"Self-appointed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I see; a self-appointed squire of dames; actuated merely by a romantic desire to serve beauty in distress. Extremely interesting, my dear boy. But, see here, Knox," and his tone changed to seriousness. "Let the romance go, and talk sense a minute. You are not going to get very far fighting me alone. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... justice, absolute unerring justice. This law is the very least comprehended of men, because its majesty, its even-handedness has been so misinterpreted, so travestied by various kinds of religious teachers, rulers, and self-appointed judges. Man-made laws which everywhere prevail tend always to segregate people into classes, producing results devoid of equity, favoring the materially superior. It is quite common for people who know nothing whatever of the operations of occult and spiritual ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... Coupee, and her agonies of fear on his account, and so came by degrees to a certain acceptance of their view of matters, and therewith a feeling of gratitude for their labours and risks on his behalf. For he did not doubt that, should the self-appointed administrators of justice learn who had baulked them of their prey, they would wreak upon them some of the vengeance they had intended ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... little ambulance went by, recalling thoughts or absent sons who might be journeying painfully to some far-off hospital, where brave women waited to tend them with hands as willing, hearts as tender, as those the gentle child gave to her self-appointed task. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... the villagers departed, and soon none remained save her self-appointed guardians, the two holy men. Kathlyn felt a desire to explore this wonderful temple. She discovered what must have been the inner shrine. The chamber was filled with idols; here and there a bit of gold leaf, centuries old, glistened upon ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... traders, was nevertheless, as regards literature and the arts, a period of progress and even splendour. The King's incapacity, by affording his uncles and brothers opportunities for fingering the revenues during the self-appointed and irresponsible regencies, enabled them to gratify their magnificent tastes in the purchasing of costly furniture and the ordering of splendid books. Louis of Orleans, usually credited with the worst of this prodigality, was by no means singular in ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... help Bob in his self-appointed task of going through all the books in the library. This was no small piece of work, for it was not enough to shake each book, and let loose papers, if any, drop out. Some of the old papers had been found pinned to leaves, and so each book must be run through in such a way that every ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... complete without its curmudgeon or self-appointed grumbler, just as every village has its special imbecile. The curmudgeon originates in a class above the idiot; very often he is an ex-churchwarden, guardian, way-warden, or other official, who has resigned in dudgeon or been ousted from his post for some ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... concert or a play. That he had been almost too kind it was impossible for her to deny; but she had tried her best to repay him—she had, when one came to the point, done as much as she could to remedy the defects of his education. At first she had given zest, sympathy, eagerness, to her self-appointed task of making him over; then, as the months went by, a sense of doubt, of discouragement, of approaching failure, had tempered her enthusiasm, and at last she had realized that her work, except in the merest details, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... duty as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound, for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate, the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself with far too much seriousness, and in the end adopt the dogma of his own infallibility. The liberty to summon this or that man-of-letters to a supposititious bar of justice is apt to beget in the self-appointed judge an exaggerated sense of superiority. He becomes impatient of any rulings not his, and says in effect, if not in so many words: "I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark." When ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... at home wore on, Beth was seized with an importunate yearning to go out, and it was with difficulty that she got through her self-appointed tasks. She thought of the sea, the shore, the silence and solitude, which were apt to be so soothing to her dull senses that she ceased to perceive with them, and so passed into the possession of her farther faculty for ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... of power this ruler seems to have aimed solely at enjoying the sweets of ease and tranquillity. He left the provinces severely alone and thought only of the peace of the metropolis. Turbulent displays on the part of self-appointed partisans of the Southern Court; intrigues in the Kwanto; revolts among his own immediate followers—all these things were treated by Yoshimochi with gloved hands so long as the atmosphere of Kyoto was not troubled. In 1428, he fell sick, and, the end being in sight, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... himself general, and will adopt the formula 'Shoot him! shoot him!' will be competent to cut down whomsoever he pleases untried, be it general or private soldier, if only he have sufficient followers, as was the case just now. But just consider what these self-appointed generals have achieved for you. Zelarchus, the clerk of the market, may possibly have done you a wrong; if so, he has sailed off and is gone without paying you any penalty; or he may be guiltless, in which case we have driven him from the army in terror of perishing ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... tuned to catch the elfin music that is heard within the confines of the forest. You cannot travel a rod under the trees without being watched by the small forest inhabitants, who regard you with suspicion, and peer at you from under decaying logs or leafy covert like self-appointed detectives. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... to leave the matter of life-expression to the individual is a question. Most men are anxious to do what is best for themselves and least harmful for others. The average man now has intelligence enough! Utopia is not far off, if the self-appointed folk who govern us for a consideration would only be willing to do unto others as they would be done by, and cease coveting things that belong to other people. War among nations, and strife among individuals, is a result of the covetous spirit to possess either power or things, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that remembers that we are but dust has no place in the heart as yet. Suffering will call out sympathy, but not failure to reach the mark. A life must ring true to God, true to its fellow men and true to the ideals conceived as belonging to it by these self-appointed judges, if it is to be of any help to them. It is therefore not a question whether the professing Christian, be he parent, teacher or church member, can indulge in doubtful amusements or uncertain practices without injury to himself. ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... discussed the case against Scarlett in all its bearings, though there was a dense ignorance on the part of the critics as to the evidence that would be called. To everything he heard the wild, unkempt man turned a deaf ear; regarding, as he undoubtedly did, the self-appointed judges around him with silent contempt and some degree ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... as they had done for some fifteen or twenty years before the war. That war has now lasted almost three years. During this long and terrible period there has been scarcely a woman in France, as in Britain, Russia, Italy, Germany, who has not done her share behind the lines, working, at her self-appointed tasks or at those imposed by the Government, for months on end without a day of rest. They have had contacts that never would have approached them otherwise, they have been obliged to think for themselves, for thousands of helpless poor, for the men at the Front. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... can! Having gone as a self-appointed ambassador to the enemy to secure terms of peace, to return to find my principal donning his armor and daubing his face with paint for a renewal of the combat, was certainly not pleasant. What could I say to Marguerite Andrews ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... back-lash of criticism. Naturally, his personal friends were still delighted, the older men at the club were still congratulating him for foresight and ingenuity, and Mr. Archer was still complimentary and confident: but the great mass of theatre-goers, and the mass of self-appointed arbiters of business ethics, were pointing to him as a follower of the gods of grasp and gripe. More disquieting than that, however, were the indications of a new crusade, led by Mr. Mix, and directed against the Council. The Mix amendment, which was so sweeping that it prohibited even Sunday shows ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... grim double meaning in that speech which Sandersen alone could understand. The others of the self-appointed posse had apparently made up their minds that Sandersen was right, and that ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... marked off, and, enjoining the spectators to silence, the young Frenchman who appeared more friendly than the rest as self-appointed referee called time. ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... call a palaver of all small chiefs unless he notifies the government of his intention, for the government is jealous of self-appointed parliaments, for when men meet together in public conference, however innocent may be its first cause, talk invariably drifts to war, just as when they assemble and talk ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... sea. Hannibal must help himself as best he could. He continued to defeat the Roman armies that were sent out against him, but his own numbers were decreasing rapidly and the Italian peasants held aloof from this self-appointed "deliverer." ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... with the self-appointed mission of choosing a wife. No man had ever held within his soul such volumes of deep sentiment as he could call into his eyes when the occasion required it, and no knight of the age of chivalry ever wooed a fair lady with such winning words ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... council of men controlled the affairs of the state. Oligarchy, narrowed down to one man, became monarchy. If you wished to be polite to an oligarchy you called it an aristocracy; if you wished to point out that a monarch was rather by way of being self-appointed, you called him a Tyrant. An oligarchy with a property qualification was ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... there!" said one of a group of white boys on their way to school. The command was addressed to a Negro lad fourteen years of age. "Where are you going?" asked the self-appointed spokesman of the white boys. The Negro lad looked ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... high wages, and for the exclusion of all those who could not assert their claims to work in London and other corporate towns. Laws of a most arbitrary character were enforced, and they were governed by cliques of self-appointed officers, who never failed to take care of their own ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... This self-appointed guide was no negro, no mulatto, of that Manuel was sure. The money had been received without that wide answering grin of pleasure characteristic in almost all negro types. Moreover, the palms of the boy's hands were the same color as the rest of his skin. The Cuban knew well that a certain dirty ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... slow," broke in his excited, self-appointed lawyer. "Can't you see through it? Can't you see what he was after? Why, good Lord, man, he has made you the principal legatee,—he has actually given you everything. All this rigmarole about a trust or a foundation or whatever you want to call it amounts to absolutely ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... out his light and got into bed, he began to feel a certain distaste for his self-appointed task. If Livingstone were Clark, if after years of effort he had pulled himself up by his own boot-straps, had made himself a man out of the reckless boy he had been, a decent and useful citizen, why pull him down? ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... self-appointed guide of Antonio beckoned for the latter to come on, when he led the way from the water side. The fisherman obeyed; for little did it matter to one poor and heart-stricken as he, whither he was conducted. Jacopo took the first entrance into the court of the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... among those who had come to visit the wreck. When they did talk, it was in low tones. Rick thought that was strange, because anything like this was usually a field day for self-appointed experts who discussed it in loud tones and offered opinions to all who would listen. Then, as he lifted his camera for a picture, he saw the men look up, startled at the flash. He saw them turn their backs quickly so their faces ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... administered as a province of India until 1937 when it became a separate, self-governing colony; independence from the Commonwealth was attained in 1948. Gen. NE WIN dominated the government from 1962 to 1988, first as military ruler, then as self-appointed president, and later as political kingpin. Despite multiparty legislative elections in 1990 that resulted in the main opposition party - the National League for Democracy (NLD) - winning a landslide victory, the ruling junta refused to hand over power. ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... been up for an hour or so, intent upon the self-appointed and gratuitous task of heating still more the sultry, motionless morning air, when consciousness returned to Daisy. All about her the silence was profound. As she rose, the fact that she was already dressed scarcely interested ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "History of Classical French Literature," pointed out that French novels were under a cloud of suspicion even so far back as the days of Erasmus, in 1525. It was many scores of years thereafter before the self-appointed guardians of French literature esteemed the novel highly enough to condescend to ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the newspaper reporter. It was a smaller New York, a more limited Fifth Avenue in those days, and Mrs. Astor ruled its society without any one to question her sovereignty. She was about to give a great ball, and Ward McAllister, as the self-appointed and generally accepted secretary of society, was in charge of ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... on this subject were freely given to several of his confidential friends. "The real people" he said, "occasionally assembled in order to express their sentiments on political subjects, ought never to be confounded with permanent self-appointed societies, usurping the right to control the constituted authorities, and to dictate to public opinion. While the former was entitled to respect, the latter was incompatible with all government, and must either sink into general disesteem, or finally ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... David's development produce more effect than upon Mr. Ancrum. The lame, solitary minister, who only got through his week's self-appointed tasks at a constant expense of bodily torment, was dazzled and bewildered by the spectacle of so much vitality spent with ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the Company as they were passing the Mansion House Dump. They were marching in fours and had practically a whole platoon wiped out, for eleven were killed and fourteen wounded. Amongst the killed was Freddie Chambers, self-appointed Company humorist, and one of the best known and most cheerful soldiers ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... morning Honey Tone groaned himself awake, realizing when his eyes were open that less than thirty-six hours lay between his fragile form and blood-tinted trouble. It seemed to him that his self-appointed guardians clung closer with the passage of the hours, as if they suspected their soopreem treasury of perfecting a plot which might include his exit. The obligations of the moment were four thousand dollars, and in Honey Tone's bulging pocket but three-fourths of that amount awaited the ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... Church cared for by its self-appointed shepherd. What it should be called under Henry it would be hard to say. It was not Protestant; and it was just as ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... ere he returned. He had presented himself at the prison before the self-appointed tribunal that was consigning the prisoners to massacre, and had announced himself as a victim of the Bastille. One member of the tribunal had identified him; the member was Defarge. He had pleaded hard for his son-in-law's life, and had been informed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to go their way, hold their meetings, and publish their newspapers and pamphlets with no great interference on the part of the police or attention on the part of lawgivers. With the progress of the war this situation changed; police and lawgivers began to interfere, and government officials and self-appointed guardians of the public weal began to denounce the "reds" and those suspected of "radical tendencies". The report of the Lusk Committee in the state of New York is perhaps the most imposing monument to this form ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... the little stream offered an attractive resting place for the self-appointed delegates, and the twilight hour a most opportune time ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... no wonder now that her mind was in a perturbed condition. She was going to leave the place in which so far all her life literally had been passed. She was going to live in that other place which had for years been her dream, her study, her self-appointed destiny. She was going to pass away for ever from uncongenial and odious companionship, and to live a life of sweet, proud, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... their owners sitting erect on top. When alarmed, they would yelp and dive into their lairs in the earth. These little rodents share their habitations with a funny-looking little owl and the rattlesnake. I believe, however, that the snake is not there as a welcome visitor, but comes in the role of a self-appointed assessor and tax gatherer. I picked up and adopted a little bulldog which had been either abandoned on the cars or lost by its owner, not then thinking that this little Cerberus, as I called it, should later prove, on one occasion, to be my true ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... curtains, and doubtless if we could have seen her face we would have found tears upon it, for the evening with another woman of her kind had brought to her a breath of the old life which she had resolutely forsaken and which so seldom penetrated to her self-appointed exile. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... disintegrated by the slow process of erosion. Joseph Parker's work in London tended to make all English clergymen who desired freedom, free. For over twenty years he preached every Thursday noon, and often twice on Sunday. No topic of vital human interest escaped him. He was a self-appointed censor and critic— sharp, vigilant, alert, yet commending as well as protesting. The two Parkers, one in America and one in England, made epochs. In point of time Theodore Parker comes first, and his discourses were keyed to a higher strain. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... there has been a time when the world has been better than it is to-day, and better than it ever will be again? Will you, as a student of life, concede that the savage can teach you a lesson? Will any of your kind? No, for you are self-appointed civilizers, working ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... his self-appointed task he stood up, hitched his dungarees, spat blood on the deck, and stood waving from side to side like a dancing bear. His face was unrecognizable; his dungarees, so neat and clean when he donned them the night before, were now one vast smear of red, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... windows, the rush of feet as people poured from the houses, cries, shouts, and yells—and high over all the shrill call of the police-patrol whistle—and the CRACK, CRACK, CRACK of the Skeeter's revolver shots—the Skeeter and his hellhounds for once self-appointed allies of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... with the Line of Head "open" and ascending slightly upwards towards or on to the Mental Mount of Mars (3-3, Plate III.), are self-appointed leaders, organizers of any public movement. They will sacrifice everything, home, affection, and all ties for what they believe is their public duty in connection with the work ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... devotion to duty, and had concluded, in a deeply repentant mind, that this unpleasant incident at the close of the day was only the natural consequence of my error in departing from the prescribed limits of my self-appointed task. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... way thou art, Take not the self-appointed leader's part. Follow no man, and by no man be led, And no man lead. AWAKE, and go ahead. Thy path, though leading straight unto the goal Might prove confusing to another soul. The goal is central; but from east, and west, And north, and south, we set out on the quest; From lofty mountains, and ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to all of those skilled readers and interpreters that the breach within the party was widening, and that this breach could become a chasm before the election. The Monitor and other papers, the chosen or self-appointed champions of vested interests, were almost openly in revolt; in Harley's mind their course amounted to the same thing; they printed in their news columns many things derogatory to Grayson, and likely to shatter public faith in his judgment, and in nearly ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... laughed, and Polly stood smiling. Tom fumed. "Was this all the sympathy he was to win for his self-appointed martyrdom?" ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Bradwell pertinently says, "the people of the State were told that one woman had proved herself competent and well qualified to enlighten the constitutional convention upon the evils of woman suffrage."[361] Such was the effect of this self-appointed obtruder from another State that the members of the convention, without giving a woman of their own State opportunity for reply, not only struck out the clause submitting the question to the people in a separate article, but actually incorporated in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... challenge, and, day by day, with few omissions, the dated pages bore new testimony to her application in performing a self-appointed task. The plan bore fruit, too, for Donald, in his rare replies to her confidential letters, which went to him each fortnight, was able to praise her as the best of correspondents, writing once, "You have an exceptional gift for making ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the point where he had broken his lance and left it, up to where a self-appointed guard had refused at first to open the city gate for him, there was a trail that did honor to the man who taught him swordsmanship. One man lay headless, and another's head was only part of him, because the sword had split it down ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... into the night, and Monty bent over the sobbing form of the self-appointed missionary. We were all alone in the midst of the courtyard, not even watched from behind the wheels of arabas, for a fight or a thrashing in the khans of Asia Minor is strictly the affair of him who gets ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... continued to lead an honest life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel chain of circumstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in prison. Sir Horace Fewbanks was the self-appointed guardian of a young woman named Doris Fanning, the daughter of a former employee on his country estate, who had died leaving her penniless. Sir Horace had deemed it his duty to bring up the girl and give her a start in life. After educating her in a style suitable to her ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... they were named as Sisters of the American Soldier, Patriotic Daughters of America, or Ministering Angels of the Camp and Cot. Shades of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton! the very voice of such self-appointed angels as Miss Perkins was enough to set the nerves of strong men on edge and to drive fever patients to madness! Even the Red Cross could not always be sure of its selection. It did prevent the sending to Manila of certain undesirable applicants, but it could not prevent the going of Miss Perkins ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... is gradually finding his way to his self-appointed end, which is the glorification of England in narrative verse. Reynard the Fox marks we believe, the end of a stage in his progress to this goal. He has reached a point at which his mannerisms have been so subdued that they no longer sensibly impede the movement of his verse, a point at which ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... "Young man, young man." Bok retraced his steps, and then the old lady said: "Young man, you have been leaning against something white," and taking her tree-switch she whipped some wall dust from the sleeve of Bok's coat. It was not until that moment that Bok recognized in his self-appointed "brush" no less a personage than ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... patrons of liberty than that on which this objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the Federal Constitution therefore really chargeable with this accumulation of powers, or with a mixture of powers having a dangerous tendency to such an ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... dastardly resolve. Then he remembered the soft living, the ease and luxury of the house of Zaidos, and remembering that he, as Velo Kupenol, must be all his life nothing but a dependent on his cousin's bounty, he steeled his wicked heart to its self-appointed task. ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... hospital service, and when the wounded arrived from Viterbo, notwithstanding the rumors of incendiarism and massacre, they came forth from their homes, and proceeded in companies, with no male attendants but armed men, to the discharge of their self-appointed public duties. There: were many foreigners in the papal ranks, and the sympathies and services of the female visitors to Rome were engaged for their countrymen. Princesses of France and Flanders might be seen by the tressel-beds of many a suffering soldier of Dauphin and Brabant; but ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... bullying millman could turn his anger upon the self-appointed referee, McGinnis was ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... proposing the retreat from the inspired undertaking. Both knew the sensible, judicious act would be to alarm the guards and thus avoid all possible chance of a fiasco. With misgivings and doubts in their hearts the two self-appointed guardians of the Princess lay there upon the grass, afraid to give up the project, yet fearing ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... risks of this uncertain life?" But he was also full of respect for them. There was a certain nobility rightly attributable to emigration itself in the abstract. It was the cutting loose from friends and aid,—those sweet-named temptations,—and the going forth into self-appointed exile and into dangers known and unknown, trusting to the help of one's own right hand to exchange honest toil for honest bread and raiment. His eyes kindled to see the goodly, broad, red-cheeked fellows. Sometimes, though, he saw women, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... Tammany Ring. It was engineered on the complete subversion of free government in the very heart of Republicanism. An American city, having a population of over a million, was disfranchised by an open vote of a Legislature born and nurtured in Democracy and Republicanism, and was handed over to a self-appointed oligarchy, to be robbed and plundered by them and their confederates, heirs and assigns for six years certainly, and prospectively for ever. A month's exhumation among the crimes of the Tammany leaders has not so familiarized us with the political ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... one superstition for another: the belief in the efficacy of drugs and surgical operations for the belief in the wonder-working power of a metaphysical formula, a self-appointed savior or a reason-stultifying and will-benumbing cult. They have not been taught that every acute disease is the result of a healing effort of Nature and therefore fail to see that it is vital force, the physician within, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... parish, a true allotrio-episcopos, to thrust himself uninvited into the parishes of other ministers, denouncing the pastor as "unconverted" and adjuring the people to desert both pastor and church. Like some other self-appointed itinerants and exhorters of the time, he seemed bent upon schism, as if this were the great end of preaching. Being invited to New London to assist in organizing a Separatist church, he "published the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... personal life, the intrusion of an inhuman being called an expert or official into the most intimate, inexplicable, and changing affairs of our lives and souls, and the arrogant social legislation of a secret and self-appointed Cabal or Cabinet, which refuses even to consult the wishes of that half of the population which social restrictions touch most nearly. If general military service would tend to increase respect and obedience to external authority of this kind, it might be too big a price ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... childhood, when existence had no toil beyond the day's simple lesson, no ambition beyond the neighboring approval of the night, I brought to you the morning's task for the evening's sanction, so now I bring to you this self-appointed taskwork of maturer years; less confident indeed of your approval, but not less confident of your love; and anxious only to realize your presence between myself and the public, and to mingle with those severer voices to whose final sentence I submit my work the beloved and gracious accents ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... he carried his cowl and mantle, and a scroll. "I too, am become a messenger," he said, "but I am self-appointed. This note was to go by a palace courier, but I relieved him of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... as one might walk, with bared feet, up a ladder of swords. Each step that took her nearer the house hurt her the more, but she was not of those who cry out when hurt. She set her lips more firmly together and continued upon her self-appointed way. ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... a very practical turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer—self-appointed, and had done his best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's recent letters he had become aware of two things—first, that Lathrop was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... diligently studied and taught in all the schools, until the rising generation understand that all the affairs of mankind are governed by the uniform laws established by the great Creator and Ruler of the universe; and that self-appointed "leaders of the people" who would entice them to follow their own inventions cannot save them from the penalties which naturally follow the violation of any of the laws of the universe. In short, education,—wisely directed education,—both in science and in morals, is the one indispensable ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... purpose was manifested. The crowd seemed to regard poor, demented Hannah as inspired, for a space was kept clear before her. When she began to sway in her weird fashion, and her face to twitch, she was the priestess and the oracle. The hymn she began was taken up first by two self-appointed exhorters, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... dozen self-appointed guides, Mary picked her way to the stairway and looked down. The broken piece of rotten timber, the gaping hole in the splintered bannister, the dark gleam of the water beneath, told their own story. One long, horrified look was enough for Mary. The others hung over the spot as if it ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the streets, La Cibot was mistress of the house and ruled the invalid. How should Pons superintend his self-appointed guardian angel, when he had taken no solid food for a fortnight, and lay there so weak and helpless that La Cibot was obliged to lift him up and carry him to the sofa while ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... large class of persons of strong natural mind and sanguine temper, was only too apt to confound the cause of virtue with its sometimes uncouth, harsh and self-appointed professors. She overlooked the fact that public opinion, though a moral object against which woman dares not often offend, is yet no standard for her government; that principles are determinable elsewhere; and that, whatever the world may think of them, and whatever may be their seeming ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... him at least twice before; once as the Practical Organizer of the Initial Association of Free Disciples, and once as the self-appointed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the first singer of Italy; and this reputation was found to be well deserved, notwithstanding all the prejudices he had to overcome, for I remember well the disparaging statements made concerning him before his debut at the court theater. According to these self-appointed connoisseurs, he was a bawler without taste, without method, a maker of absurd trills, an unimpassioned actor of little intelligence, and many ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... of Pennsylvania had suffered in the cause of religious liberty and reform. He had been confined in the Tower for writing heretical pamphlets, and been prosecuted for preaching in the streets of London. He had traveled in Holland and Germany as a self-appointed missionary of the Society of Friends, and had not spared his own ease in pleading the cause of persecuted Quakers everywhere. When, therefore, he proposed to found a colony in America, his name alone was enough to attract a ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... the lead to urge us forward. If it came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height, telling us to ponder ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... had edified themselves with burning witches. She would pass out of his life but never out of his memory. His heart would go with her, but though it killed him he would never modify the rigors of his self-appointed exile from her presence until an advance came ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... its study with this object. Here indeed he found saints brought to view, but not such as figured in the Roman calendar. A flood of divine light broke in upon his mind. In amazement and disgust he turned away from his self-appointed task, and devoted himself to the word of God. The precious truths which he there discovered, he soon ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the Arctic regions. Their names remain an added constellation in polar skies. But, we know that bitter skies and winter winds are not so unkind as man's ingratitude. And why, then, do we withhold sympathy and honor from these men who have so unflinchingly trod their isolated paths of self-appointed duty, accepting political and social excommunication—these heroes of the moral solitudes? But even as it is, our reformers have a better lot than history usually records for such; they have the satisfaction not only to see but ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of the day following, Senator Stanton, having read the reports of his speech in the morning papers, punctuated with "Cheers," "Tremendous enthusiasm" and more "Cheers," was still in a willing frame of mind toward Cuba and her self-appointed envoy, young ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... explaining the law to her friend, the latter grew more and more impatient, and when the self-appointed magistrate concluded her version of ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Russian friend back here in the corner, where the shelf suppresses him," said Georgia, who seemed to have accepted the self-appointed position of head cataloguer. "Some of the students might ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... to pause suddenly in the fore-topmast crosstrees and gaze intently ahead, or rather in the direction of some two points on the lee bow. He remained thus for nearly five minutes, and then proceeded in the execution of his self-appointed duty, taking first the foremast and then the mainmast, and subjecting everything to a most scrupulous and thorough overhaul; with the result that everything was found satisfactory aloft, except that certain chafing gear looked as ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... when it teaches nothing of the kind. A mere theory is not science until proven. A man does not become a scientist by advocating an unproven theory, but by making some notable contribution to knowledge. These self-appointed scientists recklessly declare that the "consensus" of science favors evolution. We oppose evolution not because it is science, but because it is not science. There is no conflict between Christianity and real science, ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... but Juliet drooped visibly. The bent little figure on the blanket was pathetic, but the twins were not given to self-pity. As time went on, the conversation lagged. They had both had a hard day, from more than one standpoint, and it was not surprising that by midnight, the self-appointed sentries were sound asleep upon one blanket, with Romeo's coat for a pillow and the other blanket tucked ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... which refers to this or that or the other nation as possibly being "capable of self-government"; and the implied sense of it is, that there has been a nation somewhere, some time or other which wasn't capable of it—wasn't as able to govern itself as some self-appointed specialists were or would be to govern it. The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only—not from its privileged classes; and so, no matter what the nation's intellectual ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... circumstances of the greatest peril, manifested their fearless and undying attachment to their country and its flag; all these were entitled to a place in such a record. What wonder, then, that, pursuing his self-appointed task assiduously, the writer found it growing upon him; till the question came, not, who should be inscribed in this roll, but who could be omitted, since it was evident no single volume ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... mean except that he took his instructions from the Boss? How could he, who made a pretense of righteousness, consent to visit the Sunday School political teacher, much less to sit at the table with him? The doubts and anxieties of these self-appointed defenders of public morals, and of the Republic even, found a spokesman in a young journalist who had then come recently from college. This person, whom we will call X., met Mr. Roosevelt at a public reception and with the brusqueness, to put it mildly, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... the subject" was involved; and though Mr. Blaine would have been forcibly restrained if he had shown any tendency to injure lamp-posts, or to lay hands upon his own worthless life, he was given every facility in his self-appointed task of inciting the public to all sorts of offences against the State, and to a variety ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... region of forest and streams and wild mountain ranges, men were infinitesimal specks hurrying here and there about their self-appointed tasks. Those like himself and Doris, who did not mind the privations inseparable from that remoteness, fared well enough. The land held out to them manifold promises. Hollister looked at the red-brown shingle bolts accumulating ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in a low undervoice, not looking up. Beyond her in the shade Daddy John mended a piece of harness. Daddy John was not a garrulous person and when she paused in her sewing to speak to him, he answered with a monosyllable. It was one of the old man's self-appointed duties to watch over her when the others were absent. If he did not talk much to his "Missy" he kept a vigilant eye upon her, and to-day he squatted in the shade beside her because the doctor and David had gone after antelope and Leff was off somewhere ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... The self-appointed savior of the American working people shrugged his heavy shoulders disdainfully. "That is no matter—it is always easy to find a grievance. When the factory men have walked out, then will come the sympathetic strike of your strong Mill workers' union. All the other labor organizations will ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... assumed Hassan to be a myth—a first cousin to the ginn. I was wrong. He exists. And by my supremely rash act I have incurred his vengeance, for Hassan of Aleppo is the self-appointed guardian of the traditions and relics of Mohammed. And I have Stolen one of the holy slippers ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... who at various times, Posing as Europe's self-appointed saviour, Afforded copy for our ribald rhymes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... impatiently in and about the hotel while their elders went on their self-appointed mission. Stafford, essentially a man of activity, speculated on their reasons for seeing the three people whom Sir Cresswell Oliver had specifically mentioned: Copplestone was meanwhile wondering if he could with propriety pay another visit to ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... at his self-appointed task of putting a barrier across the road— and he had said that he would also, get over to the other side of the river somehow and put a barrier there— the Rover boys swung around once again in their touring car, and ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... and paid her a fair price. There were people who thought Mrs. Loudon did wrong in allowing her daughter to work for money in this way, but Kate's mother said that the end justified the work, and that so long as Kate persevered in her self-appointed tasks, ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... suppose, though I do not know if I shall ever be able to make a book. But I have away there in London or with me here all the masses of notes I have made in my search for the life that is worth while living.... We who are self-appointed aristocrats, who are not ashamed of kingship, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... knew what was troubling him. A little tin god has a pleasant time of it, no doubt, until the coming of the eighteen carat gold idol. Captain Jed had been boss of Denboro—self-appointed to that eminent position, but holding it nevertheless—and to be pushed from his perch by a city rival was disagreeable. If I knew him he would not be dethroned without a fight. There were likely to be some interesting and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a self-appointed committee voicing a personal desire that has universal application. But if it would have more weight with you I'll have the Chamber take it up and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... pains to inform the queen mother that he had fully made up his mind to interfere in the affairs of France, and to enforce Catholic supremacy at the point of the sword. She might accept or decline the offers of the self-appointed champion of orthodoxy; but, if she declined, he was resolved none the less to afford his succor to any true friend of the Church that chose to request it. Timid and irresolute Catharine, who desired to steer ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... to be captured in one of his self-appointed expeditions, but the federal colonel released him, after a short examination, satisfied that he could most injure the confederate forces opposed to the Unionists by returning him to his regiment. Col. Sellers was of course a prominent man during the war. He was ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... for the high purpose of detecting a "yellow streak." But even though we desired it there would be no way of establishing any clear-cut difference in politics between the angels and the imps. The angels are largely self-appointed, being somewhat more sensitive to other people's ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... visitors" spoken of above must have been some of those self-appointed or hired agents called "interviewers," who do for the American public what the Venetian spies did for the Council of Ten, what the familiars of the Inquisition did for the priesthood, who invade every public man's privacy, who listen at every key-hole, who tamper ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... position entitled him to some consideration. Less than a week after his first interview with the imperial representatives, Lord Elgin received a letter from Keying, who, it was soon found, had come on a self-appointed mission to induce the English by artifice and plausible representation to withdraw their fleet from the river. His zeal was increased by the knowledge that the penalty of failure would be death, and as his reputation had been very great among Europeans ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... courts still rested, but some, more energetic than their neighbours, made furtive excursions into the main streets. They slunk along with pike and club, as if even now half doubtful of their own strength, though here and there a self-appointed leader shouted for death to the nobles. But the time was not yet. The appetite of the canaille was not sufficiently whetted; later they would be ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens |
