"Autocrat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... refuse it. His days were full of engagements; he was consulted, and his opinion deferred to in a singular manner—singular, because he was no sayer of smooth things, but the very contrary; because he hung upon no patron, submitted to no dictation, was in his way an autocrat. This state of things he had brought about entirely by force of his own will and in utter opposition to precedent, for the former directors had been notoriously under the thumb of certain influential outsiders, who were ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... man would"—would is the past tense of will. The word will is one of the strongest in our language. A man's will is the imperial part of him. It is the autocrat upon the throne; the judge upon the bench of final appeal. Jesus is getting down to the root of matters here. He is appealing to the highest authority. No mere passing sentiment is this. Not attending a meeting and being swept along with the ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... Montezuma was high priest, and derived his power largely from this position. It was the case in Peru, where the Inca was the direct representative on earth of the solar deity. It was the case with the agricultural communities of the southern United States, whose Mico was at once high priest and autocrat. It was doubtless the case with the Mound Builders, of whom these communities were ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... notaries from her estates, pastors from the villages, captains of little garrisons, soldiers offering service, farmers, women, shepherds, foresters, peasants, who came either on her business or with their own needs—for all of which she was ready with the beneficence and decision of an autocrat. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been Miss Geraldine Grey, of Allington, one of those quiet, pretty little towns which so thickly dot the hills and valleys Of New England. Her father, who died before her marriage, had been a sea-captain, and a man of great wealth, and was looked upon as a kind of autocrat, whose opinion was a law and whose friendship was an honor. When a young lady, Miss Geraldine had chafed at the stupid town and the stupider people, as she designated the citizens of Allington, and had only ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... have been for long, stood but a few feet from the old Haverhill and Boston road, surrounded by mighty elms, one of which measured, twenty-five years ago, "sixteen and a half feet in circumference, at one foot above the ground, well deserving of mention in the 'Autocrat's' list of famous trees." The house faces the south, and has a peculiar effect, from being two full stories high in front, and sloping to one, and that a very low one, at the back. The distance between caves and ground is here so slight, that one may fancy a venturous boy in some winter when ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... their humanity is so great, as to render all their ferocious laws perfectly harmless. Are the laws then made on purpose to urge tender-hearted masters to be so much worse than they really desire to be? The democrats of the South appear to be less scrupulous about the liberties of others, than the Autocrat of the Russias;—for, when Madame de Stael told the Emperor Alexander that his character answered instead of a constitution for his country, he replied, "Then, madam, I am but a lucky accident." ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... going to wait to hear it. Now listen—" and she opened an envelope that lay on the table within reach of her hand. "This is from my brother John—" and she turned toward Richard and Nathan. "He and Couture, in whose atelier I studied, are great friends. Now please pay attention Mr. Autocrat—" and she looked at Oliver over the edge of the letter and began ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he said, "Jim Morrison's not bossing this show at all. That's where the mistake has come in. My aunt, Lady Wolvercote, is a bit of an autocrat, don't you know, and she doesn't like us fellows to arrange things on our own account. If she knew you I'm sure she'd see what a splendid Galatea you'd make, but as it is she's set her heart on getting Mrs. Stewart from ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... matters with Bradbury and Evans, the printers, Boz, ever charitable, was glad to report to Forster some hearty praise by this person, of the ability with which he (Forster) had arranged the matters, thus amiably wishing to propitiate the autocrat in his friend's interest. But, said the uncompromising Forster, "I am truly sorry, my dear Dickens, that I cannot reciprocate your friend's compliment, for a d——nder ass I never encountered in the whole course of my life!" A comparative that is novel ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... General Tracy have been accused of being so much under the rule of their party leaders that they could not possibly give New York honest government. Mr. Seth Low has been declared to be such an autocrat that he would rule the city according to his own ideas, were they good or bad. Mr. George was called a visionary person, who would turn the world upside down if ever he came into power. These were, of course, the opinions of the candidates' enemies. To their friends ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 54, November 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of public worker—a mixture of the mystical and the practical—was the terror of the Vienna delegates. He put spokes in everybody's wheel, behaved as the autocrat of the Congress and felt as self-complacent as a saint. Countess von Thurheim wrote of him: "He mistrusted his environment and let himself be led by others. But he was thoroughly good and high-minded ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... fire on a Saturday night, still survives as the "Three Horseshoes"—the inn to which the secret-looking man who stirred his rum and water with a file, brought Magwitch's two one-pound notes for Pip, and the redoubtable Jaggers, the autocrat of the Old Bailey, with his burly form, great head, and huge, cross-examining forefinger announced to Pip his Great Expectations. Down the river in the direction of yonder "distant savage lair", from which the wind comes rushing, lie those long reaches, between Kent and Essex, ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... consideration. It was very evident that the ticket-seller, not merely from his natural self-assertion but even more because of his enviable acquaintance with certain actresses and his occasional privileges in the way of free passes, was the acknowledged autocrat of the table. Under his guidance the conversation quickly turned to theatrical and "show" talk. Much of it was vulgar, and all of it was dull. It was made the worse by the fact that they all tried to show, off a little before the newcomer, to prove their superiority and extreme knowingness ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... "I am autocrat of our world, and I know how to make my influence felt when I choose. I have very positive views about fighting. Fighting has to go on, on the frontiers of the Empire. My army can keep off our foes, but it cannot kill off the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... refused subsidies, were dissolved. When the States of Brabant adopted a similar attitude, the emperor had guns trained on the Grand' Place of Brussels and threatened "to turn the capital into a desert where grass would grow in the streets." The autocrat was now showing under the dogmatist. Exasperated by resistance, Joseph II asked from the States of Brabant a perpetual subsidy, declared his intention of revising the Joyous Entry, which he had sworn to maintain, and of taking ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... that a privileged and recognized autocrat spoke. No one had ever questioned Polly Swinger's right to interrupting, interfering, and saucy criticisms. Secure in the hopeless or chivalrous admiration of the men around her, she had repaid it with a frankness that scorned any coquetry; with an indifference ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of happiness in literature is that given by Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Happiness," said the Autocrat, "is four feet on the fender." When his beloved wife was gone, and an old friend came in to condole with him, he said, shaking his gray head, "Only two feet on the fender now." Congenial companionship is wonderfully inspiring. Aloneness is pain. You cannot kindle a fire with ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... she was thin, her face already deeply seamed with worry lines, a veritable slave to her home, but an autocrat to servants, agents and merchants. They said her will was strong; at least, excepting Fred, she had never been known to give in to any one. We have not spoken of Mary. Poor woman! She, too, was a slave—she was the hired girl. Meek almost to automatism, a machine which never varied from ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... clever fellow, but he plays the autocrat rather too much. A man has a right to be master in his own house, but Woodcote is not Hillside.' And this speech ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of harshness in his voice as he said the last words, the sound of the autocrat. Somehow Domini liked it. This man had convictions, and strong ones. That was certain. There was something oddly unconventional in him which something in her responded to. He was perfectly polite, and yet, she was quite sure, absolutely careless of opinion. Certainly he was ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... hand still on Richling's shoulder, and Richling's on his, he caught the eye of the captain of the yard, who was striding quietly up and down near by, and gave him a nod to indicate that he would soon adjust everything to that autocrat's satisfaction. Richling, dazed and trembling, kept his eyes still on the ground, while Ristofalo moved with him slowly away from the squalid group that gazed after them. They went toward ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... people, yet he desired that the Emperor should be a Russian Liberal—a very different thing from a "European" Liberal, but still something different from Alexander III. or from Count Tolstoi's ideal of a Russian autocrat.... ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... promotion is too often tainted by still baser suspicions. No doubt in a badly criticized public service there is such a thing as "sucking up to" the head of the department, but at its worst it is not nearly so bad as things may be in a small private concern under a petty autocrat. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... son o' us be guardeen to her!" he declared, with the finality appropriate to his office as autocrat second only to the Boss himself. Every man in camp assented noisily, saving only Red McWha; and he, as was expected of him, sat back ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... had something to do with this change in his politics. Papillon, Barnardistone, and their adherents, sold their stock; their places in the committee were supplied by persons devoted to Child; and he was thenceforth the autocrat of the Company. The treasures of the Company were absolutely at his disposal. The most important papers of the Company were kept, not in the muniment room of the office in Leadenhall Street, but in his desk at Wanstead. The boundless power which he exercised at the India House ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... long experience has shown me that when the ruling power is weak the people are oppressed. Those, therefore, who—like the great majority of rhetoricians—try to weaken the government, commit an abominable crime. An autocrat, who governs by his single will, may sometimes cause most deplorable results; but if he governs by popular consent there is no remedy possible. Before the majesty of the Roman arms had bestowed peace upon all the world, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... Carthaginian supremacy by sea with his fleet, and the Roman supremacy by land with his phalanxes. It is not impossible that Alexander may have cherished such thoughts; nor is it necessary to resort for an explanation of their origin to the mere difficulty which an autocrat, who is fond of war and is well provided with soldiers and ships, experiences in setting limits to his warlike career. It was an enterprise worthy of a Greek great king to protect the Siceliots against Carthage and the Tarentines ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... again. "Never forget what I have told you, Charlotte!" he said solemnly. "I would not remove my hat, sir," he continuing, turning to Percy, "in the presence of the proudest autocrat that ever sat on a throne. I uncover, in homage to the grand law which asserts the sacredness of human liberty. When Parliament has sanctioned the infamous Bill now before it, English patriots may be imprisoned, may even be hanged, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... speedily regained possession of the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to the insolence of the autocrat; but—he feared, should he abandon the Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and— calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the strange gift of condescending majestically to Mr. Prohack while licking his boots. He listened to Mr. Prohack as to an autocrat while giving Mr. Prohack to understand that Mr. Prohack knew not the first elements of sartorial elegance. At intervals he gazed abstractedly at the gold framed and crowned portraits that hung on the walls and at the inscriptions ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... warmed up the whole crew in his favour, and had mollified the martinet Miller himself. It was he who had managed the starting-rope in every race, and his voice from the towing path had come to be looked upon as a safe guide for clapping on or rowing steady. Even Miller, autocrat as he was, had come to listen for it, in confirmation of his own judgment, before calling on the crew for the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the story of this famous piece of road. The engineers of the line, accustomed to map out their routes in other countries with reference to the natural obstacles and the convenience of commerce, waited upon the great autocrat, Nicholas I., a very different man from his descendant, and asked him for instructions as to laying out the first railway in ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... this that his rules of life were conformed. The reforms which he intended to institute, mostly in the interest of boys of his own age and social standing, when he should have attained to that dignity, were marvellous and startling. No autocrat of all the Russias, no sultan, was ever endowed with the irresponsible powers which Jim believed to appertain to the position he coveted; but, to his credit be it said, these were to be exercised by him more for the benefit ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... autocrat, and I shall much enjoy getting out of this head-gear," shaking her bewigged head. Then abruptly, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in a niche at one end of the great pump-room, in wig, square-skirted coat, flapped waistcoat, and all the queer costume of the period, still looking ghost-like upon the scene where he used to be an autocrat. Marble is not a good material for Beau Nash, however; or, if so, it requires color to set him off ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had he honestly desired to put the matter on the road to settlement, Mr. Krueger should first have come to an understanding upon it. By passing it through the Volksraad as law, he should have cut the cable, were he in reality, anything but an autocrat, and such ratifications anything but ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... active part in the conversations going on about him, and little by little he injected so much of interest into them that whenever he spoke he was listened to with special attention. Without assuming superiority of any kind, he came to be recognized as in fact superior. He came to be a sort of Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, directing the conversations there into ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... his hospitable relative, the "fearless" Austrian officer, departed from Galicia, and without going near his native place, where the odious lawsuit was still going on, proceeded straight to Warsaw and entered the army of the newly constituted Polish kingdom under the sceptre of Alexander I, Autocrat ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... soul! Like an ardent, violent, totally inexperienced person (enfranchised SCHOOL-BOY, come to the age of thirty-four), who has sat hitherto in darkness, in intolerable compression; as if buried alive! He is now Czar Peter, Autocrat, not of Himself only, but of All the Russias;—and has, besides the complete regeneration of Russia, two great thoughts: FIRST, That of avenging native Holstein, and his poor martyr of a Father now with God, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... autocrat. Even an autocrat has his advisers, and in some of them he was fortunate. Mr. William Swainson, his Attorney-General, was an English lawyer of striking abilities of more than one kind. Fortunately one of these lay ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... misers' habits did incline; Twelve millions stated to possess, A tidy little fortune! Yes! Star Chamber Much he managed to extort By means of a Star Chamber Court From the rich nobles; A new wile For adding to the kingly pile. With cash in hand he could attain His wish as Autocrat to reign; As sole possessor of the guns The King no ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... spare the tree. Water (sold in casks) had evinced propensities to bubble over, and to prevent consequent waste it was necessary to make it simmer down to its normal tepidity. Having settled these little difficulties, the worried autocrat was about to affix his signature to the magic manuscript, when the little feathered informer alighted on his shoulder and warbled "wacht-een-beitje, what price oil?" The Colonel had no hesitation in pouring it on troubled waters, by ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... surprise to the American people, when upon the founding of the Atlantic Monthly in 1857, the name of Holmes was signed to the articles that probably were most popular of all published in that magazine, to which the greatest literary men in the country were contributing. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, was the title of the delightful series of humorous essays in which the author seemed really to be talking to his readers. A sort of story bound the numbers together. In the fourth ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for departure were pushed and soon after sunrise on the next day Brinnaria found herself left to her own resources, responsible for the welfare of a large retinue of obsequious slaves, autocrat over them, and mistress of one of the largest private houses in Rome. She acquitted herself well of her duties. She had been right in claiming that she was loved by most and feared by the rest. Certainly she was trusted and respected by all as if she had been five times her age. She made ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... large, and good city of the Nicaeans [erects] this wall for the autocrat Caesar Marcus Aurelius Claudius, the pious, the fortunate, august, of Tribunitial authority, second time Proconsul, father of his country, and for the Sacred Senate, and the people of the Romans, in the time of the illustrious Consular Velleius Macrinus, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... all but cries aloud saying that you must tackle the problem your own selves if you have any concern for salvation. The great privilege of a military autocrat, that he is his own Cabinet, Commander-in-Chief, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he is everywhere personally in service with his army, gives him an enormous advantage for the speedy and timely performance of military duties, but it makes him incapable of obtaining from Olynthus ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... south, on the contrary, lay the great imperial city of Kief, the capital of the realm, and the seat of a government as arbitrary as that of Novgorod was free. Here dwelt the grand prince as an irresponsible autocrat, making his will the law, and forcing all the provinces, even haughty Novgorod, to pay a tax which bore the slavish title of tribute. Here none could vote, no assembly of citizens ever met, and the only restraint on the prince was that of his warlike and turbulent ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... With an autocrat like Alexander III, secretive and obstinate, these personal questions became very serious. Ambitious generals might anticipate his wishes, Russian regiments might be on the march before the Ministers knew anything, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... most wild and romantic episodes of the world's history—a peasant boy who became a soldier, a general who became a President—a President who became a great autocrat, who raised a country from obscurity to greatness, and was finally driven from power by the very people he had educated, and to whom ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... true then are not necessarily true now. Thus, the speed of the trotting horse has been so much developed that the record of the year when the fastest time to that date was given must be very considerably altered, as may be seen by referring to a note on page 49 of the "Autocrat." No doubt many other statements and opinions might be more or less modified if I were writing today instead of having written before the war, when the world and I were both more than a score of ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... there's an end of it. Of course I'd rather have things as they used to be; but after all this time, I expect there's bound to be a few changes." He turned from the contemplation of the hall to face his relatives squarely, with the air of an autocrat who had decreed that the subject was ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... been made to gain over by intrigue the tribes who could not be subjugated by force; the cross, joining its influence to the power of the sword, has endeavored to bring the native mind under the dominion of a system of religion more favorable to the aims of the autocrat; a superior civilization has held out to the comparatively rude barbarians, its hands full of gifts dazzling and fatal to liberty; but hitherto mostly, if not all, in vain. The inhabitants of the upper and more inaccessible mountains ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... not mellowed with age. He viewed with endless bitterness the passing of his own day and generation, and the rise to power of younger men; with their "shilly-shallying," he would say. He was an aristocrat, an autocrat, and a survival. He tied Howard's hands in the management of the now vast mills, and then blamed him ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... la Russie!" It was neatly phrased As MOHRENHEIM admitted, A President, in doggerel stanzas praised, Must be so ready-witted, Yet mild Republican and Autocrat, Hugging in friendly seeming, Suggest that Someone may be cuddled flat— At least ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... that Napoleon's strength was far from exhausted, and fled to Spain. Czartoryski entertained the idea that in case of Napoleon's overthrow he might unite Poland under his own leadership and demand a truly liberal constitution, such as could not be worked by a Russian autocrat with three hundred thousand Russian soldiers at his back. Should the virtual independence of Poland be wrung from Alexander, and not be secured by the French alliance, then the only available constitutional ruler would, he thought, be a member of his own princely ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of a very different tendency. He had been brought up to regard the foreign sovereigns of his native land with the feeling with which the Jew regarded Caesar, with which the Scot regarded Edward the First, with which the Castilian regarded Joseph Buonaparte, with which the Pole regards the Autocrat of the Russias. It was the boast of the highborn Milesian that, from the twelfth century to the seventeenth, every generation of his family had been in arms against the English crown. His remote ancestors had contended with Fitzstephen and De Burgh. His greatgrandfather had cloven down the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The autocrat loved to compound her own dinners. She had a salver which Angelique placed before her on the bed; and the old child played in pastry or salads, or cut vegetable dice for her soup. The baking or boiling or roasting was done with rigor ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... lived at Mingun, where he conceived the idea that he was a Buddha, an idea which had not been entirely absent from the minds of Alompra and Hsin-byu-shin. It is to the credit of the Theras that, despite the danger of opposing an autocrat as cruel as he was crazy, they refused to countenance these pretensions and the king returned to his ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... were the heroes of the occasion, for both had shown great powers of endurance and done their work in capital time. We had no set speeches at the table, for we had voted eloquence a bore before we sat down. David Copperfield, Hyperion, Hosea Biglow, the Autocrat, and the Bad Boy were present, and there was no need of set speeches. The ladies present, being all daughters of America, smiled upon the champion, and we had a great, good time. The banquet provided by Dickens was profusely decorated with flowers, arranged by himself. The master of the feast was ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... sober by comparison; he trampled on the liberty of the rising press, which was the most hopeful educational influence in the country; and he created superfluous ministerial portfolios for his untalented brothers. In fact he reglamented Greece from his palace at Aigina like a divinely appointed autocrat, from his arrival in January 1828 till the summer of 1831, when he provoked the Hydhriots to open rebellion, and commissioned the Russian squadron in attendance to quell them by a naval action, with the result ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... 1809; died there Oct. 7, 1894. Physician; professor of anatomy and physiology in the medical school of Harvard University 1847-82. Some of his best-known poems are "Bill and Joe," "The Deacon's Masterpiece," and "The Chambered Nautilus." Of his three novels "Elsie Venner" is the best known. His "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," "Professor at the Breakfast-Table," "Poet at the Breakfast-Table," and "Over the Tea-Cups" all appeared originally in the Atlantic ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... writings of the great literary coterie of the middle of the nineteenth century that serfdom ought to be abolished, and he determined that it should be done.[106] It is not in the system of autocracy that the autocrat shall have original opinions and adopt an independent initiative. The men whom he ordered to abolish serfdom had to devise a method, and they devised one which was to appear satisfactory to the tsar, but was to protect the interests which they cared for. One is reminded ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... considerable truth that the man was a military autocrat, unfit for the highest civil position in a democracy. His high-handed policy in respect to Reconstruction in the South evoked ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... sufficiently notorious; and it must have required no small exercise of sagacity and address to overcome the known disinclination of that Cabinet to any relaxation of the restrictive policy which, as the Autocrat lately observed to a distinguished personage, "had been handed down to him from his ancestors, and was found to work well for the interests of his empire." The peculiar merits of this treaty are as little understood, however, as they have been unjustly depreciated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... suffering and oppressed Spaniards! Yet even them we do not reprobate. Strange! that we should have no objection to any other people or government, civilized or savage, in the whole world! The great autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage of our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of pirates are very civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... her indoors to Lady MacGregor, and Stephen wondered if she would be afraid of the elderly fairy with the face of a child and the manner of an autocrat. But she was not in the least shy; and indeed Stephen could hardly picture the girl as being self-conscious in any circumstances. Lady MacGregor took her in with one look; white hat, red hair, blue eyes, lily at belt, simple frock and all, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... He deplores, however, the low standard of public taste, which, delighting in inferior poets, cannot at once rise to the greatest works. Already there existed in Leipzig a sort of literary centre, where Gottsched was regarded as a dictator in matters of taste. This literary autocrat praised Bodmer's translation of 'Paradise Lost' more than the original poem, in which he condemned the rhymeless metre. A sharp controversy soon divided the literary world into two hostile parties, known in German literature as the "conflict between ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... encouragement than George I. The appointments of composer to the Chapel Royal and composer to the court were purely honorary, but they strengthened his position. As to the opera-house, he must by now have felt that he was its unquestioned autocrat, and he could not help being aware that he was without a rival in Europe as far as the stage was concerned, for old Scarlatti had gone to his grave, and the younger generation had produced no composer of such outstanding eminence. And in England music was generously ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... here truly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far from the mark),—what almost prodigious saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of Shams (that of Realities ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... was all done and a Provisional Government of Chaos Redux comfortably established in Physics, the Man of Science turns up suddenly in the following communication. [A council was called on the spot, the Autocrat in the chair, and it was decided, with only one dissenting voice, that the communication should be printed as a lesson to the peccant Editor, who, for the future, was laid under a strict interdict in respect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Great fun seeing Amery again. What memories of his concealment in the Autocrat's "Special" going to the Vereeniging Conference; of our efforts to create a strategical training ground for British troops in South Africa; of our battles against one another over the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... was charged with the express duty of keeping the camp healthy and sanitary, unfortunately Dr. Ascher was not an autocrat in his department. His powers were limited, and he was for the most part completely subservient to military decrees. Time after time he protested energetically and determinedly upon the quantity and ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... understood was that everything was not over yet. There was no time to lose; Mrs Fyne and the girls had come in at the gate. He whispered "Wait" with such authority (he was the son of Carleon Anthony, the domestic autocrat) that it did arrest her for a moment, long enough to hear him say that he could not be left like this to puzzle over her nonsense all night. She was to slip down again into the garden later on, as soon as she could do so without being heard. He would be there waiting for her till—till ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... had utterly misunderstood the scheme of things. Divinity is not a sad, a solemn, a solitary autocrat demanding selfish tribute, blind allegiance, inexorable self-abasement. It is not an insecure tyrant offering bribery for the ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Fair wagonette was pulled up outside the station. Mr. Crows, master of his destiny and time-tables, reclined in front, regarding with a glazed eye his drooping horse. Inside, some stout women with bundles waited patiently until it suited the autocrat on the box seat to start on his homeward way. Mr. Crows showed no indication of being in a hurry. His head nodded drowsily, and a little saliva trickled down his nether lip. He straightened himself with a sudden jerk as ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... The autocrat shifted uneasily, and in the dusk Everett could see that he was completely melted and ready to surrender his position if he could only ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... used to have my breakfast at seven," and then telling the boy all about his boyhood, the cheery poet led him to the dining-room, and for the first time he breakfasted away from home and ate pie—and that with "The Autocrat" at his own breakfast-table! ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the Minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members of Parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply "you will soon come off that and grow wiser," the autocrat enamoured of power who could brook no colleague within measurable distance, the man of coarse habits and illiterate tastes, above all the man who induced his countrymen to place money before honour, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Oregon, and to make the acquaintance of the still more famous doctor, the so-called "king of Aurora." During the years in which I had formerly resided in Oregon, and especially on this last journey thither, I had frequently heard this settlement and its autocrat spoken of, and had been told the strangest stories as to the government of its self-made potentate. All reports agreed in stating that "Dutchtown," the generic appellation of German colonies among Americans, was an example to all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... discover in these arguments anything to remove the case from the common category of national or monarchical quarrels. The representations of the North might be made word for word by any autocrat or conqueror desirous of 'rectifying' his frontier, consolidating his empire, or retaining a disaffected province in subjection. The manifestos of the South might be put forth by any State desirous of terminating an unpleasant connexion or ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... guilty of no intentional disrespect towards the Hon. Lewis Cass. It is possible that he may never have seen the article in question. Contributors to periodicals are sometimes sadly neglectful of the most brilliant performances of their confreres. We doubt whether the "Autocrat" has ever read with proper attention any of our own modest, but not, we hope, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... striking with the decree issued by the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, to his faithful servant Nebo-sar-uzur. All that was needed where the King of Assyria was concerned was his signet-seal and royal command. But Assur-bani-pal was an autocrat at the head of a military state. The Babylonian sovereign governed a commercial community and owed his authority to ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... two had never seriously clashed, but sooner or later the capitalist must learn the truth; and when he did, when that iron-jawed, iron-willed autocrat once discovered that this youth whom he had taken into his home with so little thought of possible harm had actually dared to oppose him, his ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... his opponents included the sovereignty over the provinces of the Roman Empire, his victory secured for him the conquest of that entire Empire; and he thus became—though leaving the form of the constitution—the autocrat of the State. What secured for him the execution of a design, which in the first instance was of negative import—the autocracy of Rome—was, however, at the same time an independently necessary feature in the history of Rome and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... on the blue and white sky. The cover was turned down, and I was permitted to kiss a baby-sister, and warned to be good, lest Mrs. Dampster, who had brought the baby, should come and take it away. This autocrat was pointed out, as she sat in a gray dress, white 'kerchief and cap, and no other potentate has ever inspired me ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... irresponsible, acted nevertheless as one who knew that any change which depressed his party, might eventually abrogate his privilege. For the first time in the person of an imperator was seen a supreme autocrat, who had virtually and effectively all the irresponsibility which the law assigned, and the origin of his office presumed. Satisfied to know that he possessed such power, Augustus, as much from natural taste as policy, was glad ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... with increasing satisfaction, she studied her husband's character, finding, like all new wives, that almost all her preconceived ideas of him had been wrong. Like all the world, she had always fancied Greg something of an autocrat, positive almost to stubbornness in ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... authority for all these high-handed actions," snarled the deposed autocrat of the Trading Company. His heart hardened as he reflected that, after all, he was the legal marital master of the slim girl there, hidden in her ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... House of Romanoff have suffered eclipse consequent upon the terrible end of Nicholas II. and his family, interest in it has no doubt to a great extent evaporated. But it may perhaps be mentioned here that our practice of referring to the Autocrat of All the Russias as the "Tsar" is incorrect, and the custom indeed seems to have been almost peculiar to this country. You never heard the terms "Tsar" and "Tsaritza" employed in Russia, not, at all events, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... know that the accused has no appeal from your decision if you decide unfairly—no redress from injustice should you be unjust. Knowing all this—knowing that, save in the magnitude of his power to do wrong, the autocrat of all the Russias possesses no authority more absolute than the citizens of New York have given to you, a single man, and a citizen like themselves—I say, knowing all this, and feeling in my own person all the injustice and all the peril it ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him they did it ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the White Nile and the Caspian Sea. His journey however was so unprecedented a step, that it brought him into trouble with Tiberius. The Emperor was half afraid that Germanicus had some designs upon the kingdom of Egypt, and as that land happened to be the granary of Rome, the jealous autocrat thought of the possibility of short-commons and a bread-riot in the Forum. But even if the tourist had no ulterior views, the Emperor thought that it did not look like business for a proconsul to be making holiday without leave,—and he accordingly reprimanded his adopted ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... politicians, often decides who shall be nominated for the various offices of government, leaving no choice to the voters themselves. This makes of our government a real autocracy, and the worst kind of autocracy, because the autocrat (the "boss") acts in secret, and is in no way responsible to the people. It is the "frightful despotism" of which Washington warned ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... and every now and then turning up his old withered face, first to one of his visitors, and then to the other; then whisking round on one foot, and treading without ceremony on the shoeless foot of his perspiring partner, then marching slow, with solemn gait, like the autocrat of all the Russias in a polonnaise, then, not exactly leading gracefully down the middle, but twining the hands of his visitors in his, which had very much the appearance of a piebald affair, showing at the same time an extraordinary inflation of pride, that a white ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that impression. And you do ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... sheltered from him. Perhaps the new detective perceived the state of unrest and terrible suspense in which many of the company were on account of Squire Walker's vagaries, and chivalrously sought to deliver them. Eyeing keenly the autocrat of the breakfast table, he remarked, "I'm afraid ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to "note the northern love of rocks" in this passage, and adds: "Dante could not have thought of his 'cut rocks' as giving rest even to snow. He must put it on the pine branches, if it is to be at peace." Taylor quotes Holmes, Autocrat of Breakfast Table: "She melted away from her seat like an ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Germany was convinced that Russia was preparing for war. The Tsar's pacificist ideas were of no importance whatever. In absolute monarchies it is an illusion to think that the sovereign, though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance with his own views. His views are almost invariably those of the people round him; he does not even receive news in its true form, but in the form given it by officials. Russia was ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... distinguished divine, for whom I have great respect, for I owe him a charming hour at one of our literary anniversaries, and he has often spoken noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend the "Autocrat,"—which I grieve to say he twice misquotes, by omitting the very word which gives it its significance,—the word fluid, intended to typify the mobility of the restricted will,—holds it up, I say, as if it attacked the reality of the self-determining ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Commodore Vanderbilt, yet he is seldom seen there. All of his business is done in his office in Fourth Street. Here his brokers meet him, receive their orders, and give reports. Here the plans are laid that shake the street, and Wall Street trembles at the foot of an invisible autocrat. If the reader would care to visit the court of that great railroad king, whose name has become the terror of Wall Street, he may accompany us to a plain brick residence in Fourth Street, near Broadway, and distant from Wall Street nearly two miles. No sign ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... cast them off with a sudden, "Down, Yarrow!" which took all the curl in a moment out of the noble tail with which Yarrow was sweeping all the unconsidered trifles off Mrs. Dennistoun's work-table. The young autocrat walked to the window as he shook off his adoring vassal, and stared out for a little with his hands deeply dug into his pockets. And then a new idea came into Pippo's head; the most brilliant new idea, which restored at once the light to his eyes and elevation to his ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... people flying into atoms with the help of a little nitroglycerine they are quite happy. Vengeance, vengeance! That is their eternal cry. Of course in Russia it's a different thing. One must either be an autocrat and slave-driver or a Nihilist out there, but here—they are mad, all of them! They have just settled to draw lots to-morrow night. I wonder who will have the 'honour' of becoming executioner? I suppose they can't do it to-night because ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... think she'd be sorry to have an excuse for getting rid of me. That's one of the delightful aspects of our position—we are absolutely at the mercy of a woman who, from sheer force of circumstances, becomes more of an autocrat every year. The Committee listen to her, and accept every word she says; the staff know better than to dispute a single order. We'd stand on our head in rows if she made it a rule! The pupils scuttle like rabbits ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... goose you are, Esther," he said, in a disgusted voice; "but, there, you women are all alike," continued the youthful autocrat. "You pet one another's morbid fancies, and do no end of harm. Because Carrie wants cheering, you keep her low with all these books, which feed her gloomy ideas. What do you say? she likes it; well, many people ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... that they had not regained their independence and political liberty; that, as compared with the Greeks, they felt themselves an inferior race, and that they only enjoyed their civil rights during the pleasure of a Greek autocrat; but then it is to be remembered that the native rulers with whom Ptolemy was compared were the kings of Lower Egypt, who, like himself, were surrounded by Greek mercenaries, and who never rested their power on the broad base of national ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... fingers, with their own strained on their tomahawks. That was half the death-signal! Would he give the other half,—the downward gesture? The baffled rebels tasted all the bitterness of death in that agonizing suspense. They felt that their lives were literally in his grasp; and so the stern autocrat wished them to feel, for he knew it was a ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... Synod.... Every Lutheran of this country should have endeavored to lead our foreign brethren to the General Synod, showing them that the pure spiritual Lutheranism of this land is so much better than the leather-bound symbolism of the Bavarian autocrat, as our political institutions are better than those of the old Fatherland. But, instead of this work of love, our benighted symbolists have strengthened the prejudices of the foreigners in saying ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... political schemes, bending over his mysterious plans with all the eagerness of a gambler who is on the point of gaining, the Dominican, who thought himself on the eve of a tremendous event, who by cunning, patience, and labour hoped to scatter his enemies and to reign as absolute autocrat, now falling suddenly from the edifice of his dream, stiffened himself by a mighty effort to stand and resist the mother of his pupil. But fear cried too loud in the heart of Elizabeth for all the reasonings of the monk to lull it ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not get away from it, as many a statesman, many an orator daily proved.) But possibly they had explored them with no result. Possibly Sub-section 4 (Organisation of Search) of Committee 9 knew all about them. What that sub-section did not yet know was that Charles Wilbraham, hand in glove with autocrat Russia, armament kings, and the Calvinist church, lurked and plotted in the avenues by night, like the spider in her ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... luxury. On the other hand, her sister had her dresses from Paris, and wore them and her ornaments according to all the formulas; she was good-naturedly correct, and bent her round white shoulders to whatever burden the Parisian autocrat chose to put upon them. Madeleine never interfered, and ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... autocrat, and ruled as absolutely in No. l as in her nursery, ordering off the three young ones to their schools, in spite of Maura's remonstrances and appeals to Lady Merrifield, who agreed with nurse that the girl was much better away and occupied than where ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... naturally, each member claimed the right to have his name included in the list. Sachar, the most powerful of the nobles—he who had suggested the election of one of themselves to fill the throne—seized a parchment and, with the air of an autocrat, at once inscribed his own name at the head of the list, without deigning to inquire whether such action was or was not acceptable to his colleagues. Then, still retaining the pen in his hand, he glanced round ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... is my trainer's sister," he explained in a modulated tone to Allis. "A trainer is quite an autocrat, I assure you, and one must be very careful not to forget any ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... the movements we have been considering, has had two objects in view: 1. The more thorough centralization of the papacy, with a spiritual autocrat assuming the prerogatives of God at its head; 2. Control over the intellectual development of ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper |
