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Revert   Listen
noun
Revert  n.  One who, or that which, reverts. "An active promoter in making the East Saxons converts, or rather reverts, to the faith."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Revert" Quotes from Famous Books



... de Bouille quarrelled with her old husband the marquis, separated from him after a scandalous divorce, and came to live at the chateau of Saint-Geran, quite at ease as to her brother's marriage, seeing that in default of heirs all his property would revert to her. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... expense contributions I have not taken the chances of dying into account. Hence the expense reserve in any instance applies only to that individual case, and, in the event of death or surrender before the maturity of the policy, the amount of the expense fund not used would naturally revert to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... 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

... in the name of revolutionary progress, of ultra-radicalism, that we are called upon to revert to the tactics of desperation born of the discouraging conditions of nearly seventy years ago. A new philosophy has taken possession of the easily possessed minds of Greenwich Village philosophers and parlor revolutionists—a new philosophy of progress, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... burn out all the animal; this time I will make a rational creature of my own!' After all, what is ten years? Men have been a hundred thousand in the making." He thought darkly. "But I am drawing near the fastness. This puma of mine—" After a silence, "And they revert. As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins to creep back, begins to assert itself again." ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... world from which he had for a fortnight or so been absent. What would he be, and what would he do? Would he return the same hard-headed man of business who had won riches in five short years? Or would he be changed by the return to the normal—his equilibrium made unstable by the tendency to revert to his older self? How would he adjust himself to the things done by Amidon? How would the change affect his relations with Miss Waldron and this bright-haired inamorata so balefully nearing the foreground, like an ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... haste to revert to his errand. "Of course, your not being in the Quarterly Conference," he said, "renders certain things impossible. But I didn't know but you might have some knowledge of how matters are going, what plans the ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... now opened to Madame Campan. At Coubertin, surrounded by her nieces, she was fond of directing their studies. This occupation caused her ideas to revert to the subject of education, and awakened once more the inclinations of her youth. At the age of twelve years she could never meet a school of young ladies passing through the streets without feeling ambitious of the situation and authority of their mistress. Her abode at Court had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... indispensable trade, a small bourgeoisie, and, all around, a peasantry composed of either colons or serfs. The seignior deducts a portion of all their crops in provisions or in cattle, and, at their deaths, a portion of their inheritances. If they go away their property revert to him. His servants are chastised like Russian moujiks, and in each outhouse is a trestle for this purpose "without prejudice to graver penalties," probably the bastinado and the like. But "never did the culprit entertain ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Italy were sanctioned, although parliament had never been able to ratify the Szell-Koerber compact with the tariff on the basis of which the negotiations would have to be conducted. But, as the autumn session approached, Tisza foresaw a new campaign of obstruction, and resolved to revert to his drastic reform of the standing orders. The announcement of his determination caused the Opposition to rally against him, and when on the 18th of November the Liberal party adopted a "guillotine" motion by a show of hands ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... that the projection of human interest to an unseen and future world has reached its furthest limit. The mind of man must needs revert to some nearer home and sphere. And closely following Dante we see in England a group of figures who betoken the return. There is Chaucer, displaying the various energy and joy and humor of earthly life. There is Piers Plowman, showing the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... amazing," cries Paul, "that you Galatians who knew God intimately by the hearing of the Gospel, should all of a sudden revert from the true knowledge of His will in which I thought you were confirmed, to the weak and beggarly elements of the Law which can only enslave ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... coast, which, though less accessible and less easily 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 ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... of the events which 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. ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... have become familiar with the commoner forms of symbolism through our acquaintance with literature. In the dream, when the more finely controlled physiological processes are in abeyance, there is a tendency to revert to the symbolic modes of expression. This has its use, because on awaking the dream does not shock us, since we make no attempt to analyze or trace back in the dream the symbol's original meaning. Hence we find that the manifest content is often filled with symbols which occasionally give us ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... and sat down to order her costume, while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of fun on a wheel; besides, she can ...
— Different Girls • Various

... adjoining population held general holiday; bands played, banners waved, and assembled thousands cheered the passing trains amidst the occasional booming of cannon. The proceedings were usually wound up by a public dinner; and in the course of the speeches which followed, Mr. Stephenson would revert to his favourite topic—the difficulties which he had early encountered in the promotion of the railway system, and in establishing the superiority of the locomotive. On such occasions he always took great pleasure in alluding to the services rendered to himself and the public ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... spell now we have been speaking of hair on the face; at this point we revert to hair in its relation to the head. There are some few among us, mainly professional Southerners and leading men, who retain the bulk of the hair on their heads through life; but with most of us the circumstances are different. Your hair goes from you. You ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... mediation is admissible between Moslems, except it be a compromise sanctioning the unlawful or forbidding the lawful.[FN332] If thou shalt have done aught during the day, of which thy reason is doubtful but thy good intention is proved, thou (O Kazi) shouldst revert to the right, for to do justice is a religious obligation and to return to that which is right is better than persistence in wrong. Then (O judge) thou shouldest study precedents and the law of the case and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... people,—were not indifferent to human liberties or human rights. Neither are they such who today strive to preserve those guaranties won at such expense of blood and treasure. On the contrary, it is those who would override these guaranties and revert to the old days of unlimited governmental power, ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... which has no other connexion with the immediate thread of the narrative, than that which arises from a reflected interest, we shall revert to the further proceedings on ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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 ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... seen for ourselves. In most cases the more one reads or hears about a certain locality the more confused he is when he visits it. He was a traveller who first said, "The eye and the ear are close together, but what a distance between hearing and seeing!" This recurs to me constantly. But to revert to Canton. We decided to walk instead of following the custom of Europeans, who generally take sedan chairs and dash through, seeing nothing in detail. We cross the river by one of the innumerable boats rowed by women, and are in the city. For five ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... somewhat nervously, for she thought his face was stern. But when he spoke, his voice held nought but kindness, and she was reassured. He did not look at her with any very close criticism, nor did he revert to what ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... reeds seem to indicate low, medium, and high octave registers. The first and last difficult to obtain with reeds as made by us. He seeks the fundamental tones of the Maket pipes in the first or low register, an octave below the normal pitch. By this the fifths revert to twelfths. I offer no opinion, but will leave this curious phenomenon to the consideration of my friends, Mr. Blaikley, Mr. Victor Mahillon, and Mr. Hermann Smith, acousticians ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... Signor Fogazzaro in choosing his hero revert to that outworn type? He sees very clearly how many of the Catholic practices are what he calls "ossified organisms." Why did he set up a lay monk as a model for 20th century Christians who long to devote their lives to uplifting their fellow-men? Did he not note the artificiality of ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... therefore leave that part of my fortune of which the law allows me to dispose, in trust to my dear lover, Pierre-Germer-Simon de Bourneval, to revert afterwards to our dear ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... (roll) 407; renewal &c. (restoration) 660. twice-told tale; old story, old song; second edition, new edition; reappearance, reproduction, recursion [Comp]; periodicity &c. 138. V. repeat, iterate, reiterate, reproduce, echo, reecho, drum, harp upon, battologize[obs3], hammer, redouble. recur, revert, return, reappear, recurse [Comp]; renew &c. (restore) 660. rehearse; do over again, say over again; ring the changes on; harp on the same string; din in the ear, drum in the ear; conjugate in all its moods tenses ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... rivers were the proper boundaries of nations and that wherever the German language prevails, the country ought to belong to the Germanic body. Ergo, the Vosges mountains were the natural boundaries of France, and Alsace and German Lorraine should revert to Germany. Russia and England, however, opposed this, and insisted that these two provinces should remain with France; but I have no doubt that the first movements that may occur in France (and they will perhaps be secretly encouraged) will serve ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... ability to pass a "leaving" examination is the only valid proof of the usefulness of elementary education. If these influential critics, who are showing in various ways that they care more for machinery than for life, could have their will, they would probably revert to the "good old days" of cut-and-dried syllabuses, formal examinations of individual scholars, percentages of passes, and the like. As I have already taken pains to explain what the regime of the "good old days" really meant, I need not waste ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... and study one of the greatest of Petruchios at two successive performances. She had succeeded in stimulating Olivia to a real determination to be worthy of her teacher's expressed belief in her, even to the mastering of her girlish tendency to let her voice revert to a high-keyed feminine quality just when it needed to ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... on to other things. Had any one a spite against the child? and such futilities. Only once more did he revert to that solitary significant fact. "Would it be possible," he asked of the abashed and self-conscious labourer, "would it be possible for the body to have worked its way down into the soft mud as you have described it to ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... group, and there is nothing in his temperament to make him anything else. Free Trade never did convince him; he broke away from the enchanting tyranny of Laurier; and, though born on a farm, he never could revert to the plough-handles for a ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... manhood, to be confined in a place designed for the cure of habitual drunkards. I had heard vague stories, but nothing definite concerning the Home, and thought that the question was an insult, but I did not reply to the question. All that night my thoughts would revert to the above question. My life past since I had become a devotee of the 'demon of strong drink,' passed in review before my mind. What had I gained? How improved? What had I obtained by it? And the answer was nothing. Then I asked myself, What had I lost by it? ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... hear the deep, dry "hough! hough!" of the powerful wings, did Cob open his red-stained—as it were blood—yellow beak, and give utterance—one could call it no more—and so instantly close his beak again and revert to his absolute expressionlessness that one had a job to realize what, or who, in all that ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... $25,000, was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for $12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State Treasury. This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal gave promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson recalled ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... against the supremacy of sentiment. So was Unitarianism, and now we do not seek in the Boston churches for the profound pietists. Does not our present experience show that as fast as we are emancipated from morality and the dominance of the intellect, we revert to the older rituals, if we need any. And if we have no need, the piety can so fully inform them, that we seek no other. The transcendental is a spiritual movement. It is the effort to regain the lost equilibrium ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... right on our part. This brings us face to face with the question, Who began the war? Who, in this contest, has assailed the principles of 'justice, humanity, and liberty'? Who has attacked the 'public welfare'? Has it been the United States Government? Let us revert to the occasion of the war. Confining ourselves to what all parties admit—even the rebels themselves—the immediate occasion of the war was the election of a President distasteful, for whatever ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... not have occasion to revert to New York theatrically again, let me here say that, after repeated renewal of my engagements during two years, my last were amongst the greatest I made in this city: how, after this, the American public can be called cold or fickle, I at least ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... I often revert to the strangely thoughtless manner in which knowledge of animal life is skipped over in the teaching of the young. The rude and wild conception of animals which the clergy teach from the Old Testament seems to cause only deep indifference on the part of the girls, and, in the boys, an unholy ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... a pure normal, as Dr. Crafts told you," he said gently. "A few weeks, perhaps only days, of treatment—the thyroid will revert to its normal state—and Eugenia Gilman will be the mother of a new house of Atherton which may eclipse even the proud record of the founder of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... while—to revert to the narrative—the horse artillery battery came up, and the offending hill was conscientiously shelled for an hour. Then the patrols crept forward again, but progress was necessarily slow. We were still six miles from Ladysmith at ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... them in. I want the bomb finished by yesterday afternoon. And everybody with you, and you, yourself, had better revert to civilian status. This isn't something you can do by the numbers, and I don't want anybody who doesn't know what it's all about pulling rank on your outfit. Go ahead, call in your gang, and let me know what you'll be able to do, ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... left under my care, unless, of his own free will, he chose to reside with Richard, who in that case was to become his guardian; and in the event of Herbert's death before reaching his majority, the whole property was to revert to Richard Bristed. You see she loved him still. Unjust but womanlike, her love was stronger ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... my vulgar education, but because the king liked such modes of expression. *Louis XV had a habit of making his own coffee after dinner. One day the coffee boiled over the sides of the pot, and madame du Barry cried out, " Eh, Lafrance, ton cafe f —- le camp." (author) Let me revert to my marriage, which was performed secretly at the parish of Saint Laurent. I believe the king knew of it, altho' he never alluded to it any more than myself. Thus the malice of my enemies was completely balked in this affair. Some days afterwards ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... proportional to cost of production, being consequently inapplicable, we must revert to a principle anterior to that of cost of production, and from which this last flows as a consequence,—namely, the ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... feeling that hour invoked, brought with them a subduing influence, which overpowered these intruding sounds, attuning the heart to love and praise. They paced the walk in mutual and embarrassed silence. Sir Henry's thoughts would at one time revert to his brother, and at another to that parting, which the morrow would assuredly bring with it. He was lost in reverie, and almost forgot who it was that leant thus heavily upon his arm. Julia had loved but once. She saw his abstraction, and knew not the cause; and her timid heart beat quicker ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... truly so. For the fetters which bind us can not be shaken off, before the conscience is emancipated. A political revolution must always be preceded by a spiritual one, that it might have some enduring effect. Otherwise, things will revert to their previous state of rottenness as sure as Allah lives. But mind you, I do not say, Cut down the hedges; mow the thistle-fields; uproot the obscene plants; no: I only ask you to go through them, and out of them, to return no more. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... We must now revert to the tidal history of the earth-moon system. Did we not show that there was a time when the earth and the moon—or perhaps, I should say, the ingredients of the earth and moon—were close together, were indeed in actual contact? We have now learned, from a wholly different line of ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

... understand the importance of events, it is proper to revert to the situation of affairs in September last. We held Atlanta, a city of little value to us, but so important to the enemy that Mr. Davis, the head of the rebellious faction in the South, visited his army ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... But to revert to our subject. Which, I ask, have rendered more service to the world, the arms of Marius or the verses of Virgil? The sword of Marius has rusted, while the fame of him who wrote the AEneid is immortal; and although in his time letters were honoured by lettered persons, yet from ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... be granted. To revert to my simile of the box of letters, you have but to select such facts as suit you, you have but to leave alone those which do not suit you, and, let your theory of history be what it will, you can find no difficulty in providing ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... "But to revert to the law of responsibility. This ought not to be in effect a safeguard for law itself. As such, it is superfluous in this country, where law reigns, and where it would never occur to any one that this could be otherwise. But upon the Continent it is of the highest importance; ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Beginning as high as I could reach, I wrote in columns, each about three feet wide. Soon the pencil became dull. But dull pencils are easily sharpened on the whetstone of wit. Stifling acquired traits, I permitted myself to revert momentarily to a primitive expedient. I gnawed the wood quite from the pencil, leaving only the graphite core. With a bit of graphite a hand guided by the unerring insolence of elation may artistically damn all men and things. That I am inclined to believe I did; and ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... It is fundamentally a problem of adjustment between races that possess a considerable measure of civilization and those that are not far removed from barbarism. It is discouraging at times, because the supposedly cultured peoples revert under stress of war or competition or self-indulgence to the crudities of primitive barbarism, but it is a soluble problem, nevertheless. The privileged peoples need a solemn sense of the responsibility of the "white ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... between the President and myself in regard to the League of Nations and the inclusion of the Covenant in the Treaty of Peace with Germany, it is necessary to revert to the early days of the negotiations at Paris in order to explain the divergence of our views as to the necessity of a definite programme for the American Commission to direct it in its work and to guide its members in their intercourse with ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... Scotch are the least liberal. In Scotland, waiters and hotel servants are paid. An attempt to introduce in Edinburgh the continental system failed most ignominiously in 1886, and the enterprising restaurateur had to revert to the local system, and replace all the former waiters, who ran back to London rather than be reduced to the dire necessity of going into the workhouse. Young men, as a rule, are more generous than elderly people, and the fair sex is, in general, very stingy. A gentleman accompanied by a lady, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... And be it further enacted, that the lands leased by the said Tuscarora Indians to Robert Jones, Jr., William Williams and Thomas Pugh, and to other persons, shall revert and become the property of the State, at the expiration of the terms of the several leases mentioned, if the said nation be extinct; and the lands now belonging to, and possessed by the said Tuscaroras, shall revert to and become the property of the State, whenever ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... 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 ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... 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, made it most difficult to confine the proposed ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... them. The Church lands must be resumed, and the Episcopal domains must be wrested from those who had gained them as the avowed enemies of the Church. About these there could be no question. Crown lands also must revert to the Crown, and had this source of revenue been duly husbanded, it might have supplied a means of dealing with many claims that proved a source of endless and insoluble difficulty. There were certain outstanding Royalists, like Ormonde, whose loyalty was so indisputable, and whose ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... against his life's importunate and stern realities: let him quarrel with his housekeeper because she has mislaid his spectacles, or his night-cap, or, preoccupied with her bible, has not mixed his gruel properly; and his conception of free-will will revert in an instant to the universal type, and the good woman will discern only too plainly that her master's convictions as to it are precisely the same things as her own. Everywhere, indeed, in all the life that surrounds us—in the social and moral ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... rich, I remain at heart a savage—because I like to break away from the tawdry glitter of social pretense and run baying joyously at the head of the wild pack. And, in fairness, you must admit that when I revert to feral instincts I don't have to ask ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of the reading public, and Ernest and his friends were ignorant of their very existence. The Evangelical movement, with the exception to which I shall revert presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a tenth day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy. The "Vestiges" were forgotten before Ernest went up to Cambridge; ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... we shall profit by the lesson, but it is one that any individual might have learned for himself from these romances, without paying the fearful price that is now necessary. And because humanity is apt to forget its most drastic punishments, to revert to its original inertia as soon as the smart is healed, I feel that when the worst is over, these books will have a greater value than ever before. I believe that in them may be found just those essentials of detachment and broad vision which might ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford

... of the Concordat. "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 ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... personification of the sacred oak and only in the second place a personification of the thundering sky, I now invert the order of his divine functions and believe that he was a sky-god before he came to be associated with the oak. In fact, I revert to the traditional view of Jupiter, recant my heresy, and am gathered like a lost sheep into the fold of mythological orthodoxy. The good shepherd who has brought me back is my friend Mr. W. Warde Fowler. He has removed the stone over which ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... What we are is the sum of those things that we do not repress. We begin without self-repression and have to be controlled by others. When we learn to exercise control ourselves, it is right that even our education should revert wholly to what it has long been in greater part—a ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... reasonable bounds the passion for the juice of the grape, a taste so natural to the bear that M. de Chateaubriand remarked it among the ursine tribes of the New World. But philosophers inform us that old age is apt to revert to the habits of youth, and Sechard senior is a case in point—the older he grew, the better he loved to drink. The master-passion had given a stamp of originality to an ursine physiognomy; his nose had developed ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... the Old Testament betrays both Egyptian and Babylonian influences; the social hygiene is a reflex of regulations the origin of which may be traced in the Pyramid Texts and in the papyri. The regulations in the Pentateuch codes revert in part to primitive times, in part represent advanced views of hygiene. There are doubts if the Pentateuch code really goes back to the days of Moses, but certainly someone "learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians" drew it up. As ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... concluded to put it on for Kirkpatrick. He was worth the delicate compliment; moreover it almost obliterated the ravages of war, for it was of periwinkle blue velvet edged with fur about the high square of the neck and at the wrists of the long sleeves: in these days it was wise to revert to the fashions of the centuries when palaces and houses alike were cold and gowns were made for comfort as well as fashion. To complete the proportions it had a train and the sleeves were slightly puffed. Alexina was quite aware that she "looked ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... published in the LYRICAL BALLADS,[1150:2] which after having remained many years out of print, have been omitted by Mr. Wordsworth in the recent collection of all his minor poems, and of course revert to the author. Second, Poems published at very different periods, in various obscure or perishable journals, etc., some with, some without the writer's consent; many imperfect, all incorrect. The third and last class ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the excesses of the presumptuous invader punished, and the subjects of our King were saved from absolute ruin. I might indeed enumerate to you what crowds of the enemy fell in other places, but I turn rather—such is human nature—to more joyful themes, and revert to the point with which I at first commenced, namely that the Sovereign who has saved you from the hostile sword is determined now to avert from your ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... all deeds that if these conditions were violated, the land and buildings thereon should revert to the original owners. There have been violations of this clause, and the courts of this state, and the Supreme Courts of the United States, having decided in favour of the provision, valuable property has been lost to ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... her—was still the only thing to do. The (to Somerset) surprising accident that the committee of architects should have pronounced the designs absolutely equal in point of merit, and thus have caused the final choice to revert after all to Paula, had been a joyous thing to him when he first heard of it, full of confidence in her favour. But the fact of her having again become the arbitrator, though it had made acceptance of his plans all the more probable, made refusal ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... The move into the drawing-room covered his uneasiness, but he found a moment later on to revert to the subject. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... his unruly longings. He was a strong man; adventurous days and nights spent in the open had coarsened the masculine side of his character, perhaps at expense to his finer nature, for it is a human tendency to revert. He was masterful and ruthless; lacking obligations or responsibilities of any sort, he had been accustomed to take what he wanted; therefore the gaze he fixed upon the sleeping woman betrayed an ardor calculated to deepen the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... shall revert once more to Persian jests, many of which are, however, also current in India, through the medium of the Persian language. When a man becomes suddenly rich it not unfrequently follows that he becomes as suddenly oblivious of his old friends. Thus, a Persian having obtained a lucrative ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... me feel its living clasp; and when I have told you, never revert to the tale again. Conceal it from all: swear that it shall die with us,—the last of our ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... led us below the date of the "classical" period, for he died in 583. For one moment I revert to the earlier time to record an interesting example of wandering. Illustrated books of the early centuries are the greatest of rarities. The two Virgils, the Vienna and the Cotton Genesis, the Homer at Milan, the Gospels of Rossano in Calabria ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James

... it rather in a change of atmosphere, in a loss of brightness and radiant energy, in a tendency to revert in spirit, if not in terminology, to much colder conceptions of God, of ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... continues: "The special rate of carriers is like the delicate fluid that anoints and lubricates the joints of the human body. It is an essential oil. Without it the wheels of commerce would cease and we should quickly revert to the period when the stage-coach and the overland teamster fixed the limits of commerce and the stature ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... effect of unwholesome food, bad air, lack of outdoor exercise, and neglect of bathing, on the part of these damsels and their female progenitors, all resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, even with her uncomfortable surplus of vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. But—to revert again to this young person—she goes among you by the name of Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... before me, and which must, the Mim says so, go in this morning's mail. 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 ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... in the direction of the distant hills, turned toward the young pair, who seemed doomed to so early a death, with a slight indication of pity crossing his composed features, but it would immediately revert again to its former gaze, as if already looking into the womb of futurity. Much of the time he was chanting a kind of low dirge in the Delaware tongue, using the deep and remarkable guttural tones ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... this—it was characteristic of Mollie, once the immediate stress was removed, to revert to the matter that had previously claimed her attention, and this had ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... moment Martin displayed a swiftly increasing interest in his own yaws. Dosings with corrosive sublimate were more frequent, while, in conversation, he began to revert with growing enthusiasm to the clean climate of Kansas and all other things Kansan. Charmian and I thought that California was a little bit of all right. Henry swore by Rapa, and Tehei staked all on Bora Bora for his own blood's sake; while Wada and Nakata ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... in the latter once more, detecting, as he believed, an attempt on the part of the skipper to revert to his original objectionable style ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Let us revert to the question of a stationary Aether for a moment or two, and let us ask ourselves, where is the evidence for such an assumption? Has the sun ever ceased to shine, or to send its light-waves with their enormous ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... any idea of the great number of estates which, in default of heirs to claim them, annually revert to the government. The treasury derives large sums from this source every year. And this is easily explained, for nowadays family ties are becoming less and less binding. Brothers cease to meet; their children no longer know each other; and the members of the second generation are as perfect ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... the Breton marshes, in the woods of Toulven, or at sea in the night-watches, we talk of all those things to which thoughts naturally revert in darkness; of ghosts, of spirits, of eternity, of the great hereafter, of chaos—and we entirely ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... been in the depths of despair, and now—now—a whole vista of beatitude opened out before me! What the worthy Israelite said was that, by the terms of Grandpapa Goldberg's will, if Leah married without her father's consent, one-half of the fortune destined for her would revert to her aunt, Sarah Goldberg, now Madame ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... be surely better continued for some useful purpose than to keep up the parade of a great military corps designed merely to lie inactive in its quarters. On this ground, therefore, and on the supposition premised, I revert to my original sentiments in favor of the prince's plan; but as this will require some qualification in the execution of it, I will state my recommendation of it in the terms of a proposition, viz., that, if it shall be the resolution of the board to continue the detachment now under ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... they had no idea 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 to others; the Duke and Castlereagh ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... subject of reversion, I may here refer to a statement often made by naturalists—namely, that our domestic varieties, when run wild, gradually but certainly revert in character to their aboriginal stocks. Hence it has been argued that no deductions can be drawn from domestic races to species in a state of nature. I have in vain endeavoured to discover on what decisive facts the above statement has so often ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... except for drinking purposes. He had had enough of it, he said. I did bathe my hands and face occasionally, particularly in the morning, to rouse me from the torpor of the always heavy sleep of night. What savages men will revert into when they are buried for a long period in the wilderness and shake off the trammels and customs of the conventionalism of civilization! It does not take long to make an Indian out of a white man so far as habits and customs of ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... himself, as though he had seen a ghost. Now he was only a golfer of one generation; there was nothing in his inheritance to steady him in such a crisis. He began slowly to disintegrate morally, to revert to type. He contained himself until Booverman had driven free of the river, which flanks the entire green passage to the ninth hole, and then barely controlling the impulse to catch Booverman by the knees and implore him to discretion, he ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... said Dolf, and he cut the tart into four pieces, having an idea that the last slice would revert ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... remembrance of war—when 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 Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... in to clear away he had flung himself down on the hard horse-hair sofa. The mould candle lighted up but a small space in the large, cold room; there was no fire in the grate, no books or papers lying about, to beguile the tedious hour before bedtime. Was it any wonder that his thoughts should revert to the earlier hours of the evening? that he should hear again in fancy the soft voice that said, "I am Valmai Powell," and that he should picture to himself the clustering curls that escaped from ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... to me. You don't speak of Tichborne, which I never tire of: only wondering that the Lord Chief Justice sets so much Brains to work against so foolish a Bird. {170} The Spectator on Carlyle is very good, I think. As to Politics I scarce meddle with them. I have been glad to revert to Don Quixote, which I read easily enough in the Spanish: it is so delightful that I don't grudge looking into a Dictionary for the words I forget. It won't do in English; or has not done as yet: the English colloquial is not the Spanish do. It struck me oddly that—of all things in the world!—Sir ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... I revert, therefore, to the statement that to make the kind of spiritual progress which will overcome fear it will be often necessary to let go the thing we have outlived. Often the thing we have outlived will be something dear to us, ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... or to remove the source of friction by buying out the landlords for the benefit of the tenants. The present Ministry have chosen the former alternative, but they dangle before the eyes of their supporters some prospect that they may ultimately revert to the latter. Now, the only way that has yet been pointed out of buying out the landlords, without imposing tremendous liabilities of loss upon the British Treasury, is the creation of a strong Home Rule Government in Dublin. Supposing, however, that some other ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... Suez Canal in the minds of Mehemet Ali and Ferdinand de Lesseps, and Gustave d'Eichthal devoted his enthusiasm and energies to creating, out of the ideas of St. Simon and Enfantin, a new religion which should revert to the socialism of the Prophets, while denying or ignoring, like them, any other life than this. It is said that he consulted Heine as to the best means of founding such a religion. "Get crucified and rise again on the third day," was Heine's caustic reply. The socialistic tone ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... disputes arose regarding the title to Jersey that the whole thing finally reverted to the crown in 1702. When there was any trouble over titles in those days it was always settled by letting it revert to the crown. It has been some years now, however, since that has ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... of force leads to outward decay, Spiritual existence means inward fulness. Let us revert to Nothing and enter the Absolute, Hoarding up strength for Energy. Freighted with eternal principles, Athwart the mighty void, Where cloud-masses darken, And the wind blows ceaseless around, Beyond the range of conceptions, Let us ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... He would like to revert to the state of things which had grown up under the Draconian laws of the Free State. According to a very interesting Blue-book containing reports of magistrates, one magistrate had reported that "the pernicious ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... entirely unexpected event of the efforts of science being unable to reanimate the Colonel, all my effects shall revert to Nicholas Meiser, my sole ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... fixing me for the first time with his dark deep-set eyes, "we must revert to the evening when we first encountered one another in your village. What did I tell ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Revert" :   turn back, retrovert, mutate, reversion, regress, turn, recover, lapse, recuperate, relapse, return



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