"Figurehead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... retaining its republican form. Milan became a duchy. Florence fell under the sway of the Medici. In Venice a few rich families seized all authority, and while the fame and territory of the republic were extended, its dogeship became a mere figurehead. All real power was lodged in the dread and secret council of three.[11] Genoa was defeated and crushed in a great naval contest with her rival, Venice.[12] Everywhere tyrannies stood out triumphant. The first modern age of representative government was a failure. The cities ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the place of women; all this nonsense of vows of fidelity and exaltation of sentiment in the home cramps a man's ambitions. It is perfectly natural that he should take a wife if his position calls for it, because the society in which we move has made a figurehead of that kind necessary. But that a woman should expect a man to be faithful to her, be she wife or mistress, is ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... an old goose coming out of a barn, Tavvy," cried Kenneth, laughing. "How particular you are over that old figurehead of yours." ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... is the "Man with a Pick." The group in the tympanum represents Varied Industries. (p. 138.) The central figure is Agriculture, the basic food-supplying industry. On one side is the Builder, on the other the Common Workman. Beyond them are Commerce holding the figurehead of a ship, and a woman with a spindle, a lamb before ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... me, they'll love my wife, and rejoice in my happiness," Leopold went on, sharply. "If they complain, why, we shall see who's master; whether or not the Emperor of Rhaetia is a mere figurehead. In some countries Royalty is but an ornamental survival of a picturesque past, a King or Queen is a mere puppet which the nation loads with luxury to do itself honor. That's not true of Rhaetia, though, as I'm ready to prove, if prove it I must. But I believe ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... article on Kramenin, who was described as the "man behind Bolshevism" in Russia, and who had just arrived in London—some thought as an unofficial envoy. His career was sketched lightly, and it was firmly asserted that he, and not the figurehead leaders, had been the author ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... incognito. I was taken on as a kind of go-between and, as I may say, figurehead, on the strength of being my father's son and a very self-confident young gentleman, and began to get my newspaper education in point of fact as a kind of fetch-and-carry for Major Heiss. He was a practical newspaper man who ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... lips curled as she turned to face him and she seemed to spit the words at him in sudden, unexpected resentment. "I love the meaningless sound of my official figurehead title! It's so much better than being regarded as a living person with feelings ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... each other; the baronet, more by instinct than anything else, threw the engine lever still further forward, and before anyone had time even to draw a breath of relief, the apparently doomed vessel was dragged, with a foaming surge heaped up round her bows as high as the figurehead, out from the reopened portal and clear of all danger a single instant before the two gigantic masses of ice again closed in upon each other with a horrible grinding crunch which must have been audible ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... pressure to spend as much on your warship as possible is not so great as sometimes; still Eustatius, the magnate in question, knows that he will be bitterly criticized (nay, perhaps prosecuted in the courts) if he does not do "the generous thing." He is therefore ordering an extra handsome figurehead; promising a bonus to the rowing master if he can get his hands to row in better rhythm than the ordinary crew; and directing that wine of superior quality be sent aboard for the men.[] It will be an anxious year in any case for Eustathius. He has ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... passion for work. This Secretary was called Wonder—John Fennil Wonder. The Viceroy possessed no name—nothing but a string of counties and two-thirds of the alphabet after them. He said, in confidence, that he was the electro-plated figurehead of a golden administration, and he watched in a dreamy, amused way Wonder's attempts to draw matters which were entirely outside his province into his own hands. "When we are all cherubims together," said His Excellency once, "my dear, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... something to replace him, and what could be better than this? The new mayor had as qualifications for his office two facts only: he was the senior deputy of the city to the National Assembly; he possessed an unquenchable supply of civic and complimentary eloquence. Behind this figurehead the sections soon built up a new municipality or town council made up of delegates from the sections, and that varied in numbers at ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... umbrella, leaving it in his hand. She bent forward, stooped down. The strong young face, proud and sad, so pure in its maiden strength, glowing with passionate emotion, was laid softly against that bruised and battered figurehead of shipwrecked womanhood; Nellie had kissed the sleeping ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... length, low amidships and curving upwards to high peaks at stem and stern, both of which converged to sharp edges. It resembled an enormous canoe rather than aught else to which we can compare it. On the stem was a carved and gilt dragon, the figurehead of the ship, which glittered in the bright rays of the sun. Along the bulwarks of the ship, fore and aft, hung rows of large painted wooden shields, which gave an Argus-eyed aspect to the craft. Between them was a double row of thole-pins for the great oars, which now lay at rest in the bottom of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... only embargo that I lay upon you is—haul off, and mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is settled and the wind fair—dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... there, and your sofa by them. A clerk over there: it would be a sort of companion. You've plenty of capital to start with, and wouldn't have to lose your head at the first wrong deal. Of course you'd want someone the other end, a figurehead and mouthpiece, and someone to show you the lines, start you off; I'd be pleased to do it. We could make a partnership concern ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... office. So what's he to do? He gets a man like Gibson, starts this so-called clean-up campaign to get Gibson political power, stages or directs this 'Lark' wreck business and figures I'll quit so that Gibson can slip in here under the guise of a reformer, but really a figurehead, a puppet, to appease the churches and other organizations standing for a clean city and law enforcement while the 'Gink' bosses things from ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... only a figurehead; that he is only a name; that he is in reality an imperceptible, intangible idol, whom hoboes worship, and to whom they refer as their common leader, while, in reality, there is no ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... figurehead of the democracy had a comparatively easy part assigned him. Had it been necessary for him to persuade, he would probably have failed, for he lacked the gifts of the orator and the suppleness of the intriguer; but he was expected only ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... at once to arrest Quilp at a dingy dwelling on a wharf in the river where he often slept with the object of terrifying his wife by his long absences. Here he had set up the battered figurehead of a wrecked ship and, imagining that its face resembled that of Kit whom he so fiendishly hated, he used to amuse himself by screwing gimlets into its breast, sticking forks into its eyes and beating it ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... calmness of the sea, was pitching and tossing as if in the roughest water. As she drew nearer I was able to make her out better, and from her build—she carried two masts and was square-rigged forward and schooner-rigged aft—as well as from her tawdry gilt figurehead, concluded she was a hermaphrodite brig of, very possibly, Dutch nationality. She had evidently seen a great deal of rough weather, for her foretopmast and part of her starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to my astonishment ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... no more serious demands upon our loyalty than this he will be well served," he answered. "There is no one more fit to command than you, sir. The present admirable disposition of our forces is yours, not mine; so far I have been no more than a figurehead. Your plan of entrenchments has been a revelation to all ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... trust me for that, sir. I'll show my figurehead there first thing in the mornin'. No fears o' any one getting theer afore me, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... were, and smart, too," answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, "and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into mountains of cold opposition, and to get rid of any ice crusts in front of the train, but after the winter of trial and probation, and difficulties of beginning are over, and the summer of success has come, his position, in regard to the artists, must be more like that of a figurehead. I have, however, great faith in the power of artists to make a figure-head useful as well as ornamental, although I do not know that they have shown a proof of this to-day by making their figure-head deliver a speech, which it is well known figure-heads never do, except on ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... sat with Anaitis in the two tall chairs that were in the prow of the vessel, under a canopy of crimson stuff embroidered with gold dragons, and just back of the ship's figurehead, which was a dragon painted with thirty colors: and the ship moved out of the harbor, and so into the open sea. Thus ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... thick-witted, superstitious valet, who, more or less persecuted by the noble employers with whom he had been in service at various times, sought to avenge himself, not on them, but on their king, as the figurehead of all that was rotten in the social hierarchy. Louis, heretofore known as the "Bien Aime," had become suddenly unpopular because of the disastrous war against England and Germany, and his prodigal dissipation ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... toward the mantelpiece before which Steve was standing, gazing intently at a significant quartette of tiny models under glass. First came a ship of graceful outline, having a miniature figurehead of an angel at its prow and every sail set. Beside this was an ungainly side-wheeler with scarce a line of beauty to commend it. Next in order came an exquisite, up-to-date ocean liner; and the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... David Hull appeared. A new personality; a plausible personality, deceptive because self-deceiving—yet not so thoroughly self-deceived that it was in danger of hindering its own ambition. David Hull—just the kind of respectable, popular figurehead and cloak ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... subordinate to itself. There was no division of powers in the new frame of government. Legislative, executive, and judicial powers were thrown together in true Bourbon fashion. Apparently it was Colbert's plan to make of the governor a distinguished figurehead, with large military powers but without paramount influence in civil affairs. The bishop was to have no civil jurisdiction, and the intendant was to be the director of details. The Council, according to the edict of 1663, was to be the real pivot of ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... over the perruque. The Restoration was a time of carnival when, if the men were overdressed, the ladies were underdressed; and the perruque was a part of the masquerade. In such a figurehead you could be as licentious as you chose—and you were; you could only be serious in satire. The perruque accounts for Dryden and his learned pomp, for Rochester and Sedley, and for Congreve, who told Voltaire that he desired to be considered as a gentleman ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... voyage of discovery towards India; and in this reign he was again sent by Cleopatra down the Red Sea to trade with the unknown countries in the east. How far he went may be doubted, but he brought back with him from the coast of Africa the prow of a ship ornamented with a horse's head, the usual figurehead of the Carthaginian ships. This he showed to the Alexandrian pilots, who knew it as belonging to one of the Phoenician ships of Cadiz or Gibraltar. Eudoxus justly argued that this prow proved that it was possible to sail round Africa and to ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... that in the olden times the crocodiles used to speak to his people, warning them of danger, but that now they never speak, and he supposes that their silence is due to the fact that his people have intermarried with other tribes. The Long Patas frequently carve a crocodile's head as the figurehead ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... sheer alongside of her, and, when under quarter, examined her close. Never saw such a fine swell in the counter, and all so trim—no ropes towing overboard. Well, Mr Simple, I said to myself, 'D—n it, if her figurehead and bows be finished off by the same builder, she's perfect.' So I shot ahead, and yawed a little—caught a peep at her through her veil, and saw two black eyes—as bright as beads, and as large as damsons. I saw quite enough, and not wishing to frighten her, I ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Teddy, with a twinkle in his eye. "If there's a Mrs. Jason on board Jason himself won't have a word to say about the expedition. He'll be nothing but a figurehead. He'll be the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... 'Now,' said I to myself, 'Peterkin, you're in a fix.' Then I fancied I saw a gilt figure-head and three masts, belonging to a ship just about to start; so I darted on board, but speedily jumped on shore again, when I found that two of the masts belonged to another vessel, and the figurehead to a third! At last I caught sight of what I made sure was it,—a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts,—yes, that must be it,—and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... king was often little more than a figurehead, equaled, or perhaps surpassed, in power by some of his own vassals. But in England, France, Spain, and other countries a series of astute and energetic sovereigns were able to strengthen their authority at the expense of the nobles. They formed permanent armies by insisting that all military ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... be no question that Stephens never did anything which in his own mind was in the least disloyal. And yet it was Stephens who, in the autumn of 1864, was singled out by artful men as a possible figurehead in the conduct of a separate peace negotiation with Sherman. A critic very hostile to Stephens and his faction might here raise the question as to what was at bottom the motive of Governor Brown, in the autumn of 1864, in withdrawing the Georgia militia from ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the Indians arrived with the head of the alligator, which they and Sambo proposed to preserve, in order, the latter said, to make a figurehead for ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... extended On the grass the vessel's keel; High above it, gilt and splendid, Rose the figurehead ferocious With its crest ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... vulgarities, common schools, a real democratic spirit in its people, and a great enthusiasm for universities; but no single advantage has been so great as this happy accident which has given it a specially selected man as its voice and figurehead in the world's affairs. In the average congressman, in the average senator, as Ostrogorski's great book so industriously demonstrated, the United States have no great occasion for pride. Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives seem to rise above the level of the British ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... to reign over them, but they saw that he had three good qualities: he was no hypocrite, he did not waste the people's money, and he was a man of unquestioned courage. But they also saw more than this, for they realized that though George I might be as heavy, dull, and wooden as the figurehead of an old-fashioned ship, yet, like that figurehead, he stood for something greater and better than himself,— for he represented Protestantism, with civil and religious liberty,— and so the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... asked Elizabeth when Alencon might come to see her, she refused to name a time, because she knew secretly that a great Huguenot movement in France was pending, and she wished Alencon to be there as figurehead at the time—the very thing that the official French Government wished to avoid. The projected movement was betrayed and suppressed, and Alencon's life was for a time in danger; but when Henry III. (Anjou) was seated on the throne, Alencon kept openly a rival court ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... government, and there was no sympathy between him and his council. The Horacistas distrusted him and forced him to dismiss his friends from the cabinet and to make distasteful appointments. Seeing that he was being reduced to a figurehead, Morales secretly tried to form a party for himself or make arrangements with the Jimenistas who for months had been conspiring and threatening to rise. The friction became more severe until Morales, fearing that both his office and his life were in danger, on ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... roadster. Its side curtains were up, completely enclosing the single seat. It had evidently been used since the rainy weather started. It was not altogether free from damage, one of the fenders was bent, the bumper in front almost touched the ground on one side, an ornamental figurehead had been broken off the radiator cap, and the face of the radiator was dented. This car was equipped with a searchlight fastened on one end of the windshield, and as Gilbert Tyson handled this it lighted, sending a penetrating shaft of brightness ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement: "Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead." ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... year Captain Nummy Tangye, of the Touch-me-not, relinquished his command. Captain Tangye's baptismal name was Matthias, and Bideford, in Devon, his native town. But the Touch-me-not, which he had commanded for thirty-five years, happened to carry for figurehead a wooden Highlander holding a thistle close to his chest, and against his thigh a scroll with the motto, Noli Me Tangere, and this being, in popular belief, an effigy of the captain taken in the prime of life, Mr. Tangye cheerfully accepted the fiction with its implication of Scottish ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... mind the rougher side of industry. In the left corner a woman with her spindle - a lamb standing near - recalls the making of textiles. Commerce occupies the right corner, holding the prow of a vessel with its figurehead. ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... easily countered this manoeuvre by arresting the duke and opening negotiations with Matthias, who signed the second Union of Brussels, on December 10, 1577, and guaranteed liberty of conscience. The young archduke was henceforth a mere figurehead and Orange remained the real ruler of ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... shape that arises from the patch of lawn in front of the cottage, and completely dominates the scene. Imagine yourself face to face with the last thing you would expect to see in a modest front dooryard,—the figurehead of a ship, heroic in size, gorgeous in colour, majestic in pose! A female personage it appears to be from the drapery, which is the only key the artist furnishes as to sex, and a queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot high, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to be equal to his half-brother, and that he rested this claim on a vision. The implication is that Baha-'ullah was virtually the head of the Bābī community, and that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was wrapt up in dreams, and was really only a figurehead. In fact, from whatever point of view we compare the brothers (half-brothers), we are struck by the all-round competence of the elder and the incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only the ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... such—there was to be only the English party governing Ireland in the interests of England. It was the beginning of a government which led to the appointment of such a man as Primate Boulter, who simply ruled Ireland behind the Lord Lieutenant (who was but a figurehead) for and on behalf of the King of England's advisers. Irish institutions, Irish ideas, Irish traditions, the Irish Church, Irish schools, Irish language and literature, Irish trade, manufactures, commerce, agriculture—all were to be subordinated ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... long afterwards. "Two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil woman pleased to have me in them." It fronts the sea, and is (or was) a small two-storeyed house, with a patch of grass before it, a summer-house, and a big white figurehead, belike of the shipwrecked Clare. So over the garden-gate FitzGerald leant one June morning, and asked me, a boy of eight, was my father at home. I remember him dimly then as a tall sea- browned man, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... the unshaken faith in our Board of Trustees. I doubt if such another board exists. It is made up of white men and black men, of men of the North and men of the South. There is not a figurehead among them. Though intensely engaged they go into the details of the workings of the school, getting close to the inner workings and to the lives of the ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... hand, and with his dying energies he swung it over my head, as I knelt there unarmed beside him. I looked up wildly to avoid the blow, and saw above us the great bulk of Britannia leaning outward like the figurehead of a ship. The next instant I saw it was leaning an inch or two more than usual, and all the skies with their outstanding stars seemed to be leaning with it. For the third second it was as if the skies fell; and in the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... weakness of successive monarchs since the death of William III, there had grown up the cabinet system of government which, in 1763, meant the reduction of the King to the position of an honorary figurehead and the actual control of officers, perquisites, patronage, and preferment, as well as the direction of public policy, by the leaders of parliamentary groups. The King was {12} obliged to select his ministers from among the members of ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... supposed to have struck on a reef to the southward of the Palm Islands, as the bulk of her cargo was cast ashore in Ramsay Bay, Hinchinbrook Island. Portions of the wreckage were found on the Brook Islands; her figurehead—the spread eagle of the United States—and a seaman's chest were picked up on the beach here. Her windlass, with a child's pinafore entangled with it—for the skipper had taken his wife and two children to bear him company—drifted on the South Franklands, 40 miles to the north, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... voyage would be long enough for me to try my sea legs, and, as he believed, to cure me of my fancy for a sea life. I was to visit the skipper at the Angel tavern that evening, and if he liked my figurehead, as Woodrow put it, the matter could be ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... lunatic, a monster, a sage,—it was all the same to these unheeding centuries. The people could not follow those they understood or who understood them. They must trust all to the blind chance of heredity. Tyrant or figurehead, the mob, which from its own indifference creates the pomp of royalty, threw up its caps for the king, and blindly died for him in his courage or in his folly with the same unquestioning loyalty. In like manner did ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... moment's consideration of the conditions and incidents, the chances and mischances, that led up to this denouncement will show that it was not so strange a thing, after all. To take the Lady Barbara, first. Up to the time of her visit to London, Lord Farquhart had been to her something of a figurehead. She had considered him merely as a creature quite inanimate and impersonal, who was to be forced upon her by her father's will just as she was to be forced upon him. But Lord Farquhart in the flesh was a young man of most pleasing appearance, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... her for me, and I am to be the figurehead; come to the carver's shop and see me," said Berinthia with ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... I just want to say I appreciate very much the honor that has been bestowed upon me. I appreciate the fact that the president is purely an emblem, a figurehead, but with the staff that's under him, it's the same as in the Post Office Department of the United States, the head receives all the salary and his understudies do all the work. So it's a very appropriate setting, and we should go forward under a very good staff ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... he observed that His Excellency the Marquis of Lorne is Patron of the Quebec Club. His Excellency is not on the list as a mere figurehead; he is a golfer, and plays an excellent game, as shewn in the Reports of medal ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... encase myself, I should be ramming every man's absurd opinions down his throat, and letting my cursed temper fly at each of the provocations which constantly beset me. I have not the happy gift of compromise; but I am not unhuman, and I like not the prospect of going down to posterity a wooden figurehead upon some emblematic battle-ship. Perhaps, my boy, you, who best know me, will be moved by charity to be ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... acquiescence upon the future. As the typical instance of a convenient convention that I am inclined to think is now reacting very badly upon our future, the Crown of the British Empire, considered as the symbolical figurehead of a system of hereditary privilege and rule, serves extremely well. One may deal with this typical instance with no special application to the easy, kindly, amiable personality this crown adorns at the present time. It is a question that may be dealt ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... That was when the crisis came. I should have resigned. But I had my family to think of; I had friends who were involved; I had interests that I could not leave. And I stayed—and that is all. I found that I had stayed to be a puppet, a figurehead. And now it is ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... priest, Senor Pascual Reyes, has arrived here from Cebu, and says that in Leyte General Lucban is committing many abuses and that Colonel Mojica is only a mere figurehead. In Cebu, he says, things are also in a chaotic condition, because the military chief, Magsilum [Maxilom,—TR.], and the people are ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... the boy. "Patty made them up herself. First we had the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' and Waitstill made believe be the figurehead of the Mayflower. She stood on a great boulder ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... discovered herself leaning forward tensely, her hands shut in excitement and emotion; and she relaxed with a happy laugh as the Nautilus, with her yards exactly square and rigging taut, her sides and figurehead and ports bright with newly laid on paint, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... place, the very worst I ever saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time of the Dutch dynasty, as I judge from the immense posterior developments. Indeed the arts of the country are very low. The statues here, and the lions before the Prince of Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carter, who was loading up a waggon in the yard with a cargo o' beer casks. Looking closer it seemed to me that the man's nose, like the beak of a goshawk, and his glinting eyes with the lids only half-reefed, were known to me, but when I overheard him swearing to himself in good High Dutch, then his figurehead came back to me in a moment. I put out into the yard, and touched him on the shoulder. Zounds, lad! you should have seen him spring back and spit at me like a wildcat with every hair of his head in ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... kind of oddity he doted on. Fancy her teaching music of all things. It must be only scales and exercises. I think she's splendid to see the incongruity herself, and refuse to call it music when she dare be honest. What a grotesque figurehead she looks, chum, doesn't she? I thoroughly enjoyed ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... any of the foreign journals." In 1804 the price had been raised to six dollars. The issue of July 21, 1804, was in deep black lines, in mourning for Alexander Hamilton. The issue of July 23, 1808, was a memorial number to Fisher Ames. The "Oliver Oldschool" figurehead was abandoned in January, 1811, and "conducted by Jos. Dennie, Esq.," took its place; for, the editor explained, "Since the magazine is no longer political, the appellation of Oliver Oldschool is no longer ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... said. "What she wanted was a figurehead she could control—and that's what she got. Though I'm not sure she's entirely happy with the change. If the original Zeus was a little harder to control, at least he seems to have had an ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Annunciation chapel, which comes next in order, is a fine, burly, ship's-figurehead, commercial-hotel sort of being enough, but the Virgin is very ordinary. There is no real hair and no fresco background, only three dingy old blistered pictures of ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... advisers and their lords were in their thinking, they did not dare to trample openly on the old tradition. The emperor might in practice be a completely powerless figurehead, but he belonged nevertheless, according to tradition, to a family of divine origin, which had obtained its office not merely by the exercise of force but through a "divine mandate". Accordingly, if one of the feudal lords ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... the fired East, where, in the sea-haze, lay the sacred places clothed (like the Sacrament) in that gauzy veil. First of them Trenchemer steered, the King's red galley, in whose prow, stiff and hieratic as a figurehead, was the King himself, watching for a sign. The great ships rolled and plunged, the tide came racing by them, blue-green water lipped with foam, carrying upon it unknown weeds, golden fruit floating, wreckage unfamiliar, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Billie when some time later they left the motor car in charge of Komatsu and went in to visit Shiba Temple in Shiba Park. These chapels are mostly the tombs of the Shoguns who for many years were powerful nobles and who really ruled Japan in place of the Emperor, a mere figurehead in those days. The magnificent tombs they built for themselves are now the very pride of Tokyo. Within the great red gates of the main temple, upheld with scarlet columns, wheeled flights of pigeons quite tame. The girls bought packages ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... conferred on them by the people in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices. Thus introduced into the municipal council, they constitute its majority and appoint a mayor who is their figurehead or creature, now the bold leader and again the docile instrument of their spite, their favors, and their headlong action, of their blunders and presumption, and of their meddlesome disposition and encroachments.—In the department, the council general, also elected by universal suffrage, also bears ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... aboard that ship. Maybe he can't do as much for the Galaxy in the long run as Mayhem can, but don't you see, man, he's a figurehead. Right now he's the most important man in the Galaxy, and if we could talk to him I'm sure Mayhem would agree. Mayhem would want ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... the last generation at least. T. Tembarom had looked on, an interested spectator, as these festivities had been adroitly arranged and managed for him. He had not, however, in the least resented acting as a sort of figurehead in the position ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Trans-Atlantic News Service KING ALBERT AT THE HEAD OF THE HEROIC SOLDIERS OF BELGIUM It is universally agreed that the Belgian monarch was no figurehead general but a real leader of his troops. It was these men, facing annihilation, who astonished the world by opposing the German military machine successfully enough to allow France to get her armies ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... He knows it, she knows it, and a few other people know it. He's the figurehead behind which she works. She's a rich woman, she loves the game—her father was the greatest diplomat of his time, you know—and she married Cortlandt so she could play it. Any other man would have served as well, though I've heard that he showed promise before she blotted him out and absorbed him. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... treat British officers like common criminals, as he was supposed to. I think this is highly probable, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, it being only hearsay. He was replaced by a fat and rather harmless dug-out captain, who proved to be only a pompous figurehead. The camp was entirely run by the second in command, Lieutenant Wolfe. In England persons of this type are so rarely met with that our language does not contain the necessary words to describe them adequately. In Germany they are ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... of the country, and, regarding their reformation as hopeless, openly advocated the adoption of Christianity. To be independent of the foreigner it must, he said, be made a state church, with one of the princes for a figurehead, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... What kind of talk's that? Course I'm sure! She was younger than Marcellus and pretty—say, she WAS pretty! Yes, the outside of her figurehead was mighty hard to beat, everybody said so; but the inside was kind of—well, kind of rattly, as you might say. She'd laugh and talk and go on and Ed Farmer he'd hang over the desk there in the office and look at her. Just look—and ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of the great railway presidents, was universally regarded as a power, though I, of course, knew that he, like so many other presidents of railways, of individual corporations, of banks, of insurance companies, and high political officials in cities, states and the nation, was little more than a figurehead put up and used by the inside financial ring. As he shifted from leg to leg, holding his hat and trying to steady his twitching upper lip, he looked as one of his smallest section-bosses would have looked, if called ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... firing in reply, the shots were all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't know how to synchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct setting for the proximity-fuses. The Gaucho's searchlights came on, bathing her quarry in light. It was the Jan Smuts; the name and the figurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible. Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing about to get a field of fire ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... was a good deal of an exhibit, in his way. His togs were cut to fit his spars, and he carried 'em well—no wrinkles at the peak or sag along the boom. His figurehead was more'n average regular, and his hair was combed real nice—the part in the middle of it looked like it had been laid out with a plumb-line. Also, he had on white shoes and glory hallelujah stockings. Altogether, he was alone with the price of admission, and what some folks, I s'pose, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... play depended largely upon Judd and Benz, and a complete deception of the opposing line. Benz had been hardly more than a mere figurehead in the last quarter and Pennington would not be expecting him to ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... It means to be jammed back in a mold that will turn me out to the family pattern. It means a willingness to give up thinking for myself and accept YOUR thoughts and shape my life by them. It means being a figurehead as long as you live and a replica of yourself when you are gone. That's it, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Miss Paton, Miss Bacon, Henry Phillips (the veteran and popular singer of later days, but who was then only in his 25th year), Signor Curioni (said to have borne a wonderful resemblance to Shakespeare in his figurehead and features), Signor de Begius, Mr. John Baptiste Cramer, C.G. Kiesewetter (who died the following year), Charles Augustus de Beriot (who married Madame Malibran-Garcia), and quite a host of local instrumentalists ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... every day! I'd know that the house was clean, the meals as good and as nourishing as could be; I'd know that guests would be well cared for and that bills would be paid. Isn't a woman, the mistress of a house, supposed to do more than that? I don't want to be a mere figurehead." ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... walked with him to where they could get a good view of Captain Banes's brig, whose taut rigging and shapely sides began to show plainly now in the early morning, a flash of sunlight seeming to have fallen just beneath the bows on the head of the white painted figurehead beneath the bowsprit; but it proved to be only the gilded Phrygian cap which the carvers had formed, while as they walked up, admiring the trimness of the well-kept vessel the while, there was another gleam of sunlight, but only on the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly; "cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figurehead ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... steamships pass out on the road she may no longer travel. The days pass—the weeks—the months; the tide ebbs, and comes again; fair winds carry but trailing smoke-wrack to the rim of a far horizon; head winds blow the sea mist in on her—but she lies unheeding. Idle, unkempt, neglected; and the haughty figurehead of her is ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... vessel was plunging along athwart our course as if she meant to give us the go-by, the sea foaming up at her bows in a big wave that curled up in front of her forefoot and broke over her figurehead as she dipped, sending the surf high in the air in a sheet ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for La Reine. We have her yet in the house, but many of her glass spars and ropes are now sadly shattered and broken,—but I will not have her mended; and her figurehead, a gallant warrior in a cocked-hat, lies pitching headforemost down into the trough of a calamitous sea under the bows—but I will not have him put on his legs again, till I get on my own; for between him and me there is a secret sympathy; and my sisters tell me, even yet, that he fell from his ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... duty to give to the world an account of the forcible deportation of King Mataafa from Samoa to the Marshall Islands, where he was kept in exile six years. The Germans had shoved him aside to make room for Malieto, an imbecile and a German figurehead. I was there again when Mataafa, at the end of those six years, returned to Samoa, to the great ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... out her figurehead, too," he said. "It is a saint, though I don't know what saint; but if you notice, sir, you will see that, instead of standing nearly upright, he leans much more forward than usual. I remember the captain saying he looked as if he was going to take a header. So with that, and the stern gallery, there ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... happy here is the governess, and the factory hands are working for her gratification. But that's only apparent: she is only the figurehead. The real person, for whom everything is being ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... confusion was added to the already perplexing chronology of Japan. In administrative methods there was a difference. The Northern Court adhered to the camera system: that is to say, the actual occupant of the throne was a mere figurehead, the practical functions of Government being discharged by the cloistered sovereign. In the Southern Court the Emperor himself, nominally at all events, directed the business of administration. Further, the office of shogun ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... addition to the reports made by von der Golz, the accredited German instructor of the Turkish Army, helped to shape the policy of the German Foreign Office. I learned beyond all doubt that the Sultan Abdul Hamid was nothing but a figurehead, that the Grand Vizier, bought by Russian and French gold, was running the government in a way that was antagonistic to German influences and that the swarms of demi-mondaines in French and Russian pay were corrupting the higher Turkish officials to their cause. All these things I included ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... stern, the ends not being connected, but the bow is closed by a raised end-board fancifully carved and painted in front of which a crest-like wooden ornament fits into a groove running along the beak. This figurehead, called tabura, is elaborately cut into various devices, painted red and white, and decorated with white egg-shells and feathers of the cassowary and bird of paradise. The bow and stern also are more or less profusely ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... your speech will be a rallying cry to all the cranks, and every one who has a spite against the country. They'll make you their figurehead. [MORE smiles] They will. Your chance of the Cabinet will go—you may even ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... but with a face set as the figurehead on one of his own ships, the captain went to answer the knock. They heard the door open, and then ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to the teachings of their forefathers, sailed for the New World with the image of St. Nicholas for a figurehead on their vessel. They named the first church they built for the much-loved St. Nicholas and made him patron saint of the new city on Manhattan Island. Thanks, many many thanks, to these sturdy old Dutchmen ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the high road to extension and perpetuity, and with a pat on its back says to it: 'Go, and God speed you.' Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation, the very figurehead of the ship of state. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving the old for the new faith. Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to that other declaration, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... tournure, conformation, image, effigy, statue, bust, figurehead, likeness; numeral, digit, number; type, emblem, symbol; caryatid; atlantes, telamones; figurine; diagram, drawing; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Korea, who betrayed his country to Japan, and make him Emperor of China. Whether this man will be the deposed emperor or a member of the Imperial family or the leader of the rebel party, remains to be seen. In any event he will be a figurehead in whose hand will not be vested political, financial and military power, which will be controlled by foreigners. All the valuable mines, various kinds of industries and our abundant natural resources will likewise be developed by others. China ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... vestibule facing him was an old Roman image, the head and bust of an Emperor, which had been unearthed in the neighbourhood of the house when the foundations had been laid, and had been adopted forthwith as a family relic. If this old imperial figurehead had been an enemy, let us say the famous robber of the district, our marksman felt that he could easily have ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of waist—all of which accurately revealed ripe antiquity, just as a bell-crowned beaver and a swallow-tail coat with brass buttons would identify an old man in the ruck of newer fashions. She had seams like the wrinkles in the parchment skin of extreme old age. She carried a wooden figurehead under her bowsprit, the face and bust of a woman on whom an ancient woodcarver had bestowed his notion of a beatific smile; the result was an idiotic simper. The glorious gilding had been worn off, the wood was gray ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... aft rigged jigger mast, rendered necessary by the enormous length of the vessel. It will be seen that the distinctive type of the Inman line has not been departed from in respect to the old fashioned but still handsome profile, with clipper bow, figurehead, and bowsprit—which latter makes the Rome's length over all 600 feet. For the figurehead has been chosen a full length figure of one of the Roman Caesars, in the imperial purple. Altogether, the City of Rome is the most imposing and beautiful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... adore her at once. Buzzby doated on her as if she were his only child, and felt a secret pride in being in some indefinable way her protector. Buzzby philosophized about her, too, after a strange fashion. "You see," he would say to Fred, "it's not that her figurehead is cut altogether after a parfect pattern—by no means, for I've seen pictur's and statues that wos better—but she carries her head a little down, d'ye see, Master Fred? and there's where it is; that's the way I gauges the worth o' young women, jist accordin' ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the harbor of Scarborough, lying half-hid amongst the narrow streets which run up towards the Castle Hill, a quaint and curious inn known as the Three Jolly Mariners. At its door stands a figure carved in wood, which at some time, no doubt, acted as figurehead to a ship, but whether it represents Venus or Diana, Hebe or Minerva, I do not know. Inside, the house more resembles the cabin of a vessel than the parlor of a tavern. On the walls are many curious things brought by mariners from foreign ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... That's why some one who is simply a figurehead goes on taking all the credit for tricks turned by a smart fellow who is working for him. Now, if you lived in the dear old land of ready money, where the accident of birth doesn't give any man the right ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... are its great dock-gates, keeping out the high tide, and the quays and the shops and the caretaker's lodge; the ship lies in the dock shored up by timbers on either side, and the workmen are hammering, caulking, painting, and scraping the wooden hull; her bowsprit and her figurehead stick out over the street, Between the docks are small two-storied houses, half of them little shops trying to sell something; the public-house is frequent, but the 'Humours' of Ratcliff Highway are absent; mercantile Jack at Rotherhithe is mostly Norwegian and has morals of his own. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... sensible!" cried Patsy. "This isn't a joking matter, sir. Our newspaper will have plenty of special features, and Beth's suggestion is a good one. It sounds impressive. You see, Arthur, we've got to use you as a figurehead, but so you won't loaf on your job I've decided to appoint you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... fifteen minutes of his call he succinctly outlined all the changes he wishes to see accomplished in this institution. HE forsooth! And what, may I ask, are the duties of a superintendent? Is she merely a figurehead to take orders from the ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... then Mayor"; and in quaint numerals the same date is repeated just below the tablet base. The vane is in the form of a ship, in gilt metal: a complete ship in miniature—cordage, blocks, twenty-six cannon, small spars, even a daintily-modelled figurehead: all are there. With the aid of a couple of stalwart constables I clambered up on to the leaden roof, so that I might examine more closely and carefully this splendid example of vane-craft. The ship itself, from the bottom of keel to the top of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various |
