"Retrograde" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rattling among the branches of the trees directly over the heads of the troops stationed in the rear of their captain. Much of the success of an attack, made by irregular soldiers, depends on the direction in which they are first got in motion. In the present instance it was retrograde, and in less than a minute after the bellowing report of the swivel among the rocks and caverns, the whole weight of the attack from the left rested on the prowess of the single arm of the veteran. Benjamin received a severe contusion from the recoil of his gun, which produced a short stupor, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... throwing up lines of fortifications. And a startling rumour which seemed to come from nowhere, but which, in spite of denials from headquarters, spread like wildfire, supplied a reason for both the retrograde movement and the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... without retrograde is Equality, They live in the feelings of young men and the best women, (Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... they soon found themselves on the road along which the retreating German army had passed. Everywhere they could see marks of this flight, for such it really was, despite the order with which the retrograde movement had been conducted. In places the roadside was glutted with cast-off articles, such as had better be disposed of if haste and mobility were to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... summoned to a Convention, and again anxiously awaiting its results—anxiously, for a convention of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curious, and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single speaker has a retrograde effect which few ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... lives. Is not the solemn reception into Rome of instructed men and women among ourselves a matter of every day? In France it is otherwise, and when a change is made we shall generally find that the step is no retrograde one. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... it might throw back rent for a considerable space, leaving it to regain its lost ground by the progress of population and capital, and afterward to go on further. But taking place, as such improvement always does, very gradually, it causes no retrograde movement of either rent or cultivation; it merely enables the one to go on rising, and the other extending, long after they must ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... growth,—if there were places for the support of many individuals at some one stage of development, the simplest plan would be that they should be multiplied by gemmation at that stage, and not that they should first retrograde in their development to an earlier or simpler structure, which might not be fitted ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... all to the same great end. I look upon every one here, Ella, as a traveler placed upon the great highway called destiny—with a secret power within that impels him forward, but allows no pause nor retrograde. Along this highway are flowers, and briars, and thistles, and weeds, and shady woods, and barren rocks, and sterile bluffs, and glassy plots; but proportioned differently to each, as the Maker of all designs his path to be pleasant or otherwise. Beside this highway are perhaps a dozen minor ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... in this country by those who speak of Colonial self-government as though the Dominions really enjoyed the same self-government as the people of these islands, and by the parties in Germany whose programme it is, not to make Germany a truly constitutional country, but to assimilate the retrograde Prussian franchise to the broader representation ...
— Progress and History • Various
... the air-ship, the axis of inclination—the pivot on which they turn—is horizontal, creating vertical movement. Were there but one pair of screws, acting upon one set of inclined wings, a slight retrograde horizontal movement would be produced in addition to the vertical movement, as the current of blast from the screw would react upon the screw itself with a force greater than that with which it would impinge upon the wings, where ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... perspective, so to speak, of Virtue, which characterises modern notions of perfection as contrasted with antique ones. Contrast the Greek and Roman type with the mediaeval ascetic, or with the philanthropic type of modern times. Carlyle's ideal is retrograde and an anachronism. Women and patient sufferers find example in Him. But we have in Jesus Christ, too, the highest example of all the stronger and robuster virtues, the more distinctly heroic, masculine; and that not merely passive firmness of endurance such as an American Indian will show in torments, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... them is lying content in a closer contact with ours than our dull fears and too level outlook will allow us to share? One thing their apparent withdrawal means—that we must go over to them; they cannot retrace, for that would be to retrograde. They have already begun to learn the language and ways of the old world, begun to be children there afresh, while we remain still the slaves of new, low—bred habits of unbelief and self-preservation, which already to them look as unwise as unlovely. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... From the days of Henry III. to those of Elizabeth, and of Louis IX. to those of Louis XIV., the general intellect of the two nations was steadily on the increase. But their art intellect was as steadily retrograde. The only art work that France and England have done nobly is that which is centralized by the Cathedral of Lincoln, and the Sainte Chapelle. We had at that time (we—French and English—but the French first) the incontestable lead among ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... blows from his master, allowed himself to be backed for a certain distance, until it was safe for me to descend and take my postponed bath. I had but time to bow and murmur more inane thanks, to receive another bow and polite murmur in return (both murmurs being drowned by the sea) when the retrograde movement of the bathing-machine parted me and my living life-preserver. He stood in the water looking after us long enough to see that there would be no further incidents, then took a header ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... well. Bonaparte was on horseback, a little in advance of his troops—and ambled gently, within six paces of where we were sitting. His head was rather inclined, and he appeared to be very thoughtful. St. Dizier was the memorable place upon which Bonaparte made a rapid retrograde march, in order to get into the rear of the allied troops, and thus possess himself of their supplies. But this desperate movement, you know, cost him his capital, and eventually his empire. St. Dizier is rather a large place, and the houses are almost uniformly ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Carbonari and the chocolate of the Jesuits.' He chose, as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess, who, however, had known no country but Italy. His internal policy was not simply stationary, it was retrograde. If his consent was obtained to some progressive measure, he withdrew it at the last moment, or insisted on the introduction of modifications which nullified the whole. His want of stability drove one of his ministers to jump out of a window. In ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... few retrograde steps, searching on the ground, as if conscious only of her loss, shaking off his hand when he touched her arm ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... men of lonely wilderness lives who did not retrograde toward the savage, was a thinker. Love made ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the vernal equinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectly round. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in a different way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which then experiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Pole a little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, this flattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect, which we should perceive if ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... return to the less abstract topic of the bloomers, I often tease Luccia and Irene about them, seeking for further information as to why they ever came to retrograde from a position so heroically taken, one of such serious import to human progress, and to condescend once more to don the livery of feminine servitude, and appear, as they do today, in delicate draperies which the eye searches ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... year, 1808, thirty thousand barrels of potash had been brought into Quebec.[245] "While our gunboats and cutters are watching the harbors and sounds of the Atlantic," said a senator from his place, "a strange inversion of business ensues, and by a retrograde motion of all the interior machinery of the country, potash and lumber are launched upon the lakes, and Ontario and Champlain feel the bustle of illicit traffic.... Violators of the laws are making fortunes, while ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... safe, uncle Phaeton?" ventured Bruno, as another retrograde gust of air smote their apparently frail conveyance with ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... of him. His dejection increased, and he became more than ever convinced that his wisest course was to withdraw from the city. He would, I think, have carried out this fatal measure, notwithstanding that every officer on his staff was utterly opposed to any retrograde movement, had it not been his good fortune to have beside him a man sufficiently bold and resolute to stimulate his flagging energies. Baird-Smith's indomitable courage and determined perseverance were never more conspicuous than at that critical moment, when, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... together have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... full of contrivances that are impracticable, and improvements that are retrograde; forming, altogether, a whimsical instance of the confusion of arrangement, the delay of expedition, the incommodiousness of accommodation, and the infernal trouble of endeavouring to save it—he has now a score or two ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... that the sound of cloth rent in twain? Something has gone wrong, for he is greeted with uproarious cheers by the men, and he drops on his feet, and retires from the company as from the presence of royalty, by backing out and bowing as he goes, repeatedly stumbling, and once or twice falling in his retrograde motion. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... I never pass pleasantly, but at Cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. Things are stagnant enough in town; as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well. Hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. I do nothing but eschew tobacco. [6] I wish parliament were assembled, that I may hear, and perhaps some day be heard;—but on this point I am not very sanguine. I have many plans;—sometimes I think of the East ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... commanders can claim that epithet; and, though some people persisted in considering Murfreesburg a Pyrrhic victory, it is certain that he held his ground manfully, and eventually advanced, where defeat, or even a retrograde movement, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Fouquet. The eight oars stopped, and resisting the water, created a retrograde motion. It stopped. The twelve rowers in the other did not, at first, perceive this maneuver, for they continued to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within musket-shot. Fouquet was short-sighted, Gourville was annoyed by the sun, now full in his eyes; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... summoned his generals and gave them aloud these new orders, but, in a whisper, he instructed them to begin the retrograde movement, and to let the troops occupy the positions he had selected for them on the extensive ground he had ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... will be greater than the progress ever made by any country in the same time. If you take the easy course—if you throw away the opportunity placed by Providence in your hands—if you allow the vast sums of money which you have to direct the distribution of to be spent unprofitably, we shall retrograde as fast as under the other alternative we should have advanced; and those who have been year after year hoping against hope, and labouring against the tide, will fold ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... You are doing miracles," he answered in a whisper. "And yet, look at his brow, how noble in shape! Isn't it like the classic or traditional brow given by sculptors to Lycurgus and the Greek sages? The revolution of July has an evidently retrograde tendency," said the doctor (who might in his student days have made a barricade himself), after carefully considering ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... that Captain Nemo, by changing his course, would either turn these obstacles or else follow the windings of the tunnel. In any case, the road before us could not be entirely blocked. But, contrary to my expectations, the Nautilus took a decided retrograde motion. ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... THEOPHRASTUS.—The school of Plato (not regarding Aristotle as belonging entirely to that school) was continued by Speusippus, Polemo, Xenocrates, Crates, and Crantor. Owing to a retrograde movement, widely different from that of Aristotle, it dabbled in the Pythagorean ideas, with which Plato was acquainted and which he often appreciated, but not blindly, and to ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... islands there is no native province or settlement which resists conversion or does not desire it. But, as above stated, baptism has been postponed in some districts, for lack of workers to remain with the people, in order that they may not retrograde and return to their idolatries. In this work, the best that is possible is done, for the mission-fields are very large and extensive. In many districts the religious make use, in their visitas, of certain of the natives who are clever and well instructed, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... the coast of Caracas, ten months to make the tour of the gulf of Mexico and reach Tortoise Shoals opposite the port of the Havannah, while forty or fifty days might be sufficient to carry it from the straits of Florida to the bank of Newfoundland. It would be difficult to fix the rapidity of the retrograde current from this bank to the shores of Africa; estimating the mean velocity of the waters at seven or eight miles in twenty-four hours, we may allow ten or eleven months for this last distance. Such are the effects of the slow but regular motion which agitates the waters of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... journey from Sartem to Lop is obviously retrograde, and this course must have been pursued by the Polos for commercial purposes; perhaps for collecting those valuable stones which are mentioned by Marco as giving so much profit ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... at the wood into which the Hessian troops had passed, we saw several men appear at the outskirts. After looking about them, it seemed to us, they descended rapidly the hill. Others followed, and it appeared as if the main body were making a retrograde movement, and perhaps might march along the very road we were taking. At all events I was anxious not to expose my charges to any fresh insults, and therefore once more put the party in movement. Spinks volunteered to ride back to ascertain in what direction the Hessians ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... will then gradually come down, and when it is within five or six feet of the ground the man must instantly strike the wings downwards, and sit as far back as he can; he will by this means check the projectile force, and cause the car to alight very gently with a retrograde motion. The car, when up in the air, may be made to turn to the right or to the left by forcing out one of the fins, having one about eighteen inches long placed vertically on each side of the car for that purpose, or perhaps merely by the man ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... profited by this retrograde movement on the part of the enemy to make a push for the beach, hoping that Bob would hear the rifle-shots (especially the double report, which I had arranged with him on a former occasion should be a signal of warning or a call for assistance), and hasten to the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... advances, a retrograde movement in the doctrine of the leucocytes has gained ground surprisingly, especially in the last few years. Ever since Virchow's description of the lymphocytes, observers have tried to separate the various forms of leucocytes one from another, and if possible to assign different places of origin ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... bluff prone forms lay hidden under the scrub. And only the flash of rifle, and the biting echoes of its report, told of the epic defence that was being put up. But for all the effort the movement of the defenders, before the closing ring, was retrograde, always ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... has, no doubt, in past times, done much to increase its living influence and usefulness, but recent events have shown how large a portion of its clergy instead of going forward in the work of the Reformation, are rather desirous of retrograde movement, and of approximating, if not of entirely returning to the errors of Rome. Such, we ought ever to bear in mind, is the natural tendency of man, and so prone is he, even when raised by the True Light to a perception of the things which are most excellent, to sink again into the grovelling ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... semi-diameters" of the two bodies at the moment of conjunction, in other words, on the nearness or "far-offness" of the bodies in question. Another complication is introduced into these matters by reason of the fact that the Nodes of the Moon's orbit do not occupy a fixed position, but have an annual retrograde motion of about 191/4 deg., in virtue of which a complete revolution of the Nodes round the ecliptic is accomplished in 18 years ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... Sun was, when he had reached the Northern Tropic and began to retreat Southward, were termed, from his retrograde motion, the Crab (CANCER). ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... spell of antiquity, How many a Troubadour, who recited tales of king Arthur, had his incidents furnished him by the events of his own time! And thus it is the many are attracted to the poetry of things past, yet impervious to the poetry of things present. But this retrograde movement in the poet, painter, or sculptor (except in certain cases as will subsequently appear), if not the result of necessity, is an error in judgment or a culpable dishonesty. For why should he not acknowledge the source of his inspiration, that others may drink of the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... of that want of discipline, which is incident to the savage state, the remark applies with equal justice, whether he fought singly or in a body. He was easily panic-struck, because the impulse of the forward movement was necessary to keep him strung to effort; and the retrograde immediately became a rout, because daring, without constancy, collapses with ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... on this half the world, to be amongst the races of all the earth what Hildebrand dreamed the Normans might be amongst the nations of Europe, is not this a task exalted enough to quicken the most sluggish zeal, the most retrograde "patriotism"? For without such mediation, misunderstanding, envy, hate, mistrust still erect barriers between the races of mankind more impassable than continents or seas or the great wall of Ch'in Chi. This is a part not for the future merely, it is one to which Britain is already by her past ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of a retrograde movement." ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... speaking and stood watchfully waiting; but after a retrograde movement toward the boat, so as to be able to retreat at any moment. The cry was not repeated, though, and the feeling of awe began to die off, but only to return ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... faith who unceasingly encourage the executive of this country in their retrograde policy, and constantly tell them that all they do is ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... redoubt, where he had been instructed to find the ladders, he marched directly past it, and led them into the field without a single ladder or fascine. When the day dawned, and he was sent back for these instruments, he headed his corps in its retrograde movement, but left it to return as it could to the front; and when sought for to guide the attack, he was nowhere to be found. That a regiment thus abused and deserted by its commanding officer should fall into confusion, cannot occasion any surprise; it ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... other hand hold, from the evidence of our senses, that early man was a savage very little superior to the brute; that during man's millions of years upon earth there has been a gradual advance towards perfection, at times irregular and even retrograde, but in the main progressive; and that a comparison of man in the xixth century with the caveman[FN327] affords us the means of measuring past progress and of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... liberties, but the occasion of special humiliation to the parliaments. Then the hostility of the parliaments to the Jesuits was caused by the harshness with which the system of confessional tickets was at this time being carried out. Finally, the once powerful house of Austria, the protector of all retrograde interests, was now weakened by the Seven Years' War; and was unable to bring effective influence to bear on Lewis XV. At last he gave his consent to the destruction of the order. The commercial bankruptcy of one of their missions was the immediate occasion of their fall, and nothing ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... would be always to speak of ourselves as barbarians. We should then, perhaps, make some endeavour to improve. The barbarian who imagines himself on the pinnacle of refinement is in a parlous state—far more likely to retrograde than ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say they; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... and are best pleased, when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince, or state. Therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it, so as they be still progressive and not retrograde; which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they rise not with their service, they will take order, to make their service fall with them. But since we have said, it were good not to use men ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... ghastly mockery involved in it. Nevertheless, it was well. Even thus falsely and boldly must he henceforth speak and act. By a happy accident he had opened the path, and must see to it that his further steps did not retrograde. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... naturalist or a biologist I am always ashamed of what I have called a sport. Yet one of the truths of evolution is that not to practise strife, not to use violence, not to fish or hunt—that is to say, not to fight—is to retrograde as a natural man. Spiritual and intellectual growth is attained at the expense ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... my genius, be not retrograde; But boldly nominate a spade a spade What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery muse Live, as she were ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... to your Lordships. I am sick of all the retrograde commonplaces about the weakness of concession to violence and so on. Persevering in our plan of reform is not a concession to violence. Reforms that we have publicly announced, adopted, and worked out for more than two years—how is it a concession to ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... world away from the anonymous, dogmatic reviewing of a century ago, But who shall say that in this respect our practice is retrograde? ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... best accompanied with none at all. [Exeunt. Manet Duke. Either the Plannets, that did meete together In the grand consultation of my birth, Were opposite to every good infusion, Or onely Venus stood as retrograde; For, but in love of this none-loving trull, I have beene fortunate even since my birth. I feele within my breast a searching fire Which doth ascend the engine of my braine, And when I seeke by reason to suppresse The heate it gives, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... large and growing manufacture of books was prostrated. The patent laws were also extended to Ireland; and as England had so long monopolized the manufacturing machinery then in use, it was clear that it was there improvements would be made, and that thenceforth the manufactures of Ireland must retrograde. Manchester had the home market, the foreign market, and, to no small extent, that of Ireland open to her; while the manufacturers of the latter were forced to contend for existence, and under the most disadvantageous circumstances, on their own soil. The one could afford to purchase expensive machinery, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... inherent nature, forbade any progress; it reached its limits at once, and the followers of Giotto look almost as if they were his predecessors, for the simple reason that, being unable to advance, they were forced to retrograde. The limited amount of artistic realization required to present to the mind of the spectator a situation or an allegory had been obtained by Giotto himself, and bequeathed by him to his followers, who, finding it more than sufficient for their purposes, and having no incentive to further acquisition ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Dress reform! As if people couldn't change their clothes without concert of action. Resolved, that nobody should put on a clean collar oftener than his neighbor does. I'm sick of every sort of reform. I should like to retrograde awhile. Let a dyspeptic ascertain that he can eat porridge three times a day and live, and straightway he insists that everybody ought to eat porridge and nothing else. I mean to get up a society every member of which shall be pledged to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a great dislike to reconsider any decision, even when it was acknowledged to be unjust. In little as well as in great things he evinced his repugnance to retrograde. An instance of this occurred in the affair of General Latour-Foissac. The First Consul felt how much he had wronged that general; but he wished some time to elapse before he repaired his error. His heart and his conduct were ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... is found, not in Legislature, but in the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies are liable to ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... probably tell you that it is because its activity has been constantly restricted and counteracted by the Government. The Assemblies were obliged to accept as presidents the Marshals of Noblesse, many of whom were men of antiquated ideas and retrograde principles. At every turn the more enlightened, more active members found themselves opposed, thwarted, and finally checkmated by the Imperial officials. When a laudable attempt was made to tax trade and industry more equitably ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... here involved is retrograde amnesia. It is nowadays believed that this phenomenon in the great majority of cases occurs according to the rule which defines traumatic hysteria, i. e., as ideogen. The ideational complexes in question are forced into the subconsciousness, whence, on ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... of one of these maintain, that the Normans, on their arrival in the more southern parts of Europe, found highly ornamented buildings, and, being themselves altogether ignorant of art, were content with copying what already existed; so that their progress in art was in a retrograde direction, from a classical style, to one comparatively barbarous. On the other hand, it is averred, that these reputed savages really imported with them the kind of architecture now generally known by their name; and, in proportion ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... breath? If this lies not within the power of Art, as of Nature, then it can create nothing whatever. This vital connecting link, Winckelmann did not determine; he did not teach how, from the idea, forms can be produced. Thus Art went over to that method which we would call the retrograde, since it strives from the form to come at the essence. But not thus is the Unlimited reached; it is not attainable by mere enhancement of the Limited. Hence, such works as have had their beginning in form, with all elaborateness on that side, show, in token of their ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... exist, and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was going to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... the Emperors were good or bad, if the regime to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people, and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... centipedes, worms, and snails, but also a kind of salamander and fishes. But what gave special interest to these discoveries was the fact, ascertained by careful study, that not all of these beings were gifted with normally developed organs of vision, but that in some these organs had undergone a retrograde development, while ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... clothe the naked, minister unto the feeble-minded which marks our honored Dr. Morgan and her fellow workers, they took up the burden, determined to do their best. Yet, despite their great efforts, the class did not advance as other classes have done. Nor yet could it retrograde for it stood in a position where any backward movement was impossible. It was known throughout Exeter as the 'caudal appendage' class, ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... The changing Winde from euery quarter blowes, Declining Winter in the Spring doth call, The Starrs rise to vs, as from vs they fall; Those Birdes we see, that leaue vs in the Prime, Againe in Autumne re-salute our Clime. 60 Sure, either Nature you from kinde hath made, Or you delight else to be Retrograde. But I perceiue by your attractiue powers, Like an Inchantresse you haue charm'd the bowers Into short minutes, and haue drawne them back, So that of vs at London, you doe lack Almost a yeare, the Spring is scarce begonne There where you liue, and Autumne almost done. With vs ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... improve with age. He belongs to a class (common in Scotland and elsewhere) who get up school-exercises on any given subject in a masterly manner at twenty, and who at forty are either where they were—or retrograde, if they are men of sense and modesty. The reason is, their vanity is weaned, after the first hey-day and animal spirits of youth are flown, from making an affected display of knowledge, which, however useful, is not their own, and may be much more simply ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... tail was then 54 millions of miles in length. It was found to revolve around the sun in a period of over 2000 years, and to go out in its journey to about 5-1/2 times the distance of Neptune. Its motion is retrograde, that is to say, in the contrary direction to the usual movement in the solar system. A number of beautiful drawings of Donati's Comet were made by the American astronomer, G.P. Bond. One of the best of these is reproduced ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... masking, and other pleasant things should be paid for, and the brief enjoyment forgotten, amidst the sufferings of the most painful retreat—excepting, of course, that of Corunna—effected by a British army during the whole war. We refer to the retrograde movement that followed the unsuccessful siege ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... things to each other; obeisances were indulged in, hands shaken, courteous remarks made, and thus the company gradually evaporated. Mac's turn came. Before His Serene Highness he successfully accomplished his sweeping earthward curves, thanked the Sultan for his kindness, but, unaccustomed to the retrograde manner of leaving a room backwards, he unfortunately found that the door was in the wrong place, and met the wall with a resounding thwack. However, it was all in the game, even though he did not think much of this method of quitting a room. So, leaving by the normal mode, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the monastic life to enter as a profession. They could become full members of a number of the York trade-guilds. The social position of women in the retrograde fifteenth century fully agrees with the absence of women from among those who achieved notability in the city during ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... of Rome and during the Dark Ages the practice of lettering, at least in so far as the Roman form was concerned, was distinctly retrograde. With the advent of the Renaissance, however, the purest classic forms were revived; and indeed the Italian Renaissance seems to have been the golden age of lettering. With the old Roman fragments of the ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... absolute military despotism. "A military republic, a government founded on mock elections and supported only by the sword," was nearly a quarter of a century since pronounced by Daniel Webster, when speaking of the South American States, as "a movement, indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous movement, from the regular and old-fashioned monarchical ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... negroes nearly equal the white population; in the Border States the whites are at least four to one. In the Cotton States the slaves and the culture of cotton are increasing at the rate of at least five per cent.; in the Border States the slave population is either stationary or retrograde, and the future of those States is clearly indicated. Down to a recent period the march of the planter and his forces across the Cotton States has been like that of an invading army. Vast forests of heavy timber have been felled, land rapidly exhausted and abandoned, and new ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... he had learned that the crab was nought else but a beetle living in water, and since a company had been formed in Germany for making beetles into preserves for dessert, he had been unable to look with undismayed eye upon these retrograde monsters. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... tone. The view which Mr. Henslow brings forward, however, does not appear to be a very original one. It was the first view ever brought forward on the doctrine of evolution, and I was the first one to point out that the whole doctrine was one of retrograde character. The whole tone and character of this paper, except that which relates to the attributes and moral government of God,[38] is nothing more or less than the same view of the doctrine of evolution which created such a sensation ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... is striking. Most slaves who were once counted as valuable, on account of their ability to read and write the English language, were thereafter considered unfit for service in the South and branded as objects of suspicion. Moreover, when within a generation or so the Negroes began to retrograde because they had been deprived of every elevating influence, the white people of the South resorted to their old habit of answering their critics with the bold assertion that the effort to enlighten ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... living. But in the meantime the Humanists had taken up the cause of Reuchlin, and the result had been disastrous for the Dominicans. They had not directly assailed the new learning, but their attack on the study of Hebrew had been the most crass exhibition of retrograde spirit. If Jews were not allowed to read Jewish books, such as Maimonides, to whom St. Thomas owes so much, how could Christians be allowed to read pagan classics, with their highly immoral gods ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... French, who were driven back almost to the Kohlgaerten. From my position this advance of the allies was not to be perceived except by the approach of the thunder of the artillery. The French centre yet stood immoveable; at least we could not observe from the city any change which denoted a retrograde movement. The sanguinary character of this tremendous conflict might be inferred from the thousands of wounded, who hobbled, crawled, and were carried in at the gates. Among the latter were many officers of rank. If you inquired ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... retreat would be in the direction of Ely's Ford, Stuart was ordered to proceed at once towards that point with a portion of his cavalry, in order to barricade the road and as much as possible impede the retrograde movement of the enemy. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... attend him as his lieutenants-general. Both the higher powers, and the man suitable to such powers, caused the enemy to move from the Roman territory to the other side of the Anio, and continuing their retrograde movement, they took possession of the hills between Fidenae and the Anio, nor did they descend into the plains until the troops of the Faliscians came to their aid; then at length the camp of the Etrurians was pitched before the walls of Fidenae. The ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... like to have men about them younger than themselves—it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the signs of a republic in the last stage of decadence, that the youth imitate and rival old men, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... other planets move in their own circles; and first alike swift, though they move diversely in divers circles. Also in these circles the manner moving of planets is full wisely found of astronomers, that are called Direct, Stationary, and Retrograde Motion. Forthright moving is in the over part of the circle that is called Epicycle, backward is in the nether part, and stinting and abiding or hoving ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... day's employment. The newspapers and popular opinion had given her to understand that these were the true Americans, and caused her to ask herself whether the circle to which she herself belonged was not retrograde from a nobler ideal. In what way she did not precisely understand, except that she and her friends did not altogether disdain nice social usages and conventional womanly ways. But, nevertheless, the impression had remained in her mind that she must be at fault somehow, and it interested ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... tells us that "the Jesuits ... who even to-day sustain the divine right of kings, when the kings themselves believe in it no longer, revolted at one time against the princes who were not willing to follow them in their misoneique and retrograde fanaticism and hurled themselves into regicide. Thus three Jesuits were executed in England in 1551 for complicity in a conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth, and two others in 1605 in connection with the powder plot. In France, Pere Guignard was beheaded for high treason ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... connected, as already intimated with the story of the Mounted Police. It is inevitable in the progress of human history that higher civilizations should supersede the lower. Wherever the contrary has been the case and a lower civilization overran the higher the movement of humanity was retrograde. Hence, if the Indian type of civilization in Western Canada was to be superseded by the British type and this change effected without injustice and hardship for the original dwellers in the country, the Government of the Dominion must proceed by process of treaty. By this we mean that the Government ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... on both sides, of course. 'Idaho' Jack, professional gambler, for instance, frankly considered that the whole town was going to unmentionable depths of propriety. The organisation of the League was regarded by him, and by many others, as a sad retrograde towards the bondage of the ancient and dying East; and that he could not get drunk when and where he pleased, 'Idaho,' as he was called, regarded as ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... French retirement had been, the British retirement followed it fully twenty hours after. It was not until daylight of Monday, the 24th, that all the organizations for this retirement were completed, the plans drawn up, and the first retrograde ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... the astronomer suspects that the planet must be commencing to move backwards. A few nights more, and the fact is confirmed beyond possibility of doubt, and the extraordinary discovery of the direct and the retrograde movement of Mars has ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... tariff system. I say to you that if the Mills bill had become a law in 1888, I should have been disinclined to agitate its repeal until it had a fair trial, though my study, both in the Senate and committee on finance, led me to oppose it. It seemed to me a retrograde measure, born of the ideas of the south, narrow in its scope, and not suited to a great country of unbounded but undeveloped resources. Still, as I say, if it was the law, I would not repeal it without trial. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... reserve, which consisted of four thousand men and several cannon. He erected temporary batteries in a few minutes, and with these new forces opened a rapid and destructive fire on the Polanders. Kosciusko, alarmed at perceiving a retrograde motion in his troops, gave orders for a close attack on the enemy in front, whilst Thaddeus, at the head of his hussars, should wheel round the hill of artillery, and with loud cries charge the opposite flank. This stratagem succeeded. The arquebusiers, who were posted on that spot, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... St George, and where they came to anchor in waiting for a wind, which was now contrary. Soon afterwards the wind came fair and they departed, but the wind was so light, and the currents so strong, that they were forced in a retrograde course. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... prolified flowers the functions and, to a considerable extent, the appearance of a leaf-bud or of a branch are assumed, and with them the tendency to grow in length is developed. Median prolification, therefore, in this sense, is a further step in retrograde metamorphosis than is the axillary form. To grow in length, and to produce axillary buds, are alike attributes of the branch; but the former is much more frequently called into play than the latter; for the same reason, median prolification ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... now retrograde a little in the narrative, in order to show what events led to the disastrous catastrophe I have just related. Captain Reud, having been lying for many, many weeks, apparently unconscious of objects around ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... return to them because our youth has a hold on us which it asserts whenever a disappointment knocks us down. Our old loves (with the bad natures I know in them) are always lurking to avenge themselves on the new by tempting us to a little retrograde infidelity. A schoolgirl in Fallow field, the tailor's daughter, had sighed for the bliss of Beckley Court. Beckley Court was her Elysium ere the ardent feminine brain conceived a loftier summit. Fallen from that attained eminence, she sighed anew for Beckley Court. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... essential—of what nature should the security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used. But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that his remedy is to retrograde—to undo what he has done—to take out of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first received it? Should not the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... stage, another step forward. The instant society becomes organized in clans, natural selection cannot let these clans be broken up and die out,—the clan becomes the chief object or care of natural selection, because if you destroy it you retrograde again, you lose all you have gained; consequently, those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were so modified that the individual conduct would be subordinated to some extent to the needs of the clan,—those are the ones ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... The same retrograde movement may be traced, in the relation which the authors themselves have assumed towards their readers. From the lofty address of Bacon: "these are the meditations of Francis of Verulam, which that posterity should be possessed of, he deemed their interest:" or from ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of theology and history, but it is also one of the most certain discoveries which have been made in the domain of criticism and the history of literature. Whatever the anticritical party may bring forward to the contrary, it will maintain itself, and not retrograde again through any thing, so long as there exists such a thing as criticism; and it will not be easy for a reader upon the stage of culture on which we stand in the present day, if he goes to the examination unprejudiced, and with an uncorrupted power of appreciating ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... young. He was preaching on Joshua ordering the sun to stand still: "My hearers," he said, "there are three motions of the sun; the first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun, the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun, and the third is the motion mentioned in our text—'the sun stood still.' Now, gentlemen, I do not know whether you see the application of that story to after-dinner oratory. I hope ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... the enemy; but as they were chiefly raw recruits, the general firmly refused to comply with their wishes. The scouts brought back word that the enemy were retiring rapidly, although in good order, to the northward. The object of this retrograde movement we could not at first ascertain, but concluded that it was in consequence of other Patriot forces gathering in their rear, and they were afraid of being ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... half of its force in reserve, must be regarded as a disadvantage in that original formation; further it must be admitted, that in the generality of cases the 1000 men would have the advantage at the first commencement of being able to drive their opponent out of his position and force him to a retrograde movement; now, whether these two advantages are a counterpoise to the disadvantage of finding ourselves with 800 men to a certain extent disorganised by the combat, opposed to an enemy who is not materially weaker in numbers ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... over again the battle won by Wordsworth and his contemporaries for imagination and emotion. Our conception of the purpose of poetry has been enriched by an insight that we cannot permanently lose. There are, to be sure, retrograde movements in the arts—like the Pre-Raphaelite movement in painting—but they are soon ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... there came a sudden move southward to Chateau-Thierry from which indeed there was still a straight line to Paris but which still more clearly indicated the highroad leading to the Orleannais, the faithful districts of the Loire. This retrograde movement was not made without a great outcry from the generals. Their opinion was that the King ought to press on to conquer everything while the English forces were still depressed and discouraged. In their mind this deflection ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... or a plunge in the Cimmerian dark? When, in opposition to every possible criterion, a man claims that there is but 'one ultimate form of matter out of which successively the more complex forms of matter are built up,' is this the advance march of chemistry, or the retrograde to alchemy? When a writer, in a style however lucid and taking, firmly assumes that there is no essential difference in objects alike in material elements, but separated by that mighty and mysterious thing, life, is that the height of wisdom, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... storm so blinding that one could scarcely see ten feet ahead of him, and it went on until it was stopped by a telegram from General Van Dorn, who had been appointed to command the Confederate Army of the West because Price and McCulloch could not agree. The new general, who declared that "all retrograde movements must be stopped at once," and that "henceforth the army must press on to victory," arrived on the 2d of March, drove Siegel out of Bentonville on the 5th, and on Friday and Saturday fought the battle of Pea Ridge—a thing that he might as well have let alone, for he ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Since your arrival in the camp, Fortune hath fled our banners, and our course Hath still been retrograde. Depart at once! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... shutting the louvre boards of the arms it then produces employment for the prisoners when there is no corn in the mill to grind. In the remote bastion are seen the tread-wheels on which the prisoners are employed in keeping up a constant retrograde motion, which works the machinery in the millhouse by means of an iron shaft with universal joints concealed below ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... now see ought to have been introduced. I have inserted a discussion on this subject in the foreign editions. (110/7. In the third Edition a discussion on this point is added in Chapter IV.) In no case will any organic being tend to retrograde, unless such retrogradation be an advantage to its varying offspring; and it is difficult to see how going back to the structure of the unknown supposed original protozoon could ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Till holy homicide the climes o'erspread. —For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain, Gave like the rest a golden age to man, Ascribed perfection to his infant state, Science unsought and all his arts innate; Supposed the experience of the growing race Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace, Obscure his vision as his lights increast, And sink him from ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the visible association of such cruel ignominy with two venerable men like Bernardo del Nero and Niccolo Ridolfi, who had taken their bias long before the new order of things had come to make Mediceanism retrograde—with two brilliant popular young men like Tornabuoni and Pucci, whose absence would be felt as a haunting vacancy wherever there was a meeting of chief Florentines? It was useless: such pity as could be awakened now was of that hopeless sort which leads not to rescue, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Corinth; and coupled with strange rumors of this came hints about "Stonewall Jackson," which indicated to the same persons that that rebel officer had advanced from the North-west and made an attempt to take McClellan's right wing in flank, necessitating a retrograde movement of that wing to bring him in front. Still, confidence was not lost, in McClellan or in the army. While his right wing fell back before an attack in force, his left might swing in towards Richmond and even take ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... meet for the first time with an extensive retrograde metamorphosis as a consequence of a parasitic mode of life. Even in some Fish-lice (Cymothoa) the young are lively swimmers, and the adults stiff, stupid, heavy fellows, whose short clinging feet are capable of but little movement. In the Bopyridae (Bopyrus, ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... about twelve miles to the point where —— —— resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified... Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony.' Piozzi Letters, i. 137. A little later he wrote:—'I have done thinking of —— whom we now call Sir Sawney; he has disgusted all mankind by injudicious parsimony, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... water failed entirely by the end of the first day's retrograde march. Our fluid aliment was now nothing but gin; but this infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endure the sight of it. I found the temperature and the air stifling. Fatigue paralysed my limbs. More than once I dropped down motionless. Then there was a halt; and my ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when the vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice sheer on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the other, did two of them, both revenue-raiders ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Goupil de Prefeln, because he voted for the revision, also, his son-in-law, because he is his son-in-law. In the Bouches-du-Rhone, where the canton of Seignon, by mistake or through routine, swore "to maintain the constitution of the kingdom," it sets aside these retrograde elected representatives, commences proceedings against the "crime committed," and sends troops against Noves because the Noves elector, a justice who is denounced and in peril, has escaped from the electoral den.—After the purification of persons it proceeds ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... signification,—all this fills the stage with an animated and varied movement. The only circumstance from which this piece might be judged to be less theatrical than other tragedies of Shakspeare is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and lay in the nature of the subject. The whole is intended to show that a calculating consideration, which exhausts all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, must cripple the power of acting; as ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... terrors which this trip has for timid travellers will entirely disappear. It is a pity that the skyds system should not be improved in equal ratio, instead of becoming even more inconvenient than at present. Holmen, hitherto a fast station, is now no longer so; and the same retrograde change is going on at other places along the road. The waiting at the tilsigelse stations is the great drawback to travelling by skyds in Norway. You must either wait two hours or pay fast prices, which the people are not ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... principally, many of them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle; they have lost most of the arts of civilized life; not a few of them are in a state of deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as it seems probable they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos Ayres will soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves, black or yellow, would have cultivated those plains, would have kept together, would have been made to assist each other; ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... wagons left standing in the road. Nothing daunted, Wayne pushed on. On the twenty-third of October, he wrote to the Secretary of War that, "the safety of the western frontiers, the reputation of the Legion, the dignity and interests of the nation, all forbid a retrograde maneuver, or giving up one inch of ground we now possess, until the enemy are compelled to sue ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... we unite with Pro-Re-Nata of Washington, D. C., in expressing an emphatic protest against this retrograde movement; that we earnestly hope that better counsels will prevail; that, at a time when so conservative an institution as the British Medical Association has voted to open its doors to women, the stigma of retrogression will not be allowed to ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... pursue its natural course under a system that brought us out of commercial bondage into a freer air over fifty years ago. That system has been the secret of much of our success, and once we embark on the retrograde course of protection then that will be the beginning of our mercantile decadence. Is the heritage not too magnificent, too sacred, to have pranks ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... something; then Himself in Presence summon'd, And, subtly sifting on all sides, so plied Interrogation till it hit the Mark, And all the Truth was told. Then Sage and Shah Struck out with Hand and Foot in his Redress. And First with Reason, which is also Best; Reason that rights the Retrograde—completes The Imperfect—Reason that unties the Knot: For Reason is the Fountain from of old From which the Prophets drew, and none beside. Who boasts of other Inspiration lies— There are no other Prophets ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... times are hard, and it is difficult to obtain money to make repairs? Some derangement takes place in a railroad: is travelling postponed till next year? But in the work of doing good, the reverse of times is regarded as a sufficient excuse to detain missionaries, disband schools, and take other retrograde steps. We coolly block our wheels, lie still, and postpone our efforts for the world's conversion till more favorable times. Men are earnest in worldly matters: in digging a canal, in laying a railroad, or in repairing a city; but in God's work—the work of saving ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... an unattainable one. Any closer union of the British Empire attempted with this object would absolutely fail. The unwieldy weapon would break in our hands. The ideal is as impracticable as it is puerile and retrograde. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... than that these excesses should produce other excesses, in a contrary direction. Moved by hatred or fear of revolutionary absolutism, nations seek an asylum in governmental absolutism, or they retrograde towards the middle ages, and consider the mutual bond of protection and dependence of that period as the ideal and the realization of true liberty. History is no longer the organic development of social life, and man, like a soldier that thoughtlessly and capriciously has gone beyond ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... excited yesterday afternoon, when news was brought us that Bustamante, with his generals and troops, had returned, and had passed through the village, on their way back to Mexico! Some say that this retrograde march is in consequence of a movement made in Mexico by General Valencia—others that it has been caused by a message received from General Paredes. We paid a visit in the evening to the old curate, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... maintained in Australasia, systematically translated into law and enforced with the help of coercion acts by soldiers and police, communities would have been artificially produced presenting all the lawless and retrograde features ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... plantation he hoists banner and blows trumpet, and few who love a play suffer his ark to pass the door, since they know it is to return no more until the next year; for, however easy may prove the downward course of the drama's temple, to retrograde, upwards, is quite beyond its power. Sometimes a large steamer from Louisville, with a thousand souls on board, will command a play whilst taking in fuel, when the profit must be famous. The corps dramatique is, I believe, principally composed of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... reason here like a man whose narrow view does not embrace the vast humanitary horizon, like a retrograde attached to a ridiculous system of morality, a morality already passing to decay, and at the best good only for minds without intelligence, in the infancy of society. There is close at hand the birth of a new gospel, far above the common-places of this conventional wisdom, which hinders ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... at which the king of Calicut staked his crown and his life on the issue of battle was known as the "Great Sacrifice." It fell every twelfth year, when the planet Jupiter was in retrograde motion in the sign of the Crab, and it lasted twenty-eight days, culminating at the time of the eighth lunar asterism in the month of Makaram. As the date of the festival was determined by the position of Jupiter in the sky, and the interval between two festivals was twelve ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... and servant; but equals, responsible to one another for mutual perfection, each responsible to God for personal perfection. While, therefore, to efface the intrinsic characteristics of the sexes would undoubtedly be a retrograde step, it is an impossible step, which no one proposes to take. It is proposed merely to efface those factitious characteristics, whose removal will clear away barriers and secure the more rapid improvement of ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... For let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our Throne, And with no lesse Nobility of Loue, Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne, Do I impart towards you. For your intent In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg, It is most retrograde to our desire: And we beseech you, bend you to remaine Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye, Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... or of the fact that Spain produced great painters, great dramatists, and one great novelist in the brief period of her glory. We use them deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at this period committed itself to a policy of immoral, retrograde, and cowardly repression of the most generous of human impulses under the pressure of selfish terror; because the Spaniards abandoned themselves to a dark fiend of religious fanaticism; because they were merciless ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... and told him the number of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as also their triangular, square, and sextile aspect; their progressive and retrograde motion; their size and several prognostications; and other things which the reason of man ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... herself respectable under our roof, living amongst Christian women and joining in their prayers and hymn, night and morning, but not a trace of the softened, repentant spirit could one see, and finally a distinct retrograde movement accompanied with physical disability forced us to send her home. I despair of Mrs. Deh except when I look into the face of her daughter, the good, pure girl whose life's prayer it is that her mother should be ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... became intolerable. 6. With a heavy heart Julian at last gave orders to commence a retreat, and led his exhausted soldiers back over the desert plains which they had already passed with so much difficulty. The retrograde march was terribly harassed by the light cavalry of the Persians, a species of troops peculiarly fitted for desultory warfare. The difficulties of the Romans increased at every step, and the harassing attacks of their pursuers became ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... me you've begun singing the praises of George Sand again. A retrograde woman, and nothing else! How can people compare her with Emerson! She hasn't an idea on education, nor physiology, nor anything. She'd never, I'm persuaded, heard of embryology, and in these days—what can be done without that?' (Evdoksya even threw up her hands.) 'Ah, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev |
