"Retrospective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Doctor Winchester was in high spirits, and keenly observant; the process of thought which had served as an antidote to fear, being now relieved from this duty, added to his intellectual enthusiasm. Mr. Corbeck seemed to be in a retrospective rather than a speculative mood. I was myself rather inclined to be gay; the relief from certain anxiety regarding Margaret was sufficient for me for ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... my word, as if doing so were rather smart conduct than a mean action, for which the poor victim herself, encumbered with a child, and not I, had really to pay the penalty, in spite of certain pecuniary aid that was given. There, that's the retrospective trouble that I am always unearthing; and you may hardly believe that though so many years have elapsed, and it is all gone by and done with, and she must be getting on for an old woman now, as I am for an old man, it really often destroys my ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... was it to pounce upon me that way at school?" exclaimed Alice suddenly, throwing off her retrospective mood and smiling again. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... exhaustion; and she went off in sudden collapse a few hours later, without having said anything more to her husband on the subject of her love for the poet. William Marchmill, in truth, like most husbands of several years' standing, was little disturbed by retrospective jealousies, and had not shown the least anxiety to press her for confessions concerning a man dead and gone beyond any power ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... (Vol. ii., p. 89.).—B. will find a great deal about these collars in some interesting papers in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1842, vols. xvii. and xviii., conmunicated by Mr. J.G. Nicholls; and in the Second Series of the Retrospective Review, vol. i. p. 302., and vol. ii. pp. 156. 514. 518. Allow me to add a Query: Who are the persons now privileged to wear these collars? and under what circumstances, and at what dates, was such privilege reduced to ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... for a longer tramp to Town Malling, from which he may well have borrowed many strokes for the picture of Muggleton, that town of sturdy Kentish cricket. Sometimes he would walk across the marshes to Gravesend, and returning through the village of Chalk, would pause for a retrospective glance at the house where his honeymoon was spent and a good part of Pickwick planned. In the latter end of the year, when he could take a short cut through the stubble fields from Higham to the marshes ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... he had come to himself again, and saw the state in which we were, he was ill at the retrospective spectacle of our dangers; but he confessed to me afterwards that while waiting for our return he had seen all this in a dream and that, no longer distinguishing this dream from reality, he had grown calm and been almost lulled to sleep while playing the piano, believing that he was dead ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... of Mangel while he formed the letters; elevated were the eyebrows of Mangel and sidelong the eyes, as, with his left whisker reposing on his left arm, they followed his performance; many were the misgivings of Mangel, and slow was his retrospective meditation touching the junction of the letter p with h; something too active was the big forefinger of Mangel in its propensity to rub out without proved cause. At last, long and deep was the breath ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... tragical event, is set in an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny; and to be a Whig on the business of a hundred years ago is very consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective wisdom and historical patriotism are things of wonderful convenience, and serve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between speculation and practice. Many a stern republican, after gorging himself with a full ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... President of the Club, said in introducing the President of the United States: "Not the Home Market Club, not the city of Boston, not Massachusetts only, but all New England give you greeting of welcome, Mr. President. In our retrospective of the year past we would give full meed of honor and praise to the President who so nobly met and so faithfully discharged the grave responsibilities of that great office, and thanksgiving to the Divine Providence that sustained him. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... to augment the retrospective sensation of fatigue which seizes you as you regard these stones—too heavy for human strength—which are massed here in mountains. One almost seems to participate in the efforts, the exhaustions and the sweating toils of that people, with their muscles of brand ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... a meetin' woke ter sech a pint o' holiness. The saints jes rampaged around till it fairly sounded like the cavortin's o' the ungodly," a retrospective voice chimed in. ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... had never troubled himself as to whether Amalia had confessed to Olivo the length to which she had gone in gratitude to her benefactor; whether, perchance, Olivo had taken her sacrifice as a matter of course, and had not considered it any reason for retrospective jealousy; or whether Olivo had always remained in ignorance of the matter. Nor did Casanova allow these questions to harass his ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... the forgiveness of the sins of the past was in itself deemed worthy of God,[282] the asserted specific result of baptism remained still very uncertain, and the hard tasks which it imposed, might seem more important than the merely retrospective gifts which it proffered.[283] Under such circumstances the rite could not fail to lead believers about to be baptized, to attribute value here to the mysterious as such.[284] But that always creates a state of things which not ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... species, then, being at present the most admissible one, and the retrospective survey of such species showing convergence, as time recedes, to more simplified or generalised organisations, the result to which the suggested train of thought inevitably leads is very analogous in each instance. If to kosmos or the mundane system have been allotted ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... Martial Law, and was suggested by the refusal of the Privy Council, on April 2, 1906, to grant leave to appeal from sentences passed in Natal by court-martial, in respect of acts committed on February 8, 1906, whereby retrospective effect had, it was alleged, been given to a proclamation not issued till the day after the acts were committed, See Mcomini Mzinelwe and Wanda v. H.E. the Governor and the A.G. for the Colony of Natal, 22 Times ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... Croft's biography of Young, we find him speaking of "the ancient gentleman" in a tone of reverential eulogy, quite at variance with the free comments we have just quoted. But the Rev. John Jones was probably of opinion, with Mrs. Montagu, whose contemporary and retrospective letters are also set in a different key, that "the interests of religion were connected with the character of a man so distinguished for piety as Dr. Young." At all events, a subsequent quasi-official statement weighs nothing as evidence against ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... "In my retrospective moods, the cloud of memories, born of the incidents which have marked our past acquaintance, form a telescopic vista. Through this vista, examined in the crucible of much correspondence, the intimate association ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... to be a 'Janus bifrons',—a Gospel-face retrospective, and smiling through penitent tears on the sins of the past, and a Moses-face looking forward in frown and menace, frightening the harlot will into a holy abortion of sins conceived but not yet born, perchance not yet quickened. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to me that I can take a retrospective view of the past and note the many changes that have taken place within my recollection. Many sad changes have taken place within the past fifty years. Dynasties have arisen, lived and have had their day; they have fallen, and are known as things ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... slates, where the species are also peculiar, there is about an equal admixture of Silurian types with those which Barrande has termed "primordial." Here, therefore, it may truly be said that we are entering upon a new domain of life in our retrospective survey of the past. The trilobites of new species, but of Lower Silurian genera, belong to Ogygia, Asaphus, and Cheirurus; whereas those belonging to primordial types, or Barrande's first fauna as well as to the Lingula flags of Wales, comprise Dikelocephalus, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... may be noted. It, when referring to something that precedes, may be called "retrospective;" but when to something that follows, "prospective." In "Avoid indiscriminate charity: it is a crime," "it" is retrospective.[6] In "It is a crime to give indiscriminately," "it" ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... Woven through her retrospective appreciations came a doubt. She wondered whether, after all, her school had been right. Whether it ought to have treated them all so seriously. If she had gone to the other school she was sure she would never have heard of the Aesthetic Movement or felt troubled about the state of Ireland and India. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... been that other eyes Might have uplit my highway? That fond, sad, retrospective sight Would catch from this dim byway Prized figures different quite ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... Alexander the Great was divided, at his death, among his generals; but, before relating their history, it is necessary to take a brief retrospective glance at the affairs of Greece. Three years after Alexander had quitted Europe the Spartans made a vigorous effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke. They were joined by most of the Peloponnesian states; but though they met with some success at first, they were finally defeated with great ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... fair landscape never a sign of life, human or animal! Yet, stay; what was that dark film, like a tiny cloud, that came sweeping down toward them from far up the lake? Dick, the practical, was the first to catch sight of it, for Phil was standing like one in a trance gazing at the scene with a retrospective look in his eyes that seemed to say his thoughts were far away. As Dick watched the approaching cloud-like film it resolved itself into a flock of wild ducks, making, as it seemed, directly for the patch of rushes near which the two were standing, and, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... things long since past and half-forgotten. Again and again, when historical investigation has refused to afford me the means of resuscitating some remotely ancient scene, I have been obliged to take counsel of imagination and remember the saying that 'the Poet must be a retrospective Seer,' and could allow my fancy to spread her wings, while I remained her lord and knew the limits up to which I might permit her to soar. I considered it my lawful privilege to paint much that was pure invention, but nothing that was not possible at ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... king, the images of Raymond, Evadne, and Perdita, who had lived in the world's prime, were brought vividly before us. We consigned her to the oblivious tomb with reluctance; and when I turned from her grave, Janus veiled his retrospective face; that which gazed on future generations had ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil. Our retrospective glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked carpenter, cast away upon the desert island of a school, and carrying into practice an ingenious inkling of many trades. He mended whatever was broken, and made ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... duties, and the progress expected to be made during the ensuing year, with a copy of the various correspondence deemed necessary to throw light on the subjects which seem to require additional legislation. Claims have been made for retrospective allowances in behalf of the superintendent and some of his assistants, which I did not feel justified in granting. Other claims have been made for large increases in compensation, which, under all the circumstances of the several cases, I declined making without ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... his leathern coat. "I have a tale of private life to tell, "'Tis all of self and home, I know it well; "In love and honour's cause I would be strong, "Mine is a father's tale, perhaps too long, "For fathers, when a duteous child's the theme, "Can talk a summer's sun down, and then dream "Of retrospective joys with hearts that glow "With feelings such as parents ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... retrospective laws, punishing facts committed before the existence of such laws, and by them only declared criminal, are oppressive, unjust, and incompatible with liberty; wherefore no ex post facto law ought to ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... lacking and a peace for which there was no precedent. It was Germany who had taken advantage of the weakness of international law and done most to prevent its growth; and it was fitting that Germany should pay a corresponding penalty. There is a wholesome prejudice against retrospective legislation, but the benefit cannot be claimed by those who obstructed the legislation because they wanted to pursue the conduct which it would have made criminal. Occasions arise which imperatively require the creation of precedents, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... been bestowed on courtiers was greatly to be lamented. Nothing could have been more proper than to pass a prospective statute tying up in strict entail the little which still remained of the Crown property. But to annul by a retrospective statute patents, which in Westminster Hall were held to be legally valid, would have been simply robbery. Such robbery must necessarily have made all property insecure; and a statesman must be short-sighted indeed who imagines ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Estrup ministry, resorted for the first time to negotiations; but it was not till the 1st of April 1894 that the majority of the Folketing could arrive at an agreement with the government and the Landsting as to a budget which should be retrospective and sanction the employment of the funds so irregularly obtained for military expenditure. The whole question of the provisional financial decrees was ultimately regularized by a special resolution of the Rigsdag; and the retirement ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Taking a retrospective view of this singular venture in journalism, one day, the explanation of the whole matter came to my understanding in the light of a revelation, and was ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... hallucination for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... directed upon one single thing, of that greatness which is the crown of simplicity. Ambition was the keynote of his life; not an unworthy keynote, by any means, if only the ambition be sound; but one serious defect of Columbus's ambition was that it was retrospective rather than perspective. He may have had, before he sailed from Palos, an ambition to be the discoverer of a New World; but I do not think he had. He believed there were islands or land to be discovered in the West if only he pushed ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... beheld a look more melancholy. Capable as he is of resisting the cowardice of self-complaint and gloom, still there are moments, I perceive, in which he can yield; and, sighing over others woes, can cast a retrospective glance on self. He had been reading the Julia of Rousseau. The picture given by St. Preux of his feelings had awakened sympathy too strong ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... forbear to take a retrospective view of the manner in which they had been expended. Could I approve of that manner? Could I forget how short a time it was, though I had squandered my own money, since I had forfeited no atom of my independence by accepting ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... very striking, and becomes still more significant when we find that many of the later types recall the more ancient ones. I have called these more comprehensive groups of former times, combining characters of different classes, synthetic or prophetic types; and we might as fitly give the name of retrospective types to many of the later groups, for they recall the past, as the former anticipate the future. And it is not only among the Fishes and the Reptiles that we find these combinations. The most numerous of the ancient Radiates are the Acalephlan Corals, combining, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... one of our gunboats," said the President in telling the story, "I saw an elderly darky, with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted upon his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently plunged into a state of ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms; inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Not unlike those archers of whom the Talmud wittily says, they first shoot the arrow and then fix the target, nations ascribe to themselves purposes of which they were originally unconscious. First comes the tingling consciousness of achievement and power, then a glamour of retrospective legend to explain and justify it. Thus it is that that great struggle for sea-power to which Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, and France all contributed maritime genius and boundless courage, becomes transformed ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... mountain-climbing that I have been doing with my boys and girls stands out like a cameo in my retrospective view. Sometimes we looked back toward the valley, and it seemed so peaceful and beautiful that it caused the mountain before us to seem ominous. At such times, when courage seemed to be oozing, we needed to reinforce one another ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... successors, first had and obtained and signified to the Government of the said State through the British Resident, provided further that in no case will the repeal or amendment of any laws enacted since the annexation have a retrospective effect, so as to invalidate any acts done or liabilities incurred ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... by no means the most important person in the plot of the Nozze. But he strikes the keynote of the opera. His love is the standard by which we measure the sad, retrospective, stately love of the Countess, who tries to win back an alienated husband. By Cherubino we measure the libertine love of the Count, who is a kind of Don Juan without cruelty, and the humorous love of Figaro and his sprightly bride Susanna. Each of these ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... well with it. He used to reflect upon his mother and his wife, both of whom he had affectionately murdered, and justified himself by declaring that a great artist, who was also the Roman Emperor, would be lacking in breadth of emotional experience and retrospective wisdom, unless he knew the melancholy of a two-pronged family remorse. And from Nero's standpoint it was one of the best thoughts that he ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... broken out—beyond all bounds," replied Shefford, sadly. He seemed retrospective for a moment, unaware of the trader's keen and sympathetic glance, and then he caught himself. "I want to see some wild life. Do you know the country north ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... the hour than the professor at the Jardin des Plantes who strove to reconstruct these fragments, yet the story that they told lighted up all the past, and showed its true connection with the present. Cuvier, as one sees him in a retrospective glance at the wonderful period in which he lived, and which brought to the surface all its greatest elements,—one among a throng of exceptional men, generals, soldiers, statesmen, as well as men of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin. Had every State a right to regulate the value of its coin, there might be as many different currencies as States, and thus the intercourse among them would be impeded; retrospective alterations in its value might be made, and thus the citizens of other States be injured, and animosities be kindled among the States themselves. The subjects of foreign powers might suffer from the same cause, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... and military estimates, Sir Robert Peel will support the proposal, will do all that he can to prevent it from being considered as indicative of hostile or altered feeling towards France, and will assume for the increase in question any degree of responsibility present or retrospective which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Before the perpetration of the deed, its possibility is remotest from our thoughts; but when we did know that he was dead, it seemed, somehow, that we had understood and looked forward to it all the time. This, by retrospective analysis, we could easily explain by the fact of his great trouble. I use "great trouble" advisedly. Young, handsome, with an assured position as the right-hand man of Eben Hale, the great street-railway magnate, there could be no reason for him to complain of fortune's favors. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... is an English-basement house like?" I ventured to ask, in interruption of the retrospective ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... scenes no one could tell. I raised my hat with the profoundest deference as the carriage containing the two ladies dashed by; I knew not which was the cleverest hypocrite of the two, therefore I did equal honor to both. I was in a meditative and retrospective mood, and when I reached the Toledo the distracting noises, the cries of the flower-girls, and venders of chestnuts and confetti, the nasal singing of the street-rhymers, the yells of punchinello, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Conclusion. A conclusion may be entirely retrospective. This means merely that it may refer back to the remarks which have been delivered in the body of the speech. A speaker does this to emphasize something he has already discussed by pointing out to his audience that he wants them to remember that from what ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... [2] — This retrospective chapter has here been greatly condensed, as the ground is already covered, for English readers, by Dr. H. R. Mill's "The Siege of the South Pole," Sir Ernest Shackleton's "The Heart of the Antarctic," ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... dull retrospective addresses Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire? Away with blue devils, away with distresses, And give the gay spirit ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... interest may be not only retrospective but contemporary. The reader of the present volume will appreciate "How to Criticize a Poem (In the Manner of Certain Contemporary Poets)", a critique of the mnemonic rhyme "Thirty days hath September," in the New Republic, December ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... insult which appeareth To imagination hideous. Now we leave the sterner presence Of the earth and all its changes, And we take the wings of fancy, (Which is sister to poesy), Guided by the light of record Thereon mount, and fly, surveying, Far above the heights of knowledge. And we take a retrospective Of the ancient times and people, When was nature young and blooming, When our fathers were created, And within the blessed Eden Set to tend and to adorn it. Adam with his Eve beloved, Happy in their single nature, Thus brought forth to joy and pleasure, Innocent and sweet ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... of Mdlle. de Cardoville at the garden-door of the house occupied by Djalma, we must cast a retrospective glance at previous events. On leaving Doctor Baleinier's, Mdlle. de Cardoville had gone to take up her residence in the Rue d'Anjou. During the last few months of her stay with her aunt, Adrienne had secretly caused this handsome ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... no more for the moment; the paradox of this retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. What! Sir Asher was thankful because over three thousand years ago his ancestors had obtained—not without hard fighting for it—a land which had already been lost again for eighteen centuries. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... expressed without immodesty; which is worth all the strong lines against the harlot's profession, with which both parts of this play are offensively crowded. A satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective fondness. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions, which in his unregenerate state served but to inflame his appetites, in ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... on the particular complications from which his foresight had probably saved him. The climax was unexpectedly dramatic. Miss Lombard, on the brink of a step which, whatever its issue, would have burdened her with retrospective compunction, had been set free before her suitor's ardor could have had time to cool, and was now doubtless planning a life of domestic felicity on the proceeds of the Leonardo. One thing, however, struck ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... in the follies of the Republic, a little reflection on that eloquence of ruin ought to put the Republic on its guard. A sentimental tourist may venture to remark that in presence of all the haunted houses that appeal in this mystical manner to the retrospective imagination it cannot afford to be foolish. I thought of all this as I drove back to Blois by the way of the Chateau de Cheverny. The road took us out of the park of Chambord, but through a region of flat woodland, where the trees ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... remaining over anywhere for the winter. At the same time I have been reckoning upon meeting Englishmen in Constantinople who, having travelled extensively in Asia, could further enlighten me regarding the best route to India. As I house my bicycle and am shown to my room I take a retrospective glance across Europe and America, and feel almost as if I have arrived at the half-way house of my journey. The distance from Liverpool to Constantinople is fully 2,500 miles, which brings the wheeling ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... one solitary exception, were in the brilliantly lighted saloon, amusing themselves with cards, books, and music. The exception was Leslie, who, having changed out of his dress clothes into a comfortable suit of blue serge, was down in the waist of the ship, smoking a gloomily retrospective pipe. The ship's reckoning, that day, had placed her, at noon, in Latitude 32 degrees 10 minutes North, and Longitude 26 degrees 55 minutes West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels of Madeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, to the westward ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... better perhaps by this less presentation. If we would stop and trust heavily on the harvest of originality, he shows us that this plant—this part of the garden—is but a relative thing. It is dependent also on the richness that ages have put into the soil. "Every thinker is retrospective." ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... public appearance as a disturber of the peace, and the beginning of the bad name she earned for herself in certain circles eventually. But she was let off lightly for it. Mrs. Caldwell's punishments were never retrospective. She was thunder and lightning in her wrath; a flash and then a bang, and it was all over. If she missed the first movement, the culprit escaped. She could no more have punished one of her children in cold blood than she could ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... thief. Yet, neither the one nor the other, as far as we know, was a plagiarist. This, however, does not disprove the contrary proposition, that he who begins as a thief or an iconoclast is likely to end as such. But the actuating motive has nothing to do with what we, in our retrospective analysis, are pleased to prove. Not so far forth are we willing to piddle among the knicknacks of Shakib's Histoire ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... congenial to his feelings. Then he found leisure not only to revise his former writings, which were thirty volumes written with his own hand, but, what most pleased him, he was enabled to write a manual, which he called Vade Mecum, and which contained a retrospective view of his life, since he noted in that volume the most remarkable occurrences which happened to him. It is not probable that such a MS. could have been destroyed but by accident; and it might, perhaps, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Temple last night, to hear Captain Glazier's lecture upon 'Echoes from the Revolution.' The frequent applause of the audience evinced not only a sympathy with the subject, but an evident liking of the manner in which it was delivered. The lecture itself was a retrospective view of the leading incidents of the Revolution. It would have been unfair to expect to hear anything very new upon a subject with which the veriest school-boy is familiar; but Captain Glazier wove the events together in a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... sight: not a tendril of smoke showed above the arc of tumbling waves that ringed the limit of his vision; the sun was warm and pleasant, and the figure on the conning-tower crossed his legs, encased in heavy thigh boots, and gave himself over to retrospective thought. ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... program I figured out on shipboard. But, as is so frequently the case with the most pleasing things in life, I found the anticipation rather outshone the realisation. Already I detect myself, in a retrospective mood, hankering for the savoury ragouts we used to get in peasant homes in obscure French villages, and for the meals they gave us at the regimental messes of our own forces, where the cooking was the home sort and good honest ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... keen pleasure to him. Against the hardships and discomforts he balanced the tremendous advantages of seeing new places and faces and getting a look into many lives, and he looked back with a kind of retrospective joy on the three years of hurrying from place to place, catching trains, and talking with chance acquaintances met by the way. Also, the years on the road had given him many opportunities for secret and profitable ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... of his chair, she darted a violet ray of half reproach and half mischievousness into his amused and retrospective eyes. "There used to be room for two in ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... works of Cotton Mather I shall examine, in this scrutiny of his retrospective opinions and position, relating to the witchcraft prosecutions, is the Magnalia, printed at London, in 1702. He had become wise enough, at that time, not to commit himself ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... was something tragic and retrospective in Jewdwine's smile. It had no joy in it, but an appeal, rather, to the memory of what he had been. He ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... "Retrospective Review" continues to be good reading, in virtue of the antique aroma (for wine only acquires its bouquet by age) which pervades its pages. Its sixteen volumes are so many tickets of admission to the vast and devious vaults of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through which we wander, tasting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... sparkle had gone out of their meetings, which began to have an air of make-believe youth about them. Theophil's interest was indeed centred in the purlieus of New Zion, but it was entirely retrospective; and though outwardly New Zion was more alive than ever, it seemed to him that activity which once started goes on of itself, and he realised that in his heart he cared nothing for the work itself, but only for the music to which it had once been set in motion. Incomplete as in one sense ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... documents relating to the 20th of June is given by Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 397 and following pages. The principal documents are found in Mortimer-Ternaux, in "L'Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez et Roux, and in the Revue Retrospective.] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... be said to be of the nature of retrospective prophecies; though it is perhaps a little hazardous to employ phraseology which perilously suggests a contradiction in terms—the word "prophecy" being so constantly, in ordinary use, restricted to "foretelling." Strictly, however, the term prophecy ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... years old, and I can no longer look forward for future earthly happiness. All my joys are now retrospective, and in the long vista of years that I constantly look back upon, there is no time that affords me more pleasure than that when I was in the Treasury of the United States. The fact that I was instrumental in introducing women to employment in the offices of the Government, gives me ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... are taken from St. Luke's Annual Report of 1851, containing a retrospective sketch of its history, for the use of which we are indebted to the present superintendent, Dr. Mickley. Statistics of recovery are given for different periods, but the fallacies attending such comparisons are so great that I have not cited ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... or forty years ago will, I think, impatiently sweep aside some of the absurd theories to which I have referred, psychological and otherwise. The unprejudiced man, letting his mind indulge in retrospect, and comparing that retrospective view with the present actuality, will, I believe, have no difficulty in determining that though Japan is and must remain an Oriental nation, what she has acquired of recent years is neither veneer ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... colour flushed Marian's cheek as his voice lapsed unconsciously into a dreamy, retrospective tone, and a slight restraint came over her manner, which did not depart. Esterbrook went away at sunset. Marian asked him to remain for the evening, but he pleaded ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure, towards that ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... the articles thereof." That was, to give Congress the power to coerce the States; to bring the States into subjection to the Federal Government. Now, sir, let us see how that was treated; and first I will refer to one whose wisdom, as we take a retrospective view, seems to me marvelous. Not conspicuous in debate, at least not among the names which first occur when we think of that bright galaxy of patriots and statesmen, he was the man who, above all others, it seems to me, laid his finger ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... was much too wise to refuse to look back upon his origin in a worldly point of view, he never threw his retrospective glances so far as to reach the sublime mystery of his moral existence; and while his thoughts might be said to be ever on the stretch to attain glimpses into the future, they were by far too earthly ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... February 23, 1878, Bolivia saw fit to impose a tax of 10 centavos (41/2 pence) per quintal (152 pounds) on all nitrates. Chili remonstrated; but Bolivia insisted, and declared, in addition, that the tax was meant to be retrospective, and that unless all dues were paid before February 14, 1879, the nitrates in the hands of the exporters would be seized and sold by auction. As the day which had been fixed for the seizure drew near, a Chilian squadron, under Rear-Admiral Rebolledo Williams, was got ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... would be unjust to give this rule a retrospective application, and exclude a State which, acting upon the past practice of the Government, has already formed its constitution, elected its legislature and other officers, and is now prepared to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... The themes are now sad, and clothed in minor harmonies. The Finale, perhaps, shows skill rather than inspiration; with regard to some of the subject-matter, it is, like the previous movement, also retrospective. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... next upon the Optick List is old Janus, who stood in a double-sighted Capacity, like a Person placed betwixt two opposite Looking-Glasses, and so took a sort of retrospective Cast at one View. Copies of this double-faced Way are not yet out of Fashion with many Professions, and the ingenious Artists pretend to keep up this Species by double-headed Canes and Spoons [1]; but there is no Mark of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "there are certain writers to whom humanity owes much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray in Old Kensington. But let ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... limitation. Look at the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235; at the Statute of Westminster, passed in 1275; at the Statute of James the First, passed in 1623; at Sir George Savile's Act, passed in the last century; at Lord Tenterden's Act, passed in our own time. Every one of those Acts was retrospective. Every one of them barred claims arising out of past transactions. Nor was any objection ever raised to what was so evidently just and wise, till bigotry and chicanery formed that disgraceful league against which we are now contending. But, it is said, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trouble and complications. We spent the Toussaint in the country with some friends, and their views of the future were so gloomy that it was almost contagious. One afternoon when we were all assembled in the drawing-room for tea, after a beautiful day's shooting, the conversation (generally retrospective) was so melancholy that I was rather impressed by it,—"The beginning of the end,—the culpable weakness of the Government and Moderate men, giving way entirely to the Radicals, an invitation to the Paris rabble to interfere with the sittings ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... the progress of the ancient mind, the Stoics for the most part disdained a study which was other than the pursuit of virtue. While the Epicurean poet painted in magnificent language the perpetual progress of mankind, the Stoic was essentially retrospective, and exhausted his strength in vain efforts to restore the simplicity of a by-gone age. While, too, the school of Zeno produced many of the best and greatest men who have ever lived, it must be acknowledged that its records exhibit a rather unusual number of examples of high professions ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... tailor behaved very well; but as thy profound retrospective glance led thee to forbode, the cravats, the hats, and the silk hosen perplexed our souls, for there was nothing in our purse to be perplexed thereby. As said Blondet, so say we; there is a fortune awaiting the establishment which will supply young men with inexpensive ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Cicero at once recognized his danger: if the people voted this law, a jury could scarcely fail to condemn. The triumvirs would do nothing. Pompey, after all his promises, avoided seeing Cicero as much as possible: Caesar offered him a legatio again; and though he spoke against giving the law a retrospective effect, he could not consistently object to the law itself, and shewed no sign of desiring to shelter Cicero, except on his consenting to leave Rome. Cicero then adopted the course which was open to all citizens threatened with a prosecution—that ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... as there is less pleasure in retrospective considerations, the mind is more disposed to wander forward into futurity; but, at sixty-four, what promises, however liberal, of imaginary good can futurity venture to make? yet something will be always promised, and some promises will ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... A retrospective survey shows that had the men in control of the American gas-lighting art, in 1880, been sufficiently far-sighted, and had they taken a broader view of the situation, they might easily have remained dominant in the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... "In retrospective vision bright, Can you recall dear Martha Wright Without her work or knitting? The needles flying in her hands, On washing rags or baby's bands, Or other ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... 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. Reveal malkasxi. Revel festenego. Revenge revengxo. Revenue ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... enhanced by the dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians. They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict, which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century; an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in the same reign. [96] If candor will acquit the emperor himself, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the people under the wheels; the philosopher gets out of the way. Stand aside, and let them pass. As to myself, I love lords, and shun them. I lived with one; the beauty of my recollections suffices me. I remember his country house, like a glory in a cloud. My dreams are all retrospective. Nothing could be more admirable than Marmaduke Lodge in grandeur, beautiful symmetry, rich avenues, and the ornaments and surroundings of the edifice. The houses, country seats, and palaces of the lords present a selection ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... arm-chair as he spoke, apparently about to deliver himself to the calm delights of a retrospective reverie. But he was not destined to enjoy it. At that moment a whiff of stifling smoke, quite choking in its intensity, forced itself under the door. In another moment the matter was soon explained. With a wild rush the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... Woman's Club gave a large reception in their honor at the Brown Palace Hotel, attended by over 1,200 women. The News, in its account, said: "The scene marked, to the retrospective mind, the enormous change that has taken place in the status of the sex within the lifetime of one woman. It hardly seemed possible, as the spectator beheld Miss Anthony surrounded by the richest and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... will be variously interpreted, and to attempt to analyse the motives of a double-minded man is always a hazardous experiment; but a comparison of date, the character of Clement himself, the circumstances in which he was placed, and the retrospective evidence from after events, points almost necessarily to but one interpretation. It is scarcely disputable that, frightened at the reception of Anne Boleyn in France, the pope found it necessary to pretend for a time an altered disposition towards Henry; and ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... incongruous and unreal, and his mind ran in a vein of whimsical speculation. It is strange to think, but it is a fact, all the same, that certain temperaments, when face to face with death, allow their thoughts to take an oddly critical and retrospective view of things in general. The fear of death does not affect them, although, at the same time, they are fully conscious of the momentous ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... turned about, flickered into the shadow, stood for a moment retrospective at the door, and then closed it on us; and once more we were in that murmurous mystery of darkness into ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... fain would guess its mystery— For often I can trace A fellow dreamer's history Whene'er it haunts the face; Your fancy's running riot In a retrospective race! ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... nude by the Munich artist, Ernest Liebermann, one of the most gifted of the younger men and no relation of Meister Max of the same name. Local art in Vienna did not give me a thrill. I attended a retrospective exhibition of two half-forgotten mediocrities, Carl Rahl and Josef Hasslwander, and also the autumn exhibition in the Kuenstlerhaus. There, amid miles of glittering, shiny, hot paint, I found the best manipulator of paint to ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... geometry," said Diana with a retrospective smile. "I should think you'd be real glad to be ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to herself when she did think of it; for, in spite of the enormity of the supposed offence, the vision of her remarkable appearance when John raised her veil before the glass was too much for her risibles as it grew more and more retrospective. For she was one of those happy mortals who cannot help seeing a joke, even ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the trip, Crayme made no trouble for himself or Fred; under the friendly shelter of night, the two men had a two-hour chat, which was alternately humorous, business-like, and retrospective, and then Crayme fell asleep. The next day was reasonably pleasant out of doors, so the captain wrapped himself in a blanket and sat in an extension-chair on the guards, where with solemn face he received some condolences which went far to keep him in good humor after the sympathizers ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... late enough to make a call, Rosamond went to Mrs. Plymdale, Mr. Ned's mother, and entered with pretty congratulations into the subject of the coming marriage. Mrs. Plymdale's maternal view was, that Rosamond might possibly now have retrospective glimpses of her own folly; and feeling the advantages to be at present all on the side of her son, was too kind a woman ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... "Yes," assented Barnes, a retrospective smile overspreading his good-natured face; "when I was a lad in Devonshire the manager announced the performance in the town market-place. I rang a cow-bell to attract attention and he talked to the people: ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... certain period of time; and these actions, these characters, must be set forth succinctly, in such-wise that we shall know just as much as is essential to our understanding of them. In drama, the presentment is, in a sense, more vivid. It is not—not usually, at least—retrospective. We see the actions being committed, hear the words as they are uttered. But how often do we have an illusion of their reality? Seldom. It is seldom that a masterpiece in drama is performed perfectly by an ideal cast. In a law-court, on the ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... why, till the garden was a wilderness of bloom, and the windows of ivy. Oldport is the only place in New England where either ivy or traditions will grow; there were, to be sure, no legends about this house that I could hear of, for the ghosts in those parts were feeble-minded and retrospective by reason of age, and perhaps scorned a mansion where nobody had ever lived; but the ivy clustered round the projecting windows as densely as if it had the sins of a ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the prosecuting attorney of the S. P. R., so far as physical phenomena are concerned becomes converted also, we may indeed sit up and look around us. Getting a good health bill from "Science," Eusapia will then throw retrospective credit on Home and Stainton Moses, Florence Cook (Prof. Crookes' medium), and all similar wonder-workers. The balance of presumptions will be changed in favor of genuineness being possible at least in all reports of this particularly crass and low ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... street one sat In solitary session on the sand; And ever and anon he spake and spat And spake again—a yellow skull in hand, To which that retrospective Pioneer Addressed the few ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... A retrospective survey of the progress made and of the reforms instituted in medical education in the United States is instructive. In many respects there is cause for much congratulation, while for other reasons the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... Casting a retrospective glance at the four methods of transmission of power which have been examined, it would appear that transmission by ropes forms a class by itself, while the three other methods combine into a natural group, because they possess a character in common of the greatest importance. It may be said that ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... reader may inform himself, from Captain King's relation of the several voyages, of the opportunities that were afforded me in forming my collections of plants, still it appears necessary, in this place, to take a general retrospective view of those parts of the coasts under examination, whereon my researches were made, adverting, at the same time, to the prevalent unfavourable seasons for flowering plants, during which it should seem the survey of the North-west Coast ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... three periods in our lives: the youth period or prospective period, the adult or introspective period, and the old age or retrospective period. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... admiral to give away my vassals?" [68] Determined, by one decided and peremptory act, to show her abhorrence of these outrages upon humanity, she ordered all the Indians to be restored to their country and friends. Nay more, her measure was retrospective. She commanded that those formerly sent to Spain by the admiral should be sought out, and sent back to Hispaniola. Unfortunately for Columbus, at this very juncture, in one of his letters, he advised the continuance of Indian slavery for some time longer, as a measure important ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... had been a certain grim pleasure in it. To the fact that he had ruined, by sheer over-righteousness, the last years of the sunny life of Sarah Austen he had been oblivious—until to-day. The strange, retrospective mood which had come over him this afternoon led his thoughts into strange paths, and he found himself wondering if, after all, it had not been in his power to make her happier. Her dryad-like face, with its sweet, elusive ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... life may be said to begin at the chapter where woman comes in; mine did. She came in years ago, when I was a raw undergraduate. With the sober thought of retrospective analysis, I may say she was not all my fancy painted her; indeed now that I come to think of it there was no fancy about the vermeil of her cheeks, rather an artificial reality; she had her bower in the bar of the Golden Boar, and I was madly in love with her, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... shifts, and, as in the screen play, that retrospective distant picture brings one back to an earlier vision, so from the distance we now see the ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... make Political Economy simply a piece of arithmetic to ignore these retrospective studies and their importance; for mathematics has little to do with history. But it is otherwise with the life of nations. These would discover whence they come, in order to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... nights were cold still, but the sun was powerful during the day, and there were many tokens that the earth was about to wake from her long sleep and prepare for the refreshment of her children. "And time for her," sighed Janet, taking a retrospective view of all that had happened since she saw ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson |
