But then the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat -- or a nation; she invented "divine right of kings," and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes -- wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached
(still to the commoner, always to the commoner) pa- tience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under op- pression; and she introduced heritable ranks and aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations of the earth to bow down to them and worship them.
The duel with knives in a dark room was once a
commoner feature of Southwestern life than it is likely to be again.
Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the
commoner order of minds.
Every land hath indeed its ways and manners; but I promise you, Edward, that when you are my guest in Toledo or Madrid you shall not yearn in vain for any
commoner's daughter on whom you may deign to cast your eye."
Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great
Commoner) was the son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of Queen Anne.
Harris believed that milk-teeth are
commoner in men's mouths than those "doubled-up haves." [1]
I was not averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a
commoner incident among the water-side people there.
But Sancho did not so fully approve of his master's admonition as to let it pass without saying in reply, "Senor, I am a man of peace, meek and quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and children to support and bring up; so let it be likewise a hint to your worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw sword either against clown or against knight, and that here before God I forgive the insults that have been offered me, whether they have been, are, or shall be offered me by high or low, rich or poor, noble or
commoner, not excepting any rank or condition whatsoever."
At this time, in which men, all created equal by God, were divided, thanks to prejudices, into two distinct castes, the gentleman and the
commoner, as they are really divided into two races, the black and the white, -- at this time, we say, he whose portrait we have just sketched could not fail of being taken for a gentleman, and of the best class.
A sizar's life was not always a happy one, for many of the other scholars or gentlemen
commoners looked down upon them because of their poverty.
The one can confer no privileges whatever; the other can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of
commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies.