"Ascendency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "That the political ascendency of the English is paramount here is apparent. They might if they pleased, by means of an offensive and defensive alliance between the two powers, gain the entire trade of the northwest coast of Borneo, from Tanjong Datu to ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... assigned to the South should be those which dealt most intimately and most extensively with the finances, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country. The quiet manner in which the North accepted this inequitable distribution of political power added only another proof of the complete ascendency which the South had acquired in the councils of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... confusion during the first Acts of the drama. But, in the last Act, harmony is always restored, order succeeds to disorder, tranquillity to agitation; and the mind of the spectator, no longer perplexed by the apparent ascendency of evil, is soothed, and purified, and made to acquiesce in the moral lesson deducible from ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... greatest of all human gifts, and we all have it in some measure. There are some to whom we are something, if not everything. There are some, who are grappled to us with hoops of steel. There are some, over whom we have ascendency, or at least to whom we have access, who have opened the gates of the City of Mansoul to us, some we can sway with a word, a touch, a look. It must always be a solemn thing for a man to ask what he has done with this dread power of influence. For what ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... "During the ascendency of the sheriff and the absence of the anti-Mormons from their homes," said Governor Ford,* "the people who had been burnt out of their houses assembled at Nauvoo, from whence, with many others, they sallied forth and ravaged the country, stealing and plundering whatever ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Margaret Tittle, was a Creole from the West Indies, and at the time of her marriage her property was still in the estates owned by her father near St. Kitts. When their son, the second Robert, was seven years of age, his mother died, and his father afterwards married again. The second wife's ascendency over her husband was unfortunately exerted against the best interests of the son. His desire to become an artist, his wish for a university training, were disregarded, and he was sent instead to St. Kitts, where he was given employment ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... old ecclesiastical observation that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church." From the Federalist point of view these editors were "lying Jacobins," incendiaries, anarchists. "Should Jacobinism gain the ascendency," an orator at Deerfield, Massachusetts, warned his auditors, in the midst of the elections of 1800, "let every man arm himself, not only to defend his property, his wife, and children, but to secure his life from the dagger of his Jacobin neighbor." In vain ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... bidding of one man, to settle no less a question than whom they shall worship. There, on the slope of Carmel, with the brassy heaven gleaming hard and dry above them, and the yellow, burnt-up plain of Jezreel at their feet, the expectant people stand. The assembly was a singular proof of Elijah's ascendency; for Ahab's bluster had sunk, cowed in his presence, and he had meekly done the prophet's bidding in summoning 'all Israel' and the eight hundred and fifty Baal and Asherah prophets, for an unexplained purpose. The false priests would come ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... courage and talents has advanced himself in life, and still remains poor, are indescribable; "he is no better than ourselves," they say, "why should he be above us?"—for they have no conception that anybody has a right to ascendency over themselves except by birth or money. This feeling amongst the vulgar has been, to a certain extent, the bane of the two services, naval and military. The writer does not make this assertion rashly; he observed this feeling at work in the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... reached his own quarters before even his absence had been suspected. His agency in the death of his brother was not suspected even by his accomplice in other crimes, the outlaw called Black Donald, who, thinking to gain an ascendency over one whom he called his patron, actually pretended to have made way with Eugene Le Noir for the sake ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Smith didn't propose to back down that easy. "Do you mean to say that fire, and nothing more than fire, can bring about human ascendency?" ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... some leading features and principles of the constitution wrought by the Reform Bill of 1832, exceeds any that were enacted by the Bill of Rights or the Act of Settlement. The only absolutely new principle introduced in 1688 was that establishment of Protestant ascendency which was contained in the clause which disabled any Roman Catholic from wearing the crown. In other respects, those great statutes were not so much the introduction of new principles, as a recognition of privileges of the people which had been long established, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... of the past, that lent To jewels bright and rare Ascendency at every birth In this our planet's air, Hath to October's children given The opal ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... easily discernible how little fitted were natures so strongly concentrated to furnish one of those brilliant developments, which imposes the momentary ascendency of a people on the world; and that, no doubt, is why the part played externally by the Cymric race has always been a secondary one. Destitute of the means of expansion, alien to all idea of aggression and conquest, little desirous of making its thought ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... German language, the "Heliand," i.e. the Saviour, is written in Saxon or Low-German. The Saxon Emperors, however, did little for German literature, while the Swabian Emperors were proud of being the patrons of art and poetry. The language spoken at their court being High-German, the ascendency of that dialect may be said to date from their days, though it was not secured till the time of the Reformation, when the translation of the Bible by Luther put a firm and lasting stamp on what has since become the literary speech ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... them to the Palais-Royal. As they were going along, Raoul was engaged in devising his scheme of action. The sole depositary of two secrets, he did not despair of concluding some arrangement between the two parties. He knew the influence he exercised over Buckingham, and the ascendency he had acquired over De Guiche, and affairs did not look utterly hopeless. On their arrival in the gallery, dazzling with the blaze of light, where the most beautiful and illustrious women of the court moved to and fro, like stars in their own atmosphere, Raoul could not prevent himself ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the object of arriving at the truth but in order to inflict a defeat on opponents and to establish the ascendency of some particular school of thought. It was often a sense of personal victory and of the victory of the school of thought to which the debater adhered that led him to pursue the debate. Advanced Sanskrit philosophical ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... was coming over me, and exhibiting towards the imaginary persons before me the decided look of the inflexible commander, who was determined and ready to order them away to execution. Looking and acting as if the tender and forgiving feelings of the father had again got the ascendency, and as if I was about to ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... attract us till it is housed in an individual." "A man, a personal ascendency, is the only ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Christianity; when the power of the gospel had strengthened men's will and had begun to plant in every heart a love for something purer than fleshly appetite; when the spiritual part of our nature began to gain the ascendency and to occupy the place for which it was made; then intemperance loosed its hold and soon disappeared, never to trouble ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... used in different hemispheres by highly civilized communities, and widely diffused over the surface of the globe; and he has written at a period when communication was facilitated by peace; while to the wonder of his own countrymen, he has to an unexampled degree established an ascendency over the tastes of foreign nations. His works have been sought by foreigners with an avidity equalling, nay, almost exceeding, that with which they have been received among us. The conflicting literary tastes of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... either from a desire not to place himself entirely at the mercy of foreign powers, or dreading the ascendency which the count d'Artois, should he return at the head of the victorious emigrants, would assume over the government he had established, preferred restoring the government alone. In general Bouille he had a devoted and skilful ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it." ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... the Assembly met, than Patrick Henry's ascendency became apparent. His sway over that body was such that it was described as "omnipotent." And by the time the session had been in progress not quite a month, Washington informed Madison that "the accounts from Richmond" were "very unpropitious to federal measures." "In one ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... position in his pages. The execution of Admiral Carraciolo, an undoubted blot on the character of our naval hero, is given in all its details, and with some little decorations and embellishments, for which we suspect that we have to thank our imaginative historian. Nelson's weakness, the ascendency exercised over him by Lady Hamilton, or Emma Lyonna, as M. Dumas prefers styling her, her intimacy with the Queen of Naples, and subservient to the wishes and interests of the Neapolitan court, are all set forth in the most glowing colours. This is the heavy artillery, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... that, as Nature has given its periods to the stages of animal life, it has also set limits to all moral and political ascendency. While the city of the Medici is receding from its crumbling walls, like the human form shrinking into "the lean and slipper'd pantaloon," the Queen of the Adriatic sleeping on her muddy isles, and Rome itself is only to be traced by fallen temples and buried columns, the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... disposition, even his positive and opinionated temper, were sources of popular strength to him. People were strongly drawn to him. His friends were devoted to him. He had that quality, which we vaguely term magnetic, the quality of attaching others to us, and maintaining over them the ascendency of our character ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... avolation of its products, promotes levity, and that in proportion as its increase surpasses that of the general acid; and it is not until the action of the acetous becomes languid, that the putrid process gains the ascendency, when it is then ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... Caesar Octavianus. The soldiers at Brundusium saluted him as Caesar, but he declined their offers, and entered Rome almost alone. The city was at this time divided between the republicans and the friends of Mark Antony, but the latter, by adroit manoeuvres, had gained the ascendency, and enjoyed almost absolute power. At first, Augustus was haughtily treated by Antony, who refused to surrender Caesar's property; but after some fighting, in which Antony was worsted and forced to flee across the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... heart to water. Now that he was confronted by an exigency that had once vicariously yet deeply disturbed him in a similar affair of a friend of his, the code and habit of a lifetime gained an immediate ascendency—since then he had insisted that this particular situation was to be avoided above all others. And his mind leaped to possibilities. She had wished to kill him—would she remain desperate enough to ruin him? Even though he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... angry with her? He thought of the time, when the betrayal of Lord Harry's vindictive purpose in leaving England had frightened her—when he had set aside his own sense of what was due to him, for her sake—and had helped her to communicate, by letter, with the man whose fatal ascendency over Iris had saddened his life. Was what he heard, now, the return that ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... no longer wears his gaberdine. If he wears a prayer-shawl at all, it is one made of silk. The Jeremiah of the desert has given way to the young, amorous, dream-filled poet, a poet of the sort that arose among the Jews in Spain during the years of the Moorish ascendency. Yet, a certain intensity, a certain originality, a certain vein of genius, has undergone eclipse in the change. Something a little brilliant, a little facile, a little undistinguished, has introduced itself, even ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... apparent link of connexion between their last topic of conversation and the sage reflection he was about to launch—"only observe," and, as he raised himself upon his elbow, something very like a sigh escaped from him, "how complete, in our modern system of life, is the ascendency of woman over us! Every art is hers—is devoted to her service. Poetry, music, painting, sculpture—all seem to have no theme but woman. It is her loveliness, her power over us, that is paraded and chanted on every side. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... number of the Flying Post, a few days afterwards, contained an attack on one of the few Tories among the Lords of the Regency, nominated for the management of affairs till the King's arrival. During Bolingbroke's brief term of ascendency, he had despatched the Earl of Anglesey on a mission to Ireland. The Earl had hardly landed at Dublin when news followed him of the Queen's death, and he returned to act as one of the Lords Regent. In the Flying Post Defoe asserted that the object of his journey to Ireland was "to new ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... the production of 'Julius Caesar,' he finally left Jonson and all friends and foes lagging far behind both in achievement and reputation. This new exhibition of the force of his genius re-established, too, the ascendency of the adult actors who interpreted his work, and the boys' supremacy was quickly brought to an end. In 1602 Shakespeare produced 'Hamlet,' 'that piece of his which most kindled English hearts.' The story of the Prince of Denmark had been ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... thought, with unparalleled cunning and discretion detected the difficulty and provided a remedy, to find his plans thwarted by an obstinate wilfulness, that he could not help boiling over a little: his kind feelings however soon got the ascendency; the deep contrition of the poor father touched his heart, and the lovely girl who had only increased his interest in her by making good his words, received from him the most attentive care; nor could he doubt that at length his advice was appreciated, when he heard Mr. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... he did not for an instant abandon the contest. He lived in the faith that his chance would come, and from day to day was ready for its coming. He schemed against us as we schemed to protect ourselves from him; if we watched him, he kept his eye on us. His ascendency over Luzau-Rischenheim grew markedly greater after a visit which his cousin paid to him in Paris. From this time the young count began to supply him with resources. Thus armed, he gathered instruments round ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... attaches to certain individuals—directly a sort of miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. All the poetry disappeared, as a machinist's whistle causes the disappearance of a fairy palace. Everything was seen by a different light. D'Harmental's native aristocracy regained the ascendency. Bathilde was then nothing but the daughter of this man—that is to say, a grisette: her beauty, her grace, her elegance, even her talents, were but an accident—an error of nature—something like a rose flowering on a cabbage-stalk. The chevalier shrugged his shoulders as he stood ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Austrian Government, in its efforts to maintain its ascendency in Lombardy, had sent Baron Hummelauer to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... consulted about this unexpected apparition. The senior alderman, a patrician, who was particularly expert in deciphering the meaning of the signs which occasionally appeared in the political horizon, and had thereby obtained a powerful ascendency in the council, pressed his fat chin into furrows, and his narrow brow into wrinkles, and, with reflection in his little eyes, assured his sapient brethren that "This distinguished stranger was nothing else than a secret envoy of his imperial majesty, who was come into Germany to ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... purity of heart. For this consists in the desires and affections, as well as the conduct, being in strict subjection to the indications of conscience and the principles of moral rectitude. The inclination, thus cherished, gradually acquires greater ascendency over the moral feelings;—at each succeeding contest, it more and more occupies the mind; the attention is less and less directed to the moral truths and motives which are opposed to it; the inclination at length acquires the predominance, and is followed by volition. This is ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... more closely to an age in which progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... eventually, through many trials, errors, failures, and triumphs, alluring and leading it into better paths. It is not good for society that either of these conflicting forces should gain the decided ascendency; nor do we believe with Mr. Mill, that the preponderance at the present time belongs ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... court at Nanking. The French minister refused to cooeperate, partly because the rebels had not been careful to distinguish between the images in Roman Catholic chapels and those in pagan temples, but chiefly from an objection to the ascendency of Protestant influence, coupled with a fear of losing the power that comes from a protectorate of Roman Catholic missions. How different would have been [Page 162] the future of China had the allied powers backed up the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... philosophical literature. Philosophy was a sealed study to those who did not know Greek. It was his aim, by putting the best Greek speculation into the most elegant Latin form, to extend the education of his countrymen, and to enrich their literature. He wished at the same time to strike a blow at the ascendency of Epicureanism throughout Italy. The doctrines of Epicurus had alone appeared in Latin in a shape suited to catch the popular taste. There seems to have been a very large Epicurean literature in Latin, of which all but a few ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... wonderful abilities are recognized by us all. His father, Hamilcar, had the very highest hopes of him, Hasdrubal has written again and again saying that in his young kinsman he recognized his superior, and that in loftiness of aim, in unselfish patriotism, in clearness of judgment, in the marvellous ascendency he has gained over the troops, in his talent in administration, and in the greatness of his military conceptions, he saw in him a genius of the highest order. If it be in man to overthrow the rising greatness of Rome, to reform our disordered administration, to ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... having a struggle with herself. It showed plainly on the thin, anxious face. The lips compressed with determination, the eyes set, then wavered, and again the indeterminate lines of acquiescent subjection gained their accustomed ascendency. Back and forth assertion and complaisance fled and followed; only assertion was ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... now believed that her choice for life had been made; and while he deplored the infatuation which could induce so gifted a woman to forget her station and character, he was himself too frank not to see that the individual who had in so short a time gained this ascendency over the feelings of Alida, was, in many respects, fitted to exercise a powerful influence over the imagination of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... beset with barriers. His ambition had become impatient. Now that he was a figure of local power and importance, temptation began to assail him with offers of rapid elevation if only he would be complaisant. In this situation, the father in him rose into the ascendency; he had compromised and yielded, though always managing to keep his dubious transactions secret. And now at length ambition ruled him—though as yet not undisturbed, for conscience sometimes rose in unexpected revolt and gave ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the American people should be prepared for further rebellious action on the part of that faction whose creed it is that rebellion is right when directed against the ascendency of their political opponents. They have done their utmost to assist the Rebels all through the war, and the great riots in New York last year were the legitimate consequences of their doctrine, if not of their labors. We know that organizations hostile to the Union have been formed in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... with a salary of seven thousand pounds a year of the Company's money. This man, in a letter to the Governor-General and Council, received the 1st of September, 1778, says,—"His Highness himself [the Nabob] is not deficient in regard for me, but certain bad men have gained an ascendency over his temper, by whose instigation he acts." You will see, my Lords, how this poor man was crippled in the execution of his duty, and dishonored by the corruption of this woman and her eunuchs, to whom Mr. Hastings had given the supreme government, and with it an uncontrolled influence over all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... length opened and read. What noble features has this lady! I watched them, as she read, with great solicitude, but discovered in them nothing that could cherish my hope. All was stern and inflexible. No wonder at the ascendency this spirit possesses over the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... of whom he was the recognised leader and over whom his ability in the various arts and crafts of the farm, his physical prowess in sports, his gay, cheery manner, and, it must be said, the reputation he bore for a certain fierce brute courage in rough-and-tumble fighting, gave him a sort of ascendency. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... and the East, would have obtained her "natural boundaries" for France, and supremacy over Egypt. The war might have left but three great powers in the world, namely, France, Russia, and America, or the United States, the latter to include Canada and Mexico, with the Slave-Power's ascendency everywhere established in North America. It was on the cards that we might avoid dissension and civil strife by extending the Union, and by invading and conquering the territories of our neighbors. Why this course was not adopted it is not our purpose now to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... loyal Whigs or Dissenters from High Churchmen. It separated the men who could drink two bottles of port after dinner from the men who could not. To men of delicate digestions the test imposed by the jovial party in ascendency must have been severer than those due to political or ecclesiastical bigotry. They had to choose between social disabilities on the one side, and on the other indigestion for themselves and gout for their descendants. Thackeray, in a truly pathetic passage, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... relief after Montreal. There is no such sense of strain and tightness in the atmosphere. The British, if not greatly in the majority, are in the ascendency; also, the city seems conscious of other than financial standards, and quietly, with dignity, aware of her own purpose. The Canadians, like the Americans, chose to have for their capital a city which did not lead in population or in wealth. This is particularly ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... the beginning, she had been all siren, all deceit. She was but the semblance, the figment, of his foolish dream, and why should the dream move him still, shattered as it was by the torturing realities of the truth? Why must he needs bring tribute to her powers, flatter her ascendency in his life, by faltering before her casual presence? He rallied all his forces. He silently swore a mighty oath that he at least would take note of his own dignity, that he would deport himself with a due sense of his ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... which comprised little more than the present county of Down, to be recognised as Prince of all Ulster. Now the Hy-Nial family, not only had long given monarchs to all Ireland, but had also the lion's share of their own Province, and King Donald as their head could not permit their ascendency to be disputed. The ancestors of the present pretender, Congal, surnamed "the squint-eyed," had twice received and cherished the licentious Bards when under the ban of Tara, and his popularity with that still powerful order was one prop of his ambition. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... late great battles under Wellington; Busaco had been fought and Fuentes de Onoro gained without them; and they were in the mood, both officers and men, of fierce determination to fight somebody! This was intimated somewhat roughly to Beresford, and he had not that iron ascendency over his troops Wellington possessed. As a matter of fact, he was himself as stubbornly eager to fight as any private in ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... who had followed, and would have detained me. It was my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in play and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in; fell ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... power; potency, potentiality; jiva^; puissance, might, force, energy &c 171; dint; right hand, right arm; ascendency^, sway, control; prepotency, prepollence^; almightiness, omnipotence; authority &c 737; strength &c 159. ability; ableness &c adj.^; competency; efficacy; efficiency, productivity, expertise (skill) 698; validity, cogency; enablement^; vantage ground; influence &c 175. pressure; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of his great successes with the general public. The gift of illustration, after all, is a very rare one. Nothing is to be understood more easily than the value the public began to put upon du Maurier's gift. In a response of that sort the public display true discrimination. The ascendency of du Maurier as a Punch artist was more than anything due to the fact that for his work in that paper he drew upon the sentiment of family life from the resources of his own experience. And nothing that we could write here would so entirely reveal the happy character of his own family life ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... General-Fieldmarshal Graf Helmuth von Moltke—or, as we shall briefly call him, Moltke—means to give an account of that memorable phase of modern history, perhaps, so far as Europe is concerned, the most important of the nineteenth century. This was the ascendency of Prussia, of her king and of her people, culminating in the unification and the consolidation of most of the German states into one great empire, with all its realization of military and political power, of social, economic, and, in a wide sense, of cultural eminence and efficiency. The barest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... quarter-moon dat I shall find by de same proportions of expenses I lay out in de suffumigations, as nine, to de product of nine multiplied into itselfBut I shall find no more to-night as maybe two or dree times nine, because dere is a thwarting power in de house of ascendency." ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... portion of the twenty-two years, when we have had the President from the free States, the administration has been under the control of southern sentiments, and southern interests have been in the ascendency, through the servility of northern men. Do you leave the Union in order to secure the protection of a better Constitution? No; for they who have left us have said that the Constitution was well enough, if the people were sufficiently enlightened to live under it. Why is ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... of the more gentle or enthusiastic to escape from the religious vacuum into which schism has precipitated them. Quite different is the course of the more strict and dauntless theologians; and the ascendency of logic over pious feeling carries with these the majority of the Bezpopovtsy. No consequence is too revolting for them, and no hesitating subterfuge worthy of a thought. The priesthood, they hold, is extinct, leaving only the sacrament of baptism, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... strongminded and unscrupulous peasant uses the Church to extort money, power, and privilege. He is a priest neither by vocation nor ambition, but because the life suits him. He has boundless authority over his flock, and taxes them stiffly enough to be a rich man. The old Protestant ascendency is now too broken to gall him. On the whole, an easygoing, amiable, even modest man as long as his dues are paid and his ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... commission, whilst it justified his patron's sagacity, showed that he was sufficiently master of himself to become the master of other minds. Of all his brethren few were so "fit for action." To the same cause to which he owed this practical ascendency, we are disposed to ascribe his popularity as a preacher; for we agree with Dr. Thompson, (Life of Owen, p. cvi.,) in thinking that Owen's power in the pulpit must have been greater than is usually surmised by his modern readers. Those who knew him describe him as a singularly fluent and persuasive ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... "Separate thyself, I pray thee: if thou wilt take the left hand, I will go to the right, and if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." The children of Ham and of Japhet would have quarreled, and one would have got the ascendency over the other. Not so with the just and generous Shemite—the reproachless model of all oriental virtues, if we may forget the eclipse of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Louis XIV., having reference mainly to the restoration of the Catholic religion in England. These letters, although in no way confirmatory of the alleged Plot, except so far as they indicated an anxious desire on the part of the members of that church to regain their lost ascendency in Great Britain, and their intention to use every effort for that purpose, things already well known, yet produced great excitement, and were regarded by many as conclusive proof of the truth of Oates' statements. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... back upon his former companion, and entered into discourse with the landlord. Michael Lambourne felt strongly disposed to bully; but his wrath died away in a few incoherent oaths and ejaculations, and he sank unresistingly under the ascendency which superior spirits possess over persons of his habits and description. He remained moody and silent in a corner of the apartment, paying the most marked attention to every motion of his late companion, against whom he began now to nourish a ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... had increased in stoutness, so that now Aunt Harriet had very little advantage over her, physically. But the moral ascendency of the elder still persisted. The two vast widows shared Mrs. Baines's bedroom, spending much of their time there in long, hushed conversations—interviews from which Mrs. Baines emerged with the air of one who has received enlightenment and Aunt Harriet with ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... unnatural life. If three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other than Republican, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... parish-curates. The superior government, not satisfied with having deprived the ministers of the faculty of personally prescribing certain correctional punishments, which although of little moment, when applied with discretion, greatly contributed to fortify their ascendency, and consequently, that of the sovereign; but, in order to exclude and divest them of all intervention in the civil administration, a direct attempt has also been made to lower the esteem in which they are held, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... obtain a still greater ascendency over the Court of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the correspondence ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... knew, must be diffused through all the passions of her heart; he congratulated himself upon the sure ascendency he had gained over her in this particular; and forthwith began to execute the plan he had erected for her destruction. That he might the more effectually deceive the vigilance of her father's wife, he threw such a dash of affectation in his complaisance towards ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... branch of the National Legislature, taken in connection with the right of the slave States to count five slaves as three freemen in the apportionment of representatives to the lower House of Congress, gave the Southern section an almost immediate ascendency in the Federal Government. To the South was thus opened by an unexpected combination of circumstances a wide avenue for the acquisition of fabulous wealth, and to Southern public men an incomparable ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... some formal ceremony to celebrate Kirby's ascendency to power. To this the Duca consented, and established the date as a fortnight hence, and the place as the temple on the plateau beyond the plateau of the castle, where the Ducas had been invested with their robes of state ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... Constitutional party gained power, there was an end to his own unshackled rule in Italy; if the Bourbonists succeeded, a different class of men would hold all the honours of the State. However feeble the Government of the Directory, its continuance secured his own present ascendency, and left him the hope of gaining supreme power when the public could tolerate the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... awakened him. His brain was working clearly now, and under forced draught. The magic of moonlight had lost its power. Habits of years reasserted themselves. His usual iron common sense regained its ascendency; though, strangely enough, there persisted in his mind a mystic feeling for the ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... bring before the king beautiful women through whom she planned to preserve her influence over him. One of these frail beauties, Francoise de Foix, completely won the heart of the monarch; her ascendency over him continued for a long period, in spite of the machinations of Louise, who, when Francis escaped her control, sought to bring disrepute and discredit ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... gives his orders, and dismisses them. Augereau has remained silent; it is only when he is outside that he regains his self-possession and is able to deliver himself of his customary oaths. He admits with Massena that this little devil of a general has inspired him with awe; he cannot understand the ascendency by which from the very first ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... good-will which is the moral bond of the civilized world. [Cheers.] Here again they were wrong in thinking that the reign of ideas, Old World ideas like those of duty and good faith, had been superseded by the ascendency of force. My Lord Mayor, war is at all times a hideous thing; at the best an evil to be chosen in preference to worse evils, and at the worst little better than the letting loose of hell upon earth. The prophet of old spoke of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... them and weary them out with skirmishes and surprises. The greatest joy reigned throughout the various States; fresh levies were ordered; the voices of the moderate party, which had been gaining strength, were silenced, and the determination to continue the war vigorously was in the ascendency. ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... cardinal had grand views, and a magnificent taste, is unquestionable: and I suppose few libraries contained more beautiful or more numerous copies of precious volumes than his own. For, when in favour with his royal master, Henry VIII., Wolsey had, in all probability, such an ascendency over him as to coax from him almost every choice book which he had inherited from his father, Henry VII.; and thus I should apprehend, although no particular mention is made of his library in the inventories of his goods[302] which have been published, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... feel a rage at this—a sort of rage that made my head spin as if the ground had reeled. "He would have found means of getting rid of me if he had not seen I was not long for this world," Carlos would say. He had gained an unlimited ascendency over his uncle's mind; he had made a solitude round this solemn dotage in which ended so much power, a great reputation, a stormy life of romance and passion—so picturesque and excessive even in his old man's love, whose after-effect, as though the work of a Nemesis resenting so much brilliance, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Paris is the Babylon of the deadly sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the restaurants of Montmartre, the only places that they know. . . . And my comrades of the Social-Democracy, they are also cheering, but to another tune.—'To-morrow! To St. Petersburg! Russian ascendency, the menace of civilization, must be obliterated!' The Kaiser waving the tyranny of another country as a scarecrow to his people! . . ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... also something hard and forbidding in the policy of successful statesmen. We are shocked at their injustice, cruelty, and rapaciousness; but they are often used by Providence to raise nations to preeminence, when their ascendency is, on the whole, a benefit to the world. There is nothing amiable or benign in the characters of such men as Oxenstiern, Richelieu, or Bismarck, but who can doubt the wisdom of their administration? It is ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... became so general and open as to be pseudo legitimate. Such a boom came as was never felt before under Protestant flags in tropical waters. The French, in spite of great exertions, were not yet able to rival the Dutch and English. These in fact had such an ascendency that when in 1663 Spain revived the asiento by a contract with two Genoese, the contractors must needs procure their slaves by arrangement with Dutch and English who delivered them at Curacao and Jamaica. Soon after this contract expired ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... which the proposed series will be devoted is that of "France in the New World,"—the attempt of Feudalism, Monarchy, and Rome to master a continent where, at this hour, half a million of bayonets are vindicating the ascendency of a regulated freedom;—Feudalism still strong in life, though enveloped and overborne by new-born Centralization; Monarchy in the flush of triumphant power; Rome, nerved by disaster, springing with renewed vitality from ashes and corruption, and ranging the earth to reconquer abroad ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... upper classes in Bulgarian cities; not much longer would ignorant peasants, who spoke only Bulgarian, call themselves Greek. The days of the spiritual domination of the Greek patriarchate were numbered. The ecclesiastical ascendency of the Greeks had crushed Bulgarian nationality more completely than even the civil power of the Turks. The abolition of the spiritual rule of foreigners and the restoration of the independent Bulgarian church became the leading object of the literary ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... they were mainly traders, discovered among the clerks in Madras a leader equal in military skill and energy to Dupleix himself. Robert Clive, who was but twenty-five years old at this time, organized a large force of Sepoys and gained a remarkable ascendency over them by his astonishing bravery. Dupleix paid no attention to the fact that peace had been declared in Europe at Aix-la-Chapelle, but continued to carry on his operations against the English. But Clive proved more than his equal and in two years ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... more just and considerate rulers? How would this country repent her folly, if she should thus become the instrument of her own abasement; if she should herself be the cause of establishing a power already the most formidable rival of her commercial and maritime ascendency, in the very heart of her most valuable possessions, at the main external source of her wealth ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... exquisites in literature may learn in what manner a man of true sentiment and sound feeling regards a trait that they have seen fit to stigmatize unbecoming, "I'll tell you what I most like," he added, abruptly; "and it is the manner in which you maintain the ascendency of your own country on all proper occasions, without descending to vulgar abuse of ours. You are obliged to bring the two nations in collision, and I respect your liberal hostility." This will probably be ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... posted upon all the points of Mrs. Thayer's history; she would be required to learn enough of astrology, clairvoyance and mesmerism, to pass for one of the genuine tribe; the plan would be so arranged that Mrs. Thayer would voluntarily consult this fortune-teller, who would soon gain a complete ascendency over her superstitious nature by revealing to her all her past life; finally Mrs. Thayer could be brought to tell all she knew of Pattmore as a means of aiding the sibyl to read ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... "Between us two plain speech after all is best," he went on. "You've no mistaken notions about me. You recognize the newspaper bogy which goes by my name as a caricature. You know that I am as proud of this state in my way as you are in your way. You know also the manner and method of my ascendency in state affairs, and by the same insight you ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... more deeply incensed against the Court party that had brought about his fall; and keen and bitter were his feelings at finding himself in the hands of the Prince himself. He chafed all the more at feeling the ascendency which Edward's lofty demeanour and personal kindness had formerly exerted over him, reviving again by force of habit; he hated himself for not having at once challenged his father's murderer; so as, if he could not do more, to have died by ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... development had, from some unknown cause, greatly advanced, and had now reached that condition in which it began powerfully to influence his whole existence, and would therefore become subject to the irresistible action of "natural selection." This action would quickly give the ascendency to mind: speech would probably now be first developed, leading to a still further advance of the mental faculties; and from that moment man, as regards the form and structure of most parts of his body, would ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the surviving ascendency of Johnson, or such the placability of her disposition, that, but for Piozzi's remonstrances, she would have softened down her "Anecdotes" to an extent which would have destroyed much of ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... necessary, but temporary stage of transition from the theological to the positive method in science. It is destined to supersede the one, and to introduce the other. It is conceived to be equally at variance with both; and the era of its ascendency is described as a critical, destructive, revolutionary age, useful only as it delivers mankind from the shackles of former beliefs, and prepares them for the adoption of a new and purely natural system of thought. During this era of decomposition there will commence the reconstruction of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... obtained a great ascendency over the mind of Theodore himself, and this, of itself, very much increased her importance in the eyes of the courtiers. They all began to think that, if they wished to obtain any favor of the emperor, it was essential that they should stand well with the princess. Thus every one, finding ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... destroyed by Publius Cornelius Scipio in 146 B.C., after a siege of two years, though it rose again as a Roman city under the Caesars, and became a place of great importance till burned in A.D. 698 by Hassan, the Arab; the struggle during the early part of its history was virtually a struggle for the ascendency of the Semitic people over the Aryan race ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... immediately became a Master in Chancery. In 1821 he was appointed Surrogate of New York, a position which he retained for twenty years. He was always a pronounced democrat, but notwithstanding this fact he was reappointed ten successive times. In 1840, however, the Whig party was in the ascendency in the New York Legislature, and through the instrumentality of William H. Seward, who introduced a system called "pipe laying," the whole political atmosphere was changed. "Pipe laying" was an organized scheme ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... takes possession of new regions and begins cultivating the soil and establishes his sovereignty there, the equilibrium as it existed upon his arrival is very quickly disturbed. One or more of the many forms of life—plant and animal—that were previously held within certain limits gain ascendency. The introduction of new crops that furnish an abundance of the proper food for some insect, enables this form to increase out of all proportions and harm soon results. The killing off of certain other forms of life that naturally keep still others in check also assists ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... own Minister of State for Foreign Affairs cast a firebrand into the very midst of the Norwegian people[5:1], who to that time had stood unanimous towards the claim of a mutual Foreign Minister of State for the Union. In the struggle for the political ascendency chauvinistic strongwords became more and more rife. The national sensitiveness, already considerable, became excited to the utmost under the influence of the suggestive eloquence of BJOeRNSON and other agitators. The suspiciousness disaffection ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... made her great, she still numbered among her citizens some noble souls: Morosini, Grimani, and Mocenigo struggled several years against the Turks, who derived great advantages from their numerical superiority and the possession of Canea. The Venetian fleet had, nevertheless, gained a marked ascendency under the orders of Grimani, when a third of it was destroyed by a frightful tempest, in which ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... said, "that this war will end in the ascendency of the views of one or the other of the extremes in our country. Neither will prevail. This is the significance of the late elections. The determination of the great Central and Western States is to defend the rights of the States, the rights of individuals, and to restore our Union as it was. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... origin has never been decided. It may have been altogether accidental, or possibly the work of design. But it was followed by a singular succession of other fires, during the period of the British ascendency, that seem to show some settled plan to annoy and discourage the invaders. The newspapers of the time are filled with accounts of the misfortunes of the ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she may, indeed, do what she pleases among the nations, so long as her pleasure is regulated and supported by her accustomed sagacity and spirit? She has, however, recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, "out of this nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety"—we cannot repress our feelings of indignation against those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... took place, and many of the people from the strictest rigour and severity in point of morals, became profane, dissolute and abandoned. The Cavaliers, who had suffered during the usurpation, began to retaliate on the Puritans, and having obtained the ascendency over them in public affairs, on all occasions treated them with severe ridicule and supercilious contempt. On the other hand, the morose republican party, highly offended at the licentious manners and growing wickedness of the times, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... duties. Mohammed designed it should be so, and as long as war was waged in the name of religion, as long as the Koran and the sword went hand in hand together, the two professions were not incompatible; but when Islamism had gained undisputed ascendency, there arose an obvious discrepancy between the peaceful adoration of Allah and the settlements of disputes between man and man. Priest and jurist, each had distinct and qualified duties to perform. Before justice can be administered properly the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Executive, and the country expected them to do something: unreasonably, it was at the same time rather afraid that they would do something. To do something but not too much, to meet the popular demands without destroying the economic well-being which the Republican ascendency had undoubtedly promoted, to insure a better distribution of wealth without crippling the production of wealth—this was the problem of a President who had had only two years in public life, and most of whose assistants would have to be chosen from ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... was old Herresford's valet, who had been away for a long holiday—the first for many years. Trimmer was a power for good and evil—some said a greater power than Herresford himself, over whom he had gained a mental ascendency. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... value of Oregon was not to be measured by the extent of its seacoast nor by the quality of its soil. "The great point at issue between us and Great Britain is for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China and Japan, of the East Indies, and for the maritime ascendency on all these waters." Oregon held a strategic position on the Pacific, controlling the overland route between the Atlantic and the Orient. If this country were yielded to Great Britain—"this power which holds control over all the balance of the globe,"—it would make her maritime ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... first partition of the dead man's lands go by, and not till the first turmoil was over and his friend Ptolemy was securely seated in Egypt, did he ask for a province. The province was Babylonia. Ejected by the malevolence of Antigonus, he regained it by grace of Ptolemy in 312, established ascendency over all satraps to east of him during the next half-dozen years, letting only India go, and then came west in 305 to conquer and slay Antigonus at Ipsus in central Asia Minor. The third king, Lysimachus of Thrace, was ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... itself permanently. Sooner or later one of the two elements, the priestly or the secular, is bound to prevail over the other and crush it. In the Judean realm, with its profoundly religious trend, the priestly element obtained the ascendency, and political ruin ensued. The priestly-political retreated before the priestly-national form of government. Though the religious element was powerless to preserve the state from destruction, we shall see that it has brilliantly vindicated ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... it also frequently leading to[57] indisposition. We find lastly, that, in consequence of the vexation of mind, which may arise from a variety of causes, but more particularly from disappointment and the ascendency of some of the passions that have been mentioned, more pleasure is generally perceived in the anticipation of these amusements, than in the actual taste or use ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... gentlemen and ladies; even kings are sometimes puzzled to do that; literature, arms, arts, and fame of all sorts, are unattainable in their rewards, among us as in other nations, leaving the puissant dollar in its undisturbed ascendency; still, as a rule, twenty Europeans can be bought with two ten-pound Bank of England notes, much easier than two Americans. I leave others to explain the phenomenon; I only ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... greater the number composing them may be, the fewer will be the men who will in fact direct their proceedings. In the first place, the more numerous an assembly may be, of whatever characters composed, the greater is known to be the ascendency of passion over reason. In the next place, the larger the number, the greater will be the proportion of members of limited information and of weak capacities. Now, it is precisely on characters of this description that the eloquence ...
— The Federalist Papers
... with avidity, and occasionally broke into a giggling laugh. She had, however, two manners, and two kinds of conversation, which she adopted with the young man and the Academician respectively. Her talk with the youth suggested the jealous ascendency of a coarse-minded woman. She occasionally flattered him, but more generally she teased or "ragged" him. She seemed indeed to feel him securely in her grip; so that there was no need to pose for him, as—figuratively as well as physically—she posed for Bentley. To the artist she gave her ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... the higher aspect of it, we denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... come to trial? Keith knew the character of the frontier, and of Carson City. The inclination of its citizens in such cases was to act first, and reflect later. The law had but slender hold, being respected only when backed by the strong hand, and primitive instincts were always in the ascendency, requiring merely a leader to break forth into open violence. And in this case would there be any lack of leadership? Like a flash his mind reverted to "Black Bart." There was the man capable of inciting a mob. If, for some unknown reason, he had sufficient interest to swear out the warrant ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which sometimes vexed ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Now, vaguely, it was beginning to take coherence and form. A transition period was on. The "nobs" were evolving from chaos. People of the fast Morrell type were losing their influence and ascendency, were being pushed aside to the fringes by the more "solid" elements. Wealth and arrogant dignity were coming into their innings. Formal functions, often on an elaborate scale, were taking the place of the harum-scarum informal parties. There came up some ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... might easily be seen, for they all at once started to their feet and burst into excited conversation. But, as is usual in such cases, there were two or three—of whom the alcalde was one—who soon obtained an ascendency over the rest, quieting them and themselves carrying on the discussion; and after some ten minutes of earnest debate the rest sat down, leaving the alcalde standing alone to propound a ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... in negotiating the cession of that vast and rich domain to the United States, it is not to be supposed that either the allurements of territorial aggrandizement on the one hand, or the impending danger to the continued ascendency of the political party which had elevated him to the Presidency, threatening it from all the irritations with republican France likely to grow out of such near proximity to her Colony, on the other, could have ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... leads to a "Yes." He took this note for a victory. David should go to Mme. de Bargeton's house! David would shine there in all the majesty of his genius! He raised his head so proudly in the intoxication of a victory which increased his belief in himself and his ascendency over others, his face was so radiant with the brightness of many hopes, that his sister could not help telling ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... attendant on all reform, and it is peculiarly in the nature of such abuses as we are now encountering to seek to perpetuate their power by means of the influence they have been permitted to acquire. It is their result, if not their object, to gain for the few an ascendency over the many by securing to them a monopoly of the currency, the medium through which most of the wants of mankind are supplied; to produce throughout society a chain of dependence which leads all classes to look to privileged associations for the means of speculation and extravagance; to nourish, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman. His gigantic form towered so much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... welfare of the governed seriously at heart. On the whole, setting aside the wholesale cruelty which has unhappily too often distinguished such governmental triumphs on the part of the Chinese, and to which, indeed, the unlucky people seem liable whichever party may happen to gain the ascendency, the preferable conclusion would seem to be that resubmission to native authority is perhaps the mildest fate that can be desired for those subjects of China whose country has unfortunately been the scene of civil war. But an entirely different result may be looked for ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... momentous act. So great was the ascendency of the woman over her lover that from the start he became a mere tool in her hands and ruled the empire in accordance with her views. Her first act was one that showed her merciless strength of purpose. Fearing that the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Content with his ascendency, which was too apparent, and had been too often exerted on similar occasions, to leave him in any doubt of its extent, Ishmael coolly continued the discourse, by adverting more ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... members were not limited to religious offices; they formed an order comprising many occupations and professions. They were distributed all over the country, possessing exclusively the means of reading and writing, and the whole stock of medical and scientific knowledge. Their ascendency, both direct and indirect, over the minds of the people was immense, for they prescribed that minute religious ritual under which the life of every Egyptian, not excepting the king ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... were given in the first man. The germ must be given in the original constitution. But in all constitutions there is more than one element, and the several elements maybe developed pari passu, or unequally, one having the ascendency and suppressing the rest. In the original constitution of Rome the patrician element was dominant, showing that the patriarchal organization of society still retained no little force. The king was only the presiding officer ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... I write, my heart is breaking for us both. If I knew how, I would soften what I must say. Storri has gained some fearful ascendency over papa. Never have I seen papa look so gray and worn and old as when he came to me. He tells me that his safety, his life, depend on me. I am not to see you for a while. He says that if we meet it will mean his disgrace—his destruction. I can't ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... crushing the Whigs. Since the Revolution of 1688, they had dictated the policy of the English government, and through wise leaders had become supreme in authority. They were particularly obnoxious to him because of their republican spirit, and he regarded their ascendency as a constant menace to his kingly power. Fortune seemed to favor him in the dissensions which arose. There grew up two factions in the Whig party. There were old Whigs and new Whigs. George played one against the other, advanced his favorites when opportunity offered, ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... our opinion that Buddhism cannot long hold its ground, and that Christianity must finally prevail throughout all Japan.... Now, when Buddhism and Christianity are in conflict for the ascendency, this indifference of the Japanese people to the difference of sects is a great disadvantage to Buddhism. That they should worship Jesus Christ with the same mind as they do Inari or Mi[o]jin is not at all inconsistent in their estimation ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... of an excuse for her apparent ill will toward us may be a little darker than that of Great Britain or France, since she doubtless hopes that by the destruction of our power and influence, she may be able to regain her ascendency over her former colonies, can scarcely be so blind as not to perceive that but little attention would probably be paid to her claims by her more powerful coadjutors in the work ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... dominion of Popery. Their turbulence was the natural fruit of such poverty, and of their being wholly under the influence of a party necessarily hostile to the interests of a Protestant state, and bent on subverting its ascendency. What Ireland was, I too plainly saw: what she might be, I clearly understood; and the guilt of my country's responsibility lay heavy on my heart as I watched the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... itself with the actual figure of his companion, standing there before him, his face enthusiastic with the sudden thought of all that; and struck him vividly as precisely the fitting opportunity for a nature like his, so hungry for control, for ascendency over men. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... better; but pride interposed, and caused them to think that any show of affability from them would be construed by the democrats into a terror of their power; while the democrats were no less to blame; for hearing how their compeers were thriving in France, and demolishing every obstacle to their ascendency, they were crouse and really insolent, evidencing none of that temperance in prosperity that proves the possessors worthy ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... imprisonment. A majority of the law lords in the House of Peers, the final tribunal, annulled the sentences on the ground that the jury had been unfairly chosen—was packed, in fact. O'Connell and his colleagues were set free after a few months; but the leader never recovered his former ascendency over the political movement of Ireland. He was growing old; he had been reckless of his great physical resources, he had been unsparing of his strength; and undoubtedly, the younger men in the agitation fell away from him when he had made it clear that he never meant, under ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... "one man was as good as another," in opposition to his senses, that, like most of those who belong to this impracticable school, he had tacitly admitted in his own mind, the general and vulgar ascendency of mere wealth; and, quite as a matter of course, he was averse to confessing his own inferiority on a point that he had made to be all in all, while loudest in declaiming against any inferiority whatever. He walked out of the cabin, therefore, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... this fair sanctuary remained in all its beauty, encouraging the trembling christian, and fostering with a mother's care the literature and learning of the time. Thus it stood till that period, so dark and unpropitious for monkish ascendency, when Protestant fury ran wild, and destruction thundered upon the heads of those poor old monks! A sad and cruel revenge for enlightened minds to wreck on mistaken piety and superstitious zeal. How widely was the fine library scattered then. Even a few years after its ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... country, and the fact that the whole of the south of Scotland was in the hands of the convention. They were therefore waiting an opportunity for taking ship and traveling by sea into Wales, where the followers of the king were in the ascendency. At length the earl told them that an occasion offered, and that although he would gladly keep them by him to accompany him when he moved south, if they considered that their duty compelled them to leave ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was in reality much annoyed. Of late years his easy temper had well-nigh surrendered itself to the ascendency of Mark Gardner; and though dissatisfied, remorseful, and anxious, he had allowed himself to be led farther and farther into extravagance. The sight of his home excited regrets, therefore he shunned it; and though weary and discontented ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feel his inferiority. The sense of mental equality had been gratifying to his raw ambition; but as his self-knowledge defined itself, his understanding of her also increased; and if man is at times indirectly flattered by the moral superiority of woman, her mental ascendency is extenuated by no such oblique tribute to his powers. The attitude of looking up is a strain on the muscles; and it was becoming more and more Glennard's opinion that brains, in a woman, should be merely the obverse of beauty. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... of His Word was banded about the house on that occasion did not strike me favorably. The question originally under debate was the relative power of the civil and military authority. Congress had desired to declare its ascendency over military matters, but the army and the Executive generally had demurred to this,—not with an absolute denial of the rights of Congress, but with those civil and almost silent generalities with which a really existing power so well knows how to ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Europe, the vices of the Roman court, the exactions of the Roman chancery, the jealousy with which the wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally regarded by laymen, the jealousy with which the Italian ascendency was naturally regarded by men born on our side of the Alps, all these things gave to the teachers of the new theology an advantage which they perfectly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more reputable as well as more formidable in France, insomuch that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized sole king of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that the necessity of treating with him was clear. In 911, Charles, by the advice of his councillors, and, amongst them, of Robert, brother of the late king, Eudes, who had himself become count of Paris and duke of France, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him. To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a sort ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville |
