting war Mexico possesses no exclusive control. She has no right to violate at pleasure the principles which an enlightened civilization has laid down for the conduct of nations at war, and thereby retrograde to a period of barbarism, which happily for the world has long since passed away. All nations are interested in enforcing an observance of those principles, and the United States, the oldest of the American Republics and the nearest of the civilized powers to the theater on which these ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Kooloo, after sponging me well, he one morning played the part of a retrograde lover; informing me that his affections had undergone a change; he had fallen in love at first sight with a smart sailor, who had just stepped ashore quite flush from a ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... folds, one on each side of the vessel. The free extremity of the valvular folds is concave, and directed forward, so that while the current of blood sets toward the heart, they present no impediment to its free passage; but let the current become retrograde, and it is impeded by their distention. The valves are most numerous in the veins of the extremities, particularly the deeper veins situated between the muscles; but in some of the larger trunks, and also in some of the smaller veins, no ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... enormous deal of attention, which, however, was a delight to his brother, who had the satisfaction day by day of seeing him grow slightly better; while the Kaffir woman was indefatigable, and never seemed to sleep, Dyke's difficulty being to keep her from making the patient travel in a retrograde path by giving him too ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... and very little more on the other, to secure the eastern Colonies, and the important passes leading through the Highlands to Albany, and the country about the lakes.... I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde movement of things, and I solemnly protest that a pecuniary reward of twenty thousand pounds a year would not induce me to undergo what I do, and, after all, perhaps to lose my character; as it is impossible, under such a variety of distressing circumstances, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... years she kept herself respectable under our roof, living amongst Christian women and joining in their prayers and hymn, night and morning, but not a trace of the softened, repentant spirit could one see, and finally a distinct retrograde movement accompanied with physical disability forced us to send her home. I despair of Mrs. Deh except when I look into the face of her daughter, the good, pure girl whose life's prayer it is that her mother should be saved. She cannot admit ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... for the formation of line ahead and abreast, we are struck by this disappearance of the Duke of York's article relating to 'dividing the enemy's fleet.' It is certainly to this disappearance that is mainly due the belief that the new instructions were retrograde. The somewhat hasty conclusion is generally drawn that the manoeuvre of 'breaking the line' had been introduced during the Dutch Wars, and forgotten immediately afterwards. But, as we have already seen, ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... theology and history, but it is also one of the most certain discoveries which have been made in the domain of criticism and the history of literature. Whatever the anticritical party may bring forward to the contrary, it will maintain itself, and not retrograde again through any thing, so long as there exists such a thing as criticism; and it will not be easy for a reader upon the stage of culture on which we stand in the present day, if he goes to the examination unprejudiced, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... in these modern days are retrograde. Sheep have fallen to a decadent race. Cheese has lost its cunning. Someone, alas, as the story says, has killed the hen that laid the golden egg. Mory's is sunk and gone. Its faded prints of the Old ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... provincial parlements turned, under other names and in other forms, upon this very issue of the unification of the law. The Crown was with the progressive party, but it lacked the strength and courage to set aside retrograde local sentiment as the Constituent Assembly was able ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... hope and trust in the future. Is everything to perish which our forefathers planned and founded? Is this dismal superstition to overwhelm and bury the world and all that is bright and beautiful, as the lava stream rolled over the cities of Vesuvius? No, a thousand times no! Our retrograde and cowardly generation, which has lost all heart to enjoy life in sheer dread of future annihilation, may perhaps be doomed by the gods, as was that of Deucalion's day. Well—if so, what must be must! But such a world as they dream of never can, never will last. Let them succeed in their monstrous ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... pleasant to witness the least sign of improvement in a people who are commonly condemned by their own habits, their religion, and the opinions of Europeans, to a retrograde or eternally stationary existence. I was much pleased to observe in one of the small squares of the city a tree recently planted, (the tout[23], a species of small white mulberry,) which promises to afford not only a grateful shade to repose under in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... forum for the commoner, "the coffee house soon became the plaything of the leisure class; and when the club was evolved, the coffee house began to retrograde to the level of the tavern. And so the eighteenth century, which saw the coffee house at the height of its power and popularity, witnessed also its decline and fall. It is said there were as many clubs at the end of the century as there ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... as we have seen, had been one of unmixed sorrow and shame. Bloody and terrible as the revolution had become, it was still in some sort representative of human freedom; at any rate it might still seem to contain possibilities of progress such as the retrograde despotisms with which England allied herself could never know. But the conditions of the contest changed before long. France had not the wisdom, the courage, the constancy to play to the end the part for which ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... superior in mobility, in such conditions retreat from each successive stand is apt to be precipitate—dependent less upon one's own will than upon the enemy's energy—and the retiring army may reach its ultimate goal under an accumulation of retrograde impulse not far distinguishable from rout, deteriorated in morale ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... retrograde movement proved ineffectual. The division of Wayne fell back on that of Stephen, and was for an instant mistaken for the enemy. General confusion prevailed, and the confidence felt in the beginning of the action was lost. With ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... enable him to govern himself, and make the best of his position. But any scheme, which, under the pretext of ameliorating his position, would place him again under tutelage, is a scheme of degradation and a retrograde movement. He is now a freeman, an enrolled member of a civilized state, where each individual has, to a great extent, the responsibility thrown upon himself for his own well-being; he must have prospective cares, and grow acquainted with the thoughtful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... great way out of its way; and indeed, considering the length of the Passage, and the various Regions it goes through, it would be strange if it should meet with no Obstructions: These are oblique Gales, and cannot be said to blow from any of the Thirty-two Points, but Retrograde and Thwart: Some of these are call'd in their Language, Pensionazima, which is as much as to say, being Interpreted, a Court-breeze; another sort of Wind, which generally blows directly contrary to the Pensionazima, is the Clamorio, or in English, a Country Gale; this is ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... any naturally separate State shows the retrograde temper and an inability to profit by its own resources, but when that State is an integral part of one great and young continent, then its action becomes intolerable. I think it is not only the people in a country that have claims, but the country itself that has a claim. If you ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... special features of structure, and mistaking these for the more important and general characteristics of their respective plans. All subsequent investigations of such would-be improvements show them to be retrograde movements, only proving more clearly that Cuvier detected in his four plans all the great structural ideas on which the vast variety of animals is founded. This result is of greater importance than may at first appear. Upon it depends the question, whether all such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... accompanied with none at all. [Exeunt. Manet Duke. Either the Plannets, that did meete together In the grand consultation of my birth, Were opposite to every good infusion, Or onely Venus stood as retrograde; For, but in love of this none-loving trull, I have beene fortunate even since my birth. I feele within my breast a searching fire Which doth ascend the engine of my braine, And when I seeke by reason to suppresse The heate ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... either at a stand, or advancing by feeble and hesitating steps, and the distance to be ultimately reached remains vague and undefinable. At the same time, it is well to be assured that improvements, moral and social, are really in progress; and that, on the whole, society is on the move not in a retrograde direction. Even with a stone tied to its leg, the world, as we have said, contrives 'to get on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... probable that the redmen on the southeastern shore, having learned that their game was coming into their hands, had signaled the fact to their allies across the Susquehanna, so that they might be prepared for the retrograde movement which was actually made. Under the circumstances, there was but one thing remaining for the Mohawk to do, and that was to drift with the current until below the point where the last light had shown itself, and then to make an effort to land. Fortunately, ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... breath? If this lies not within the power of Art, as of Nature, then it can create nothing whatever. This vital connecting link, Winckelmann did not determine; he did not teach how, from the idea, forms can be produced. Thus Art went over to that method which we would call the retrograde, since it strives from the form to come at the essence. But not thus is the Unlimited reached; it is not attainable by mere enhancement of the Limited. Hence, such works as have had their beginning in form, with all elaborateness on that side, show, in token of their origin, an incurable ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... earth, as Rome did once represent it on this half the world, to be amongst the races of all the earth what Hildebrand dreamed the Normans might be amongst the nations of Europe, is not this a task exalted enough to quicken the most sluggish zeal, the most retrograde "patriotism"? For without such mediation, misunderstanding, envy, hate, mistrust still erect barriers between the races of mankind more impassable than continents or seas or the great wall of Ch'in Chi. This ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so improper in the front row of a front box. "I would not (added he,) for ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... heard the story of spinning on the Commons, for her own grandmother had told it. But she had an idea that the world would go on rather than retrograde. For now they were turning out cotton cloth and printing calico and making canvas and duck, and it was the boast of the famous Constitution that everything besides her armament was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas |
