"Past tense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brusquerie, but in passages which the Maestro has marked "con passione" nothing can exceed the elegance of his attitudes, and the pleasing dignity of his gestures. After, par exemple, the recitativi, what a pretty empressement he gave (alas! that we must now speak in the past tense!) to the tonic or key-note, by locking his arms in each other over his poitrine—by that after expansion of them—that clever alto movement of the toes—that apparent embracing of the fumes des lampes—how touching! Then, while the sinfonia of the andante was in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... change, not even by punishment—to say nothing of doing it by pity." Dickens' Pecksniff "always said of what was very bad that it was very natural." But it has been the glory of the Gospel that it could speak in the past tense of some at least of the sins of its adherents: "such were some of you." Individual regeneration will ever remain a large part of God's work through His Church. Unless we can raise the dead in sin to life in Christ, we ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... my parishioners," the minister was saying for the comforting of Rebecca Mary. Unconsciously he used the past tense, as one speaks of those close to death. It was well enough, for already big, gaunt, white Thomas Jefferson was in ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... I use the past tense in referring to my old friend. I do this in the interests of strict, scientific accuracy, to satisfy those who would contend that, having utterly vanished from sight and sound of man, Harry Wendel is ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... preserved (as it in some dialects still preserves) its broad open vowel, more like law than toe or beau, and unless that be restored I should judge that the verb to know is doomed. The third person singular of its present tense is nose, and its past tense is new, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetual to be received all over the world. We have an occasional escape by using nay for no, since its homophone neigh is an unlikely neighbour; but that can serve only in one limited use of the ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
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