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In the era of sentiment and fine words, at the end of the eighteenth century, men were really robust and effective. The sentimentalists conquered Napoleon. The cynics could not catch De Wet. A hundred years ago our affairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men.

He neither courted their assistance, nor dreaded their enmity, and he now proceeded to the business of the hour with as much composure, as if the species of patriarchal power, he wielded, was universally recognised. There is something elevating in the possession of authority, however it may be abused.

From the conversational discussion appropriate to our work in committees, to the most sustained eloquence befitting some great argument, and some great historic occasion, every weapon of Parliamentary warfare was wielded by him with the success and ease of a perfect, absolute, and complete mastery.

Henceforth the normal English method of governing a colony was through a governor and an executive council appointed by the Crown or its delegate, and a representative assembly, which wielded full control over local legislation and taxation.

Charles V., postponing his religious devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party, to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or necessity recommended.

He took an amazing delight in wheeling Honora up and down the yard, and up and down the sidewalk. Brunhilde or Queen Elizabeth never wielded a power more absolute, nor had an adorer more satisfactory; and of all his remarkable talents, none were more conspicuous than his abilities to tell a story and to choose a present.

Of these latter, I have a series of various sizes; the largest are for men's hands, but there are smaller ones, not more than eleven centimetres round, for the use of children: one thinks of the fierce little hands that wielded them, these many thousand years ago. Even now the natives will throw by preference with a stone of this disk-like shape the cone pointing downwards.

Back to back they continued the losing struggle. A gleam of light darted on Conrad's right, and he knew he could not avoid it. But suddenly the knife dropped, and the one who had wielded it grabbed his wrist with the other hand. The foreman dare not look to see what had happened, but he was aware of a sudden thinning in the crowd of spectators.

In his native province of La Rioja the mastery had for many years been disputed by two powerful houses, the Ocampos and the Dávilas, both descended from noble families in Spain. In the year 1820 the former were triumphant, and possessed all the authority then wielded in the province.

Annette wielded the comb, as usual, while Ann Sidley, who was unconsciously jealous that any one should be employed about her darling, even in this manner, though so long accustomed to it, busied herself in preparing the different articles of attire that she fancied her young mistress might be disposed to wear that morning.