"Retrospective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grant in addition to the refund of one-sixth already payable will be either one-third or one-sixth of the expenditure on out-of-work pay, depending on the amount of the trade union levy. Under special conditions the grant is to be retrospective. It is, therefore, possible for trade unions to be subsidised so far as unemployment benefit is concerned, to the extent of one-half their payments. But this scheme does nothing to assist trade unions (of which there are many) which get no ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... mine eye, by sorrow shaded, Drops the solitary tear, O'er remember'd joys, now faded, To young love and rapture dear. E'en the retrospective feeling, Leaves a momentary thrill; All the wounds of sorrow healing, For my hopes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... first time he had found leisure to fish, though from the very outset of his Potwell career he had promised himself abundant indulgence in the pleasures of fishing. Fishing, as the golden page of English literature testifies, is a meditative and retrospective pursuit, and the varied page of memory, disregarded so long for sake of the teeming duties I have already enumerated, began to unfold itself to Mr. Polly's consideration. A speculation about Uncle Jim died for want of material, and gave place to a reckoning ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... them we find the sum of all religion. They make the highway along which man may return, without danger of erring, to the order and happiness that were lost far back in the ages now but dimly seen in retrospective vision. No lion is found in this way, nor any ravenous beast; but the redeemed of the Lord may walk there, and return with songs and everlasting joy upon ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... 1899. William B. Plunkett, President of the Club, said in introducing the President of the United States: "Not the Home Market Club, not the city of Boston, not Massachusetts only, but all New England give you greeting of welcome, Mr. President. In our retrospective of the year past we would give full meed of honor and praise to the President who so nobly met and so faithfully discharged the grave responsibilities of that great office, and thanksgiving to the Divine Providence that sustained him. In such hands, under such guidance, we may safely trust ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... opportunity for such a lesson; and the fact that he did allow her to administer one to him in right seventeenth-century diction is established—it is not too bold to say so—by my recognition of his style in her own. I had surely caught the retrospective reflex note, heard first in his voice, recognized ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... counter-checks, its centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, best determined in its necessarily oblique way? How much earthly ballast must it carry to keep it sufficiently steady, and how little, that it may not be weighed down with materialistic heaviness?" Incredibly enough, in the revelations of the retrospective view, "Paracelsus" made little impression on the literary critics of the day; the Athenaeum devoting to it less space even than to "the anonymous Pauline," while the "Philip van Artevelde" of Henry Taylor (now ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... interesting to take a retrospective view of the causes, or rather the means, by which this important measure was ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... of Pitt's is taken up almost entirely with a retrospective narrative of the events up to the time of Blood's first coming to Tortuga. This and the Tannatt Collection of State Trials are the chief—though not the only—sources of my history ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed, a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that I am constrained to describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part of the dream ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... that other eyes Might have uplit my highway? That fond, sad, retrospective sight Would catch from this dim byway Prized figures different quite From ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... ensuing parliament that a conference being held between the two houses respecting a bill for making the patrimonial estates of accountants liable for their arrears to the queen, and the commons desiring that it might not be retrospective, the lord treasurer pithily said; "My lords, if you had lost your purse by the way, would you look back or forwards to find it? The queen ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... as Horace) present to the mind of the sleeper. Before death, the soul, or immaterial principle, is, as it were, on the confines of two worlds, and may possess at the same moment a power which is both prospective and retrospective. At that time its connection with the body being merely nominal, it partakes of that perfectly pure, ethereal, and exalted nature (quod multo magis faciet post mortem quum omnino corpore excesserit) which ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... tongue. In the Twelfth Book Michael is guilty of a graver lapse where he mentions baptism without explanation or apology. On the other hand, Raphael, who had a pleasanter occasion and more time for his retrospective summary, explains the military manoeuvring of angels by what Adam had already seen of the flight of birds, and after describing the great war in Heaven and the fierce hosting of the opposed forces, ventures, at a later point in his story, to illustrate the flowing ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... is!' suddenly exclaimed Avice, whose attention had wandered somewhat from his retrospective discourse. She was looking from the window towards the cliffs, where, upon the open ground quite near at hand, a slender female form was seen rambling along. 'She is out for a walk,' Avice continued. 'I wonder if she is going to call here this afternoon? ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... down his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms; inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments' reflection, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... 1664, p. 90. The lines quoted are at the commencement of a dialogue between Collen and Thenot; which is described as "an Eglogue on the noble assemblies revived on Cotswold Hills by Mr. Robert Dover". An able criticism of Randolph's works, with extracts, will be found in the sixth volume of the "Retrospective Review". - ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... take at various intervals a retrospective view of life, and of the characters they have met with, seems to be a natural feeling of human nature; and every one is disposed at times to recall to memory many circumstances and many individuals which suggest abundant subjects for reflection. We thus find recollections of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... "cheekie" in anything you have done. Your letters have naturally given me much pleasure, for it seems to me you are a pretty good young fellow, as young fellows go; and if I add that you remind me of myself, you need not accuse me of retrospective vanity. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old book of the ordinance and virtues of the familiar herbs, I escape from the severities of botanical science into a maze of queer fancies, well suited to those retrospective hours when we love best what we least believe. And by the pleasant suggestion of astrology I am led on to contemplate the starry heavens, which I do in the ancient pastoral way, peopling them with mythical ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... watched the king as he engaged in the aimless drawing. His meditation grew retrospective, and his thoughts ran back to the days when he first befriended this lonely prince, who had come to England to learn the language and manners of the chill islanders. He had been handsome enough in those days, this Leopold of Osia, gay and eager, possessing an indefinable charm which endeared ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... and Rome. The play was evidently touched up afterwards, for it includes the sending of the elephant to Rome (1514) and the marriages of the princesses. It is barely possible that it was written after the victory, in which case the words na partida would be retrospective and the date given in the 1st edition was not a slip. Parts of the play suit 1514 better than 1513. Trist[a]o da Cunha's special mission (cf. lines 195-6) to the Pope (with Garcia de Resende for secretary) left early ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... lovers. Some change has taken place: have the lovers grown cold? or has death divided them? The themes are now sad, and clothed in minor harmonies. The Finale, perhaps, shows skill rather than inspiration; with regard to some of the subject-matter, it is, like the previous movement, also retrospective. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... the whirlwind and directed the storm of German socialism. Bismarck himself confesses to having received in private audience Lassalle, one certainly of the most capable men of modern Germany, and to whom as its first author, a retrospective inquiry would trace back the present formidable, closely ruled organization of socialist operatives of Germany. The first minister of the Prussian crown was closeted once—people say more than once, but that does not matter—with the ablest subverter of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... These retrospective visions of Sue only made Jude the more miserable that he was unable to woo her, and he left the cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the school to see the room in which Sue's little figure had ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... nothing about her look. He was, with a retrospective eye, regarding the work he had been doing, work that had perhaps saved his reason as well as bought his freedom. Now he was spreading it out and letting them consider it, not for praise, but because he trusted them. He felt a few rivets giving ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... again, and wrote during the next two months that portion which we now have. On December 1 he forwarded two chapters to Ticknor & Fields, requesting to have them set up so that he could see them in print and obtain a retrospective view of his work before he proceeded further. Yet on December 15 he wrote again, saying that he had not yet found courage to attack the proofs, and that all mental exertion had become hateful to him. [Footnote: "Yesterdays ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... but she cannot prevent our having enjoyed them in the past. We are frequently not able to enjoy a benefit for long, but the benefit is not thereby destroyed. Let Nature struggle as hard as she please, she cannot give herself retrospective action. A man may lose his house, his money, his property—everything to which the name of benefit can be given—yet the benefit itself will remain firm and unmoved; no power can prevent his benefactor's having bestowed them, or his having ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... trust heavily on the harvest of originality, he shows us that this plant—this part of the garden—is but a relative thing. It is dependent also on the richness that ages have put into the soil. "Every thinker is retrospective." ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... protested. "I rather dance with you than I do with those girls." And he added with a retrospective determination which showed that he had been through quite an experience with Mrs. Dowling in this matter. "I ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Podmore, hitherto the prosecuting attorney of the S. P. R., so far as physical phenomena are concerned becomes converted also, we may indeed sit up and look around us. Getting a good health bill from "Science," Eusapia will then throw retrospective credit on Home and Stainton Moses, Florence Cook (Prof. Crookes' medium), and all similar wonder-workers. The balance of presumptions will be changed in favor of genuineness being possible at least in all reports of this particularly crass and low type ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... mummy, in numberless boas and shawls:—during the process of unswathing, which was no easy job to one in a hurry, so artfully were the pins introduced, Master Tommy treats his friend Walter to a railroad retrospective review of the good things in store—recounting all the "lummy" things left yesterday;—telling about the "nobby" Christmas tree Captain de Camp gave them—though his ma' did say it was "a pretty give!"—it ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... be said to be of the nature of retrospective prophecies; though it is perhaps a little hazardous to employ phraseology which perilously suggests a contradiction in terms—the word "prophecy" being so constantly, in ordinary use, restricted to "foretelling." Strictly, however, the term prophecy applies as much to outspeaking as ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Ishmael in his poor orphaned infancy—so pale, thin, and sickly, so disliked, avoided, and neglected! At this remembrance her penitent heart melted in remorseful tenderness. The advent of her own children had shown to Hannah by retrospective action all the cruelty and hardness of heart she had once felt and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of the city falling through the windows, and all the vivid glory, the matchless splendour of the North lay like a past dream in the background of my memory. But still how clear the dream, how bright each moment of it, and how long to my retrospective vision! Was it possible I had only been there three or four months? It seemed like as many years. For time has this peculiarity, that joy and action shorten it while it is passing, but lengthen it when it is past. A week in which we have done nothing of note, but ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... I know it well; "In love and honour's cause I would be strong, "Mine is a father's tale, perhaps too long, "For fathers, when a duteous child's the theme, "Can talk a summer's sun down, and then dream "Of retrospective joys with hearts that glow "With feelings such as ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... corn for the horse and shed-room, where I tied him with retrospective security. There being no restaurant, I obtained some biscuits and cheese, and with these and six tickets for the very front row, Aunt Salomy and Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray and I stole early into the hall and sat us down ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... On a retrospective view of the route from Tripoli to Mourzuk, via Mizdah, I am inclined to divide the country, for convenience sake, into a series of zones, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... your last fugue, which is no more to my taste than Kuhmstedt's counterpoint. When are you going to send me the complete works of Anton Rubinstein that you promised me, and which I beg you not to forget? Your idea of a retrospective Carnival seems to me excellent, and you know how to write charming and distinguished ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... the Chilian Government. On February 23, 1878, Bolivia saw fit to impose a tax of 10 centavos (41/2 pence) per quintal (152 pounds) on all nitrates. Chili remonstrated; but Bolivia insisted, and declared, in addition, that the tax was meant to be retrospective, and that unless all dues were paid before February 14, 1879, the nitrates in the hands of the exporters would be seized and sold by auction. As the day which had been fixed for the seizure drew near, a Chilian squadron, under Rear-Admiral Rebolledo Williams, was got ready for the ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... been passed at Mon Reve, Lady Susan's villa at Montricheux, and with a jerk Ann emerged from her train of retrospective thought to the realisation that her lines had really fallen in ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... manners, habits, and the position of every island. In preparing the way for the accomplishment of this task, which ought to embrace a great part of the archipelago of the West Indies, it may be useful to cast a retrospective glance on the events by which the freedom of a considerable part of the human race was obtained in Europe in the middle ages. In order to ameliorate without commotion new institutions must be made, as it were, to rise out ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... brought the knowledge that for an indefinite time retrospective happiness must play the part of sun ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... retrospective lore, Whence cooler Reason tortur'd him before; Comparison of times, the Lab'rer's hire, And many a truth Reflection might inspire, Sunk powerless. 'Dame, I am a fool,' he cried; 'Alone I might have reason'd till I died. 'I caus'd those tears of Jane's:—but as ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... had been the state of her affairs some time, she suddenly paused, and taking a retrospective view of what had passed, inquired within herself, why it was that, for all her unwearied labors, she had nothing to show; why it was that others, with much less care and labor, could hoard up treasures for themselves and children? She became ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... had almost said, to the experience of our lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put aside without serious consideration? Are there not in the history of each of us passages which strike our retrospective thought with awe, almost with terror? Are there not in nearly every community individuals who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such organic forces as are ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... rival interests which might have disastrous results. This, of course, did not mean that there was to be any abandonment of special privileges already acquired or any surrender of existing concessions. The arrangement was not to be retrospective in any sense. Vested interests were to be strictly guarded until the lapse of the periods for which they had been granted, or until the maturity of China's ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... and malice to which he soon after became a victim had an equally fatal effect in disenchanting the dream of his existence. Those imaginary, or, at least, retrospective sorrows, in which he had once loved to indulge, and whose tendency it was, through the medium of his fancy, to soften and refine his heart, were now exchanged for a host of actual, ignoble vexations, which it was even more humiliating than painful to encounter. His misanthropy, instead of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... rewarded or favoured by Napoleon the First will not only be discarded, but disgraced, and perhaps punished, by a Louis XVIII. Any person who would be imprudent enough to attempt to prove the impossibility, as well as the absurdity, of these impolitic and retrospective measures, would be instantly taken up and shot as an ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... that Presbyterians always say grace before meals, but I was very hungry and exhausted, and the tomato very tempting; I have really disgraced myself." To which Knott replied, "You ought not to feel so, Mr. Justice; the blessing of Doctor Bullock's was broad and general; in large measure retrospective as well as prospective. It reminds me of a little incident that occurred on the 'Rolling Fork.' An old-time deacon down there was noted for the lengthy blessing which at his table was the unfailing prelude to every meal. His hired man, Bill Taylor, an unconverted and impatient ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... irrecoverable; obsolete &c (old) 124. former, pristine, quondam, ci-devant [Fr.], late; ancestral. foregoing; last, latter; recent, over night; preterperfect^, preterpluperfect^. looking back &c v.; retrospective, retroactive; archaeological &c n.. Adv. paleo-; archaeo-; formerly; of old, of yore; erst [G.], whilom, erewhile^, time was, ago, over; in the olden time &c n.; anciently, long ago, long since; a long while, a long time ago; years ago, yesteryear, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... his stature is described as almost gigantic; his voice loud and harsh; his features stern and terrible. His cruel and criminal character we already know. Yet it is but just here to recall that much of the horror and odium which has accumulated on his memory is posthumous and retrospective. Some of his cotemporaries were no better in their private lives than he was; but then they had no part in bringing in the Normans. Talents both for peace and war he certainly had, and there was still a feeling of attachment, or at least of regret, cherished ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... permit me to say that this meager outline, condensed from notes made from year to year, in no way satisfies the writer, but has been given by the earnest solicitations of friends, who wished that the steady progress of the cause might be marked in this retrospective hour. There is much that should have been embodied in this sketch of the past, especially the resolutions which have marked varying phases of the work, and which seemed like a divine inspiration in their comprehensive grasp and far-reaching thought, on this the last great ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... one nor the other, as far as we know, was a plagiarist. This, however, does not disprove the contrary proposition, that he who begins as a thief or an iconoclast is likely to end as such. But the actuating motive has nothing to do with what we, in our retrospective analysis, are pleased to prove. Not so far forth are we willing to piddle among the knicknacks of Shakib's Histoire Intime of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... hear Captain Glazier's lecture upon 'Echoes from the Revolution.' The frequent applause of the audience evinced not only a sympathy with the subject, but an evident liking of the manner in which it was delivered. The lecture itself was a retrospective view of the leading incidents of the Revolution. It would have been unfair to expect to hear anything very new upon a subject with which the veriest school-boy is familiar; but Captain Glazier wove the events together in a manner which freed the lecture ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... days. It will show, too, the feeling which his natural good qualities, in spite of the errors by which they were obscured and weakened, kept alive to the last, in the hearts of those connected with him, that sort of retrospective affection, which, when those whom we have loved become altered, whether in mind or person, brings the recollection of what they once were, to mingle with and soften our impression of what ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... as Amy and I are concerned,' said Pendle, gloomily, 'but so late a ceremony will not make my children legitimate. In England, marriage is not a retrospective act.' ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... lesson passed unnoticed, and the Irish precedent has survived to darken thought, to retard democratic progress, and to pervert domestic and Imperial policy to this very day. It even had the truly extraordinary retrospective effect of obliterating from the minds of many eminent statesmen the significance of the Canadian parallel; for it is only six years ago that a Secretary of State for the Colonies penned a despatch recommending for the Transvaal a form of government similar to that ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Yet, stay; what was that dark film, like a tiny cloud, that came sweeping down toward them from far up the lake? Dick, the practical, was the first to catch sight of it, for Phil was standing like one in a trance gazing at the scene with a retrospective look in his eyes that seemed to say his thoughts were far away. As Dick watched the approaching cloud-like film it resolved itself into a flock of wild ducks, making, as it seemed, directly for the patch of rushes near which ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... triumph, mother, we shall only save the family. Calyste has killed within me the holy fervor of love,—killed it by sickening me with all things. What a honey-moon was mine, in which I was made to feel on that first day the bitterness of a retrospective adultery!" ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... are the tree's memories of its own growth, are more distinct near the centre, where its growth began, than in the outer and later development. Give age the past, and let us be content with our legacy, which is the future. Still shall youth cast one retrospective glance at the experience of its nonage, ere it assumes its prerogative, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... to the ways of Barrow, had been obliged to hold with her, the reading of the will—all these had combined to keep her in a state of mental and physical alertness which had mercifully precluded retrospective thought. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... of a Proclamation of Martial Law, and was suggested by the refusal of the Privy Council, on April 2, 1906, to grant leave to appeal from sentences passed in Natal by court-martial, in respect of acts committed on February 8, 1906, whereby retrospective effect had, it was alleged, been given to a proclamation not issued till the day after the acts were committed, See Mcomini Mzinelwe and Wanda v. H.E. the Governor and the A.G. for the Colony of Natal, 22 Times Law ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... repeated in a musing, retrospective tone. "I seem to remember that name. Yes, of course. I have heard a legal friend of mine, a Mr. Marchmont, speak of him in reference to the case of a man whom I knew slightly years ago—a certain Jeffrey Blackmore, who also disappeared very mysteriously. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... 17: The Retrospective Review, however (Vol. I, November, 1852), has an article, 'Mrs. Behn's Dramatic Writings,' which warmly praises her comedies. The writer very justly observes that 'they exhibit a brilliance of conversation in the dialogue, and a skill in arranging ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... relative. Every thinker is retrospective. The learned member of the legislature, at Westminister,[571] or at Washington, speaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, and the now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... journal of that period, came out with a leading article the next morning, in which every party concerned and every institution was knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the ruin of the monarchy (with a retrospective view of the well-known case of Gyges and Candaules), the monstrosity of the crime, and the absurdity of the tribunal and the punishment, were all set forth in the terrible leading ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... retrospective Magnanimity: but Pusillanimity, present, prospective? Reader, thou hast never lived, for months, under the rustle of Prussian gallows-ropes; never wert thou portion of a National Sahara-waltz, Twenty-five millions running distracted to fight Brunswick! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... reward for the victory of Zurich, was made Commander-in-Chief in Italy, and while Brune was at the head of the army of Batavia, Bonaparte, whose soul was in the camps, consoled himself for his temporary inactivity by a retrospective glance on his past triumphs. He was unwilling that Fame should for a moment cease to blazon his name. Accordingly, as soon as he was established at the head of the Government, he caused accounts of his Egyptian expedition to be from time to time published in the Moniteur. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... then improved a great deal and finally appeared very natural, gave the retrospective account noted in the history, had a clear appreciation of the fact that she was married and had a child. She claimed that she had previously forgotten about her marriage and thought she was still merely keeping company with Mr. F. She claimed not ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... picturesquely perched on the hilltop, a little village with a large church at its base. Recrossing the Dora, we pass some beautiful chestnut woods, through several tunnels, and thence on to Susa, the valley expanding, cultivated with terraced vineyards and gardens. We now obtain grand retrospective views of the beautiful valley below, with glimpses of ancient Roman ruins and aqueducts; the arch of Augustus peeping out of the magnificent scenery, and reminding one of the great spirits of the Latin race, with their eye ever open to ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... an exhibition, Mr. Matthews remarks, would at least dispel any lingering belief in the old saying that there are only thirty-eight good stories in existence and that thirty-seven of these cannot be told before ladies; and the Retrospective Section would certainly be the constant resort of any true folklorist. For most of the good stories of our time are really folklore, myth survivals, echoes of the past. The two well-known American proverbs, 'We have had ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... entitled a "thriving" family, to distinguish worthy from unworthy success. This manuscript collection might hereafter develop into a "golden book" of thriving families. The Chinese, whose customs have often much sound sense, make their honours retrospective. We might learn from them to show that respect to the parents of noteworthy children, which the contributors of such valuable assets to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Robert Peel will support the proposal, will do all that he can to prevent it from being considered as indicative of hostile or altered feeling towards France, and will assume for the increase in question any degree of responsibility present or retrospective which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... entranced him, but he never found it. It was a small, fat volume, very like a pocket Bible in shape, bound cheaply in green cloth, and printed in England, probably somewhere in the '30's, but it had disappeared. The bereaved youth was, henceforth, in as sore a retrospective strait over "Don Sebastian" as Mr. Andrew Lang declares he is, to-day, with ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... genius when he created Peter Pan, for Peter symbolises man's highest wish—to become a little child and never grow up. "Genius," he says, "is the power of being a boy again at will." It is true in his case. Yet this kind of genius is retrospective; it is a regression. The genius who will help man to look forward instead of backward must not return to boyhood; he must go forward to superman. To put it psychologically, Barrie's genius comes from the unconscious, but what the world needs ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... the Great was divided, at his death, among his generals; but, before relating their history, it is necessary to take a brief retrospective glance at the affairs of Greece. Three years after Alexander had quitted Europe the Spartans made a vigorous effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke. They were joined by most of the Peloponnesian states; but though they met with some ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... again. He had been led on by pure enthusiasm in his subject, and had really forgotten what bearing this retrospective survey had on his listener. He had found occasion for saying the same thing more than once before, and was not distinctly aware that he had not his port-wine ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... am eighty-five years old, and I can no longer look forward for future earthly happiness. All my joys are now retrospective, and in the long vista of years that I constantly look back upon, there is no time that affords me more pleasure than that when I was in the Treasury of the United States. The fact that I was instrumental ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the grave consideration and the careful examination which many of its enactments would require. Lord Lyndhurst especially called the attention of the house to the tendency of those provisions which had a retrospective operation. After the bill, therefore, had been read a second time, it was referred, with the acquiescence of ministers, to a select committee, which committee made various amendments upon the bill, all of which were agreed to by the house and adopted into the bill. The commons, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... said, that the general diffusion of popular knowledge is unfavorable to great acquisitions in any one individual. This is a favorite dogma with those persons whose views are all retrospective, who are ever magnifying past ages at the expense of the present, and who will insist upon riding through life with their faces turned toward the horse's tail instead of his head. "We have smatterers and sciolists ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... career had been run outside the verge of chronicles. Its early stages left few direct records. They have to be pieced together by retrospective allusions proceeding from himself or others, after he had already risen. The difficulties of his biographers are not at an end when he has mounted into the full blaze of publicity. His name thenceforth was in a multitude of mouths; yet much in his character, position, and motives always ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it will assume a retrospective biographical character. When any of the performers who belong to the sea-faring or marauding professions are observed to arm themselves with very small swords to which are attached very large hilts, we predict that the affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... Merton, passed in 1235; at the Statute of Westminster, passed in 1275; at the Statute of James the First, passed in 1623; at Sir George Savile's Act, passed in the last century; at Lord Tenterden's Act, passed in our own time. Every one of those Acts was retrospective. Every one of them barred claims arising out of past transactions. Nor was any objection ever raised to what was so evidently just and wise, till bigotry and chicanery formed that disgraceful league against which ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the longest of all his novels, if we except the still later and rather doubtful Petits Bourgeois. In the second place, this length is not obtained—as length with him is too often obtained—by digressions, by long retrospective narrations, or even by the insertion of such "padding" as the collection business in Le Cousin Pons. The whole stuff and substance of La Cousine Bette is honestly woven novel-stuff, of one piece and one tenor and texture, with for constant subject the subterranean malignity of the heroine, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of the Managers of the Statue, in consequence of the inconvenience which the public sustained from the innumerable quantity of edicts of the Statue at present in force, had last night consolidated them all into this single act, which, to render its operation still more simple, was gifted with a retrospective power for the ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... them, and had been detached in the course of ages. And the parliaments of Lorraine, Alsace, and Franche Comte were directed to ascertain what places there were, what fragments under feudal tenure, to which that retrospective principle applied. They were called chambers, or courts, of reunion, and they enumerated certain small districts, which the French troops accordingly occupied. All this was futile skirmishing. The real object was Strasburg. Alsace was French, but Strasburg, the capital, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Many men, in taking retrospective glances, remember how they were devoted to women, the memory of whom calls up only a vague sort of wonder how they ever could have fallen into the state of infatuation in which they once were. The same may ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... verdure, encircles the azure bay, where our steamer, merely a white speck in the distance, lies at anchor. A turn of the road discloses a glimpse of the mountain lake, a sheet of sapphire sparkling in the morning sun, but retrospective thoughts in this instance convey pain as well as pleasure, for "mounting ambition" has for once "o'erleapt itself," and failure counterbalances success. Menado, divided by the river, is inhabited by two distinct ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... a retrospective look, for some quarter of a minute, as if this allusion to his lady's excellences had naturally led his mind to the peaceful village of Dotheboys near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire; and then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... religious scriptures of India seem to possess merely a retrospective and archaelogical interest; but to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled cases—mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration, preserved for all time ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... case has been often referred to in law-books, but I have never met with so full a statement of the contents of the declaration as in the Retrospective Review (vol. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... youth; as they touched the gentle little hand impregnated with perfumes, which a Pharaoh perhaps had kissed; as they fingered the hair, more durable than empire, more solid than granite monuments. At the sight of the lovely dead girl, the young nobleman felt the retrospective desire often inspired by the sight of a statue or a painting representing a woman of past days famous for her beauty. It seemed to him that he would have loved, had he lived three thousand years earlier, that beauty ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... as in the screen play, that retrospective distant picture brings one back to an earlier vision, so from the distance we ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... time when he should repair to the city, and enter upon the business of life. And now that that long looked-for and wished-for day had arrived, when he was to bid an adieu to the companions of his youth, and to all the scenes of his childhood, it was well for him to cast a retrospective glance; ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and to show the visitor, in the depth of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who groaned long ago under old Lancaster merchants. And Mr. Goodchild adds that the ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... give Congress the power to coerce the States; to bring the States into subjection to the Federal Government. Now, sir, let us see how that was treated; and first I will refer to one whose wisdom, as we take a retrospective view, seems to me marvelous. Not conspicuous in debate, at least not among the names which first occur when we think of that bright galaxy of patriots and statesmen, he was the man who, above all others, it ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... was now westward from over the river, and he felt the electric currents of joyous excitement, retrospective fear, and, above all, of eager, almost ferocious, curiosity, linking up rapidly about him. The rough and ready cordon of special constables seemed powerless to dam the human tide, and caught in that ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... in the name of Victor Emmanuel," Garibaldi attacked and occupied Palermo, and having established his ascendency in the island, invaded the Neapolitan territory on the mainland. The Sardinian Government, for diplomatic reasons, disavowed the expedition, but gave a retrospective assent to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... The nights were cold still, but the sun was powerful during the day, and there were many tokens that the earth was about to wake from her long sleep and prepare for the refreshment of her children. "And time for her," sighed Janet, taking a retrospective view of all that had happened ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... are then those of perception by the intermediary of the thoughts of a living person; and the deceased is perceived through a mental representation. The experiment, for this reason, is valueless as evidence of the reality of retrospective psychometry and consequently of the recording part played by ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... second scene, Prospero's speeches, till the entrance of Ariel, contain the finest example I remember of retrospective narration for the purpose of exciting immediate interest, and putting the audience in possession of all the information necessary for the understanding of the plot. Observe, too, the perfect probability of the moment chosen by Prospero (the very Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... burnt offerings Thou wouldst not" (Ps. xl, 6), and on Jesus' own explanation of his death, that He offered himself in testimony to the Truth—that is, that the Eternal Life will no more exercise a retrospective vengeance upon us for our past misunderstanding of It, than would electricity or any other force. We may explain the modus operandi of the great offering in any of these ways, for the Scripture presents it in all of them—but the great ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... have not myself been wholly free from apprehension of possible embarras, should we, at this period, visit London; for though M. d'Arblay not only could stand, but would court, all personal scrutiny, whether retrospective or actual, I see daily the extreme susceptibility which attends his very nice notions of honour, and how quickly and deeply his spirit is wounded by whatever he regards as injustice. Incapable, too, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay |
