And not only was she deficient in practical common sense and most absurdly unable to learn from experience, but she had not even the wit to cover her shortcomings by resorting to the traditional authoritativeness of the mother.

divine right, dynastic rights, authoritativeness; absoluteness, absolutism; despotism; jus nocendi [Lat.]; jus divinum [Lat.].

" "You kin be sho' it do," averred the elder, with professional authoritativeness; "yas 'm, you kin be cert'n sho'.

His sentences roll forth like the laws of the Medes and Persians; his praise alights with the authoritativeness of a sun-burst on a mountain; summit; and when he blames, he seems to add, like an ancient doomster, the words, "I pronounce for doom."

And she fairly pushed Rafael forward with a sort of maternal authoritativeness, much as a kindly woman might take her child in hand after he has done some naughty prank of which she is secretly proud.

Hence, it appears to be instinctive, and becomes invested with those superior attributes of authoritativeness, absoluteness, and even infallibility, which are not unnaturally ascribed to an act in which, there being no process of reasoning, there seems to be no room for error.