"Browbeat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Musgrave, that his ancestors came over with William the Conqueror, and that he was descended from any number of potentates. But he lived. He was a rip at first—ah, yes, I'm glad of that as well, —and he became a religious fanatic because his oldest son died very horribly of lockjaw. And he browbeat people and founded banks, and made a spectacle of himself at every Methodist conference, and everybody was afraid of him and honoured him. And I fancy I am prouder of Old Tim Ingersoll than I am of any of the emperors and things that make such a fine show in the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... courteous hearing. "Johnson," observed Hogarth, "like King David, says in his haste that all men are liars." "His incredulity," says Mrs. Thrale, "amounted almost to disease." She tells us how he browbeat a gentleman, who gave him an account of a hurricane in the West Indies, and a poor Quaker who related some strange circumstance about the red-hot balls fired at the siege of Gibraltar. "It is not so. It cannot be ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... planters the idea of a negro's testimony being as good as a white man's is very unpleasant, and occasional attempts are made to bully and browbeat a colored witness upon the stand. The attempt is never made twice. Once I pitted a lawyer against a negro witness, held the parties on the cross-examination, and the lawyer was badly beaten. Some of the freedmen can conduct a case with ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... know." Honeycutt cackled and rubbed his hands at the admission. "But I'm going to find out. So, probably, is Brodie. Now, look here, Honeycutt; I haven't come to browbeat you as Brodie did. I am for making you a straight business proposition. If you know anything, I stand ready to buy your knowledge. In ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... custody he was impatient to browbeat the youth and taunt him with his helplessness. But Arnold Baxter would not listen to it, so the graceless son had to bide ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... terrify, daunt, cow, appall, startle, affright, alarm, browbeat, dismay, terrorize, overawe. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... I am going to let you browbeat me," he began. "Well, my dear woman, you're mistaken. Listen! Are you angry at me because I have created for you and your children a dignified existence? Do you take it amiss of me for having kept your sister from going to the poor-house? You act as though I had won that much ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... upon whom they had banked as potential labor would not work. A few came and stayed, but most of them quit after earning a few pesos. So the hemp rotted in the field. Desperate, facing ruin, some of the planters went after labor too strongly, frightened and browbeat the Bogobos into working. The scheme worked, so a condition approximating peonage was developed upon several of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... he has a singularly nettling manner with some people which must add, I should think, to this unpopularity. He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself and his opinions, which are mostly of a challenging nature. He does not discuss but attempts to browbeat. His voice is an argument, and the expression on his face and the fire in his eyes suggest the street corner. He would have greatly distressed a man like Matthew Arnold, for the only method against such didactics is to send for ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... itself a sufficient proof of guilt. The chief justice,[**] in particular, gave sanction to all the narrow prejudices and bigoted fury of the populace. Instead of being counsel for the prisoners, as his office required, he pleaded the cause against them, browbeat their witnesses, and on every occasion represented their guilt as certain and uncontroverted. He even went so far as publicly to affirm, that the Papists had not the same principles which Protestants have, and therefore were not entitled to that common credence, which the principles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... personal affability, made him many foes—was driven into acknowledging the profundity of his legal knowledge, and in admiring the manner in which the peculiar functions of his novel dignity were discharged. No juvenile lawyer browbeat, no hackneyed casuist puzzled, him; even his attention never wandered from the dullest case subjected to his tribunal. A painter, desirous of stamping on his canvas the portrait of an upright judge, could scarcely have found a finer realization for his beau-ideal than the austere, collected, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... especially when they to whom it was first told hear it for the second time, but rather as critics than as ordinary listeners. Besides, the taking of notes was a process that smacked of a court-martial and tended to flurry the narrator, making him feel as if he were upon his oath and liable to be browbeat by the counsel for the other side. He was heartily glad when he got to the end of what he had to tell. The postscript to Captain Chillington's letter was then read by ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... placed these witnesses on the stand that they would exploit a foul calumny cooked up for the occasion, were to brand them as hopeless fools. If they did know it they were knaves—and they are welcome to impale themselves on either horn of the dilemma they like. They next attempted to badger and browbeat the poor girl into an admission that she had made an assignation with the Senegambian. The local papers in reporting the case said the language used by these chivalrous (?) Southern gentlemen to the plaintiff was unprintable. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... in this state and with Austria still holding out for her impossible conditions, 'twas easy for Dumouriez and the war party to browbeat the wellnigh desperate King into a declaration of hostilities that was to convulse the whole of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century. This was done on the 20th of April, three days after Mr. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... rattle-headed creature, not much like your own kin, I guess; but, young man, she is as dear as the apple of our eyes, and I charge you to treat her well. She has never had a crossways word spoke to her all her life, and don't you be the first to speak it, nor let your folks browbeat her." ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the fact that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor. When the British were making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As the American government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the pseudo-pirate to have accepted the British offer, but what Lafitte did was to go up ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the widest sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on his own; he would abuse the opposing ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... "economic interpretation", as complete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence". Later on he forced the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign bishop", and in order to "stamp out overt expression ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... his hat, evidently a little nonplussed that she should know his name, and by now she was ready even to browbeat him a little should it ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... knowledge of the case of his antagonist! met at point after point by unexpected evidence and rulings of law, often involving such instantaneous decisions as to change his whole combinations and method of attack; examining witnesses with unerring skill, whom he was at once too chivalrous and too wise to browbeat; arguing to the court unexpected questions of law with full and available legal learning; carrying in his mind the case, and the known or surmised plan of attack of his antagonist, and shaping his own case to meet it; holding an exquisitely sensitive physical and mental organization ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... say that men forget easier than women, but you have never suffered one tenth the heartaches over Esther McLeod that she has over you. You can afford to be generous with her, Tom. True, she allowed an older sister to browbeat and bully her into marrying another man, but she was an inexperienced girl then. If you were honest, you would admit that Esther of her own accord would never have married Jack Oxenford. Then why punish the innocent? Oh, Tom, if you could only see her now! Sorrow and suffering have developed ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Kaunitz himself is altogether life-like: a solemn, arrogant, mouthing, browbeating kind of man,—embarrassed at present by the necessity not to browbeat, and by the consciousness that "King Friedrich is the only man who refuses to acknowledge my claims to distinction:" [Rulhiere (somewhere) has heard this, as an utterance of Kaunitz's in some plaintive moment.]—a Kaunitz whose arrogances, qualities and claims this King is not here to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... be dacent, and it's ceevil treatment he'll get; but no man shall browbeat me on me own floor," said Biddy, in a tone which declared the firmness of ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... in negotiating with Afghanistan, we should remember these things and should not attempt to browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... could do," cried old Mr. Loughead, whose chief object in life since Pickering had been pronounced out of danger, had been to browbeat the trained nurse, and usurp the authority in Pickering's sick-room, "if Mrs. Cabot would keep out, or take it into her head to return home. To state it mildly," continued the old gentleman, not lowering his tone in the least, "that ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... magnitude, and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to attempt to browbeat him was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... as we drove to the station to meet her, "try to remain, within bounds. The only thing I ha—criticize about Bee is that she makes such a coward of you. Remember when she tries to browbeat you, that I consider your taste and common sense better than hers, and that in any stand you take I am back of you, ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... it. He is not a party to his father's schemes. If James Bansemer has not already told Graydon, he never will. It is not his plan to do so; his only object has been to browbeat me into submission. David, it will all come out right in the end, won't it? You'll ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Bweak him!" to the close of the market on that crashing Friday afternoon, he might have been less sure of recapturing those French shares. But he was ignorant of those truths; and, with confidence bred of ignorance, he summoned Mr. Harley. He, Storri, would browbeat and bleed him; he would teach the caitiff Harley to be more careful of the favor, not to say the fortune, of a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... story has not York to browbeat withal the storyless New-Yorker who visits her! That Henry IV. was he whom I had lately seen triumphing near Shrewsbury in the final battle of the Roses, where the Red was so bloodily set above the White; and it was his ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... Authorities Browbeat wholesome common-sense into the self-distrust Comfort from the thought that most things cannot be helped Concerning popularity as a test of merit in a book Critical vanity and self-righteousness Critics are in no sense the legislators of literature ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... Marian, flushing slightly, and looking steadily at him. Then, controlling her voice with an effort, she added, "Do not try again to browbeat me into ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... By-and-by Adolphus said to Pauline,—"If any one else had undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... and at the inquest, was this: As they talked further together, after Michael left the room, the Vicar went on to browbeat him shamefully about the new chimes, vowing they should never play, never be heard; at last, rising in an access of passion, the Parson struck him (the Captain) in the face. He returned the blow—who wouldn't return it?—and the Vicar fell. He believed his head must have ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... obnoxious title. "Write not," they said, "'The King of the Jews,' but that 'He said, I am the King of the Jews.'" But Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of Caesar, had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning any justification of what he had done, Pilate summarily dismissed these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... with a card of ten" was just what we mean by "browbeat." The expression (which is very common) was no doubt drawn from the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of presumed superiority and affectation of "knowing the whole thing," browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any shape; and yet it ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hoss you'll do it by law,' Tobe went on, fairly frothing at the mouth, 'and I'll put your boy in the pen for selling stolen property. You can't browbeat ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... officer to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers, and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable grooves,—who were drifting in at the entrance to line the lobby walls ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... questions had been asked, and an attempt had been made to confuse and browbeat the youth, when the Nestor of the Lexington Bar expectorated at a fly ten feet away, and remarked, "Oh, the devil! there is no need of tryin' to keep a boy like this down—he's as fit as ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... cathedra. She was filled with a sense of shame, which was due not solely to the fact that she was a little conscience-stricken because of her innocent complicity, nor that her husband did not resent an obvious attempt of a high-handed man to browbeat him; but also to the feeling that the character of the discussion had in some strange way degraded the house itself. Why was it that everything she touched seemed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his knees, the caller leaned forward tensely, wondering over the present spectacle of himself. He heard loud words in the rear. "I know what he wants." Old Henderson's voice rose and cracked. "It isn't the first time he has tried to browbeat me into holding my tongue. He's heard what I've said, and wants to threaten me with prosecution. But that won't stop me. I'll tell him what I think to his teeth—the low-lived, thieving dog! He did steal my ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... newspaper men, even while they admitted Ford obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were given him from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and administered a third degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an earnest, ingenuous, wide-eyed child. What he called his "working" smile begged of you not to be cross with him. His simplicity was apparently so hopeless, his confidence in whomever he addressed so complete, that often ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... Dante's "Inferno." But the most picturesque group in the whole scene presented to us is that made by Cellini himself, armed and mailed, and attended by his prentices in armour, as they walked into the court to browbeat justice with the clamour of their voice. If we are to trust his narrative, he fought his way out of one most dangerous trial by simple vociferation. Afterwards he took the law, as usual, into his own hands. One pair of litigants were beaten; Caterina was nearly kicked to death; and the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... occasioned by the circumstance, the vessel bore off his family for ever from the island! After some days he recovered, and came to ask advice of me. What could an Englishman do in such a case? I felt the blood boiling within me; but I conquered. I browbeat my own manhood, and gave him the humblest ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... devoid of reasonable foundation; that convictions could not be had except by aid of open perjury, suppression and intimidation. Yet Cotton Mather scrupled not to put in operation these and other devices; to hound on the magistrates, to browbeat and sophisticate the juries, and to scream threats, warnings and self-glorifications from the pulpit. Needs must, when the devil drives. Had he paused, had he even held his peace, that noose, slimy with the death-sweat of a score of innocent victims, would have settled greedily round ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... York, "I dinna like that—I dinna like it at all; attack a man that has summat, I say, and not one that has nought, and then that will luck mair like a man!" And with such hearty John Bull notions as these did canny Yorkshire browbeat his ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... down to the time of Queen Elizabeth, who treated her bishops also like domestic servants;— "matinet bien main!" To the public, as to us, the justice of the rebuke was nothing to the point; but that a friend should exist on earth or in heaven, who dared to browbeat a bishop, caused the keenest personal delight. The legends are clearer on this point than on any other. The people loved Mary because she trampled on conventions; not merely because she could do it, but because ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... stand on end, make one's blood run cold, make one's teeth chatter; take away one's breath, stop one's breath; make one tremble &c. haunt; prey on the mind, weigh on the mind. put in fear, put in bodily fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c. 909. Adj. fearing &c. v.; frightened &c. v.; in fear, in a fright &c. n.; haunted with the fear of &c. n.; afeard[obs3]. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... opinion of Mr. Fairlegh hastily, nor on insufficient grounds, and it is not very probable that I shall alter it on the representations of a nameless individual, brought here for the evident purpose of chorusing Mr. Fairlegh's assertions, and assisting to browbeat those who may be so unfortunate as to differ from him. You must find such a friend invaluable, I should imagine," he added, turning towards me with a supercilious smile. "Umph! nameless individual, sir—nameless 446 individual, indeed! ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... [swooping down to the centre of the glade with the sculptors, between Acis and the Newly Born] Do not try to browbeat me, Arjillax, merely because you are clever with your hands. Can ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... moan thou art always making over spilt milk; and truth is, thou art but childish in thine old age. When we were wed, thou left all things to the Lord; I would never have married thee else. Nay, lass,' said she, catching the expression on Lois's face, 'thou art never going to browbeat me with thine angry looks. I do my duty as I read it, and there is never a man in Salem that dare speak a word to Grace Hickson about either her works or her faith. Godly Mr. Cotton Mather hath said, that even he might learn of me; and ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... throwed loose like a range horse to rustle or starve. Hardest work in the world—but he don't know it, or money wouldn't hire him to lift his hand. He thinks it's play. Not one out of ten but what prides himself that he can't be browbeat into doing a tap of work. Ask him to cut a stick of firewood and he'll arch his back and laugh at you scornful like. Don't ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... first commandment, to love my neighbour as myself, for I should have to hate him as I hate myself. It's true that I'm a scamp. I've always suspected it; and because I never wanted life to fool me, I've observed 'others' carefully. When I saw they were no better than I, I resented their trying to browbeat me. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... welcome guests and be gracious or even polite to his pretended courtiers; he himself declares that[3141] "they go two years without speaking to him, and six months without seeing him; he does not like them, their conversation displeases him." When he addresses them it is to browbeat them; his familiarities with their wives are those of the gendarme or the pedagogue, while the little attentions he inflicts upon them are indecorous criticisms or compliments in bad taste. They ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Corliss' quarters. I explained the matter to the Captain, and left the man to his mercy. "Why didn't you call the Sergeant of the Guard, and have the man slapped into the guard-house?" said Jack, when I told him about it afterwards. "The man had no business around here; he was trying to browbeat you into giving him a ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... placed in juxtaposition would seem to indicate that the message was a mistake. It contained a veiled threat of war if England would not arbitrate her difference with Venezuela, the implication being that the stronger power was trying to browbeat the weaker one. Later an arbitration took place, the award of which was a compromise, England gaining more than Venezuela, and the award demonstrated that England had not been as extreme and unjust in her claim as had been Venezuela. ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... to disprove the charges by repeating the silly story he had told me. He cross-questioned the witnesses, and did his best to browbeat Peverell. The messenger showed that it was impossible that any money could have been obtained from the bank while Cornwood was in Jacksonville between the time the Floridian arrived and departed. But the court was satisfied with the ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... must go at once and browbeat Jack (who's never seen the lady you know) into admiring her at ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... trot grotesquely behind their conqueror through street and market-place. The melancholy part of the situation is that one feels that these excellent people, for all their admiration, have not learnt the real lesson of the incident in the least. They would be prepared to browbeat and contemn originality just as vigorously as their predecessors. They would speak of a modern Keats as a self-indulgent dilettante; of a modern Shelley as an immoral Republican. The fact that the two have stepped silently into Parnassus, receiving nothing but contempt and neglect from ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the voice crisply. "You'd found out there were humans involved in this business. It was important that the fact be suppressed. I tried to browbeat you, which was a mistake. While I was talking to you your suspicion was reported on short wave by the Wild Life driver. I tried to overawe you. You're the wrong kind of man for that. But everything can be explained. Everything! Here's ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... confidence in the Dauphin which was nothing less than tacitly transferring to him a large part of the disposition of public affairs. This was a thunderbolt for the ministers; who, accustomed to have almost everything their own way, to rule over everybody and browbeat everybody at will, to govern the state abroad and at home, in fact, fixing all punishments, all recompenses, and always sheltering themselves behind the royal authority "the King wills it so" being the phrase ever on their lips,—to these officers, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Bailie was only a big drum, full of emptiness and sound; but the local lawyers found it best to treat him with respect; and until the Seminary boys took his Majesty in hand he had never been worsted. No doubt an Edinburgh advocate, who had been imported into a petty case to browbeat the local Bench, thought he had the Bailie on the hip when that eminent man, growing weary of continual allusions to "the defunct," said that if he heard anything more about "the defunct" he would adjourn ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... his shoulders. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'if you invoke the sacred names of Power.... But I don't call it fair play. Especially as you know perfectly well, and just want to browbeat me into telling lies. I shall not tell lies. I ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... enough to listen," returned Merriwell. "You are behind this business. Having failed in your other project, through the death of Del Norte, your fertile brain has originated this daring, yet foolish, scheme. Do you think you are dealing with children? Did you fancy you could frighten or browbeat me into paying you money before I had thoroughly investigated this Jalisco business and sifted it to the bottom? Why, you know that were you in my place you would not give up a dollar on such a demand. Take him away, Hagan, and be quick about it, or I swear I'll telephone ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... The house was stronger than she. But—but—only stronger, surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?—Whereupon she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of her beloved dead? She believed that ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Clay was very imperious and displayed bad temper in debate. Once he endeavored to browbeat Colonel Benton, bringing up "Old Bullion's" personal recontre with General Jackson, and charging the former with having said that, should the latter be elected President, Congress must guard itself with pistols and dirks. This Colonel Benton pronounced "an ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... prop'ty-hunter. I'm knowin' to it that Cap'n Sproul has got thutty thousand in vessel prop'ty of his own, 'sides what his own uncle Jerry here left to him. Gid Ward has trompled round this town for twenty-five years, and bossed and browbeat and cussed, and got the best end of every trade. If there's some one come along that can put the wickin' to him in good shape, I swow if this town don't owe him a vote ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... here: and it will only be for a short time till the trial is over. Lawyer Shanks told you himself that if you stayed, they would have you into court and cross-examine you to death; and you know quite well you could not keep in one story if they browbeat ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... swaggering with the scullion-girls and kitchen-people. 'The Englishman's still there, Master Redmond,' said one of the maids to me (a sentimental black-eyed girl, who waited on the young ladies). 'He's there in the parlour, with the sweetest fillet of vale; go in, and don't let him browbeat ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... well to put on a manner in your intercourse with the tenants, as much opposed to Hickman's as possible. Be generally angry, speak loud, swear roundly, and make them know their place. To bully and browbeat is not easily done with success, even in a just cause, although with a broken-spirited people it is a good gift; but after all I apprehend the best method is just to adapt your bearing to the character of the person you have to deal with, if you wish, as you ought, to arrive at ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Mrs. Cameron tried to hush her, talking as if it was the baby she meant, the Genevra who died at Silverton; but Katy answered promptly: "I'm not to be hoodwinked any longer. It's Genevra Lambert I mean, Wilford's other wife; the one across the sea, whom you and he browbeat. She was innocent, too—as innocent as I, whom you ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... took care to enforce the reading I thought the true one, and to insist upon the right tempo. The excellent musicians did not object to this; on the contrary, they showed themselves sincerely glad of it; the public also approved, but the critics were annoyed and continued so to browbeat the directors of the society that the latter actually requested me to permit the second movement of Mozart's Symphony in E flat to be played in the flabby and colourless way (ruschlich herunter spielen) they had been accustomed ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... woods to back me off our property? I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. system would get a blacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist under my nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch to browbeat and tyrannize over them without ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... farthings, and then presenting himself before the judge, quietly submitted to the laws of the realm. His counsel behaved like men of consummate abilities in their profession; they exerted themselves with equal industry, eloquence, and erudition, in their endeavours to perplex the truth, browbeat the evidence, puzzle the judge, and mislead the jury; but the defendant found himself wofully disappointed in the deposition of Trapwell's journeyman, whom the solicitor pretended to have converted to his interest. This ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... working among the flower-beds with his master, sought safety in flight when Bud Goble's coming was announced, and, standing concealed behind an evergreen in the garden, saw and heard all that passed between the minister and the man who had come there to browbeat him. When Bud was ejected from the grounds Sam came out ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Bishops of Rome. Cavour did not suffer his sovereign to eat humble pie like King John, or to go to Canossa like Henry IV., but neither did he ever entertain the wish to turn persecutor as Pombal was, perhaps, forced to do, or to browbeat the head of the Church as the first Napoleon took a pleasure in doing. He aimed at keeping the two powers separate, but each supreme ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... one-sided, ever came from him. His judgments were clear, comprehensive, and decisive. He was slow, critical, and cautious in forming his opinions, and where he settled there he stayed. No man could cajole or browbeat ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... is a reasonable man. He doesn't argue and browbeat me the way you do. When I tell him that the removal of Simpkins, and consequently his own future happiness and comfort, depend very largely on our being able to keep Sir Gilbert Hawkesby out of Ballymoy, he will believe me at once and act in ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... anything of the kind," was my reply. "But you know me well enough to be aware that you cannot browbeat me. She shall, at all events, not owe your acquaintance ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Stumfold in person, and, of course, nothing about the assembly rooms was said by him. He made himself very pleasant, and Miss Mackenzie almost resolved to put herself into his hands. He did not look sour at her, nor did he browbeat her with severe words, nor did he exact from her the performance of any hard duties. He promised to find her a seat in his church, and told her what were the hours of service. He had three "Sabbath services," ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... been emphatically repudiated by some eminent English lawyers, but both in practice and theory the profession have differed widely in different courts, times and countries. How far, for example, is it permissible in cross-examination to browbeat or confuse an honest but timid and unskilful witness; to attempt to discredit the evidence of a witness on a plain matter of fact about which he had no interest in concealment by exhuming against him some moral scandal of early youth which was totally unconnected with ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... "O' course it shocked her for you to make such a charge against her. It would frighten any woman. By God, it's an outrage. You come here and try to browbeat Miss Harriman when she's alone. You ask her impudent questions, as ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... know they would have proved them innercent boys guilty, and a hung em? Oh, I am afeerd of Mars Lennox, for he favors his pa mightily; he has got the keenest scent of all the pack; and he went up yonder, and 'cused, and 'bused, and browbeat and aggervated and tormented that poor, helpless young creetur,'till she fell down in a dead faint on the jail floor; and sence then, the Doctor says her mind is done clean gone. Don't get mad with me, Miss Leo; I am bound to clare my conscience, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... last-comers were brothers of the name of Chubb, and from neither of these could she extract more than one word at a time. The third, Farmer Locke, was of the aggressive, bulldog type, and he very speedily asserted himself. He seemed, indeed, somewhat inclined to browbeat her, loudly arguing her slightest remark after a fashion which she found decidedly exasperating, but presently discovered to be his invariable habit with everyone. He flatly contradicted even Jeff, but she was pleased to hear Jeff bluntly hold his own, and ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... conducted the foot-ball and base-ball teams over half of the Middle States and daily bullied and browbeat them, protested with indignation. "WON'T travel with a ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... of his reign he was at pains to make no European friend, in the latter he fell more and more under the influence of Germany, which, almost from the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to prepare a southward way for future use, and alone of the powers, never browbeat the sultan. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... one, will you, who has shown an interest comparable to mine? I may say I have devoted my entire energy to her affairs, and with disinterestedness. I have made myself felt. Will you mention who else these cutthroats have tried to browbeat and frighten? They know that my theories and conclusions are a menace to them! I got 'em in a panic, sir—presently some fellow will lose his nerve and light out for the tall timber—and it will be just Judge Slocum Price who's done the trick—no ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the records of your trial and it didn't take very long to discover that Whitredge had doubled-crossed you. He bribed the two deputies sent to transfer you from the police station in Glendale to the county seat. They were to bully and browbeat you into making an attempt to escape—thus affording proof presumptive of your guilt—and this they proceeded to do. They've admitted it under oath—after I had shown them what we could do ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... consideration. But suppose that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? Women, for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a tenth. Yet to tyrannize over such minorities, to browbeat and insult them, to call that government a democracy which makes majority votes an excuse for crushing ideas and individuality and self-development, is manifestly a peculiarly dangerous perversion of the real democratic ideal. It is right here, in ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... sharpened at a stroke the stiffness of his spirit. "Good God, I'm to 'compromise' on top of everything?—I'm to let you browbeat me, haggle and bargain with me, over a thing that I'm entitled to settle with you as things have ever been settled among us, by uttering to you ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... succeed, although 'he practised all the unfair means that could be invented to procure the removal of the prisoner to Newgate from the healthy gaol to which he had been at first committed;' and 'the Earl even appeared in person on the bench, endeavoring to intimidate and browbeat the witnesses, and to inveigle the prisoner into destructive confessions.' Annesley was honorably acquitted, after his uncle had expended nearly one thousand ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... in the coarse and savage style of which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been passed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... killed?" exclaimed the cowboy. "Everythin' square? Why, when he said that Johnnie was cheatin' and acted like such a jackass? And then in the saloon he fairly walked up to git hurt?" With these arguments the cowboy browbeat the Easterner and ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... of will and character; but it was in reality only a covering for weakness. He had his will about the inscription—a trifle; but they had their will about the crucifixion. He was strong enough to browbeat them, but he was not strong enough to ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... What's all this trouble about? You mustn't think you can browbeat these boys, because you can't. See? I'm telling you the law and you can take it or leave it just as you like. If you've got any kick, go to the railroad. If you're not satisfied to wait until this car goes away, start it going. You stand between those two tracks or on the platform ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Ralph just glanced up from his work, his attitude expressing indifference. The second dog rose leisurely, and a silent argument over some old-time dispute proceeded in true husky fashion. They walked round and round each other, seeming almost to tiptoe in their efforts to browbeat. Their manes bristled and their fangs bared to the gums, but never a sound came from their deep-toned throats. And such is ever the way of the husky, unless stirred to the wildest fury. The other dogs paid no heed; the smell which emanated from Ralph's cooking-pot held them. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... had circulated them as representing my views, during the School Board election of 1888. I had against me the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Clarke, at the bar, and Baron Huddleston on the bench; both counsel and judge did their best to browbeat me and to use the coarsest language, endeavouring to prove that by advocating the limitation of the family I had condemned chastity as a crime. Five hours of brutal cross-examination left my denial of such teachings unshaken, and even the pleadings of the judge for the clergyman, defending his ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... never felt altogether at their ease. But the fact that other people were made uncomfortable by his chronic irascibility moved Sir Morton not at all, so long as he personally could enjoy himself in his own fashion, which was to browbeat, bully and swear at every hapless household retainer that came across his path in the course of the day. He was more than usually choleric and fussy in the 'distinguished' presence of Lord Roxmouth, for though ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... I'm not so sure. If I did it would be no virtue, but an obstinacy not to be browbeat." Then he added, "You would give anything else on earth for ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... things right is to come here and browbeat a poor girl before the children till her eyes be pink as garden daisies! Go'st 'way home, thou sorry fool! ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... skeletons, and made them rattle their rickety bones up and down the draughty staircases, until the inmates shivered with horror and the terrified neighbours fled the haunted castle as a lazar-house. Once in possession of a family secret, he felt himself secure, and henceforth he was free to browbeat his employer and to flog his pupil to the satisfaction of his waspish nature. Moreover, he was endowed with all the insight and effrontery of a trained journalist. So sedulous was he in his search after the truth, that neither man nor woman could deny him confidence. And, as vinegar flowed in his ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Fred feel towards the fearless, out-spoken Willy? Very angry, of course; but, if you will believe me, he respected him more than ever. Pompous boys are often mean-spirited and cowardly; they will browbeat those who are afraid of them; but those who look down on them and despise them, they hold in the highest esteem. Willy had never scrupled to tell Fred just what he thought of his conduct; and for that very reason Fred liked him better than any other ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... death, she lay down without undressing for a month of nights, ready to set out, and the first night she took off her clothes and endeavoured to obtain a good sleep she was called. And just as she was she set out for the scene. The chiefs began to think it was useless to hoodwink or browbeat the wonderful woman who seemed to know their inmost thoughts and all their ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Originally: Mrs.] Burney records this year (1778) that Mrs. Thrale said to Johnson, 'Garrick is one of those whom you suffer nobody to abuse but yourself; for if any other person speaks against him, you browbeat him in a minute. "Why, madam," answered he, "they don't know when to abuse him, and when to praise him; I will allow no man to speak ill of David that he does not deserve."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 65. See ante, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... summoned absented themselves. None of them said anything tending to his vindication. One of them, the Earl of Huntingdon, bitterly reproached him with having deceived the Houses and drawn on them the guilt of shedding innocent blood. The Judges browbeat and reviled the prisoner with an intemperance which, even in the most atrocious cases, ill becomes the judicial character. He betrayed, however, no sign of fear or of shame, and faced the storm of invective which burst ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rules and boaster of famed examples . . . and sets rigid bounds to that liberty to which genius often owes its supreme glory. . . Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies?. . . Let not great examples or authorities browbeat thy reason into too great a diffidence of thyself. . . While the true genius is crossing all public roads into fresh untrodden ground; he [the imitative writer], up to the knees in antiquity, is treading the sacred footsteps of great examples with the blind ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... lasted all that day, and all the next, and a great part of the third, but we do not purpose going into it in detail. The way in which Mr Rasp (Captain Dunning's counsel) and Mr Tooth (Captain Dixon's counsel) badgered, browbeat, and utterly bamboozled the witnesses on both sides, and totally puzzled the jury, can only be understood by those who have frequented courts of law, but could not be fully or adequately described in less ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... the royal usurpations was Dr. Bullivant. Gifted with a smart and ready intellect, busy and bold, he acquired great influence in the new government, and assisted Sir Edmund Andros, Edward Randolph, and five or six others, to browbeat the council, and misrule the Northern provinces according to their pleasure. The strength of the popular hatred against this administration, the actual tyranny that was exercised, and the innumerable fears and jealousies, well grounded ...
— Dr. Bullivant - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... closing at his side. "Leave the room, I tell you," he cried, "or I shall call the servants and make you!" He paused with a short, mocking laugh. "Who do you think I am?" he asked; "a child that you can insult and gibe at? I'm not a prisoner in the box for you to browbeat and bully, Mr. District Attorney. You seem to forget that I am ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... frighten me. It is not a very manly thing, Mr. Holmes, to come here and browbeat a woman. You say that you know something. What is it that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about the divorce that precedes your marriage," and she hung up the receiver; all of which, had Bobby but paused to reflect upon it, was a very fair indication that all he had to do was to jump in his automobile and call on Aunt Constance Elliston, force his way upon the attention of Agnes and browbeat that young lady into an immediate marriage. He chose, on the contrary, to take the matter more gloomily, and Johnson, after worrying about him for three dismal days, consulted Biff Bates. But Biff, when the problem was propounded ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... Town. Down there the people knew a man whom they called the Old Doctor. He was not old, not really; it was merely that he had the manner of a veteran. He browbeat them shamefully, as was perfectly proper for an old doctor; he bullied them a great deal, and scolded, and called names, and worked for them, and did not know how to sleep. That made them fear and respect him, but goodness ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... the plaintiff, and we all know that Serjeant Snubbin was no match for Serjeant Buzfuz. It has been objected by a writer in Fraser's Magazine, to the account of this trial, that it is full of inconsistencies. Serjeant Buzfuz' case, he says, was absurd, and that he would not have been able to browbeat any witness, and that no jury could have given a verdict on such evidence. This criticism resembles many other criticisms of Pickwick. Had the description in Pickwick been intended as a serious picture of the proceedings in a court of justice, it would have ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... bishoprics, what secret bargain of which it was no one's duty to inform him? He lashed at his own impotence, for the ignominy of his position increased with his growing consciousness. Here was the Prime Minister respectful but compulsive, able to threaten, to browbeat, to dictate terms; but he himself had no counter means to extract from that minister on what terms he was consenting to do these things or what price he was paying to get them done. How constitutionally was he to obtain knowledge of anything? And ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... to browbeat me in this way, in my whole life!" cried the old man fiercely, and his voice shook ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... stubborn countrymen of heath and plain, Now have ye shown these insolent again That which to Caesar's legions ye could teach, That slow-provok'd is long-provok'd. May each Crass Caesar learn this of the Keltic grain, Until at last they reckon it in vain To browbeat us who ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... were held. Percy evidently expected that Armand would try and communicate with him at that address, for when the lad arrived in front of the house he was accosted—so he says—by a big, rough workman, who browbeat him into giving up the lodger's letter, and finally pressed a piece of gold into his hand. The workman was Blakeney, of course. I imagine that Armand, at the time that he wrote the letter, must have been under the belief ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various |
