"Retrieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been able to retrieve his character, if he has openly confessed his fault and taken ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... coldly; but 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 are, I talked them round; they shook me ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the younger Omar showed a commendable tendency toward reform. The sensitive Soul of the poet was ever cankered with the thought that his father's jovial habits had put him in a false position, and that it was his filial duty to retrieve the family reputation. It was his life work to inculcate into the semi-barbaric minds of the people with whom he had taken abode the thought that the alcoholic pleasures of his father were false joys, and that (as sung ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... of the enemy, perceiving the fatal consequences of their disunited order of sailing, now endeavoured to retrieve the day, and to break through the British line. A vice-admiral, in a three-decker, led them, and was reaching up to the Victory just as she had come up to tack in her station. The vice-admiral stood on with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... boy's eyes were glowing. The thought that he individually could do something to retrieve the awful shame of his sister's treachery spurred him to activity. It needed no persuasion on Lucile's part to induce him to go. She made him put on some old clothes and stuffed a piece of bread and cheese ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... was fixed upon him convinced him that he had made a mistake; and he shrunk into an abashed silence. "We must do something to retrieve our honor," continued the chief, earnestly; "we must—take steps—to to get upon our legs again," he finished, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... When the German drive in March seemed irresistible, jewels had been sent to distant estates, or to banks in Marseilles and Lyons, and there had been no time to retrieve them after the ambassador sent out his sudden invitations. Alexina smiled as she recalled Olive de Morsigny's lament over the absence of her tiara. European women of society take their jewels very seriously, and there was not a Frenchwoman present ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... or roadside. It is like a gleam of sunlight. Just now it was brown, like the rest of the scenery: look again, and there is an apparition of green grass. The Spring, no doubt, comes onward with fleeter footsteps, because Winter has lingered so long that, at best, she can hardly retrieve half the allotted term ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... necessary, and if I have erred it was from loyalty and too great an anxiety not to leave Her Majesty in a moment of such great difficulty. I ought to have gone when I was first left by my colleagues in a minority in my own Cabinet. I was anxious, however, to try my utmost, but it is impossible to retrieve lost time. As soon as I saw Lord John's letter I felt that the ground was slipping away from under me, and that whatever I might now propose would appear as dictated by the Opposition, as taking Lord John's measure. On the 1st of November the whole country was prepared for the thing; there ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... sun," Leonard ducked head and shoulders under water for relief. His hat floated off and he grudged the slight effort to retrieve it. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... were soon in full retreat, leaving seven thousand prisoners, two eagles, and eleven pieces of artillery in our hands. Had we been favoured with two hours more daylight, their loss would have been incalculable, for they committed a blunder at starting, which they never got time to retrieve; and, their retreat was, therefore, commenced in such disorder, and with a river in their rear, that nothing but darkness could ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... The whole expedition appears to have been one prolonged blunder 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 ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... a gesture to Craven, beckoned to him to come to her. He looked surprised, reluctant. She saw that he flushed slightly. But she persisted in her invitation. She had lost her head in Glebe Place, but now she would retrieve the situation. Vanity, fear, an obscure jealousy, and something else pushed her on. And she beckoned again. She saw Craven lean over and say something to Lady Sellingworth. Then he got up and came down the room towards her, threading his ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... serviceable to dogs that frequent the water. We may confidently infer that no man ever selected his water-dogs by the extent to which the skin was developed between their toes; but what he does, is to preserve and breed from those individuals which hunt best in the water, or best retrieve wounded game, and thus he unconsciously selects dogs with feet slightly better webbed. The effects of use from the frequent stretching apart of the toes will likewise aid in the result. Man thus closely imitates Natural Selection. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... stroke. Next instant he was locked in a deadly struggle with the captain of the Nevski, a brave man, who, it seems, had refused to surrender, and had cut his way through all Sievers's men in the desperate resolve to retrieve the consequences of his own carelessness. Maclean, however, was a practised wrestler, and although lean almost as a lath, the muscles he possessed were as strong as steel bands. Even as they fell he writhed uppermost, and baffling with ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... of the rope beneath him dispelled his dreams; by working his levers he altered the angle of the front wing edges so skilfully as to make a very successful landing indeed for the driver, who, entirely uninjured, disentangled himself from the rope as soon as he touched the ground, and ran off to retrieve his ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the more her plans and projects failed. Adversity vexed and irritated, instead of calming and subduing her. She revived her persecutions of the Protestants. She fitted out a fleet of a hundred and twenty ships to make a descent upon the French coast, and attempt to retrieve her fallen fortunes there. She called Parliament together and asked for more supplies. All this time she was confined to her sick chamber, but not considered in danger. The Parliament were debating the question of supplies. Her privy council were holding ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... gun. It was a crushing disaster and a well-deserved rebuke for the Administration, for whether the fault was Hull's or Eustis's, the President had to shoulder the responsibility. His first thought was to retrieve the defeat by commissioning Monroe to command a fresh army for the capture of Detroit; but this proposal which appealed strongly to Monroe had to be put aside—fortunately for all concerned, for Monroe's desire for military glory was probably not equalled by ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... classes: occasional gamblers and professional gamblers. Among the first may be placed those attracted by curiosity, and those strangers I have alluded to who are brought in by salaried intermediaries. The second is composed of men who gamble to retrieve their losses, or those who try to deceive and lull their grief through the exciting diversions that pervade ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... when there dawned on me the vileness of the wicked plot in which I had become engaged. For a few hours I felt that to destroy myself was the only way in which I could retrieve my honor. But the lesson you had taught served me well in those hours of need. Then the thought of you, an officer in the American Navy, brought a new resolve into my mind. No pledges that I had ignorantly made to such scoundrels could bind me. I was not their slave. Pledges to do anything ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... cheated myself with the belief that if I could set myself straight this time, I would put my shoulder to the wheel and repay you somehow. I think I see myself as I am—now, and I know I shall not again try to retrieve my fortunes that way. You can't despise me ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... King of Spain was at in losing the seven provinces, broke the very spirit of the nation; and that so much, that all the wealth of their Peruvian mountains have not been able to retrieve it; King Philip having often declared that war, besides his Armada for invading England, had cost him 370,000,000 of ducats, and 4,000,000 of the best soldiers in Europe; whereof, by an unreasonable Spanish obstinacy, above 60,000 lost their lives before ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... the remembering wine; Retrieve the loss of me and mine! Vine for vine be antidote, And the grape requite the lote! Haste to cure the old despair; Reason in Nature's lotus drench'd— The memory of ages quench'd— Give them again to shine; Let wine repair what this undid; And where the infection slid, A dazzling memory revive; ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... and Mrs. Silcox. But early this summer people had been startled by hearing that the Courier had appointed Silcox as their reporter; and local critics were of opinion that Silcox had taken very kindly to literature, and that he was shaping well, and might perhaps retrieve the past in making name and fortune. Dale, who used to chaff Silcox rather heavily, was at present quite polite to him. It had always been Will's policy to stand well with the press, and there was no doubt ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... of 1628 had the effect of encouraging the directors to try to retrieve the failure at Bahia by ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the annexation of Texas, when that war sacrificed thousands of lives, and has cost us millions in money and land. It boasted, in regard to the Oregon question, that we must have '54 deg. 40' or fight,' but swallowed its own words, and in later times has attempted to retrieve its courage by the sublime and magnificent bombardment of Greytown! It ordered General Taylor into the heart of the Mexican country with a feeble force, and when his victories had won the grateful ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... companions, who had been so long separated, and so roughly treated by the storms of life. It was a renovation of youth; a kind of resuscitation of the dead, that realized those interesting dreams, in which we sometimes retrieve our ancient friends from the grave. Perhaps my enjoyment was not the less pleasing for being mixed with a strain of melancholy, produced by the remembrance of past scenes, that conjured up the ideas of some endearing connexions, which the hand of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... forces not evenly matched in strength, and most of the Goths were destroyed, though some few with difficulty made their escape and returned to their own camp. And Vittigis reviled these men, insisting that cowardice had been the cause of their defeat, and undertaking to find another set of men to retrieve the loss after no long time, he remained quiet for the present; but three days later he selected men from all the camps, five hundred in number, and bade them make a display of valorous deeds against the enemy. Now as soon as Belisarius saw that these ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... islands, and had 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 prince had so much at heart. The date of the second ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... painful solicitude. Listening with melancholy rapture, to the traditionary accounts of the former greatness of his nation, and viewing in anticipation the exile or extinction of his race, his noble soul became fired with the hope that he might retrieve the fallen fortune of his country, and restore it to its pristine dignity and grandeur. His attachment to his tribe impelled him to exertion and every nerve ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... silently, but now she was shouting. I twisted her wrist, seized the knife handle and flung the knife away. I was aware of Anita lunging to retrieve it. And over us Venza appeared, waving a metal chair as though ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... had begun to reave your father of the Valleys of Camelot, for your father was an old knight and all his brethren were dead, and therefore he gave you this name in baptism, for that he would remind you of the mischief done to him and to you, and that you might help to retrieve it and you should ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... hope. Chance! Had ever man a greater chance than that sailor lad? He had gone wrong as a boy. Those old folk, because their daughter loved him, gave him the greatest chance a man can have—the chance to retrieve a bad start, to make up for a false step. How many men have that? How many men are there, handicapped as, no doubt, he was, who find those to put faith in them? If a man may not take advantage of sicca ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... retrieve his cigarettes, but Sir Chichester laid them aside upon a high mantelpiece, as if Hillyard were a child and could not ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... either. Let it lie hid, then, till all of us concerned in it are passed away; and perchance it may serve to instruct some future reader how much a transient vanity and wilfulness may wreck, and how much a steadfast love and courage may retrieve. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... liked his literary work, Scott would not have produced so great a number of fine novels had he not been impelled by the desire to retrieve large money losses. His old school friend, Ballantyne, forced into bankruptcy the printing firm in which Scott was a secret partner. The novelist was not morally responsible for these debts, but his keen sense of honor made him accept all the responsibility, and ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... in seven years might retrieve the worst losses we experience from the bigotry of popes and califs. I do not intend to assert that every Herculanean manuscript might, within that period, be unfolded; but the three first legible sentences might be; which is quite sufficient to inform the intelligent reader whether ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... while Henry left only a tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took possession of one fortress after another, till, in 1429, Orleans was the only French city of rank still barring their way from Charles and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of them gradually, with clear-eyed resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He returned to that city where he had lorded it in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, seeing few; striving to retrieve the irretrievable; at times still grappling with that mortal frailty that had brought him down; still joying in his friend's successes; his laugh still ready, but with a kindlier music; and over all his thoughts ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smiled. After 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 ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an end to any disaffection on the part of the subject nations that the previous ill-success of Parthia in her Roman wars might have provoked. But in the histories of nations and empires we constantly find that noble and gallant efforts to retrieve disaster and prevent the ruin consequent upon it come too late. When matters have gathered to a head, when steps that commit important persons have been taken, when classes or races have been encouraged ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... that date have tended to place us in a position to retrieve our mistakes, among which events may be particularly named the suppression of the rebellion, the manifestation of our undeveloped and unexpected military power, the retirement of the French from Mexico, and the abolition of slavery ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... armor and horses of chivalry, embark with artisans and miners for another voyage, now without solicitude or fear, but with unbounded hopes of wealth,—especially hardy adventurers and broken-down families of rank anxious to retrieve their fortunes. The pendulum of a nation's thought swings from the extreme of doubt and cynicism to the opposite extreme of faith and exhilaration. Spain was ripe for the harvest. Eight hundred years' desperate contest with the Moors ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... These troubles, with costs of lawsuits, bad management, &c., had now emptied the coffers of my old master almost to the last farthing; and he began to cast about him for some way to replenish his purse, and retrieve his ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... valor and fidelity, [35] repaired and strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted his utmost vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat of the Goths. Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously waited for an opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive blow, his own glory, and that of the Roman ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... exhausted, had his portrait changed for that of another and richer lover, preserving, however, the diamonds; and she exposed this inconstancy even upon the stage, by suspending, as if in triumph, the new portrait fastened on her bosom. The Englishman, wishing to retrieve his phaeton and horses, which he protested only to have lent his belle, found that she had put the whole equipage into a kind of lottery, or raffle, to which all her numerous friends had subscribed, and that an Altona ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... else be chasing it, and the grins will play about your mouth until you smile. Then let the horse step on the hat and squash it into a parody of a headgear, just as that somebody else is about to retrieve it—and you will laugh outright. As Elizabeth Woodbridge in summing up says, "the whole matter is seen to be dependent on perception of relations and the assumption of a ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... I must find myself in the same world corrected. Were I transformed into a cherub or transported into a timeless ecstasy, it is hard to see in what sense I should continue to exist. Those results might be interesting in themselves and might enrich the universe; they would not prolong my life nor retrieve my disasters. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Papal States, whence the fatal reaction, supported by French bayonets, at Rome, sent him back once more to the land of his adoption, whither he was soon followed by many of the heroic and unfortunate men who redeemed the martial fame, without being able to retrieve the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... remembering accurately the 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 ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... sack bounced by and made the retrieve. He walked back to Ferguson and eyed the load of bags in ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... wife's hundred lovers, Henry Jermyn, whom James had lately created a peer by the title of Lord Dover. Jermyn had been distinguished more than twenty years before by his vagrant amours and his desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, and was eager to retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of lucrative posts from which the laws excluded him. [50] To the same party belonged an intriguing pushing Irishman named White, who had been much abroad, who had served the House of Austria as something between an envoy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eighteen had convinced herself that it might still contain a part of its old treasure. She would dig for it herself, without telling anybody. If she failed, no one would know it; if she were successful, she would surprise her father and perhaps retrieve their fortune by less vulgar means than their present toil. Thanks to the secluded locality and the fact that she was known to spend her leisure moments in wandering there, she could work without suspicion. Secretly conveying ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 was the matter; and having sufficiently, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... Bores, think to retrieve your characters by coming into my house and sitting mute for two hours. Heaven forbid that your blood should be found on my skirts! but I believe I shall kill you, if you do. The only reason why I have not laid violent hands on you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... a false move. She laughed. Then, in confusion, and striving, too late, to retrieve herself—"Pardon, madame," she added, "but it seems droll to me, that. After all, ten sous ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Dutch governments refused to vote more money or men, and the German governments, freed from their pressing danger, became supine and lukewarm, the French, upon the contrary, set to in an admirable manner to retrieve the disasters they had suffered, and employed the winter in well-conceived efforts to take the field with a new army, to the full as strong as that which they had lost; and the fruits of Blenheim were, with the exception of the acquisition of a few fortresses, ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... and so were we all, by downright deception. That the swindle was imposed on us through you was more your misfortune than your fault, and it will make you a keener business man in the future. You have worked like a galley-slave all summer to retrieve matters, and have taken no vacation at all. You must take one now immediately, or you will break down altogether. Go off to the woods; fish, hunt, follow your fancies; and the bracing October air will make a ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... most nobly and generously. They expressed the utmost confidence in our integrity and business skill, uttered no word of blame but much of encouragement, and begged us to go on and retrieve our fortunes. They settled upon fifty cents in the dollar as full satisfaction for our debts, and told us to take our own time for the payment; nothing could have been kinder and more considerate. For my part, knowing we were not to blame, I bore up bravely ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... interestedly around. Parr felt suddenly left out, and stooped to look at the dead Martian. The body wore several useful things—a belt with ammunition and a knife-combination, shoes on the thickened ends of the tentacles, and that strange armor. As Parr moved to retrieve these, his companions called out ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... favors. I could not help calling to mind Miss Edgeworth's admirable tale of Murad the Unlucky, and his friend the lucky Saladin. Like the former, Wheelwright seemed destined but to fall from one calamity into another, and effort to retrieve his affairs, did but plunge him deeper into the slough of misery. I could not but perceive, however, that as in the case of the persecuted Mussulman, the misfortunes of my poor friend had their origin in his own bad management, and to speak the honest truth, of common sense. ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... 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 had no influence. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... spent in an heroic struggle to retrieve his lost fortunes. He wrote more novels, but without much zest or inspiration; he undertook other works, such as the voluminous Life of Napoleon, for which he was hardly fitted, but which brought him money in large measure. In four ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... confidence. Only a minority is trying to adopt the new order of things. A large number of the plantations, probably a considerable majority of the more valuable estates, is under heavy mortgages, and the owners know that, unless they retrieve their fortunes in a comparatively short space of time, their property will pass out of their hands. Almost all are, to some extent, embarrassed. The nervous anxiety which such a state of things produces extends also ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... behalf of Free Trade, Mr. Cobden saw his fortune becoming materially injured, besides his actual losses, estimated at twenty thousand pounds. His courage failed at length, and he went so far as to write to Mr. Bright that it was his intention to withdraw from the agitation and endeavor to retrieve his business. Then in turn Mr. Bright went to his friend, in Manchester, and was successful in urging him to reconsider his determination. It was agreed among the Free-Traders to bestow eighty thousand pounds upon Mr. Cobden when the struggle was ended, and he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... head of the left wing of his army, was completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... lad, the best way to retrieve the fault you have committed is to try and get us out of the scrape. Set your brains to work, and let us talk over what had best be done. There is no time to be lost, for with a fair wind they can ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... but it was the more dangerous. Perhaps a loss might have effectually deterred me, but it is doubtful to tell how certain events might have been altered. It is just possible that I might have been urged on by my desire to retrieve any loss I might have incurred, and so made myself at once the miserable being it took months to accomplish in bringing ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... if the monsters 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 the ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... do; the chief warden told us that he had lately paid a man, on his leaving the prison, a hundred and twenty-five dollars for extra work done in this way. The warden told us that the men, when discharged, were always strongly urged to return to their own homes instead of seeking to retrieve their characters elsewhere, and that their doing so was generally attended with a better result than when they went to a new place and had no check on their proceedings. This does away with the chief argument of our quaker friend at Philadelphia, in favour of the solitary ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... appearance usual in his family, and had even promised his delighted girls to take possession, the ensuing winter, of the house in St. James's Square. Nature had not qualified Sir Edward for great or continued exertions, and the prudent decision he had taken to retrieve his fortunes, was perhaps an act of as much forecast and vigor as his talents or energy would afford; it was the step most obviously for his interests, and the one that was safest both in its execution and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... the actual hour of the warning given would hardly be recalled amid so many circumstances more important. Soame sat in his room and watched with heavy heart. He felt that he had been playing the part of a traitor, and, more than that, that he was likely to be found out. Could he retrieve himself even yet? He knew he was ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... no time to retrieve this disaster. Leaving the Pale to the mercy of the successful rebels, he hastened south, and arrived in Kerry before Smerwick fort. Amongst the small band of officers who accompanied him on this occasion were Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, both then ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... answered deliberately. "If I loved you, mademoiselle, and lost you—lost you, and played the craven,—I should find you. The wilderness would not matter. I should find you. I should find you, and retrieve myself—some way. Lord Starling has wit and daring, else he would not be an exile, else you would not have promised to marry him. Be assured that he is following you, and is probably not far behind. Do you want him to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... that if He would let him escape, he would give every thought, every breath to making up the loss of his creditors; he half promised to return the money he was carrying away, and trust to his own powers, his business talent in a new field, to retrieve himself. He resolved to hide himself as soon as he reached Wellwater; it would be dark, and he hoped that by this understanding with Providence he could elude the officer in getting out of the car. But if there were two, one at each end ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... of slow realisation, after Douglas's return, had tried both father and son severely. Sir Arthur was worn out and demoralised by long months of colossal but useless effort to retrieve what he had done. Falloden, with his own remorse, and his own catastrophe to think over, was called on to put it aside, to think for and help his father. He had no moral equipment—no trained character—equal to the task. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a fool; there was no doubt as to that; the only thing now was how he could best retrieve his folly. He had walked blindly into a trap, suspecting nothing, confidently relying on his own smartness, believing himself unknown. Now he must find his way out. It angered him to realize how easily it had been accomplished; not so much as a blow struck; no opportunity even for him ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... the character of bees, for which I feel, not merely admiration, but the most profound respect. Such is their indomitable energy and perseverance, that under circumstances apparently the most despairing, they will still labor to the utmost, to retrieve their losses, and sustain the sinking state. So long as they have a queen, or any prospect of raising one, they struggle most vigorously against impending ruin, and never give up, unless their condition ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... 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 ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... then,' replied Parravicin, 'I have won from you two hundred pounds—all you possess. You are a ruined man, and as such, will run any hazard to retrieve your losses. I give you a last chance. I will stake all my winnings—nay, double the amount—against your wife. You have a key of the house you inhabit, by which you admit yourself at all hours; so at least I am informed. If ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... latter was favoured by Antigonus, which induced Aristeas to invite Pyrrhus to Argos. He was ever willing to embark on a new enterprise, because he regarded his successes merely as stepping-stones to greater things, and hoped to retrieve his failures by new and more daring exploits; so that he was rendered equally restless by victory or defeat. Accordingly he set off at once for Argos. Areus occupied the most difficult of the passes on the road with an ambuscade, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... is ready for the experiment. I am 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 who has ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... so unexpected, nor so unlooked-for. Accordingly the panic and the alarm was as great as if the enemy besieged the city, not the camp. They send for the consul Nautius; in whom when there seemed to be but insufficient protection, and they were determined that a dictator should be appointed to retrieve their embarrassed affairs, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus is appointed by universal consent. It is worth those persons' while to listen, who despise all things human in comparison with riches, and who suppose "that there is no room for exalted honour, nor for virtue, unless where ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and the genial Rankin having shouted for it and other "rounds," proceeded to unfold some wondrous scheme by which he was infallibly bound to retrieve all their fortunes at least cent. per cent. It was only a matter of a little capital. Anyone who had the foresight to intrust him with a few hundreds might consider his fortune made. But, somehow, nobody could be found ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... But the few remaining acres were so heavily mortgaged that they had to be sold. So that a bit of house property elsewhere, and the old homestead itself, were all that was left. And Daddy Darwin had never been the sort of man to retrieve his luck at home, or to seek ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... To retrieve my lost reputation, I sat down to read Le Solitaire, and as I read my amazement grew, and I did in "gaping wonderment abound," to think that fashion, like the insane root of old, had power to drive a whole city mad with nonsense; ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... 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 ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... centuries Christianity continued to be a prohibited creed! The ground thus lost by a papal blunder it has never regained. The acceptance of Tien and Shang-ti by Protestants might perhaps do something to retrieve the situation, if backed by some ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... works in King Charles the Second's reign, In servi Deo & laetare, 'Serve God and be chearful.' Those therefore who supply the world with such entertainments of mirth as are instructive, or at least harmless, may be thought to deserve well of mankind; to which I shall only add, that they retrieve the honour of polite learning, and answer those sour Enthusiasts who affect to stigmatize the finest and most elegant Authors, both ancient and modern, (which they have never read) as dangerous to religion, and destructive of all sound ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... the strictest account, 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 authority ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... once sat together at luncheon, spread in the General's private office in the purlieus of Wall Street, in the days when war and statesmanship had been laid aside, and the hero of battles and civic life was endeavoring to retrieve his scattered fortunes by a ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... followed by our attendants for a thousand miles, and we generally, therefore, did duty as the rearguard of our “grand army”; we used to walk our horses till the party in front had got into the distance, and then retrieve the lost ground by ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... what the German army has accomplished along these lines were not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and autocratic government, or she is lost. "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland." ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... 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)
... First-Level mentality that Verkan Vall wasted no moments on self-reproach or panic. While he was still rolling under his jeep, his mind had been busy with plans to retrieve the situation. Something touched the heel of one boot, and he froze his leg into immobility, at the same time trying to get the big Smith & Wesson free. The shoulder-holster, he found, was badly torn, though made of ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... 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 ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... had misunderstood the Major's signal and had done just what he did not think he ought to do. He thought it meant to land on the left and he had tried to reach a small strip of beach, but finding this was not possible he turned the boat again into the current to retrieve his former position, but this was not successful and the Nell was thrown on some rocks projecting from the left wall, in the midst of wild waters, striking hard enough to crush some upper planks of the port side. She immediately ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... am sure does not belong to it. I met Miss Challoner's eye for one instant from the top of the little staircase running up to the mezzanine. I had yielded thus far to an impulse I had frequently combated, to seek by another interview to retrieve the bad effect which must have been made upon her by my angry note. I knew that she frequently wrote letters in the mezzanine at this hour, and got as far as the top of the staircase in my effort to join her. But got no further. When I saw her on her feet, with her face turned ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... friend. He had watched his pliable nature, had studied 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 its wrongs-when ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... without stating what he intended to do, dashed up the roadway leading to Dr. Scoville's house. It was evident that he was about to resort to some desperate expedient to retrieve the shattered fortunes of his party; but he kept his own counsel; and Somers yielded himself to the master will of his companion like a child, as indeed he was in his exhausted and suffering condition. The roadway led to the rear of the house where the stable ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... into something else to retrieve myself. I can do Carter's Du Barry to the Queen's taste, Maggie. That rotten voice of hers, like Mother Douty's, but stronger and surer; that rocky old face pretending to look young and beautiful inside that talented red hair of hers; that whining "Denny! ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... gathering once more, attempted bravely to retrieve the fate of the day, and engaged the Swedish horse with such desperate valour, that a considerable portion of the Saxon infantry were enabled, under cover of the conflict, to draw off, cross the morasses, and ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... Hoping I could retrieve the revolver later, and realizing that nothing could be gained by staying there longer, I started toward the car. I had hardly taken five steps when I heard a joyful yell and turned to see Robinson struggling to his feet, the muddy ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... Mrs. Nicolas and me," pursued Miss Debby; "and Mrs. Nicolas wondered how upon earth the Pelby Smiths could afford to give a party at all. She concluded that you would have to live on bacon and potatoes for the remainder of the season, to retrieve the cost, and would have to turn that changeable silk of yours the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... of the enemy daily. Colonel Kimball, on the mountain, and Colonel Wagner, up the valley, are both in hourly expectation of an attack. The enemy, encouraged by his successes at Manassas, will probably attempt to retrieve ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... engagements. The citizen, when he consults his reason, will perceive how much it is necessary, for the good of the nation to which he belongs, that he should exert himself to advance its prosperity, or, in its misfortunes, to retrieve its glory. By consequence every one in his sphere, and using his faculties for this great end, will find his own advantage in restraining the bad as dangerous, and opposing enemies to the state as enemies ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... is an incentive to taste to try for yourself. Men (the jury of householders empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women) can almost understand that. And as it happens, tasting before you have sounded the sense of your taste will frequently mislead by a step or two difficult to retrieve: the young coquette must then be cruel, as necessarily we kick the waters to escape drowning: and she is not in all cases dealing with simple blocks or limp festoons, she comes upon veteran tricksters that have a knowledge of her sex, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... than paperhanging. Look here, Taney, you'll only worry yourself to death. It would be far more sensible of you to take the bull by the horns and join our ranks. You can at least try to retrieve your ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... by a party of Blackfoot Indians. This particular band had been absent on the war-path for a considerable time, and, having suffered defeat, were returning home rather crestfallen and without scalps. In passing near the fortress of Little Tim it occurred to them that they might yet retrieve their character by assaulting that stronghold and carrying off the booty that was there, with any scalps that chance might throw in ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... taken a wrong position at the start. He had been betrayed by those of the brotherhood who had the influence requisite for assistance. The cheat had been carried so far by fair and continued promises, it was now too late to retrieve himself. I felt deeply interested for him. He was a noble specimen of mankind. He possessed abilities worthy of a more honourable application. He bore all his misfortunes with unexampled fortitude. The night after his Wheeling and Pittsburgh associates had betrayed his confidence, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... nearly tearing them off, and causing them also to tumble. Thinking that the evil one had seized them, they struck out right and left, and nearly stunned their master with the blows and kicks. Pablo, hoping to retrieve his fortune, started to his legs with the archbishop clinging round his neck, and galloped after the two servants with his mouth open, so that, should he catch them, he might bite them. But they, surmising what he meant, sought refuge among the ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... the second and the fatal rung. The king's personal attachment to Marshal Villeroi blinded him as to his military talents. Beaten in Italy by Prince Eugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous as he was incapable, hoped to retrieve himself against Marlborough. "The whole army breathed nothing but battle; I know it was your Majesty's own feeling," wrote Villeroi to the king, after the defeat: "could I help committing myself to a course which I considered ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... To retrieve the ground lost, and also, to show the Jiccarilla Apaches that their recent victory had tended only to stimulate the movements of the Americans to a display of greater activity and energy, after a brief space of time, a large body of regular troops were made ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... that night, and in the morning I was so tired that I made no attempt to work. I had, of course, stolen out before six to retrieve the stable key from the lavender bush, and hang it on its accustomed nail. I looked into the stable first. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... 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 in it? Can they be trusted? ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits are soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding that although all abroad be darkness and humiliation, ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... mother of invention, and when you think all is lost, something will be discovered which will retrieve everything." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... France, and gifts from the king, whilst his daughter was in favour, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the royal service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite, and never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of his son, but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to save a considerable sum of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time, when walking along one day very moodily and in ill-humour, lamenting my extravagance and losses, and cogitating how I might with the small remainder of my capital retrieve my position, that I was accosted by ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... weapon named Pasupata. This thy son of mighty arms will also slay, at the command of Indra, those Daityas called the Nivatakavachas who are the enemies of the gods. He will also acquire all kinds of celestial weapons, and this bull among men will also retrieve the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... to devour each other. I have long had a dream about Cayenne; it is the finest country in the world for founding a colony. Pichegru has been proscribed, as he knows; ask him how many men and how much money he wants to create a great establishment; I will give them to him, and he will retrieve his glory by rendering a service to France." The general did not reject the proposition, but he persisted in his silence. "I will speak before the tribunal," said he. Before the supreme day when the trial was about to take place before human justice, Pichegru had appeared before a more august ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... of his efforts, he finds himself less near the entrance than when first he took up his stand there; and just as he is trying, with small regard to courtesy, to retrieve his position, there is a slight murmur among those assembled, and a second later some one, slender, black-robed, emerges, heavily cloaked, and with some light, fleecy thing thrown over her head, so as even ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... said imploringly. "We have many chances yet if we only make the best of them. There is no use lamenting the past. I freely confess that I was wrong in using this money without your knowledge, but I did it from the best of motives. We must put our heads together now to retrieve our losses, and there are many ways in which that may be done. I want your clear common sense to help ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... right rear, and menaced the line of retreat, the infantry charged the wavering Spanish battalions, and the latter at once fell into confusion and began to fall back. William Stewart now arrived with a brigade of the second division to endeavor to retrieve the day; but as they were advancing into position, four regiments of French cavalry, whose movements were hidden in the driving rain until they were close at hand, fell upon them and rode down two-thirds of the brigade, the 31st regiment alone ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... it, Didums, when I let you go on alone. I'll never forgive myself. I had a premonition and disobeyed it. You pose as a cast-iron materialist with no more ambition than money enough to retrieve your damned estates, and all the while you're the most romantic ass who ever wore out saddle-leather! Found it, have you? Then God help us all! I know what's coming! You're about to 'vert back to Crusader days, and try to do damsilly deeds of chivalry without the war-horse ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... fortune he had received, and sought to retrieve his affairs by a second marriage; but, having retired after a night of drunken debauch, he was found dead in the morning. He was called a good master; for he fed and clothed his slaves better than most masters, and the lash was not heard on his plantation so frequently as on many others. ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... across the island, we found that some of the lower spots, the dells and valleys, produced a greater amount of vegetation than had appeared at a distance; but could not retrieve the character of desolation given by the black, barren hills, and dark abrupt cliffs which arose on every side. We had given up all expectation of finding anyone alive, or any signs of the spot ever having been inhabited, when we heard ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... streams of water drooling from the tubes between their lips. But these are the exceptional fountains; there are few sculptured or architectural designs which the showering or spouting water does not retrieve from error; and in Rome the water (deliciously potable) is so abundant that it has force to do almost anything for beauty, even where, as in the Fontana Paolina, it is merely a torrent tumbling over a facade. It is lavished everywhere; ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... have I been? Is no one watching here, then, save the king? The light's burnt out, and yet it is not day. I must forego my slumbers for to-night. Take it, kind nature, for enjoyed! No time Have monarchs to retrieve the nights they lose. I'm now awake, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
