"Despotic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recollection than could be based upon mere forensic skill or professional duty. His it was to help to apply the first impulse to the movement which eventually broke down the strong bulwarks of territorial oligarchy. His it was to wear the political martyr's crown; his to beard a profligate Court, and a despotic, tyrannical, and corrupt Government; his to win, or to help to win, far nobler victories than were ever gained by Marlborough or Wellington: victories of which we reap the benefits now, in liberty of thought and speech, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... for the last time unfurled; and the cowardice and the treachery of the few patricians who recommended the fatal neutrality, were confined to the persons of the traitors themselves. The present race cannot be thought to regret the loss of their aristocratical forms, and too despotic government; they think only on their vanished independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humour. Venice may be said, in the words of the Scripture, "to die daily;" and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... disorderly, anarchic spoilt child, half privileged, half outlawed, probably as much vagabond as actor, is the real foundation of the subjection of the whole profession, actors, managers, authors and all, to the despotic authority of an officer whose business it is to preserve decorum among menials. It must be remembered that it was not until a hundred years later, in the reaction against the Puritans, that a woman could appear on the ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... the commencement 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 in the Fields, The Gardens, etc., and a witty satirical poem on Conversation, ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... (Vol. ix., p. 222.).—I am informed by a late resident in Russia that the rumour to which MR. CROSFIELD refers has no foundation. I am farther informed, however, that after a twenty-five years' reign the monarch has even more absolute and despotic authority than before the lapse of that time. I hope this subject may be well ventilated, as considerable misapprehension exists ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... Indian reside under the same roof. As an Indian is despotic in his family, there is seldom any domestic disagreement in his cabin; if there be, the whip is called in to arbitrate the difference, and the dispute is soon adjusted. I shall notice this subject in a note in ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and truth which has by degrees developed the idea of political legitimacy; it is thus that it has become established in modern civilization. At different times, indeed, attempts have been made to substitute for this idea the banner of despotic power; but, in doing so, they have turned it aside from its true origin. It is so little the banner of despotic power, that it is in the name of right and justice that it has overspread the world. As little is it exclusive: it belongs neither to persons, classes, nor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... at times with so strange a mixture of anger and terror. I am angry because I feel that he takes no account of many of the best things in the world; I am frightened because he is so extraordinarily strong and complete. If he were to be given absolute and despotic power, he would arrange the government of a State on just and equable lines; the only tyranny that he would originate would be the tyranny of common-sense. The only thing which he would be hard on would be unreasonableness ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was one of the most remarkable of the world's Historic Boys. Elevated to a throne founded on despotic power and victorious memories, at an age when most lads regard themselves as the especial salt of the earth, he found himself launched at once into a war with three powerful nations, only to become ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... 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 ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... now added to all the veteran had suffered since the commencement of this scene, which was a cruel as well as dangerous trial, for a man of his character—upright, but obstinate—faithful, but rough and absolute—a man who, for a long time a soldier, and a victorious one, had acquired a certain despotic mariner of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... recklessly, without concert, and gave the first exhibition of a demoralization destined later to be disastrous. In another land and under ordinary circumstances the fight at Smolensk would have been, if not a decisive victory, at least an effective one. But while Russia is despotic politically, socially she is the least centralized of all lands, and a wound in one portion of her loose organism does not necessarily reach a vital point nor affect the seat of life and action. This Napoleon perfectly ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... literature of Indian rights and wrongs, which should be considered by every friend of the Red Man. Respecting the orders of the Indian office at Washington which abridge the liberty of religious teaching, this report characterizes them as "unintelligent, arbitrary, despotic and unstatesmanlike, merely a blow at missionary work. There is no reason to suppose that a single Indian anywhere will ever learn ten words more of English by reason of these orders. There is, indeed, no provision made by the Government for any increase of facilities ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... elicited from Mr. Kemble and Sir H. Maine. The former is almost outrageously angry at Alfred for attributing the system of bts or compensations to the influence of Christianity; while in the strong terms wherewith treason against the lord is branded, he can only see "these despotic tendencies of a great prince, nurtured probably by his exaggerated love for foreign literature."[96] It is positively refreshing to come out of this heat and dust into the orderly and consecutive demonstration of Sir H. Maine, who concludes a course of systematic exposition on the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... Alexis, the son and successor of Michael Romanoff, the founder of that new dynasty under which Russia was to enter on her era of greatness. He had come to the throne, as a young man, in 1645, and had since then, in the despotic Czarish way, continued his father's policy for the civilization of his subjects by cultivating commerce with the neighbouring European states, and bringing in foreigners for service in his armies or otherwise. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... thing that the first states-general was freely convoked by the most despotic of the kings of the Middle Ages, and that he had the idea to seek in them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 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 Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... were involuntarily out of the necessities of the time almost without self-consciousness that it was a republic, and even against the desire of many who were guiding its destinies. And it found itself in constant combination with two monarchs, despotic at heart and of enigmatical or indifferent religious convictions, who yet reigned over peoples, largely influenced by enthusiasm for freedom. Thus liberty was preserved for the world; but, as the law of human ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... distress enough, and no doubt the men who farm the taxes are no more scrupulous than they are in Spain, but there is not the same general corruption, and the French nobility, haughty and despotic to their tenants as they may be, are not corrupt, and would scorn to take a bribe. Now that there is a French king on the throne here, there may be, when matters have settled down, some improvement; but it will be a long time, indeed, before the nation can be regenerated, and even the king will ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... danger, in the stockaded house which took the place of a chateau, much as their remote ancestors had taken refuge from the raids of the Northmen in the castles of their seigneur's ancestors. And over this feudal society was set, as in France, a highly centralised government wielding despotic power, and in its turn absolutely subject to the mandate of the Crown at home. This despotic government had the right to require the services of all its subjects in case of need; and it was only the centralised government of ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... old scenes; the balls, with their mazy, passionate waltzes, and their promenades on the balcony in the moonlight's mild glow, when sweet lips recited choice selections from Moore, and white hands swayed dainty sandal-wood fans with the potency of the most despotic sceptres; the sleigh-rides, with their wild rollicking fun, keeping time to the merry music of the bells and culminating in the inevitable upset; the closing exercises of the seminary, when blooming girls, in the full efflorescence ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... subsequently did one continuous triumph of military despotism over the liberal movements of the age. As for the emancipation of the Jews, it was entirely unthinkable in an empire which had become Europe's bulwark against the inroads of revolutionary or even moderately liberal tendencies. The new despotic regime, overflowing with aggressive energy, was bound to create, after its likeness, a novel method of dealing with the Jewish problem. Such a method was contrived by the iron will of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... the police, exact in his monthly settlements with the ground landlords and the despotic brewery king, Fritz Braun avoided both the failings which had wrecked the golden fortunes of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... detail of obliquities," and their "extended affiliations as a great irresponsible authority, a monster power, which lays its hand upon every College Faculty in our country"; they were also fearful of the "debauchery, drunkenness, pugilism, and duelling, ... and the despotic power of disorder and ravagism, rife among their German prototypes." This report was signed by all the Faculty, though the opinion was not unanimous, nor had all the actions of individual ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... 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 ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion. The peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he was advanced to the more dignified profession of arms, in which his rank ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was a little sanctuary of free speech pitched by an odd chance in the heart of a despotic court, but his loyalty was known to be as sterling as his patriotism, and Louis himself would come round and listen to his economic parables, and call him the king's thinker?-as indeed he was, for he was no believer in states-general or states-particular, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... to preside. But it was not in his nature to be a mild or an equitable governor. He had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted by quarrels. He found Christchurch at peace; but in three months his despotic and contentious temper did at Christchurch what it had done at Carlisle. He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... well, and as quickly, as you can; and though he may not find enough of practised sailors to man large fighting-fleets—it is not possible to conceive that he can want sailors for such sort of purposes as I have stated. He is at present the despotic monarch of above twenty thousand miles of sea- coast, and yet you suppose he cannot procure sailors for the invasion of Ireland. Believe, if you please, that such a fleet met at sea by any number ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... man who never associated himself with a partner, and regarded despotic rule as the only one that deserved ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... they sought to use it as a master-word wherewith to reanimate the happinesses and sorrows of their common past, and as if they found the charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts of emotions that were once despotic. For it was as if frail shadows and half-caught echoes were all they could evoke, it seemed to Charteris; and yet these shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a bird's call at midnight or ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... his life-long hero, Napoleon, was kindling the young man's imagination. But the English Navy of those days gave little encouragement to the Napoleonic point of view. It was bound up with the sternest discipline and much red tape. If rumour speaks true young French was irritated by the almost despotic powers then possessed by certain naval officers. So he boldly decided at the age of eighteen to end ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... de Brouillac, Count of Orleans, bore a name which was scarcely absent from a single page of the martial history of France. The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer kept up still a semblance of royalty in the State which his ancestors had ruled with despotic power. Lady Muriel Carey was a younger daughter of a ducal house, which had more than once intermarried with Royalty. The others, too, had their claims to be considered amongst the ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... end; and she saw the end of ours, the setting of our sun of love. When I beheld you, I understood her words, which, until then, I had disputed with all my youth, with all the ardor of my desires, with the despotic sternness of twenty years. That grand and noble Camille mingled her tears with mine, and yet she firmly rejected the love she saw must end. Therefore I am free to love you here on earth and in the heaven ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... anything should exist under the name 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, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... civil law? He must be acquainted also with the history of past ages and the chronology of old time, especially, indeed, as far as our own state is concerned; but also he must know the history of despotic governments and of illustrious monarchs; and that toil is made easier for us by the labours of our friend Atticus, who has preserved and made known the history of former times in such a way as to pass over nothing worth knowing, and yet to comprise the annals of seven hundred years in ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... plays, a tragedy entitled "The Fair Captive," was acted the traditional three times at Lincoln's Inn Fields, beginning 4 March, 1721.[8] Aaron Hill contributed a friendly epilogue. Quin took the part of Mustapha, the despotic vizier, and Mrs. Seymour played the heroine. On 16 November it was presented a fourth time for the author's benefit,[9] then allowed to die. Shortly after the first performance the printed copy made its appearance. In the "Advertisement to the Reader" Mrs. Haywood exposes the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the 12th section of the said 11th article of said constitution provision is made by which, under certain circumstances, may be seized, transported to, indicted, tried and punished in distant counties, any confederate under ban of despotic displeasure, thereby contravening the Constitution of the United States and every principle ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... the poor, at that time, also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it, to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Scotland. 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 ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... frowned. "Let us forget for a moment the mummery of royalty," said he. "You know, moreover, that royalty has brought me nothing but misery. Instead of reigning over others, I am continually passing under the Caudine Forks of another's despotic will." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was doing well; for that despotic beauty, Sylvia Landis, whose capricious perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her in her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, considering Sylvia's ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... observe the rapid succession of so-called "unexpected" events: The rise to the rule of Democracy in France; the restoration to power of the despotic Bonapartist empire, whence issued the revival of the nationalistic theory, leading on one side to revolution, on the other to conservative resistance and the supremacy of a warlike state like Prussia. We need go no further ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... Europe, familiarizing himself with the workings of the despotic governments of that country. Before leaving, almost one year ago, he told his friends, in answer to questions relating to the presidency, not to start any newspapers for his benefit—not to publish any documents—not to make any speeches, or even ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... the laws of justice and of the Church she was a queen, although she was never allowed to reign.... There was about her the brilliancy of courts and palaces, the enchantment of a love-story, the suffering of a victim of despotic power."—Eugene D['i]dier, Life and Letters of Madame ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... woman. Married to another man, I suspect that she would have been a shrew. Petruchio would never have tamed her, I'll swear. But she, poor lady, had been gradually, but completely, subdued, subjugated, absolutely cowed beneath the weight of her spouse's despotic mildness; for in Hartopp there was a weight of soft quietude, of placid oppression, wholly irresistible. It would have buried a Titaness under a Pelion of moral feather-beds. Mass upon mass of downy influence descended upon you, seemingly yielding as it fell, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alert in zeal, with art benigh endued, SOUTHEY! thy hand his blasted strength renew'd, And lured him on, his labours scarce begun, To win those laurels which thyself had won. In vain! though vivified with pristine force, O'er learning's realms he shot with meteor course; To worth relentless, Fate's despotic frown Scowl'd in the bright perspective of renown: Timeless he falls, in Death's pale triumph led. And his first laurels shade his grassy bed. So sinks the Muse's offspring, doom'd to try, Like a caged eagle panting tow'rds the sky, A foil'd ascent, while ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... advantages. Friedrich was at least a 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 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment; in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton air, she went about all day long doing ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... dishes. No member of the tribe ever forfeited his inheritance by changing his creed. Nor did any one of them, I believe, ever change his creed, except to retain his inheritance, liberty, or life, threatened by despotic and unscrupulous rulers. They dine on the same floor, but there is a line marked off to separate those of the party who are Hindoos from those who are Musulmans. The Musulmans have Mahommedan names, and the Hindoos Hindoo names; but both still go by the common patronymic name of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... that of her own personal appearance. To rare beauty and a singular aptitude of acquiring various accomplishments, was added a seductiveness all the more dangerous, because she possessed a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was morally. Her large black eyes—which, by turns languished and beamed with beauty ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... which public opinion alone tolerates is imposed on all minds, whether it suits them or not. In that case the community feel that this custom is the only shelter from bare tyranny, and the only security for they value. Most Oriental communities live on land which in theory is the property of a despotic sovereign, and neither they nor their families could have the elements of decent existence unless they held the land upon some sort of fixed terms. Land in that state of society is (for all but a petty skilled minority) a necessary ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... mine, the mighty realm of the powerful Croesus, the friend of the gods, the hitherto unconquered leader? Had a friend hinted at this interpretation of the ambiguous oracle, I should have derided, nay, probably caused him to be punished. For a despotic ruler is like a fiery steed; the latter endeavors to kick him who touches his wounds with intent to heal; the former punishes him who lays a hand on the weak or failing points of his diseased mind. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his dealings, he gradually won the confidence and respect of the old man, who was always pleased with proofs of guile. Croffut gives a number of instances of William's craft and continues: "From his boyhood he had given instant and willing submission to the despotic will of his father, and had made boundless sacrifices to please him. Most men would have burst defiantly away from the repressive control and imperious requirements; but he doubtless thought that for the chance of becoming heir to $100,000,000 he could afford to remain ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... arbitrary master, whom we have imprudently chosen, who flatters and pets us first, and then tyrannizes over us if we do not work to his liking. You see, my dear friend, I play the grumbling old man, and, at the risk of deeply displeasing you, place myself on the side of the despotic ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... marks of the old bachelor fastened early on him, more especially after he began to be governed by his valet de chambre. The notable personage who ruled over the pliant Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb. This domestic tyrant was despotic; if Horace wanted a tree to be felled, Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded. Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in manner. The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as it still does among the French. Those who ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... picturesque rather than important, wholly failed to affect the framework of society. That floor of ice which sealed down the wide ocean of opinion retained all its mid-winter solidity, and furnished foundations as firm as before for the old despotic monarchies and the blood-stained persecuting churches. But how immensely different the events of the year now at an end! Its tempests have been, not those of a Greenland winter, but of a Greenland spring: the depths of society have been stirred to ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the only person surprised by this scene; all the others were well-used to the despotic ways of the master. However, after the two questions and the two replies had been exchanged, the newcomer rose, turned his back towards the fire, lifted one foot so as to warm the sole of its boot, and said ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... this creator of despotic monarchy, had one unsatisfied ambition. He would have exchanged all his honors for the ability to write one play like those of Corneille. Hungering for literary distinction, he could not have gotten into his own Academy had he not created it. And jealous ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... as upon the deck of the slave-ship—still held a sort of fatal ascendency over his comrades; and with Ben Brace no longer to oppose his despotic propensities, he had established over his fellow-skeletons ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Grammont-Caderousse, shared this favor, and have remained legendary characters, to whom their disdain for everything vulgar, their worship of their own persons, and many costly follies gave an ephemeral empire. Their power was the more arbitrary and despotic in that it was only nominal and undefined, allowing them to rule over the fashions, the tastes, and the pastimes of their contemporaries with undivided sway, making them envied, ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... their camp, and here as time went on the wonderful city of Tenochtitlan arose, the centre of the strange Aztec civilisation. Thus, fable records, was first established the site of Mexico City; prehistoric, despotic, barbaric, first; mediaeval, dark, romantic, later; handsome ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... on their names, labored unceasingly and 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
... of this despotic order was resisted in France; but it may perhaps surprise the reader that a recorder of London, in a speech, urged the necessity of setting up an Inquisition in England! It was on the trial of Penn the Quaker, in 1670, who was acquitted by the jury, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... utterly vain. All the qualities which go to make a republican, in the true sense of the term, are wanting in the Irish nature; and, on the other hand, there is a superabundance of all the opposite qualities which go to make a loyal subject of a king,—not too despotic, but still a strong-handed, visible, audible, tangible ruler of men. Devotion to an idea, to a constitution, to a flag; respect for law as law; sturdy independence and self-reliance; regard for others' rights and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... bring up the rear. Regimes have come and gone, but this perennial column still marches out of the past incongruously garbed in peaked caps, black frockcoats faced with green braid, and girt at the waist with a green woollen scarf. This is the daily memorial of the eccentric, despotic, but beneficent bishop, who lived a life of almost abject poverty, devoting the revenues of the most wealthy seigneury in New France[20] to the maintenance of his beloved Seminaire. He has left his name also to the splendid university which completes the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... with her was freedom, and what reigned in her stead only tyrants and the ancient terror. The crowning of the first modern Kaiser in the very palace of the old French kings was an allegory; like an allegory on those Versailles walls. For it was at once the lifting of the old despotic diadem and its descent on the low brow of a barbarian. Louis XI. had returned, and not Louis IX.; and Europe was to know that sceptre on ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... principles, ready to employ the most tortuous and unscrupulous means, sometimes indeed for ends in themselves patriotic, but often merely for aggrandizing himself. By nature he was more fitted to rule in a despotic than to lead in a constitutional State. Had he been born an emperor, his fertile genius might, unless betrayed by his restless ambition, have rendered his reign prosperous and his memory precious. As it is, in his career, with all its brilliance, posterity will ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... republicans, on their side, make no resistance; on the contrary, among these he has found his best governing instruments—senators, deputies, state councilors, judges, and administrators of every grade.[1242] He has at once detected behind their sermonizing on liberty and equality, their despotic instincts, their craving for command, for leadership, even as subordinates; and, in addition to this, with most of them, the appetite for money or for sensual pleasures. The difference between the delegate of the Committee of Public Safety ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that when the institutions and habits by which they are governed come to be known to strangers, they must become exclusively attached to them. This is not so. The Hottentot returns from civilisation to the wild manners of his kraal, and wherefore should not a Russian resume his despotic ideas ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the Lord. The fear of God is to inspire the nurture of children, and to sanctify the lowliest services of the household. Authority is to be blended with affection. (1) Parents are not to provoke their children by harsh and despotic rule, nor yet to spoil them by soft indulgence. Children are to render obedience, and, when able, to contribute to the support of their parents.[15] Masters are to treat their servants with equity and respect. Servants are exhorted to show fidelity. In short all the relationships of the household ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... a much-abused term. To the minds of most laymen it has a rather hazy association with things despotic, oppressive, and mediaeval. The mere mention of the term conjures up those days of the Dark Ages when armour-clad knights found their chief recreation in running lances through one another; when the overworked, underfed labourers of the field cringed and cowered before every lordly whim. Most ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... Babylon, and in his old age recorded with due fidelity the fruits of his observations and inquiries, the main object of his work being to relate the successive stages of the strife between the free civilisation of Greece and the despotic barbarism of Persia for the sovereignty of the world, an interest in which Alexander the Great drew sword in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... indeed; but to die because life galls and wearies and is hard to pursue—there is no greatness in that? It is the suicide's plea for his own self-pity. You live under tyranny, corruption, dynastic lies hard to bear, despotic enemies hard to bear, I know. But you forget—what all followers of your creed ever forget—that without corruption, untruth, weakness, ignorance in a nation itself, such things could not be in its rulers. Men can bridle the ass and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... religion. So science has served the highest interest of humanity in doing all it can to drive out this sort of a God, with his hell and eternal punishment, from the world. The reasoning, thinking world has outgrown such a wicked, despotic God, and is demanding quite another sort of Deity. Humanity has to be taught what it must have to equip it for its higher, nobler destiny. Justice to all in equal measure; Reason and Love must abide ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... their institutions from the existence of circumstances of barbarism and violence, with some rare exceptions, perhaps, are bloody in proportion as they are despotic, and form the manners of their subjects to a sympathy ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... and tact which converted Elizabeth into a liberal Sovereign. Her instincts were despotic. When she bowed instantly to the will of the Commons, almost apologizing for seeming to resist it, it was not because she sympathized with liberal sentiments, but because of her profound political instincts, which taught her the danger of alienating that class upon which the greatness of her Kingdom ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... of all this and publicly voiced his indignation at the despotic practice. To have done otherwise would have been to draw down a storm of ridicule. There are certain traditions in school life as firmly established as the doctrine of infant damnation in the good old days of theology. Secretly, however, Skippy adored the first warm ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... years before had been a scene of robbery, cruelty, and murder, became at once the abode of security and peace. Though his powers were despotic, they were exercised only for the peace, the security, and the protection of the surrounding country and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... at this time was Innocent III.—the greatest of all the Popes—who brought kings and nations under his feet and held despotic sway over the Universal Church, and stamped out heresy in blood. In the references to him in Gerald's works he appears in much more human guise. We see him after supper unbending and laughing at Gerald's anecdotes and cracking jokes of a somewhat ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... then Government has no limit to its rightful tyranny—it may divest not only one man, but a hundred or a thousand; indeed, why not all but the chosen few or the imperial one, thus arriving logically at oligarchic or despotic rule. And if a man may divest himself of this right, what right is sacred from his renunciation? That a man may refuse to exercise any right is true, and that in changing his abode he may sever his political and social relations is equally true; but these ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments, and any citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing his supremacy in the Republic to a son of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... dreadful than the Ghost. Nor did she seek to tread, with her free, unpractised step, the classic boards of Drury Lane,—where Garrick, the Grand Monarque of the Drama, though now toward the end of his reign, ruled with jealous, despotic sway,—but modestly and quietly appeared at a minor theatre, seeming, to such play-goers as remembered her brief, brilliant career and sudden disappearance, like the Muse of Tragedy returned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... allowed to drop out of his sight. We may even, with some of his critics, protest that he was not a man of powerful intellect; that his views of people and things were distressingly narrow; that, after his kind, he was extremely superstitious; that he was despotic in his dealings with his converts, and stiffnecked in his relations with the civil and military authorities. For all this is doubtless true. But all this must not prevent us from seeing him as he actually was—charitable, large-hearted, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... celebrated Charles XII., was one of the most despotic, but, at the same time, wisest monarchs, who ever reigned in Sweden. He curtailed the enormous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the Senate, made laws on his own authority; in a word, he changed the constitution of the country, hitherto an oligarchy, and forced the States ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Fouche, Monsieur Lenoir, and Monsieur de Sartines have had any notion of it.—Everything is changed now; we are reduced and disarmed! I have seen many private disasters develop, which I could have checked with five grains of despotic power.—We shall be regretted by the very men who have crippled us when they, like you, stand face to face with some moral monstrosities, which ought to be swept away as we sweep away mud! In public affairs the Police is expected to foresee everything, or ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... said, "I don't wish to be despotic, but I can't let Mrs. Herman lead you into a discussion of that sort. We'll ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... jealousies. It was the old Roman struggle of people and senate in a molehill, a tempest in a teacup, as Montesquieu remarked when speaking of the Republic of San Marino, whose public offices are filled by the day only,—despotic power being easily seized ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Empress began by asking after Uncle Matt, and nothing could have been kinder and more sympathetic than her whole manner. But of course Bismarck hated her. She is absolutely English, parliamentary, and anti-despotic.... When I ventured to say in bidding her Good-by, that I had often felt great admiration and deep sympathy for her, which is true—she threw up her hands with a little sad or bitter gesture—"Oh!—admiration!—for me!"—as if she knew ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whine, a howl, an objurgation, all combined. It was repeated as long as he could hear it. It sounded in his ears as he descended the hill. It came again and again to him as he was seated at his comfortable breakfast. It rang in the chambers of his consciousness for hours, and only a firm and despotic will expelled it at last. He knew the voice, and he never wished to hear ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... a knock at my door—Ella with my supper. I refused to open, and sent her away, to fall on my knees in the darkness and pray wildly to a God whose attributes and character were sufficiently confused in my mind. On the one hand was the stern, despotic Monarch of the Westminster Catechism, whom I addressed out of habit, the Father who condemned a portion of his children from the cradle. Was I one of those who he had decreed before I was born must suffer ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... people, and things like that, it might go on as an autocracy forever, but you see it isn't. To men of the caliber of Alexander the Great and Bonaparte and Caesar, and a thousand other warriors who never were used to taking orders from anybody, but were themselves headquarters, the despotic sway of Apollyon is intolerable, and he hasn't made any effort to conciliate any of them. If he had appointed Bonaparte commander-in-chief of his army and made a friend of him, instead of ordering him to be hanged every month for 415,000 years, or put Caesar in as Secretary ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... foppish, and consequently ridiculous, known as "The Last of the Beaus." However, as he had moved in the court of Louis XIV., he was interesting enough, speaking with all the courtesy of the school, and having a fund of anecdote relating to the Court of that despotic and luxurious monarch. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... at first, we find ourselves slowly recognising the fact that it is possible to treat an officer deferentially, or carry out an order smartly, without losing one's self-respect as a man and a Trades Unionist. The insidious habit of cleanliness, once acquired, takes despotic possession of its victims: we find ourselves looking askance at room-mates who have not yet yielded to such predilections. The swimming-bath, where once we flapped unwillingly and ingloriously at the shallow end, becomes quite a desirable ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... a connection with the Byzantine Roman Empire: one noble monarch, Julian, actually perished as a result of this endeavour: but even before this the profounder Neoplatonists discerned that their lofty religious philosophy would not bear contact with the despotic Empire, because it would not bear any contact with the "world" (plan of the founding of Platonopolis). Political affairs are at bottom as much a matter of indifference to Neoplatonism as material things in general. The idealism of the new philosophy was too high to admit of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... to resume its deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of her only hope on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries sunshine to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion her free and fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule and despotic sway of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... contrary, it exhibited a mixture of ferocity with a large share of cunning—a countenance, in fact, full of all wickedness. It resembled a good deal the faces I have afterwards observed in India,—among the fat despotic princes that are still permitted to misrule some portions of that unhappy land,—and a large black beard, whiskers, and moustache, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Edward was the simplicity or weakness of that prince, under whom I promised myself absolute dominion under another name. Nor did this opinion deceive me; for, during his whole reign, my administration was in the highest degree despotic: I had everything of royalty but the outward ensigns; no man ever applying for a place, or any kind of preferment, but to me only. A circumstance which, as it greatly enriched my coffers, so it no less pampered my ambition, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... enfranchised women of Wimbledon use their combined efforts for the liberation of their suffering sisterhood, who yet groan beneath the despotic ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... questioned his helpers. Here he was absolutely despotic. And in less than half an hour he had ascertained several important facts. He learned that a team had come in from Crowsfoot the previous afternoon, bringing a passenger for the farm. The team had remained at the farm, likewise the teamster. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Dorothea, but this incident, which I have told many times, shows how fantastic, erratic, despotic, and hypercritical men generally are. You will come to your senses some time and realize that no one is likely to bear with your perversities more patiently than Arthur Wilde or Lee Wadsworth, who have both wasted a winter dangling ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have been quite inadequate. Some kind of permanent control was essential, and there is collateral evidence that the descendants of the four princely generals, during many generations, occupied the position of provincial magnates and exercised virtually despotic sway within the localities under their jurisdiction. Thus in the provinces of Omi, of Suruga, of Mutsu, of Iwashiro, of Iwaki, of Echigo, of Etchu, of Echizen, of Bizen, of Bitchu, of Bingo, of Harima, of Tamba, and elsewhere, there are found in later ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... communities and hospitals were now prohibited from investing money at interest, in anything but India stock. With all these props and stays, the system continued to totter. How could it be otherwise, under a despotic government that could alter the value of property at every moment? The very compulsory measures that were adopted to establish the credit of the bank hastened its fall; plainly showing there was a want ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... appeal might result in his deposition. So far as we are able to judge from the remains of old Japanese law which have been studied, it would seem to have been the general rule that the family-head could not sell or alienate the estate. Though the family-rule was despotic, it was the rule of a body rather than of a chief; the family-head really exercising authority in the name of the rest .... In this sense, the family still remains a despotism; but the powers of its legal head are now checked, from within as well as ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... to skepticism beginning to prevail among the noble and wealthy. The deference which the Reformers paid to the princes led the latter to a too free exercise of their power, and there are numberless instances of their despotic usurpations. They claimed supreme control over the religious interests of their jurisdiction, and came into frequent conflict with the ecclesiastical tribunals. They maintained a tolerable show of religion, however, considering it a matter of prime importance to have ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... in this patriotic reprobation. Clerambault's appeal for reconciliation and pardon had no more violent opponents—and it was the same everywhere. The tyranny of public opinion is an engine of oppression, invented by the modern State, and much more despotic than itself. In times of war certain women have proved, its most ferocious instruments. Bertrand Russell cites the case of an unfortunate man, conductor on a tramway, married, with children, and honourably discharged from the army, who killed himself on account of the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... possibility of defeating them?—not with a view to taking Miss Bride's place, but for the pleasure of asserting herself against a plot, and reassuring her rightful position as arbitress of destinies. Lady Ogram was a kind old woman, but decidedly despotic, and she had gone too far. If indeed Lashmar were acting in helpless obedience to her, it would be the merest justice to make an attempt at rescuing ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... several of his acts were distinctly tyrannical, and were encroachments upon rights of theirs which the other teacher, with all his severity, had respected. My boy was inspired by the common mood to write a tragedy which had the despotic behavior of the new teacher for its subject, and which was intended to be represented by the boys in the hayloft of a boy whose father had a stable without any horse in it. The tragedy was written in the measure of the "Lady of the Lake," which was the last poem my boy had heard his father ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... dear mamma,' said Lady Harriet, kissing the stern uplifted face very fondly, 'I like a despotism better than a republic, and I must be very despotic over my ponies, for it is already getting very late for my drive round by Ash-holt.' But when she arrived at the Gibsons', she was detained so long there by the state of the family, that she had to give up her ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... between the captain of the vessel and the centurion, at which Paul assisted, strikes us, with our modern notions of a captain's despotic power on his own deck, and single responsibility, as unnatural. But the centurion, as a military officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... chief of police sincerely deplored it. 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 not long ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... craft, into their female convents, have no means of deliverance; they cannot write a letter to a friend without the consent and inspection of the Mother Abbess, who is always and invariably a female tyrant, a creature in the pay of the Bishop, and dependent upon the Bishop for her despotic office of power. The poor, unfortunate, imprisoned American female has no means of redress in her power. She cannot communicate her story of wrong and suffering to any living being beyond the walls of her prison. She may have a father, a mother, a dear brother, or a sister, who, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... thee to the galkeer. Besides, you see that he knoweth not how to disport himsel' afore people of condition—saving your presence, masters," said the power predominant, as her husband meekly retreated from the despotic and iron ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... latter days, she made him entirely accountable for the wrong, and for all the bitterness she was now feeling in losing the only pleasure that had brightened her gloomy, monotonous existence. The only pleasure. Her love did not deserve any other name. In that ardent, despotic, restless spirit there had never been a question of tenderness. She was completely ignorant of the delicious, poetic thoughts that ennoble a passion and make it pardonable. Her life had been passed in insane excitement, tormented by the ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... certainly, did not look in its day upon scenes of less flagrant atrocity than the 'towers of Julius;' while this advantage has always obtained in favor of the latter, that he who turned with disgust or terror from that image of despotic pride and violence, might behold at no great distance the piles of Westminster, the seats of law and legislation, where the irrepressible spirit of freedom in the bosom of the Commons was still nursing its resentment or muttering its remonstrances at seasons of the deepest gloom and depression. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... subjection to the historical authorities. I have furnished only the necessary details which would fill such blanks in the story as are of domestic character; taking care that these should accord, in all cases, with the despotic facts. In respect to these, I have seldom appealed to invention. It is in the delineation and development of character, only, that I have made free to furnish scenes, such as appeared to me calculated to perfect ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... govern this great territory by brute force as did the Aztecs—although they knew how to use the sword if necessary—but by methods dictated by prudent and profound policy, productive of peaceful success. The mild government of the Incas was at once patriarchal, theocratic and despotic. Whatever it was, from the Incas' point of view it ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of wishes, though it will not be as sour as lemon, yet 'twill not 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 of his wife? Few, I trow." The tone of contemptuous ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... the other lodging on the first floor, she had so great a weakness for persons of condition that she may well have been thought blind to the ways of the chevalier. To her, Monsieur de Valois was a despotic monarch who did right in all things. Had any of her workwomen been guilty of a happiness attributed to the chevalier she would have said, "He is so lovable!" Thus, though the house was of glass, like all provincial houses, it was discreet ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... peremptory, arrogant, controlling, imperative, positive, authoritative, despotic, imperious, supreme, autocratic, dictatorial, irresponsible, tyrannical, coercive, dogmatic, lordly, unconditional, commanding, domineering, overbearing, unequivocal. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a king prove a greater tyrant or more inhuman and cruel than James II. After the insurrection of Monmouth had been suppressed, all the sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived. Gibbets were erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers were intrusted with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in Scotland, but was involved in proscription ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... into many small nations or tribes; and being a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them. Their governments, though monarchical [b], were free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than among the nations ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... endeavored, by forced labor and rigorous peonage, not only to avail himself of their needed services, but also to crush their spirit and by force to hold in subjection the alarmingly large serf class which was found at this time in the land of Egypt. Was any other procedure to be expected from a despotic ruler of that ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... in this which almost frightened Lady Cantrip. She could not bear to hear him say that the girl must be made to yield, with that spirit of despotic power under which women were restrained in years now passed. If she could have spoken her own mind it would have been to this effect: "Let us do what we can to lead her away from this desire of hers; and in order that we may do so, let us tell her that her marriage with Mr. Tregear is ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly 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 ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... pursuit of men who have sworn eternal war against oppression and corruption—who detest a despotic monarchy and demand a free ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... matters domestic the learned Peter was simple as a child, and Margaret, from the age of sixteen, had governed the house gently but absolutely. It was therefore a strange thing in this house, the faltering, irresolute way in which its young but despotic mistress addressed that person, who in a domestic sense was less important than Martin Wittenhaagen, or even than the little girl who came in the morning and for a pittance washed the vessels, etc., and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the confines of the kingdom of the priests. But the progress was apparent. The tendency was clear. And in 1898 there was neither internal revolt nor external threat to provoke a renewal of the exercise of that force which is necessarily despotic if it ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... For the tide of his fortune was turning, and this appeared by several notable signs. Strong as was the confidence which the Sovereigns reposed in him, the representations of Margarite and Buil—the rough soldier and the wily Benedictine—had produced their effect. They complained of the despotic rule of Columbus; of the disregard of distinctions of rank which he had manifested by placing the hidalgoes on the same footing as the common men, as regards work and rations, during the construction ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps |
