"Upper hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never knew how to take a decided part at the proper moment. The Emperor is ill advised: he does not know Alexander; and is not aware, how crafty and ambitious the Russians are: if once they get the upper hand, all Germany will be subverted. Alexander will set the good-natured Francis, and all the little kings, to whom I gave crowns, playing at catch-corners. The Russians will become masters of the world ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... To those uncommon and improbable things which had met him since yesterday, was added another. But being weak and without his slaves, he restrained himself, especially since a wish to learn some details of Lygia's life gained the upper hand ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... serious than the marquis was inclined to admit. The capture of the Bastille and the slaughter of its defenders—the massacres of persons obnoxious to the mob, not only in the streets of Paris but in those of other great towns, proved that the lower class, if they once obtained the upper hand, were ready to go all lengths; while the number of the nobility who were flocking across the frontier showed that among this body there existed grievous apprehensions as to ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... in their veins. Well-born women, their husbands' equals, feel the impulse to annoy them, to mark the points of their tolerance, like points at billiards, by some stinging word, partly in the spirit of diabolical malice, and to secure the upper hand or the right of turning ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... that has been their oppressor. In its name tens of thousands have been murdered, and I fear that the slaughter of those priests at Brill is but the first of a series of bloody reprisals that will take place wherever the people get the upper hand." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... pressure about the smaller boy's waist until Prescott felt dizzy. In that extremity the Gridley boy worked a neat little trip. Down they went, rolling over and over, fighting like wild cats until Mosher secured the upper hand and sat heavily ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... And he kept the upper hand, too, once he got it. It was that day, I think, that he sent Senator Biggs up to make his bed again, and nobody in the place will ever forget how he made old Mr. Jennings hang his gymnasium suit up three times before it was done properly. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that, while the divines of the Church of England possessed the upper hand in the kingdom, witchcraft, though trials and even condemnations for that offence occasionally occurred, did not create that epidemic terror which the very suspicion of the offence carried with it elsewhere; so ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... and persecute and cause it to suffer by means of penitence and austerities, so that it may be always crushed down and submissive to reason, and that justice, with purity of heart, may always keep the upper hand in all virtuous actions. And all the pains, sorrows, and persecutions which God makes us suffer at the hands of those who are enemies to virtue, we shall endure with joy, in honour of God and for the glory of virtue, and in the hope of obtaining and possessing justice in purity of heart; for ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Millicent Splay had her worries of which Joan Whitworth was the cause. She loved Joan; she was annoyed with Joan; she admired Joan; she was amused at Joan; and she herself could never have told you which of these four emotions had the upper hand. So inextricably were ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... No. I have no particular view as regards politics; but if the devil ever got so completely the upper hand in this world as to leave it without a class to serve and obey us, their natural superiors, I'd decline to stay here any longer, and descend by the help of a bullet to lower regions, where I ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... than Homer, who never tells us where he was born. He informs us, moreover, at the end of his preface, in the most plain and positive terms, that he shall take care to make the best he can of our own affairs, and, as far as lies in his power, to get the upper hand of our enemies the barbarians. After investigating the cause of the war, he begins thus: "That vilest of all wretches, Vologesus, entered upon the war for these reasons." Such is this historian's manner. Another, a close imitator of Thucydides, that he may ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... forcing the French lines, which were strongly fortified between Mehaigne and Leuwe, and a strong opinion to that effect was transmitted to the Hague on the very day after the fall of Huys.[7] They alleged with reason, that the Allies being superior in Flanders, and the French having the upper hand in Germany and Italy, it was of the utmost importance to follow up the present tide of success in the only quarter where it flowed in their favour, and counterbalance disasters elsewhere, by decisive events in the quarter where it was most material to obtain it. The Dutch government, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... went on. "On the contrary, nothing on this earth will shake my theory that a mingling of races is an impossibility. They must and will, with few exceptions, remain separate to all eternity, and one or the other must have the upper hand if there is to be any law or order. No, it's not that. It's my self-satisfaction that is ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... to be brought about by Russia's mobilization against Germany, England would go to war against Germany, and it has been proved that the English assurance to that effect has strengthened the hands of the Russian war party, which thereupon got the upper hand and forced the Russian Czar into the war, (see report of Belgian Charge d'Affaires at St. Petersburg to the Minister of Foreign Affairs at ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... keep up this sort of thing for long, and I had to be extremely careful. As soon as I felt that passion was getting the upper hand, I gave her a farewell kiss and went away. When I got home Le Duc gave me a note from Madame Zeroli, who said she would expect me at the fountain, as she was going to breakfast ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... towns, and thus established herself before she was established by the Estates in August 1560. Thus nothing could be more free, and more absolute, than the Kirk in her early bloom. On the other hand, as we saw, even in Knox's lifetime, the State, having the upper hand under the Regent Morton, a strong man, introduced prelacy of a modified kind and patronage; did not restore to the Kirk her 'patrimony,'—the lands of the old Church; and only hanged one priest, not improbably for a certain reason of ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... My patient kept getting worse and worse. You are not a doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor fellow's heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the disease is getting the upper hand of him. What becomes of his belief in himself? You suddenly grow so timid; it's indescribable. You fancy then that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has no faith in you, and that other people begin to ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... no smallest intention of meeting Esther. If she had wanted him she would have sent a note or a message—but she did not want him! More than once she had said that she hated him—it was time to learn that she meant what she said. Micky's pride had got the upper hand at last, and he would rather have died now than make the smallest overture to the girl at whose feet he had ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... my pipe at him. I had the upper hand, and I felt cruelly jovial. "It was haste to meet you," I assured him. "I missed you in the fog, and feared you ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... neither was there anything absolutely bad, save that negative misdemeanor of not coming to church. As this was not an unpardonable offence to a man who had traveled much if he had thought little, Mr. Dundas let his humanity get the upper hand without much difficulty. By which it came about that he and his new tenant became friends, as the phrase goes, and that thus another paragraph was added to the restricted page of life as North Aston ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Mr. Douglas, and I happen to be fond of Lynde, too—though you mayn't believe it. I'm fond of her for her mother's sake and I'd like to see her happy. I didn't want to give her to Harmon that time three years ago but I couldn't help myself. He had the upper hand, curse him. It wasn't for my own sake, though—it was for my wife's. However, that's all over and done with and I'll do the best I can to atone for it. So you won't marry your minister because your father was not a good man, Lynde? Well, I don't suppose he was a very good man—a man who makes his ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... me in touch with Captain Fromer in five minutes, I'll put through a call to Sector Headquarters." Hansen signaled off contact. If he knew nothing else about the situation, he knew that he had the upper hand. ...
— No Moving Parts • Murray F. Yaco
... suffered because she was overtaken by a great material prosperity before she had a sufficient spiritual and intellectual development, and up to now the material side of life has had the upper hand. We buy the best pictures, the rare books and manuscripts, armor and silver and porcelain, and it must be said that there is a fine idealism here, because they are bought almost without exception by uncultured, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... can make this wilderness to any whom I love more full of joy than the kingdoms and cities of the world—and thou!—Ah, but it is the Enemy that hath done this, and made the guileless guileful! Yet will I have the upper hand at least, though thou suffer for it, and ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... expected, the idea of justice was more independent and entire; but once named and enshrined, that divinity, too, tended to absoluteness, and could be confused with the physical basis of existence. In the Stoic philosophy the latter actually gained the upper hand, and the problem of Job reappeared on the horizon. It did not rise into painful prominence, however, until Christian times, when absolute moral perfection and absolute physical efficacy were predicated of God with equal emphasis, if not among the people who never have conceived God ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... quand je crois avoir note une verite.' Often he succeeds, but not always. At times his desire for dryness becomes a mannerism and fills whole pages with tedious and obscure argumentation. And, at other times, his sensibility gets the upper hand, throws off all control, and revels in an orgy of melodrama and 'espagnolisme.' Do what he will, he cannot keep up a consistently critical attitude towards the creatures of his imagination: he depreciates his heroes with extreme care, but ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... upper hand now, and she turned from him with a last scornful glance, and looked over the low wall at the sea, wondering how he could have held her with his eyes a moment earlier. Brook stood motionless beside her, and there was silence. He might ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... saith: Thou art wise in war; now tell us, shall we hold the Hall against the Romans that ye may find us there? For we have discomfited their vanguard already, and we have folk who can fight; but belike the main battle of the Romans shall get the upper hand of us ere ye come to our helping: belike it were better to leave the hall, and let the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... ceremonials, sacrifices and rituals. And they had their god, in the shape of this lizard thing. Of course, like most other gods, it was more of a malevolent creature than anything else. Gods generally are if you will consider a little. I don't care what creed or religion gets the upper hand, it's Fear that becomes the power. Look around and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... beautiful little fellow, certainly," said he; "but, Harriet, take care; he is getting the upper hand of you already. It is time already—indeed, it has long been time—to make him understand that his will is to be subservient to ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... for an advance on the morrow. We also sent round messengers to all the villagers to come in and make their submission, on pain of having their villages burned; and seeing that we now had the upper hand, at any rate in their valley, the inhabitants came in without much hesitation, and also brought in a certain amount of supplies; consequently by night we had sufficient local coolies to carry all our baggage, supplies, ammunition, ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... disparagement. 'Out upon you, you beggarly body! you clog, drug, drag! You keep me from flying; I could get along better without you. Out upon you, I say, you vile pantry, cellar, sink, sewer; abominable body! what vile thing are you not? And think you, beggar! to have the upper hand of me? Make a leg to that man if you dare, without my permission. This smell is intolerable; but turn from it, if you can, unless I give the word. Bolt this yam!—it is done. Carry me across yon field!—off we go. Stop!—it's a dead halt. There, I've trained you ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... a half an hour or so of vigorous work with the fire-engine will effectually drown it out. And if it does not; if, looking at the matter in its worst possible light, the fire should after all get the upper hand and drive us out of the ship, the night is fine, and the water smooth enough to enable us easily and comfortably to take to the boats. Then the boats themselves are amply sufficient to take everybody without crowding; they are in perfect order and the best equipped boats ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous "cash payment." ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... as you say," replied she, sensibly getting the upper hand in these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight Farfrae again looked out of the window into ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... from the hospital to find her mother watching the summer stars prick through the warm darkness, but Viola came up to the Hall that same evening, and tried to thank Mrs. Burgoyne, and laughed and cried at once, and had to be consoled with cookies and milk until the smiles had the upper hand, and she could go home, with occasional reminiscent sobs still shaking ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... upper hand in ease and coolness, and being now quite restored in physical courage he began to note the signs of illness and misery in the other's face. He was almost sorry for him ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... they get the upper hand. I can't treat, for I haven't the money, and I may be able to show that the regulators ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... hundredth part of what I felt it in me to say, I tore up the paper and threw its fragments into the fire. Then I started afresh, determined to be extremely brief and business-like. Once more my feelings got the upper hand of me, and again I covered half a dozen closely-written pages before I discovered my mistake anew. Finally I sat down to a pipe and thought the matter over, until I decided on a definite line of action. The upshot of it all ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Do you doubt it? If you do, ask yourself what would become of a child if it was left to itself—no training, no guidance, no education. In spite of all that is done for children, the evil too often gets the upper hand. The good seed must be planted and cared for, often with toil and trouble: but the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... Vega. At first the women sat aft with the children, far from the dreadful shooting weapon, and indicated their feelings by almost the same gestures as on such occasions are wont to distinguish the weaker and fairer sex of European race. But soon curiosity took the upper hand. They pressed forward where they could see best, and broke out in a loud "Ho, ho, ho!" when the shot was fired and the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... his reputation, let himself be made a fool of by any one, however small, anywhere. He had got to recover a personal importance solemnly pilfered from him by a half-grown Shanghai still in his pin-feathers. Against Hayle's girl he was excusably helpless, but him he had got to get the upper hand of and get it quick. Memphis in the morning! More passengers to be dropped there and the whole town's attention to be attracted by the burial of the bishop. Good Lord! That "verbatim report for the newspapers"! And of all papers the Memphis ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... of his, at Wapping, Bristol and the Seaports, as might be disposed to go privateering. In which course, after some crosses at first, and great complaints of losses to Spanish Privateers, Wapping and Bristol did at length eminently get the upper hand; and thus carried on this Spanish War (or Spanish-French, Spain and France having got into one boat), for long years coming; in an entirely inarticulate, but by no means quite ineffectual manner,—indeed, to the ultimate ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the position resulting after these moves (Diagram 47) White gets the upper hand because he is one move ahead in the attack on the opposing King's Knight. The danger of the concentration of two pieces on this Knight lies in the fact that Black is obliged to retake with the g-Pawn in case White exchanges on f6 and that thereby the squares ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... into Norton's mind suddenly that thus, in utter and unexpected darkness, he had the upper hand. He could shoot, the law riding upon each flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal, or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell, it would be a man who richly deserved what his fate was ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... and Cinna had got the upper hand, and it was soon apparent that they would reinstate themselves in Rome, not for the benefit of their country, but plainly for the destruction and ruin of the nobles, those who were caught in the city were put to death: among whom were the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... use some sleep myself." But thought shared the pillow with Hal Surtaine's head. Try as he would to banish the contestants, Dr. Surtaine's Paean of Policy and McGuire Ellis's impassioned declaration of faith did battle for the upper hand in his formulating professional standards. The Doctor's theory was the clean-cut, comprehensible, and plausible one. But something within Hal responded to the hot idealism of the fighting journalist. He wanted Ellis for a fellow workman. And his last waking ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... succeeded in his object of imbuing Tudor with a very indifferent opinion of his new colleague's abilities. It was his object that Tudor should altogether take the upper hand in the piece of work which was to be done between them, and that it should be clearly proved how very incapable the Woods and Forests were of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... It will not be any the less fruitful of wrong and misery if, as is often the case with evil motives, it adopts some high-sounding alias. The truth is, gentlemen, that each one of us has in him certain passions and instincts which, if they gain the upper hand in his soul, would mean that the wild beast had come uppermost in him. Envy, malice, and hatred are such passions, and they are just as bad if directed against a class or group of men as if ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... good," said Foma, thoughtfully. "But it will be good later. When you have taken the upper hand, then it will be good. Life, dear Foma, is very simple: either bite everybody, or lie ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... could contain himself no longer. "Monsieur Schenk—Herr Schenk, I should say—you are a traitor to Belgium, and I denounce you here and now. You are a base schemer, and the biggest scoundrel in Liege, if not in Belgium. You have the upper hand at present, but I declare to you that I shall spare no pains in the distant future to bring you to justice and to see that you get your deserts. I know your plans—or some of them. The concrete tennis-court—the ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... ourselves; for they cannot be made intelligible by mere sound without speech, and speech we know belongs to man alone. In fact, I suppose it is the power of thinking and speaking which makes him our master; without it, I am not at all sure that he would have so much the upper hand of us, for we are often the strongest. But a man can always know what he means to do, and why he means to do it; and he can tell others, and consult them about it; which, of course, gives him an immense advantage over us, who only act upon the spur of the moment, ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... the right way for a well-born, sheltered woman to go through life. The other side, the new, desperate side that Mrs. Ellsworth's "stuffiness" had developed, was not looking for any means of escape; and this side had seized the upper hand since the alarm of the burglars in ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Dick, but he was joyed to see me,—him with the upper hand and wedding Tilly. Chance to puff big over me. The tale that I was hot after her had spread through the camps, and my presence did him proud. All hands knew me, without my blanket, and set to grinning and giggling. It was rich, but I made it ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... time when that woman will lose her grip on the old man, and religion will be all-powerful. So long as your uncle makes no gift of the property during his lifetime, and does not change the nature of his estate, all may come right whenever religion gets the upper hand. For this reason, you must beg Monsieur Hochon to keep an eye, as well as he can, on the condition of your uncle's property. It is necessary to know if the real estate is mortgaged, and if so, where and in whose ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... desperate; as he said himself in a letter to the King, 'at an advanced age he could not undertake so great a journey'; and on every side his enemies seemed to have got the upper hand. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... lads!" shouted Hampton. "Orficers has got the upper hand on us with loaded pistols, and you've got to knuckle down same as we have, and return ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the city man's advantage when they were on their feet, he shortly discovered that the woodman's great agility and crude skill in wrestling gave him the upper hand in this more primitive method of combat. Over and over they rolled, gasping for breath, and, although Donald exerted his great, but now rapidly failing, strength, more than once he felt the clutch of the other's lean, powerful fingers gripping ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Postboys the upper hand get, custom-house duties enrage. "Truly, I can't understand thee! thou talkest enigmas! ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... materially and spiritually. It started Brahminically, many ages ago; then by and by Buddha came in recent times 2,500 years ago, and after that it was Buddhist during many centuries—twelve, perhaps—but the Brahmins got the upper hand again, then, and have held it ever since. It is unspeakably sacred in Hindoo eyes, and is as unsanitary as it is sacred, and smells like the rind of the dorian. It is the headquarters of the Brahmin faith, and one-eighth of the population are priests of that church. But ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the rest of the issue for them. Laetus, so long as the struggle was close, remained inactive, hoping that both parties would be destroyed and that whatever soldiers were left on both sides would give him supreme authority. When, however, he saw Severus's party getting the upper hand, he contributed to the result. So it was that ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... my suit is not displeasing to her," answered Richard, not without a tremor in his voice, for the old man's face was terrible to look upon. Hatred and Wrath were struggling there with Avarice, and had the upper hand. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... more guns than the Americans. A terrible artillery duel followed. For an hour or two the result seemed in doubt; but the American gunners showed themselves to be far more skilful than their antagonists, and gradually getting the upper hand, they finally silenced every piece of British artillery. The Americans had used cotton bales in the embrasures, and the British hogsheads of sugar; but neither worked well, for the cotton caught fire and the sugar hogsheads ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... Persians constantly with it, rushed in person to the ladders and would not let them draw back, and death was the punishment for those who dared turn to leave. As a result of this the Persians by their numbers gained the upper hand and overcame their antagonists in the fight. So the city was captured by storm on the eightieth day after the beginning of the siege. [Jan. 11, 503 A.D.] There followed a great massacre of the townspeople, until one of the citizens—an old man and a priest—approached Cabades ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... outrageous. (It's easy for her to raise objections. She has somehow paralysed her two servants into staying with her for over ten years.) She pointed out that under such conditions the servant would have more freedom than the mistress; and to allow the working classes to thus get the upper hand was nothing short of encouraging Bolshevism in the home. Dreadful thing to say, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... that's best in me trusts in Michael and all that is bad doubts and distrusts. It's the bad that is killing me. Do you understand? For pity's sake, if you care for me, don't add to the evil, don't give it the upper hand. Freddy, I need you, I need some trust ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the odd man. "For rats and mice are one and the same thing; and they are noxious vermin, the whole lot of them. If we let them get the upper hand of us, they would soon eat us out of ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Disciples Waltzing![50] And quoth he—"though this be—the premier pas to me, Against it I would warn all— 220 Should I introduce these revels among my younger devils, They would all turn perfectly carnal: And though fond of the flesh—yet I never could bear it Should quite in my kingdom get the upper hand of Spirit." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Hitherto the violence of the sea had been productive in them of nothing worse than a condition of more or less discomfort; but now that they had before their eyes an exemplification of what old ocean could do with man and man's handiwork, if it once succeeded in getting the upper hand, they were badly frightened; frightened for themselves, and still more frightened for the poor wretches yonder who had been conquered in their battle with the elements, and were now being done to death by their triumphant foe. And it was no reproach to them that they were ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... paper for Senators Wade and Chandler, to point out the reasons of Hooker's failure. Did my utmost to explain to them that warfare to-day is not empiricism, but science, and that empiricism is only better when sham-science has the upper hand. Hooker's staff was worse than sham-science, and was ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... visitors of ours. Yet the most worthless fellows suddenly gained predominant influence, began loudly criticising everything sacred, though till then they had not dared to open their mouths, while the leading people, who had till then so satisfactorily kept the upper hand, began listening to them and holding their peace, some even simpered approval in a most shameless way. People like Lyamshin and Telyatnikov, like Gogol's Tentyotnikov, drivelling home-bred editions of Radishtchev, wretched little Jews with a mournful but haughty smile, guffawing foreigners, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... argument, and you will silence her with it, because a woman's mouth it is only full of words when she is empty elsewhere. Argue continually, and thus you will always have the upper hand of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... angry. There was more of pity in his face than anger as he took the small boy by the arm and led him to the door. Stephen no longer resisted. After giving vent to the first flood of his anger, misery got the upper hand of him, and he longed to go anywhere to hide it. He could have endured to know that Oliver was suspected by a good many of the fellows, but to find Wraysford among ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... coarse man who had permitted his passions to gain the upper hand in the control of his life, but they by no means interfered with his capacity as the head of ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... twisting the long limp grass, "every enemy is a tyrant, if he has the upper hand. Consider, what will the war be? Blood, the blood of the noblest Romans! The overturning of time-honoured institutions! A shock that will make the world to tremble, kings be laid low, cities annihilated! East, west, north, south—all ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... himself, and received a cold answer. Two others of the townsmen, however, immediately {p.101} welcomed him, and told him that "the whole place was at his lord's commandment, except certain of the town council, who feared that, if good fellows had the upper hand, their extremities heretofore should be remembered."[234] They took Rampton into a house, where, presently, another man entered of the same way of thinking, and, in his own eyes, a man of importance. "My lord's quarrel is right well ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... legerdemain—grapple (in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments that are usually classed under the head of genius. He knew—he admitted—his parts to be pedestrian, but he had considered them (until quite lately) fully equal to the demands of life. And today he owned himself defeated: life had the upper hand; if there had been any means of flight or place to flee to, if the world had been so ordered that a man could leave it like a place of entertainment, Morris would have instantly resigned all further claim on its rewards ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... some luck he succeeded in doing so. With him was elected another Consul named Bibulus, who was put into office by the noblemen to check Caesar and limit his ambitious designs, which included doing all that he could to better the condition of the common people. But Caesar soon had the upper hand in all the affairs of the consulship, so that the people said jokingly that the two consuls for the year were Julius and Caesar, instead of ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... two natures of Christ alone solves the problems of the Gospel; the acceptance of the two parts of our own nature alone enables us to live as God intends. Our spiritual and physical moods, then, rise and fall as the one side or the other gains the upper hand: now our religion is a burden to the flesh, now it is the exercise in which our soul delights; now it is the one thing that makes life worth living, now the one thing that checks our enjoyment of life. These ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... the domesticated animals like the horse, which are now of such service to man, are the result of these experiments in which the men of those days acted in co-operation with the Manu and his ministers. But the co-operation was too soon withdrawn. Selfishness obtained the upper hand, and war and discord brought the Golden Age of the Toltecs to a close. When instead of working loyally for a common end, under the guidance of their Initiate kings, men began to prey upon each other, the beasts which might gradually have ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... burning, but I did it savagely, with a feeling of flinging defiance at this topsy-turvy world, of slitting its ugliness in spite of itself with bright spears of music, insisting on intruding loveliness on its preoccupation, the loveliness created by its own brains in the days before Prussia got the upper hand. All the morning I practised the Beethoven violin concerto, and the naked, slender radiance of it without the orchestra to muffle it up in a background, enchanted me ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... faintly. He was looking at the other girl now, and something in her expression and in her attitude made him lose confidence. His voice died in his throat. Ida May Bostwick had the upper hand at last—and ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... them hailed Alpin's dexterous fighting with lusty cries of approval, and none doubted that he would soon make an end of his boastful antagonist. But neither had yet gained the upper hand. ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... immediate, of the children. This system tends to produce a tough, rather brutal, stupid, unscrupulous class, with a fixed idea that all enjoyment consists in undetected sinning; and in certain phases of civilization people of this kind are apt to get the upper hand of more amiable and conscientious races and classes. They have the ferocity of a chained dog, and are proud of it. But the end of it is that they are always in chains, even at the height of their military ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... make too little of the dangers which surround me, then you may be encouraged to weaken me still further, thereby jeopardizing the whole of this enterprise. But if I allow my anxieties to get too much the upper hand, why then I may be ruining some larger enterprise, the bearing of which I ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... been sitting there fishing, and unluckily the wind had twisted his beard with the fishing line; just then a big fish bit, and the feeble creature had not strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of little good, he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and was in urgent danger of being dragged ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... pity to deprive. Yet she, the kindest creature of her kind, Accuseth me of self-ingratitude, And well she may, sith by good proof I find Myself had died, had she not helpful stood. For when my sickness had the upper hand, And death began to show his awful face, She took great pains my pains for to withstand, And eased my heart that was in heavy case. But cruel now, she scorneth what it craveth; Unkind in kindness, murdering ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... may, the railroads have got the upper hand of the people, and they seem likely to keep it, unless, indeed, their ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... lifted the portiere with her own hands, and walked into the room. "That girl P'ing Erh," she exclaimed, "has gone mad, and if this hussey does in real earnest wish to try and get the upper hand of me, it would be well for you to mind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... her apartment, it shall be in such a manner as to make her respect me. In short, no house shall be better ordered than mine. I shall be always richly clad. When I retire with my wife in the evening, I will sit on the upper hand; I will assume a grave air, without turning my head to the one side or to the other; I will speak little; and whilst my wife, as beautiful as the full moon, stands before me in all her ornaments, will feign as if I did not notice her. The women about her will say to me, Our dear lord ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... the conduct of his command was a source of irritation that eventually was overcome when he found he could depend upon the individuals as well as upon the companies. Several stories are told of his encounters in repartee with his soldiers, in which he did not always have the upper hand, despite his rank. Brusque in manner, he yet had a saving sense of humor that had to be drawn upon to carry off situations that would have been intolerable in ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... start across the border. This telegram is from Washington, and informs me that the Mexicans have just turned loose at Holmesville. There are hundreds of them; they have been drinking and are armed. They greatly outnumber the Americans, and they are at present trying to get the upper hand in Holmesville." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... by the rattling of the desperate prisoner's teeth against the barrel of the pistol which Dickenson thrust into his mouth just as he was about to speak. But he wrenched his head round and began to struggle again so desperately that Lennox's temper got the upper hand and he began to grow merciless to a degree that tempted him ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... noble creature, and sees things in their true light," answered Uncle Richard. "While the Spaniards have the upper hand, through keeping the people in subjection by their soldiers, and their minds in darkness and superstition through the teaching of the priests, our country can never flourish. All progress is stopped. ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... the brothers go astern to where Harek was sitting. Saith Sigurd to Harek the yeoman: 'Choose thou now betwixt several things: one of them is to let us brothers have the upper hand on this cruise, & another is to let us bind thee, & the third is that we can slay thee.' Then Harek seeing in what a plight he was, inasmuch as he could not measure strength with more than one of the brothers even were he and they matched ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... passions of its inhabitants, was converted into a very hell. In every house there was division of sentiment, and the sources of domestic happiness were all poisoned by the bitter waters of strife. At length the revolutionary party completely got the upper hand. Oppressed and persecuted indeed, the royalists for the most part left their homes and became fugitives in the back-settlements. After this the revolutionists sent a large reinforcement to serve in the army of congress. By so doing, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... against me. For, apart from the fact that I happened to be a little more brilliant than he in our class at school, there were not wanting indications that he was in other ways losing ground in our common race, and circumstances seemed to require that we should each make a final effort now for the upper hand. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... part so at first," admitted her sister-in-law. "Arthur had got many foolish notions in his head through accepting thoughtlessly the ideas of the people he traveled with. But, once he let his good sense get the upper hand—He helps me now far more than I ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... impulse is less favourable, though not at all opposed, to lyrical utterance. In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... took a good while to get all the water out of her, as she was continuously making a good deal, and that which had gone through the staved deck had not quite drained through into the well. However, they felt that they had got the upper hand, and would keep it, provided none of the croppers levelled in upon her and smashed either the decks ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... making no headway," thought the clerk. "May's prospects are encouraging." Owing to the magistrate's harsh reception the idea delighted him; and, indeed, letting his rancor have the upper hand, Goguet actually offered up a prayer that the prisoner might get the better of ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... other hand, the vigour, the variety, and (where the purpose does not get too much the upper hand) the satiric skill are very nearly first-rate. And, with the cautions and admissions just given, there is not a little in the purpose itself, with which one may be permitted to sympathise. After all "misters the assassins" were being allowed very generous "law," and it was time for ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... followed the same general course of remark. They could not help Myrtle's going if they tried. She had always maintained that, if they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have kept the upper hand of her; but her will never was broke. They came pretty near it once, but the child would ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had not been serious, but it had not been as much so as the archdeacon believed. The physician, to whom the soldiers of the watch had carried him at the first moment, had feared for his life during the space of a week, and had even told him so in Latin. But youth had gained the upper hand; and, as frequently happens, in spite of prognostications and diagnoses, nature had amused herself by saving the sick man under the physician's very nose. It was while he was still lying on the leech's ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... of slow or rapid advance when conditions arise in the body favorable for the growth of the bacilli, and periods when the disease is checked and quiescent, the defensive forces of the body having gained the upper hand. Often the intervention of some other disease so weakens the defences of the body that the bacilli again find their opportunity. Thus typhoid fever, scarlet fever and other diseases may be followed by a rapidly fatal advance of the tuberculosis, ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... case, if Germany gets the upper hand, the influence of the Junkers in Germany, with their anti-Semitic tendencies, would be raised to intolerable limits, while the Reaction in Russia, even if it loses prestige, will yet be granted more power in order to ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... days the weather supported the side of Hohenfels. It scattered rain, sunshine and spits of snow. At last the sun got the upper hand and remained master. The wisterias tumbled their cataracts of blue blossoms down the spouts; rare flowers, of minute proportions, burst from the button-holes of the young horsemen going to the Bois; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... opposing persons in Edward Henry, getting the upper hand of the more virtuous, sniggered. "Dirty teeth, indeed! Blood-poisoning, indeed! Why not rabies, while she's about it? I guarantee she's dreaming of coffins ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... into their hands, and disregarding justice and right and kindly feeling, which they said were only approved of by those who dared not do injury to others, or feared to be injured themselves, while men who could get the upper hand by force might disregard them. Of these ruffians, Herakles in his wanderings cut off a good many, but others had escaped him by concealing themselves, or had been contemptuously spared by him on account of their insignificance. But Herakles had the misfortune ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... see?" she said, stooping to lift the door. Tom bent but she held him back. "Wait, I will tell you. Zen you can open it." For a moment pleasant recollections seemed to have the upper hand, and there was about her a touch of that buoyancy which had made her brother ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... haughtiness—(this woman was intolerably proud; and repeatedly, at first, in our quarrels, dared to twit me with my own original poverty and low birth),—if, I say, in our disputes she pretended to have the upper hand, to assert her authority against mine, to refuse to sign such papers as I might think necessary for the distribution of our large and complicated property, I would have Master Bryan carried off to Chiswick for a couple of days; and I warrant me his lady-mother could hold out no longer, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... very time, La Salle's enemies in Canada had gained the upper hand and had secured the recall of his mainstay, Count Frontenac. This meant that he could do nothing more from Canada as a base ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... Baggas. All are Moslems, and their superior organisation enabled them to prevail against the pagan Timnis, who in 1858-59 applied to the Government of Sierra Leone for help, and received it. Of late years the chances of war have changed, and the heathenry are said to have gained the upper hand. The Susus are an industrious tribe, and they trade with our colony in gum, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... vex. At first, it was well ; you gave way to Nature and to truth, and made apparent you had been sincere : but there, for your dignity's sake, let all drop ; and be civil as well as cool, if you would keep the upper hand. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... bed so late; she got up early and went to church. The agreeable working of her intellectual faculties during the early part of her absorbing self-education had kept her senses in abeyance; but when the discipline of all regular routine was relaxed, they were set free to get the upper hand if they would, and now they had begun to have their way—a delicate, dreamy way, of a surety, but it was a sensuous way nevertheless, and not at all a spiritual way, as her mother maintained it to be, because of the church-going. Sometimes sense, sometimes intellect, is the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... it until your father was out of the running. I can never buck them—I'm not fool enough to be goaded on to try. Your father could not win out the way things are now—but he could have prevented their ever getting the upper hand—because he knows every last turn of the wheel. They could not have fooled him. I didn't know what was coming until it was too late. A get-rich-quick man always ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... his story resemble closely the details of actual life; he is anxious only that they shall represent his idea adequately and consistently. Stevenson knew that man has a dual nature, and that the evil in him, when pampered, will gradually gain the upper hand over the good. In his story of the "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," he did not attempt to set forth this truth inductively, showing us the kind of facts from the observation of which he had drawn this conclusion. He merely gave his thought an illustrative embodiment, ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... principle and abjuring the practice of persecution, having no mind to follow either the Catholics in their outrages or royalty in its tergiversations, and striving to maintain in the provinces and the towns, where it had the upper hand, enough of order and of justice to at least keep at a distance the civil war which was elsewhere raging. Languedoc owed to Marshal de Damville, second son of the Constable Anne de Montmorency, this comparatively bearable position. But the degree ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Shad Wells sank into a chair and bent his head. "My God! Mister. If I'd only 'a' known! If you'd only let me help you—I can't stand thinkin' of anythin' happenin' to Beth—you an' me—we ain't got along, an' maybe you've got the upper hand ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... put that into your head? He has never even seen Miss Emily. She's going to our house—ah, the women are getting the upper hand now, and serve the men right, I say!—she's going to our house to be Sir Jervis's secretary. You would like to have the place yourself, wouldn't you? You would like to keep a poor girl from getting her own living? Oh, you may look as fierce as you please—the time's gone ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... don't understand the nature of an hypothesis"—his absurdity gets the upper hand again—"the nature of an hypothesis is that its maker is always in the right. I am, this time. If I had been nursed round at the Mackworth Clarkes', you would have known nothing about me except as a mere accident—a person in the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Don't you remember?" And I told how I waylaid him in the hall. His face, as the narrative ran on, was a study. Anger, mirth, offended pride, struggled there; but the humor of the thing got the upper hand in the end, and the one who laughed loudest in the Board room was Dr. Bryant himself. In my soul I believe that he was not a little relieved, for under a manner of much sternness he had ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... fully understand him.[11] He is profoundly impressed, {214} as his great contemporary, Milton, was, with the strange birth of new sects "now sprung up in England," but he hopes that "goodness will get the upper hand and that the fruits of the spirit will prevail," and his mind "is led to think" that through Boehme's message, which has been very beneficial in other nations, "our troubled, doubting souls in England may receive much Comfort, leading to that inward Peace which passeth all understanding, and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... one's vitals are truly death-dealing. The study of human nature is, in Alaska, particularly interesting in these directions, to the one with his mind's eye open to such things, and I am resolved, come what will, that I will keep the upper hand of my spirit, that it shall do as I direct, and not harbor ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... to entertain. Almost inevitably with travel, with transport communications, with every condition of human convenience insisting upon it, formally or informally a bi-lingual compromise will come into operation, and to my mind at least the chances seem even that French will emerge on the upper hand. Unless, indeed, that great renascence of the English-speaking peoples should, after all, so overwhelmingly occur as to force this European city to be tri-lingual, and prepare the way by which the whole world may at last speak together ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result. Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were elected. But the mining-camps, ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
... boyhood I read your Shelley and dreamt of Liberty. There is no liberty, save wisdom and self control. Liberty is within—not without. It is each man's own affair. Suppose—which is impossible—that these swarming yelping fools in blue get the upper hand of us, what then? They will only fall to other masters. So long as there are sheep Nature will insist on beasts of prey. It would mean but a few hundred years' delay. The coming of the aristocrat is fatal ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... leapt over the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket. Jump as I did, if thou canst do it." The giant made the attempt, but could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... with the blade parallel to the water, and slide it edgewise into the water again in front of you. Fig. 34 shows the beginning of a stroke, Fig. 35 while the stroke is in progress, and Fig. 36 the ending. During the stroke bring your upper hand forward across your face or breast, and with the lower draw the blade through ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... time and the place of the action, the more the benumbed conscience begins to stir, to resist, and to try to awake. And no one can say beforehand whether he will carry out the suggestion or not; which will gain the upper hand, the rational conscience or the irrational suggestion. It all depends on ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... shifting sand, met the Turk on the top with a clash and knocked him down the reverse slope. Soon afterwards there was another ding-dong struggle. The Turks, putting in all their available strength, for a fourth time got the upper hand, and the Lowlanders had to yield the ground, doing it slowly and reluctantly and with the determination to try again. They were Robert Bruces, all of them. It's the best that stays the longest. After a brief rest these heroic Scots once ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... Then, too, I called his father a name he didn't like and he lit into me again. Good night! I thought that was the end of little Harry! I was sick for a week after he got through with me. He certainly is some brute. Of course, I didn't realize what I was up against at first or I'd have got the upper hand right away. I could have, you know! I've been trained! But I didn't want to hurt the fellow and get into the papers. You see, the circumstances were ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... you have read before, had the foresight to assemble enough English vessels in home waters in the latter part of the month of July, 1914, to give England the upper hand over the fleet of Germany. As a result, finding the British too strong, the Germans did not venture out into the high seas to give battle. A few skirmishes were fought between cruisers, then some speedy ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... fear, in the passion of horror which her persistence conjured up. "I will give you, your mother, and the stewardesses a revolver each, and if by evil chance that junk should prove to be an enemy, and should get the upper hand of us, you must shoot yourselves, rather than fall alive into the hands of the Chinamen! Of course you need not take such a desperate step until the very last moment, when it has become evident that escape is impossible; but when that moment arrives—do ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... let these fellows get the upper hand," he said. "We had the advantage back there in the forest and threw it away. No telling what they will do with us. Make ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... been eager to express his simple feelings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this Montero was going to be licked once for all and done with. There was no saying what would happen to the railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it would have to be abandoned. It would not be the first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know, it's one of their so-called national things," he ran on, wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious flavour to his profound ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the most critical circumstances of his life, the opinion that his ambition and the desire of preserving his authority had more power over him than his zeal for the public good. The fact is that there is no virtue which does not belie itself when one has allowed a dominant passion to gain the upper hand. The Count de Frontenac might have been a great prince if Heaven had placed him on the throne, but he had dangerous faults for a subject who is not well persuaded that his glory consists in sacrificing everything to the service of his ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... retorted, "but I suffer all your creed is able to inflict. Doesn't it occur to you as strange and monstrous that Christianity, which boasts so of its own martyrs, should in turn persecute all who differ from it? Suppose Freethought had the upper hand, and served you as you serve us: wouldn't you ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... broke out, the Haytians managed to send two delegates to Paris. Nevertheless the planters maintained the upper hand, and one of the colored delegates, Oge, on returning, started a small rebellion. He and his companions were killed with great brutality. This led the French government to grant full civil rights to free Negroes, Immediately ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... it have lasted? The first moment that Daubeny got the upper hand I should have fallen lower than I have fallen now. If not this year, it would have been the next. My only comfort is in this,—that I have done the thing myself, and have not been turned out." To the very last, however, Mr. Monk continued to express his opinion that Phineas would come back, declaring ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the Isle d'Yeu with provisions, stores, and clothing, and there they remained doing nothing, for nothing could be done. The Republicans, under their clever, daring chiefs, had completely gained the upper hand, and the Royalist cause was lost. We meantime had to enjoy the luxuries of salt pork and mouldy biscuit, either blockading the enemy's ports or looking out for their cruisers ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... sixteenth century the Dutch and English had joined forces against the Portuguese, who had tried to keep them out of the East Indies altogether. But when once the Portuguese were beaten the allies fell out among themselves, the Dutch got the upper hand, and, in 1623, killed off the English traders at Amboyna, one of the Moluccas. War did not come for many years. But there was always some fighting in the Far South East; and Amboyna was ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... manufacturing exploit. And this democratization of the automobile comprises more than the acme of efficiency in the manufacturing art. The career of Henry Ford has a symbolic significance as well. It may be taken as signalizing the new ideals that have gained the upper hand in American industry. We began this review of American business with Cornelius Vanderbilt as the typical figure. It is a happy augury that it closes with Henry Ford in the foreground. Vanderbilt, valuable as were many of his achievements, represented that spirit of egotism ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... average standard, and too easily accepts the belief that the evils before his eyes must be in fact greater, and not, as may perhaps be the case, only more vividly perceived, than those of the bygone ages. A call to repentance easily takes the form of an assertion that the devil is getting the upper hand; and we may hope that the pessimist view is only a form of the discontent which is a necessary condition of improvement. Anyhow, the diametrical conflict of prophecies suggests one remark which often impresses me. We are bound to call each other ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the tide turn against France. Pitt was now at the head of the war in Britain; throughout the British Empire the patriots had gained the upper hand over the parasites. Canada could no longer attack; indeed, she was hard pressed for defence. Pitt's plan was to send one army against the west, a fleet and an army against the east at Louisbourg, and a third army straight at the centre, along the line of Lake Champlain. ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... Penn and the Duke of York that triumphed at the close of these great naval wars. The attempt of Monck and Rupert to preserve individual initiative and freedom to seize opportunities was discarded, and for nearly a century formality had the upper hand. Yet the Duke of York must not be regarded as wholly hostile to initiative or unwilling to learn from his rivals. The second and most remarkable of the new instructions acquits him. This is the famous article in which ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... independent of character—which can be carried through by a given number of ready-made puppets—is essentially a trivial thing. Unless, at an early stage of the organizing process, character begins to take the upper hand—unless the playwright finds himself thinking, "Oh, yes, George is just the man to do this," or, "That is quite foreign to Jane's temperament"—he may be pretty sure that it is a piece of mechanism he is putting together, not a drama with flesh and blood in it. The difference between a live play ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... reverse of the custom among the Romans during the Empire, of allowing celibacy and childlessness to gain the upper hand, was the custom prevalent among the Jews. True enough, the Jewish woman had no right to choose; her father fixed upon the husband she was to wed; but marriage was a duty, that they religiously followed. The Talmud ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... I am likely to live to make those wretches forget or forgive the death of their official. From henceforth I am a banished man. For myself I care not; but for poor young Hernan—who is to advocate his cause? Well, I fear for this time the spirit of evil and his imps have got the upper hand of honest folk." ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... night. Once, when the Empress Maud had taken King Stephen prisoner, and things looked ill for his followers, Warde had insisted that his neighbour should come over to Stoke Regis, as being a safer place than his own castle; and once again, when Stephen had the upper hand, and Sir Raymond was fighting desperately under Gloucester, his wife had taken her son, and the priest, and some of her women, and had ridden over to ask protection of Sir Arnold, leaving the manor to take care ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... the gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet. Another was shot while bringing up shell. Then we got a look in.' The roar of the cannon was deafening, but gradually the British were gaining the upper hand. Here and there the little knolls upon the further side which had erupted into constant flame lay cold and silent. One of the heavier guns was put out of action, and the other had been withdrawn for five hundred ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... process. Be on your guard to prevent the other man from dominating you by his opposition. You have the advantage at the start. He cannot be so well prepared to make objections as you should be to dispose of them effectively. Keep the upper hand. If you have not antagonized his feelings, your prospect will admire you when he sees that he cannot dominate you and realizes that you will not let him have his own way. You will build up in him a favorable opinion of your ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... land had been put on the market by the United States. But the Indian agent was trying to persuade the Sacs to move across the Mississippi, into Iowa. That was for their own good. The white settlers were using whiskey and every other means, to get the upper hand. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... in outward life—in clothing, ornament, and so on; to whatever is superfluous, or excessive; to any extravagant attempt to be greater and better than others. To such extent has immoderation gained the upper hand in the world, there is nowhere any limit to expense in the way of household demands, dress, wedding parties and banquets, in the way of architecture, and so on, whereby citizens, rulers and the country itself are impoverished, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... of taking what you have no right to," said Turkey, in whom the practical had ever the upper hand of ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... yielding, both somewhat immobile, generally straightforward and reliable, law abiding, accessible to reason, not exposed to great dangers nor likely to reach unusual heights. Next the sanguine, hard or soft, as hope or enjoyment have the upper hand in them; this is the richest group in attractive power. If hope is the stronger factor there is a fund of energy which, allied with the power of charm and persuasion, with trustfulness in good, and optimistic outlook on the world, wins its way and succeeds in its undertakings, making its appeal ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... his activities. The safety of the western line was now his absorbing concern. And in mid-August that line was turned, in a way, by Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay. As the month closed, Sherman, despite the furious blows delivered by Hood, was plainly getting the upper hand. North and South, men watched that tremendous duel with the feeling that the foundations of things were rocking. At last, on the 2d of September, Sherman, victorious, ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson |
