"Oppressive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sunder this self from the special mass of consciousness in which it is immersed and to gaze upon it pure and simple. At times that mass of consciousness is so engrossing that hardly a trace of the self remains. At times the sense of being shut up to one's self is positively oppressive. Between the two extremes there is endless variation. When we call self-consciousness the prerogative of man we do not mean that he fully possesses it, but only that he may possess it, may possess it more and more; and that in it, ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... about something. They have a singular, and I hope an unreasonable, fear of the Japanese Government. Mr. Von Siebold thinks that the officials threaten and knock them about; and this is possible; but I really think that the Kaitaikushi Department means well by them, and, besides removing the oppressive restrictions by which, as a conquered race, they were fettered, treats them far more humanely and equitably than the U.S. Government, for instance, treats the North American Indians. However, they are ignorant; and one of the men, who had been most ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or oppressive ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Traces of the camp remained in abundance, but the army itself had vanished. There were no lurking camp followers to make him trouble. He descended to the ground, and stood a while, drawing in deep draughts of the fresh daylight air. It had not been oppressive in the pyramid, but there is nothing like the open sky above. He went down to the Teotihuacan, and, choosing a safe place, bathed in its waters. Then he resumed the flight across the hills which had been delayed so long. He knew by the sun that it was morning not far advanced, ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... since the sceptre of the Dane was broken upon her historic shores. This fact is sustained by evidences teeming upon us from every point of the compass. A great and mysterious embodiment of her influence, and a vague and oppressive sense of her unseen presence, hang ominously over all the councils of her task-masters, and build up strange dynasties in the disturbed slumbers of even royalty itself. Nor bolt nor bar can shut out the low mutterings of her approaching thunder, or exclude her ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... the noisy little play was just beginning, and those who cared for seats in the room were pushing forward; the crowd in the passage was therefore less oppressive. Alison moved forward a step or two, and stood in such a position that she was partly sheltered by a curtain. She had scarcely done so before, to her great astonishment, Hardy and Louisa came out. They stood together for a moment or two in the comparatively ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... had hitherto been too busy to talk, except about the immediate concerns of the table, and one or two of the greatest breaks to the usual monotony of his days; a monotony in which he delighted, but which sometimes became oppressive to his wife. Now, however, peeling his ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... slightly shrugging his shoulder, as a hint to his wife that the weight of her hand was oppressive. "Can't be," continued he, as he set himself industriously—for in this Moggs was industrious—to the consumption of the best part of the breakfast that was before him—a breakfast that had been, as usual, provided by his wife, and prepared by her, while Montezuma Moggs was fast asleep—an ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... greater part of our stay of a week, the sky was cloudless, and if the trade-wind failed for an hour, the heat became very oppressive. On two days, the thermometer within the tent stood for some hours at 93 degs.; but in the open air, in the wind and sun, at only 85 degs. The sand was extremely hot; the thermometer placed in some of a brown colour immediately rose to 137 ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... property as Tretton required, he thought, his presence, and, till it had been adjusted, he clung to life with a pertinacity which had seemed to be oppressive. Now Mountjoy's debts had been paid, and Mountjoy could be left a bit happier. Having achieved so much, he was delighted to think that he might. But there had come latterly a claim upon him equally strong,—that he should wreak his vengeance upon Augustus. Had Augustus abused him for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... of such phenomena was always known as "earthquake weather." The wild cattle moved uneasily in the distance without feeding; herds of unbroken mustangs approached the confines of the hacienda in vague timorous squads. The silence and stagnation of the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really gone out of it at last; and Aunt Viney, after waiting impatiently for the young people to come in to chocolate, rose grimly, set her lips together, and went out into the lane. The gate of the rose garden opposite ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... fellows from a French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp. By day it is merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the lamps in the little huts, the street has a sinister beauty. The hideous lust that pervades the air is oppressive and horrible, and yet there is something mysterious in the sight which haunts and troubles you. You feel I know not what primitive force which repels and yet fascinates you. Here all the decencies of civilisation are swept away, and you ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... He turned irresolutely, and they walked together down the plank pathway, Kitty with an oppressive sense of having fallen into the clutch of one of the Primal Forces, who was about to settle her destiny for her; in which she stumbled almost on the truth. Miss Muller was quite aware of the fact of her brother's visits at the book-shop, and their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... in a pine thicket, surrounded by a little clearing that served to show how aimlessly and how hopelessly the lack of thrift and energy could assert itself. The surroundings were mean enough and squalid enough at their best, but the oppressive shadows of night made them meaner and more squalid than they really were. The sun, which shines so lavishly in that region, appeared to glorify the squalor, showing wild passion-flowers clambering along the broken-down fence of pine poles, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... competition we have referred to, but the check works imperfectly. At some points it restrains the corporations quite closely and gives an approach to the ideal results, in which the consolidation is very productive but not at all oppressive; while elsewhere the check has very little power, oppression prevails, and if anything holds the exactions of the corporation within bounds, it is a respect for the ultimate power of the government and an inkling of what the people may do if they ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... certainly real, and rather uncomfortable," I replied, hoping he would expand and explain. "There was a distinct feeling of warmth—internal warmth somewhere—oppressive ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... perceptible coolness in the air now noticeable that was most refreshing after the suffocating heat, which I had found so oppressive an hour agone; and, this tempered tone of the atmosphere brought out more vividly the fragrant scent of the frangipanni and languid perfume of the jessamine, the whole atmosphere without being redolent of their mingled odours, harmoniously blended ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... scorn or neglect, wherein from beginning to end the author discourses concerning himself individually. Had this been done in any other way than the consummately simple, delicate, and unobtrusive one which he has adopted, the whole would have been insufferable egotism, disgusting coxcombry, or oppressive dulness. Whereas, this personal identity is the charm, the strength, the soul of the book; he lives, he breathes, he moves through it; his pulse beats or stands still, his eye kindles or fades, his cheek grows pale with horror, colours with shame, or burns with indignation; ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... frogs have a croaking chorus that Aristophanes might have envied. On the approach of strange footsteps they hurry off the flat rocks by the pool, and one hears a musical plash as they reach water. Very soon the silence is resumed, and presently becomes so oppressive that it is a relief to turn again and see our modest lights twinkling as ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... that," said the late passenger somewhat sharply, "but if people choose to make unjust and oppressive rules I don't mean to submit to them. Just think of a parrot, a horrid shrieking creature that every one acknowledges to be a nuisance, being allowed to travel free, or a baby, which is enough to drive ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... northern hostility to slavery took a new form, more bold and uncompromising than the old Abolition Societies. It demanded the immediate and unconditional emancipation of every slave, in a voice which has not yet been silenced, and never will be, while the oppressive system continues to disgrace our country. Of course, Friend Hopper could not otherwise than sympathize with any movement for the abolition of slavery, based on pacific principles. Pictures and pamphlets, published by the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... where money was all-powerful the power of money was used without stint and without scruple. Judges were bribed to do their duty, juries to convict, newspapers to support and legislators to betray their constituents and pass the most oppressive laws. By these corrupt means, and with the natural advantage of greater skill in affairs and larger experience in concerted action, the capitalists soon restored their ancient reign and the state of the laborer was worse than it had ever been before. Straman says that in his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the air was thick and hot. Anticipating that the day would be very oppressive, Vivian and Essper were on their horses' backs at an early hour. Already, however, many of the rustic revellers were about, and preparations were commencing for the fete champetre, which this day was to close the wedding festivities. Many and sad were the looks which Essper ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... mankind, that they seem to have always hidden their Indian policy under the most jealous reserve. They adopted this reserve from the first hour of their Indian navigation. But then Holland was a republic, and a republic is always tyrannical in proportion to its clamour for liberty, always oppressive in proportion to its promise of equal rights, and always rapacious in proportion to its professed respect for the principle of letting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... entered the village. It was a bright, hot day, and oppressive, though only ten o'clock. At intervals the sun was hidden by the gathering clouds. An unpleasant, sharp smell of manure filled the air in the street. It came from carts going up the hillside, but chiefly from the disturbed manure heaps in the yards of the huts, by ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... wide to leap, too deep to cross readily, had deflected the boy in his ride until he found himself to the lee of the fire, and the heat of it, oppressive ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... been intensely hot during the three preceding days, although the sun was entirely obscured by a blueish haze, which seemed to render the unusual heat of the atmosphere more oppressive. Not a breath of air stirred the vast forest, and the waters of the lake assumed a leaden hue. After passing a sleepless night, I arose, a little after day-break, to superintend my domestic affairs. E—- took his breakfast, and went off to the mill, hoping that the rain would ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... conversations of this description. A vast depression came over my spirits, though I was amused, and I don't suppose I uttered a dozen words. It is certainly true that the atmosphere of Holland House is often oppressive, but that was not it; it was a painful consciousness of my own deficiencies and of my incapacity to take a fair share in conversation of this description. I felt as if a language was spoken before ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... paler, glistening light of the moon spreading its fairy whiteness everywhere. It was inspiringly beautiful; and the music was divine—Charley Kelley's orchestra was playing; and Mr. Briggs was a wonderful dancer. But Missy couldn't forget the oppressive heat, or the stabbing weights in her head, or, worse yet, that ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness was opened secretly somewhere in the sky; higher and higher swelled the clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but they were ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... dregs the poisoned chalice which their ancestors had mingled. Perhaps this world presents no more affecting illustration of that mysterious principle of the divine government, by which the transgressions of the parents are visited upon the children. Louis XIV., as haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod an enslaved people into the dust, died peacefully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, Louis XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign as ever sat upon an earthly throne, received upon his unresisting brow the doom from which his unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... evening, as he was lying on his bed, staring at the shadowy ceiling and puzzling his brain with most oppressive uncertainties, the rattle of keys in the lock announced the approach of visitors. The door swung open and through the grate he saw Dangloss and Quinnox. The latter wore a long military rain coat and had just come in from a drenching downpour. Lorry's reverie had been ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... individual liberty within what to the Anglo-Saxon seem narrow limits, still, by directing the individual to common ends, it works great public advantage. It is in truth a very intelligent and practical form of Socialism, infinitely less oppressive to the people than would be the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be compelled to resume the name of Fairfeld, which was a tacit disavowal of his birth. It had ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with saying that it lacked only water to be a very fine one. It is strange what a difference the gleam of water makes, and how a scene awakens and comes to life wherever it is visible. The landscape, moreover, gives the beholder (at least, this beholder) a sense of oppressive sunshine and scanty shade, and does not incite a longing to wander through it on foot, as a really delightful landscape should. The vine, too, being cultivated in so trim a manner, does not suggest that idea of luxuriant fertility, which is the poetical notion of a vineyard. The olive-orchards ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the army, however, were filled during the whole reign of Napoleon by compulsion. The conscription law of 1798 acquired under him the character of a settled and regular part of the national system; and its oppressive influence was such as never before exhausted, through a long term of years, the best energies of a great and civilised people. Every male in France, under the age of twenty-five, was liable to be called on to serve in the ranks; and the regulations as to the procuring of substitutes were ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... treasury out of millions of dollars, it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, because under the private property system, competition, whether between small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those who are in the contest ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bondage to any man," and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well, I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may try this question in another form—Am I willing to reduce my little child to slavery? You know that if it is brought up a slave it will never know any contrast, between freedom ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... makes its appearance from time to time in connection with the oppressive uncertainty of divination, a passion for believing and feeling sure at all costs: for example, when dealing with Aristotle, or in the discovery of magic numbers, which, in Lachmann's case, is almost ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an officer who was to furnish every sort of provision for the royal house, and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and compelling the countrymen to bring their articles to market, would enter into the history of the arts of grinding the labouring class of society; a remnant of feudal tyranny! The very title ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... behind it. If there really was a man in there, thought Neale, he must surely feel himself to be in a living tomb. And after a time, taking the risk of being heard from outside the laboratory, he beat heavily upon the door with his fist. No response came: the silence all around him was more oppressive, ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... by his father of the treasure stolen from the rebel princes in profitable Western enterprises ensured him an income greater than that enjoyed by many far more important maharajahs. But his revenue was never sufficient for his needs, and he ground down his wretched subjects with oppressive taxes to furnish him with still more money to waste in his vices. All men marvelled that the Government of India allowed such a debauchee and wastrel to remain on the gadi. But it is a long-suffering Government and loth ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... about this time overtook the slave-holders of St. Domingo, when their slaves threw off their oppressive yoke, added considerably to his rising fortunes. He happened to have two vessels in that port when the tocsin of insurrection rang out its fearful notes. Frantic with apprehension, many planters rushed with their costliest treasure to ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... at four o'clock the next morning and set off for Mexico. The morning, as usual after these storms, was peculiarly fresh and beautiful; but the sun soon grew oppressive on the great plains. About two o'clock we entered Mexico by the Guadalupe gate. We found our house in statu quo, —agreeable letters from Europe,—great preparations making for the English ball, to assist at which we have returned sooner than we otherwise should, and for which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... moment staring vacantly at the bedroom door, as if striving to read there the secrets of life, birth, and death. Then he remembered how tired he was, and with a large movement of fatigue he sat down on the sofa. A gloomy yellow sky filled the room with an oppressive and mournful twilight, and to relieve his aching feet Dick had kicked off his shoes, and with his folded arms pressed against his stomach he sat hour after hour, too hungry to sleep, listening to the low moaning that came through ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... certain districts and trades of East London. In spite of Commissions, in spite of recent laws, "sweating," so it was urged, was as bad as ever—nay, in certain localities and industries was more frightful and more oppressive than ever. The waste of life and health involved in the great clothing industries of East London, for instance, which had provoked law after law, inquiry after inquiry, still went—so ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... These are our halcyon hours, when we forget the needs of the morrow, and that men still buy, sell, cheat, and strive for gold, and that we are in the Rocky Mountains, and that it is near midnight. But morning comes hot and tiresome, and the never-ending work is oppressive, and Dr. H. comes in from the field two or three times in the day, dizzy and faint, and they condole with each other, and I feel that the Colorado settler needs to be made of sterner stuff and ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was a miracle. He listened with the muscles of his face drawn tight in an effort at self-control unusual in such a child, his square, brown hands digging convulsively into the dry earth under the grass beside him. And as the shadows of the trees crept over the road, and the oppressive heat began to relent a little, the plaintive music went on and on, and scant, painful tears stood on ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... smiled. "It will be Von Ritz or a foreigner," he explained. "We must convince him that his beloved Kingdom can henceforth be only a province in any event—that it may prosper under his guidance or suffer under a more oppressive hand. That done, his patriotism will prove our ally. We have only to convince him that no member of Karyl's house can reign and live—and that it must be himself ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... proceeding would produce a breeze, or that he had any notion of the origin of the custom; but he had always done so when there was a calm; and he wanted a wind, and the wind, if he whistled long enough, always came. The heat was oppressive, as it always is under such circumstances in those latitudes; the spirits of all fell, except those of Jos Green, who was ever merry, blow high or blow low, in sunshine or cold. The grumblers grumbled, of course, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... theorist; he was skillful to persuade men, and to organize and lead a party. His general tendency was "along the line of least resistance,"—the summoning of men to free themselves from oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... steamer and railroad this silence was oppressive. Minute sounds came to Markham across the distances, the bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, a shutter closing, human voices near and far, each one distinct, but each mellowed and softened as though strained through a silver mesh. He missed the shudder ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... banishment. These he sold for slaves, and with the money, as if to insult over them, built a colonnade at Megalopolis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the Lacedaemonians in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a most oppressive and arbitrary action, he abolished the laws of Lycurgus, and forced them to educate their children, and live after the manner of the Achaeans; as though, while they kept to the discipline of Lycurgus, there was no humbling ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unwarrantably moist; and all about me on the ground little pools remained from the last rainfall. But here there was no soil, not so much even as a grain of sand seemed to exist. The air was warm, as warm as a midsummer's day in my own land, a peculiarly oppressive, moist heat. ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... applicable, regarded themselves, with the robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the chosen people of the new ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... find the Pactum oppressive, then, in God's name, I resign you to His holy keeping! I have done my part, and on this score I do not dread appearing before the Highest of all Judges. Do not be afraid to come to me to-morrow; as yet I only suspect; God grant that those suspicions may not ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... of agents Is a heavenly maid called Sleep, Who stands in unbroken silence, And ever her watch will keep O'er mortals whose labors and trials Seem heavy, oppressive, and deep. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... but I dare say the American Congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... a good education gave him employment as secretary. During three years this now bloodthirsty savage acted as missionary interpreter, and it was said he did very much for the religious instruction of his tribe. When the colonists revolted against the oppressive rule of the king, Brant took the same side as did his patron, and having received a commission—some have said it was a captaincy, and others that it was a colonelcy—he became one of the most vengeful enemies we, who were ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... to the library door, and there stopped in amazement, unwilling to credit his eyes. He was looking into the brightest, gayest room he had ever seen. An incredible transformation had taken place. The vast, stately, sober room had become dainty, exquisite, enchanting. Here, instead of oppressive elegance, was the most delicate beauty; here was exemplified at a glance the sweet, soft touch of woman in contrast to the heavy, uncompromising hand of man. Here was sweetness and freshness, and the sparkle of youth, and gone ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became intolerably oppressive. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... courage, which is the secret of soldierly success, comes only from companionship. The night-wood is a world by itself, filled with its own atmosphere, as oppressive to valor as the electric reefs that drew the nails from the ships of Sindbad. Among familiar scenes and well-known shapes, it is all the delight the poets sing—so tranquillizing, inspiring, fecund, that in comparison ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... concise as possible and to divide them into brief chapters in case I should have as little opportunity for extended explanations as the President had been giving me. I saw that the whole matter was gloomy and oppressive to him—that his responsibility was as dark on his mind as our sufferings—and I took the hint of his amused interest, in order to work out ways of brightening the ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... divided into two great classes; those which were called the military tenures, or knight's service, and soccage. The first tenure was that which became oppressive in the progress of society. Soccage was of two kinds; free and villian. The first has an affinity to our own system, as connected with these leases; the last never existed among us at all. When the knight's service, or military tenures of England were converted into free soccage, in the reign ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... He seemed to be regarding me quite steadily. I wondered uneasily if I were not looking well. The rooms seemed rather over-warm. The presence of so many people in such a small space is apt to make the air oppressive. Also I remembered that the effect of pale-gray is not ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... day was dark and gloomy and Paul felt an unaccountable falling of spirits. The atmosphere was oppressive and he could not overcome a premonition of evil that effected him all day. About the middle of the afternoon, he was startled by a peculiar noise above him. Black, heavy clouds hung low on the prairie lands. An ominous roar caused him to look up stream and he beheld a funnel shaped cloud ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Wm. T. Catto was called to the chair, and Wm. Still was appointed secretary. The chairman briefly stated the object of the meeting. Having lived in the South, he claimed to know something of the workings of the oppressive system of slavery generally, and declared that, notwithstanding the many exposures of the evil which came under his own observation, the most vivid descriptions fell far short of the realities his own eyes had witnessed. He then introduced ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... treachery. It is also possible, having acquired power, to use it for one's own ends instead of for the people. This is what I believe to be likely to happen in Russia: the establishment of a bureaucratic aristocracy, concentrating authority in its own hands, and creating a regime just as oppressive and cruel as that of capitalism. Marxians never sufficiently recognize that love of power is quite as strong a motive, and quite as great a source of injustice, as love of money; yet this must be obvious to any unbiased student ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... into the hotel. There was a gentleman standing in the hall whose acquaintance Master Harry had condescended to make. He was a person of much money, uncertain grammar and oppressive generosity: he wore a frilled shirt and diamond studs, and he had such a vast admiration for this handsome, careless and somewhat rude young man that he would have been very glad had Mr. Trelyon dined with him every ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... simple manipulation of a keyboard, there is unrolled a panorama of velvety hillsides and flowery meads, of grazing sheep, and of piping rustics; so natural is the spectacle that one can almost hear the music of the reeds, and fancy himself in Arcadia. If in midsummer the heat is oppressive and life seems burthensome, forthwith another canvas is outspread, and the glories of the Alps appear, or a stretch of blue sea, or a corner ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... often cold,—so cold that comfortables and blankets seemed all too few, and Clover roused with a shiver to think that presently it would be her duty to get up and start the fires so that Phil might find a warm house when he came downstairs. Then, before she knew it, fires would seem oppressive; first one window and then another would be thrown up, and Phil would be sitting on the piazza in the balmy sunshine as comfortable as on a June morning at home. It was a wonderful climate; and as Clover wrote her father, the winter ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... be light, a statement which is wholly in harmony with what I have said on their lighting, though it may not at first sight appear to be so. The tone of the ceilings and walls and floors should be light, the darkest portions being a dado. A generally dark and heavy tone of colouring is very oppressive in a sudatory chamber. Keep them light: light ceilings of plaster for cheap baths, and of lightly decorated, large, thin tiles, or lightly-tinted enamelled iron, for more expensive establishments; light walls of white, ivory, ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... great advantage, it seems to me, that America possesses over the Old World is its material and moral plasticity. Even among the giant structures of this city, one feels that there is nothing rigid, nothing oppressive, nothing inaccessible to the influence of changing conditions. If the buildings are Cyclopean, so is the race that reared them. The material world seems as clay on the potter's wheel, visibly taking on the impress of the human spirit; and the human ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... A hush prevails! Oppressive and profound; A silence, broken only by the breeze; A dormant quiet-essence and repose; Pervading calm and sweet oblivion,— As nature ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... thought. Perhaps most important of all, it provided an ethical standard which successive generations of Christians have never succeeded in practising. They have indeed frequently tried to explain away the contrast between their scriptures and their deeds when it became too oppressive, but they have never quite succeeded, or been able entirely to satisfy themselves by these methods: the letter of scripture has constantly remained a salutary protest against the interpretation put upon it. All this has been of enormous advantage for the ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... new ring gave her a momentary pleasure, but she was in a mood that nothing could please her long. When she strolled into the drawing-room, everything was in spotless order, and so quiet that the stillness was oppressive. Even the fire burned with a steady, noiseless glow, without the usual crackle, and the ashes fell on ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the last month. The garden, when she reached it, wore a new air of desolation, and when she caught sight of one of Debby's dolls lying forgotten on the grass, she picked it up and hugged it sympathetically, out of pity for its loneliness. The silence in the house and out was just as oppressive. Audrey, still holding Debby's old doll, hurried through the silent hall and up the stairs to her room, and dropping on the seat by the window, she leaned her head over the ledge. Now, at last, she might give way ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... after a long intolerably oppressive silence that she found her voice. "The misunderstanding isn't what you think," she said. "Nor what Graham thinks. It's his misunderstanding, not mine. He thinks that I am—a sort of innocent angel that he's not good enough for. And the fact is that I'm ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... merry child at once, hungry with unwonted appetite, and so relishing her share of the magnificent standing-pie, that Mrs. Underwood reproved herself for thinking what the poor child would be if she had such fare and such air daily, instead of ill- dressed mutton in the oppressive smoke-laden atmosphere. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they are in epitaphs and works of art, they contain hundreds of names of celebrated humanists, archaeologists, and artists who explored these depths in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and made record of their visits. When one walks between two lines of graves, in the almost oppressive stillness of the cemetery, with no other company than one's thoughts, the names of Pomponius Letus and his academicians, of Bosio, Panvinio, Avanzini, Severano, Marangoni, Marchi, and d'Agincourt, written in bold letters, give the lonely wanderer ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... well as to J——- the hot streets were terribly oppressive; so we went into the Roebuck Hotel, where we found a cool and pleasant coffee-room. The entrance to this hotel is through an arch, opening from High Street, and giving admission into a paved court, the buildings ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cruel Duke of Austria, there lived in England a highborn Saxon, named Cedric. He was one of the few native princes who still continued to occupy the home of his fathers; but, like many more of the conquered English people, he had felt the tyranny and oppressive insolence of the haughty Norman barons. He was a man of great personal strength, possessed of a hasty and choleric temper, but he had shrewdly refrained from showing any open hostility to the successors of the Conqueror; ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... muffled up and disguised, and the light of the lamp shining upwards so completely distorted the features, that I had no fear of recognition, unless the King's voice betrayed him. But when he spoke, breaking the oppressive silence of the room, his tone was as strange and hollow as ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... assembled at the meeting-place in the brilliant sunshine. Summer seemed to have returned that day for a short while, so hot were the rays that poured down upon the earth from the deep-blue vault of heaven. The heat, however, was not oppressive, modified as it was by the cool ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... reflection he did not so much mind the distance, nor the heat, which he found much more oppressive here in the city than it was in Marley. He reached Syd's place at last only to find that his brother was out and that the boy was not just sure ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... otherwise, abuses his eminent advantages; abuses the grandeur and prosperity which he has drawn from the bosom of his country. Should tempests arise, and he be laid prostrate by the storm, who would mourn over his fall? Should he be borne down by the oppressive hand of power, who would murmur at his fate?—"Why cumbereth he ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... as a desperate remedy for a desperate ill, but it has seen it continued long after the ill had passed away, used as a weapon by one Nationalist section against another, and revived when anything like a really oppressive or arbitrary eviction had become impossible. There seems to have been in Nationalist circles, since the time of O'Connell, but little appreciation of the deadly character of this social curse; and the prospect of a Government ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... that it is a necessity, no Athenian records of gambling made splendid by the talents of its professors, no contention that instead of violating morals it only violates a legal institution which is in many respects oppressive and unnatural, no possible plea that the instinct on which it is founded is a vital one. Prostitution can confuse the issue with all these excuses: gambling has none of them. Consequently, if Mrs Warren must needs be a demon, a bookmaker must be a cacodemon. Well, does anybody who knows ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... farewell cry of one who is going away for good had sent something like an electric shock through all around; work ceased and they scrambled down and stood in a great circle around that body ... looking. And a great silence followed, that silence which is so heavy and oppressive after the sudden stop of so much activity. People came rushing up, pushing to get closer ... and to see. They tore the poor devil's clothes open to find out where he was hurt, others ran for help, while fresh swarms of folk came crowding up and the silence died in an uproar of questions and tramping ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... truths therein. The maxims he suggests as of permanent value, "that a hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a people voting by their representatives form the best monarchy, autocracy and democracy"; that "free governments ... are the most ruinous and oppressive to their provinces"; that republics are more favorable to science, monarchies to art; that the death of a political body is inevitable; would none of them, probably, be accepted by most thinkers at the present time. And when he constructs ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... after this treaty had been signed, numerous complaints reached the supreme government of Calcutta of the oppressive tyranny of the governor of Rangoon, which, it appeared, was directed chiefly against traders ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... pitiable plight I have been haled out of the place of meeting, at the conclusion of the exercises, and catechised respecting Boanerges Boiler, his fifthly, his sixthly, and his seventhly, until I have regarded that reverend person in the light of a most dismal and oppressive Charade. Time was, when I was carried off to platform assemblages at which no human child, whether of wrath or grace, could possibly keep its eyes open, and when I felt the fatal sleep stealing, stealing over me, and when I gradually heard the orator in possession, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... steps, where the fair sex chiefly prevailed. Nothing but minuets were danced in this saloon, but I could only remain for a quarter of an hour, first, because the heat of so many people assembled in such a narrow space was so oppressive, and, secondly, on account of the bad music for dancing, the whole orchestra consisting of two violins and a violoncello; the minuets were more in the Polish style than in our own, or that of the Italians. I proceeded into another room, which really was more ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... carry on their studies in the noble old garden, in the summer-houses and pleasure domes which the extinct Mauleverers had made for themselves in their day of power. Grinding at history, grammar, and geography did not seem so oppressive a burden when it could be done under the shade of spreading cedars, amid the scent of roses, in an atmosphere of colour and light. Even Ida's labours seemed a little easier when she and her pupils sat in a fast-decaying old summer-house ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... rooms they escaped alone and unobserved into the conservatory. Here they beheld the greatest possible contrast to the desolate wintry waste without. The air was heavy and languorous with the odour of tropic flowers. The music, almost oppressive in the crowded parlours, melted deliciously upon the ear as they wandered away. Helene, when she noticed that they were quite alone, suffered a vague alarm. She told herself in one moment that it was not possible that ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... palpitating haze floated always in the air, and the grass and the broom had the dusty and tired look of autumn. It was also the month of the fast of Ramadhan, and Israel's men were Muslims. So, to save himself the double vexation of oppressive days and the constant bickerings of his famished people, Israel found it necessary at length to travel in the night. In this way his journey was the shorter for the absence of some obstacles, but his time ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... grown vague and dim, looking as it must look to the dead. Its oppressive solidity, its obtrusive HERENESS, dissolved in the dark, it left the soul to live its own life. She could still trace the meeting of earth and sky, each the evidence of the other, but the earth was content to be and not assert, and the sky lived only in the points of light that dotted its vaulted ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... found that the popular joke is not true to the letter, but is true to the spirit. The vulgar joke is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact. For instance, it is not in the least true that mothers-in-law are as a class oppressive and intolerable; most of them are both devoted and useful. All the mothers-in-law I have ever had were admirable. Yet the legend of the comic papers is profoundly true. It draws attention to the fact that it is much harder to be a nice mother-in-law than to ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton |
