"Revert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in life when the acquired veneer of society drops away and human beings revert to type. Tootsie lay down on her back and kicked her legs in the air, howling with glee. Skippy, disentangling himself from the bench, rose with slow deliberation. He saw that he faced a crisis. If Tootsie, now rolling before him in hysterical agony, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... we live, we scarcely know The wide world's moving ebb and flow, The clanging currents ring and shock, But we are rooted to the rock. And thus at ending of his span, Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man Revert ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... question for all men. For my own part, I am bound to say that I doubt whether it would be favorable to the cause of civil and religious liberty. I know that there is a common idea that if the union between Church and State was severed, the wealth of the Church would revert to the State; but it would be well to remember that the great proportion of ecclesiastical property is the property of individuals. Take, for example, the fact that the great mass of Church patronage is patronage in the hands of private persons. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... that the testimony of Professor Joseph Henry was being increasingly used by Morse's opponents to discredit him in the scientific world and to injure his cause in the courts. I shall, therefore, revert for a moment to the matter for the purpose of emphasizing Morse's reluctance to do or say anything ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... commerce and civil competition shall have entirely succeeded to exaction and tyranny from a foreign force—(which it now holds forth so auspicious a promise of accomplishing)—and when literature shall revert within its former fruitful channels of enlightening the ignorant, gratifying the learned, and illustrating what is obscure among the treasures of former times—then I think Munich will be a proud and a flourishing city indeed.[46] ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... governments the same quality is still more apparent, for it is from them that the Swiss Federal Constitution has borrowed the principles which underlie these characteristic provisions. In point of fact, representative democracy has never felt quite at home in Switzerland; there has always been an effort to revert to simpler, more straightforward methods; to reduce the distance which separates the people from the exercise of their sovereignty; and to constitute them into ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... in the name of the people, for the preservation of the United States, is my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next revert to the death of the late President by an act of parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still fresh; it finds some solace in the consideration that-he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to which he had been elected ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... To revert to the original question propounded, however, I think we must come to the conclusion that coffee formed no part of the [Greek: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... for Walter De Guerre's sudden departure, we must revert to the time when, silent and solitary, he shaded the glare of the night-lamp from his eyes, and threw himself along the black oak form to meditate and mourn over events that appeared to him, at least, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... this new compromise between the two things had a fumbled, a feeble, an ignoble look. It seemed to combine all the disadvantages of both courses. It stained his honour without prolonging his life. Surely, this was a high price to pay for snubbing Zuleika... Yes, he must revert without more ado to his first scheme. He must die in the manner that he had blazoned forth. And he must do it with a good grace, none knowing he was not glad; else the action lost all dignity. True, this was no way to be a saviour. But only by not dying at all ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of affairs was changed; liberty was to succeed the dictatorship, now that the salvation of the revolution had been effected, and that it was necessary to revert to legal order, in order to preserve it. An exorbitant and extraordinary power, like the confederation of the clubs, would necessarily terminate with the defeat of the party which had supported it, and that party itself expire with the circumstances ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... To revert again to the ink phenomena of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which are of Italian origin. In no section of that country or of Europe during those centuries do ink creations possess, in so marked a degree, the variety of ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... the girl. "But you yourself have no proof that at heart you are not as uncivilized as your father or grandfather. Your stealing me shows that. Nothing can change our instinct. You know that you might revert ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the tendency of nearly all improved fruit to revert to wild types, more or less, when grown from the seed. The chances are, then, that nine-tenths or more of the seedlings which you grew for fruiting might be worthless. A few might be as good as the fruit from which ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... usual zeal, energy, and discretion. I bowed, and replied that I was always anxious to do my duty; but my heart, I confess, did beat rather quickly and anxiously in consequence of the possibility I at once saw of realising the hopes I had so long entertained, I need not, however, again revert to ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the lay electorates become vacant by default of heirs, it shall revert to the Emperor, and be by him disposed of—Bohemia excepted, where the vacancy is to be supplied by ancient mode ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... times of ours, when rumors of war are again in the air, one’s thoughts revert with pleasure to the half-mythical figure on the threshold of the century, and to legends of the clear-eyed giant, with the quizzical smile and the tender, loyal heart, whose life’s work makes him a more lovable model and a nobler example to hold up before the youth of ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... attracted towards still canals and gliding gondolas. I will write to you and to my dear mother the day I arrive. And I trust to write cheerfully, with full accounts of all I see and encounter. Do not, dearest father, in your letters to me, revert or allude to that grief which even the tenderest word from your own tender self might but chafe into pain more sensitive. After all, a disappointed love is a very common lot. And we meet every day, men—ay, and women too—who have known it, and ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... manners and of manhood is contain'd:— A man to joyne himselfe with th'Universe In his maine sway, and make (in all things fit) 140 One with that all, and goe on round as it; Not plucking from the whole his wretched part, And into straites, or into nought revert, Wishing the compleate Universe might be Subject to such a ragge of it as hee; 145 But to consider great Necessitie All things, as well refract as voluntarie, Reduceth to the prime celestiall cause; Which he that yeelds to with a mans applause, And cheeke ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... But my limited time does not diminish my affection for you, Annie, nor prevent my thinking of you and wishing for you. I long to see you through the dilatory nights. At dawn when I rise, and all day, my thoughts revert to you in expressions that you cannot hear or I repeat. I hope you will always appear to me as you are now painted on my heart, and that you will endeavour to improve and so conduct yourself as to make you happy and me joyful all our lives. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... designated without any distinction of sex, were secured in the possession, with right of succession to their children; and a provision was added, that in default of posterity their possessions should revert to the Spanish crown. The infanta Isabella soon sent her procuration to the archduke, her affianced husband, giving him full power and authority to take possession of the ceded dominions in her name as ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... of light-hearted couples,—was aware that beneath his surface indifference there lurked a certain shamefaced envy of these bewildering mortals who could shuffle off the years, and revert, unabashed, to the entrancing follies of childhood; and who could yet, in lucid intervals, grapple undismayed with intricacies of Indian legislation, lead a forlorn hope, love and suffer and die, if need be, with ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... undertaken by the learned physicist, Raoul Pictet, in order to demonstrate theoretically and practically the forms that are required for a fast-sailing vessel, and since we pointed out how great an interest is connected with the question, while at the same time promising to revert to the subject at some opportune moment. We shall now keep our promise by making known a work that Mr. Pictet has just published in the Archives Physiques et Naturelles, of Geneva, in which he gives the first results of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... differences of opinion as to who had power over charters granted antecedent to that event. In the case of Dartmouth's Charter any one of several opinions might have found plausible support. To determine whether it was a fit matter for State or national legislation, or judicial control, we must revert to the history of the Charter. There we find that it was the unvarying purpose of the founder, adhered to through a long period of severe and persistent effort, to obtain a Charter which would enable him to locate his school or schools in any of the American colonies. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... reach unto heaven. But the tower fell, the tongues of the people were confounded, and the people were scattered abroad on the face of the earth. Rubinstein attempted to give dramatic representation to the tremendous incident, and to his effort and vain dream I shall revert in the next chapter of this book. Now I must on with the history of the patriarchs. The story of Abraham and his attempted offering of Isaac has been much used as oratorio material, and Joseph Elsner, Chopin's teacher, brought out a Polish opera, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... elementary education, and there I remained till man grown. Practically every kind of work known on the farm was familiar to me, and I have also taught and supervised rural schools. These experiences are regarded as of the highest value, and I revert in memory to them with a satisfaction and ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... head-chief and his family with the assistants. The tract was worked in turn by the other members of the tribe, and it remained always public ground, reserved for the same purposes. [Footnote: Veytia (Lib. III, cap. VI, p. 195). It is superfluous to revert to the erroneous impression that the chiefs might dispose ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... remembrances of the old squire were eulogistic and affectionate. Hers were just the reverse. He had a good word to say for Reginald Morton,—to which she would not even listen. She was willing enough to ask questions about the Mallingham tenants;—but Mr. Cooper would revert back to the old days, and so ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... "We intend," said their instructions, "that the bishops should be instituted according to the Concordat of Francis I., which we have renewed, and in such a manner as shall be established by the Council, and shall have received our approbation. However, it would be possible to revert to the Concordat on the following conditions: 1st. That the Pope should institute all the bishops that we have appointed; 2nd. That in future our appointment shall be communicated to the Pope in the ordinary form; that if three months ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... condition of exaltation which she had not known for many years. All the day, while the lines were over the side, Tommy sat with his face in his hands. His two mates joked with him, swore at him, tried all kinds of clumsy inducements to make him revert to his ordinary saturnine and entertaining mode of conversation; but he would not be tempted from his silence. Towards evening a chill blast struck off from the shore, and Mary's Jem, who was Tommy's ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... friend. At first Isaacson had secretly anticipated a gradual growth of personal confidence, had thought that as weakness declined, as a little strength began to bud out almost timidly in the poor, tormented body, Nigel would revert, perhaps unconsciously, to a happier or more friendly mood. But though the Doctor was offered the gratitude of the patient, the friend was never offered the cordiality ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... is by Donatello, and "li ornamenti marmorei di suoi discipuli." Half a century later, Vasari says that Donatello made two of them, and that Michelozzo made the Faith, which is the least successful of the three. Modern criticism tends to revert to Albertini, assigning all to Michelozzo, with the presumption that Hope, which is derived from the Siena statuette, was executed from Donatello's design. Certainly the basal figures are without the brio of Donatello's chisel; likewise the Madonna above the effigy, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... youngest sister, as in the case of a death. Failing daughters, inheritance would pass by the "knight's move" to the sister's youngest daughter, who would be succeeded by her youngest daughter, and so on. Failing sister's daughters succession would revert to the mother's sisters and their female descendants. In the Jaintia Hills the inheritance of all real property passes from mother to youngest daughter. No man in the uplands of the Jaintia Hills can possess landed property, unless ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... He must have money! And if Diane were to die, the great estate of Norman Westfall would revert to him of course; there was no other heir. Why had he not thought of that before? In that instant he knew that barely a year ago the treacherous thought would have been for him impossible, that slowly, insistently he had been sliding ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... which the follies of Louis XV. and the secular jealousy of Albion had filched from her. In the effort she would extend the bounds of civilization, lay the ghost of Jacobinism, satisfy military and naval adventures, and unconsciously revert to the ideas and governmental methods of the age of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... excepting the female water-carriers. With that exception, the people are dressed in much the same manner as is customary over Europe generally. So far as I recollect, not a single veiled or half-veiled lady, sailing in her own gondola, met our eyes while we were in Venice. We have to revert for all such things to Goldoni's plays and the pages of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... this, I began to feel a little resentment. I would revert not only to my former manner, but to my former matter. I would wind up that love-story, and confine myself to ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... perfectly still, staring at him with her small restless eyes, and when she spoke again it was to revert ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... diminished in size; the legs are black, whereas the legs of the aboriginal African bird are said to be grey. This small change is worth notice on account of the often-repeated statement that all feral animals invariably revert in every character ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... charm will have replaced the man's method of brute force along the whole line of legitimate human activity. If we realize this we can understand why it is that a group of women who, even in the effort to support a good cause, revert to the crude method of violence are committing a double wrong. They are wronging their own sex by proving false to its best traditions, and they are wronging civilization by attempting to revive methods of savagery which it is civilization's ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... though I should be scourged for an idolater, I would kiss the pedestal. As this, however, is less likely than that I should suffer for writing satirically, and as criticism is less likely to mislead me than speculation, I will revert ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... England, Lord James at home, tried to hope. {200b} Lord James had heard Mary's outburst to Knox about defending her own insulted Church, but he was not nervously afraid that she would take to dipping her hands in the blood of the saints. Neither he nor Lethington could revert to the old faith; they had pecuniary reasons, as well as ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... him by the story of Daniel in the den of lions, and how he was saved by faith in the power above, and the boy's mind will revert to the circus, where a man in tights and spangles goes in and bosses the lions and tigers around, and he will wonder if Daniel had a rawhide, and backed out of the cage with his ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... Concert. This was of itself sufficient to turn Lancelot's head away from all but thoughts of Fame, even if Mary Ann had not been luckless enough to be again discovered cleaning the steps—and without gloves. Against such a spectacle the veriest idealist is powerless. If Mary Ann did not immediately revert to the category of quadrupeds in which she had started, it was only because of Lancelot's supplementary knowledge of the creature. But as he passed her by, solicitous as before not to tread upon her, he felt as if all ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... describing it will be to commence with its history, and to do that we must once more look back to the great Atlantean race. In thinking of the Adepts and schools of occultism of that remarkable people our minds instinctively revert to the evil practices of which we hear so much in connection with their latter days; but we must not forget that before that age of selfishness and degradation the mighty civilization of Atlantis had brought forth much that was noble and worthy ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... if she had been born of middle-class parentage. He laughed bitterly. Middle class. A homeless, countryless derelict, and he had the impudence to revert to comparisons that no longer existed in this topsy-turvy old world. He was an upstart. The final curtain had dropped between him and his world, and he was still thinking in the ancient make-up. Middle ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... differs in many important respects from the type; and it contains the incident, very rare in a modern European saga belonging to this group, of the recovery of the bride. I shall have occasion to revert to the curious inability of the enchanted princess to open the chest containing the wonderful shift. Meanwhile, let me observe that in most of the tales the feather-dress, or talisman, by which the bride may escape, is committed to the care of a third person—usually a kinswoman of the husband, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the highest. The N. and W. coasts are rugged and much indented. The climate is milder, more equable, and somewhat more rainy than that of England; but the cereal and green crops are the same. Flax is grown in the N. The tendency is to revert to pasturage however, agriculture being generally in a backward state. Unfavourable land-laws, small holdings, and want of capital have told heavily against the Irish peasantry. Fisheries are declining. The chief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... there was a scared grin on Jack's face now; "I told her that you, as trustee under father's will, had certain unpleasant powers over my money—in fact, that most of it would revert to Sis if I married against your wishes, and that you disliked her, and that she must work herself into your good graces before we could think of ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... circumference, with a double wall, but it could not have been complete, or the Veientians could not have held out against starvation so long. For the end of the siege and the taking of the city we must revert to ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... clubs and ran in upon the confused furry mass, forgetful of peril to ourselves. In the wild contagion of such a savage moment the minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. We swung our clubs and yelled; we fought all over the bottom of the ravine, crashing through the bushes, over logs and stones. I actually felt the soft fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs had the strength born of insane fighting ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... with, I revert to a point which I tried to establish in my first lecture; and insist with all my strength that the first obligation we owe to any classic, and to those whom we teach, and to ourselves, is to treat it absolutely: not for ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... function. But such a view is based on the supposition that satire has no other mission than to lash the vices of our neighbours, without recalling the fact that the satirist has a reformative as well as a punitive duty to discharge. The further we revert into the "deep backward and abysm of time" towards the early history of the world, the more pronounced and overt is this indulgence in broad ...
— English Satires • Various
... be worth while to revert for a moment to the distinction drawn in a preceding paragraph between the pusher propeller and the tractor which revolved in front of the aviator and of his machine gun. It would seem almost incredible that two heavy blades of hard wood revolving at a speed not less that twelve hundred times ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... wish to revert to the topic of the generic proof of religion. We have defined the tests which any special religion must meet, and unless conformably to such tests it is possible to justify some form of idealism, ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... be revoked by either the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge (for either has the power to do so), the lodge of course at once ceases to exist. Whatever funds or property it has accumulated revert, as in the case of all extinct lodges, to the Grand Lodge, which may be called the natural heir of its subordinates; but all the work done in the lodge, under the dispensation, is regular and legal, ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... rento, enspezo. Revere respektegi. Reverence, to make a riverenci. Reverence respektegi. Reverence (salutation) riverenco. Reverie revado. Reverse renversi. Reverse (a loss) malprospero. Reverse side posta flanko. Revert reveni. Review (journal) revuo. Review (milit.) parado. Revile mallauxdegi. Revise korekti, ekzameni. Revival revivigo. Revive revivigi. Revocable nuligebla. Revocation nuligo. Revoke nuligi. Revolt ribelo. Revolution revolucio. Revolve turnigxi, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... in italics and the restoration of foreign accents is accompanied by awkward attempts to revert to the foreign pronunciation of these words, which of course much lessens their usefulness in conversation. Sometimes this, as in nuance, or timbre* practically deprives us of a word which most of us are ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... usual terms of an equal division of profits, I gave up my half share to enable the price to be fixed still lower. To the credit of Messrs. Longman they fixed, unasked, a certain number of years after which the copyright and stereotype plates were to revert to me, and a certain number of copies after the sale of which I should receive half of any further profit. This number of copies (which in the case of the Political Economy was 10,000) has for some ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... I revert once more to KITCHENER'S triumphant feat in transporting our army to France. We are not very far from Southampton, whence some of the troops must have sailed, but beyond the merest vague rumours ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... mates such birds together, takes every favouring circumstance into consideration and selects again and again, and so on and on, till the peculiarity that he wants to establish has become a well-marked feature. Remove his controlling intelligence, leave the birds to themselves, and they revert ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... found in Kansas. The general principles are that no franchise can be given but for a limited time, that it must be bought at public auction, that the earnings beyond a certain percentage on investment must revert to the city, and that there must be a referendum to popular vote in the locality interested. In 1899 Michigan declares the municipal ownership of street railways unconstitutional, but Nevada passes a statute for municipal ownership of telephone lines. In 1903 ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... several people glanced at them, smiling in sympathy. Alderdene took that opportunity to revert to the sketch, furnishing a specimen of his own inimitable laughter as a running accompaniment to the story of Quarrier and his dog in North Carolina, until he had everybody, as usual, laughing, not at the story but at him. All of which demonstration was bitterly ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... conquer. The spirit and the body seem to be in endless antagonism, and yet the body itself will become the fair servant of the soul when once the question of its supremacy has been determined. The tendency to revert to animalism has been vividly depicted by the poets, and the clamorous and insistent nature of the passions portrayed ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... that'—, now it is mine, my pride and joy prevent in no manner my taking the whole consolation of it at once, now—I will be confident that, if I obey you, I shall get no wrong for it—if, endeavouring to spare you fruitless pain, I do not eternally revert to the subject; do indeed 'quit' it just now, when no good can come of dwelling on it to you; you will never say to yourself—so I said—'the "generous impulse" has worn itself out ... time is doing his usual work—this was to be expected' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... aspect the philosophy may have, which Moses taught after middle life touching the theory of the religion in which he believed, Moses had from early childhood been nurtured in these Mesopotamian beliefs and traditions, and to them—or, at least, toward them—he always tended to revert in moments of stress. Without bearing this fundamental premise in mind, Moses in active life can hardly be understood, for it was on this foundation that his theories of cause and ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... in from three-life leases i.e., Mr. Caverly owned farms in Orange County that had been leased out for long periods (the lives of three persons named at the moment the lease was granted) but which were now about to revert to him—such long-term leases, in the Hudson Valley, led to the so-called anti-rent war that was breaking out at the time Cooper wrote this book; twelve and a half cents an English shilling, still often ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... cultivated, lay near the territory occupied by the Indians. Five pounds per annum was named as the quit rent, payment to begin eight years later; and such part of the tract as was not cleared and improved during the next eighteen years was to revert to the Trustees. The Trustees also agreed that they would reserve two hundred acres near the larger tract, and whenever formally requested by Count Zinzendorf, would grant twenty acres each "to such able bodied Young Men Servants as ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... in art. Beneath and around the pictured destruction and ruin there opens up to us a more poignant vision of the loveliness of what was or might have been. At the end of The Dram Shop, when Gervaise sinks into ruin, we inevitably revert to the beginning and see again, only more intensely, the gentle girl that she was, or else, going forward, we imagine what she might have been, if only she had been given a chance. The form of a possible good rises up from under the actual evil. The story of ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... give all his property to them, and thus all his heirs were disinherited and ruined. Then the latter came before us crying and complaining that they had been disinherited. Many such complaints came before us. The monks sold also their own property, on condition that it should revert to them again on the death of the buyer. This made us think that our city would in a short time become entirely theirs. They received also into their order the children of rich people, without the consent and knowledge of their ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... one side an organic law of memory, dependent upon the revival of transmitted ancestral impressions. A prevailing idea though over-cultivation exhausts its organic correlate, and leads to defective nutrition of that part in the offspring. Hence they do not pursue the same idea as their fathers, but revert to a remoter ancestral historic idea, the organic correlate of which has lain fallow, thus gained strength. It is brought forth as new, receives additions by contiguity and similarity, is ardently pursued, over-cultivated, and in time supplanted ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... keen from the first. Hipparchus and the Greek astronomers of the Alexandrian school, shaking off the vagaries of magic and divination, placed astronomy on a scientific basis, though the reaction of the Middle Ages caused even such a great astronomer as Tycho Brahe himself to revert for a time to the practice ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... day; and under all their jokes and good-humour their farewell had a tinge of wistfulness. But one felt that this fugitive reminder of a world they had put behind them would pass like a dream, and their minds revert without effort to the one reality: the business of holding their bit ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... not answer that a country constitution gave you strength to sustain them? In the name of all that is right, dearest Helen, why do you not assert your dignity as a woman, instead of standing upon your rank? Why not, as a woman, boldly and bravely revert to your former position, and at the same time prove your determination to support your present? You were as far from shame as Helen Marsh of Abbeyweld, as you are as the wife of an honourable member. Be yourself. Be simply, firmly yourself, my own Helen, and ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... some dissatisfied reader will say. "And what became of Lavretzky? of Liza?" But what can one say about people who are still alive, but who have already departed from the earthly arena,—why revert to them? They say that Lavretzky paid a visit to that distant convent where Liza had hidden herself—and saw her. In going from one choir to the other, she passed close to him—passed with the even, hurriedly-submissive gait of a nun—and did not cast a glance at him; only the lashes of the eye ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; in Shropshire they usually "come" as bulls. (See Miss Burne's Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o' Mause. M. d'Assier, a French Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert "atavistically" to lower ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... at this—it was characteristic of Mollie, once the immediate stress was removed, to revert to the matter that had previously claimed her attention, and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... We shall now revert for the moment to the environmental factor. The first most pressing and immediate practical duty of the Government and the community is to spare no pains to improve the status and environment of the family so as to promote ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... something less than human if I had not, like every person in this court, been strangely affected by the singular appeal of the singular man who has just addressed you; but I should have been something less than a good lawyer if I did not again revert confidently to those facts which were in the possession of my witnesses now waiting to be heard. Had this been the only instance in which the defendant had broken his engagement, and mounted this mare, I should in my own mind have flung off all hope of a verdict from you. God and nature would have ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... assault the tenant acknowledge the tenement to be the right of the demandant, and for that acknowledgment the demandant grant to the tenant that he shall hold of him for life, and that afterwards the tenement shall revert to him (the demandant), that acknowledgment is as stable as if a fine were levied in a writ of warranty ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... said Dolf, and he cut the tart into four pieces, having an idea that the last slice would revert to him in ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps which I have already taken, and to revert to topics which I have before discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse me of repetition, but the importance of the matter which still remains to be treated is my excuse; I had rather say too much, than say too little to be thoroughly understood, and I prefer injuring ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... follow the movements of the eye. When an animal's attention is directed to any object or sound, its ears point forward; when its attention is relaxed, the ears fall. But with the cat tribe the ears are habitually erect, as those of the horse are usually relaxed. They depress them and revert them, as do many other animals, when angered ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... it will be necessary to revert once more to the tyrant whose misrule of Virginia had brought about Bacon's Rebellion. At last, the assembly had to beg Berkeley to desist, which he did with reluctance. A writer of the period said, "I believe ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... a cat or a crow the same verse was used with an alteration of the second line so as to force a rhyme; instead of 'meikle caire', the words were 'a blak shot' for a cat, and 'a blak thraw' for a crow or craw. To revert again to the human ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... describe the work of what is termed artistic printing. Every plate is a subject to be treated by itself, and no hard and fast rule can be applied. It is really a matter of artistic feeling, and to revert to the simile of the angler, one cannot explain how a trout should be played, but can only say that it depends on the fish, the water, and the circumstances. A fisherman can show you, if you are on the spot, and so can ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... to vouch and call to warranty those principles of original justice from whence alone our title to everything valuable in society is derived? Can it be thought to arise from a superfluous, vain parade of displaying general and uncontroverted maxims, that we should revert at this time to the first principles of law, when we have directly under our consideration a whole body of statutes, which, I say, are so many contradictions, which their advocates allow to be so ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sense of the literary defects which render these volumes unworthy of so august a patronage, to one point I may revert with feelings of satisfaction and encouragement. I have gone only (p. iv) where Truth seemed to lead me on the way: and this, in your Majesty's judgment, I am assured will ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... to which I revert, there existed in the Louvre a hall, called the Salle des Antiques, where, besides, some original statues by French artists, were assembled models in plaster of the most celebrated master-pieces of sculpture in Italy, together with a ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... until the most necessary part of their apparel hangs in shreds,—is one of the delightful mysteries of these woods. I suspect that every man is at heart a roving animal, and likes, at intervals, to revert to the condition of the bear and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... embraces nearly the first quarter of the present century. This information, again, may perhaps be anything but agreeable to thee; it is a long time to revert to—but fret not thyself, many matters which at present much occupy the public mind originated in some degree towards the latter end of that period, and some of them will ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... theme, he said: "I have forborne to revert to myself in our interviews; they were too divine for that. You will always remember that I have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... forbade the denial of the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and was not submitted to the States until after the inauguration of General Grant. A fear that the South would disfranchise the freedmen, pay the price, and revert to Democratic control seems to have been the prime motive in its adoption. When it was proclaimed, March 30, 1870, the radical Republicans had done everything in their power to save themselves, and had inflicted on the conquered States, in ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... centres in the will of a Professor Clifford, in which a large sum of money is left to the scientist who shall within a specified time finish the testator's life research. Failing its completion the money is to revert to his stepdaughter. Humphrey Wyatt undertakes the task, incidentally falling in love with the stepdaughter, of whose relationship to the Professor he is unaware. What happens before and after he discovers her identity makes a charming romantic ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... the war is over, the powers under which I act will automatically revert to the people of the United States—to the people ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... seems to have been a combination of very different forces. There were antiquarians who observed that the Mikado had had real power in the tenth century, and who wished to revert to the ancient customs. There were patriots who were annoyed with the Shogun for yielding to the pressure of the white men and concluding commercial treaties with them. And there were the western clans, which had never willingly submitted to the authority of the Shogun. To quote ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... with the diluted acetone not only rendered the nitrate perfectly stable, but that the product was more stable than that obtained by the ordinary process of purification, viz. long-continued boiling and washing in water. We shall revert to this point after briefly dealing with the associated phenomenon of structural disintegration. This begins to be well marked when the proportion of acetone exceeds 80 p.ct. The optimum effect is obtained with mixtures of 90 to 93 acetone and 10 to 7 water (by volume). ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... was. Then she included them without distinction in the slight that she felt for the chatter and the airs of some. After that she made her exceptions among them; she begun to see how every one honored and admired the hard workers. She could not revert to her awe of them, even of the hardest workers; but she became more tolerant of the idlest and vaguest. She compared herself with the clever ones, and owned herself less clever, not without bitterness, but certainly ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... precedes all tradition we, whose task is not to speculate in regard to primitive religious conceptions, but to give the history of one people's religious progress, may be pardoned for expressing no opinion. But without abandoning history (i.e., tradition) we would revert for a moment to the pre-Indian period and point out that Zarathustra's rejection of the daevas which must be the same devas that are worshipped in India, proves that deva-worship is the immediate predecessor of the Hindu religion. As far back as one can scrutinize the Aryan past he finds, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... started from seed, as described in the preceding chapter, there are many which cannot be so reproduced; especially named varieties which will not come true from seeds, but revert ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... however, we must repeatedly revert {239} hereafter; at present, I will only add one further consideration. If, as we are now repeatedly told, the utmost sought by the invocation of saints is that they would intercede for the supplicants; that no more is meant than we of the Anglican Church mean when we earnestly entreat our fellow-Christians ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... Sage. He has imitated without acknowledgment three or four passages contained in the life of Obregon, a curious work, of which we have already spoken, and to which on some future occasion we may perhaps revert. ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... because it is "ten times as large as the earth has been supposed to be by certain investigators." Here, perhaps, the reference is to Eratosthenes, whose measurement of the earth we shall have occasion to revert to in a moment. Continuing, Archimedes asserts that the sun is larger than the earth, and the earth larger than the moon. In this assumption, he says, he is following the opinion of the majority of astronomers. In the third place, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... between Mervyn and me is unhappily no novelty. We shall not revert to the subject, and I have reasons ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... marks of neglect and decay; the walks were overgrown, the terraces dilapidated, and the rose pleasaunce had degenerated into a tangled mass of bushes and briers. It seemed as though the whole domain were about to revert into its original state of nature; and every thing spoke either of the absence of a master, or else of something more important still—the absence ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... to "run in debt" for this property, and he gave a mortgage on the place. The payments were to be made quarterly, and promptly, or the whole would be forfeited and revert to the original owner. In those days physicians were not likely to become millionaires, and though Dr. Mason's practice was large, the pay was small, and not always sure. He therefore looked to the farm for the means to release him from the bondage of debt; and the children, even to ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... was found lying in a litter of cards and gold sovereigns on the floor. Sir Duggam Buggam, insensible from drink, lay beside him, the fatal knife at his hand, his fingers smeared with blood. My grandfather, though of the younger branch, possessed a part of the estates which were to revert to Sir Duggam on his death. Sir Duggam Buggam was tried at the Assizes and was hanged. On the day of his execution he was permitted by the authorities, out of respect for his rank, to wear a mask to the scaffold. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... "Elements" I was strongly urged by my friends not to repeat these theoretical discussions, but to confine myself in the new treatise to those parts of the "Elements" which were most indispensable to a beginner. This was to revert, to a certain extent, to the original plan of the first edition; but I found, after omitting a great number of subjects, that the necessity of bringing up to the day those which remained, and adverting, however briefly, to new discoveries, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... puts it, a man, by the mere fact that he forms a part of an organised crowd, is likely to descend several rungs on the ladder of civilisation. Even the most cultured and intellectual of men, when he forms an atom of a crowd, tends to lose consciousness of his acquired mental qualities and to revert to his primal simplicity and ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... invincible aristocrats, always hard and overbearing with the poor, always opposed to the democratic party. The party against Tiberius hoped that when to a Claudius there should be opposed a Caesar, the public spirit would revert to the dazzling splendour of ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the energy was in him; but they say he is quite a new man, and it is not merely a splash, but real and bona-fide business that he does. The Chancellor talked over some of the passages of the Queen's trial, to which he loves to revert. It was about the liturgy. The negotiations which had taken place at Apsley House between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh on one part and Brougham and Denman on the other were broken off on that point. It was then agreed to refer the matter ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Incidents; or, to use a simile, a broad, eddying bend in a river on a plateau, with cataracts and canyons awaiting it on its route to the sea. Or, discarding the simile and speaking in literal terms, in a search for a theme on which to hang the incidents, we revert to Mary's raillery at the announcement of an easy traveller that he was going to ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... moment or so now, in the most tentative fashion, at some of the data for this inquiry, and then revert from this excursion into general theory to our more immediate business, to the manner in which our civilized community at present effects ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... saying, I am mad. Yes, lady, mad! for your beauty like the moon, makes all men mad, who comes within the sphere of its attraction. Forgive me for thus offending you." Edith turned towards him, and with calm dignity replied, "Promise me never again to revert to this subject, and in no way further molest me, and what has just passed shall be forgiven." He gave the required promise. Edith then pursued her way to the end of the conservatory, passed through ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... the teller's window. He said, "Hello!" and Maurice said, "Hello!" and added that it was a cold day. The fact that Maurice said not a word about that recovering little patient in Medfield made the doctor's mind revert to the possibilities he had ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... upon an intuition which taught her that a slight shock is pleasantly stimulating to the fancy, "and I suppose it's my association with him that convinces me if we'd leave your sex alone it would finally revert to the savage state and ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... had some better thing in store for me;—that I must set my affections on things above, and then, to show that I was not alone, told me that a thousand pounds had been left to her mother by a deceased relative, which she had fully expected would revert to her, as it was the intention of the testatrix; but it proved to be a lapsed legacy. She added, 'The Lord so graciously sustained me, that the loss never deprived me of a single hour's sleep. He knows what is good for us, and If it had been His will, I should have had it.' Mr. Lyth, who was in ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... is not quicker to spring at the touch, than he was to arouse all his manifold energies at the hopes or promise of profit. As his whole life had been passed in one calling, it was but natural that his thoughts should most easily revert to the returns that calling had so often given. He never dreamed of speculations, knew nothing of stocks, had no concern with manufactures in cotton or wool, nor had any other notion of wealth than the possession of a good farm on the Vineyard, a reasonable amount of money "at use," certain ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Diminishing Utility.—We revert here to one of those general laws of economics that we have already stated and see it acting under the conditions of distinctly social life. Goods of a given kind have less and less utility, per unit, the more the user has of them. If you offer him apples in increased quantity, he ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... follow it must be borne in mind that the early sixteenth century represents the end of a distinct historical period; and, as we have pointed out in the Introduction, the expiring effort, half-conscious and half-unconscious, of the people to revert to the conditions of an earlier age. Nor can the significance be properly gauged unless a clear conception is obtained of the differences between country and town life at the beginning of the sixteenth century. From the earliest periods of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... revert to lesser points," said Lothair, "I do not say I want to return to England, for I dread returning to England, and do not know whether I shall ever go back there; and at any rate I doubt not my health at present is unequal to the effort; but I should like some change in my mode of life. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... DE MORGAN'S last communication on this subject, it may be as well, in order to avoid future misunderstanding, to revert briefly to my original question. I pointed out Ben Jonson's assertion, through a character in one of his plays, that about the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was the custom to regard the legal rights of majority ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... important session of parliament to its conclusion, we may now revert to the miscellaneous occurrences of the year, 1. Had much credit been given to the tales of spies and informers, neither Cromwell nor his adversary, Charles Stuart, would have passed a day without the dread of assassination. But they knew that such persons are wont to invent and exaggerate, in ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... other words to the Viennese renaissance; another, in using the phrase, is subconsciously conjuring up pictures of La Belle Helene, Orphee aux Enfers, or La Fille de Madame Angot, good fodder for memory to feed on here; a third will instinctively revert to the Johann Strauss operetta period, the era of The Queen's Lace Handkerchief and Die Fledermaus; a fourth cries, "Give us Gilbert and Sullivan!" A fifth, when his ideas are chased to their lair, will rhapsodize endlessly over the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... choice gift bestowed on man. It is a boundless source of pleasure to most all persons, unless their lives have been fraught with crimes of so daring a nature, that it makes the the heart revolt at the very thought of them. It is pleasant at times to revert to the scenes of by-gone days, and recall one beloved companion and another, that have passed away, and to think of the many happy interviews we have ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... after her return home to her own people, she would not continue to exercise; and she is allowed to continue to occupy her husband's house, but this latter privilege terminates at the mourning removal ceremony, when the house will be pulled down, and its site will revert to the village, and she will probably return to her own people in her own village, if she has not done ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... preacher evidently held his father in reverence; it seemed that the old man had in his youth been a disciple and preacher under Miller, the founder of the Adventist sect; it was natural that, as his faculties failed, his mind should revert to the excitements of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... discussion. A blank like that which designates the place of Marino Faliero in the Ducal palace at Venice, is left here for Le Sage, as the nativity of the author of Gil Blas is yet disputed. We look at Rousseau to revert to the social reforms, of which he was the pioneer; at La Place to realize the achievements of the exact sciences, and at St. Pierre to remember the poetry of nature. Voltaire's likeness is not labelled for the ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... of his trade, the bill-broker is forced to belong to a class of 'dependent money-dealers,' as we may term them, that is, of dealers who do not keep their own reserve, and must, therefore, at every crisis of great difficulty revert to others. ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... To revert, however, to Mr. Pulitzer's dependence on those around him, it must be remembered that nothing could reach him except through the medium of speech. The state of his bank account, the condition of his ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... done, a preordained standard to the work he was discussing, and declared it correct or not according to that test. The new criticism inaugurated by Coleridge aimed at interpretation rather than at magisterial regulation; and no one will now revert to the old. We never now find an English critic writing such notes, common till lately in France, as "cela n'est pas francais," "cela ne se dit pas," "il faut ecrire"—such and such a phrase, and not the phrase used by the poet receiving chastisement. ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... would not give him the profits arising from the tenant's labor and means." Now I thought this fair, but the gentleman did not. He thought that all profit arising from improvements made by the tenant, should revert to the landlord after a certain time. I could ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... singular propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are safe, married or single. If married, the wooden legs and such other valuables as he may possess revert to the widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria. I have thought ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was connected with the city by a cinder path, nor could the city compel the builders of the new depot to lay a sidewalk. The depot people claimed the land thereunder would revert to the city. Therefore, in the rainy seasons incoming travelers carried such quantities of the cinder walk on their feet that the sidewalks of High Street appeared to strangers in mourning for the sad mistake of those who platted ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... attractively written book seemed almost inspired. The Social Contract virtually became the Bible of the French Revolutionists. In the Emile, a book which will be referred to more at length in chapter XXI, Rousseau held that we should revert, in education, to a state of nature to secure the needed educational reforms, and that education to prepare for life in the existing society was both wrong ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... prepared for any of the following reasons: To render it more easily eaten; to make it more digestible; to economize in amount; to give it some new property; and to preserve it. We have already spoken of the preparation of drying, and need not revert to this again, as it only serves to preserve the different feeds. Drying does, however, change some of the properties of feed, i. e., removes the laxative ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... possible that the Archipelago might revert to Spain; hence pending the deliberations of the Peace Commission, no movement was made on the part of the Americans to overthrow the de facto Spanish Government still subsisting in the southern islands. General Fermin Jaudenes, the vanquished Commander-in-Chief ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... house anywhere, Look that ye salute them, and bid my peace be there; And if that house be worthy and elect, Th'ilk peace there then shall take effect; And if that house be cursed or pervert, Th'ilk peace then shall to yourself revert. And furthermore, if any such there be, Which do deny for to receive ye, And do despise your doctrine and your lore, At such a house tarry ye no more; And from your shoes scrape away the dust To their reprefe; and I, both true and just, Shall vengeance take of their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... the guilds in the matter of elections to the common council was not of long duration. Before ten years had elapsed representation was made that the new system had been forced on the citizens, and in 1384 it was resolved to revert to the old system of election by and ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... "I will tell you the truth. I did not give Ughtred of Tyrnaus credit for such gifts as he has shown. I wanted the principle of monarchy reestablished, and it was best to revert to the royal house. Then I found that he was a better man than I had thought, and an alliance with you would have reconciled me to his reign. ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim |
