"Usurp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... familiar to children. Mr. Horne Tooke is bitter in his contempt for it, and will scarcely admit it into civilized company. "The brutish inarticulate interjection, which has nothing to do with speech, and is only the miserable refuge of the speechless, has been permitted to usurp a place amongst words, &c."—"The neighing of a horse, the lowing of a cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat; sneezing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other involuntary convulsion with oral sound, have almost as good a title to ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... he answered smiling. "Perhaps I am a little jealous lest this new-comer to whose arrival you look forward with so much interest should usurp more of your time and attention than we less-favoured ones ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... white silk robes. Decima, with her wondrous beauty, and the hectic on her cheeks again. Many an envious pair of eyes was cast to her. "That dreadful old maid, Decima Verner!" was amongst the compliments launched at her. "She to usurp him! How had my Lady Verner ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... woful, when the young usurp the place, or despise the wisdom, of the aged; and among the many dark signs of these times, the disobedience and insolence of youth are among the darkest. But with whom is the fault? Youth never yet lost its modesty where age had not lost its ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... abhorrence to the great comic genius; and Thucydides, a born aristocrat, of strong oligarchical sympathies, looked with cold scorn and aversion on the coarse mechanic, [Footnote: Cleon was a tanner by trade.] who presumed to usurp the place, and ape the style, of ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... woollen, linen, silk, and hardware manufactures, there is even less to create astonishment in the multitude and variety of the products, than in the exquisite perfection of the machinery employed—machinery, such in kind, that it seems almost to usurp the functions of human intelligence. No one can conceive its completeness, who has not witnessed the workings of the power-loom, or seen the mechanism by which the brute power of steam is made to effect the most minute and delicate processes of tambouring. Nor can any one adequately comprehend ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... buy the cloves at Manila, and take them to Malaca. Only what is needed there it shipped to Nueva Espaa, and the rest is conveyed to various parts and kingdoms of the Orient which are convenient to Manila and the Malucas. The Dutch have again attempted to usurp that trade, as will be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... sure but that Belle will soon usurp your place in his regard, nor would I object, for I am very anxious about the child. I know that her present life seems dull to her, and the temptations of the city to a girl with a nature like hers are legion. He can be a very useful friend to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... enough on several points of importance, it was truly said. But in the pulpit and out of it, on one point it had been full, clear, and definite. A man must rule (well) his own household. "The husband is the head of the wife," who is not suffered "to usurp authority over the man," but who is to listen in silence, being "the weaker vessel"—and ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of these ignorant men are so preposterous that they can scarcely be credited. The merchant no longer owns his business or directs it. The laborer tells him what to pay, how to pay it, when and how long the hours shall be—in fact, undertakes to usurp entire control. If the owner protests, the laborers all stop work, strike, appoint guards, who attack, kill, or intimidate any one who attempts to take their place. In this way it is said that one billion dollars have been lost in the last few years. Contracts have been broken, men ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... an unchangeable decree was appointed to happen; and that, therefore, it was their duty to acquiesce. OMAR then beckoned with his hand for audience a second time, and told them, that ALMORAN had not only practised the arts of sorcery to deprive HAMET of ALMEIDA, but that he meditated a design to usurp the sole dominion, and deprive him of the share of the government to which he had a right by the will of Solyman his father. This also they heard with the same sentiments of wonder and acquiescence: If it is decreed, said they, that ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines which had ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... seeing an eye, warns you that watchful enemies are seeking the slightest chance to work injury to your business. This dream indicates to a lover, that a rival will usurp him if he is ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... characterization, it is his best. But it is confession that whatever he wrote bore that incommunicable touch which gives him a unique position—a position no American playwright thus far has been able to usurp. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... "I am not greatly given to overtalkativeness," he said shortly. "I have no desire to usurp woman's prerogative." ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... late to fly, for every way is closed. The High Gods have spoken, and I will do their bidding!" Then, extending her white, jewelled arms toward the mummy, she cried in a deeper, harsher tone: "O Nefer, my Prince and my love! There lives no man in Khem who shall take thy place beside me, or usurp the throne that should have been thine. I have sinned, but I repent me of the wrong. Lo, now I come and bring thee a goodly sacrifice to cheer thine angry heart—my ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... the congregation were threatened to such an extent that vigorous measures must be taken. The congregation demanded a fuller control of its own affairs, Handschuh and his elders sternly resisted the demand, and were convinced that the world would fall if the whole congregation were allowed to usurp the control which could only be wisely exercised by a few selectmen. The peril and strife grew so great, that after a long struggle it became an unavoidable necessity that Muehlenberg should be recalled to his office as chief pastor, and a new constitution ...
— The Organization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America • Beale M. Schmucker
... forth the felon's bar; the daring burglar eyeing with confidence the counsel learned in the law's defects, fee'd by its produce to defend its quondam owner. The effigies of Pride, Extravagance, honest Distress, and reckless Plunder, all by turns usurp the scene. In my last waking sleep, just as I had composed myself in delicious indolence, a parcel fell with more than ordinary force on one beneath. These were two of my talking friends. I stirred not, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... upon earth in the form of a man. His twin-brother Set was jealous of his popularity, and hated him to such a degree that he contrived a plan whereby he succeeded in putting Osiris to death. Set then tried to usurp his brother's kingdom and to make himself sole lord of Egypt, and, although no text states it distinctly, it is clear that he seized his brother's wife, Isis, and shut her up in his house. Isis was, however, under the protection ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... nothing to the understanding of Plato, it throws an interesting light on the Alexandrian times; it realizes how a philosophy made up of words only may create a deep and widespread enthusiasm, how the forms of logic and rhetoric may usurp the place of reason and truth, how all philosophies grow faded and discoloured, and are patched and made up again like worn-out garments, and retain only a second-hand existence. He who would study this degeneracy of philosophy and of the Greek mind in the original cannot do better ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... was in the house, no one else thought of answering the telephone. Mrs. Waddington would have been the last to usurp the prerogative. For that instrument was the tap root of her spy system over her daughter. By it, she picked up things; learned what this irresponsible responsibility of hers was doing. Mrs. Waddington had her mental lists of Kate's telephonic friends. She imagined that she could ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... then, is genial, soul-begetting, and love-creating; and Life is nowhere, save in the imaginations of the children of the grave. Whence, then, oh! whence came those their imaginations? Death, thou art not my father! Grave, thou art not my mother! I come of another kind, nor shall ye usurp dominion over me." ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... stage, though the author's original bent was "scenical dancing," or ballet dancing, by representations of historical incidents with graceful motion. In his "History of Pantomimes" the author is careful to distinguish between those entertainments where "Grin and grimace usurp the passions and affections of the mind," and those where "A nice address and management of the passions take up the thoughts of the performer." "Spectators," says Weaver, in 1730, or thereabouts, "are now so pandering away their applause on interpolations ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... toleration would impair their power; not only because the congregations would divide, but because these sectaries listened to "John Russell the shoemaker." [Footnote: Ne Sutor, p. 26.] Obviously, were cobblers to usurp the sacerdotal functions, the superstitious reverence of the people for the priestly office would not long endure: and it was his crime in upholding this sacrilegious practice which made the Rev. Thomas Cobbett cry out in his pulpit "against Gorton, that arch-heretick, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the latter I recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely desirable. But even during the ascendancy of the latter physical mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the former state to usurp its place, I watched, I listened, and I yielded. Her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, completed my defeat. Now, strangest of all, I must add one other thing, and I will add it without ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... you any good in the end, Peter. Thrashing me won't give you and your father the right to usurp rights at ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... of beasts as if they were troubled by the human face on which rests the reflection of Jehovah. It is said, 'Thou shalt worship neither stone nor wood nor metal.' Within these temples cemented with the blood of oppressed races grin and crouch the hideous, foul demons which usurp the libations, the offerings, and the sacrifices. One only God, infinite, eternal, formless, colourless, fills the immensity of the heavens which you people with a multitude of phantoms. Our God has created us; you ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... of Gallantry, I thought it a Duty incumbent on me to impart it to you, in Hopes of a Reformation, which is only to be effected by a Restoration of the Latin to the usual Dignity in your Papers, which of late, the Greek, to the great Displeasure of your Female Readers, has usurp'd; for tho the Latin has the Recommendation of being as unintelligible to them as the Greek, yet being written of the same Character with their Mother-Tongue, by the Assistance of a Spelling-Book its legible; which Quality the Greek wants: And since the Introduction of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be his punishment For those who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still: Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine enmity! And thou, whose heaven self-ordained Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, Do it! Take all the ancient show! The woods shall wave, the rivers ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... young man to a small chamber where they were greeted by Princess Eleanor, his wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort. The girl was frankly glad to see him once more and laughingly chide him because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative and rescue her ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Columbus and of Vasco di Gama open out new tracks. Suddenly commerce is revolutionised. France, England, Spain, become nearer to America and India than Italy; so Italy declines; while the Atlantic states usurp the first place ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... hung over Europe, to be dispelled at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy, who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... from early morning till late evening; only as twilight came on did a new thought begin to keep me awake, a thought to which as yet I had paid no attention: "What kind of a child could it be, for whom I was now being exchanged? Who was to usurp my place at table, in my bed-room, and in my mother's heart? Was she small or large? beautiful or ugly? obedient or contrary? had she brothers or sisters, to whom I was to be a brother? was she as much afraid of me as I ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... people have the fancy for these odd names, but they seduce in all nations, and they who feel the triviality of them, imitate them. It is true that the titles of Count and Marquis have fallen into the dust because of the quantity of people without wealth, and even without land, who usurp them; and that they have become so worthless, that people of quality who are Marquises or Counts (if they will permit me to say it) are silly enough to be annoyed if those titles are given to them in conversation. It is certain, however, that these titles emanated from landed ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... led the way, followed close by old Betsy, Billy following her close and next in order. The young claybank horse, which made Moise so much trouble, now undertook to usurp a place just back of Betsy instead of falling to the rear of the train where he belonged. But as he approached meek-looking old Billy, the latter laid back his ears and kicked violently at the claybank, hitting him in the shoulder ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... the anger of the Skillful Fisher, for he had a bad disposition, and had always hated his brother because of his virtues, and now with the excuse of the lost fishing hook he planned to kill him and to usurp his place as ruler of Japan. The Happy Hunter knew all this full well, but he could say nothing, for being the younger he owed his elder brother obedience; so he returned to the seashore and once more began to look for the missing ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... attempted to seize her cousin's crown. As the attempt to seize this crown failed, mankind consider her technically guilty. If it had succeeded, Mary, instead of Jane, would have been the traitor who would have died for attempting criminally to usurp ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... splendour which is Egypt's, the world became less mysterious, more familiar. Things relating to the day's work forced themselves upon Michael's mind. His bath and breakfast and many other practical things began to usurp his thoughts, while the barking of dogs, the movement in the hut of the "boys," brought him back to the common, everyday life of the ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... "None can usurp this height," return'd that shade, "But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest." * * * * * "Are there not thousands in the world," said I, Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade, ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... the best narrative poems in modern literature. It rises from calm to the fiercest and most tumultuous passions that usurp the throne of reason. Love, jealousy, hate, revenge, murder, succeed in cumulative force. Then the calm of unmitigated and hopeless woe returns, and we leave the widow in a solitude peopled only with memories. It is melodrama elevated into poetry. The mastery of the artist is shown in ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... saintly Legitimists, not one of whom attained kingship so honourably and legitimately as the man whom they had sworn to destroy, even though the whole of Europe were to be drenched in blood by the process of it. They set themselves to disfranchise and usurp the rights of the French people, who had only just again ratified by millions of votes his claim to the throne, and the gallant and heroic response to their requisition that he should leave Elba and become their ruler again. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... the head of the woman, but the head of the man is God;" "Man is the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." The Apostle likewise declares, "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve." This position of the Apostle was based on the Hebrew account of the creation of the first woman from the rib of the first man, and of the sentence of God upon her in consequence ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... threatening storm. The chief menace to the general peace was Lodovico Maria Sforza, surnamed Il Moro,(1) who sat as regent for his nephew, Duke Gian Galeazzo, upon the throne of Milan. That regency he had usurped from Gian Galeazzo's mother, and he was now in a fair way to usurp the throne itself. He kept his nephew virtually a prisoner in the Castle of Pavia, together with his young bride, Isabella of Aragon, who had been sent thither by her father, the Duke of Calabria, heir ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... but not with a wife at his side. Oh, yes; they would be happy at first. Then Elsa would begin to miss the things she had so gloriously thrown away. The rift in the lute; the canker in the rose. They were equally well-born, well-bred; politeness would usurp affection's hold. Could he save her from the day when she would learn Romance had come from within? No. All he could do was to help her find ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... again, however, recur to the fact that what our Reformers did in this matter, they did without exaggeration; even as they had shown the same wise moderation in still higher matters. They gave to the Latin side of the language its rights, though they would not suffer it to encroach upon and usurp those of the Teutonic part of the language. It would be difficult not to believe, even if many outward signs said not the same, that great things are in store for the one language of Europe which thus serves as connecting link between the North and the South, between the languages spoken ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... retorted, laughing. "I notice you're doing your best to usurp Mrs. Mackintosh's place in ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... from the devil when we have the Divine Scripture": Besides, it is dangerous, since the demons frequently mix falsehood with truth. Or, as Chrysostom [*Cyril of Alexandria, Comment. in Luc.] says: "It was not meet for them to usurp the prerogative of the apostolic office. Nor was it fitting that the mystery of Christ should be proclaimed by a corrupt tongue" because "praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner" [*Cf. Theophylact, Enarr. in Luc.]. Thirdly, because, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... than his own. The simulated affection was now changed into undisguised hatred. Moreover, by the death of Alencon, Navarre now stood next the throne, and Guise's plots became still more extensive and more open as his own ambition to usurp the crown on the death of the childless Henry ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... salvation, and bids me speak and labor in His cause, shall I not thankfully obey the heavenly voice? Shall I carry my humility to the extreme of disobedience? Shall I not rather arise, and, with a cheerful and joyous heart, do my Saviour what service I can? I will not presume to usurp the prerogative of God, even to judge and punish myself. I will leave myself to Him, the merciful and all-knowing, and He shall do with me what He sees best. I will not reject His mercy. I will not resist His will. Let Him do what seemeth to Him good, whether it be in ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... The party owes its right to existence to the people's will; when its life must be prolonged by artificial stimulants it is fit that it should die. It is not the people's master, but the people's servant; if it should usurp the oppressor's place, it ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... been, on my part, to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart. You have doubtless correctly gauged my motive. Isobel's mother was my father's favourite child. If he had an idea that her child was alive, he would receive her without a word. She would completely usurp the place of Adelaide, my own daughter, in his ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Thor's own city of Bayeux, John Bull may find good meat and good vegetables, and plenty of them to boot. Then look at those strong, well-fed horses—what a contrast to the poor, half-starved, flogged, over-worked beasts which usurp the name further south! Look at those goodly cows, fed in good pastures, and yielding milk thrice a day; they claim no sort of sisterhood with the poverty-stricken animals which, south of the Loire, have ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... creatures, all of them no doubt infinitely varied in their nature, their structure and faculties, yet to view the whole scheme with an undoubting persuasion of its truth. It is however somewhat in opposition to the ideas of piety formed by our less adventurous ancestors, that we should usurp the throne of God, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... or rather Zoraida Castelmar who sought to usurp destiny's prerogatives here, ruled otherwise. There came a quiet rap at the door, then the voice of one of ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or usurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructers and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... her position to favor conferred by your Majesty upon her father or husband, for services rendered, or to special favor on your Majesty's part. It is not right that some trader or transient resident, who has rendered no service, but who has rather been unserviceable to your Majesty, should usurp and enjoy these benefits by unjust means. The governor should be instructed not to allow, on any account, marriages to take place with any creditor or servant; but he should have, as his sole object, reward and honor to worthy persons who have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... that in this matter his mother was to be supported, whilst his detestation of this adventurer who threatened to usurp the place that should rightly be his own spurred him ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... part of your tragedy presently, by way of dessert, for instance. That will be sugared roast meat,—mordioux! Ah! pardon me, monsieur, that was a little oath which escaped me, because it is a habit with my lord and master. I sometimes allow myself to usurp that little oath, as it seems in pretty good taste. I take this liberty only in his absence, please to observe, for you may understand that in his presence—but, in truth, monsieur, this cider is abominable; do you not ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the United States will protect each state against one man or a few men who may try to usurp the functions of the state government. By inference, the United States could insist upon a republican form of government even if the people of the state desired some other. Happily, no necessity for the exercise of this power has ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... beloved! what to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of house-rule who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but out of female pride! 'I suffer not,' saith St. Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the man.' If the Apostle could not suffer it," he naturally remarks, "into what mold is he mortified that can?" He had a sincere desire to preserve men from the society of unsocial and unsympathizing women; and that was his ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... What, he asked, did the jury think? They were men of the world. Candidly, had they ever seen such a chauffeur and footman before? Did they look like servants? Of course they had Mr. Bumble's—their master's—confidence. But had they the jury's? He did not wish to usurp the functions of the cinema or the stage, but it was his duty to remind them that sometimes Truth was stranger than Fiction.... Here were two servants, who were obviously not servants at all, giving such overwhelming satisfaction that they were allowed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a nest-builder, but will usurp the nest of the crow or some other large bird. If a deserted nest can be found, the sparrow-hawk will immediately take possession; but if no such presents itself, this bad-hearted, quarrelsome bird does not hesitate to depose the rightful owner, and proceed to occupy a home ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him as the child of a martyr to the highest cause on earth; and the love of the whole family encompassed her. One of the boys had brought her from Kansas when she was yet very little, and she had grown up among them as their youngest sister; but the doctor, from a tender scruple against seeming to usurp the place of his brother in her childish thought, would not let her call him father, and in obedience to the rule which she soon began to give their love, they all turned and called him Uncle Jack with ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... are less fitted for abstract reasoning, whereas those who excel in intellect and its use keep their imagination more restrained and controlled, holding it in subjection, so to speak, lest it should usurp the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... may usurp That honoured swinging seat; His seasons pass with pipe and glass Until ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... you may happen to be dancing when supper is announced to the supper-table, unless she has come with a gentleman, in which case you must not usurp his privilege. If she is disengaged, escort her to a seat in the supper-room, if possible, and see that she is served with the dishes she selects. Do not take your own supper at the same time; wait till the lady has finished; then take her back to the ball-room, and repeat the process, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... leave the loathed stage, And this more loathsome age, Where pride and impudence, in faction knit, Usurp the chair of wit! Inditing and arranging every day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the conqueror; 1005 Though dispensations were not strong Conclusions, whether right or wrong, Although out-goings did confirm, And owning were but a mere term; Yet as the wicked have no right 1010 To th' creature, though usurp'd by might, The property is in the Saint, From whom th' injuriously detain 't; Of him they hold their luxuries, Their dogs, their horses, whores, and dice, 1015 Their riots, revels, masks, delights, Pimps, buffoons, fiddlers, parasites; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... ambition led him to usurp a power to which the Romans were not willing to submit, it appears that he used it with unexampled moderation. He was beloved and revered by the people, honoured and almost adored by his friends, and esteemed ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... harrowing letters she had wept long and bitterly, accusing herself continually of her unworthiness in allowing another image to usurp the throne where the missionary should have reigned supreme; and the only consolation afforded was in the reflection that Douglass had died believing her faithful, happy in the perfect trust reposed in her. He had been buried on a sunny slope of the cemetery not far from the blue waves of the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... There are times when Nature permits no rivalry; she claims every thought and gives herself to us only as we give ourselves to her. She effaces us and takes complete possession of our souls. Not so, however, does she usurp the throne of our own personal life in those early hours when the sun, the master artist, whose touch has coloured every leaf and tinted every flower, demands her adoration. Then it is, perhaps, that ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in any one of several ways. Often the statesman, no less than the soldier, plays an all-important part in winning the new land; nevertheless, it is usually true that the diplomatists who by treaty ratify the acquisition usurp a prominence in history to which they are in no way entitled by the real worth of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Educated for the magistracy, he became a Maitre des Requetes (say Master in Chancery) at twenty, and at thirty-five Procureur-General (or Attorney-General) of the Parliament of Paris, which was only a court of justice, although it frequently attempted to usurp legislative, and even executive functions. During the rebellious troubles of the Fronde, the Procureur and his brother, the Abbe Fouquet, remained faithful to Mazarin and to the throne. The Abbe, in the ardor of his zeal, once offered the Queen his services ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... evening she could not read the book she had in hand; its phrases seemed to fall into triviality. Yet—she reasoned at a later time—it should not have been so; the haggard gaze of fate should not daunt one; pity is but an element in the soul's ideal of order, it should not usurp a barren sovereignty. It is the miserable contradiction in our lot that the efficiency of the instincts of beauty-worship waits upon a force of individuality attainable only by a sacrifice of sensibility. Emily divined this. So it was that she came to shun the thought of ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through ordinary instrumentalities of law." He expressed the opinion that Congress should prohibit polygamy, and not allow "any ecclesiastical organization to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and power, of the national government." President Arthur, in his message in December, 1881, referred to the difficulty of securing convictions of persons accused of polygamy—"this odious crime, so revolting to the moral and religious ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... religion takes up that place in the mind which superstition would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us under the strongest ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... physiognomy, and induce the belief, either to his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this man was his heart. His ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that I am guilty. Impious and rash! thus to usurp the prerogatives of your Maker! to set up your bounded views and halting reason, as the ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... very pleasant; there was no question. He did not at all usurp her office, nor interfere with it. But when he saw her getting weary of a parliamentary discussion, or a long discourse on politics or parties, his hand would gently draw away the paper from hers and his voice carry on the reading. And his voice was ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Progress is the optimistic name, compel "Progress" too to fall from the commanding position in which it is now, with apparent security, enthroned? [words in Greek]... A day will come, in the revolution of centuries, when a new idea will usurp its place as the directing idea of humanity. Another star, unnoticed now or invisible, will climb up the intellectual heaven, and human emotions will react to its influence, human plans respond to its guidance. It will be the criterion by which ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... the strengthless dead find friends, it was possible that questions would be asked, questions hard to answer. Before Heaven he could justify himself for all that he had done, but before King Henry, who would usurp the powers of the very Pope, if the truth should chance to reach the royal ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... victim, offered to the manes of his murdered father, had to some extent the effect of appeasing the vengeful passion of Don Rafael. At all events his spirit became calmer; and other sentiments long slumbering at the bottom of his heart began to usurp their sway. He perceived the necessity of justifying his conduct—which he knew must appear inexplicable—to the inhabitants of the hacienda Las Palmas. Had he done so at that moment all would have been well; but unfortunately a certain ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Sunday, having hired a good horse for the occasion, I had the honor of riding beside her carriage till some better-mounted acquaintance came to usurp my place and her attention; after which I was forced to drop behind and bear the eclipse of my glory ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... black demons, seem trying to engulf the earth and make even the rocks tremble—all have a weird and uncanny influence. In their presence the imagination runs riot and the ghostly and supernatural usurp reason. Spectral shapes crawl out of dark fissures and leap from rock to rock and hideous sea monsters creep in the verge of shadows. To be alone on a small island of evil repute and many miles ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... its existence or from the influence of designing men diverting their attention from the quarter whence it approaches to a source from which it can never come. This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country. In the name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy. History, ancient and modern, is full of such examples. Caesar became the master of the Roman people and the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... accessible by the same line of railway, but he always travelled first class; the same train thus presenting the anomaly of the master being in that place which one would naturally assign to the man, and the man appearing to usurp the position of the master. One day these two alighted at the terminus in full view of each other. "Well," said Mr. B—, in that tone of banter which a superior so frequently thinks it becoming to adopt, "I don't know how you manage to ride first-class, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... plotted this that you might succeed to the throne of Baaltis; now hear your fate: You shall live to sweep the huts and bear the babes of savages. You, priest," and he pointed to the Shadid, "I read your heart; you design to murder this apostate whom you greet as your successor that you may usurp his place. I show you yours: it lies in the bellies of the jackals of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... king's departure. It would appear as though it felt the weight of the whole empire resting on it, and it sustained its attitude in order to bear it with dignity. It accepted the power without desiring either to usurp or to retain it. It covered with a respectful fiction the king's desertion—called the flight a carrying off, and sought for the guilty around the throne—regarding the throne itself as inviolable. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... that a mother-state should trust large bodies of mercenary troops in her colonies, at so great a distance from her; lest, in process of time, when the spirits of the people shall be depressed by the military power, another Caesar should arise and usurp the authority ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... It was then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection. Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who died in childbirth—twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance searching Amber's ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... hate her," she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head, "didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding? The best man belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour—he can't escape it—it is his fate. Common civility should have chained him to my chariot wheels, but with that white-headed Lilith at work on him, with her half-shut ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... that I acknowledge you the Author Of giving me my Birth, I have discharg'd A part of my Obedience. But if now You should (as cruel fathers do) proclaim Your right, and Tyrant-like usurp the glory Of my peculiar honours, not deriv'd From successary, but purchas'd with my bloud, Then I must stand first Champion for my self ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... this rabble of poor and low-class clergy it was no doubt a welcome relaxation, and one can hardly wonder that they let themselves go in burlesquing the sacred but often wearisome rites at which it was their business to be present through many long hours, or that they delighted to usurp for once in a way the functions ordinarily performed by their superiors. The putting down of the mighty from their seat and the exalting of them of low degree was the keynote of the festival. While "Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit humiles" was ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... scribe Nor arithmaticion Ever able to decide The usurp'd base ambition, Which in truth I shall declare, Traytors here which lately were, Who wanted ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... without objection or dissent, they crowned him emperor of Greece. But it was not long before Alexander learned that Alis was emperor. Then he took leave of King Arthur, unwilling to let his brother usurp his land without protest. The King makes no opposition to his plan, but bids him take with him so great a company of Welshmen, Scots, and Cornishmen that his brother will not dare to withstand him when he sees him come with such a host. Alexander, had he pleased, might have led ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... proud transgressor to spoil One right of our homes, or one foot of our soil, One privilege pluck from our keeping, or dare Usurp one blessing ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... instantly. Part of her intense charm was the ready tact with which she was careful never to usurp the place of any one else. She put aside the muslin that was to form covers for the boxes, and slipped her scissors back into ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... should manifestly be that of reinstating itself in power, in consolidating that power, and in acting as a powerful unity, according to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. The CONSTITUTION—bear that word well in mind—the Constitution which suffers no State to usurp a single power belonging to the General Government, and which was expressly framed for the purpose of making all its freemen the citizens of one great nation. Let the reader consult the Constitution, study its unmistakable plan of national integrity and of state subordination, and then reflect ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... put in Agatha; 'she does not realize what a sting her words have. She told me last Sunday, when I unfortunately gave an order to some of my Sunday class in front of her, that however much I might try to slight her and usurp her place in the vicarage and parish I would not be successful, for the vicar was proof against all young ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... empty form should make a barrier! If I rightly understand, you are not unwilling to listen to real and advantageous counsel—but your scruple is saved—I hear them returning to ask your final resolution. Oh! take the advice of the noble Seyton, and you may once more command those who now usurp a triumph over you. But hush! I hear ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... her a saddle, and then June would usurp Miss Anne's place on a horseback-ride up through the gap to see the first blooms of the purple rhododendron on Bee Rock, or up to Morris's farm on Powell's mountain, from which, with a glass, they could see the Lonesome Pine. And all the time she worked at her studies tirelessly—and ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a fellow-creature be in any respect justifiable. And although this rule appears to me to be scarcely applicable to our state in this stage of trial, seeing that such non-resistance, if general, would surrender our civil and religious rights into the hands of whatsoever daring tyrants might usurp the same; yet I am, and have been, inclined to limit the use of carnal arms to the case of necessary self-defence, whether such regards our own person, or the protection of our country against invasion; or of our rights of property, and the freedom of our laws and of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... rights of woman. It is an argument against those corruptions that you have permitted to grow and fasten upon your political methods and appliances, and not an argument against her rights as contrasted with the rights of man. What! usurp an exclusive control—then degrade the modes of exercising power, and after that say the degradation is reason why the usurpation should continue unchallenged. What profanation of the very powers of thought is that! ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the people of Damascus can be made aware of the important changes in their social condition, when the Hatti Sherif of Gulhane shall be no longer to them a dead letter, when violence shall no longer usurp the place of justice, nor men endanger their lives by bearing witness to the truth. You will be able to return to Syria in a few months under better auspices, and cover the slanderers of your people ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... then that not merely you, the jury in this case, but the other letters also, should be on your guard against such attempts. If any one who chooses is to be licensed to leave his own place and usurp that of others, with no objection on your part (whose concurrence is an indispensable condition of all writing), I fail to see how combinations are to have their ancient constitutional rights secured to them. But my first ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... badly in his new abode, for it seemed to him as if the spectre of the man whose place he was to usurp was hovering over his couch. But with the dawn of day, and especially when the hour arrived for him to go out and give his lessons, he felt his courage return to him, though rashness perhaps would be the more correct word. And with a mien of perfect ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... stones be made bread,' etc. Why Christ fasted forty days and would not exceed the same, without sense and feeling of hunger, is before touched upon, that is, He would provoke the devil to battle by the wilderness and long abstinence, but He would not usurp or arrogate any more to Himself in that case than God had wrought with others, His servants and messengers before. But Christ Jesus (as St. Augustine more amply declares), without feeling of hunger, might have ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... insignia on the altar, and addressing the king and his surrounding prelates, said, "There are the crown and sceptre which Canute intrusted to my charge. To you, I neither give nor refuse them, you may take them if you please; but I strictly forbid any of my brother bishops to usurp an office, which is the prerogative ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... effort meeting him, his strength restored, And wing'd for flight his agile limbs anew? The son of Peleus, as he ran, his brows Shaking, forbad the people to dismiss A dart at Hector, lest a meaner hand 240 Piercing him, should usurp the foremost praise. But when the fourth time to those rivulets. They came, then lifting high his golden scales, Two lots the everlasting Father placed Within them, for Achilles one, and one 245 For Hector, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... excited, not because they aspired like her, like the philosophers, like the popes, like the press in our times, to a participation in the government of the world, but because they disputed her claims as one of the powers of the age. The Jesuits were scandalized that such a woman should usurp the reins of state, especially when they perceived that she mocked and defied them; and they therefore refused to pay her court, and even conspired to effect her overthrow. But they had not sufficiently considered the potency of her wrath, or the desperate means of revenge to which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... would have cost the State thirty million pounds, and it would have been cheap. Do you hear that? It would have been cheap! Bakkan is one of the most vulnerable outposts of the Empire. It is a terrible danger-zone. If certain powers can usurp our authority—and, mark you, the whole blamed place is already riddled with this new pernicious doctrine—you know what I mean—before we know where we are the whole East will be in a blaze. India! My God! This contract we were negotiating would have ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... who usurp'st the sacred name of conscience, Did not thy own declare him innocent? To me declare him so? The king shall ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... to others, as a charge full of danger and expense; and sometimes, without his permission, the Romans, seeing themselves so abandoned, created an emperor for their defense, or suffered some one to usurp the dominion. This occurred at the period of which we now speak, when Maximus, a Roman, after the death of Valentinian, seized the government, and compelled Eudocia, widow of the late emperor, to take him for her husband; but she, being of imperial ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... forms appear? When chilling horrors shake the affrighted king, And guilt torments him with her scorpion sting, When keenest feelings at his bosom pull, And fancy tells him that the seat is full; Why need the ghost usurp the monarch's place, To frighten children with his mealy face? The king alone should form the phantom there, And talk and ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... ludicrous to be compelled to record that out of a quarrel, originating in a servile endeavour on the part of the two principal nobles of a great nation to usurp the functions of a maitre-d'hotel, grew an attempt at civil war, which, had not the treachery of Richelieu nipped it in the bud, might have involved France in a sanguinary and unnatural series of conflicts that would ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal. Of course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or exercising function, could form a solid ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... has much the same features as that of the Rhine, but there is a great difference between the French wines, which are mostly red, and the German, which are mostly white. Among the latter hundreds of spurious, horrible concoctions for the foreign market usurp the name of Mosel wine. It is hardly necessary even to mention the pretty names by which the real wines are known, and which may be found on any wine-card at the good, unpretending inns that make Mosel travelling a special delight. The Saar wines are included among the Mosel, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... booty—be alone extoll'd? Or he who, scorning safety, boldly roams Through woods and dreary wilds, to scour the land Of thieves and robbers? Is nought left for us? Must gentle woman quite forego her nature,— Force against force employ,—like Amazons, Usurp the sword from man, and bloodily Revenge oppression? In my heart I feel The stirrings of a noble enterprize; But if I fail—severe reproach, alas! And bitter misery will be my doom. Thus on my ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... are you going? Have you not professed voluntary poverty, and that you would traverse towns and castles and distant places, as the case required, barefooted and unostentatiously, in order to preach the word of God in all humility? And do you now presume to usurp these estates to yourselves against the will of the lords of these fees? Your religion appears to be in a great measure dying away, and ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... sing, not all (or if all) the Men only and not the Women.... Some object, 'Because it is not permitted to speak in the Church in two cases: 1. By way of teaching.... For this the Apostle accounteth an act of authority which is unlawful for a woman to usurp over the man, II, Tim. 2, 13. And besides the woman is more subject to error than a man, ver. 14, and therefore might soon prove a seducer if she became a teacher.... It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the Church by way of propounding questions though under pretence of desire to learn for ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... oppression, it exclaimed against arbitrary imprisonment, and demanded regularly convoked states-general. After this act of courage, it decreed the irremovability of its members, and the incompetence of any who might usurp their functions. This bold manifesto was followed by the arrest of two members, d'Epremenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the establishment of a ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Teutonic etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labors or usurp their honors, but that I might spare perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in rectitude of understanding. Junius ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... bulbous multiplicity of breeches, sat on his "stoep" and smoked his pipe in lordly silence; nor did it ever enter his brain that the active, restless Yankee, whom he saw through his half-shut eyes worrying about in dog day heat, ever intent on the main chance, was one day to usurp control over these goodly Dutch domains. Already, however, the races regarded each other with disparaging eyes. The Yankees sneeringly spoke of the round-crowned burghers of the Manhattoes as the "Copper-heads;" while the latter, glorying in ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... comfortable, like the buzzing of bees, some of them strange and unusual to us. One cicada had a sustained note, in quality about like that of our own August-day's friend, but in quantity and duration as the roar of a train to the gentle hum of a good motor car. Like all cicada noises it did not usurp the sound world, but constituted itself an underlying basis, so to speak. And when it stopped the silence seemed to rush in as ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... original thirteen States; and these interests, corporate or otherwise, have been cherished and consolidated by a benign policy, without any one supposing the law-making power had united with the Judiciary, under the universal sanction of the whole country, to usurp a jurisdiction which did not belong to them. Such a discovery at this late date is more extraordinary than anything which has occurred in the judicial history of this or any other country. Texas, under a previous organization, was admitted as a State; but no State can be admitted into the Union which ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... provided a house for her, and assigned to her service a retinue of domestics. Shortly afterward he attempted to open such a correspondence with her as might favor his desires, but failing in this, he proceeded to usurp some freedoms, at which her delicacy revolted. Her rebuke, firm and noble, drove him back abashed; but his impetuous temper could not well brook disappointment, and in the ardor of his passion he subsequently attempted to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Ocean in his deep abodes, And Tethys; both revered among the gods. They ask what brings her there: 'Ne'er ask,' says she, 'What brings me here, heaven is no place for me. You'll see, when night has covered all things o'er, 150 Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore Usurp the heavens; you 'll see them proudly roll In their new orbs, and brighten all the pole. And who shall now on Juno's altars wait, When those she hates grow greater by her hate? I on the nymph a brutal form impress'd, Jove to a goddess has transformed the beast; This, this was ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... many years in my life I think that work has filled the place love occupies in many, perhaps in most men's lives. Everything comes second to work. I know that, because if any one attempts to interfere with my work, or to usurp any of the time that should be given to it, any regard I may have for that person turns at once ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... account of a few half-mawkish, half- blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular—a reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to usurp the function of the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... children had put down their books. It was bed-time. They always waited for family prayers. When the Doctor was absent Mrs Morgan or Charles read them, but as he was momentarily expected, his wife and son were unwilling to usurp his office. At length the hall-door bell rang. It was the Doctor. He appeared unusually sad and serious. The family assembled. His voice, generally so firm, trembled ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... He is jealous of me. He only awaits the slightest excuse to feed me to Komal. He fears that I may some day usurp his power." ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... disfiguring disease caused by want of exercise and excess of nourishment: the legs swell to such a degree from the knees downward, that the form of the calf and foot is entirely lost, and the thick cylinders which usurp the place of legs, and from under which the toes only project, resemble nothing but the legs of elephants; thence the name of elephantism has been bestowed on the complaint by Europeans. It does not ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... obeyed a limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human kind. The acquiescence of the provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... that criticism changes its canons with the years and that Hawthorne simply adapted himself (unconsciously, as a spokesman of his day) to contemporaneous standards. His audience was less averse from the principle that the artist should on no account usurp the pulpit's function. If the artist-preacher had a golden mouth, it was enough. This has perhaps always been the attitude of ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... her of much of that beloved society. Hitherto she had been Maulevrier's chosen companion, at Fellside—indeed, his sole companion after the dismissal of his tutor. Now this brown, bearded stranger would usurp her privileges—those two young men would go roaming over the hills, fishing, otter-hunting, going to distant wrestling matches and leaving her at home. It was a hard thing, and she was prepared to detest the interloper. Even to-night she would be a loser by his presence. Under ordinary circumstances ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... their own dismal houses, with their own stupid families, the faithful husband and wife sitting opposite to each other in their own chimney corners, yawning models of constancy. And this they call virtue! How the meanest vices usurp the name of virtue! Leonora's is a jealousy of the most illiberal and degrading species; a jealousy of the temper, not of the heart. She is too cold to feel the passion of love.—She never could be ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... let not Faustus rob great Koster's name Like him, who since usurp'd Columbus' fame. Pierian laurels flourish round his tomb; And ever-living roses breathe ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... conciliated general good will by his engaging manners,—was viewed by his father with an anxiety of love that sometimes became almost painful to witness. But this natural self-surrender to a first involuntary emotion Lord Altamont did not suffer to usurp any such lengthened expression as might too painfully have reminded me of being "one too many." One solitary half minute being paid down as a tribute to the sanctities of the case, his next care was to withdraw me, the stranger, from any oppressive feeling of strangership. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... some men are merely subsidiary to their lives, externals easy to be dropped; with others they usurp the man. They usurp a life when it is never happy away from them, when in the midst of other occupations absent pleasures rise vivid to the mind, with an irresistible call. Young Gourlay's too-seeing imagination, always visioning absent delights, combined with his weakness ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... she has collected or given is to be expended. In the choir, women may sing of salvation; but it is fearful presumption for her to speak of it in the body of the Church, or let her voice be heard there imploring salvation for herself or others. This might defile the sanctuary or tempt her to "usurp authority over the man." Occasionally there is to be found a denomination which will allow a woman to pray in public, or to relate her Christian experience; but even in some of these the practice does not receive a very large amount of encouragement, and her right to exhort ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... utility themselves they cannot impart the art to their pupils. As I have said, librarians contend that this is true, yet many of them with opportunities to instruct teachers in these matters lying unused before them, neglect them and coolly step in to usurp one of the school's functions and rebuke the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... art thou, that usurp'st this time of night,[11] Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did sometimes march? By heaven I ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... the word; and whose ideal is a number, more or less small, of cruisers neither fitted nor intended for combined action. Under these circumstances, the details of the internal economy of the single ship usurp in the professional mind an undue proportion of the attention which, in a rightly constituted navy, might far better be applied to the study of naval tactics, in the higher sense of that word, and of naval campaigns. Farragut could not but feel the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors, and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force; the frontlet on her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... the people of the Lord as if they were bread; as it is said: "The wicked have dissipated thy law," wherein in these latter times Ireland has been well and prosperously planted and instructed. Thanks be to God, I usurp nothing; I share with these whom He hath called and predestinated to preach the Gospel in much persecution, even to the ends of the earth. But the enemy hath acted invidiously towards me through the tyrant Coroticus, who fears neither God nor His priests whom He hath chosen, and committed ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... he, I would have you banish all Fear; you are not fallen into the Hands of barbarous Christians, whose Practice and Profession are as distant as the Country they came from, is from this Island, which they have usurp'd from the original Natives. Capt. Cuffey's returning the Service you once did him, by saving your Life, which we shall not, after the Example of your Country, take in cold Blood, may give you ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... comical conversation and incident. Jokes of all kinds are constantly on the wing, and no one can consider himself safe from collision with them. Ridiculous nicknames become attached—no one knows how—to the most dignified characters, and altogether usurp the places of the genuine cognomens. No person possesses the art of concealment to such a degree that all his foibles and weaknesses will escape observation in the companionship of a camp; and when discovered, the treatment of them is merciless just in proportion ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... usurp this height ... But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... and proportions: first the blade—then the ear—then, and not till then, the full corn in the ear; and thus, as Dr. Temple wisely says, "not to forget wisdom in teaching knowledge." If the blade be forced, and usurp the capital it inherits; if it be robbed by you its guardian of its birthright, or squandered like a spendthrift, then there is not any ear, much less any corn; if the blade be blasted or dwarfed in our haste and greed for the full shock and its price, we spoil all ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... saved my own, and more, you saved much more Than my poor life is worth. But, sir, think well! This man is dangerous, not to me alone, But to the King of England; for he'll yet Usurp the throne! Think well! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... with Antonius' suit to Poppaea, which is full of passion and poetry, but is not allowed to usurp too much room in the progress of the play. Then, in fine contrast to the grovelling servility of the Emperor's creatures, we see the erect figure of the grand stoic philosopher, Persius' tutor, Cornutus, whose free-spokenness procures him banishment. Afterwards ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... these leaders and agitators tend more and more to usurp the place of the public authorities in proportion as the latter allow themselves to be called in question and shorn of their strength. The tyranny of these new masters has for result that the crowds obey them much more docilely than they have obeyed any government. If in consequence ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... a general increase of moral energy, assisted by some minor legal changes, will restore the balance,—such a conception of the situation is less than half true. No doubt, the "plain people" of the United States have been morally indifferent, and have allowed unscrupulous special interests to usurp too much power; but that is far from being the whole story. The unscrupulous energy of the "Boss" or the "tainted" millionaire is vitally related to the moral indifference of the "plain people." Both of them have been ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... mother. 'Oh, what am I to do! What—bring a distemper on yourself, and usurp the sacred prerogative of God, because you can't ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... oaths of allegiance did he proceed to his capital, where he arrived quite unexpectedly, so that no festivities had been prepared. After some time, he had all the Syrian emirs arrested by his Mam-luks, because they tried to usurp his powers; he then appointed a regent, and himself returned to Kerak, taking with him everything he had found in the sultan's palace, and there he remained in spite of the entreaties of the faithful emirs, and lived simply ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... overheard not many evenings ago as I went with a friend of mine into Hyde Park. We found, as usual, a great number of gentlemen's servants at the park gate, and my friend, being unacquainted with the saucy custom of those fellows to usurp their masters' titles, was very much surprised to hear a lusty rogue tell one of his companions who inquired after his fellow-servant that his Grace had his head broke by the cook-maid for making a sop in ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... is to materialise mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just; to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; assuming the title of the champions of modern civilisation, and placing themselves in a station which they usurp with insolence, and from which they are driven ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... Heligoland. Came Paradies, the little German trader, in his finest blacks, and chose a seat off in one corner of the room. Then "Foxy Grandpa" and the "Arizona Babe" arrived, and the old maid from Zamboanga, who, when expression failed her, would usurp the conversation with a "blab, blab, blab!" And as the serpent made for old Laocooen, so she ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... It is probable that the affection of the parent for the daughter prevented him from ever thinking of marrying again, for she was a model housekeeper, and he could not bear the thought of seeing anyone come into the family and usurp, even in a small degree, her ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis |
