"Overbearing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... activity, he added a powerful mind and a clear head. In the street, he would strike you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person, with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying, blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his attainments. One of the most ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... ones of our neighbors, the idea is not of the most welcome. What! Must I love, really love, that low rascal, that cantankerous fellow, that repugnant, repulsive being? Or this other who has wronged me so maliciously? Or that proud, overbearing creature who looks down on me and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... with attentions, and when the governor-general telegraphed that General Breckinridge was to be treated as one holding his position and rank, the officials became as obsequious as they had been overbearing and suspicious. The next day one of the governor-general's aides-de-camp arrived from Havana, with an invitation for the general and the party to visit him, which we accepted, and after two days' rest took the train for ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... at Naples an Englishman arrived there, and took up his quarters at the hotel at which I was stopping. He was one of those phlegmatic, overbearing, obstinate Britons, who consider money the engine with which every thing is to be moved and all things accomplished, the argument in short which nothing can resist. Money was every thing in his estimation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... master of the house. She faltered and stammered in describing him and what she heard of him; she smiled, I grieve to say, for this unfortunate lady cannot help having a sense of humour; and we could not help laughing outright sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch, that overbearing creature overborne in his turn—which laughter Mrs. Laura used to chide as very naughty and unfeeling. When we went into Newcome the landlord of the King's Arms looked knowing and quizzical: Tom Potts grinned at me and rubbed his hands. "This business ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... letters from home. Matters were going smoothly and Mr. Thompson was feeling better every day. The garden was doing finely. In one letter Mrs. Thompson wrote that there had been two strikes at the iron works, each due to Mr. Bangs' overbearing ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sternly fixed upon him, Captain Clinton stood confronting the unfortunate youth, staring at him without saying a word. The persistence of his stare made Howard squirm. It was decidedly unpleasant. He did not mind the detention so much as this man's overbearing, bullying manner. He knew he was innocent, therefore he had nothing to fear. But why was this police captain staring at him so? Whichever way he sat, whichever way his eyes turned, he saw this bulldog-faced policeman ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... liberal New England principles, and his mother was a dress-maker before her marriage with his father, and besides, he had ever been taught to respect the industrious part of the community, and his high minded principles revolted from the overbearing aristocracy of the place, and therefore, he appeared reserved to those with whom ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... death at the hands of the Committee were Hetherington and Brace. Hetherington was an Englishman, a man of considerable wealth. He was six feet stature, of heavy form, strong in muscular power, equally so in will and purpose; and he was overbearing in his nature, violent in his passions. He was possessed of valuable city property. In a difficulty over a lot toward North Beach, a few years before, he had shot dead Dr. Baldwin, who had located upon it and claimed it as his own. He was tried ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... insolent and overbearing attitude towards Steele, see his correspondence in Ibid., part ii. Magruder wanted Indian Territory attached to the District of Texas [p. 295] and was much disgusted that Gano's brigade was beyond his reach; ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... in the family of production," interrupted Mr. Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't think they will learn ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... son of the preceding, born in 1794, received his education in the college at Vendome, finishing his work there in 1810, the year of his mother's death. He passed three years at Bordeaux with his father, who had become overbearing and avaricious; when left an orphan, he inherited a large fortune, including Lanstrac in Gironde, and a house in Paris, rue de la Pepiniere. He spent six years in Europe as a diplomat, passing his ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... you will wish me to speak first of the Carlyles. Mr. Carlyle came to see me at once, and appointed an evening to be passed at their house. That first time I was delighted with him. He was in a very sweet humor—full of wit and pathos, without being overbearing or oppressive. I was quite carried away with the rich flow of his discourse; and the hearty, noble earnestness of his personal being brought back the charm which once was upon his writing, before I wearied of it. I admired his Scotch, his way of singing his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... habit of covering his points in great leaps, leaving the intervening spaces unexplained, rendered it difficult to follow him. His mind still acted with power, and he seemed to presume that his hearers were as well up on his subject as he was. His manner was sometimes overbearing to the members of the bar, but no man was more open to reason or more sobered by reflection, and he was absolutely without malice. He was always recognized as an upright man, and he maintained, in spite of his infirmities, the respect ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... of the first rank.] Several of the women are agreeable, and some of the men; but the latter are in general vain and ignorant. The savans—I beg their pardon, the philosophes—are insupportable, superficial, overbearing, and fanatic.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... contradict—no one to question even his stockings—speckled or others. Even when he was clearly wrong, it was an affront to hint at it. He had much in common with that great man, Mr. Gladstone, who was the political Pickwick of his time. He was overbearing and arrogant and unrestrained, and I am afraid vindictive. Dodson and Fogg were associated with the great mortification of his life. He could not forgive them—the very sight of them roused his hatred, and the having to pay them ransom stung him to fury. All which is most ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... quality, good or evil, at its highest? Here are the rough crust over a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder, rougher John Bull who was the great grandfather of the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a moment suspected. But while he stood leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever going amongst 'em again,—an overbearing lot of city folks," he was saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of Rixton a long time to oppose the overbearing tyranny of Simon Stubbles and his family. It really began that afternoon at the close of the so-called trial. The men were incensed as never before, and talked and threatened in an alarming manner. Even then, nothing of a definite nature might have been done but for ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... He fell into disfavour with Madame d'Estampes, the mistress of the King; and here it may be mentioned that many of his troubles arose from his inability to please noble women.[385] Proud, self-confident, overbearing, and unable to command his words or actions, Cellini was unfitted to pay court to princes. Then again he quarrelled with his brother artists, and made the Bolognese painter, Primaticcio, his enemy. After being attacked by assassins and robbers on more ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... recognizing a crisis. With his last phrase he had shed the bearing of Mr. John Van Blarcom, and from the disguise all in an instant there emerged the Prussian, insolent, overbearing, fixing us with a look of challenge, and addressing us with crisp command. No; the kaiser's agent was not a figure of romance or of adventure. He was a force as able, as ruthless, as cruel as the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they appear all the same—importunate, overbearing, inevitable. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... believe that the heart of the German people is in the war, and that that heart is governed by two motives—the motive of self-defense against Russia and the motive of overbearing self-aggrandizement. I do not base my opinion on phenomena which I have observed. Beyond an automobile journey through Schleswig-Holstein, which was formidably tedious, and a yacht journey through the Kiel Canal and Kiel Bay, which was somewhat impressive, I have never traveled ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... himself, and that at all points,—in his carriage, his temper, his aims, and his desires. Calm, quiet, and temperate, he will not allow himself to be hasty in judgment, or exorbitant in ambition; nor will he suffer himself to be overbearing ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... who failed to comprehend the greatness of his schemes, and to realize, as he did, the importance of securing the new empire to the English before it was occupied by the Spanish and the French. His conceit, his boasting, and his overbearing manner, which no doubt was one of the causes why he was unable to act in harmony with the other adventurers of that day, all told against him. He was that most uncomfortable person, a man conscious of his own importance, and out of favor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as the time went on, and though the Indians were supposed to be threatening, and to look with very little favour upon the settlement so near their hunting-grounds, all remained peaceful, and we had nothing but haughty overbearing words ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... conceit is too colossal to allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a child. Indeed, they are children both—the one wizened and cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age. Brain, character, soul—only as one sees more of life does one understand how ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the members of the club was not so great as not to be talked over, or to prevent the call for more whisky and hot water. All but MacGregor, however, regretted what had occurred. He was so elevated with his victory and a sense of courage and prowess, that he became more and more facetious and overbearing. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the construction camp. The engineer at the railhead told his chief by wire that he had Pedro Montero absolutely there, in the very office, listening to the clicks. He was going to take possession of Sulaco in the name of the Democracy. He was very overbearing. His men slaughtered some of the Railway Company's cattle without asking leave, and went to work broiling the meat on the embers. Pedrito made many pointed inquiries as to the silver mine, and what had become of the product of the last six months' working. He had said peremptorily, 'Ask your ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... nephew felt towards him. He looked like a gentleman and like a man of talent, nor was there anything of meanness in his face; neither was he ill-looking, in the usual acceptation of the word; but one could see that he was solemn, austere, and overbearing; that he would be incapable of any light enjoyment, and unforgiving towards all offences. I took him to be a man who, being old himself, could never remember that he had been young, and who, therefore, hated the levities of youth. To me such a character is specially odious; for I would ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... and me must have a talk, confidential like," said she in her breathless way. "It's pawning is it? By which I knows that you ain't brought that overbearing pa of ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Ellingham. Well, what I have to tell you has to do with them, and I shall have to go back a good way. Thirty-five years ago the head of the family was the seventh Earl, who was then getting on in life. He was a very overbearing, harsh old gentleman, not at all liked—the people here in Marketstoke, nearly all of them his tenants, used to be perpetually at variance with him about something or other; he was the sort of man who wanted to ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... He accused himself probably of more violence than he had really used, and was therefore unhappy; but, nevertheless, his indignation was not at rest. He was angry with himself; but not on that account the less angry with Lady Arabella. She was cruel, overbearing, and unreasonable; cruel in the most cruel of manners, so he thought; but not on that account was he justified in forgetting the forbearance due from a gentleman to a lady. Mary, moreover, had owed much to the kindness of this woman, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... last speech, I mean in the speech in August last year—in which he entered upon a course of prophecy which, like most prophecies in our day, does not happen to come true. But he said then what he said to-night, that the American people and Government were overbearing. He did not tell his constituents that the Government of the United States had, almost during the whole of his lifetime, been conducted by his friends of the South. He said that, if they were divided, they would not be able to bully the whole world; and he made ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... collision, he yields before her; the warrior who stemmed alone the whole city of Corioli, who was ready to face "the steep Tarpeian death, or at wild horses' heels,—vagabond exile—flaying," rather than abate one jot of his proud will—shrinks at her rebuke. The haughty, fiery, overbearing temperament of Coriolanus, is drawn in such forcible and striking colors, that nothing can more impress us with the real grandeur and power of Volumnia's character, than his boundless submission to her will—his more than filial tenderness ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... in which he indulged—and endeavored to assume an easy and imposing attitude. For an instant he gazed around the room, observantly taking in its wealth of mosaic pavement, paintings, statuary, and vases. Then, as he began to fear lest he might be yielding too much of his pride before the overbearing influence of so much luxury, he straightened himself up, gathered upon his features a hard and somewhat contemptuous expression, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... from one of Lord Mansfield's decisions. The wretched Peake's character was rehabilitated, and Mr. Webster silenced. This was an illustration of a failing of Mr. Webster at that time. He was rough and unceremonious, and even overbearing, both to court and bar, the natural result of a new sense of power in an inexperienced man. This harshness of manner, however, soon disappeared. He learned rapidly to practise the stately and solemn courtesy which distinguished ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... government to which they are subjected in its very constitution, that it not only holds out, in the uncontrolled authority which it vests in the hands of an individual, the strongest temptations for the exercise of tyranny to those who may habitually possess an overbearing and despotic temperament, but has also a manifest tendency, as history amply attests, to vitiate the heart, and to produce a spirit of injustice and oppression in those who may have been antecedently distinguished by a well regulated and humane disposition. While it is thus, on the one ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... conclusion of my history, I should like to present him to my readers. As it is, I shall merely say he was a thorough specimen of one class of his countrymen,—a loud talker, a louder swearer, a vaporing, boasting, overbearing, good-natured, and even soft-hearted fellow, who firmly believed that Frenchmen were the climax of the species, and Napoleon the climax of Frenchmen. Being a great bavard, he speedily told me all that had taken place during the last two days. From him I learned that the Prussians ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... overbearing prefect, so called because of his yellowish complexion, burst in with the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... brought about by misunderstanding. Many people mistake the shy man's timidity for overbearing arrogance and are awed and insulted by it. His awkwardness is resented as insolent carelessness, and when, terror-stricken at the first word addressed to him, the blood rushes to his head and the power of speech completely fails him, he is regarded ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... in the comedy of the day, a salmon fisher of some repute for skill, but disliked for his selfishness, cynicism, and overbearing assumption of mastership in the theory and practice of fishing. As he was ever laying down the highest standards of sport much was forgiven him. The men who used phantom, prawn, and worm, however much ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Monday, the charter was published, and the parishioner of Cotton Mather, with the royal council, was installed in office. The triumph of Cotton Mather was complete. A court of oyer and terminer was immediately instituted by ordinance, and the positive, overbearing Stoughton was appointed by the governor and council as its chief judge, with Sewall and Wait Winthrop, two feebler men, as his associates. By the second of June, the court was in session at Salem, making its experiment on Bridget Bishop, a poor and friendless old woman. The fact of witchcraft was ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... risks of an agent are considered, he can by no means be regarded as highly paid. Very many agents have lost their lives, and others are exposed to continual danger. They are sometimes harsh, tyrannical and overbearing, but far less so now, when railroad, press and telegraph let light in upon all parts of the country, than formerly, when they were left to themselves, and as long as the rents were duly paid no heed was taken ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... rejected Tretherick as an injured husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity of his grief. They reserved an ironical condolence for Col. Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... of August the party reached the Sioux country. Some of the tribes of this nation were known to be friendly toward the whites, while others had acquired a manner overbearing and insolent, inspired by the inferior numbers of the traders who had visited them in the past, and by the subservient attitude which these had assumed. From such tribes there was good reason to anticipate opposition, or even open hostility. But the specific nature ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... obedience, considering nothing but duty, and giving himself no trouble about the murmurs of his crew, taking counsel of nobody, and following Mr. Astor's instructions to the letter. Such was the man who had been selected to command our ship. His haughty manners, his rough and overbearing disposition, had lost him the affection of most of the crew and of all the passengers: he knew it, and in consequence sought every opportunity to mortify us. It is true that the passengers had some reason to reproach themselves; they were ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... people, we are so timorous that we would concede almost anything in order to avoid strong measures. And that is where Sachar has already the advantage. He is not timorous; on the contrary, he is bold, courageous, overbearing—he frightens people into surrendering to his will. And if ye also are prepared to be firm, resolute, fearless, I believe ye will conquer; for if once the people can be brought to realise that your determination ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... other hand, it must be remembered that Papineau and his friends received much provocation. The attitude of the governing class toward them was overbearing and sometimes insolent. They were regarded as members of an inferior race. And they would have been hardly human if they had not bitterly resented the conspiracy against their liberties embodied in the abortive Union Bill of 1822. There were real abuses to be remedied. Grave ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... learning to think more kindly of the natives." I wish I could know that at every Anglo-Indian table to-day, nobody has sat down without leaving it having learned to think a little more kindly of the natives. One more word on this point. Bad manners, overbearing manners are disagreeable in all countries: India is the only country where bad and overbearing manners are ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... the cosmic law, "the weakest must go to the wall". He did not explain the evolution of man's opposition to this law. The ordinary evolutionist hypothesis, that the tribe would prosper most whose members were least self-seeking, is contradicted by all history. The overbearing, "grabbing," aristocratic, individualistic, unscrupulous races beat the others out of the field. Mr. Huxley, indeed, alleged that the "influence of the cosmic process in the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilisation. Social progress means a checking of the ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... spoke French (in shops), instead of being musical and sweet and sympathetic, like Madame Seraskier's, was barbarous and grotesque, with dreadful "ongs," and "angs," and "ows," and "ays"; and its manner overbearing, suspicious, and disdainful; and then we could hear its loud, insolent English asides; and though it was tall and straight and not outwardly deformed, it looked such a kill-joy skeleton at a feast, such a portentous carnival mask of solemn emptiness, such a dreary, doleful, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... man pronounced; "She is callous; she is, without meaning to be, hypocritical. She works herself into a terrible state of indignation about the misdeeds of her neighbours, and she does not realise her own faults. The Germans are overbearing, but one realises that and expects it. Englishmen are irritating. It is certainly true that amongst us remaining neutrals," he added, dropping his voice a little and looking around to be sure of their isolation, "the sympathy ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me think of nothing so much as that of a pretty, sensitive wife, to a big, strong, amiable, if somewhat thick-skinned husband. These two had one great quarrel which nearly resulted in divorce. He thought her headstrong; she thought him overbearing. The quarrel made her ill; she has been for some time recovering. But though they have settled their difficulties and are living again in amity together, and though he, man-like, has half forgotten ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... overbearing man, with a pair of huge burly hands that somehow seemed to form his chief feature, was a little bit blustering in his talk, as usual; the more so because he had just learned incidentally that something ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... description of him as seised in fee simple is a touch of genius. We can remember nothing in the English language to compare with this unless it be that brilliant passage in which Mr. Blewitt sketches in a few lightning strokes the character of Richard Roe, a man at once pugnacious, overbearing, litigious and utterly regardless of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... with strong marks of pleasure. "Can it be possible? Thanks, thanks to the holy prophet that vouchsafes such reward to the faithful. This is indeed a most precious gage, as it may perhaps be the means of curbing the overbearing insolence of Aguilar; for, destitute as he is of all sympathy towards the Moors, he may yet feel the anxiety of parental love when he learns the situation of his child. Dispatch, quick; Malique, bring forth thy captive, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... opinion of themselves as had the rest of Europe. The heart of the nation had not been in that strife against the Scots, a brave and impoverished people struggling for freedom. But hearts and pockets, too, welcomed the quarrel with France, overbearing France, that plundered their ships when they traded with their friends the Flemings. The Flemish wool trade was at this time a main source of English wealth, so Edward III of England, than whom ordinarily ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... capacity for self-devotion, and with unshakeable firmness of will, was now twenty-five years old. Rhodes and he soon drew closely together and for years they were living under one roof. While his casual and rather overbearing manners repelled many of his acquaintances, Rhodes had a genius for friendship with the few; and it was such men as these who shared his work, his pastimes, and his thoughts, and reconciled him to spending many years in the unattractive ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... to enjoy his visit to the farm. Soon after the return of Master Pearson, much to Jack's satisfaction, Long Sam took his departure. There was something about the man he did not at all like, for in general he was overbearing and dictatorial, though he could be courteous when he chose, as he occasionally was when speaking to Dame Pearson or Elizabeth. With that young lady, as has been said, Jack spent a considerable portion of his time, whenever he was in the house; Dame ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company, for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him, nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the state, two of the judges officiating. In every court-room in Ohio where Judge Sherman presided he made friends. His official robes were worn by him as the customary habiliments of the man. He was never distant, haughty, morose, austere, or overbearing on the bench. It was not in his nature to be so anywhere, and it was therefore always a personal pleasure to practice in his courts. The younger members of the profession idolized him in every part of the state; for them and their ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... wife of the "justice," full of vulgar dignity, overbearing, and loud. She was formerly the kitchen-maid of her husband's father; but being raised from the kitchen to the parlor, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the two men were well matched, but they had little else in common. Garstaing's reputation, at least amongst men, was not a happy one. He was known to be a hard drinker. He was hot-headed and pleasure-loving. Furthermore he was given to an overbearing intolerance, in the indulgence of which his position as Indian Agent yielded him ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... page of studies, I strolled along the bank of the river; and while sketching some men breaking stones an incident happened which first aroused me to the fact that the lot of the sketching artist is not always a happy one. A fiend in human shape—an overbearing overseer—came up at the moment, and roundly abused the poor labourers for taking the "base Saxon's" coin. Inciting them to believe that I was a special informer from London, he laughed on my declaring that ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Steve with surly indifference. "If you know him, you know an overbearing jabberwock. He's head devil of the push that bought the Copperbottom and I don't like his style even a little bit. He seems to think I'm the dirt under his feet. I'll show him. I know what he wants, and that's the other ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... prevailed from Generation to Generation, which grey Hairs and tyrannical Custom continue to support; I hope your Spectatorial Authority will give a seasonable Check to the Spread of the Infection; I mean old Mens overbearing the strongest Sense of their Juniors by the mere Force of Seniority; so that for a young Man in the Bloom of Life and Vigour of Age to give a reasonable Contradiction to his Elders, is esteemed an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... take orders from the man he hated, from the man who would snarl at him and curse him and humiliate him to the bitter end, and all because he knew that he could not begin life over again. He wanted to be ordered about, he wanted to be snarled at by an overbearing task-master. It simplified everything. He would never be called upon to think for himself. Thorpe or Murray, what mattered which of them was in command? It was all the same to him. His dignity passed, away with the passing of ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... not feel themselves under any obligation to associate with their less fortunate neighbors, the world over. It is one of the characteristics of human nature. But men of wealth in the Southern part of the United States, are not more haughty, distant and overbearing, than the same class in other parts of the Union. On the contrary, there is an urbanity about Southern slaveholders, that enables the lower classes to approach them with less embarrassment than they feel when they attempt to approach the frigid, stiff, and less polite Northerner. ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... to the Bench. Of Sir George Jessel, however, I cannot speak in terms even of respect, for in his conduct towards myself he has been rough, coarse, and unfair, to an extent that I never expected to see in any English judge. Sir George Jessel is subtle and acute, but he is rude, overbearing, and coarse; he has the sneer of a Mephistopheles, mingled with a curious monkeyish pleasure in inflicting pain. Sir George Jessel prides himself on being 'a man of the world', and he expresses the low morality common to that class when the phrase is taken ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... irreconcilable they might be in principle, did not necessarily bring them into open antagonism, whereas their more intimate acquaintance with one another produced personal and national ill-will. The people of the West now appeared more than ever barbarous and overbearing, and the Court of Constantinople more than ever senile and designing. The crafty policy of Alexius Comnenus in transferring his allies with all speed into Asia, and declining to take the lead in the expedition, was almost justified ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... ambitious souls were stirred by the statement of the city fathers was one, a bell-founder named Wolf, a man of evil passions and overbearing disposition, whose heart was firmly set on achieving success. In those days, let it be said, the casting of a bell was a solemn, and even a religious, performance, attended by elaborate ceremonies and benedictions. On the day which Wolf had appointed for the operation it seemed as though ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... descend to trickery in dealing, yet as a magistrate he had a high and most inflexible ideal of honour, honesty, and rectitude. He could be coarse in his conduct and demeanour, and yet he could occasionally be as courteous and dignified as the most polished gentleman. He was overbearing where he felt he was safe, yet where he was met by courage and firmness he yielded ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... was away, and on the few occasions when access to it was possible, the lynx-eyed Mr. Bagley was always on guard. Short as had been her stay in the Ryder household, Shirley already shared Jefferson's antipathy to the English secretary, whose manner grew more supercilious and overbearing as he drew nearer the date when he expected to run off with one of the richest catches of the season. He had not sought the acquaintance of his employer's biographer since her arrival, and, with the exception of a rude stare, had not deigned to notice her, which attitude of haughty indifference ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... seems altogether irrelevant to the general tenor of one's life. Its increasing independence of the ostensible career makes it the organ of corrective criticism; it accumulates disturbing energy. Then it breaks our overt promises and repudiates our pledges, coming down at last like an overbearing mentor upon the small engagements ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Hamilton College. This was done at the special request of Senator Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country. Never was he more charming. The bitter and sarcastic mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful reminiscences and it was ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... suffering. Such as rose in society, were seldom really respectable; they neither regretted their crimes, nor offered atonement. But if the prisoner was injured, the colonist was not less so. Social virtues were discouraged; all classes were contentious and overbearing: the police, ever prying into the business of life, thus intermixed with penal systems, filled the colony with exasperation, from which not even the mildest spirits could escape. He did not propose to abolish transportation, but that the government by its own officers ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... Remember always that the same measure of condemnation should be extended to the arrogance which would look down upon or crush any man because he is poor, and to the envy and hatred which would destroy a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing brutality of the man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful malice directed against wealth or power, are really at root merely different manifestations of the same quality, merely the two sides ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... words, he learns to take his place among other human beings. From the games in which the children take their turns at some activity the timid child learns that he has equal rights with others, and acquires self-confidence; whereas the child disposed to be overbearing learns the equally necessary lesson that others have rights which he must respect. Every child learns from these games how to be a good loser as well as how to be a good winner. Just those qualities that make an adult ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... strong, fine Roman profile, and a rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline, and fair complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and inactive. He was generous to his friends and equals, but proud, dominant, overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever set itself up against him. Truthful we both were; he from pride and courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about as boys generally ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... speak; but he had not one thought, one feeling which he concealed from her, he sought no other friend. Scarcely could Mrs. Cameron and her son Walter recognise in this amiable young man the headstrong, fiery, overbearing lad they had ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... the dictionary should have been taken by one of their number, and that the master's kindness on that occasion should have been requited by another robbery seemed a disgrace to the whole school. That Mather, too, always loud, noisy, and overbearing, should have been the thief was surprising indeed. Had it been some quiet little boy, the sort of boy others are given to regard as a sneak, there would have been less surprise, but that Mather should do such a thing was astounding. These were probably the first reflections which ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... interest you to learn that it is so called in memory of the farm where this arrogant old lion of a Dutchman spent his last days. He spent them peacefully and happily. Now that he was no longer a ruler he lost much of his overbearing pride, and all that was kindly in his nature showed itself. Many who had feared and hated him came to love and admire him. Among others he made friends with the Englishman who had ousted him, and many a jolly evening ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... has been invited somewhere else for Christmas. She had set her heart on taking her home with her. Considering the fact that Arline's father has so much money, she is an awfully nice little girl. She isn't in the least snobbish or overbearing." ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Archer's habit to speak in this strain to anyone; but there seemed to be a something connected with Peg Grant that irritated him. The manner of the other was so overbearing as to appear almost rude. He had had his own way a long time now; and thus far no one connected with the big ranch owned by his father had arisen ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... would at last come down and alight as love. But you knew not the tyrannous and jealous despotism of the ideal over the minds that fall in love with it. Gambara, before meeting you, had given himself over to the haughty and overbearing mistress, with whom you have struggled for him to ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... him. He was incapable of any mean low vices, but his zest for pleasure was keen, and never restrained by motives of prudence or consideration for others. His strong passions at times made him disagreeably selfish and overbearing, qualities forgiven by acquaintances for his social brilliancy, and by friends for his frank affection. With some business talents and practical shrewdness, he was quite incapable of wisely conducting his affairs, by reason ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... highway and communication trenches, the poilu swears hard that the next time he'll leave a heap of things behind and give his shoulders a little relief from the yoke of the knapsack. But every time he is preparing for departure, he assumes again the same overbearing and almost superhuman load; he never lets it go, though he curses ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... acted differently—if he had not behaved so brutally to those poor blacks—if his manner to her had not been so hard and overbearing. And then his leaving her alone like that with Willoughby Maule! Of course, he was jealous. He had jumped at conclusions. What right had he to do so? What could he know? He must suspect her of horrible things. His questions had ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... fidelity to his cause. Thereupon the commonalty of the mining districts and the Dalesmen wrote to the commons of Helsingland, requesting that the Helsingers might bear themselves like true Swedish men against the overbearing violence and tyranny of the Danes. Those cruelties which King Christian had already exercised on the best in the land, they said, would soon reach every man's door and fill all the houses of Sweden with the tears and shrieks of widows and orphans; if they would take up arms and show themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... hardly half-roused even by all this uproar. Indeed, I was just dropping off again, when Dick Andrews, one of my fellow cadets from the training-ship, who had joined the Candahar the same time as myself and was rather a bumptious and overbearing sort ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... one thing and the other, and hurried me to my place. I told him how the captain had wanted the sights set for this distance; I had put them so. "That doesn't go here," he said, readjusted them himself, and ordered me to lie down. He was so overbearing, and I was so uncertain of my rights, that I took my position and fired my shot. A miss! He blamed me severely, and in general treated me like the dirt under my feet. At my next shot, a poor two, he said, "There you go, thinking you know all about it, and jerking your trigger again." I ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... restore happiness or peace to the bereaved man, who, besides mourning his wife, keenly regretted the absence of his son Akitoshi, whom he had driven from home in anger when the youth proved wild and overbearing. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... speeches. His spirit burned like fire, and his speeches were the outpourings of his heart in words which, while they owed something to art, came spontaneously to his lips, and were not less lofty than his thoughts. As a statesman he had serious defects; he was haughty, vain, and overbearing, his opinions were unsettled, his far-reaching views often nebulous; his passion was stronger than his judgment, and he was immoderately given to bombast. In spite of his true greatness he lacked simplicity, and he imported the arts of a charlatan into political life. Yet Englishmen must ever ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... man from Salem. Turning to Lincoln, who stood within a few feet of him, he said: 'This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry that the task devolves upon me.' He then proceeded, in a very overbearing way, and with an assumption of great superiority, to attack Lincoln and his speech. Lincoln stood calm, but his flashing eye and pale cheek showed his indignation. As soon as Forquer had closed he took the stand and first answered his opponent's arguments fully ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Barre now (1682) succeeded Frontenac as Viceroy. The new Governor was of a restless and overbearing disposition. He required, or supposed that he required, a strong government. He certainly needed an able one. The idea of drawing off the trade of the St. Lawrence had first occurred to the English colonists on the Hudson. The Iroquois ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... with him. Now, a different order of things prevailed. Boulton was simply unendurable. His capacity was barely such as to enable him to discharge his official functions, and what he lacked in ability he made up for in bluster. He had an abominable temper, and a haughty, overbearing manner. He was always committing blunders which he refused to acknowledge, and he roared and bullied his way through one complication after another in a fashion which disgusted even those with whom he acted. During ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... its correlative, Debt, existed; and we know, that, among the Jews, Moses enacted a sponging law, which was to be carried into effect every fifty years; that Solon, among the Greeks, began his administration with the Seisachtheia, or relief-laws, designed to rescue the poor borrowers from their overbearing creditors; and that the usurers were a numerous class at Rome, where also the Patrician houses were immense debtor-prisons. But in ancient times, when the chief source of wealth (aside from conquest and confiscation by the State) was the labor of slaves, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... that worthy gentleman—what amount of consideration he got for it, it matters not now to inquire; Mr. M'Ruen very shortly afterwards presented himself at the Internal Navigation, and introduced himself to our hero. He did this with none of the overbearing harshness of the ordinary dun, or the short caustic decision of a creditor determined to resort to the utmost severity of the law. He turned his head about and smiled, and just showed the end of the bill peeping out from among a parcel of others, begged Mr. Tudor to be punctual, he would ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... would I not give to have been there, had I not learned it all from the bright eyes of Amaryllis, and may one day make a Table-talk of it!—Peter Pindar was rich in anecdote and grotesque humour, and profound in technical knowledge both of music, poetry, and painting, but he was gross and overbearing. Wordsworth sometimes talks like a man inspired on subjects of poetry (his own out of the question)—Coleridge well on every subject, and G—dwin on none. To finish this subject—Mrs. M——'s conversation is as fine-cut ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Professional politicians, shyster lawyers, political gangsters, flocked to the spoil. In 1851 the lawlessness of mere physical violence had come to a head. By 1855 and 1856 there was added to a recrudescence of this disorder a lawlessness of graft, of corruption, both political and financial, and the overbearing arrogance of a self-made aristocracy. These conditions combined to bring about a second crisis in the precarious life of ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White |
