"High horse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 6th, the happiest man in the line was Willis. Everybody was glad that the enemy had retired; but Willis was bubbling over with the joy of foresight fulfilled. He rode a high horse; the rebels would make no further stand until they reached Richmond; he doubted if they would attempt to defend Richmond, even. His spirits were contagious; he did good although he was ludicrous. What would Dr. Khayme have said of Willis's influence? I supposed that the Doctor would have used the ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Graffam a good service, by persuading your neighbors to feel and to manifest some interest in himself and his family; ask them not to allow their children to call him 'Old Pete,' 'Old toper,' &c., and twit him of riding a high horse." ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... said the oracular Nares; "taste is all a matter of opinion. But the point is, how will your friend take it? You refuse a favour, and you take the high horse at the same time; you disappoint him, and you rap him over the knuckles. It won't do, Mr. Dodd; no friendship can stand that. You must be as good as your friend, or as bad as your friend, or start on a fresh deal ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... all very well for Sir Everard Kingsland to ride his high horse in the presence of Miss Sybilla Silver, and superbly rebuke her suspicions of his wife, but her words had planted their ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... this question, and ask himself in sincerity what the British Nation wants at this time. Is it to have, with endless jargoning, debating, motioning and counter-motioning, a settlement effected between the Honorable Mr. This and the Honorable Mr. That, as to their respective pretensions to ride the high horse? Really it is unimportant which of them ride it. Going upon past experience long continued now, I should say with brevity, "Either of them—Neither of them." If our Government is to be a No-Government, what is the matter who administers ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... as they please. He said he was determined to uphold the service, and then he knocked me down—and when I got up again he told me that I could stand a little more—and then he took out his colt, and said he was determined to ride the high horse—and that there should be no Equality Jack ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... off from John Bold on a high horse, it must not be supposed that her heart was so elate as her demeanour. In the first place, she had a natural repugnance to losing her lover; and in the next, she was not quite so sure that she was in the right as she pretended to be. Her father had told her, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... height above Daisy, being mounted up in his saddle on a pretty high horse, while the pony chaise was hung very near the ground. He had been beside her; but at her last words he laughed and set off at a good pace in advance, leaving the chaise to come along in Loupe's manner. Daisy drove contentedly home through ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... little of that unctuous spasmodic shouting, which used to characterise Wesleyanism, is heard in Lune-street Chapel. It has become unfashionable to bellow; it is not considered "the thing" to ride the high horse of vehement approval and burst into luminous showers of "Amens" and "Halleleujahs." Now and then a few worshippers of the ancient type drop in from some country place, and explode at intervals during the course of some impulsive prayer, or gleeful hymn, or highly enamelled ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... such a high horse that I hardly knew what I said, but I can see that when that was repeated to her with 'thought' instead of 'hoped' it looked as if I was mighty sure she was going to have me, and I hadn't even asked her. Yes, any girl ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... challenge, animosity. They had an immense mutual admiration the one for the other, these two; and yet now they were estranged. Esteem was nullified by instinct. Hilda thought with positive savagery: "It's all fiddlesticks about not leaving her mother! She's simply on her high horse!" The whole colour ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... among these, O my lady!" Last of all, there came up a damsel, attended by ten slave-girls and thirty waiting-women, all of them high-bosomed maidens. They put off their clothes and went down into the river, where the damsel fell to riding the high horse over her women, throwing them down and ducking them. On this wise she continued for a full hour, after which all came up out of the water and sat down; and they brought her napkins[FN131] of gold-purfled silk, with which she dried ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... and the cure withdrew a little, while M. le Duc d'Orleans slightly opened the door and called Madame de Mouchy. Then, the door ajar, she within, he without, he told her what was in debate. La Mouchy, much astonished, still more annoyed, rode the high horse, talked of her merit, and of the affront that bigots wished to cast upon her and Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who would never suffer it or consent to it, and that she would die—in the state she was—if they had the impudence and the cruelty to tell ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... in his orders, and ran his squad into the fountain in the middle of the drill-ground, and some of them marched over the parapet, sliding down into the ice-covered basin below. The spectators roared, and so did the marchers, and the red-faced man young had to join in, and to come down off his high horse. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... disembarked in France, and attended by a ruck of Burgundian gentlemen, that he arrived in Paris and offered to present himself before Charles VII. The King sent word that he might come, if he would, with a small retinue, but not with his present following; and the duke, who was mightily on his high horse after all the ovations he had received, took the King's attitude amiss, and turned aside into Touraine, to receive more welcome and more presents, and be convoyed by torchlight into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fellers turned up from all round about in spite of the pourin' rain. Someone had kidded Dave Regan that Mother Hardwick was comin', an' he turned up, of course, in spite of a ragin' toothache he had. He was always ridin' the high horse over us bullickies. It was a very cold night, enough to cut the face an' hands off yer, so we had a roarin' fire in the big bark-an'-slab kitchen where the darncin' was. It was one of them big, old-fashioned, clay-lined fire-places that goes right acrost the end of the room, with a twenty-five ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... Jeffrey of abusing hospitality which he never received, and forgets, that instead of being the Host, he himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to have despised. With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which is blown stifling back upon ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... his travels he met a family whom it would have been more correct for him to make no attempt to know, but among whom a woman caught his eye, adorned with a special charm that was new to him, to remain on his 'high horse' and to cheat the desire that she had kindled in him, to substitute a pleasure different from that which he might have tasted in her company by writing to invite one of his former mistresses to come and join him, would have seemed to him as cowardly an abdication in the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... his high horse,—that is, mule,—and I sent the deputy in with him with directions to toss his clothes out to me, for I wanted to keep my eye on Miss Cullen and her brother, so as to prevent any legerdemain on ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... protested. "No sense in getting on a high horse. Tonight you may find a man who just won't be ...
— The Calm Man • Frank Belknap Long
... wall, very strong and stout, with big buttresses and a stone coping. His horse (whom he had christened Invicta, and perhaps if he had known as much Latin as you do he would have called him something different) was a very high horse indeed, and by standing up in his stirrups Diggory could see over the wall. And he saw that on the other side was an orchard full of trees full of apples, red, and yellow, and green. He reined Invicta ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... received the strange gentleman with overpowering condescension, and spoke English in a thin, squeaky voice. In a flatteringly short time she had descended from her high horse, and accepted Shafto as a friend, revealed her age (eight years) and told him all about her French doll and her ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... of his class. He must get something to drink as soon as it could be served; that would put him at his ease. Yes—a drink—that would set him up again. And a drink for her—that would bring her down from this queer new kind of high horse. "I guess she must be a top notcher—the real thing, come down in the world—and not out of the near silks. But she'll be all right after a drink. One drink of liquor makes the whole world kin." That last thought reminded him of his own cleverness ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... never be so composed unless she had some plan in her mind for my delivery. Isabella, dearest Isabella, tell me, for heaven's sake, how have you managed to get into this place, that every one else is so anxious to keep out of? Has the old Don dismounted from his high horse? He has been polite enough to make me a morning call, but I am afraid he does not intend to allow me to return it. However, as long as he permits you to follow his example, I hope that I shall be enabled to bear ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Judith. "On your high horse, are you? All right, stay there. What I want is some information. How long have you been on the ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... doesn't condescend to look at any one of us! All she told her must have been just some word or two, who knows! But is it likely that our lady has the least notion of her name or surname that she rides such a high horse, and behaves in this manner! What credit is it in having been sent on a trifling errand like this! Will we, by and bye, pray, hear anything more about you? If you've got any gumption, you'd better skedaddle out of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... fight it through alone," she reassured him, "but you come on down off this high horse! We'll be having another bad night ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... got up on their high horse an' said as how iffen Don Cazar warn't with 'em, then he was agin 'em, an' they would jus' move in on him. He tol' 'em to go ahead an' try. An' seem' as how they was only one company hereabouts—Howard's Rangers—they didn't try. That's when Johnny Shannon ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... eighteen—each girl suddenly descended from her high horse, and went off into peal after peal of laughter, merry, heart-whole laughter, which floated to Mrs Alliot's ears as she lay on her couch in the drawing-room, and brought a smile to her pale face. This new friendship was doing great things ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... which he chose for its height, without a desperate struggle. A band of natives rushing on him, one had hoisted his right leg across a mule, another shoving a donkey's rein into his hands, while a third adroitly brought a pony under his left leg, while kicking in the air; but the owner of the high horse saw that his eye had been fixed on it, and being a big fellow came to the rescue, and offering his shoulder as a rest, enabled the lieutenant to spring clear of the mule and other beasts on to the ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... has her faults—I've never denied it," he began. "And riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been trying to ride over you—and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr. Franklin, don't you know women by this time better than that? You have heard me talk of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Southerner found himself brought up sharply against an unexpected phase of Scottish character, for Mrs Forsyth was distinctly on her high horse at the thought of being offered more than her due. She had her price; a fair-like price, she informed him loftily, and she stuck to it. She wasna the woman to make differences between one person and anither. Justice was justice, and she would like ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... dear sir," answered John, "our contract, if you will study it, allows me to invite whom I choose; it merely insists that my bride and I must be present, as you see we are. Pray go on with your part, and assure yourself it is no use to try the high horse with me." ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... matter—more than disinterested, for she would have given a great deal to be spared my aunt's company. But she said she saw the force of Mr. Smithers's arguments, and I admitted their justice with a sigh. However, I rode my high horse, and vowed that my aunt should do what she liked with her money; and that I was not the man who would influence her in any way ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Silence. Speech begets her as often. But there is no sure refuge save in Death; and when my life is closed untimely, let there be written on my headstone, with impartial application to these Black Brunswickers mounted on the high horse of oratory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... about the castle, and still Hugo arose not, until the third or fourth hour. Then he swallowed hastily a cup of generous Gascon wine, and a crust of toasted bread, steeped in the liquor; after which he mounted his favourite steed, a high horse of great spirit, not to say viciousness, which none save himself cared to ride, and galloped furiously for hours through the forest, startling the timid deer and her ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... Twiddel, who by this time was decidedly flushed. "You needn't ride the high horse like that, you are ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... Do get off your high horse. Can't you understand a fellow? Everybody can't keep his temper as you do! I ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the ladies of Belmont looked as if they had heard some strange story, each in her own way. Aunt Rebecca received the young man without a smile, and was unaccountably upon her high horse, and said some dry and sharp things, and looked as if she could say more, and coloured menacingly, and, in short, was odd, and very nearly impertinent. And Gertrude, though very gentle and kind, seemed ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... quite on her high horse. 'Tis said he has asked for a peerage on account of his overwhelming influence in the county of York, all of which he employed in favour of Lord Milton! Bravo, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Rides the high horse, my lord. Has friends at Court and friends all around coming to ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... on to your high horse, and you know I always go out of the way when you begin to prance on that beast. As for me, I don't want to leave papa's house where I'm sure of my bread and butter, till I'm sure ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... That was to please her mother. No, if my money's gone, Sterling's got to suffer, and the one slight consolation I shall have will be that Blanche Sterling will have to come off her high horse. ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... and in her desire to hide her blushing face, she tried to burrow her little round-head into his waistcoat-pocket, exclaiming: "Uncle Braesig, uncle Braesig, you're a very naughty old man!" "Oh!" said Braesig, "you think so, do you?" "Yes," answered Rudolph, who had mounted his high horse, "you ought to be ashamed of listening to what you were not intended to hear." "Moshoo Rudolph," said the old bailiff stiffly, "I may as well tell you once for all, that shame is a thing that must never be mentioned in connection with me, and if you think that your grand airs will have any ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... said her father; but all the same he rather liked to see his daughter get on her high horse, for she talked with spirit, and it amused him. "You must remember that Macleod looks on this as a holiday-time, and perhaps he may be a little lax in his regulations. I have no doubt it is because he is so proud to have you on board his yacht that he occasionally ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... loud-voicedness, nothing was forgotten which might sting Minna's vanity. Such remarks were always simple and made by the way; they never took the form of a set speech, and when Minna, irritated, got upon her high horse to reply, Frau von Kerich would innocently be off on another subject. But the blow struck home, and Minna ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... said Norah, tranquilly, "so that's all right and you needn't worry, Jimmy. I do think, if only one could get him off his high horse, he wouldn't be at all bad—perhaps he'll thaw now you boys are here. I hope he will, for his own sake, 'cause he'd have such a ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... going to ride the high horse, eh? Well, I consider it my duty to take you home and report upon your unlawful doings." And, still holding Marjory's arm, he began to walk towards the house. Silky, hearing the strange footsteps and ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Panney. "The young man and that Cicely Drane of yours have agreed to marry each other, and I suppose the old lady will live with them, and Miriam will have to get down from her high horse and agree to play second fiddle, or go to school again. She is ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... shall never give you a next time,' said Albinia; 'for neither party is comfortable, perched on a high horse.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to clear off, in a manner that causes him to wilt and turn pale. He leaves the caravanserai at once in high dudgeon. It has been a most humiliating occasion for him, to fall so ignobly from the very high horse on which he just entered with his bosom friends; but it is no more than ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... get on your high horse," he said presently. Then he became silent, and a sigh escaped him. "I had to make the suggestion," he went on, after a while. "You are the only man I dared to trust. Confound it, if you must have it, I'm sorry!" The apology ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... needed no besoms, nor even no dagger, but the mere shadow of my beard upon the cobbly stones of Paris sufficed. I say nothing of that which befel in the day's journey; but mark this! mark what follows!' He had set out from Paris upon a high horse, with a high heart; he had frighted off all robbers and all sturdy rogues upon the road; he had slept at good inns as became a made man, and had bought himself a goodly pair of embroidered gloves which ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... use to get on your high horse, Rains!" he said, in his sullen way. "If you dislike Merriwell, as you pretend, and if you hope to down him at anything, you cannot be too much of a stickler for little things. Once get him to going down hill, and we can keep him going. I can ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... sweetest child the Lord ever made and when she was a baby I could never bear to scold her because she'd look at me so sad-like from those big blue eyes of hers. But Rosemary has the Willis will and the Willis temper and when she is on her high horse the house won't hold her. Sooner or later she's going to try to have her way against the young doctor's orders and then there will be war. All the girls are getting out of hand now, anyway, what with their mother sick and the house ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... high horse just yet, Phil," he said. "I'm not going to rub you up the wrong way—at least, I don't mean to; but you were always an uncommonly hard chap to handle—in some matters. I grant you, it is their home and not a had sort ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... were. And Leonard is under obligations to Lord L'Estrange, and thought that Lord L'Estrange was pleased by his standing; whereas, now—In short, it is all Greek to me, except that Leonard has mounted his high horse, and if that throws him, I am afraid it will throw you. But still I have great confidence in Parson Dale,—a good fellow who has much influence with Leonard. And though I thought it right to be above-board, and let you know where the danger lies, yet one thing I can ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... big sophomore, who, by his frequent avowals, was in college for no other purpose than to play football, had simply been lost since his dismissal, and, upon hearing Devoe's message, eagerly came off his high horse and made a visit to Mills. What he said and what Mills said is not known; but Cowan went back into the second team at right-guard, and on Saturday was given a try at that position in the game with Erstham. He did so well that Jones was highly pleased, and Mills found it in his heart to forgive. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... patrols of mounted men was a small boy on a high horse. He was a fair-haired lad of twelve or so, in a Belgian uniform, with a tasselled cap over one ear, and as he passed the Dunquerquoises clapped hands and called out: "Bravo! Bravo!" He took the ovation with a grin ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... down. When the young people's house was no longer so clean, so orderly, and so exemplary that she could plume herself upon her work, she gradually withdrew; and when Soeren's wife once in a while came to ask her for advice or assistance, the Sheriff's lady would mount her high horse, until Marie ceased to trouble her. But if, in society, conversation happened to fall upon the Sheriff's clerk, and any one expressed compassion for his poor wife, with her many children and her miserable income, Mrs. Olsen would not fail ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... I am sick of it all, Anne. Last night, whoever I spoke to had something vile to impute or insinuate about every one they mentioned; and Lady Harrowfield, with a record of her own worse than the lowest, rode a high horse of virtue, and was more spiteful than all the rest put together. I loathe them, the whole crew. What do they know of anything good or pure or fine? Painted Jezebels, ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... Wenceslaus O'Brien,' and I threw myself before her in her path. 'Hand,' said I, 'I have none to give, but the blood which runs red through my veins is descended from a double line of kings.' I said that because she is always fond of riding a high horse. I had gotten close under the wall, so that none of you should see me from ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... interference with the rifle fire which the pulling, or tractor propeller mounted before the pilot to a certain degree presents. The Vickers machine is lightly armoured. The English also use what was known as the "D. H. 5," a machine carrying a motor of very high horse-power, while the Sopwith and Bristol biplane were ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... would not be stopped. He would do anything that his father might ask him. Anything but the one thing. He would not give up the wife he had chosen. It would not be reasonable, or proper, or righteous that he should be asked to do so; and here he mounted a somewhat high horse. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... good father!" cried the little Barniol woman, flinging herself on a cushion at Phellion's knees, "don't ride your high horse! There are many fools and idiots in the municipal council, and France gets along all the same. That old Thuillier will adopt the opinions of those about him. Do reflect that Celeste will probably have five hundred ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... his temper, I suspicion, and whacked ye, like as not. Well, I'll admit that is hard on a don of your size. But, take my word for it, you'll feel a sight better if you mount the high horse and forgive him, treat him with silent contempt. Nothin' makes you feel as good as that. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... I know you well, and I think we'll take you down from your high horse before you're many hours older in these parts. Boys, let's make him ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... remember that I was not always so fine as I am now, and Miss Trumbull does not seem so much of an inferior to me as she does to you. To tell you the truth, it does me good to come down off my high horse occasionally. I reckon I'll get over that; sometimes I want to so hard I could step on everybody that is common and second- class. I don't deny I'm as ambitious as I reckon I've got a right to be, but ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... been fighting the same fight within themselves that they fight with me. They know exactly where I am, that I too am doing my job against internal friction. The one thing before all others that they want to do is to bring me down off my moral high horse. And I loathe the high horse. I am in a position of special moral superiority to men who are on the whole as good men as I am or better. That shows all the time. You see the sort of man I am. I've a broad streak of personal vanity. I fag easily. I'm ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... yesterday that you are in the habit of having your own way." She nodded her head. "Well, I am afraid you'll have to come down from your high horse—at least temporarily." ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... chief well enough to be certain that it was impossible to count upon how he would look at yesterday's happenings. He might never think of the occurrence again, or he might refer to it with an easy laugh at Reggie's stricter principles, or he might be riding the high horse and resent the interference to an extent which Reggie knew would be long enduring, if ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... a stout, conceited sixteen-year-old when her mother died, so spoiled and so self-centred that old Lady Frothingham had been heard more than once to mutter that the young lady could get down from her high horse and make herself useful, or she could march. But that was six years ago. And now—this! Magsie had evidently decided to make herself useful, but she had managed to make herself beautiful and fascinating as well. She was in mourning now ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Jacqueline fortunate?" cried. Colette Odinska, who, herself always on a high horse, looked on love in its tragic aspect, and would have liked to resemble Marie Stuart as much as she could, "is she not fortunate? She has had a man who has gone abroad to get himself killed ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... mercilessly, and to provide swine like those in there with a chance of riding the high horse over better men!' Mike was mixing his metaphors in his wrath. 'But you'll know all about it in time. If you're in the habit of using your hands, keep 'em tight in your pockets when the traps are out man-hunting. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... The High Horse often takes a foremost place Among the winners of the human race. They say one needs both brawn and brain to ride him, And even then 'tis very hard to guide him. His jockeys gaily prance and boldly scoff, But soon or late they're sure ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... Dyke," cried Joe Emson good-humouredly, as he smiled down from his high horse at ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... troublesome and poor. Walter Mackenzie had always spoken of these Rubbs with thorough disgust, and had persistently refused to hold any intercourse with them. When, therefore, Mr Samuel Rubb was announced, our heroine was somewhat inclined to seat herself upon a high horse. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... to pardon the remorseful wrong-doer that Canning could not bring himself to accept the abject position which {38} his sovereign was arranging for him. He therefore declined at first to take any office under such conditions, and the King had to come down from his high horse and treat with his subject in less arrogant fashion. The King, at last, so far modified his language as to leave the prerogative of mercy out of the question, and Canning, by the advice of all his friends and supporters, consented to become once more ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... police in mind of by gone things, which it may be better they should forget.' Carlyle, I went, as I tell you, to knock him down. I asked him how he could have the hardihood to repeat such slander to my face. He was on the high horse directly; said the parish spoke the slander, not he; and I got out of him what it was he ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... very light breeze, and the Splash went off very slowly. I took my seat at the helm, trying to keep as cool as possible, though my bosom bounded with emotion. I was playing a strange part, and I was not at home in it. I could not help feeling that I was riding "a high horse;" but the injustice done ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... he cried. "On your high horse, eh? Aren't you afraid you may fall off or get knocked off?" and he raised his hand ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... on your high horse. I don't think you understand." Stokely's tone had moderated. "Don't you know that the Delaware Valley road ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... loud voice. "Come off your high horse and take the profits we'll make on our wheat, pay off old Brownwell ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... clear off before you publish it," said Mrs. Peck. "I have been treated with the greatest ingratitude by Frank, and I'd like a little revenge. I'd like to pull him down from his high horse, and set him working for his bread as you have had to do; but at the same time I am a poor woman, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... always put their best foot forward; and argue that you would do the same if you had any such wonderful talents as people say. You had better, therefore, play off the great man at once—hector, swagger, talk big, and ride the high horse over them: you may by this means extort outward respect or common civility; but you will get nothing (with low people) by forbearance and good-nature but open insult or silent contempt. Coleridge always talks to people about what they don't understand: I, for one, endeavour to talk ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the man in grey. "I have seen Sir Richard in a devil of a passion, but never with me—no, no! Trust Sir Richard for not riding the high horse with me—a baronet is a baronet, but a bard is a bard; and that Sir ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... bundle of goods. Always were. Head full of solemn notions about life, and at the same time, when it came to a lark,—Oh, I'm no grandmother, but when you got on your high horse—well! ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... is," retorted Poole quickly. "It's all shammon and gam—I mean, gammon and sham. You are no more a prisoner than I am. Why, even father says you seem to be riding the high horse. I suppose you do feel a bit awkward about coming on deck amongst the men, after going through that—I mean, after ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... back to the tea. Nora was very glum on the way over,—she usually is when she's on her high horse,—but the boys seemed to be in great spirits, for they just giggled to the Ervengs' very door, and barely had a straight face when Buttons appeared. I fancied that he looked curiously at me, and I wondered uncomfortably if he knew that Phil and ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... this was pure cowardice; I was afraid of their ridicule. But the break was made easier for me than I feared it would be. I found on entering the smoking room of the boarding house, that "Uncle Dick Moss," a rank spiritualist, had the floor. He was on his high horse and was charging up and down the room in the midst of a bitter and blatant Ingersollian tirade against Christianity and the Bible. The crowd was cheering him on. The day before, this probably would have amused me and ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... head to the storm and was still—he was one of the people who early learn the power of silence; but Elisabeth, having once mounted her high horse, dug her spurs into her steed and rode on to victory. In those days she was so dreadfully sure of herself that she felt competent to ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... neighborhood, and attracted attention to the place. The landlord received a stern admonition to keep earlier hours and less uproarious guests. When Boniface sought to carry this admonition into effect Captain Bywater mounted his high horse, and adjourned to his own place, taking his five or six boon companions with him. From that time forward the house on Duchess street was the regular place ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... to see the despatch" in which Russell's proposals were made[267]. Seward's instructions of July 6, after the misunderstanding was made clear to him, pushing the negotiation, were drawn when he was "still riding a very high horse—the No. 10 charger, in fact, he had mounted on the 21st of the previous May[268]," and this warlike charger he continued to ride until the sobering Northern defeat at Bull Run, July 21, put an end to his folly. If that battle had been a Northern victory he would have gone on with ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... all alike, when you climb on some sort of a high horse and become mysterious. I don't know what you are talking about—perhaps you are deluding yourself with an absurdly chivalrous notion about being her guardian—but I tell you this. A normal girl, who is ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... all about it," cried Horncastle, mounting his high horse, and offended at my tones. "We were too respectable for him here. But we ain't going into mourning for him. And if you go too we shan't blub. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... teeth as a wave of indignation swept over him. Really it was high time this contemptible spirit of annoying those he chose to look upon in the light of enemies was crushed in Nick Lang. He had carried on with a "high horse" too long already, and, for one, Hugh felt as though combined action should be taken against him by the respectable ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... in one's house? You have only that, when you are either master or servant, and it should be master. I had a wife—may heaven bless her soul—but when it happened sometimes that she played malapert, I used to mount the high horse, and bring out my thunder. I used to say like the Creator: Let there be light, and there was light. So for four years we had not ten times in all one word higher than another. How ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... was old and gray, but he had a good seat on horseback, and he knew it, and he rode out every day, with a groom behind him at a proper distance. When he came to a party, he looked somehow as if he were riding into the room upon his high horse; and he had orders, too, such a number that no one would have believed it; but that was not his fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumn reviews which were held in those days. He had an ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Nennillo and Nennella, whom he loved as much as his own life. But Death having, with the smooth file of Time, severed the prison-bars of his wife's soul, he took to himself a cruel woman, who had no sooner set foot in his house than she began to ride the high horse, saying, "Am I come here indeed to look after other folk's children? A pretty job I have undertaken, to have all this trouble and be for ever teased by a couple of squalling brats! Would that I had broken my neck ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... in that positive state of mind which is expressed by the colloquial phrase of being on her high horse. I—as the male part of creation always must in such cases—became very meek and retiring, and promised to close my eyes and ears, and not dream, or think, or want to know, anything which it was not agreeable ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
