"Retrieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... utterly smashed in a collision, maybe, or as a result of skidding. Or they had burned. Sometimes they had been knocked off the road and generally demoralized by a shell. And in such cases often, all that men such as these we had met now could do was to retrieve some parts to be used in repairing other cars ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... And summer sweetens all but me: Away, unfruitful lore of books, 5 For whose vain idiom we reject The soul's more native dialect, Aliens among the birds and brooks, Dull to interpret or conceive What gospels lost the woods retrieve! 10 Away, ye critics, city-bred, Who springes set of thus and so, And in the first man's footsteps tread, Like those who toil through drifted snow! Away, my poets, whose sweet spell[32] 15 Can make a garden of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... more, X.; I see that you are right; and it's all over with our cause; unless I retrieve it. To think that the whole cause of the Anti-Ricardian economy should devolve upon me! that fate should ordain me to be the Atlas on whose unworthy shoulders the whole system is to rest! This being my destiny, I ought to have been built a little stronger. However, no matter. I heartily ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... seem to be closely related to the old Water-dog, and the resemblance between a brown Poodle and an Irish Water Spaniel is remarkable. The Poodle is no longer regarded as a sporting dog, but at one period he was trained to retrieve waterfowl, and he still on occasion displays an eager fondness ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... heroine,"—that is, if it was ever published.[ix] There is, however, no record of his having made any attempt to get it into print. From January 18 through June 2, 1822, Mary repeatedly asked Mrs. Gisborne to retrieve the manuscript and have it copied for her, and Mrs. Gisborne invariably reported her failure to do so. The last references to the story are after Shelley's death in an unpublished journal entry and two of Mary's letters. ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... a great fortress-khan—the first of many on the pilgrims' road. We had been on our way an hour before Rashid discovered that he had left a pair of saddle-bags behind him at the khan; and as those saddle-bags contained belongings of Suleyman, the latter went back with him to retrieve them. I rode on slowly, looking for a patch of shade. Except the khan, a square black object in the distance, there was nothing in my range of vision to project a shadow larger than a good-sized thistle. Between a faint ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... her hopes were not all surrendered in a moment. She had more spirit than her husband in their calamity. She was, in fact, a born gambler; she had the qualities of her temperament, and would not believe that courage and luck could not retrieve, at least partially, their fortune. It seemed incredible in the Street that the widow of Henderson should have given over her property so completely to her second husband, and it was a surprise to find that there was very little of value that the assignment ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... anything she could call her own. Tears of weakness welled up and rolled down her cheeks. But tears, at least, she could control, and would this instant, and then, turning, she would face Katharine, and retrieve what could be retrieved of the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... fortitude to manifest: Mortimer, she was certain, suspected not his own power; his mother, she knew, was both too good and too wise to reveal it to him, and she determined, by caution and firmness upon his leave- taking and departure, to retrieve, if possible, that credit with Mrs Delvile, which she feared her betrayed susceptibility ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Dowden's "Life of Shelley," which we had been reading together. Here we find a sensitive, refined nature, full of noble purposes, thrown out when too young to meet all life's emergencies, with no loving Mentor to guard him from blunders or to help to retrieve the consequences of his false positions. Had he been surrounded with a few true friends, who could appreciate what was great in him and pity what was weak, his life would have been different. His father was hard, exacting, and unreasonable; hence he ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... ill-timed tear; Her Chief is slain—she fills his fatal post; Her fellows flee—she checks their base career; The Foe retires—she heads the sallying host: Who can appease like her a lover's ghost? Who can avenge so well a leader's fall? What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost? Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foiled by a woman's hand, before ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... not notice the fierce eyes melt with tenderness; but Vandecar saw it with a tumultuous heart. He was waiting to claim the little figure on the floor, that he might take her back to her mother. In that way he would retrieve his own past errors and in a measure redeem the misspent life of the thief. He saw Cronk smooth his brow with a shaking hand, as if to wipe away from his befuddled brain the cobwebs of indecision and time-gathered shadows. His lips, drawn awry with intensity, opened ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... years bygone, a black man, named Peter Cooper, happened to marry a fair lady of Greenock, who did not use him with that tenderness that he conceived himself entitled to. Having tried all other arts to retrieve her lost affections in vain, Peter at last resolved to work upon her fears of punishment in another world for her conduct in this. Pretending, therefore, to awake one morning extravagantly alarmed, his helpmate was full of anxiety to know what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... envy and despair of our generation. On all that concerned the history and technique of ancient bronzes, more especially, he was FACILE PRINCEPS in the land, and it was hinted, after the sale of his property, that Count Caloveglia would not be low to retrieve the fortunes of his family by putting into exercise those talents for metal-working of which, as a gifted boy, he had already ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... remembrance of his morning adventure on the bridge came like a flash of sunshine to his mind, and he eagerly drew from his pocket the handkerchief in which he had deposited the precious gold,—doubly precious now, because it would enable him to retrieve the error into which he had fallen, and do something towards relieving his mother's embarrassment. With a trembling hand he untied the knot ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... indulged his private resentment, and asserted the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the submissive entreaties of the Caesar, and permitted him to retrieve his own honor, as well as that of the Roman arms. In the room of the unwarlike troops of Asia, which had most probably served in the first expedition, a second army was drawn from the veterans and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and a considerable body of Gothic auxiliaries were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... replied: "I read your letter with tears in my eyes; but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at the bottom, and more so when I observed by the postscript that your wound is not dangerous. But pray, dear sir, is it not possible by a second attempt to retrieve the great loss we have sustained? I presume the General's chariot is at the fort. In it you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command. Pray take care of your valuable health; keep your spirits up, and I doubt not of your recovery. My wife and girls join me in most ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... you touch the intimate life of Rhodes. He arrived in 1872 from Natal, where he had gone to retrieve his health on a farm. The moment he staked out a claim he began a remarkable career. In his early Kimberley days he did a characteristic thing. He left his claims each year to attend lectures at Oxford where he got his degree in 1881, after almost continuous commuting between England and Africa. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... be too risky a proceeding to cross the river, for the Boers were certain to be only a short distance away, sheltered in some advantageous position, waiting to try and retrieve their dead and wounded; so a small party was posted by the ford to guard against any crossing of the river, and then the prisoners were marched off towards the village a couple of miles distant, where the detachment of infantry and mounted men had been holding the Boers across ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... must have been helpless to make at once evident any repentance he felt or good purpose he cherished. Was it not one of the saddest consequences of the man's past,—a dark necessity of misdoing,— that, even with the best will in the world to retrieve himself, his first endeavor must involve a wrong? Might he not, indeed, be considered a martyr, in some sort, to his own admirable impulses? I can see clearly enough where the contributor was astray in this reasoning, but I can also understand how one accustomed ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... came on Monday last, and at nightfall he left the prison to go by the stage to meet the midnight train. 'To Mexico!' were his last words to us. Heaven bless him, and grant him wisdom and courage to retrieve the past and open ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... cavalry is an extremely valuable adjunct in operations of invasion, playing a great part in offensive movements and in assisting the field and heavy artillery. The cavalry will also be able to prevent an attack on the infantry, which might otherwise inflict damage hard to retrieve. In the Crimean War Marshal St. Arnault was hindered in the pursuit of the routed Russians because of the deficiency in the cavalry and artillery in the French army. He had only one hundred troopers at his disposal, ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... the end was not come. 'The tragedy must be re-acted a year or two hence,' he had written in March 1846, seeing clearly that the Sikhs had not been reconciled to British rule. In February 1849 the directors were forced by the national voice to send him out to take supreme military command and to retrieve the disasters with which the second Sikh war began. They were very reluctant to do so, and Napier himself had little wish for further exertions in so thankless a service. But the Duke of Wellington himself appealed to him, the nation spoke ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... itself. restore, put back, place in statu quo[Lat]; reinstate, replace, reseat, rehabilitate, reestablish, reestate[obs3], reinstall. reconstruct, rebuild, reorganize, reconstitute; reconvert; renew, renovate; regenerate; rejuvenate. redeem, reclaim, recover, retrieve; rescue &c. (deliver) 672. redress, recure[obs3]; cure, heal, remedy, doctor, physic, medicate; break of; bring round, set on one's legs. resuscitate, revive, reanimate, revivify, recall to life; reproduce &c. 163; warm up; reinvigorate, refresh ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a little—a very little time, till tongues began, eager to retrieve interest in the show. Soames lingered just long enough to gratify Annette, then took her out of the Park to lunch at his father's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... himself. The battle was not fought and won. There had been a struggle, and what seemed to be a victory, but the enemy—intrenched in the very citadel of life—had rallied, and would make another desperate attempt to retrieve his defeat. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... endeavouring to retrieve his fallen reputation by repentance and good conduct, he no sooner found himself shorn of his clerical honors, than he abandoned himself to every species of degraded dissipation. In two weeks after his removal ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... labor of the year, it was my first concern to retrieve, if possible, the disaster which had befallen the Society in the loss of the Church. But to do this, it was deemed important to put every branch of the work in the best possible condition. In this endeavor I had the earnest co-operation of the Official ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... the mother partridge which the Red-faced Man had shot had been forgotten by everybody except Tom. Tom, you see, was certain that he had shot it himself, being a very obstinate boy, and was determined to retrieve it as his own. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... make a bag with ease. Rather a shame, you say; for the Burmans are not supposed to take life, so the geese are not afraid of a dug-out canoe. But a Burman is delighted to eat what others kill, and besides, I have been so often outwitted by geese at home, that I'd just like to have one chance, to retrieve past misfortunes. Between Mandalay and Bhamo, the Captain says, they are even more numerous than here. Beyond Bhamo, he describes the river water as so clear you can count the pebbles thirty feet below its surface, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... embraced this trip around the world in order to retrieve our fortunes," continued the captain. "Did you ever see a harder crew than this? There are tinkers, tailors, haymakers, peddlers, fiddlers, a negro and ten boys. None know how to use the cutlass and they haven't got any ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Romans, after the extinction of the Caesarean and Claudian family, and a short interval of princes raised and destroyed with much disorder and public ruin, were able to regain their perishing dominion, and retrieve their sinking state, by an after-race of wise and able princes, successively adopted, and taken from a private state to rule the empire of the world. They were men, who not only possessed the military virtues, and supported that sort of discipline in the highest degree; ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... his efforts to retrieve his fortunes. He said nothing, but accepted the losses grimly. Mrs. Noble, however, after each successive loss ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... Delhi, addressed to Sir Hugh Wheeler. That gallant officer and the whole of his force were destroyed on the 27th June by a base act of treachery. Sir Henry Somerset is Commander-in-Chief in India and Sir Patrick Grant in Bengal. Under the orders of the supreme Government I have been sent to retrieve affairs here. I have specific instructions from which I cannot depart. I have sent a duplicate of your letter to Sir P. Grant. In truth, though most anxious to march on Delhi, I have peremptory orders to relieve Lucknow. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... There was a crash. Charette and his officers disappeared, beneath the hoofs of the cavalry. General Sonis and his staff went down like straw before them; but the Zouaves stood firm, fired a volley into them; and then—having lost eight hundred men, in that desperate attempt to retrieve the fortunes of the day—the remainder retreated, sullenly, with their faces to ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... almost sternly; "Jasper saw to that too well. But, in future, no one shall ride the 'King' but myself; he's just up to my weight," he concluded. "Jasper, enter him for the Cup. We will give him a chance to retrieve this day's failure." ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... is unlovely, as a thing of the most extreme beauty. Even the roughness in such direct revelations of strength, may come to be regarded as elements of the beautiful. And where massiveness of effect does not suffice to retrieve a work of art from its essential crudities, we may still come to accept it as beautiful, as it were, in intention, and for what comes to be regarded as its essence, namely, the idea or emotion it expresses. We forgive the imperfections of form as we forgive the stammerings and stutterings ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... of the king and prince, he cut the cords and set them free. He then put a sword into the hands of the rescued king, and they fought side by side: Meanwhile Sitric, and his brothers, Tor and Magnus, did all they could to retrieve the fortunes of the day. At the head of a chosen band they attacked the Irish admiral, and he fell, covered with wounds. His head, exposed by Sitric on a pole, fired the Danes with hope—the Irish with tenfold rage. Fingal, next in rank to Failbhe Fion, took the command, and determined to ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... I whirled, stood frozen with startled nerves. There stood the old Jivro whom I had met in the council beside the queen. In his hands were no weapons, and at his back were no tall Schree guards. I wondered if the desertion of the Jivros had been so complete. Even as I stooped to retrieve the heavy rifle from the floor, his hands gestured, and the rifle eluded my reach, seeming to glide across the floor. I followed it, and ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... soldiers of Europe and won a glorious victory. At Oriskany, Herkimer, in an unlooked-for battle, won undying fame, although most of his gallant little band were slaughtered. Schuyler sent Arnold with Larned's brigade to retrieve Herkimer's disaster, which he did in an admirable manner. Gansevoort held the fort against St. Leger, but his situation was growing desperate, when one day without apparent cause the enemy fled in haste, leaving camps, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... said the words, Isaacson realized that he had made a false step. But it was too late to retrieve it. She was upon ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... chance to a military leader who has once failed to gather the rich harvest which she has put into his grasp. Yet the German Emperor presents, together with his great General Staff, one of the few instances in history of a Commander-in-Chief so soon being given a splendid opportunity to retrieve such mistakes as those of September 5th ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... continually dream of those days of confusion and mortal anxiety. He would imagine he was again making that horrible retreat, cheering his men, doing all he could to retrieve the disaster; but aware that ruin only awaited him, conscious that the most ignorant sepoy in his command thought him incapable and mad. He saw the look in the eyes of the officers under him, their bitter contempt, their anger because he forced them to retire before ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... mean time the Empress began to be sensible of the errors she had committed; and in hope either to retrieve the friendship of the legate, or take him prisoner, marched with her army to Winchester, where being received and lodged in the castle, she sent immediately for the legate, spoke much in excuse of what was past, and used all endeavours to regain him to her interests. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... time, would have entirely detached the savages from our interest, and have turned the system of annoyance of the English against the French themselves. Some English governors indeed grew sensible of this, and applied themselves to retrieve matters by a gentler treatment, but the mischief was already done and irretrieveable; and our missionaries took care to widen the breach, and to keep up their spirit of hatred and revenge, by instilling into them the notions of jealousy, that such overtures of friendship, ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... considerations seems to be that all the arguments that are likely to be put forward in the course of a war in order to excuse and ensure its continuation, are only excuses to gain time, put forward in hope that the chances of a further campaign may enable the government concerned to retrieve some apparent advantage out of the disastrous muddle through which they drifted into the first declaration of war. Having drawn the sword in a moment of embarrassment, they have now jolly well got to pretend that it was the right thing to do, and are not going to sheathe it till they see a chance ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... had long been waiting for something of this kind to turn up; broken-down miners, who hoped to retrieve their fortunes in new gold-fields yet to be discovered in the north; and returned soldiers thirsting for fresh excitement,—all hastened to offer their services as pioneers in the great work. Trained and skilled engineers were in active demand; but the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... vessels and in building the two brigs, but above all for the manner in which he succeeded in getting them out on the lake. On that occasion he certainly out-generalled Barclay; indeed the latter committed an error that the skill and address he subsequently showed could not retrieve. But it will always be a source of surprise that the American public should have so glorified Perry's victory over an inferior force, and have paid comparatively little attention to Macdonough's victory, which really was won against ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... himself better than he had done, and was now doing. He knew that Fortune had been very good to him, and that he had hitherto wasted all her gifts. And now there came the question whether it was as yet too late to retrieve the injury which he had done. He did believe,—not even as yet doubting his power to do well,—that everything might be made right, only that his money difficulties pressed him so hardly. He took pen and paper, and made out a list of his debts, heading the catalogue with ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... position of Bray Park in its relation to the cache, and by concentrating as earnestly as he could to remember as much as possible of the course of his flight, he arrived presently at a decision of how he must proceed to retrieve the ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... than words; and this confession on Wellington's part is inconsistent with the circumstance that he had not hurried to retrieve the time he is represented as having owned that Napoleon had gained on him—that he had, on the contrary, allowed his adversary to gain several hours more. Wellington's combination of caution and decision ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... describe or appreciate the full depth of Joel's agony as he picked himself up and limped back to his place. It was a heart-tearing, blinding sensation that left him weak and limp. But there was nothing for it save to go on and try to retrieve his fatal error. The white face of Story turned toward him, and Joel read in the brief glance no anger, only an almost tearful grief. He swung upon his heel with a muttered word that sounded ill from his lips. But he was only a boy and ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... suppose, to retrieve his lost ground, droned out: "He's away down at the shore side, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... perform it together. The occasion of their difference was the offer of John Mark to accompany them. No doubt when this young man saw Paul and Barnabas returning safe and sound from the undertaking which he had deserted, he recognized what a mistake he had made; and he now wished to retrieve his error by rejoining them. Barnabas naturally wished to take his nephew, but Paul absolutely refused. The one missionary, a man of easy kindliness, urged the duty of forgiveness and the effect which a rebuff might have on a beginner; ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... Martin sought to retrieve his cigarettes, but Sir Chichester laid them aside upon a high mantelpiece, as if Hillyard were a child ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... it might be supposed there had been some foul play—yes, upon my word—that he had bet against his own horse, and forbidden his jockey to win the race." But the speaker did not really believe this, so he continued, more gayly: "Fortunately, I shall retrieve my losses to-morrow, at Vincennes. Shall we see ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... wavers—neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is even as a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his will and now by his instincts, erring with one, only to retrieve by the other, falling by one, only to rise by the other—a creature of incalculable variability. We have the consolation of knowing that evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that cannot fail. He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... being shaken like a rat, a man needs to retrieve his self-respect, and he was retrieving his famously. He could see himself in a magnanimous light: he had laid the girl under an obligation; he had avoided public action which would, to be sure, have given him revenge, but at much ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I spoke energetically—perhaps, as some told me afterwards, actually eloquently. When I got heated, I alluded to my former stay at D * * * *, and said (while my heart sunk at the bravado which I was uttering) that I should consider it a glory to retrieve my character with them, and devote myself to the cause of the oppressed, in the very locality whence had first arisen their unjust and pardonable suspicions. In short, generous, trusting hearts as they were, and always ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... outstepped the boundaries that are never even thought upon but with danger, it plunges deeper and deeper still into irretrievable ruin. Perhaps it is because women must feel most acutely that society never permits them to retrieve, or, what is much the same, takes no cognisance of their repentance, be it ever so sincere: their station once lost is never to be regained; it would seem as if Dante's inscription on the gates of Hell were to be for ever their motto—"All hope abandon." Man may err, and err, and ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... its height. There was, on the contrary, among the soldiers of Marshal Ney an electric movement of enthusiasm and anger which was very gratifying to his Majesty. Charmed to see how the shame of a defeat, even when sustained without dishonor, excited the pride and aroused a desire to retrieve it in these impassioned souls, the Emperor pressed the hand of the colonel nearest to him, continued the review, and ordered that evening a concentration of all the corps; and before night the whole army ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the Romans had received in Africa did not discourage them.(685) They made greater preparations than before, to retrieve their loss; and put to sea, the following campaign, three hundred and sixty vessels. The Carthaginians sailed out to meet them with two hundred; but were beaten in an engagement fought on the coasts of Sicily, and a hundred and fourteen of their ships were taken by the Romans. The latter sailed ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... flashed across my brain. I cautioned my wife in a whisper not to undeceive the doctor, who prescribed the most active remedies, and was in the room, when the lad died. You know the rest. And now, sir, tell me, can anything be done—any device suggested to retrieve this ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... throughout; and it is to be hoped that the rescuing party may not be mismanaged and retarded in the same way as the unfortunate original expedition was. The savans have made a sad mess of the whole affair; let them, if possible, retrieve themselves in this its ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... will ye die? God, your Savior, asks you why? He, who did your souls retrieve, Died himself, that ye might live. Will ye let him die in vain? Crucify your Lord again? Why, ye ransomed sinners, why Will ye slight ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... owner's wharf. Courage in a moment of danger, or to preserve life, is one thing. The courage that faces odds when the circumstances are prosaic and the decision deferred is a rarer quality. It was a real piece of courage which gave the little schooner another chance that fall to retrieve her reputation. She was permitted to deliver the goods against all odds, and what is more the captain's wife kissed him good-bye with a brave face when once again he let the foresail draw, and the Leading Light stood out to sea on her second ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... overseer of the plantation, and John Tilley had the fishery in charge. Everything went wrong. Mishaps befell the vessels. The price of fish went down. The colonists, "being ill chosen and ill commanded, fell into many disorders and did the company little service." An attempt was made to retrieve affairs by putting the colony under a different direction. The Dorchester partners heard of "some religious and well-affected persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation, of which number Mr. Roger Conant was one, a religious, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... associated with the conspiracy to supersede Washington by Gates. In an encounter which immediately followed, Conway was seriously wounded. Believing his wound to be mortal, he called for pen and paper and did much to retrieve his reputation by writing the following ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... the remnant of three or four hundred cattle, provided there were no crippling debt, no spectre of the Man in Possession, he might still hang on, and in time retrieve his losses, lie low, sink artesian wells, make the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... consciousness of the existence of a rule of conduct, however it may have originated. Formerly it must have been often vehemently urged that an insulted gentleman OUGHT to fight a duel. We even say that a pointer OUGHT to point, and a retriever to retrieve game. If they fail to do so, they fail in ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... or had I not the clearest demonstration in my hands of the truth and sincerity with which I acted, there might be some temptation to this baseness; but all he can expect by informing Mr. Wortley is to hear him repeat the same things I assert; he will not retrieve one farthing, and I am for ever miserable. I beg no more of him than to direct any person, man or woman, either lawyer, broker, or a person of quality, to examine me; and as soon as he has sent a proper ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... he. I have a billion dollars. With this billion dollars I am able to buy ten million shares of the leading stocks and to pay for them, even though after I have bought they fall a hundred dollars a share. Here is your chance to prevent your ruin, your chance to retrieve your fortune, your chance to secure revenge upon me, the one ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... said the precentor, waving his hand, as if eager to retrieve the command of the discourse, he waited on the young Laird by night and day. Now, it chanced, when the bairn was near five years auld, that the Laird had a sight of his errors, and determined to put these Egyptians aff his ground; and he caused them to remove; and that Frank ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... must make them, and it is not the first time we have let them know that we are able. The crowns of these kingdoms have not so far disowned the right of succession but they may retrieve it again; and if Scotland thinks to come off from a successive to an elective state of government, England has not promised not to assist the right heir and put them into possession without any regard ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... affair, but it seems to me, you'll excuse me for saying so, you are throwing away a good chance. Young Bayfield seems to have got a great deal of practical knowledge in America, and I do not doubt will soon retrieve his fortunes. But he wants ready money, and this three hundred pounds is of importance to him. Still, he will waive his claim, it seems, if you consent to his proposal, and put in the scale with the gold you appear to weigh a good deal more. That is all I have to say. I felt ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... a survival of the primitive savage, if you like; but from that hour to this I've hankered day and night for a chance to retrieve myself, to set myself right with the man I meant to be. I want to prove to that man that it was all an accident—an unaccountable deviation from my normal instincts; that having once been a coward doesn't mean that a man's cowardly... and ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... imprudently seized some of the inoffending natives, whom he brought captives to Sagres. Don Henry was much offended by this conduct of Gilianez, whom he received with much coldness and reserve; insomuch that Gilianez, on purpose to retrieve the princes favour, and to make ample amends for the fault he had committed, made a vow, that if entrusted with a new expedition, he would perish rather than return unsuccessful in the enterprize which the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... English diminish, and that there was no hope to retrieve the day; the Duke pushed forth with such force, that he reached him, and struck him with great violence (par grant air). I know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... advisers who had interests opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile temper till they prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best calculated to promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve his former failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the rich prize would become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the family of Pisistratus hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as dependent despots of Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished a similar expectation ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... being deserted, as she thought, by every body else, and moved by his passionate love and devotion, she imprudently gave herself to him; that she lamented the act as soon as it was done, but that it was then too late to retrieve the step; and that, harassed and in despair, she knew not what to do, but that she hailed the rising of her nobles as affording the only promise of deliverance, and came forth from Dunbar to meet them with the secret purpose of delivering herself ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Father, which had provoked his fate. Under the beneficent influences of the soft climate and the new interests of this tropic land he began to feel a budding of something like confidence, and the suggestions of an unfamiliar ambition to retrieve past failure and yet gratify, even if in small measure, the parental hope which had first directed him as a child into the fold of the Church. The Bishop had assigned him at once to pedagogical work in the University; and in the teaching of history, the languages, and, especially, his beloved Greek, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the resources of his parents, knew their kindness, felt sure of his prey while abetting the downfall. Causing him to perpetrate the crime, from time to time, he would incite him with prospects of retrieve, guide his hand to consummate the crime again, and watch the moment when he might reap the harvest of his own infamy. Thus, when he had brought the young man to that last pitiless issue, where the proud heart quickens with a sense of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... unsuccessful experiments, made some years ago, to retrieve a declining fortune, I was lucky enough at last to marry the mistress of a boarding-school: her circumstances were not, indeed, at the time of our marriage, very considerable. But as I was neither unacquainted with the world, nor ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... fact that her father was just now a ruined man seemed to him as nothing. At a time like this the presence or absence of this world's goods appeared absolutely trivial. Reuben believed that the Master Builder would retrieve his fortune in better times without difficulty, and regarded this temporary reverse as absolutely insignificant. Therefore he had no clue to Gertrude's motive in her rejection of him, and accepted it almost in silence, feeling that it was ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... success attended the British arms on the continent at this time, yet that evil being considered as remote, the people seemed only to feel it as affecting the honour of the nation, which by some fortunate change might retrieve the glory of its arms; but a plot of a more interesting nature was discovered, which added greatly to the national perplexity and distress. A civil war broke out within the bowels of the kingdom, the object of which was nothing less than the recovery of the British crown from the house of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... me and leave me; what love bids retrieve me? can June's fist grasp May? Leave me and love me; hopes eyed once above me like spring's sprouts, decay; Fall as the snow falls, when summer leaves grow false—cards packed for ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... would abandon the heaps of their dead. He rather expected that frenzied efforts would be made to retrieve them for food. The problem was solved by those aboard the space-ship, for presently it rose a score of feet in the air and moved a few hundred yards nearer the waterfall that marked the headwaters of ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... him; he wanted nothing of Flora and her power; it was indeed rather an unfortunate introduction to the business of the afternoon; it pointed Harry's quills a little. Lady Evenswood, with a quick perception, tried to retrieve the observation. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... deferred the settlement of their differences till a more convenient season. He, accordingly, assuming the most submissive aspect in the world, endeavoured to pass by his champion in peace, but in vain. Longing, no doubt, to retrieve the disgrace of his late discomfiture, the bogle instantly seized the fiddler, and attempted with all his might to pull the latter down the precipice, with the diabolical intention, it is supposed, of drowning him ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... frequency of the crime by which he suffers, our hearts revolt at the miserable condition of those little creatures in our great cities, confounded with hopeless pauperism in its desolate asylums, or farmed out to starve and die. They belong to the State, and the State should nobly retrieve the world's offence against them. Their broken galaxy shows many a bright star here and there. Such a little wailing creature has been found who has commanded great actions and done good service among men. Let us, then, cherish the race of foundlings, of whom Moses ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to the Upper House. If our House of Commons were filled with rebels and traitors, the Government must stand still, and such has been for these ten years the situation of the Canadian government; and, fortunate it is, that the outbreak has now put us in a position that will enable us to retrieve our error, and re-model the constitution of these Provinces. The questions which must therefore be settled previous to any fresh attempts at legislation for these Canadians, are,—are, or are not, the French population to have any share ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... amassing furniture and bric-a-brac, just as the bird bits of straw; and he implored her not to scold him. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, he had ferreted out two Dresden vases, which he bought, resolving to deprive himself for a time of his grapes at forty sous a pound, in order to retrieve the money. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... most natural, feelings. You see in him the weakness of old age, and the overwhelmingness of circumstances, for a time surmounting his sense of duty,—the junction of both exhibited in his boldness in words and feebleness in immediate act; and then again his effort to retrieve himself in abstract loyalty, even at the heavy price of the loss of his son. This species of accidental and adventitious weakness is brought into parallel with Richard's continually increasing energy of thought, and ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... whole past life had she had an adventure. What fun to land at Monte Carlo with only hand-luggage! The rest would go on to Florence, but somehow she could retrieve it sooner or later, and meanwhile how amusing to spend a little part of her legacy in fitting herself out with new things, clothes which would give her a place in the picture! And she needn't stay long. What were a few days more ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his hash for him, all right, and a fine shot for you, Steve. Now hand me the gun, for it's my turn next; and go and retrieve ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... sudden discharge of the guns shook them, and at our first charge they bolted away panic- struck. The strangest part of the affair was that the earl, who had a strong following of knights and men-at-arms, made no effort to retrieve the battle. Had they but charged down upon our flank when we had become disordered in the pursuit, they could ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... have done. During the revolution, when the Tycoon, beaten on every side, fled ignominiously to Yedo, he is said to have determined to fight no more, but to yield everything. A member of his second council went to him and said, "Sir, the only way for you now to retrieve the honour of the family of Tokugawa is to disembowel yourself; and to prove to you that I am sincere and disinterested in what I say, I am here ready to disembowel myself with you." The Tycoon flew into a great rage, saying that he would listen to no such nonsense, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... secure better school results, but perhaps in work that is better adapted to them. Again, the success with which these pupils carry a schedule of five or six subjects, besides other work not recognized in the treatment of this study, and retrieve themselves in the unattractive subjects of failure pleads for a recognition of their ability and enterprise. Their difficulty is without doubt frequently more physiological than psychological, except as they are the victims of a false psychology, that either disregards ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... least angry. I've only a great desire to retrieve the situation. Do you consider that Warburton has ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... speedily dissipated. The North was indeed alike astonished and disappointed at the defeat of their army by a greatly inferior force, but instead of abandoning the struggle, they set to work to retrieve the disaster, and to place in the field a force which would, they believed, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... of mind, to seek it there. To say: hitherto I have been all in the wrong, and this my fame and pride, now broken, was an empty delusion and spell of accursed witchcraft! It was difficult for flesh and blood! He said, I will retrieve myself, and make my point good yet, or die for it. Silently, like a proud strong man, he girt himself to the Hercules task of removing rubbish-mountains, since that was it; of paying large ransoms by what he could still ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... I permitted you to live longer. Senor Reade, whether or not your American ideas of courtesy enable you to understand it, you have grievously insulted me in my own house, and have intensified that insult by delivering it before my daughter. There is now but one way in which you can retrieve your conduct." ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... repaired, and without provisions or stores, they resolved, one and all, with the little supplies they could get, to proceed for the West Indies, not doubting to find a remedy for all these evils and to retrieve their loss. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... lost that I unexpectedly came across the manuscript, which detailed the funeral ceremonies of Inca Caxas, and on learning about the two emeralds I was naturally more anxious than ever to discover the mummy and retrieve my fallen fortunes by means of the jewels. But, as I said, all search proved vain, and I afterward married, thinking to settle down on what fortune remained to me. I did live quietly in Lima for years until my wife died. Then with my daughter I came ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... for New York, should have got the throw to the plate and retired the batter. In any event Wilson missed the ball and Speaker scored. Lewis followed with a two-bagger, which would have scored Speaker if the latter had not tried to run home, so Wilson's failure to retrieve the throw became more conspicuous. Other scorers gave Speaker a clean home run and it is not far out of the way to say that he deserved the benefit ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... Retirement kvieteco. Retort respondi, reparoli. Retort (chem. vessel) retorto. Retouch (revise) korekti. Retrace reveni, repasxi. Retract malkonfesi. Retreat (place) rifugxejo. Retreat foriri, remarsxi. Retribution repago. Retrieve trovi, gajni, re—. Retrograde malprogresi. Retrospect retrospekto. Retrospective retrospektiva. Return (give back) redoni. Return (come back) reveni. Return, to make a raporti. Return (report) raporto. Return, in reciproke. Reunion rekunigo. Re-unite rekunigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... which your Excellency expressed sentiments coincident with mine; notwithstanding which, your dependants and people, actuated by selfish, and avaricious views, have by their interference so impeded the business as to throw the whole country into a state of confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it but an unlimited power lodged in the hands of the superintendent. I therefore request that your Excellency will give the strictest injunctions to all your dependants not to interfere in any ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... battle of Marengo the French army was supposed to be defeated; but, while Bonaparte and his staff were considering their next move, Dessaix suggested that there was yet time to retrieve their disaster, as it was only about the middle of the afternoon. Napoleon rallied his men, renewed the fight, and won a great victory over the Austrians, though the unfortunate Dessaix lost his own ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... despite orders to remain in the battery, like a pack of hounds after a fox (wrote Hood);[264] whereupon the French rushed upon them, driving them back with heavy loss. O'Hara, while striving to retrieve the day, was wounded and captured. His mantle of gloom devolved upon Major-General David Dundas, a desponding officer, who had recently requested leave to return on furlough on the ground of ill health and inability to cope with the work. This general's letters to his ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... doubted whether the Elector Palatine would have accepted the crown of Bohemia but for the support which he thought to find in England. This affair had a great part in bringing on the outbreak of the great religious conflict. But James I sought to retrieve the misfortune into which the Elector had fallen, not so much by employing his own power, as by developing his relations with the Spaniards; and thus he had himself given them the opportunity of establishing themselves in the Palatinate, and had caused the Catholic ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... way seem unsurmountable, and too dangerous not to alarm even my zeal; since I must not ruin myself, and hurt those for whom I must feel, too, only to restore a family that will end with myself, and to retrieve an estate' from which I am not likely ever ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public libraries. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... of controversy the Whigs were sadly thrown on the defensive, and labored heavily under their already discounted declamation. But instinct rather than sagacity led them to turn their eyes to the future, and successfully upon other points to retrieve their mistake. Within six weeks after Lincoln's speech President Polk sent to the Senate a treaty of peace, under which Mexico ceded to the United States an extent of territory equal in area to Germany, France, and Spain combined, and thereafter the origin of the war was an ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... the spray to right and left. There were many large rocks half hidden in the wild white water through which they were plunging, and with a long line there was danger that the fish would take a turn around one of them and break away. It was necessary to go faster than he went, in order to retrieve as much line as possible. But paddle as fast as they could the fish kept ahead. He was not towing the boat, of course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a salmon can "tow" a boat, when the casting-line that holds him is a single strand of gut that will break under a strain of ten pounds. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... imperative. He hardly dared to think of the past day's slaughter, which—there was no doubt now—had been due to the previous work of the spy, and how his brigade had been selected—by the irony of Fate—to suffer for and yet retrieve it. If she had had a hand in this wicked plot, ought he to spare her? Or was his destiny and hers to be thus ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte |
