Word: retort
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...child, to conclude, on a veranda in Fiesole, that she was wise to relight her candle after fate had snuffed it. The story is straightforwardly written out, with honest British cliches of word, action and philosophy. It is another young woman's (Miss Thompson is 24) post-bellum retort. It will please many, but to this reviewer the younger characters seem wooden things from the hand of a very self-conscious creator. Not so the elders?Edgar Renner, an anglicized Viennese, and his wife, a sweetly arrogant English girl?with whom Miss Thompson seems more at ease. THE PENTON PRESS...
There he is writing the third volume of his autobiography, Seventy Summers, the first two volumes of which have already been published and contain the now famous statement that famed novelist Wells has the appearance of "a stockbroker or a traveling salesman," which caused Mr. Wells to retort with asperity, "I suppose the thing is a libel and a damaging libel but life is too short to chase libels" (TIME, Jan. 25). Mr. Bigelow however continues in full cry after Mr. Wells' allegedly libelous retort to his allegedly libelous statement. Said he as a parting shot to the reporters last...
Thoroughly angry by now, the Crimson man determined to republish both paragraphs with a fitting retort. He thought and thought. He did not stop to consider that many a contribution like that of "Manufacturer" is composed or suggested by many a scheming magazine editor to liven up his page and cause comment. He quite forgot the Crimson's traditional suavity in the face of minor absurdities. He boiled and boiled, and boiled his anger down to a single devastating headline, which later appeared above the two paragraphs reprinted on the Crimson's editorial page...
Thus placing the discussion on the prosaic basis of business training, Mr. Babson gives the News opportunity to retort that a college is "no business training school. God forbid." "Living, not business, is life's purpose." And the college is not to be judged in terms of the business efficiency of its graduates...
Since it is Probable that few Senators "attend chapel", one could hardly, except one were a mid-Victorian Methodist, wax earnest over the matter. Yet the protests suggest an analogy to a retort that President Tyler once occasioned after the death of President Harrison had raised him to the office. He was about to purchase a used carriage when, seriously or no, he turned to his negro servant and asked, "Jim, do you think it's all right for a President to buy a second hand carriage?" The answer was, "Well boss, you'se a second hand President...