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High-handed   Listen
adjective
High-handed  adj.  Overbearing; oppressive; arbitrary; violent; as, a high-handed act.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"High-handed" Quotes from Famous Books



... Mr. Theal records the causes of the great emigration, and shows how the Boers stood up for fair treatment, and fought the cause, not of Boers alone, but of all colonists. Boers and British were alike harshly and ignorantly treated by high-handed Governors, and an ill-informed and prejudiced Colonial Office, who made no distinction on the grounds of nationality between the two; for we read that Englishmen had been expelled the country, thrown in gaol, had their property confiscated, and their ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... may look queer on a small scale," said Blondet, "but on a large we call it finance. There are high-handed proceedings criminal between man and man that amount to nothing when spread out over any number of men, much as a drop of prussic acid becomes harmless in a pail of water. You take a man's life, you are guillotined. But if, for any political conviction ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... cheerful faces around him. They helped him, no doubt, to carry on to the end of his days that high-handed and dignified fight against ill-fortune which ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... wrath had waxed hotter every day, as he saw power after power extended to the federal government, at length gave way and went back to Maryland, vowing that he would have nothing more to do with such high-handed proceedings. ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... of disregarding engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... the receiver and left him fuming. Her high-handed indifference to his authority sent him storming to Derry, "I've half ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... corporation like that of New York, a dishonest political organization like Tammany Hall, or a powerful Tramway or Railway Company. The consequence is, that not only the individual citizen, but a whole community submits to high-handed oppression, to administrative and judicial corruption, to impudent usurpation and flagrant illegalities, such as the greatest of English corporations would never dream of attempting. Perhaps the ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... least, you have not to contend with that most fatal of all attitudes— indifference. A great change in you will be a flattering tribute to her power to which no girl would be indifferent. I must tell you now once for all that I will not again assist in any high-handed measures against Louise. Not only the futility of such action, but my own dignity and sense of right, forbid it. I did not understand her at first. Now that I do, I am all the more eager to call her ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... were to be taken to Santa Marina to meet whatever punishment was thought fit for their rather indefinite ill-doing. They had not murdered us, they had robbed us of nothing but the provisions they had eaten, they had, after all, as much right on the island as ourselves. Yet there remained their high-handed conduct in invading our camp and treating us as prisoners, with the threat of darker possibilities. I fancy that Santa Marinan justice works mainly by rule of thumb, and that the courts do not embarrass themselves much with precedents. Only I hope they did not shoot ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... out," admonished Auntie Elspie, like an indulgent mother threatening her mischievous children with a father's punishment. "Gavie jist won't let us put foot into the fields!" she added proudly. But the two younger ones laughed recklessly. They would be up sides with Gavie yet, for all his high-handed, bossy ways! ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... Laudonniere took a high-handed step. He sent a party up the river, seized {87} Outina, and brought him a prisoner to the fort. This had the desired effect. His people pleaded for his release. The Frenchmen agreed to give him up for a large supply ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... resentfully. I was not quite sure that I liked her high-handed way of disposing of me as if I were a child. Then as I felt her keen eyes upon me I knew that she was reading my thoughts, and I felt mightily ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... consultation between the two Regents, and Douglas's letter was read with such angry comments as may be supposed. The Earl's contempt evidently cut deep, and strongly emphasised the necessity of dealing authoritatively with such a high-handed rebel against the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... high-handed measures, the friends of law and liberty were for a moment disconcerted and paralyzed. In the frightful abasement of the courts of justice which these events so clearly showed, the freedom of Englishmen seemed threatened in its last stronghold. The doctrine of passive obedience ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... the contrary, remember that this man is not a hypocrite. He is occasionally stupid; he is at times obstinate; he is frequently high-handed; and often he would rather be misunderstood than explain. But he is neither tyrannical nor corrupt. He went into this War because he felt it his duty to do so, and not because he ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... precedents extending from 1665 allowed them the constant exercise of such rights. Andros, however, especially now that Sir George Carteret had died, in January, 1680, asserted that all rights of government remained unimpaired in the Duke of York. Governor Carteret's narrative of the high-handed proceedings by which he tried to exercise these rights may be seen in Leaming and Spicer's Grants and Concessions, pp. 683, 684. Substantially it agrees with that of Danckaerts. The arrest took place on April ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... Algitha finally decided to delay her going for another six months, hoping by that time that her mother would have grown used to the idea, and less opposed to it. Mr. Fullerton dismissed it, as obviously absurd. But this high-handed treatment roused all the determination that Algitha had inherited from her father. The six months had to be extended, in order to procure funds. Algitha had a small income of her own, left her by her godmother, Miss Fortescue. She put aside this, for her purpose. Further delay, through ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... the Deanery all that day. On the morrow he heard, to his relief, that Oliver had returned to London with the unedifying Chipmunk. He took Peggy for a drive in the Rolls-Royce, and told her of Oliver's high-handed methods. She sympathized. She ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... Mexican silver mines, rapidly lost even their primitive civilization and died in alarming numbers. This in itself would not have weakened the monarchy greatly, but it appeared more serious when we remember that the high-handed and harassing regulations imposed by short-sighted or selfish officials had checked the growth of a healthy agricultural and industrial population in the colonies, and that the bulk of the silver was going to support the pride of grandees and to swell the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... of the law descended upon Tinkletown one day and began to ask peremptory questions. They went about it in such a high-handed, lordly manner that Anderson took alarm and his heart sank like lead. He saw in his mind's eye the utter collapse of all his hopes, the dashing away of his cup of leisure and the upsetting of the "fairy godmother's" plans. Pulling his wits together, he set ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... prosperity. 'A century of wrong!' British ignorance of South Africa, Boer ignorance of civilisation, British intolerance, Boer brutality, British interference, Boer independence, clash, clash, clash, all along the line! and then fanatical, truth-scorning missionaries, experimental philanthropists, high-handed jingo administrators, colonial ministers who disliked all colonies on the glorious principles of theoretic liberalism, bad generals thinking of their own reputations, not of their country's success, and a series of miserable events recalled sufficiently well by their names—Slagter's ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... unworthy, she craved flattery. Since she had been denied physical beauty, she built her hopes on attracting admiration by her daring personality. During her freshman year at Hamilton she had acquired a certain kind of popularity by her high-handed methods. Possessed of an immense fortune, and in her own right, she had acquired tremendous power over her particular clique by reason of her money. Leslie never "went broke." The majority of the Sans received liberal allowances from ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... such a raid with spirit. I contended that we might have reason to regret, at the end of another rope, so high-handed a proceeding. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... which Great Britain has been wont to inflict upon all the weaker or the uncivilized peoples with whom she has been brought or has gratuitously forced herself into unwelcome contact. It was not an occasional act of high-handed arrogance that was done; there were not only a few unfortunate victims, of whom a large proportion might be of unascertained nationality. It was an organized system worked upon a very large scale. Every American ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... out his high-handed measures and appeared that evening at "Marse Perkins's" with a ring of portentous size squeezed on the little finger of his left hand. It had something of the color of gold, and that is the best that ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... unseaworthy, {148} leaving only the Pelican, the Elizabeth, and the Marygold. One thing more remained to be done—the greatest blot across the glory of Drake. Doughty was defiant, a party growing in his favor. When sent as prisoner to the Marygold, he had angered every man of the crew by high-handed authority. Drake dared not go on to unknown, hostile seas with a mutiny, or the chance of a mutiny brewing. Whether justly or unjustly, Doughty was tried at Port St. Julian under the shadow of Magellan's old scaffold, for disrespect to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... may count upon me to stand by you through thick and thin. You hesitate, and very rightly, too, to speak of your plans before me. It would be no advantage to you, and it might be embarrassing to me, were you to discuss them in my presence; but I have so little sympathy with Captain Renouf in his high-handed method of dealing with you that, were I to accidentally become acquainted with any portion of your intentions, I should feel quite justified in remaining silent about them. If the fellow is foolish enough ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... forget Arthur? Or cease to love him? Or that Arthur would forget me while I am away? Perhaps it's Diana, and she wants to get rid of me so she can coax Arthur back to her side. But that's nonsense; isn't it, Madame Cerise? No girl—not even Diana Von Taer—would dare to act in such a high-handed manner toward her rival. Did you ever hear of Miss Von Taer? She's quite a society belle. Have you ever seen her, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... thinking it quite time to be high-handed, "a first-class, howling idiot, Pepper, to act so. If you don't believe me, when I say I haven't anything to keep back from you, I'll go straight upstairs. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... will pilfer steadily from many trees for many days without attracting notice, a crowd of starlings is occasionally observed to descend en masse upon a single tree and strip it in a few hours. Naturally such high-handed procedure is observed by many and deeply resented by the owner of the tree, who suffers the steady but less spectacular raids of the robins ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... of Tibetans with their sheep had also come over to spend the winter on British territory. Their encampments could be seen all along the road wherever there was sufficient grass for their flocks. The Tibetans—Lamas and officials—maintained a high-handed and insolent demeanor as long as we were in Bhot, which they regarded as part of their own country, but which was in reality British soil. It must, however, be said for them that the moment they came ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... can be said but praise. Respectful in word and deed, every letter, every record shows that the young Puritans truly honored their fathers and mothers. It were well for them to thus obey the law of God, for by the law of the land high-handed disobedience of parents was punishable by death. I do not find this penalty ever was paid, as it was under the sway of grim Calvin, a fact which redounds to the credit both of justice and youth in ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... power, he became foreign secretary in the ministry of the Duke of Portland, of which Mr. Perceval was the leading member. It was then that Canning seized the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, giving as his excuse for this bold and high-handed measure that Napoleon would have taken it if he had not. It was through his influence and that of Lord Castlereagh that Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward the Duke of Wellington, was sent to Spain to conduct ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... a very smart individual, in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel—a personage who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will ces dames desire a salon—there is un vrai petit bijou empty just now," murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... cause of the fighting certainly must be ourselves. Already, it would seem, the prophecy of the Priest Captain's downfall was assuming a tangible reality; for this rising in arms against him could mean nothing less than that his high-handed refusal to permit us to be carried before the Council of the Twenty Lords had fairly brought matters to a crisis, and that the long-threatened revolution ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... Mr. Fenshawe's statements. In the first instance, the Governor had acted on specific Instructions, and the Roman authorities must have been well aware of the identity of the yacht's owner. Again, the person really aimed at in these high-handed proceedings was von Kerber. The Governor made no secret of the fact that the millionaire was detained solely because he declared himself a principal in the Austrian's enterprise, and it was no small token of ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... a high-handed manner that the dealer never guessed she was acting on her own authority. As she had made a special visit to the farm, accompanied by her groom, he imagined she must have been entrusted by Major Fitzgerald with full powers to buy ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... air of cool authority about Bannon that disturbed the men. They had been led to believe that his power reached only the work on the elevator, and that an attempt on his part to interfere in any way with their organization would be an act of high-handed tyranny, "to be resisted to the death" (Grady's words). But these men standing before their boss, in his own office, were not the same men that thrilled with righteous wrath under Grady's eloquence in the meetings over Barry's saloon. So they looked at the floor and ceiling ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... of it all around. I endeavored for some time to get before Worth the dangers of his high-handed defiance of law, order, probate judges, and the court's officers, in the person of Allen G. Cummings, attorney and his father's executor. He listened, yawned—and suggested that it must be nearly bedtime. I gave it up, and we went—I, at least, with a sense ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... God had determined to be done? We cannot admit that God had fixed unalterably the doings of Herod, Pilate, and their unholy allies, for the simple reason given in explaining Acts ii. 23—viz., that if such were the case, then there is no foothold upon which to condemn those high-handed sinners. They were verily guilty, but we cannot find a shadow of fault with them if they were only doing what they were foreordained to do. What, then, had God determined to be done? He had determined to send His son into the world to make an atonement ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... gone into the woods to start fires. But he was ordered to stop, and these parts of his answers were kept out of the record. Finally he was rebuked savagely by the Judge and ordered to confine himself to answering the lawyer's questions, on pain of being arrested for contempt. It was a high-handed proceeding that showed the temper and the intention of the Judge and a stir of protest ran around the courtroom. But old Erskine Beasley was quelled. He gave only the answers that ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... had been drawn for him by a lady of his acquaintance. It represented the doleful perplexity of a wealthy and handsome young English knight of the olden time, who, in the course of a border foray, had been captured and carried off to the castle of a hard-headed and high-handed old baron. The unfortunate youth was thrown into a dungeon, and a tall gallows erected before the castle gate for his execution. When all was ready, he was brought into the castle hall where the grim baron was seated in state, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... great sigh. "Very well," he said heavily. "But I want it known that I resent this high-handed treatment, and I shall write a letter complaining of it." He pressed a button on an instrument panel in his desk. "Bring ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of my son's estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children, how good Ulysses had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, nor speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... the Martels at breakfast next morning. Of course they were sympathetic over Madam Bartlett's accident—the Martels' sympathy was always on tap for friend or foe,—but that did not interfere with a frank enjoyment of Quin's spirited account of her high-handed treatment of the family, especially the incident ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... British subject it would be impossible for me to comply, unless force was used; that I protested against this high-handed proceeding. I did this so that, in the future, no one could accuse me of aiding the rebels willingly. He replied that he did not care for the British government, that I would do as I was told or suffer the consequences. They then escorted me to the ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... rapidity every regulator knew it; even the telegraph of modern days performs no greater wonders: and it frequently happened, that the first the quiet citizens heard of a theft, or a robbery, was the news of its punishment! Their acts may sometimes have been high-handed and unjustifiable, but on the whole—and it is only in such a view that social institutions are to be estimated—they were the preservers of the communities for whom they acted. In time, it is true, they degenerated, and sometimes the corps fell ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... the legislature were induced, by means of various tricks, together with some touches of that high-handed insolence by which such things are accomplished, to pass a resolution for a convention to alter the constitution of the State, with a view to the introduction of SLAVERY. One of the newspapers ventured an article which exposed the scandalous means by which the resolutions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... offered to lay the matter before judges. The cause therefore was tried, and at the trial the young son of the King, who had witnessed the pact, testified to the truth of Hercules' claim. This so enraged his father that in most high-handed manner he banished both his son and the hero from Elis without waiting for the judgment of the court. Hercules returned to Mycenae. But again the cowardly and contemptible Eurystheus refused to count this labour, saying Hercules had done ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... providing his Brahmins with a greenhouse for the purpose of their rites, which he watched from outside with great interest. One cannot fancy Cardinal Newman peeping through a window to see men worshipping false though ancient gods. Warren Hastings' high-handed dealings with the temples and time-honoured if scandalous customs of the Hindoos filled Burke with horror. So, too, he respected Quakers, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all those whom he called Constitutional Dissenters. He has a fine passage somewhere about Rust, for with all his ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... the veils from the faces of the women. Many men with whom I have talked think the custom not only archaic, but thought-stifling. The Turkish authorities, thinking to extinguish this light of liberty, have greatly added to its flame, and their high-handed action has materially assisted the creation of a wider public opinion and a better understanding of this crucial problem." The other question exercising opinion in HÌ£aifa is the formation of a military and strategic quarter out of Akka, which in this is resuming its bygone importance. ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... streets the witnesses are slain, and where their dead bodies lie, "is spiritually Egypt." Of all nations presented in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the living God, and resisted His commands. No monarch ever ventured upon more open and high-handed rebellion against the authority of Heaven than did the king of Egypt. When the message was brought him by Moses, in the name of the Lord, Pharaoh proudly answered, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go."(392) This is ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... a large, black head, was a despatch from Baton Rouge relaying other despatches received at that point, from many points between Plaquimine and Bayou Sara. These, in short, told the story of the most high-handed attempt at river piracy known in recent years. The private yacht of Calvin Davidson, a wealthy northern business man, on his way South for the winter, had been seized by a band of masked ruffians, who boarded her while the yacht's owner ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... went off capitally. Every one was delighted, and I not the least so, when a messenger arrived from the director, who had just returned to town, requesting an immediate interview. Littichau was enraged beyond measure at my high-handed proceedings in this matter, of which he had been informed by our good friend Reissiger. If his baronial coronet had been on his head during this interview, it would assuredly have tumbled off. The fact that I should have conducted my negotiations in person ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... it as the former. For such, the reflection that it was part of a private correspondence between two friendly statesmen, both well known to be sincere in their views that a country's navy—that all military preparations—are based on motives of national defence, not of high-handed aggression, must absolve the Emperor from any suspicion of political immorality. It was unfortunate that the letter was written, unfortunate that it was made known publicly, but, as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... were a bit high-handed with me. That choked me off. Still, though in an evil moment I took the cheque out of your book, I loathed myself for it afterwards. I hadn't the strength of mind to destroy it, or the courage to send it back. But"—he turned back again and met Mordaunt's eyes—"I wasn't going to use ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... from their fortified posts on the Black Sea. The Turkish and Persian governments naturally took alarm at the approach of a military power whom they had already good reason to mistrust and dread; the Russian viceroys and generals on the frontier treated these Oriental kingdoms with high-handed arrogance, and gave ample provocation for the wars which speedily broke out with both of them. The annals of the next few years record many vicissitudes of fortune. The Russian armies achieved some brilliant ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... Indians to support all the European vagabonds and adventurers who came to dispossess them of their country), Smith gave out that he came not so much for corn as to revenge his imprisonment and the death of his men murdered by the Indians, and proceeded to make war. This high-handed treatment made the savages sue for peace, and furnish, although they complained of want themselves, owing to a bad harvest, a hundred bushels ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... So high-handed an offender against the law and the rights of the people could not escape the notice or the withering rebuke of Mr. King. He fearlessly proclaimed him a convicted felon, and dealt with him as one of the principal of those offenders against all law, human ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb

... experience—and in Samuel Untermyer's professional position he has either prosecuted, defended, or had an inquisitorial finger in every sword-swallowing, dissolving-view, frenzied finance game that has been born or naturalized in Wall Street within the decade—he had never met the equal in high-handed bunco ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... to be the better for them. Strangely fertilising, in the long run, does a wasted effort of attention often prove. It all depends on HOW the attention has been cheated, has been squandered. There are high-handed insolent frauds, and there are insidious sneaking ones. And there is, I fear, even on the most designing artist's part, always witless enough good faith, always anxious enough desire, to fail to guard him against ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... others fight no more. Bring, then, two lambs, a white ram and a black ewe, for Earth and Sun, and we will bring a third for Jove. Moreover, you shall bid Priam come, that he may swear to the covenant himself; for his sons are high-handed and ill to trust, and the oaths of Jove must not be transgressed or taken in vain. Young men's minds are light as air, but when an old man comes he looks before and after, deeming that which shall be fairest ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... "I'm afraid such high-handed proceedings would hardly answer," replied Mr. Swift. "No, as Captain Weston says, we must get there ahead of them. What do you think will ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... lip-serving crowd of courtiers of Whitehall), and although, when churchwarden in his parish, he ever preserved the laudable custom of Whitsun and Martinmas ales for the good of the poor, and persisted in having the Book of Sports read from the pulpit,—he was averse from all high-handed measures of musketooning, and calivering, and gambriling those of the meaner sort, or those of better degree (as Mr. Hampden, Mr. Pym, and Another whom I shudder to mention), who, for Conscience' sake, opposed themselves to the King's Government. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... basic fact in this running patter. Each was trying to buck up the other. Jane was honestly worried. She could not say what it was that worried her, but there was a strong leaven in her of old-wives' prescience. It wasn't due to this high-handed adventure of Cleigh, senior; it was something leaning down darkly from the future that worried her. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... captain of the only vessel of war belonging to the colony, a man of large property, and occupying a place in the very front rank of Boston society, had been arrested for witchcraft! What a state of insanity the religious delusion had reached, can be seen by this high-handed proceeding. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... justly indignant at such high-handed proceedings. Arnold remained behind to transact some unfinished business, but was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained several weeks. Seeing no prospect of being released, he feigned insanity, and acted the madman to the life; insomuch that the authorities were ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... want to. It's very unfortunate, but they've really got no tact. Catherine's so high-handed, and Helen's nearly as bad. They snap the girls up for the least trifle. The result is the juniors have got it into their tiresome young heads that monitresses are a species of teacher. They weren't intended to be that at all. A monitress is just one of ourselves, only ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... that the long German occupation, with its many requisitions and high-handed interference, has embittered M. D. His wife, however, remains quite unembittered. In spite of all the demands, "She seemed to think that, apart from one or two exceptions, the Germans in occupation behaved very much as any army in such circumstances would have done. Indeed, she added that ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... his own medium, as it were, through his own customs and predispositions, to the soundness of Western methods of government. Therefore, in due time he made some dangerous mistakes. By virtue of certain high-handed actions he was the cause of several riots in native villages, and he had himself been attacked at more than one village as he rode between the fields of sugar-cane. On these occasions he had behaved very well—certainly no one could possibly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... monastery which William of Normandy founded at Caen, and on the deposition of Stigand was called over by that king to complete the subjection and reform of the Anglo-Saxon Church, which task he undertook with much zeal and not a little high-handed procedure. He assisted the king in the removal of the Saxon bishops and the substitution of Normans in their places, as also in the reformation of the great English monasteries which appear to have fallen into considerable ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... enticed the two contestants to Bayonne, he set them both aside, and gave the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph,—Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister Caroline, taking the throne of Naples. This high-handed proceeding roused the Spanish people to revolt. The officers of Napoleon were several times defeated. A British force under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—appeared in Portugal to lend help to the national movement. A French fleet in Cadiz was destroyed. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... some rescue, or make themselves formidable in other ways. Therefore, as a matter of precaution, they had been put under arrest and their arms taken from them as mine had been. What the commandant said, however, was that he took these somewhat high-handed measures in order to be sure that they, the Prinsloos and the Meyers, should be ready on the following morning to ride with him and the prisoner to the main camp, where the great council might wish ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... test of Toomey's character had come with his misfortunes. So long as he had money to spend and could ride, arrogant and high-handed, over the obsequious shopkeepers who benefited by his prodigality, and the poor ranchers who had not the means, or often the spirit, to oppose him, he continued to appear to her in the light in which she had ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... important question of the settlements. Of course there were to be settlements, in the arrangement of which Ralph was to give everything and to get nothing. With high-handed magnanimity he had declared that he wanted no money, and therefore the trifle which would have been adjudged to be due to Gus was retained to help her as yet less fortunate sisters. In truth Marmaduke at this time was so expensive ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... of Nicholson's high-handed action was to change the current of public feeling in Jalandhar. The natives dropped their impudent manner, and realised that the British raj was by no means in as tottering a ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... country, because it makes no difference to friends outside of Washington. Well, no matter. I couldn't think of taking our convention into any church when we had a chance to go back to our old home, and that in a new and elegant house reared upon the ashes of the old. So if killed I am for this high-handed piece of work, why killed ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... taking place between the Chinese troops and the detachments of the Anti-Bolshevik Russian General Baron Ungern Sternberg and Colonel Kazagrandi, who were fighting for the independence of Outer Mongolia. Baron Ungern had now been twice defeated, so that the Chinese were carrying on high-handed in Urga, suspecting all foreigners of having relations with the ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... his visit to McClellan on the battlefield intervened; but on the fifth day after the battle the Cabinet was suddenly called together. When the Ministers had assembled Lincoln first entertained them by reading the short chapter of Artemus Ward entitled "High-handed Outrage at Utica." It is less amusing than most of Artemus Ward; but it had just appeared; it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; and it was precisely that sort of relief ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... please," said Tom. Then, as Harry and Mr. Prenter stepped aside, Reade added, "I'll admit, Mr. Bootleg, that I've behaved in a rather high-handed fashion with you. But I'm justified in doing it. You have been breaking the law of the state, moving through this camp and selling liquor. You represent the scum of the otherwise decent population of Alabama. If you think you've ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... the King, it can hardly be said, as has been suggested, to be a protest against the great abuse of the times, the sale of offices for money. The "very splendid trifle, the Masque of Flowers," was one form of the many extravagant tributes paid but too willingly to high-handed worthlessness, of which the deeper and darker guilt was to fill all faces with shame ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... live. Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn't have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard. It looked like a high-handed proceeding; but it was really a case of legitimate self-defense. You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long; and the ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... to have held official positions of considerable dignity. "Meat-eaters" in Confucian times was a term for "officials" or "the rich." Thus when the haughty King of Wu was suddenly recalled home, from his high-handed durbar with Tsin, Lu, and other orthodox states, to go and deal with his formidable enemy of Yueh, he turned quite pale. By dint of bold "bluff" he managed after all to gain most of his political points, and to retire ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... he resolved to turn it to the profit of the Monarchy. The restriction of the right of preaching to priests who received licenses from the Crown silenced every voice of opposition. Even to those who received these licenses theological controversy was forbidden; and a high-handed process of "tuning the pulpits" by express directions as to the subject and tenor of each special discourse made the preachers at every crisis mere means of diffusing the royal will. As a first step in this process every bishop, abbot, and parish priest was required by the new ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... war favour her—all these facts, which we may say are proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, form a most serious indictment. They substantiate the charge that Germany by acting throughout in this high-handed way has deeply violated the natural laws of the Comity of Nations, which are the safeguards of Civilization, and they confirm the rightful claim of Europe to sit ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... are absorbed into the atmosphere of her romance, to dispute anything she would have us believe. The interest of the Sicilian Romance, which is far greater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of the situations. There is no gradual unfolding of character and motive. The high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, the imprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, the leader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are a set of dolls fitted ingeniously into ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... that gentleman the surprise of his life," smiled Benjamin. "He won't expect to see me down here. If he had not thought me on my way to Alaska, he would not have dared attempt such a high-handed proceeding." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... 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 ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... could avenge himself by telling Philip, and if he told Philip, and Philip believed him—as Philip would, being jealous and mistrustful beyond all men—my ruin must follow. She had thought only of herself in dismissing him in that high-handed manner. Coming since to think of me it was that she had fallen into this despair. She clung to me ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... Sterne's unacknowledged borrowings, his high-handed and extensive appropriation of work not his own, were noted in Germany, the natural result of Ferriar's investigations in England, but they seem never to have attracted any considerable attention or aroused any serious concern among ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... of those too faithful victims of glamour. When she managed to keep the picture of George away from her mind's eye, she did well enough; but when she let him become visible, she could not choose but love what she disdained. She was a little angel who had fallen in love with high-handed Lucifer; quite an experience, and not apt to be soon succeeded by any falling in love with a tamer party—and the unhappy truth was that George did make better men seem tame. But though she was a victim, she was a heroic one, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... north, at Zemar and Gebal, and even among the Amorites. Amon-apt, to whom the superintendence of Phoenicia was more particularly entrusted, was supplied by him with corn, and frequent references are made to him in the letters of Rib-Hadad. Malchiel complained of his high-handed proceedings, and the complaint seems to have led to some confidential inquiries on the part of the home government, since we find a certain Sibti-Hadad writing in answer to the Pharaoh's questions that Yankhamu was a faithful ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... generally imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence of memory, between one generation and its successor, is so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, a sign of weakness in him who is capable of it till all other remedies have been exhausted. It is mere horse science, akin to the theories of the convulsionists in the geological kingdom, and of the believers in the supernatural origin of the species of plants and animals. Yet it is to ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... settling a certain limit to its extension to the north. He made further explorations to the west of Lake Gregory, now Lake Eyre, and found some hot springs. Meanwhile, during the time he was making these researches, the Government had, in a very high-handed manner, appointed Warburton to supersede him. Warburton started out to find Babbage, taking Charles Gregory as his second. Failing to find him at the Elizabeth, he followed and overtook him at the newly-discovered Lake Gregory. Warburton made a few discoveries while seeking for Babbage, amongst ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... breath in sighs that broke at times on her lips; some tears fell down her cheeks unheeded. "Mrs. Bowen," she said, at length, "I should like to know what right we have to drive any one from Florence? I should think people would call it rather a high-handed proceeding ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... Grettir of many things from the north and Midfirth, that had befallen while he was abroad, and this withal, that Atli was unatoned, and how that Thorbiorn Oxmain waxed so great, and was so high-handed, that it was not sure that goodwife Asdis might abide at Biarg ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... date March 11, 1896. But the Colonial Office, completely ignoring Sir Hamilton Goold Adams's signature on behalf of the Queen, and without referring the matter to the native inhabitants in any way, lately confiscated that territory and declared it the property of the Crown. In consequence of this high-handed proceeding there is much bad blood ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... Let not the English be deceived by their asseverations. What I have now asserted is the fact. The same spirit which has actuated them in dispossessing the Indians of territories which they cannot themselves populate, which prompted the "high-handed theft" of the Texas from Mexico, will induce them to adopt any pretext, as soon as they think they have a chance, to seize upon the Canadas and ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... of high-handed outrage! Making King and people grieve, O the lawless Lords of Galloway! O the bloody towers ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... been told that, unassisted, the pseudo-hero captured a dozen desperadoes; that he was one of the road agents himself; that he was saved from lynching only by the timely arrival of cavalry; that the action of the United States government in rescuing him from the civil authorities was a most high-handed interference with State rights; that he received his reward from a grateful railroad by being promoted; that a lovely woman as recompense for his villany—but bother! it's my business to tell what really occurred, and not what the world chooses to invent. And if any man thinks he ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... to be in! M——was a popular man; the other cattlemen would certainly side with him and resent such novel and apparently high-handed proceedings. Myself was an entire stranger in the whole of that huge country, devoted solely to cattle interests, and of course did not have a friend nor did expect to have any. In fact M—— 's appellation of me as that "damned Scotsman" became ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... laid offensive insistence, is due to the same system and policy, which largely eliminated Bengalis, Madrasis and Mahrattas from the army. In Bengal, however, the martial type has been revived, chiefly in consequence of what the Bengalis felt to be the intolerable insult of the high-handed Partition of Bengal by ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant

... a moment and swept the iron-grey locks back from his face. "Now," he continued, "I know the reason for that lie. And I know the paper shown me was spurious. It was high-handed rascality, but I cannot connect it with Woodford. It may have emanated from him, but I do not know that. The man who told me ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... culmination of his daring plan, to say nothing of the annoying thought that his failure would be no secret from the old hag, his accomplice, looking on at the extremity of the bridge, he yielded to the worst devil in his heart. He inclined to the most high-handed and hectoring measure. Whipping out his sabre with a rapid gesture, and merely muttering a discourteous and grudging: "Be on your guard!" he dealt a cut at the student which threatened to ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... of these incidents look a little high-handed, as though everything was allowable in a race, regardless of other people's rights; but they really don't happen often. This time I tore one of my water boots on a stump going through the trees by Council. At a near-by cabin I tried to buy a pair of mukluks a native woman had on, as I saw they were ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... The high-handed career of this institution imposes upon the constitutional functionaries of this Government duties of the gravest and most imperative character—duties which they can not avoid and from which I trust there will be no inclination on the part of any of them to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... exceed his powers, it was in no slight degree because those at Westminster refused to grant him the sums which were needful. He has, too, been surrounded by bad advisers. I myself loved not greatly either Stratford or Laud. But I would rather bear their high-handed ways, which were at least aimed to strengthen the kingdom and for the honor of the king, than be ground by these petty tyrants at Westminster, who would shut up our churches, forbid us to smile on a Sunday, or to pray, except through our noses; who would turn merry England ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... agitatedly that he had no business to throw the onus of the whole situation onto her shoulders; but even while she resented this high-handed behavior she was inwardly aware with one of her strong intuitions that old Mr. Wiley knew indubitably what he was about, and that at the psychological moment he would justify her in permitting the dog to remain with ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina

... sinking with all hands—Bill had chartered the schooner Heavenly Home to Luke Foremast of Boney Arm to run a cargo from Saint Pierre. But no sooner had the schooner appeared in French waters than she was impounded for a debt that Luke Foremast unhappily owed Garnot & Cie, of Saint Pierre. It was a high-handed proceeding, of course; and it was perhaps undertaken without scruple because of the ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... citizenship to the -metoeci-, full remission of debts to the debtors, lands to those that had none, freedom to the slaves; nearly 15,000 such manumitted slaves fought in the army of Archelaus. The most fearful scenes were the result of this high-handed subversion of all existing order. The most considerable mercantile cities, Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus, Tralles, Sardes, closed their gates against the king's governors or put them to death, and declared for Rome.(16) ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... rascal, that's what I am. We've always wanted children, Mrs. Bingle and I, and we never—er—never seemed to have 'em as other people do, so we began to look for children that needed parents as much as we needed children. That's the whole thing in a nut-shell. We are a bit high-handed about it, too. We never have a child until it is past the teething age and can walk a little bit and talk a little bit. So, you see, we manage to have 'em without the drawbacks. That's where we are ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... transparent an inch in depth around the edge of the cup. As he approached the table one morning he saw the transparent edge—by means of his extraordinary vision long before he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a high-handed way to Capt. Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. The Captain showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was more outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the partiality ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "The fact is the prefects in this school aren't quite what they ought to be. They think they do their duty, but they're too aloof and high-handed and bossing, and the consequence is they're not popular, and the girls would as soon complain to a teacher as to Rachel or Sybil or Erica. It simply isn't done. Yet those kids need a champion. There are several abuses among them ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... off the Turkish yoke and reasserted her independence, which she had anew to attempt by arms in 1897, this time with humiliation and defeat, till the other powers of Europe came to the rescue, and put a check to the arrogance of the high-handed Turk. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... for four years without light, table, chair or bed. In like manner the patriotic publicist, Moser, was imprisoned for five years, without trial and without sentence, because he had withheld his consent to the duke's high-handed proceedings. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... two-thirds of that money in the bank had come from them. They turned out in great force to Mr. Brandreth's theatricals. And wouldn't it be rather high-handed to use their money for anything ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... after the temple had been destroyed, to make any effort to justify these high-handed proceedings. But Mdlle. Paulet, on whose pretended conversion to Catholicism the proceedings had been instituted, was now requested to admit the authenticity of the documents. She was still imprisoned in Toulouse; and although entreated and threatened ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... high-handed way!" said Win, shrugging her shoulders. "Still—here I am. This seems to be a nice house. Is ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... gave me very great pleasure. We still agree, I am sure, on nineteen points out of twenty, and on the twentieth I am not inconvincible. But then I must be convinced by facts and arguments, not by high-handed ridicule such as Claparede's. ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... atmosphere, I hesitated over my next move. Lessard's high-handed squelching of MacRae had thrown everything out of focus. We'd planned to report at headquarters, see Lyn, if she were at Walsh, and then with Pend d' Oreille as a base of operations go on a still hunt for whatever the Writing-Stone might conceal. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... that," retorted Mrs. Ross, raising her voice. "I call it a high-handed outrage. The boy ought to be arrested. Are you going to do anything about it, ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... to the bleak world, dog! You have repaid my generosity with the blackest ingratitude. You have forged my name on a five thousand dollar check—have repeatedly robbed my money drawer—have perpetrated a long series of high-handed villanies, and now to-night, because, forsooth, I'll not give you more money to spend on your dissolute companions, you break a chair over my aged head. Anyway! You are a young man of small moral principle. Don't ever speak ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... some disagreement arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear, as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... learn all he could about what history had to say of their doings; and he found that in the far past they had been merciless and unscrupulous in their dealings with their employers; though, of course, much of this high-handed style of conducting business is ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... every attendant at such services. (317.) A number of Lutherans were cast into prison. Realizing that such harsh measures would prove hurtful to their business interests, the authorities in Holland, in an order dated June 14, 1656, rebuked Stuyvesant for his high-handed procedure, saying: "We should have gladly seen that your Honor had not posted up the transmitted edict against the Lutherans, and had not punished them by imprisonment, . . . inasmuch as it has always been our intention to treat them with all peaceableness ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... the whole affair as any one could be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything rash. I bore with Godolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much wisdom, and so much delicacy ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... honor will not deny me this one and only poor privilege of protest against this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights. May it please the Court to remember that since the day of my arrest last November, this is the first time that either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has been allowed a word of defense before judge ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against the rights, liberties, and lives of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... It was a high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsomined women declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating Seth Craddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of the present hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a whole town of free and independent Americans ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... of this popular ballad extant, and at least one older version has been lost. Similar riddle-stories are to be found in almost all European literatures. There is nothing in this ballad save the name of King John, with his reputation for unjust and high-handed dealing, that can be called traditional. Deere, harm. Stead, place. St. Bittel, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the astonished Postmaster. "'Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact is, the Gov'ment is getting too high-handed! Some o' these bloated officials had better climb down before ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... bill!" snarled Uriah, snatching it from Ralph's hand. "Why, I never heard tell of such high-handed proceedings in my life before!" ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... and almost hear them rustling. But I don't revere all of them as I did then. I don't believe in half of them. The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the high-handed statesmen, and others, no longer interest me. All that has been spoilt for me by ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... raged about Jim and his wild ways. I could not bear it. He knew nothing of the real Jim that I knew, the tender, loving, sweet-souled Jim. I could see how he had raised the devil in the boy with his high-handed ways. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... time went on Cabades became more high-handed in the administration of the government, and introduced innovations into the constitution, among which was a law which he promulgated providing that Persians should have communal intercourse with ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... in many ways; from such a high-handed act as the occupation of the Principalities by Russia in 1853, to such a mere seizure of two or three merchant vessels as occurred in the course of our controversy with Brazil in 1861. In modern practice, these measures imply ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... Germany, Bismarck was now in a position to solve the problem of German unity. He resolved to employ the same well-tried method. In 1870 the somewhat high-handed manner of Napoleon III. made it possible for him to bring about a war between the German States and France, in which Germany, under Prussian leadership, was completely victorious. In the flush of their success, after the capture of Paris in January 1871, the lesser States of ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... people, and very dull old ones, there is something indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture. It seems not credible that respectable married people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of supper within quite a long distance of a fiery mountain; ordinary life begins to smell of high-handed debauch when it is carried on so close to a catastrophe; and even cheese and salad, it seems, could hardly be relished in such circumstances without something like a defiance of the Creator. It should be a place for nobody but hermits dwelling in prayer and maceration, or mere born-devils ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dined with me yesterday and described his mother and her high-handed rule over him. It seems he had a 'jeunesse orageuse' and she defended him against his father's displeasure, but when the old Sheykh died she informed her son that if he ever again behaved in a manner unworthy of a Sheykh-el-Arab ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon



Words linked to "High-handed" :   high-handedness, domineering



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