"Despotic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lucy, the daughter of the Rev. John Hunter by his second wife); and sometimes Dr. Johnson, but his presence was not much appreciated. “There was,” wrote Sir Walter Scott, “some aristocratic prejudice in their dislike, for the despotic manners of Dr. Johnson were least likely to be tolerated when the lowness of his ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... that he had himself been instrumental in creating; through militarism and an abominable Chauvinism—this last as effective an instrument as the oppressor can wield. Divide et impera is a maxim of despotic state-craft, old as despotism itself; "flatter and rule" is a method equally sure, and such Santa Anna practised to its full. He let pass no opportunity of flattering the national vanity, which brought the Mexican nation to shame, with much humiliation—as the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... "The Kral of Bulgaria did not wait to be conquered, but humbly begged for mercy"; so writes an English historian.[3] The rebellious spirit of the Serbs arose first in the Balkan darkness a hundred years ago against the tyranny and the despotic wickedness of the Turkish rulers, and liberated the Serbian fatherland. The Bulgarian spirit waited until strangers came and liberated the Bulgarian country. Those strangers have been: Russians, Serbians, Roumanians ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... halfpenny; olive oil, for fourpence a pound, to dress it with; and wine for fourpence a gallon to make it disagree with you;[15] fuel for almost nothing, and bread for little, are not small advantages to frugal housekeepers; but, when dispensed by a despotic government, where one must read those revolting words motu proprio at the head of every edict, let us go back to our carrots and potatoes, our Peels and our income-tax, our fogs and our frost. The country mouse came to a right conclusion, and did not like the fragments ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Despotic Dons' dominion Still subjugates us all, They scoff at our opinion, Our purposes miscall; Will no deliverer appear, And is it vainly, as we fear, We hold our meetings every year Within ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... now published in Rome, but I have heard it inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. There are very few foreign journals taken or read ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... in President Johnson's time, occur at a time when the public mind was deeply agitated. The chief magistrate loses in dignity and influence whenever the legislature overrides the veto, and congress becomes a despotic master for the ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... these sharply defined classes lay many in the twilight zone. Bob, without knowing it, was to a certain extent exercising a despotic power. He possessed a latitude of choice as to which of these involved land cases should be pushed to a court decision. If the law were to be strictly and literally interpreted, there could be no doubt but that each and every one of these numerous claimants could be haled to court ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... he entered upon a struggle which was to be decisive for his own life and that of his State. He cared little at heart for the right which he might have to the Silesian duchies, and which with his pen he tried to prove before Europe. For this the policy of the despotic States of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had no regard whatever. Any one who could find a plausible defense of his cause made use of it, but in case of need the most improbable argument, the most shallow pretext, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... barbarians on the frontiers, and anarchy within,—he divided the Roman world into two portions, gave the West to Maximian, one of his comrades, a coarse but valiant soldier, and kept the East himself. To the anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despotic administrative organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and military agents, everywhere present, everywhere masters, and dependent upon the emperor alone. By his incontestable and admitted superiority, Diocletian remained the soul of these two bodies. At the end of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... no political liberty in large communities, except in the provinces of Holland, and except that England herself had set a great example, so far as it went, by her glorious Revolution of 1688. Everywhere else, despotic power was predominant, and the feudal or military principle held the mass of mankind in hopeless bondage. One-half of Europe was crushed beneath the Bourbon scepter, and no conception of political liberty, no hope even of ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... favour; but in the interval he had been transformed into an intriguing politician. Parliament, which had not been called for four years, met in 1593, and there was an immediate collision with the Crown. Elizabeth's tone was much more despotic than of old. Petitions for the settlement of the succession were met by the arbitrary imprisonment of Wentworth and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... century would see a very great change in them for the better. At present a large number of them are semi-barbarians, with the ignorance and vices of barbarism; and although they may be easily governed under the present despotic system, they are equally liable to be led into revolt by any designing man who is bold enough to risk his life on the chance of success. I give you Cousin Giles' opinion on the subject, which is of ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... Biron's enemies because he did not show himself their friend, and, openly devoted to him and bowing in the dust before him, they had secretly repaired to his bitterest enemy, the Duchess Anna Leopoldowna, to offer her their services against the haughty regent who swayed the iron sceptre of his despotic power over Russia. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Brigham Young has supreme control. His power is the most despotic known to mankind. Here, by the way, is the constitutionally vulnerable point of Mormonism. If fear of establishing a bad precedent hinder the United States at any time from breaking up that nest of all disloyalty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... never yet taken for a prophet, even by a bishop, yet he uttered this remarkable prediction: 'The despotic government of France is screwed up to the highest pitch; a revolution is fast approaching; that revolution, I am convinced, will be radical and sanguinary.' This appeared in the letters of the prophet long before the accomplishment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... negro carrying his gun, and a huge greyhound bounds along by his side. He holds despotic sway over twelve tribes; and should any neighboring people venture to make an incursion on his territory, Bou-Akas seldom condescends to march against them in person, but sends his negro into the principal village. This envoy just displays ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... life of characters and types; but, instead, we have phrases that express changing feelings, that change with the feelings. More than that, Debussy's harmony is not, as it was with Wagner and all the German school, a fettered harmony, tightly bound to the despotic laws of counterpoint; it is, as Laloy[202] has said, a harmony that is first of all harmonious, and has its origin and end ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... that in which the strikers demand Government control and the Government denounces its own control as anarchy. The mob howls before the palace gates, "Hateful tyrant, we demand that you assume more despotic powers"; and the tyrant thunders from the balcony, "Vile rebels, do you dare to suggest that my powers should be extended?" There seems to be ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... had saved his life in the courtyard below. From the man's demeanor, now that his life was no longer at stake, Barney caught an inkling of what his attitude might be when once again he was returned to the despotic power of his kingship. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it possible for the suffrage to be carried too far. For ourselves we have no sympathies whatever with idolatry. We fearlessly declare our opinion, therefore, that no political institutions whatever, neither despotic, nor monarchical, nor aristocratic, nor yet the most free, are capable, in themselves, of achieving moral education for a people. Neither do we believe it more possible for abstract intellectual culture to gain this most important of all ends. Institutions ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... What! no banishment for life for other crimes than those against social order! What! political exiles returning from Tobolsk, from Yakutsk, from Irkutsk! In truth, the chief of police, accustomed to the despotic sentences of the ukase which formerly never pardoned, could not understand this mode of governing. But he was silent, waiting until the Czar should interrogate him further. The questions were ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... obliged to do the housework, while the women attended to the trading." Under these circumstances it is perhaps not surprising to find the women described as "great shrews, who would on the slightest provocation drive their offending husbands out of the house."[68] This is a curious case of the despotic rule of women. Westermarck accounts for their position by the strict monogamy that is enforced, but I do not think this can be ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... of death, sent a polite answer, alleging that he was ill and unable to travel. Sekeletu tried again to remove Mashotlane from the Falls, but without success. In theory the chief is absolute and quite despotic; in practice his authority is limited, and he cannot, without occasionally putting refractory headmen to death, force his subordinates to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... civil administration contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... overpowering vastness and illimitable sweep of nature, man is almost unconscious of his freedom and his personality. He surrenders himself to the disposal of a mysterious "fate" and yields readily to the despotic sway of superhuman powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single despotic will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable. But in Greece we have extended border-lands on the coast of navigable seas; peninsulas elaborately articulated, and easy of access. We have mountains ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... element which, in the shape of bravery, prowess, magnanimity, occupies the place of the previous despotic pomp goes through the same cycle of decline and subsidence. And this subsidence, therefore, is not really such; for through all this restless change no advance has been made. History passes at this point—and only outwardly, that is, without connection ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... compact, Page 164.——It would be easy to multiply authorities; but it must be needless, because as the original of this form of government was among savages, as the spirit of it is military and despotic, every writer, who would allow the people to have any right to life or property or freedom, more than the beasts of the field, and who was not hired or inlisted under arbitrary lawless power, has been always willing to admit ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... not for their profession of superior virtue, and thus enables persons who are of small moral stature, or who through defective training and unfortunate environment are thoroughly narrow and bigoted, to wield despotic power, often bringing swift and severe punishment on those far less guilty in the eye of the moral law than themselves. Believing as I do that Pharisaism is to-day one of the greatest evils which menace the stability of our government and the continued advance of civilization along the highway of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... obligation I was under to them on this account is great, as the hazard they ran in conferring these favours was little less than death. The men, unrestrained by any laws or ties of conscience in the management of their own families, exercise a most despotic authority over their wives, whom they consider in the same view they do any other part of their property, and dispose of them accordingly: Even their common treatment of them is cruel; for though the toil and hazard of procuring food lies entirely ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... most Italian principalities, is the old story of the house out of which one devil was driven by seven worse ones: to Eccelino succeeded the Delle Scale, soon to become as bad as he, and be driven forth by the Visconti of Milan, who in their turn were expelled by the envious, despotic Venetians; and each as they came and went added and took away something of the beauty and might of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Asia, is most despotic; and the people have the faults which are certain to be generated by despotism—but not to that degree which might be expected. They have their hereditary nobility, and the orders of it are very clearly defined. They consist of gold chains, worn ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... them. The war with Egypt was contrary to their wishes, and they murmured openly. Perdiccas sought to put down the refractory spirit with a stern military hand, but the remonstrances of his officers were in vain. He treated the first in the land in an inconsiderate and despotic manner, removed the most deserving from their command, and trusted himself alone. This same man, who had climbed the path to greatness with so much foresight, self-command, energy, and statesmanship, seemed now, the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... plastic, fashioned by the words, the looks, the acts, and even by the silences and abstentions surrounding one's childhood; tinged in a complete scheme of delicate shades and crude colours by the inherited traditions, beliefs, or prejudices—unaccountable, despotic, persuasive, and ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... despotic epistle the young man answered in a few lines. He said that he intended to marry Sylvia, and that nothing would make him give her up, and that he would not meet his father again until that father remembered that his son was an Englishman and not a slave. Paul signed his letter without the ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... importance, as bearers of the public purse. Their decrees as well as their debates breathed a spirit at once alarming and displeasing to Princes educated in the opinion of their own Divine right, and succeeding a Queen who, though wisely intent on the public good, was as despotic a Sovereign as ever filled the English throne. A want of attention to the change which had rendered his situation different from that of his predecessors, and a too sanguine confidence in the affections of his people, which his virtues ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... thousand years before 1870 there was no single government for the entire Italian peninsula. Although the people were mainly of one race, their territory was divided into small states ruled by despotic princes, who were sometimes of Italian families, but more often were foreigners—Greeks, Germans, French, Spanish, and Austrians. The Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church, governed nearly one third of the land. This condition continued after 1815. But during ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... Mrs. Proudie. This lady is habitually authoritative to all, but to her poor husband she is despotic. Successful as has been his career in the eyes of the world, it would seem that in the eyes of his wife he is never right. All hope of defending himself has long passed from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification, and is aware that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... quick, glancing eyes, delicate features, and a vivacious manner, he lacks the dignity and strength, the calm repose and simple grace of the race from which he is sprung, Fourteen centuries of subjection to despotic sway have left their stamp upon his countenance and his frame, which, though still retaining some traces of the original type, have been sadly weakened and lowered by so long a term of subservience. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... successfully to abolish an important branch of the African slave trade, no voice was raised in the British parliament to abolish the impressment of seamen a system of slavery as odious, unjust and degrading, as was ever established by a despotic government! ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... fair crop is produced. In the Mysore country the farmers were never so prosperous as they are at the present day. Thanks to English authority, the people are not oppressed as they were under the despotic rule of their own native princes. The Government is the great landlord; the rent of round has not been very much increased; the taxes have been reduced, and the produce of the soil fetches three times the price ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... kind of tall pillar, on a foundation of such granite solidity as to quiet all fears of possible moving therefrom. He was an example—and became by his S. Carolina mission a conspicuous one; by his attitude and demeanor, opposing the whole moral power of the North to the despotic and insolent assumptions ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded tyranny,—in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of Europe,—the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence,—the same love of standing armies, above the ability of the people. In particular, our then sovereigns, King ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... final conflagration. Then there was a man distinguished for native pride and obstinacy, who, a little while before, had possessed immense wealth, and held the control of a vast moneyed interest which he had wielded in the same spirit as a despotic monarch would wield the power of his empire, carrying on a tremendous moral warfare, the roar and tremor of which was felt at every fireside in the land. At length came a crushing ruin,—a total overthrow of fortune, power, and character,—the effect of ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of these would do the same if they had the chance, for your thorough-going Radical is often a curious creature. I remember once being at a London theatre with a friend of mine who was a desperate and despotic democrat, and who has been a leading light for years among our advanced Radicals. Now it so happened that on the evening of our visit the Prince of Wales was at the theatre we attended, and I was greatly amused to notice how interested my democratic ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... the cardinal that all the responsibility fell, for one is not a despotic minister without responsibility. All, therefore, of the vast resources of his genius were at work night and day, engaged in listening to the least report heard in any of the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that consideration in his colleagues should clash with his own intentions, the presence of Quiroga at Buenos Ayres was far from satisfactory to the remaining two. His influence over half a dozen of the despotic governors in the interior was still immense; the Pampa was his own, after all his defeats; and it was shrewdly suspected that his indifference to power in La Rioja, and his mysterious visit to the maritime capital, were indications of a design ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... condition was desperate. Two hundred million inconvertible paper pesos had depreciated to the value of two cents each in gold, yet were legal tender for all obligations. In such a country, especially as war was in progress, the only government able to maintain itself was despotic. Civil troubles were intensified by dissension between Catholics and Protestants. Revolution accompanied any ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... was despotic in its character, and feudal in its system. The country was governed by a powerful ruler with the title of mikado—"son of the sun"—who was supported in his despotism by tributary princes, or daimios. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... capitalists who, while themselves taking part in the undertaking as workers, shared the produce according to the amount of capital they had invested, or it belonged to the whole as a body, who as such had a despotic right of disposal over both the labour and the produce of the labour of every individual. These reformers were, without exception, associated small capitalists or communists. They were able, if they had specially good fortune, or if they were under specially able direction, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... the expression of inward ardour which shone out through his strong features. He was of medium height, broad in the chest, and muscular as a lion. When he walked, his carriage, his step, his least gesture, bespoke a consciousness of power which was imposing; there was something even despotic about it. He seemed aware that nothing could oppose his will; possibly because he willed only that which was right. Nevertheless, he was, like all really strong men, gentle in speech, simple in manner, and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... corrupted and infected public life in the country. These two—the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood—have in common the secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but, what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... that a great mob, rolling out of Paris in the direction of the Hotel Rambouillet, gave the signal of flight to Charles and those who had adhered to the toppling fortunes of his house. The Chamber of Deputies proceeded quickly to undo the despotic acts of the late king, and then elected Louis Philippe king, not of France, but of the French. The new sovereign received 219 out of 252 votes in the Deputies. His elevation to power was one of the most striking examples of personal vicissitudes ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... be as sweet as sugar." And again: "If the snows will suffer me, I propose to spend two or three months at Barege or Bagneres; but my dear wife is against all schemes of additional expense, which wicked propensity (though not of despotic power) yet I cannot suffer—though, by-the-bye, laudable enough. But she may talk; I will go my own way, and she will acquiesce without a word of debate on the subject. Who can say so much in praise ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... majority in Parliament had carried the national church so far in the direction of Puritanism that its excesses had brought about a strong reactionary feeling. Parliament had already sat for more than ten years, hence called the "Long Parliament," and had become corrupt and despotic. Under these circumstances, one modification after another was made in the form of government until in 1653 Oliver Cromwell, the commander of the army and long the most influential man in Parliament, dissolved that body by military force and was made Lord Protector, with powers not very different ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Great Fire, of Dr. Nicholas Barebone (son of Praise-God Barebone), a great building speculator, who had much property in the Strand, and who was the first promoter of the Phoenix Fire Office. It seems to have been thought at the time that Newton was somewhat despotic in his announcement of the removal, and the members in council grumbled at the new house, and complained of it as small, inconvenient, and dilapidated. Nevertheless, Sir Isaac, unaccustomed to opposition, overruled all these objections, and the society flourished ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Divinity or who made thereof an evil principle have been renewed sometimes in our own days: people have pleaded the irresistible power of God when it was a question rather of presenting his supreme goodness; and they have assumed a despotic power when they should rather have conceived of a power ordered by the most perfect wisdom. I have observed that these opinions, apt to do harm, rested especially on confused notions which had been formed ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... to cuss!" admonished Felice, but her eyes twinkled and the emotional Sculptor Girl's eyes twinkled back through her tears—all of them were for Felice, if that despotic person had only known it. For the young lawyer had been upstairs pouring out his despondent ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... imagination, not science, which presents Time as despotic lord of the world, with all the irresponsible frivolity of a child. It is mysticism, too, which leads Heraclitus to assert the identity of opposites: "Good and ill are one," he says; and again: "To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... confounded with the general principle of our Foreign Policy. Indeed it is already confounded by the whole of the foreign and the great majority of the British public, and it is to be feared that the discussion will place despotic and democratic principles in array against each other in this country, whilst the original question turns only upon the justice ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... But this tameness was merely the tameness with which a tiger, caught, caged and starved, submits to the keeper who brings him food. The humble menial was at heart the haughtiest, the most aspiring, the most vindictive, the most despotic of men. And now at length a great, a boundless prospect was opening before him. To William he was already slightly known. At Moor Park the King had sometimes, when his host was confined by gout to an easy chair, been attended ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... domination of a powerful, unscrupulous, and fanatical race, down through the 600 years succeeding! How would the Church in these islands have stood such fiery trials? Would we have continued an enterprising missionary Church through it all? It might be good for us to try to understand that, when a despotic Sultan stands over you, allowing you to breathe on condition of no proselytising, the conditions are not favourable to well advertised missionary effort. All that can be done in such circumstances, and under such conditions, ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... West Indies. On the evening of September 21, 1797, the men were on drill, reefing topsails. The captain, Pigot, was a rough and daring sailor, a type of the brutal school of naval officer long extinct. The traditions of the navy were harsh; the despotic power over the lives and fortunes of his crew which the captain of a man-of-war carried in the palm of his hand, when made the servant of a ferocious temper, easily turned a ship into a floating hell. The terrible mutinies which broke out in British fleets a hundred years ago had ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... my empire with more despotic power than ever. I insisted that I should refuse his visits when I felt so inclined; and when I imagined that there was the slightest degree of satiety on his part, he was certain to be refused admittance for a fortnight. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... taken at Salisbury was the completion of William's work in England. To contemporaries he appeared as a foreign conqueror, and often as a harsh and despotic ruler. Later generations could recognise that his supreme merit was that he made England one. He did not die in England. In 1087 he fought with his lord, the king of France, Philip I. In anger at a jest of Philip's he set fire to Mantes. As he rode amidst the burning houses ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... arose fierce opposition from an unexpected quarter. The great fur-trading company that had for so long a time held despotic power in the land, in their short-sightedness,—fearing a diminution in the returns of the fur by the hunters if one-seventh of the time was to be, as they put it, spent in idleness,—sneered at the actions of the missionaries, and by bribes and threats, endeavoured ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... shrinkingly and shudderingly into a possible depth, and he sees, going down into the abyss, a ladder with three rungs on it. The topmost one is wilful, self-conscious transgression. But that is not the lowest stage; there is another step. Presumptuous sin tends to become despotic sin. 'Let them not have dominion over me.' A man may do a very bad thing once, and get so wholesomely frightened, and so keenly conscious of the disastrous issues, that he will never go near it again. The prodigal would not be in a hurry, you may depend ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... whose duties were defined with scrupulous minuteness. The King at this time renounced the right of seizin, his dues over property, inherited or conveyed by sale, exchange, gift, or will, his right of demanding war levies by proclamation, and of issuing forced loans, the despotic character of which offended everybody. The following year, the tax of eight deniers having been found insufficient and expensive in its collection, the assembly substituted for it a property and income tax, varying according to the property and ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... has given no evidence of an intention to do so. Indeed, the representatives of that Government assert that the people of Hawaii are unfit for popular government and frankly avow that they can be best ruled by arbitrary or despotic power. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... subjects, and held office for no definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation of the royal firman. While, however, they remained in office they were despotic—they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a portion of his majesty—they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks or "paradises," vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled, seraglios. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... the mind!— Cradled in truth, and 'mid distractions born To pure emprise on that despotic morn When freedom yearned along the westering wind, And tyranny, that hound among the blind, Bayed toward the deep ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... fifth century. In the year 435, Theodosius II. commanded the temples to be destroyed or turned into churches. There still appear some heathens in civil office and at court so late as the beginning of the reign of Justinian I. (527-567). But this despotic emperor prohibited heathenism as a form of worship in the empire on pain of death, and in 529 abolished the last intellectual seminary of it, the philosophical school of Athens, which had stood nine hundred years. At that time just seven philosophers were teaching in that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... things might have gone with his son, if the baby boy had lived, one does not know; but his oriental views of the moral and intellectual inferiority of women, which doubled the dangers of their fascinations, made him certain to be a despotic father to three motherless girls. And so he was. He had plenty of young men eager for the privilege of reading to him: but of course they could not be always with him, and the result was that dreadful ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... the sentiment of the assembly, so clearly pronounced, and, it may be, his own better nature, which, ere polluted by plotting craft, and hardened by despotic ire, was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him. "Lady," said he, gently, "thou appealest not in vain to Norman knighthood: thy rebuke was just; and I repent me of a hasty impulse. Mallet de Graville, thy ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hanging, embowelling of men, women, and children Trust her sword, not her enemy's word Undue anxiety for impartiality Universal suffrage was not dreamed of at that day Waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity by an enormous fine Who ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unity; his whole strength going one way, and at all moments, under his own sole command. The value of this circumstance is incalculable; this is the saving-clause of Pitt and his England (Pitt also a despotic sovereign, though a temporary one); this, second only to Friedrich's great gifts from Nature, and the noble use he makes of them, is above all others the circumstance that saved him in such a duel with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... work which is on a very high plane for its kind in Paris, but for which the manufacturer rather than the designer receives the credit. But he probably felt no gratitude to it for this, persuaded that but for its despotic prevalence there would have been a clearer field for his spontaneous and agreeable effort to win distinction in. He greatly preferred at this time the artistic anarchy of England, whither he betook himself after the Commune—not altogether upon compulsion, but by prudence ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... unrestricted, uncontrolled, supreme; consummate, faultless, ideal; actual, real; self-existent, self-sufficing; autocratic, despotic. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of hostilities against this Continent by the British troops, in the bloody scene of the 19th of April last, near Boston—the increase of arbitrary imposition from a wicked and despotic ministry—and the dread of insurrections in the Colonies—are causes sufficient to drive an oppressed people to the use of arms. We, therefore, the subscribers, inhabitants of South Carolina, holding ourselves bound by that most sacred of all obligations, the duty of good citizens to an injured ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... conviction belongs to strength, and to an independent point of view.... That grand passion which is at once the foundation and the power of a sceptic's existence, and is both more enlightened and more despotic than he is himself, drafts the whole of his intellect into its service; it makes him unscrupulous; it gives him courage to employ unholy means; under certain circumstances it does not begrudge him even convictions. Conviction as a means: one may achieve a good deal by means of a conviction. ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... and all people praise the Lord.... Bernard had the satisfaction of improving and extending monasticism to the utmost; of sewing together, with tolerable success, the rended vesture of the papacy; of suppressing a more popular and more scriptural Christianity for the benefit of his despotic order; of quenching for a time, by the extinction of Abelard, the spirit of free inquiry, and of seeing his ascetic and superhuman ideal of religion everywhere accepted as the ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... errors. This is always the case with beliefs induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by reasoning. Every one is aware of the intolerance that accompanies religious beliefs, and of the despotic empire ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... unfortunately the adequate materials are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable, with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal, to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic, uniformity men of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... sacrificed, the government will be no better than it was, all owing to the intemperance of the 'etats, who might have obtained a good constitution, or at least one much meliorated, if they had set out with discretion and moderation. They have left too a sad lesson to despotic princes, who will quote this precedent of frantic 'etats, against assembling any more, and against all the examples of senates and parliaments that have preserved rational freedom. Let me know when it will be convenient to you to receive ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... things out. For the kings of finance speechlessness is counted a way of being strong, though it should rather be counted a way of being sly. By this time the Parliament does not parley any more than the Speaker speaks. Even the newspaper editors and proprietors are more despotic and dangerous by what they do not utter than by what they do. We have all heard the expression "golden silence." The expression "brazen silence" is the only adequate phrase for our editors. If we wake out of this throttled, gaping, and ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... high places, and speak in the name of English literature, than all the other interests and kinds, which survived among the people, began to range themselves in opposition, and to assert their right to be heard. The supremacy of Dryden and Pope was the most despotic rule that English poetry has ever known, and the revolt was strong in proportion. Satire and morality very easily becomes tedious, especially when they are in close alliance. Despotism may be tempered by epigrams, and so become tolerable, but it is important that the epigrams should not be ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... as a vehicle of that expression which is so essential to all genuine freedom of thought. Mere education is no evidence of this freedom. It may be made, it has been made in one of the most intelligent but despotic countries in Europe, an instrument for drilling the human mind into an absolute routine of state policy. Mere liberty of speculation is nothing, though it has the boundless firmament of abstraction for its own, so long as it is not allowed to strike the solid ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... you by assuming these powers!" Benjamin exclaimed with passion. "You're fulfilling that trust. You're doing what the people have called you to do—establishing the independence of the South! The Government at Washington has been compelled to exercise despotic powers from the first—" ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... number around his capital; and it is probable that the early Christians in India occasionally found such princes, and gave just cause of alarm to the Brahman priests, who were then in the infancy of their despotic power.[9] ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Justice Taney, it was well settled by the common law that "it rests exclusively with the Court to determine who is qualified to become one of its officers, as an attorney and counsellor, and for what cause he ought to be removed." Such power, he made clear, however, "is not an arbitrary and despotic one, to be exercised at the pleasure of the Court, or from passion, prejudice, or personal hostility; but it is the duty of the Court to exercise and regulate it by a sound and just judicial discretion, whereby the rights and independence of the bar may be as scrupulously ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... one tyrant to another, a man without eminent qualities may easily gain supreme power. The defection of a troop of guards, a conspiracy of eunuchs, a popular tumult, might place an indolent senator or a brutal soldier on the throne of the Roman world. Similar revolutions have often occurred in the despotic states of Asia. But a community which has heard the voice of truth and experienced the pleasures of liberty, in which the merits of statesmen and of systems are freely canvassed, in which obedience is paid, not to persons, but to laws, in which magistrates are regarded, not as the lords, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... affectionate, and yielding. Both husband and wife were tenderly attached to each other and to their boy; but they grew more and more to shun the trouble of decision on any point; and hence it was that Bridget could exert such despotic power. But if every one else yielded to her 'magic of a superior mind,' her daughter not unfrequently rebelled. She and her mother were too much alike to agree. There were wild quarrels between them, and wilder reconciliations. There were times when, in the heat of passion, they could ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he, "my strength would become sternness. Nature gave me a despotic disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour to ennoble our ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... though venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority, and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By some it is regarded ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... scientific breeding and education a means of making heroism perpetual. But to submit to such reforming regulations men would first have to be reformed; it would not suffice, as Plato suggested, merely to enslave them and to introduce scientific institutions by despotic decrees. For in such a case there would be all manner of evasions, rebellions, and corruptions. If marriage founded on inclination and mutual consent is so often broken surreptitiously or by open divorce, what should we expect amongst persons ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... maternal solicitude which was bestowed particularly on his brother, felt disposed to show towards Anne of Austria more submission and attachment than his character really dictated. Anne of Austria had adopted this line of conduct especially towards the young queen. In this manner she ruled with almost despotic sway over the royal household, and she was already preparing her batteries to govern with the same absolute authority the household of her second son. Anne experienced almost a feeling of pride whenever ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of conductors. In the days when Mozart's scores afforded the highest tasks that could be set before an orchestra, the typical German Capellmeister was a formidable personage, who knew how to make himself respected at his post—sure of his business, strict, despotic, and by no means polite. Friedrich Schneider, of Dessau, was the last representative I have met with of this now extinct species. Guhr, of Frankfort, also may be reckoned as belonging to it. The attitude ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... against which Clement's Epistle is directed. Where he wishes the heads of that party to say, [Greek: ei di eme stasis kai eris kai schismata, ekchoro, apeimi, ou ean, boulaesthe, kai poio, ta, prostassomena upo tou plaethous], c. 54, it would seem as if they had been endeavouring to exercise a despotic authority over the church, in defiance of the general feeling, as well as of the existing government, like those earlier persons at Corinth, whom St. Paul describes, in his second Epistle, xi. 20; and like Diotrephes, mentioned by St. John, 3 Epist. 9, 10. But in ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... The penalties at one time were only the forfeiture of the goods seized, and if one vessel's cargo escaped out of two or three, it was a profitable trade. The measures of Government were then thought to be so stringent and despotic, that men of principle, of probity, and integrity in all other respects, manifested great obliquity of vision in viewing the traffic in smuggled goods, and felt no compunctious visitings in embarking in that trade. In the better class of houses in the district, hiding holes and places of concealment ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... religion have the power of idealistic interpretation. To a mother her child is a wonderful being. To a true lover the girl he loves has sacredness. With Jesus the consciousness of a God of love revealed the beauty of men. The old gods were despotic supermen, mythical duplicates of the human kings and conquerors. The God of Jesus was the great Father who lets his light shine on the just and the unjust, and offers forgiveness and love to all. Jesus lived in the spiritual atmosphere of that faith. Consequently he saw men ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... national tranquillity without improving their minds and making some concession to their claims.—Folly and probable calamity of an obstinate resolution to maintain subordination in the nations of Europe in the arbitrary and despotic manner of former times.—Facility and certain success ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... several facts against this theory. Red Feather held such despotic sway over his followers that it was hard to understand what cause could arise for any dispute with them about the disposal to be made of the brother and sister. If he desired to leave them alone, what was to prevent him riding off ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... and has no ideals. True, that there is a contemporary movement, and a strong one, in favour of what is called "national education," in favour of "the teaching of civics." But we must be on our guard! Here is a new peril. They would make a sort of state idol, despotic and soulless; they would make a state superstition, a state egoism, to which our minds are to be enslaved. Do not let us stoop to the lure. An immense task lies before us, and the Zofingerverein must lead ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... as an axiom in the government of states that the greatest wrongs inflicted upon a people are caused by unjust and arbitrary legislation, or by the unrelenting decrees of despotic rulers, and that the timely revocation of injurious and oppressive measures is the greatest good that can be conferred upon a nation. The legislator or ruler who has the wisdom and magnanimity to retrace his steps when convinced of error will sooner or later be rewarded with the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... dictator. The magistrates lingered as they went to take the city keys from the hands of their good king, and with sad whispers anticipated the moment in which they must surrender them, and their laws and national existence, to the jealous dominion of three despotic ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman, delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... number of the victims of their cruelty, their thirst for blood became more intense, as the time wore on; and when they found they could not crush the spirit of a free people, or extinguish the light of gospel truth, they had recourse to the most despotic and atrocious measures for effecting their diabolical purposes. What has been designated "THE KILLING TIME" of the Scottish persecution, embraced the greater part of Renwick's public ministry. The graphic pens of such able writers as De Foe, Charles ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... world's dazzled intellect and torpid conscience has so long tolerated without resistance, and which antiquity admired in its despotic rulers, splendid in proportion to the people's misery, is that misleading form of intense and heartless selfishness, which grasps the elements of life and happiness, the wealth of a nation, to squander and destroy it in that OSTENTATION which has ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... sense alone is sufficient to convince any one that unfavourable chances must long be dreaded. The ancient system being re-established, the occupation of the throne will then be only a family question, and not a question of government between liberty and despotic power. Why should not France, if it ceases to be free, prefer the race of her ancient kings? You surely know it. You had not been married two years when, on returning from Italy, your husband told me that he aspired to royalty. Now he is Consul for life. Would he but resolve to stop there! ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of a religion that held it to be irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be denied. The event that served more than any other to break the first link in the long chain of despotic ignorance is that known by the name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does not appear to have made part of the intention of Luther, or of these who are called Reformers, the sciences began to revive, and liberality, their natural associate, began to appear. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... wanting, men such as Fouche and Tallien, who, having been long conspicuous among the chiefs of the Mountain, now found that their own lives, or lives still dearer to them than their own, were in extreme peril. Nor could it be longer kept secret that there was a schism in the despotic committee. On one side were Robespierre, Saint Just, and Couthon; on the other, Collot and Billaud. Barere leaned towards these last, but only leaned towards them. As was ever his fashion when a great ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... personality, but as the outward and visible sign of an idea, the idea of the Venetian oligarchy. The history of the personal authority of the Doge falls into three periods. A period of great vigour and almost despotic power dates from the foundation of the Dukedom, in the year 697, down to the reign of Pietro Ziani in 1172. During this first period, the Ducal authority showed a tendency to become concentrated, and almost hereditary in the hands of one or two powerful families. ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... the date of the order by which officers in command of ships were required to send quarterly returns of punishments to the Admiralty, there was little or no restraint upon the despotic authority of the captain, as far as corporal punishments were concerned. And it must be in the recollection of every one who served in those days, that captains, not really cruel by nature, nor more ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... by the vote of the Irish Parliament, and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that America should ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... raised more than once against the citadel of the Constitution by adventurers of this character, through the folly and heedless impulses of the masses. Fifty years hence, and a condition of society will probably exist among us that would effectually have carried out the principle of despotic rule which is beginning to show itself in the bud amongst us, and which is nothing more than the shadowing out ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... be opposed to himself in a twofold manner: either as a savage, when his feelings rule over his principles; or as a barbarian, when his principles destroy his feelings. The savage despises art, and acknowledges nature as his despotic ruler; the barbarian laughs at nature, and dishonours it, but he often proceeds in a more contemptible way than the savage, to be the slave of his senses. The cultivated man makes of nature his friend, and honours its friendship, while only bridling ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... Ireland's sons, Then Scoti named, had warred on Alba's Picts: Columba's Gospel vanquished either race; Won both to God. It won not less those youths, In boyhood Oswald, Oswy still a child. That child was wild and hot, and had his moods, Despotic now, now mirthful. Mild as Spring Was Oswald's soul, majestic and benign; Thoughtful his azure eyes, serene his front; He of his ravished sceptre little recked; The shepherds were his friends; the mountain deer Would pluck the ivy fearless from his hand: In gladness ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... lounged about him with a pretence of stoical composure, but under that guise was a mighty disquiet, for even in an organization of his own upbuilding the mountaineer frets against the despotic power that says "thou ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Brotherhood" are our brothers—they are ourselves, unjustly and vainly condemned to serve as scapegoats for the rest. What the criminal instinct or propensity in a man needs is not seclusion, misery, pain and despotic control, but free air and sunlight, free and cheerful human companionship, free opportunity to play his part in human service, and the stimulus, on all sides of him, of the example of such service. Men enfeebled by crime are not cured by punishment, or by homilies and precepts, but by taking ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of a century which was so brilliant from the literary aspect, James Delille was despotic: his earlier efforts have already been attended to. A skilled versifier, but without fire or many ideas, he made cultured translations from Virgil and Milton, wrote perennially descriptive poems, such as The Man ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... unique, sublime; In many a land beyond the sea The victims of despotic crime In thee, the latest born of Time, Beheld a land from tyrants free, The ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... way it was assuredly with the hope of using this new force for their own profit, by conquering the whole vague mass of the lowly whose covert threats have ever growled through the ages, even in the most despotic times. And thenceforward in the sons of St. Francis the Church possessed an ever victorious army—a wandering army which spread over the roads, in the villages and through the towns, penetrating to the firesides of artisan and peasant, and gaining possession of all ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... nature; he buries his person and his character in obscurity; he apes the humble and the dying man; he is elected Pope; this moment gives back to the spring, which politics have bent, all its long curbed elasticity; he is the haughtiest and most despotic of sovereigns. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised it in the most despotic manner. Authors, ever in dispute with the comedians, who dictated the law to them, solicited, but in vain, the opening of a second French theatre. The revolution took place, and the unlimited number of theatres was presently ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... people, instead of a slavish awe of the mob, an absolute dread of the uneducated masses, a sovereign contempt of the opinion of the world in accomplishing any design for the aggrandizement of the Union, the most despotic and degrading oppression of all who presume to hold religious opinions at variance with those of the masses, and the chained bondsman in a ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... every department under him too strongly with his own individuality. The planters, who are an intelligent and independent body of men, have seemingly always been obnoxious to the ideas of a perfectly despotic and irresponsible ruler. In spite however of all difficulties and drawbacks, they have held their own. I know that the poor people and small cultivators look up to them with respect and affection. They find in them ready and sympathizing friends, able and willing to shield them from the exactions ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Great Orme's Head, and near it is the mouth of the Conway River. The railway to Holyhead crosses this river on a tubular bridge four hundred feet long, and runs almost under the ruins of Conway Castle, another Welsh stronghold erected by Edward I. We are told that this despotic king, when he had completed the conquest of Wales, came to Conway, the shape of the town being something like a Welsh harp, and he ordered all the native bards to be put to death. Gray founded upon this his ode, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... unpopular, and when he found that the people expressed dissatisfaction, he built castles and fortresses all over the country, and filled them with soldiers to awe the people into submission. In each of these fortresses he placed a governor, who exercised despotic power in the district over which his sway extended. The inhabitants of the canton Uri, in particular, had to complain of the oppression of their German governor, Gessler, who had committed several murders, and acted in such a manner as to excite general indignation, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the pitch of something very like real genius in judgment and taste,—what a sun was he (with that talent of his for kingship, probably never surpassed), to balance and to sway, from his unshaken station, the august intellectual system of which he alone constituted the despotic centre to attract and repel! Seventy-two years long was this sole individual reign. Louis XIV. still sat on the throne of France when the ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... a Book of Canons, heralding the imposition of a Liturgy, which scarcely varied, and when it varied was thought to differ for the worse, from that of the Church of England. By these canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, the preachers could not use their sword of excommunication without the assent of the Bishops. James VI. had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of "conceived prayers," spoken by the minister, and believed ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang |
