"Revert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... booksellers have now no other security in future for any literary purchase they may make but the statute of the 8th of Queen Anne, which secures to the authors assigns an exclusive property for 14 years, to revert again to the author, and vest in him for 14 years more.' Ann. Reg. 1774, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... contained in it. For as the sun in old time was eclipsed, and seemed to be extinguished, at the time when the soul of Romulus penetrated into these eternal mansions, so, when all the constellations and stars shall revert to their primary position, and the sun shall at the same point and time be again eclipsed, then you may consider that the grand year is completed. Be assured, however, that the twentieth part of it ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... remove the source of friction by buying out the landlords for the benefit of the tenants. The present Ministry have chosen the former alternative, but they dangle before the eyes of their supporters some prospect that they may ultimately revert to the latter. Now, the only way that has yet been pointed out of buying out the landlords, without imposing tremendous liabilities of loss upon the British Treasury, is the creation of a strong Home Rule ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... Mons. Dimanche, a tradesman, applies to Don Juan for money. Don Juan treats him with all imaginable courtesy, but every time he attempts to revert to business interrupts him with some such question as, Comment se porte Madame Dimanche? or Et votre petite fille Claudine comment se porte-t-ell? or Le petit Colin fait-il toujours bien du bruit avec son tambour? or Et votre ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... now revert to the singular causes by which, independent of others, such as locality, etcetera, Buffalo was so rapidly brought to a state of perfection—not like many other towns which, commencing with wooden houses, gradually supersede them by brick and stone. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... observed politely. "And to revert to one big female creature, let us hear something ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... and adhered for several years to the allowance (or its equivalent) which had been prescribed to me. Under this regimen, however, I became, after a time, subject to occasional slight attacks of gout, and to some disturbance of digestion and of sleep. In spite of medical advice, I determined to revert to the abstinence in which I had never lost faith. For a time of, I suppose, from twelve to fifteen years, I have persisted in this rule; not, indeed, being under any vow, but practically not taking more than half-a-dozen ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... remained a constant subject of dissension. M. Dudevant was beginning to get into pecuniary difficulties in the management of his wife's estate. Sometimes he contemplated resigning it to her, and retiring to Gascony, to live with his widowed stepmother on the property which at her death would revert to him. But unfortunately he could not make up his mind to this course. No sooner had he drawn up an agreement consenting to a division of property, than he seemed to regret the sacrifice; upon which she ceased ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... I must revert to a period when the British power, having conquered the plains of India and subdued its sovereigns, paused at the foot of the Himalayas and turned its tireless energy to internal progress and development. The "line of ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... the farmer to do business with a currency so debased that its value is highly problematical. So we see the great city of Vienna,[26] once one of the gayest and most brilliant capitals of Europe, now reduced to destitution, and the cities not only of Russia but of Germany being forced to revert to the ancient system of barter in order to ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... the laws of the land, begin now to be thought unreasonable; and as by this means the merit of those laws will probably be more generally known; we may hope that the method of studying them will soon revert to it's antient course, and the foundations at least of that science will be laid in the two universities; without being exclusively confined to the chanel which it fell into at the times ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... to show. It is a great deal better to boast of what they could not show, and, strange as it may seem, there is a certain satisfaction in it. In these days of electric lighting, when you have only to touch a button and your parlor or bedroom is instantly flooded with light, it is a pleasure to revert to the era of the tinder-box, the flint and steel, and the brimstone match. It gives me an almost proud satisfaction to tell how we used, when those implements were not at hand or not employed, to light our whale-oil lamp by blowing a live coal held against the wick, often ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said their instructions, "that the bishops should be instituted according to the Concordat of Francis I., which we have renewed, and in such a manner as shall be established by the Council, and shall have received our approbation. However, it would be possible to revert to the Concordat on the following conditions: 1st. That the Pope should institute all the bishops that we have appointed; 2nd. That in future our appointment shall be communicated to the Pope in the ordinary form; that if three months after the court ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... who he knew from her goodness of temper would treat them with unflagging kindness. But should the widow remarry, thereby putting her property under the control of a stranger, the slaves and the plantation were at once to revert to the testator's brother who was recommended to bequeath them in turn to his son Howell if he were deemed worthy of the trust. "It is my most ardent desire that in whatsoever hands fortune may place said ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... there is a third thing you may say; but before I say that for you, you must promise to make no reply, not even a monosyllable; and not to revert to the subject for four ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... the relations to it, though distant relations; my brother's, I mean, by his godmother: and this has given the hope, however chimerical that hope, of procuring others; and that my own at least may revert to the family. And yet, in my opinion, the world is but one great family. Originally it was so. What then is this narrow selfishness that reigns in us, but relationship remembered ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the duke's hereditary dominions, and the kingdom of Sicily, together with Montserrat and Mantua; all which territories should be annexed to France at Philip's succession to that crown, except Sicily, which should revert to the house of Austria. Louis seemed to relish this expedient, which, however, was rejected by Philip, who chose to make the renunciation rather than quit the throne upon which he was established. The queen demanded that the renunciation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... could not imagine what had occurred to account for his asking so strange a question. I replied that I knew of no such sect, and Van Rembold immediately changed the subject, nor did he revert to it. So that I never learned why he had made ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... arose regarding the title to Jersey that the whole thing finally reverted to the crown in 1702. When there was any trouble over titles in those days it was always settled by letting it revert to the crown. It has been some years now, however, since that has happened ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... again revert to my interview with the Lords of the Admiralty on the occasion of my first meeting them at Devonport. I was residing at the hotel where they usually took up their quarters while making their annual visitation of the dockyard. I was honoured with an invitation to confer with Sir George ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... complete substitution of arbitration for war the woman's method of charm will have replaced the man's method of brute force along the whole line of legitimate human activity. If we realize this we can understand why it is that a group of women who, even in the effort to support a good cause, revert to the crude method of violence are committing a double wrong. They are wronging their own sex by proving false to its best traditions, and they are wronging civilization by attempting to revive methods of savagery which it is civilization's mission to repress. Therefore it may fairly be held that ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... zeal, energy, and discretion. I bowed, and replied that I was always anxious to do my duty; but my heart, I confess, did beat rather quickly and anxiously in consequence of the possibility I at once saw of realising the hopes I had so long entertained, I need not, however, again revert to that subject. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... his confinement lasted I know not, but it must have been a long while, as in after-times, when he would occasionally revert to his former life, all incidents he related were for years "when he was in his dungeon, or in the courtyard prison of the Capitol," where many of his ancestors had dictated laws ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... To revert to the prison ship martyrs, their suffering was so great and their bravery so conspicuous that immediately after the War a popular attempt was made in 1792 and 1798 to provide a proper resting place for the bones of the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... itself: for in being converted to, it surveys itself. For when extended to things external, it looks to externals, or rather it looks to colored body, but does not see itself, because sight itself is neither body nor that which is colored. Hence it does not revert to itself. Neither therefore is this the case with any other irrational nature. For neither does the phantasy project a type of itself, but of that which is sensible, as for instance of colored body. Nor does irrational ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... and complete demobilization of the Greek Army, which shall revert as speedily as possible to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... to revert to the Civil war to prove that American Negroes are faithful, devoted wearers of uniforms," says a Washington man, who has seen service in both the army and the navy. "There are at the present time four regiments of Negro ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... examples I adduce will be found open to dispute. This is a kind in which direct proof can have no share; nor should I have dared thus to combine them in argument, but for the ninth stanza of those quoted above, to which I beg my readers to revert. Its imaginary work means—work hinted at, and then left to the imagination of the reader. Of course, in dramatic representation, such work must exist on a great scale; but the minute particularization ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... the late preacher evidently held his father in reverence; it seemed that the old man had in his youth been a disciple and preacher under Miller, the founder of the Adventist sect; it was natural that, as his faculties failed, his mind should revert to the excitements of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the art-collections, or the botanical gardens. Understand in your own mind that there is something you can inquire for and be interested in, though you be dumped out of a car at New Smithville. It may, perhaps, happen that you do not for weeks or months revert to this reserved object of yours. Then happiness may come; for, as you have found out already, I think, happiness is something which happens, and is not contrived. On this theme you will find an excellent discourse ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... impossible with it, and when the electric light business assumed commercial importance, I threw everything overboard for that. Nevertheless, the phonograph has been more or less constantly in mind ever since. When resting from prolonged work upon light, my brain was found to revert almost automatically to the old idea. Since the light has been finished, I have taken up the phonograph, and after eight months of steady work have made it a commercial invention. My phonograph I expect to see in every business office. The first 500 will, I ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... of the Old Testament betrays both Egyptian and Babylonian influences; the social hygiene is a reflex of regulations the origin of which may be traced in the Pyramid Texts and in the papyri. The regulations in the Pentateuch codes revert in part to primitive times, in part represent advanced views of hygiene. There are doubts if the Pentateuch code really goes back to the days of Moses, but certainly someone "learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians" drew it up. As Neuburger ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... do is to keep out of the way if possible. We may come to some such condition of things as they have in Altruria, where the faith of the whole nation is pledged to secure every citizen in the pursuit of happiness; or we may revert to some former condition, and the master may again own the man; or we may hitch and joggle along indefinitely, as we ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... but many of them retain the probing character, and are actually used to probe in rotten wood on trees, and to explore the holes and deep crevices in the trunk. We have also seen that some of these tree-creepers revert to the ancestral habit (if I may so call it) of seeking their food by probing in the soil. In others, like Dendrornis, in which the beak has lost this character, and is used to dig in the wood or to strip off the bark, it has not been highly specialized, and, compared with the woodpecker's ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Jordanes wavers between Theodericus and Theodoricus. The Greek historians generally use the form (Greek: Theuderichos). German scholars seem to prefer Theoderich. As it is useless now to try to revert to the philologically correct Thiuda-reiks, I use that form of the name with which I suppose English readers ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... extravagant. As soon as his wife was able to leave her room, the doctor ordered her to pass a portion of every day out-of-doors. This was partly to strengthen her lungs and partly for the moral effect. Doctor Fenwick feared that if she should revert to the long days upon her couch or bed with the novels and chocolates, the headache-powders or a substitute would follow, soon or late, with more perilous results. She submitted to his dictum with resignation, being, indeed, rather captivated ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... for putting them there?" At last I removed my eyes from the teapot, and thought for a few moments about the marks; presently, however, I felt the whirl returning; the marks became almost effaced from my mind, and I was beginning to revert to my miserable ruminations, when suddenly methought I heard a voice say, "The marks! the marks! cling to the marks! or—" So I fixed my eyes again upon the marks, inspecting them more attentively, if possible, than I had done before, and, at last, I came ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... naturally revert to "La Bohme"; but there are many points of difference between the story which Puccini's librettist pieced together out of Mrger's tales of bohemian life more than half a century ago, and this one of to-day. The differences are all in favor of the earlier opera. It was in a letter written ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... should call them painful, excepting in their consequences—which influenced my conduct in my final interview between my father and myself—an interview which occasioned my departure for the Continent—and which was of a character so dreadful, that I would not even revert to it, were it not a necessary preliminary to the circumstance I am ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... so faithful to nature, and so essentially living in its expression, that it is not probable that it will ever die. It may become disused, but will revert. Its elements are ever natural and universal, by recurring to which the less natural signs adopted dialectically or for expedition can always, with, some circumlocution, be explained. This power of interpreting itself is a peculiar advantage, for spoken ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... notions, and promote the spread of freedom, seemed to their eyes but the efforts of an ambitious power to crush abroad what they had annihilated at home, and extend their own influence in disseminating doctrines, all to revert, one day or other, to some grand despotism, whenever the man arose capable to exercise it. The elder would not even concede to us that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... We now revert to the poet's early, or, rather, to his middle-age, creative years, and to a resume of his principal writings, with a brief, running comment on his message and art. In 1847, three years before he became Laureate, he published "The ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... view. I thought I could not employ a portion of my leisure hours more profitably, certainly not more pleasantly, than by recounting some of the scenes, incidents and associations which carries my mind back to the days of "Auld Lang Syne." What more natural, then, than that my thoughts should revert to the friend of my early manhood—one who, by the uprightness of his character, geniality of his disposition, the chivalric impulses of his nature, deserves, as it is my greatest pleasure to accord, the dedication ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... other anthropoid apes ever walk erect, though they assume at times the upright posture. But though they use all their limbs as walking organs, they show no tendency to revert to the habit of the quadrupeds. Their motion is like that of the gibbon when in haste, a series of jumps or swings between the supporting arms. The shortness of their arms, however, prevents them from standing erect, like the gibbon, in doing this; and they bend forward ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... of Heaven, who looks down upon the quarrels of men, will avenge the right. May we prove ourselves in this struggle worthy of Him and of our great cause! My poor distressed family! How fondly my thoughts revert to them to-day! My dear wife and daughters, instead of preparing the accustomed "cake" to celebrate my birthday, are mourning my absence, and dreading to hear of disaster. May our Heavenly Father console, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... was no easy matter to resolve upon a satisfactory remedy. The representatives of the founders considered that, if houses were suppressed which had been established out of estates which had belonged to their forefathers, those estates should revert to the heirs, or at least, that the heirs should recover them upon moderate terms.[521] In the Reforming party there was difference of opinion on the legality of secularizing property which had been given to ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... while the sins arising from the frailty of human nature may be checked by the "right judgement" recalling, before it is too late, what the will of God is. This, however, is a different question, and we must not here pursue it too far. To revert to that of Dante's various demeanour, it will be seen that, with the limitation indicated above, his sympathy with the sinner does not vary with the comparative heinousness of the sin. Almost his bitterest scorn, ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... must revert to Erec, whom we left in the field where the battle had taken place. Even Tristan, when he slew fierce Morhot on Saint Samson's isle [113], awakened no such jubilee as they celebrated here over Erec. Great and small, thin and stout—all make much of him and praise his knighthood. There ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... lay near the territory occupied by the Indians. Five pounds per annum was named as the quit rent, payment to begin eight years later; and such part of the tract as was not cleared and improved during the next eighteen years was to revert to the Trustees. The Trustees also agreed that they would reserve two hundred acres near the larger tract, and whenever formally requested by Count Zinzendorf, would grant twenty acres each "to such able bodied ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... this little book is composed chiefly of recipes for dishes that can be made in haste, and by the inexperienced cook. But such cook can hardly pay too much attention to details if she does not wish to revert to an early, not to say feral type of cuisine, where the roots were eaten raw while the meat was burnt. Because your dining-room furniture is Early English, there is no reason why the cooking should be early English ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... can never tell when the beast may revert to his primitive instincts, and do something unpleasant," he said. "This one is also evidently of somewhat uncertain temperament. We are told that Una had a lion, but the effect of the story would have ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... justly, but a great war gave it by might though not by right to England. Now Spain has succeeded to France. Here, throughout all this vast region, there is none to dispute her title. To the east of the Mississippi great changes are going on, and it may be that Kaintock, also, will revert to my ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Charities" of Kansas City, Kansas, would put it to the use I intended. I liked the idea. The society became incorporated so they could receive the deed, which was a trust, for should the property be used for other than what it was given for, it will revert. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... advertize, inadvertent, verse, aversion, adverse, adversity, adversary, version, anniversary, versatile, divers, diversity, conversation, perverse, universe, university, traverse, subversive, divorce; (2) vertebra, vertigo, controvert, revert, averse, versus, versification, animadversion, vice versa, controversy, tergiversation, obverse, transverse, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... recompensed his hostess; and hastily prepared for departure. In the midst of this hurry however his thoughts had leisure to revert to those anxieties which had occupied him as he was falling asleep. Who was this French captain? Whither bound? What was his connexion with those in whose hands he now found himself? On what terms, and with what motives, had they treated for his ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... become familiar with the commoner forms of symbolism through our acquaintance with literature. In the dream, when the more finely controlled physiological processes are in abeyance, there is a tendency to revert to the symbolic modes of expression. This has its use, because on awaking the dream does not shock us, since we make no attempt to analyze or trace back in the dream the symbol's original meaning. Hence we find that the manifest content ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the football of the secondary schools. Something similar occurs in stammering. When a case is trained to have a higher reflex vocalization, and they learn to vocalize spontaneously, it inhibits their stammering. But when they get tired they revert again. In the subject under discussion are we not reaching too far back for sources? Should we not go to infancy or early childhood (to the old reflex circle there) rather than to ones ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... reasonable, and also what acquisitions he ought to possess. {p.199} There is no combating the feelings which you express for the society of your son, otherwise I really think that a Scottish education would be highly desirable; and should you at any time revert to this plan, you may rely on my bestowing the same attention upon him as upon ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... My thoughts revert to this particular spring more frequently than to any other period of my boyhood, for it was marked by an event that left an indelible impression on my memory. As I pen these pages, I feel that I ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Americans finally took possession it was abandoned to the tender mercies of the straying, seeking, searching, devouring homesteader. In due time it was "home-steaded" The chapel and graveyard were ultimately deeded back; and when the Landmarks Club took hold it was agreed that the ruins "revert to their proper ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... civil power to refuse us citizenship. If this principle were carried out, it would be seen that we could not be even a cosmopolite, but must be of nowhere, and of no section of the globe. This is so absurd that it is as clear as day that we must revert to the country which gave us birth, as being, in the highest ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... variety of praise upon Maximilian, with a liberality that won tears of delight from the solitary young lady, as she now sat at midnight looking over these gracious testimonies to her lover's merit. A theme so delightful to Paulina could not be unseasonable at any time; and never did her thoughts revert to him more fondly than at this moment, when she so much needed his protecting arm. Yet the emperor, she was aware, must have some more special motive for enlarging upon this topic than his general favor to Maximilian. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... relation to the home she had abandoned, the same exemplary character. In her poverty of guarantees at Stanhope Gardens there had been least of all, it appeared, a proviso that she shouldn't resentfully revert again from Goneril to Regan. She came down to the goose-green like Lear himself, with fewer knights, or at least baronets, and the joint household was at last patched up. It fell to pieces and was put together on various occasions before ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... leave that part of my fortune of which the law allows me to dispose, in trust to my dear lover, Pierre-Germer-Simon de Bourneval, to revert afterwards to our dear ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... view, I can scarcely wonder at your course," she said, so quietly that he misunderstood her, and felt that she half conceded its reasonableness. Then she changed the subject, nor did she revert to it ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... But, remember, nigger law is wonderfully elastic; it requires superhuman wisdom to unravel its social and political intricacies, and when I view it through the horoscope of an indefinite future it makes my very head ache. You may, however, let your claim revert to another, and traverse the case until such time as you can procure reliable proof to convict." Mr. Scranton asserts this as the force of his legal and constitutional acumen. He addresses himself to a mercantile-looking gentleman who sits at the opposite side of the table, attentively ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... position than it really deserves at present. That cause is unfortunate which retains as its advocate one whose rhetoric persuades all, while his logic convinces none; and the too readily believing converts of his enthusiasm and splendid diction, their sympathetic fire abated, revert with an implacable bitterness to their former traditions. With all our respect for Ruskin, we think that he has asserted many things, but proved next to nothing. He has utterly misunderstood and misstated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... a spell now we have been speaking of hair on the face; at this point we revert to hair in its relation to the head. There are some few among us, mainly professional Southerners and leading men, who retain the bulk of the hair on their heads through life; but with most of us the circumstances ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... principles that usually governed such matters; and, although he submitted to the dictum of the common law, as regarded the provision which excluded the half-blood from inheriting, with the deference of an English common-law lawyer, he saw and felt, that, failing the direct line, Wychecombe ought to revert to the descendants of Sir Michael by his second son, for the plain reason that they were just as much derived from the person who had acquired the estate, as his brother Wycherly and himself. Had there been descendants of females, even, to interfere, no such ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... organ will be kept up nearly to its higher limit of size and efficiency. Now Mr. Galton has proved experimentally that, when any part has thus been increased (or diminished) by selection, there is in the offspring a strong tendency to revert to a mean or average size, which tends to check further increase. And this mean appears to be, not the mean of the actual existing individuals but a lower mean, or that from which they had been recently raised by selection.[199] He calls this the law of "Regression towards Mediocrity," and ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... now; several people glanced at them, smiling in sympathy. Alderdene took that opportunity to revert to the sketch, furnishing a specimen of his own inimitable laughter as a running accompaniment to the story of Quarrier and his dog in North Carolina, until he had everybody, as usual, laughing, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... beginning to move a-head, though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the "Dolphin." The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his manner. He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to revert immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost in his mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to him, until the two ships had left a broad field of water between them, as each moved, with ease and ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Derville went on, with imperturbable coolness, "you pledge yourself to secure to Hyacinthe Comte Chabert an income of twenty-four thousand francs on government stock held in his name, to revert ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... anything of the sort and he was a careful business man. I do not think he would have loaned money without making some memorandum of it. He held several mortgages but they, of course, revert to his heirs." ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... I see the inevitable has happened! Well, well, I have nothing to say against it, nor will your mother, unless she has greatly altered since I knew her. However, to revert to Lotta, I am afraid that, without in the least intending it, I have done that poor girl a very serious wrong. We fell in with the boat in which she, Mammy, and two Spanish sailors were starving, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... fourth Chapter explained, to some degree, the circumstances attending the settlement of the mother and children of the Hsueeh family in the Jung mansion, and other incidental matters, we will now revert to Lin Tai-yue. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to which I should like now to revert, appears in a new light. It would be a waste of time to lead the reader once more through all the adventures of the wanderer. He again, without difficulty, will find all the aforesaid elements in the parable, and will readily recognize the introversion and rebirth. I therefore ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... of asking for the weather and the government that you want, of persuading the Supernal Powers to take a special interest in your national or personal health and prosperity. How often in each day do you deliberately revert to an attitude of disinterested adoration? Yet this is the only attitude in which true communion with the universe is possible. The very mainspring of your activity is a demand, either for a continued possession of that which you have, or for something which as yet you have not: wealth, honour, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... lots of oats, and get as much yarn every year as would clothe three regiments of militia, or, for that matther, of dragoons. I'll appoint my stations, too, in the snuggest farmers' houses in the parish, just as Father Finnerty, our worthy parochial priest, ingeniously contrives to do. And, to revert secondarily to the collection of the oats, I'll talk liberally to the Protestant boddaghs; give the Presbyterians a learned homily upon civil and religious freedom: make hard hits with them at that Incubus, the Established Church; and, never fear, but I shall fill bag after bag ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... showing the geographical distribution of Eastern rug-making reveals the relation of the industry to semi-arid or saline pastures, and makes the mind revert at once to the blankets of artistic design and color, woven by the Navajo Indians of our own rainless Southwest. Rug weaving in the Old World reached its finest development in countries like Persia, Turkestan, western Afghanistan, Baluchistan, western India and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... have come all but the last of the ninety degrees between the green of the level water-courses and the flashing gold of the meridian sun.... The Mother has borne them, and in due time (as men must do, or revert to the ground again) they have turned to the light of the Father.... The fragrance of these golden teas is the sublimate of all Nature. Man, in the same way, is inclusive of all beneath. He contains earth, air, water, fire and all their products. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... wilderness long, we'd revert to savages," Miss Campbell remarked, stirring a large cup of black coffee. "But on the whole, I think I am enjoying the reversion and my appetite ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... prejudices made me revert to the wisdom of those legislators who established institutions for the good of the body under the pretext of serving heaven for the salvation of the soul. These might with strict propriety be termed pious frauds; and I admire the Peruvian pair ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... proper to revert to our situation who had been left at Naco, when Cortes set sail from Truxillo for the Havanna and Mexico. We remained for some time at Naco, waiting intelligence for the sailing of Cortes, which Sandoval was to have sent us; but Saavedra maliciously ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... grow from surroundings and association. The tendency of all human beings is to revert to the primal. It is only association that keeps the individual units up to the tension that civilization expects and demands. Every community shows many examples of this inevitable tendency. Nature is constant; civilization ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... in the parlor below did so with a confidential and impertinent grin. "The same lady wants to see Lieutenant Loring," and this time he was colder and sterner than before. Her evident purpose was to revert to the relations that once existed, though her plea was only for news from California. Had nothing ever been heard of the missing jewels? she asked. Their need was so great. She had most excellent prospects of an engagement in Boston if she could only have six months instruction under ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... pansies of which I have told you, or Mrs. Hammond's dark brown wallflowers, were allowed to seed themselves—that is, were allowed to drop and sow their own seed year after year—do you know what would happen? They would gradually revert or turn back to their original form and colour. The flowers would become mixed in colour and less fine in size; at last they would be simple wild ...
— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke
... Mr Carlyle's writings to consist in the tone of mind which the individual reader acquires from their perusal;—manly, energetic, enduring, with high resolves and self-forgetting effort; and we here again, at the close of our paper, revert to this remark: Past and Present, has not, and could not have, the same wild power which Sartor Resartus possessed, in our opinion, over the feelings of the reader; but it contains passages which look the same way, and breathe the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... some better thing in store for me;—that I must set my affections on things above, and then, to show that I was not alone, told me that a thousand pounds had been left to her mother by a deceased relative, which she had fully expected would revert to her, as it was the intention of the testatrix; but it proved to be a lapsed legacy. She added, 'The Lord so graciously sustained me, that the loss never deprived me of a single hour's sleep. He knows what is good ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... longer the courage to revert again to what she had wanted to confess to Wolfgang that night. Besides, what was the good? She had the vivid feeling that there was no getting at him any more, that he could not be helped any more. But she felt weighed down as though she had committed a terrible crime. And the feeling ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... one. I see one on a smaller scale, and at a considerable distance, but it is within my power to reach it: and since I have ceased to consider myself as a member of the ancient state now convulsed, I willingly descend into an inferior one. I will revert into a state approaching nearer to that of nature, unencumbered either with voluminous laws, or contradictory codes, often galling the very necks of those whom they protect; and at the same time sufficiently remote ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Gives all the advantage, makes the difference With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule: We are their lords, or they are free of us, Justas we tighten or relax our hold. So, other matters equal, we'll revert To the first problem—which, if solved my way 760 And thrown into the balance, turns the scale— How we may lead a comfortable life, How suit our ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... censure; avert'; controvert', to oppose; convert', to change into another form or state; divert'; invert', literally, to turn the outside in; pervert', to turn from the true purpose; retrovert'; revert'; subvert'. ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... afterwards, during the exile of your father, became mistress to King Charles II., which accounts for your brother's high position at court; for it is to this brother, bastard though he be, that your peerage would revert. Do you wish this? I cannot think so. Well, all depends on you. The queen must be obeyed. You will not quit the house till to-morrow in a royal carriage, and to go to the House of Lords. My lord, will you be a peer of England; yes or no? The queen has designs for you. She destines ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... pleasant task to revert to the censures which are hurled against the Eastern Church, by critics who are obviously ignorant of her past history, and who seem to have taken no trouble to acquaint themselves with her present position; but when ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... sia. In the original text b is written instead of c—an evident slip of the pen.] Let a b c be the fold of the drapery spoken of above, a c will be the places where this folded drapery is held fast. I maintain that the part of the drapery which is farthest from the plaited ends will revert ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... this point are to be changed or disregarded in future. Do we expect, and are we desirous, that future wars shall be conducted in accordance with buccaneering precedent, or with what has hitherto been the general practice of the nineteenth century? Your naval correspondents incline to revert to buccaneering and thus to the introduction into naval coast operations of a rigour long unknown to the operations of military forces on land; but they do so with a difference. Lord Charles Beresford (writing early in the controversy) asserts ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... "Thou shalt not kill." Shall this new government start out as the Cain among the nations of earth with the blood of our brethren upon our hands? God forbid that we make ourselves so foolish and so reckless as this! The history of trial by battle is the history of folly and wickedness. As we revert to those early periods in the history of the human race in which it prevailed, our minds are shocked at the barbarism which we behold; we are horror stricken at the awful subjection ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... am leaving this School to-morrow for the Easter Holadays, I revert to this Dairy, which has not been written in for some months, owing to being a Senior now and carrying a ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... represented as the prime cause of all the disorders in the Netherlands. So long as the highest power should be entrusted to him it would, they declared, be impossible for them to serve the nation and king effectually; on the other hand, all would revert to its former tranquillity, all opposition be discontinued, and the government regain the affections of the people as soon as his majesty should be pleased to remove this man from the helm of the state. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... did not revert to the conversation which had taken place the previous evening. He appeared to regard the visit of the fisherman as simply an act of politeness, and received him cordially, and began talking about the weather and the price ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... desire of the man and the reason of the mollusk, the genus homo would be all that he is painted by Dr. Maxwell. Should man become for one day "more beastial than the brute" his boasted civilization would revert to subter-savagery. Under such conditions human progress, society itself, were impossible. It is by no means true, as Dr. Maxwell asserts, that children are born solely because men are animals possessing animalistic instincts. True, they could not well be born were ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... And my thoughts would revert to Virginia and Carolina; and also to the historical fact, that the African slave-trade once constituted the principal commerce of Liverpool; and that the prosperity of the town was once supposed to have been indissolubly linked to its ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much lighter her heart ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... two reasons which have mainly weighed with us, to revert to the subject of the Protestant Vindicator's charges, and to publish the subjoined lengthy documents. We consider, in the first place, our endeavours to expose falsehood as a solemn duty we owe to the defamed; and, in the second, we should regard ourselves to be degraded in the eyes of the world, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... discussing some trivial point of etiquette, in the breach of which, he conceived himself aggrieved. A very miserable woman was his wife amid all the cold magnificence of her stately home. Often, very often, in her hours of loneliness and depression, her thoughts would revert to the brief, bright days of her early love, and her spirit would be rapt away by the recollection of that scene on the balcony, when Philip Hayforth and she had stood with locked hands and full hearts gazing at the sinking star and the sweetly breaking ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... himself, as they say, dresses simply, and only wears one or two gems, of immense value, he may well have bestowed large quantities upon his harem, especially as these would be, in fact, only loans, as at the death of their wearers they would revert to him, or, indeed, could be reclaimed at any moment, in a freak of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... Unitarianism, and now we do not seek in the Boston churches for the profound pietists. Does not our present experience show that as fast as we are emancipated from morality and the dominance of the intellect, we revert to the older rituals, if we need any. And if we have no need, the piety can so fully inform them, that we seek no other. The transcendental is a spiritual movement. It is the effort to regain the lost equilibrium between the intellect and the soul, between morals and piety. Therefore, put of its ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Spanish ecclesiastical domination in the Philippines, it was to be expected that the wards would turn against their mentors the methods that had been used upon them, nor is it especially remarkable that there was a decided tendency in some parts to revert to primitive barbarism, but that concurrently a creative genius—a bard or seer—should have been developed among a people who, as a whole, have hardly passed through the clan or village stage of society, can be regarded as little less than a psychological ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... been a minister," he acknowledged as he put down his suit-case. There was in his whole appearance an impression of physical confidence and fitness, which made Conscience's thoughts revert to Stuart Farquaharson. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... clubs and ran in upon the confused furry mass, forgetful of peril to ourselves. In the wild contagion of such a savage moment the minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. We swung our clubs and yelled; we fought all over the bottom of the ravine, crashing through the bushes, over logs and stones. I actually felt the soft fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs had the strength born of insane fighting ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... returned the Father of the Marshalsea, 'do you think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits are as precise and methodical as—shall I say as mine are? Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always at your service. Why not use it more ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... of centuries earlier the senate resembled an assembly of kings, these their successors played not ill the part of princes. But the incapacity of these restored aristocrats was fully equalled by their political and moral worthlessness. If the state of religion, to which we shall revert, did not present a faithful reflection of the wild dissoluteness of this epoch, and if the external history of the period did not exhibit the utter depravity of the Roman nobles as one of its most essential elements, the horrible crimes, which came to light in rapid succession among ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... abruptly realized that beast-killing might not suit his health because of the opportunities it gave for accidentally letting lions or tigers or what not out of their cages at unexpected moments, since he was not likely to revert to his renounced sport and you were not likely to be so much in demand and therefore less likely to be much under observation, Galen thought it safe to tell me. He says he has always believed that you had nothing to do with Egnatius ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... one without speaking were to take the tongs and turn the centre coal or piece of wood in the grate right over, and while doing so say, "Gude preserve us frae a' skaith," it would break the spell, and cause the intended evil to revert on the evil-disposed person who was working the spell. I have not only seen the operation performed many times, but have had it performed in my own favour by my worthy grandmother, whose belief in such things ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... or increased by Natural Selection. When a species is subject to great changes of conditions, either locally or at uncertain times, it may be a decided advantage to it to become individually adapted to that change while retaining the power to revert instantly to its original form when the normal conditions return. But whenever the changed conditions are permanent, or are such that individual adaptation cannot meet the requirements, then Natural ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... is to say, in the December of 1566 following, I made another blunder. I bought half of the farm Del Poggio from them, or rather from Sbietta, for two hundred crowns. [1] It marches with my property of La Fonte. Our terms were that the estate should revert at the term of three years, [2] and I gave them a lease of it. I did this for the best; but I should have to dilate too long upon the topic were I to enter into all the rascalities they practised on me. Therefore, I refer ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... not made so by vice, intemperance, lust, and obscenity. They are victims of their elders' folly, of our carelessness as to their environment. Half the troubles of men of our race come through self-inflicted injury to the nervous system. We are tormented by the "fool-killer." If we could revert to the child's simple purity, the free movement of its machinery of life, we should find ourselves in a new heaven on a new earth. We could understand for ourselves part of what the Master meant. We should know now how Jesus could liken the Kingdom ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... and his mother did not revert to the subject. Still, as she saw the growing intimacy between Nicolas and Sonia, she could not help worrying Sonia about every little thing, and speaking to her with colder formality. Sometimes she reproached herself for these continual pin-pricks of annoyance, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party. Always provided, old books showed the way of it! What meant old poets by their strictures? And when old poets had said their say of it, 230 How taught old painters in their pictures? We must revert to the proper channels, Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions: Here was food for our various ambitions, 235 As on each case, exactly stated— To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup, Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... identical with Brahma, merge into the same. When the time of universal destruction comes, those Jivas who have attained to the position of Devas and who have an unexhausted remnant of the fruits of acts to enjoy or endure, revert to those stages of life in the subsequent Kalpa which had been theirs in the previous one. This is due to the similarity of every successive Kalpa to every previous one. Those again whose acts, at the time of universal destruction, have been ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of relationship) is broken the wife's family can no longer claim bangun or fine: they revert ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... coal, had been stuck on to the hearth by Mr. Thorne's father. This hearth had of course been intended for the consumption of wood faggots, and the iron dogs for the purpose were still standing, though half-buried in the masonry of the grate. Miss Thorne was very anxious to revert to the dogs. The dear good old creature was always glad to revert to anything, and had she been systematically indulged, would doubtless in time have reflected that fingers were made before forks and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... stillness in the garden, bright moonlight and dark shadows. Overhead the heavens were glittering with a myriad stars. Well might Kathleen's thoughts revert to that other night when danger paced beside her. This night she had no dread, for Denis Quirk had been tried and tempered by the furnace of suffering. Nevertheless, the girl's heart was beating more rapidly than usual, because she recognised that this night ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... fish, by hook or crook! This method, however, which I learned first of all, is not to be despised. Whenever I get my hand on a thin, light, stiff reed pole and a long, light line of thread with a little hook, then I revert to boyhood days and sunfish and chubs and shiners and bullheads. Could any fisherman desire more joy? Those ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... our Discourse with a few words on the master Principle, which we have supposed to be, by the will of the Creator, the realizing life to all things fair and true and good: and more especially would we revert to its spiritual purity, emphatically manifested through all its manifold operations,—so impossible of alliance with any thing sordid, or false, or wicked,—so unapprehensible, even, except for its own most sinless sake. Indeed, we cannot look ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... addressed to the chief of the police here—no, you need not start—to be sent to him only if my return were unduly delayed. You can guess what that note contained. It is not necessary for us to revert to—unpleasant subjects." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thousand francs. With this and his salary, the President's income amounted to about twenty thousand francs; but though to all appearance a wealthy man, especially as one-half of his father's property would one day revert to him as the only child of the first marriage, he was obliged to live in Paris as befitted his official position, and M. and Mme. de Marville spent almost the whole of their incomes. Indeed, before the year 1834 they ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac |
