"Self-constituted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sources of Feudalism.—The spirit of feudalism arises out of the early form of Teutonic social life. It sprang from the personal obligation of the comitatus, which was composed of a military leader and his followers or companions. The self-constituted assembly elected the leader who was most noted for courage and prowess in battle. To him was consigned the task of leading in battle the host, which was composed of all the freemen in arms. Usually {295} these chiefs were chosen for a single campaign, but it not ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Holland, and thence emigrated to New England in 1620, in the Mayflower, and called their place of settlement "New Plymouth," where they elected seven Governors in succession, and existed under a self-constituted government for seventy years. The other class were called "Puritan Fathers;" the first instalment of their emigration took place in 1629, under Endicot; they were known as the Massachusetts Bay Company, and their final capital was Boston, which afterwards ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... carrying out of this several civilians were shot at and wounded, either by accidental shots meant for soldiers or for refusing obedience to the new self-constituted authorities. ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... woman had done, and the two were cowering in the corner, their faces turned away. Ramona dared not look on; she felt sure Alessandro would kill some one. But this was not the type of outrage that roused Alessandro to dangerous wrath. He even felt a certain enjoyment in the discomfiture of the self-constituted posse of searchers for stolen goods. To all their questions in regard to the stolen steer, he maintained silence. He would not open his lips. At last, angry, ashamed, with a volley of coarse oaths at him for his obstinacy, they rode away. Alessandro went to Ramona's side. She was trembling. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... most part, had any intention of yielding to the mob-laws of Ethan Allen, Warner, and others, who place the laws of New York at defiance on the other side of the mountains; and much less that they would heed the resolves of that self-constituted body of knaves, ignoramuses, and rebels, calling ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... tie it too tight, else it won't 'ave room to swell," implored my self-constituted adviser, and I followed his advice—was only too thankful for it, in fact—and by the time my mate returned with the turkey, the pudding was bubbling away in the bucket which did duty as saucepan as jolly ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... Virginia uncertainly, for her standards of dress were so vague that she was thankful to be able to rely on Miss Willy's self-constituted authority. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... depended to guide them to their destination. They decided, however, that it would do no harm to attempt to frighten Gust into acceding to their demands, and with this purpose in mind the Maori sought out the self-constituted ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 1792, the Revolution in France assumed a bloody and ferocious character, and the noble goal toward which his friend the marquis had so enthusiastically pressed was utterly lost sight of in the midst of the lurid smoke of a self-constituted tyranny, as bad in feature and act as the foulest on history's records, he was disgusted, and with the conservative party, then fortunately holding the reins of executive and legislative power, he resolved that the government of the United States should stand aloof from ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... there was his self-constituted enemy stretching out before him, far as eye could reach, and sparkling gloriously in ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the Church thought that they could not send less than 7,040 Roman crowns; and Portugal carried her devotion to science as far as 30,000 cruzados. It was the widow's mite— eighty-six piastres; but self-constituted empires are always ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... canoe that relief which nature offers to the tired brain, let him go into the wilderness and live close to his Creator by studying his works, and a whole community vex him on his return with "the appearance of the thing." These self-constituted critics, who are generally ignorant of the laws which God has made to secure health and give contentment to his creatures, would poison the sick man's body with drugs and nostrums when he might have the delightful and generally successful services of Dr. Camp Cure without the after dose ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... pressed their objections upon the Ambassador on August 23, 1915. "I thereupon suggested that perhaps the best way would be to refer the matter to a general election. To this the 'Camp Committee' demurred, and upon my asking what suggestion they had to proffer appeared to consider that they, a self-constituted body, should be given charge of the camp by me. This proposition I naturally rejected, especially as the members of this self-appointed committee were, although very estimable gentlemen, personae non gratae both to the majority of the prisoners and to the military authorities.... A final ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... Others talked of the delicacy of her sex, advised her to withdraw from perils and dangers, and had no comprehension of the feelings within her breast that made this impossible. The gentle irony of her reply to these self-constituted tutors (not one of whom showed himself her equal in conduct or reason), is as good as her indignant reproof at a later period to the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... admission into the church which the blacksmith had so ably represented. There was yet another trial to ensue, and another jury to pronounce upon the merits of the anxious candidate. He had yet to prove to the perfect satisfaction of the self-constituted junto, that styled itself a church, how God had mercifully dealt with him—to detail, with historic accuracy, the method and procedure of his regeneration, and to find evidence of a spiritual change, that carried on its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... so-called Royal Regiment left in charge. The deputies were threatened with death if they attempted to return there or to meet in any other spot, and the city of Teheran immediately passed under military control. The self-constituted directoire of seven who accomplished this dubious feat first ascertained that the considerable force of Bakhtiyari tribesmen, some 2,000, who had remained in the capital after the defeat of the ex-Shah's forces in September last, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... able to say a word or two to the women before dinner. He had made up his mind that he would make no further attempt at reconciling the father to his daughter. He had often declared to his wife that there could be nothing so hateful to a man as the constant interference of a self-constituted adviser. "I so often feel that I am making myself odious when I am telling them to do this or that; and then I ask myself what I should say if anybody were to come and advise me how to manage you and the bairns." And he had told his wife more than once how very natural and reasonable had ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... such boldness (which, as you know, is never displeasing to you women), led captive by the conqueror's glance, by the astute yet candid air which Charles Edward can assume when he chooses, the lady rose, took the arm of her self-constituted escort, and went downstairs, but on the threshold she stopped to speak ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... though as yet the claimants had not taken possession of them, the authorities of Virginia had no color of jurisdiction. England claimed all North America, in virtue of the discovery of Cabot; and Sir Thomas Dale became the self-constituted champion of British rights, not the less zealous that his championship promised a ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... forts, and, indeed, all the buildings so purchased and controlled, stood, was vested in the United States, not alone by the right of eminent domain, but also by formal legislative deeds of cession from the States themselves, wherein they were located. The self-constituted governments of these State now assumed either that the right of eminent domain reverted to them, or that it had always belonged to them; and that they were perfectly justified in taking absolute possession, "holding themselves responsible in money damages to be settled by negotiation." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... the flagman, a self-constituted umpire. "Git out 'er the way there, Chick, and give the gent a chanct ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... a world of meaning in the phrase. Charteris felt that he was in the same case. They had not let him. He had come. Here was a kindred spirit, another revolutionary soul, scorning the fetters of convention and the so-called authority of self-constituted ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... a month to live, yet who rivaled Talleyrand in political intrigue; John Wentworth, a tall son of New Hampshire, transplanted to the prairies of Illinois; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, a born demagogue and self-constituted champion of the people; John Slidell, of New Orleans; Robert Dale Owen, the visionary communist from Indiana; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who were busily laying the foundations for the Southern Confederacy, "with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "She is guilty of the damnable heresy of concealing knowledge, of hiding truth, of stifling honest questionings! She is guilty of grossest intolerance, of deadliest hatred, of impurest motives—she, the self-constituted, self-endowed spiritual guide of mankind, arrogating to herself infallibility, superiority, supreme authority—yea, the very voice ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... devoting himself to the service of his master, he should not have been a man of the people, a German patriot, worthy of a seat in the Paulskirche, and so on. Such crying ingratitude and malicious detraction prove that these self-constituted judges are as great knaves morally as they are intellectually, which is ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... male line forever, with no reserved power of impeachment? Yet you would be more fairly represented than are American women, since they have never elected their representatives. So far as women are concerned you are self-constituted rulers. We cannot hope for complete representation while we are powerless to recall, impeach, or punish our representatives. We meet with a case in point in the history of Virginia. Bancroft gives us the following quotation from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... own or in foreign poetry, the nineteenth century has produced. In the face of all critics, the Laureate of England has now reached a position which at once imposes and instils respect. They are self-constituted; but he has won his way through the long dedication of his manful energies, accepted and crowned by deliberate, and, we rejoice to think, by continually growing, public favour. He has after all, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... see no reason why even to-day a number of persons avowedly united in the same 'Belief' and recognizing each other as the self-constituted social vanguard should not form a recognized spiritual community centering round some kind of 'religious' edifice and ritual, and agree to register and consecrate the union of any couples of the members according to a contract which the whole community should have voted acceptable. The community ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... have appeared men who pretend to a special and enormous knowledge of it, and who show enough truth in their pretension to gain the unlimited support of Puritan capitalists. The vice crusade, to mention one example, has produced a large crop of such self-constituted experts, and some of them are in such demand that they are overwhelmed with engagements. The majority of these men have wholly lost the flavour of sacerdotalism. They are not pastors, but detectives, statisticians ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... I have heard of levellers, but I have never seen one: all are disposed to level down, but nobody to level up. As for nobility, there is none in Europe beside the Venetian. Nobility must be self-constituted and independent: the free alone are noble; slavery, like death, levels all. The English come nearest to the Venetian: they are independent, but want the main characteristic, the self-constituted. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... homeward bound convoy—that big village of the Sioux, with its distinguished captives, wounded and unwounded; one of the former, the young sub-chief Eagle Wing, alias Moreau;—one of the latter a self-constituted martyr, since she was under no official restraint,—Nanette Flower, hovering ever about the litter bearing that sullen and still defiant brave, whose side she ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... for support to her unprotected youth or helpless age,—a sister who was virtually an orphan, who had no natural claim upon her present patroness, but might be dismissed penniless from the house that sheltered her, without exposing the self-constituted mother to ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the fourth day after his return, Mr. Belcher was waited upon at his house by a self-constituted committee of citizens, who merely called to inquire into the wonders of the region he had explored. Mr. Belcher was quite at his ease, and entered at once upon a narrative of his visit. He had supposed that the excitement was without any good foundation, but the oil was really there; and he ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... confessed afterwards to a curious shivery sensation at his spine. The hesitation was only for a second, and then his hand gripped the big hand of the self-constituted chairman. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... good thing in its way and place, but it may be carried too far, or employed amiss; and this looks like an illustration. The boy, in more than fifteen years, had never done anything in prison that called for discipline; but because some self-constituted and arbitrary psychologist chose to believe, or to say, that his temper was not under full control, he was doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cell. This prisoner knows, of course, that he has been wronged, but he does not know how much; he does not ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... found that he was by no means as well fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... unknown to most of the Indios Bravos of Peru. Uniformity of speech, manners, and arms, unite together a number of Indians, who thus form a race, but there is among them no bond of subjection, or of duty to any government, either voluntarily chosen, or self-constituted. Among the inhabitants of Lower Ucayali, however, the oldest, or the bravest individuals of each race are either publicly, or silently recognised as chiefs. Respect to age prevails only among a few of the races, as the Setebos, Mayorhunas, and Panos. Among others, as the Campos, Casibos, and Cunchos, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... alight on a post overlooking the loaded vines. He plainly felt himself a stranger, and not certain of his reception by the residents of the neighborhood, for he crouched close to the fence, and looked warily about on every side. He had been there but a few moments when a robin, self-constituted dictator of that particular corner of the premises, came down a few feet from him, as if to inquire his business. The woodpecker acknowledged the courtesy by drawing himself up very straight and bowing. The bow impressed, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... expression of popular discontent and of democratic and even, to a large extent, of republican aspirations. The princely authorities endeavoured to stem the wave of popular indignation and revolutionary enthusiasm by recognizing a provisional self-constituted body, and sanctioning the election of a national representative Parliament at Frankfurt in place of the effete Federal Council. The Archduke of Austria, who was elected head of the new, hastily organized National Government, was not ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... could the self-constituted watcher have been? Who was interested in this case other than the proper authorities? Apparently some one knew more than Mackay, more than Kennedy. Whoever it was had made no effort to communicate with any of us. This was a new angle to the mystery, a mystery ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... a line to paint Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint, Not one of those self-constituted saints, Quacks—not physicians—in the cure of souls, Censors who sniff out moral taints, And call the devil over his own coals— Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God, Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibbed: Ushers of Beelzebub's ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... The self-constituted leader, alive with the spirit of revenge, moved, still chanting, away from the fire—away in the direction the white men took when they rode off from the raid. Upon his heels the others followed, stepping as he stepped, moving as he moved; and the old man, glancing after them as they crossed ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... unite on a common political platform against British methods of government than on a platform of social and religious reforms which offended many different prejudices and threatened many vested interests. The Congress developed into a purely political body, and like all self-constituted bodies with no definite responsibilities it showed greater capacity for acrid criticism, often quite uninformed, than for any constructive policy. As the years passed on without any tangible results ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... enter the Palais Egalite, speak to several persons who seemed to listen to him with extreme deference, and afterwards repair to the house of one of the most influential members of the Committee of Public Safety, where he remained until two o'clock in the morning, and then returned home. The self-constituted spy concluded that he had to deal with one of the Committee's secret agents; and he was inspired with such wholesome awe that he decided to ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... it has become, among a certain sect of Western Philistines and self-constituted art critics, the fashion to sneer at any writer who becomes enthusiastic about the truth to nature of Japanese art, I may cite here the words of England's most celebrated living naturalist on this very subject. Mr. Wallace's authority will scarcely, I presume, be questioned, even by ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... and the shaking of the keys, we may hope to succeed, should that fail, I'll enforce them with the pointed bayonet; the Americans from one end to the other shall submit, in spite of all opposition; I'll listen to no overtures of reconciliation from any petty self-constituted congress, they shall submit implicitly to such terms as I of my royal indulgence please to grant. I'll shew them the impudence and weakness of their resolves, and the strength of mine; I will never soften; my inflexibility shall stand firm, ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... the appearance of the British Member of Parliament, Lindsay, in the role of self-constituted Southern emissary to Napoleon. Lindsay, as one of the principal ship-owners in England, had long been an earnest advocate of more free commercial intercourse between nations, supporting in general the principles of Cobden ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... an innocent Englishman, who, being elderly and deaf, knew nothing of what had happened, came downstairs unsuspectingly on to the pavement into the middle of the crowd, and had a very narrow escape for his life. Some ingenious self-constituted detective called out "That's the man," and the crowd, having long waited in vain for somebody, were only too glad to have a victim thus extemporized to their hands, and if a few of the cooler and more humane bystanders had not interfered, the Englishman might have been murdered in cold blood and ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... prevail on the self-constituted and disinterested follower to accept of any thing for himself out of these warlike spoils, Morton resolved to take the first opportunity of returning Lord Evandale's property, supposing him yet to be alive; and, in the meanwhile, did not hesitate to avail himself of Cuddie's prize, so far ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... about or thought she would like to see—and remembered one or two trifles she had mentioned which she wanted from town, and even laid in a stock of amusements for little Geoff,—boys' books, suited rather to his years than to his precocity. About the other and more serious part of his self-constituted mission Warrender, however, had done nothing. He had passed one of those "Scholastic Agencies," which it had been his (vague) intention to inquire at, had paused and passed it by. There was truth, he reflected, in what Cavendish said. How could he tell who might be recommended ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... onward slowly till the twenty-eighth, when they reached the main stream of the Trinity, and encamped on its borders. Joutel, who, as well as his companions in misfortune, could not lie down to sleep with an assurance of waking in the morning, was now directed by his self-constituted chiefs to go in advance of the party to the great Cenis village for a supply of food. Liotot himself, with Hiens and Teissier, declared that they would go with him; and Duhaut graciously supplied him with goods for barter. Joutel thus found himself in the company ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... posse of self-constituted seekers after the captives. They could not hope, for some time yet, to come upon actual traces of the Yaquis. But they felt that they were heading in ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... houses of the neighboring physicians, and the leaders, acting as a delegation of the crowd, went through them with the same result. It was a singularly well-behaved mob, and they received the report of the self-constituted committees with apparently perfect satisfaction, and when they had made the round of the houses, gradually broke ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... their pipes and provided themselves, each man, with a stiff rummer of grog. A cursory observer would possibly have thought the scene grotesque; but the four men ranged at the foot of the table speedily detected in the countenances of their self-constituted judges, an expression of stern determination which caused their hearts to sink and their cheeks to ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... who had trusted him with his confidence once, ever shrank from doing it again. I am forced to admit that, far more than many of his authorized brethren, he discharged the priestly office. He was self-constituted, or rather called, to ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as we have seen, who succeeded in outwitting and overthrowing the self-constituted regency on the death of his brother Hsien Feng, and, with the Empress Dowager, seated her infant son upon the throne, with the two Empresses and himself as joint regents. This condition continued for some years, with the senior Empress exercising ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... them. The whole affair occurred within the space of an hour. The State and City and County authorities had succumbed to the Committee without resistance, and the law was usurped by the new and self-constituted power. The Courts were virtually overborne and ignored, if not derided; and the will of the Vigilance Committee became the ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... and found expression in actions more eloquent than words. She was thankful for the slightest evidence of kindness from her self-constituted protectors. She even exaggerated the amount of consideration which she received. She was not free from the hereditary taint of pride; but in her it took a new form and unprecedented expression. The sense of indebtedness spurred her on to discover ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Castle of If, and heard the Mediterranean at Marseilles. He has been in the Fortress of Joux; and forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the Dungeon of Vincennes;—all by Lettre-de-Cachet, from his lion father. He has been in Pontarlier Jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed fording estuaries of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of men. He has pleaded before Aix Parlements (to get back his wife); the public gathering on roofs, to see since they could not hear: "the clatter-teeth (claque-dents)!" snarles singular old Mirabeau; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... prove his unfitness, by submitting to what no man of honesty or conscientious rectitude would subscribe to. This must of course, in both cases, be taken with exceptions, but it is but too often the fact. And hence has arisen another evil, which is, that there are hundreds of self-constituted ministers, who wander over the western country, using the word of God as a cloak, working upon the feelings of the women to obtain money, and rendering religion a by-word among the men, who will, in all probability, some day rise up and lynch some dozen of them, as a hint ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... meeting of 1773. He was miffed by an implied rebuke of the House of Burgesses for his handling of counterfeiters; but he had better reason to be disturbed by another development. On March 12, the House revived its committee of correspondence and extended its functions. As proposed by a self-constituted meeting at the Raleigh Tavern and headed by Richard Henry Lee, the House instructed its new committee of correspondence to inquire into the Gaspee affair, to keep in touch with the legislatures of the other colonies, and to correspond with the London agent. A key factor in the transfer ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... paces before the steps of the dais on which sat the self-constituted judges was arranged a barrier of strong wooden posts tipped with iron, and two soldiers with drawn swords were on ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... and forth they trooped down a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a turban was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the self-constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth. At the portico rang a wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, boots liquidly musical, the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is only necessary that both be well watched. Paul's irresponsible craze will do the rest. The 'lay' of this spy can only be surmised. Perhaps these villains are suspected of other crimes. It is improbable that any self-constituted detective is on their trails. However, this sleuth will be persistently shadowed. It is possible that thereby some important 'find' may occur. By such course our bureau will ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... stepped out on to the platform. His place was taken by a large, loose-limbed man, with florid face and big staring eyes, and an immense array of fishing-basket, rod, fly-cases, and so forth. He was of the type that one could instinctively locate as a loud-voiced, self-constituted authority on whatever topic might happen to be discussed in the bars of ...
— When William Came • Saki
... accepted. An order was issued calling on the Volunteers to elect additional representatives by counties to be added to the Committee. Redmond at once publicly declared that this amounted to refusal of his offer, and he put the issue very plainly. The Provisional Committee was originally self-constituted and had been increased only by co-option. The majority of its members, he was informed, were not supporters of the Irish party: of the rank and file at least 95 per cent., he said, were supporters of the Irish ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... machine; but your first fright will go off like a conscript's terror on the battlefield. You will grow used to regarding men as common soldiers who have made up their minds to lose their lives for some self-constituted king. Times have altered strangely. Once you could say to a bravo, 'Here are a hundred crowns; go and kill Monsieur So-and-so for me,' and you could sup quietly after turning some one off into the dark for the least ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... The Board was efficient; its schools were excellent; there was no evidence that the already overburdened County Council could properly carry on the work. On the other hand, the Fabian Society was in a stronger position. The Chairman of the Technical Education Board was something more than a self-constituted authority on the organisation of education: and the other members of the Society were engaged on a contest on their home ground. Into the details of the resolutions submitted to the Fabian Society outlining a plan for London ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... committees want to shirk their duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would think there was something dreadful on that square piece ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... gold diggings it was usual to establish a self-constituted form of government among the diggers themselves, which in the absence of any regular police force or law of the land was responsible for the protection and good conduct of the entire community. Some capable man was elected as president and chief, before ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... saltpetre factory was established in the church, the presbytery was made a town-hall, and the 'worship of Reason,' in the person of a young woman of Chauny, was solemnly inaugurated at Anizy! The chateau and the park were sold by the self-constituted dictators of Anizy to one M. Orry de Sainte-Marie on August 7, 1792, for a nominal price. This M. Orry seems to have been an 'operator.' For in June, 1793, he sold the chateau to the 'ci-devant Vicomtesse de Courval,' the mother ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... objectionable part of the system lies disguised—if one can say disguised, because to me, my dear Spinageberd, the matter seems obvious enough. Who, then, are these men that come forward with arms in their hands, to proffer aid to the civil and military powers in the discharge of their duty? A self-constituted body without authority, who have certainly proved themselves to be brave men, and rendered most important services to the state, at a time when such services were, no doubt, both necessary and acceptable. The crisis, however, in which this aid was given and received, being ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... against me; and it was clearly comprehended by all, that a similar disgrace would be the portion of those who should offend the monarch whilst seeking to procure my humiliation. This show of firmness was sufficient to repress the daring flights of those self-constituted heroines, whose courage lasted only whilst the king was silent, and who trembled like a leaf before the slightest manifestation of his will. Still the cabal against me, tho' weakened, was not destroyed; it was too strong for the present ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... he had been a self-constituted buffer between Mr. Clarke and the men in the furnace-room, and he wondered anxiously what new ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... the yard. Two days after, the king was removed to Windsor. On the 23d, the Commons voted that he should be brought to trial. On the 20th of January, Charles Stuart, King of England, was brought before the Court of High Commission, in Westminster Hall, and placed at the bar, to be tried by this self-constituted body for his life. In the indictment, he was charged with being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer. To such an indictment, and before such a body, the dignified but unfortunate successor of William the Conqueror demurred. He refused to ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... enemies could be endangered by the troops of Great Britain, who had shown no disposition for hostilities, though they might be expected to feel resentment at the exertions employed to deprive them even of the necessaries of life." He also reminded this self-constituted provincial congress that while they affected to complain of alterations made in their charter by acts of parliament, their very meeting was in direct violation of their own constitution; and, finally, he exhorted them to desist from all illegal proceedings. The governor's exhortation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... turning-point in Kansas politics. Held together as a compact party by their peaceful resistance to the bogus laws, emigration from the North had so strengthened their numbers that they clearly formed a majority of the people of the Territory. A self-constituted and self-regulated election held by them for sundry officials under their Topeka Constitution, revealed a numerical strength of more than seven thousand voters. Feeling that this advantage justified ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... here that the Prelacy which was so detested by the people of Scotland was not English Episcopacy, but Scotch Prelacy. It was, in truth, little better at that time than Popery disguised—a sort of confused religio-political Popery, of which system the King was self-constituted Pope, while his unprincipled minions ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... wives, their children, and their household stuff on waggons. Their way was barred by Odoacer the Patrician—general of the Italian army and King of Italy in all but name. It cost them four years of hard fighting to overthrow this self-constituted representative of the Empire. After that they had no overt opposition to fear. To the Italians there was little difference between Odoacer and Theodoric. The change of rulers did not affect their ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... are the cause of all sickness; but you are a self-constituted falsity,—you are darkness, nothingness. You are without 'hope, and without God in the world.' You do not exist, and have no right to exist, for 'perfect Love casteth ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... discussed in the seventeenth century. It was only needed to live under the Stuarts and to pass through the Civil War and Protectorate to realize that a transition from the divinely anointed ruler to a self-constituted governor resting upon an army, and again to a trial of the legitimate holder of royal prerogative, offered an education in matters of political rule which naturally led to a constitutional monarchy, and which could not be equalled in degree or lasting importance ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... the old man, speaking gently, but not looking at me, perhaps for fear of embarrassing me by his eye, "you know I am in some sort, not only your legal adviser, but your self-constituted guardian, and father confessor—so now, without farther preamble, who ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... languishing swains? They will become love-sick, too, and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read romance. Perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some self-constituted count, or at least with ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... threatened invasion of our own island, may understand the effect which the constant danger of a Boer invasion had on the minds of the Bechuanas; but no others can conceive how worrying were the messages and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers, and when to all this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt sorry for, ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... charm. The ice was broken, and the current became free. Without more ado, as if in opposition to the self-constituted authority from the high-backed chair, the guests, with one exception only, commenced with a vigorous discharge of "airy missiles," which by degrees subsided into a sort of desultory sharp-shooting; but their words were neither few nor well applied. It was evident ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the power of the high, the middle, and the low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time himself ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fearing that silence would imply acquiescence in charges of persistent calumny, he blurted out a kind of awkward half-apology. He confessed, in The Contemporary Review for May, 1879, that he had criticised in The Saturday all the volumes of Froude's Elizabeth. This self-constituted champion proceeded to say that he knew nothing about Froude's personal character, and that when he accused Froude of stabbing his dead brother "in the dark" he only meant that the brother was dead. When he says that Froude's article was "plausible, and more than plausible," ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... to glean all first-hand information from the Boers, who still had command of the lines of communication. Then he sent the news in verbal messages to his nephew, the paramount chief in the siege, who in turn communicated it to Her Majesty's officers in command. By means of this self-constituted intelligence bureau the garrison learnt of the surrender of Cronje — a happy consummation of the battle of Paardeberg — shortly after the good news reached their besiegers; and when official confirmation came from the Cape, more than a week later, Chief ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... czar, its votaries are filling the prisons with their political opponents, are practising ruthless spoliation and savage oppression, and are maintaining their self-constituted rule by the force of bayonets. Riot, robbery, famine, fratricidal strife are stalking ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... invariably wound up with a quarrel about Space and Space-perception. The Club had existed before Davidson's advent. The previous year we had gone over a good part of Hegel's larger Logic, under the self-constituted leadership of two young business men from Illinois, who had become enthusiastic Hegelians and, knowing almost no German, had actually possessed themselves of a manuscript translation of the entire three volumes of Logic, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... caprices of hysterical sensitiveness is the person of a household who feels most for the invalid, and who for this very reason suffers the most. The patient has pain,—a tender spine, for example; she is urged to give it rest. She cannot read; the self-constituted nurse reads to her. At last light hurts her eyes; the mother or sister remains shut up with her all day in a darkened room. A draught of air is supposed to do harm, and the doors and windows are closed, and the ingenuity of kindness is taxed to imagine new sources ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... that they should be. True, it frequently happens that our papers fall into the hands of characterless adventurers who are "anything for a dollar," and it is felt that the best method of rebuking their self-constituted and erratic leadership is to treat them with silent contempt. To this no thinker can offer a reasonable objection. A journal that does not represent the highest impulses of a community does not deserve support. The personal organ, the scandalmonging ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... despair. He left her there when he went away that afternoon, a rather downcast young figure, piling up records and card-indexes, and following him to the door with worshiping, anxious eyes. Later on in the afternoon Joey, wandering in from Clayton's office on one of his self-constituted observation tours, found her crying softly while she wiped her typewriter, preparatory to covering it ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... way. Here again we see the natural tendency of sects to make sectarians and thus reproduce their kind. When particular forms and ceremonies, which are not required by Scripture, are enforced upon men by a self-constituted, self-perpetuating ecclesiastical authority, the inevitable result is to stamp the same principles upon succeeding generations and thus perpetuate the ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... already begun to feel that his work was not so much to give what he could to meet the people's need as to do what he could to supply the wants of Memorial Church, and that his very chance to serve depended upon his satisfying these self-constituted judges. He saw too, that these same judges, his masters, felt the dignity of their position heavily upon them, and would not be in the least backward about rendering their decision. They would let him know what things pleased them and what things were not ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... agree with theirs. Under the spell of this sublime contempt they think they can ignore anything that does not square with their evolutionary hypothesis. The center of gravity of their thinking is in the theoretical, not in the religious; in reason, not in faith. Supremely satisfied with its self-constituted authority, the mind thinks itself competent to criticize the Bible, the thinking of all the centuries, and even Jesus Christ Himself. The followers of this cult have their full share of the frailties ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... ministers should be ordained and commissioned by the Apostles or their legitimate successors. "Neither doth any man," says the Apostle, "take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was."(73) This text evidently condemns all self-constituted preachers and reformers; for, "how shall they preach, unless they be sent?"(74) Sent, of course, by legitimate authority, and not directed by their own caprice. Hence, we find that those who succeeded the Apostles were ordained ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... road the party halted, and the Princess alighting announced her intention of taking a short cut across the hills while the carriages followed the more circuitous driveway. Murat threw his reins to his orderly, and Celio, true to his self-constituted duties as dragon, left the maid of honour dozing in the caleche and followed his mistress. She had brought a tall staff, knotted with a tri-colour ribbon, which she used as an alpenstock, springing lightly over the steep boulders, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... and my brains prefer the resolute, patriotic, manly Grimes, Wades, etc., the various skippers and masters, all of whom look not over the ocean for applause, but above all have in view to save or to defend the country, whatever be the rules or expectations of the self-constituted Doctors ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Teether hitched high up en her arm and Martin Luther clinging to her short blue calico skirt. They all drew up in a semicircle in front of Mother Mayberry and Miss Wingate and looked at Eliza expectantly. On all occasions of excitement Eliza was both self-constituted and unanimously appointed spokesman. On this occasion she began in the dramatic part of the news without ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was also the Englishman, Dr. John Dee, who was in like condemnation. No doubt the two were a precious pair of rogues, but King Rudolph II had asked for trouble by encouraging alchemists from all over Europe to visit him in Prague. The present-day compeers of Dee and Kelly are no doubt the self-constituted experts on politics, finance, commerce and other questions which puzzle international commissions, conferences and such-like amenities of our times. Anyway, Dr. Dee and Mr. Kelly failed to give satisfaction, and so were incarcerated ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... no other than her self-constituted lover, Don Gregorio. He had dined that day with a party of officers, and had dipped rather deeper into the bottle than, to tell the truth, he was often guilty of doing. He suspected that Isabella was ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... profession for which insolence was a qualification. What rendered it worse was that his good nature—and indeed every one of his gifts, which were all of the popular order—was subservient to an assumption not only self-satisfied but obtrusive!—And yet—and yet—the objectionable character of his self-constituted judge being clear as the moon to the mind of the curate, was there not something in what he had said? This much remained undeniable at least, that when the very existence of the church was denounced as a humbug in the hearing of one who ate her bread, and was her pledged servant, his very honesty ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... were not of the questioning order of humanity, and I was left a few moments to my own way of expressing relief, and then Aaron locked the tower as usual, and we went away. He, I noticed, put the key in his pocket, instead of delivering it to me, self-constituted its rightful owner. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... soon divides once more into the two ranks of master and servant. In Deborah's songs all Israel, so far as lay in her circle of vision, was divided into princes and people. Hence the nation consisted of innumerable self-constituted and self-sustained kingdoms, formed whenever some chieftain elevated himself whom individuals or the body of citizens in a town were willing to serve. Gaal, son of Zobah, entered Shechem with troops raised by himself, just like a condottiere in Italy in the Middle Ages. As it became evident ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... "destined to contend with the enemies of the republic, is an honor which permits them to exact and to dare all things."[3244] The least among them believes himself superior to the law, "as formerly a Conde,[3245]" and he becomes king on a small scale, self-constituted, an autocratic justiciary and avenger of wrongs, a supporter of patriots and the scourge of aristocrats, the disposer of lives and property, and, without delay or formality, taking it upon himself to complete the Revolution on the spot in every town ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... energy inherited from the days when all men were fighters, and intensified by generations of practice. Even a government inspector is looked upon with deep disfavor as one result of the demoralization brought about by liberal and other loose ways of viewing public rights. The private, self-constituted one, it may then be judged rightly, is regarded as a meddlesome and pestilent busybody seeking knowledge which nobody should wish to obtain, and another illustration of what the nineteenth century is coming to. Various committees of inquiry, from the Organized ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... had sought liberty of conscience, first in Boston, then in Plymouth, and finally in Portsmouth, where he had become a leader after the withdrawal of Coddington. But in each place his instinct for justice and his too vociferous denial of the legality of verdicts rendered by self-constituted authorities led him to seek further for a home that would shelter him and his followers. No sooner, however, was he settled at Shawomet, than the Massachusetts authorities laid claim to the territory, and ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews |
