"Smother" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was trying to smother broke out then, and was so infectious, Prue could not help joining her, even before she knew the cause ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... result seemed doubtful, so doubtful that Nick finally threw Cervera heavily to the floor, the better to press the matting closely around her and so smother the flames. In this he presently succeeded, but not before she was so severely burned as to ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... the brink; I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight; I ran at my fears—they were fears and no more, For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, But moan'd—all their brutalized flesh could not smother The horrible truth,—we were ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... breaking china from within. The wind appeared to sweep high up in empty space and occasionally descend to deal the yacht a staggering blow. The bar, directly ahead—as Halvard had earlier pointed out—was now covered with the smother of a lowering tide. The pass, the other had discovered, too, had filled. It was charted at four feet, the Gar drew a full three, and Woolfolk knew that there must be no error, ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... smother you that he has thrown this cloak around you on top of the other; and it is not the first plot he has planned against you. Do you remember the time ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... resolution, The Crown,—and Old England's decay'd Constitution! Who they are, Constitution and Crown that sustain, The people should now,—else we labour in vain! And, therefore, I sign'd the fore-named declaration. Altho' such a weak milk and water potation! For why should the loyalists smother their cause, And lose the high gain,—ministerial applause. 'Pon honour,—aye, even in detractions despite— In corners and holes, Sir, I take no delight; And, never on any pursuit do I go, Of which 1 don't want the Almighty to know! I signed, Sir, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... were into the bounds Where he lies smother'd in his wounds, Repeating, as he pants for air, My name, whom once he call'd his fair; No woman's yet so fiercely set But she'll forgive, though not ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... comforts of his civilized fellow-creatures. It gives an air of grandeur, and importance, and mystery, to the scenes: it conciliates our respect. We know that there must be some fire where there is so much smother.—While, in those bright, shining, smokeless cities, whenever the sun shines upon them, one's eyes are put out by the glare of their white walls; and when it does not shine!—why, in the winter, there's no resource left for a man but hopeless and shivering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... o'erbrim,— Deep drifts smother the paths below; The elms are shrouded, trunk and limb, And all the air is dizzy and dim With a whirl ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... themselves anew and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of mere ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... right. For all that you sleep your holiday away, you are a brave man. And I am the only one in this kingdom that thinks well of bravery. The rest want to smother it ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... Flags crape-smother'd and arms reversed, With one sad volley lay him to rest: Lay him to rest where he may not see This England he loved like a lover accursed By lawlessness masking as liberty, By the despot in Freedom's panoply drest:— Bury him, ere he be made duplicity's ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... thrum O'er the arch'd wave that in white smother booms "Mother of Mystery, come! Fain for thee wait ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... sky. Leaving this wild bit of nature, which has got the name of Paradise (perhaps because few people go there), the road back to town sweeps through sweet farm land; the smell of hay is in the air, loads of hay encumber the roads, flowers in profusion half smother the farm cottages, and the trees of the apple-orchards are gnarled and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sprung like a fury first upon it, and stamped upon it, with all his force. He was speedily followed by the nuns, until there were as many upon the bed as could find room, and all did what they could, not only to smother, but to bruise her. Some stood up and jumped upon the poor girl with their feet, some with their knees, and others in different ways seemed to seek how they might best beat the breath out of her body, and mangle it, without coming in direct contact ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... child whom I have raised from the cradle—disappears in the morning and never shows her face until night, when she sleeps right through and never once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for me. It will soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher would smother me herself—if she were not afraid of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... what was goin' on. 'Glory be to the saints,' he says, 'what an injaynious thribe these Yankees is!' says he. 'On'y a few weeks ago they thried to desthroy me be dumpin' a load iv coal on me,' he says; 'an' now,' he says, 'they're goin' to smother me in feed,' he says. 'They'll be rollin' bar'ls iv flour on me fr'm th' heights next,' he says. 'I'd betther get out,' he says. ''Tis far nobler,' he says, 'to purrish on th' ragin' main,' he says, 'thin to die with ye'er lungs full iv hayseed an' ye'er eyes full iv dust,' he says. ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... great fertility of imagination. Othello, we know, was actually performed, and went off tolerably well until the final scene, but then the nerves of the Frenchmen were put to a trial they could not by any possibility endure. The sight of a Moor and an Infidel, endeavouring to smother a lady and a Christian, so completely aroused all the gallant and religious sensibilities of the audience, that shouts of terrible, abominable, resounded from every part of the house, and Monsieur Othello was (theatrically) ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... up," she whispered, the words faint though her lips were close to his ear. "I'd smother if I lay ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... pouring over them now, like water out of a spout; it seared and blinded them; its touch was like that of a flame. Nevertheless they struggled on into the smother, making what headway they could. The Indian led, pulling at the end of a rope; Grant strained at the sled and hoarsely encouraged the dogs; Cantwell stumbled and lurched in the rear like an unwilling prisoner. When he fell his companion ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... they sprang, he would have seen small fitful sparks of flame glowing at intervals upon the bosom of the deeper and blacker night below. These were the fires that all the power and ingenuity of the Government failed to smother, but they were now blown out one after another by the blasts ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... sons still looked mournful. She, indeed, was still shedding a few tears, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she then pressed to her lips to smother her deep sobs. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... sing 'Ben Dorain' last Hogmanay at home—I mean in Ladyfield; he was not a good singer, and he forgot bits of the words here and there, but when he was singing it I saw the sun rise on the hill, not a slow grey, but suddenly in a smother of gold, and the hillside moved with deer. Birds whirred from the heather and the cuckoo ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... those of Byron, and no short time after those of Shelley, had secured it. This was by no means wholly, though it may have been to some extent indirectly, due to the partly stupid and partly malevolent attempts to smother his poetical reputation in its cradle. The letters were inaccessible till the late Lord Houghton practically resuscitated Keats; and till other persons—rather in the "Codlin not Short" manner—rushed in to correct and supplement ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... crimson lips. There was so much magnetism in her beauty, such a heaven in the unconquered warmth of her impetuous being, that Selwyn gripped the arms of his chair to help to restrain the mad impulse to grasp her in his arms and smother those lips and the flushed, satin cheeks ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... We cannot even utter a sentiment of vigor;—"his Majesty has only to lament." A poor possession, to be left to a great monarch! Mark the effect produced on our councils by continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we leave every one to abound in his own sense. In the minister's speech, glossing on the Declaration, it is indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... detained there more than a couple of minutes, though it may have seemed much longer to the anxious lad, for his heart beat so tumultuously that it really threatened to smother him. ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... Sinclair had not been as good a seaboat as ever left the Clyde, we could not have gone through. And yet here we were at the end of it with the loss only of our gig and of part of the starboard bulwark. It did not astonish us, however, when the smother had cleared away, to find that others had been less lucky, and that this mutilated brig staggering about upon a blue sea and under a cloudless sky, had been left, like a blinded man after a lightning flash, to tell of the terror ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... don't understand. Yes, she's clever, open-minded, popular, and—well, charming. But you don't know what it is to have moved, breathed, existed, and even triumphed in the mere smother and froth of life—the brilliant froth. There thoughts, sentiments, opinions, feelings, actions too, are nothing but agitation in empty space—to amuse life—a sort of superior debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning nothing, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless him," says she, "to think of his old father. And where did you purchase it, Bob?"—"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings" (which was as true as the gospel).—When I said ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inner part from rain and sun. Now and again I caught glimpses of Arakeeta's fairy form flitting in, or obscuring, the lamplight. I could see two other women and two men. Who and what were they? Was one of those dark forms an Othello, ready to smother his Desdemona? Or were either of them a Valentine between my Marguerite and me? Though there was no moon, I dared not venture within the lamp's rays, for her sake; for my own, I was reckless now - I would have thanked ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Hath no mans dagger here a point for me? Beat. Why how now cosin, wherfore sink you down? Bast. Come, let vs go: these things come thus to light, Smother her spirits vp ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... will cover you; overcoat, blanket, rug, wrap it tightly around you at the neck first to prevent flames from burning the face and lie down and roll over and over. This will smother the flames quickly. If you can get nothing to wrap around you, lie down and roll slowly over and beat the fire with your hands covered by some part of your clothing ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... managed to smother his wrath during the brief moments he was giving his orders; but no sooner had the seemingly pliant tools of his will left, than he again foamed over, and pacing back and forth, continued his cursing, as though he would spend his ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And Pity from thee more dear Than ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Dream, for example, the practical affairs of life seem to smother its poetic dreams; but note how the dream abides with us after the play is over. The spell of the enchanted forest is broken when the crowd invades its solitude; the witchery of moonlight fades into the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... But soon his spirit you might deem Came forth from the shade, of the fearful dream; His cheek, though pale, was calm again. And he spoke in peace, though he spoke in pain "Not mine! not mine! now, Mary mother. Aid me the sinful hope to smother! Not mine, not mine!—I have loved thee long Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong. But pure the heart of a knight should be,— Sleep on, sleep on, thou art safe for me. Yet shalt thou know, by a certain sign, Whose lips have ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... as far as to fifty his years, His virtues and vices were as other men's are; High hopes he conceived, and he smother'd great fears, In a life ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... season with parsley. Imitation parsley can be made from green wall paper with the scissors. If there is no green wall paper in the house speak to the landlord about it. Let it simper. In two hours try it with a fork. If it breaks the fork it is not done. Let it simper. Should you wish to smother it with onions, now is your chance, because after cooking so long it is almost helpless. Serve hot with a hatchet on the side. If there are more than four people in the family use ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... dress a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back— "Don't forget that you were ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... which repose in this precious soil, by all you are, and all you hope to be; resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... literally "without a single real," was forced at last to smother his pride in the matter of the tenth penny. On the 24th June, he summoned the estates of Holland to assemble on the 15th of the ensuing month. In the missive issued for this purpose, he formally agreed to abolish the whole tax, on condition that the estates-general of the Netherlands would furnish ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... got into bed, and drew over him one of those great bags of down, under which they smother a man in the Low Countries; and there he lay, melting between, two feather beds, like an anchovy sandwich between two slices of toast and butter. He was a warm-complexioned man, and this smothering played the very ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... well acquainted with his crew and his prisoner, that during the whole voyage he had been in dread of two things: either that the general would prefer death to this sort of imprisonment, and would smother himself by endeavoring to speak, or that his guards would allow themselves to be tempted by the offers of the prisoner, and put him, D'Artagnan, into the box ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre,—you will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair, if you let her near you at night." All this was uttered without pause or alteration of tone. Then she turned suddenly and left me, walking still with the same unchanging gait. I could not conjecture what she ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... be communicated to the crown of the plant, and that means failure. Of late years I protect my plants by inverting small boxes over them. The sides of these boxes are bored full of holes to admit air, which must be allowed to circulate freely about the plant, or it will smother. I invert a box over the plant after filling it with leaves, and draw more leaves about the outside of it. This prevents water from coming in contact with the soft, sponge-like foliage, and the plant comes out in spring almost as green as it ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... about the roofs and eaves, and along the lower branches of the trees in filmy layers, the smoke almost chokes one to ride through it. I have seen a native sit till half-choked in a dense column of this smoke. He is too lazy to shift his position; the fumes of pungent smoke half smother him; tears run from his eyes; he splutters and coughs, and abuses the smoke, and its grandfather, and maternal uncle, and all its other known relatives; but he prefers semi-suffocation to the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... her chair; the oil was richly scented that she burned; the single light illumined only her, and covered with her shadow the low ceiling,—a shadow that seemed to hang above her like a pall ready to fall from ghostly fingers and smother her in its folds; the others lounged about the room and waited on her pen, in gloom they, their faces gleaming from that dusk demoniacly. It was a concealed room, entered by secret ways, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... "were my heart capable of such a change, I should tear it with my own hands from my breast in order to smother its desires. Though she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and offered her love to me, I should turn away from her, and hurl my contempt and hatred into her face. She has offended me too grievously, for ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... to conceal his feelings. Thus all one day he was in frightful agony with the toothache, but nobody knew anything about it until next morning when his cheek was swollen to the size of a peewit's egg. He tried, too, to smother every affectionate instinct; but when under strong emotion was not always successful. One day, throwing stones, he cut his sister's forehead. Forgetting all his noble resolutions he flew to her, flung his arms round her, kissed her again and again, and then burst into a fit of crying. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... this arduous journey was defeated by the loss of the provisions I had brought. I despaired of winning the attention of the fugitive to supplications, or arguments tending to smother remorse or revive his fortitude. The scope of my efforts was to consist in vanquishing his aversion to food; but these efforts would now be useless, since I had no power to ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... thought that Harvey had gained a sufficient distance I followed. It seemed as if the disgusting water would smother me as I laid myself down into it, and such was my agitation that it appeared almost impossible that I should escape making such a noise as would attract the guard's notice. Catching hold of the roots and limbs at the side of the stream, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Dame was unable Her pleasure to smother, To see the sick lamb Jump up to its mother. In spite of the gout, And a pain in her knee, She went dancing about: Did Dame ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... green, Dalgas and his associates planted dwarf pine with the spruce. Strangely, it not only grew itself, but proved to be a real nurse for the other. The spruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together—for a while. Then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to smother it. The spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best little more than a shrub. The croaker raised his voice: the black heath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any one, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... were—this crowd that surrounded the little man! The children could hardly smother their excitement at the sight of them. Not people or animals only were they, but all kinds of odd objects also, such as no one could expect to see running about loose. A Birthday Cake was there, with lighted candles; a little pile of neatly darned socks and stockings, a white-cotton ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... before her when he was gone, that, in the desperation of her weakness, her mad longing to see him but once again, she would have thrown herself at his feet, and let the cold, heavy step crush her life out,—as he would have done, she thought, choking down the icy smother in her throat, if it had served his purpose, though it cost his own heart's life to do it. He would trample her down, if she kept him back from his end; but be false to her, false to himself, that ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... often as read to her, the letter had seemed to sparkle and overflow with sweet humor and exquisite wit to that degree that she had to smother her laughter from beginning to end. Mr. March was finishing it a second time and had not smiled. Twice or thrice he had almost frowned. Yet as he pushed its open pages across the table he ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... difficult to break off, it was a discouraging task. Sometimes after what seemed like eons of struggling, I would get a sickly little flame flickering, when, puff! along would come a blast of wind and smother it out with snow. I did learn eventually that pitch knots were so rich in gum or resin that they would always catch fire, and so I shaved off splinters with my trusty hunting knife and used them for tinder. One night as I lighted ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... bird-nesting. They are too busy to break up homes, either in willow-tops or women's hearts.... I ought to be satisfied. But I've been dogged, this last day or two, by a longing to be scudding in a single-sticker off Orienta Point again or to motor-cruise once more along the Sound in a smother of spray. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... and with a laugh, and a word for one and all, he caught the outstretched hands, scattering his favours like a young Jove. "Yes, I've remembered you—there, don't smother me. Did you think I'd dare to show my face, Aunt Rhody, without the gayest neckerchief in Europe? Why, I waited over in New York just to see that it was safe. Oh, don't smother me, I say." The dogs came bounding in, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... with our book before the fire. Outside in the night ghostly shapes pass by, ghostly faces press against the window, and at the corners of the house ghostly voices pause for parley, muttering thickly through the swirl and smother of the snow. Inside burns the fire, kindling into glorious pink and white peonies on the nearest wall and glowing warm and sweet on her face as she reads. The children are in bed. She is ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... life, only to disturb it! Between you and me must ever come the shadow of a woman we cannot talk of, but who stands eternally between us two. Even in the first days of our passionate delirium I felt this viperous truth creeping under the roses with which we madly hoped to smother it. The thought grew and grew, like a parasite upon the heart. It clung to mine, bound it down, made it powerless. Oh, would to God the memory of that one night could be lifted from my soul! The presence of your brother here has brought it ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... brother denied me art to contemplate: I have strength to perform any honorable exploit, but no liberty to accomplish my virtuous endeavors: those good parts that God hath bestowed upon me, the envy of my brother doth smother in obscurity; the harder is my fortune, and ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... and dreamy stood the city, Wide and dazzling shone the sea, When the gods set hand to smother Ys, the pride ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... Johnnies, thick as grasshoppers: gray legs a-jumpin' through the tall wheat-tops, and now thar ain't no tops, thar ain't no wheat, thar ain't no lookin': jest blind feelin' round in the black mud, and trampin' on boys' faces, and grapplin' with hell-devils, and stink o' smoke, and stingin' smother, and—up thar through the dark— that crazy punkin sun, like an old moon lopsided, crackin' her red shell ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... would have enabled the machine forces to smother in committee any measure the machine wished to defeat. A two-thirds vote would have been necessary to suspend the rules to have a bill recalled from committee, that is to say, the votes of fifty-four Assemblymen. Twenty-seven Assemblymen ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... Burning Clothing.—The thought to keep in mind is to smother the flames effectively. If we deprive the flame of all air or oxygen it will immediately subside. This may be done quickly by wrapping the burning part in a carpet, rug, blanket, overcoat or any large woolen material at hand. If none of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... out of the way of the team. Sometimes, in a thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and, stemming the current, sounded a protest. But the young horses, less playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely out of the smother. The road began to lift, as they rounded the first rampart of the range, and Tisdale's glance fell to her hands. "Those gloves are done for, as I expected," he exclaimed. "I'll wager your palms are blistered. Come, own ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... good use to convey secret Intelligence without any danger of Discovery or mistrusting. But to come again to the point. The Irregularities of it are caused by three or four coadjutors, one of which is, the uneven surface of the paper, which at best appears no smother then a very course piece of shag'd cloth, next the irregularity of the Type or Ingraving, and a third is the rough Daubing of the Printing-Ink that lies upon the instrument that makes the impression, to all which, add the variation ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... bread. With all their degradation men are not degraded as we are. To be womanly is to be shamed and insulted every day. To love is to suffer. To be a mother is to drink the dregs of human misery. To be heartless, to be cold, to be vicious and a hypocrite, to smother all one's higher self, to be sold, to sell one's self, to pander to evil passions, to be the slave of the slave, that is the way to survive most easily for a woman. And see what we are in spite of everything! Geisner said he would sometimes be proud if he were an Englishman. Sometimes I'm foolish ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... and ash? T'lad 'll smother, woman! He wur born on t'lane moor, where t'air is frick and strong. Take hur out, for God's sake, take hur out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... the hosts come from the dun of Cruachan to view them. The people in the dun smother one another, so that sixteen men die ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... and ridicule, that, like a barbed arrow, rankles long in the soul of its victim. True humor, it should be remembered, is neither scathing nor insolent; it is simply that bright repartee that someone aptly calls the "spice of conversation." Hence it would be well to smother the temptation to be witty at the expense of another, and crush back the brilliant but cutting retort meant only ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... out his own misery and despair by shouting at this poor kid. God knew what she'd been through with his irresponsible other self—Forth had admitted that that damned "Jason" personality was a blend of all the undesirable traits he'd fought to smother all his life. By an effort of will he kept himself from pulling away from ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... mother; This gem of the race The decent fain would smother, And for my deep disgrace I am bidden to leave ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... received them from her hand; and I have brought them to you, that you may return them to him and tell him that I stand in no need of such gifts from him, because, thanks be to God and my husband, I have purses and girdles enough to smother him in. And if after this he leave me not alone, I pray you as my father to hold me excused if, come what may, I tell it to my husband and brothers; for much liefer had I that he suffer indignity, if so it must be, than that my fair fame should be sullied on his account: that holds good, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... exhortation of my text! They are all small matters—bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil-speaking, malice, stealing, lying, and the like; very 'homely' transgressions, if I may so say. Yes, and if you pile enough of them upon the spark that is in your hearts you will smother it out. Sin, the wrenching of myself away from the influences, not attending to the whispers and suggestions, being blind to the teaching of the Spirit through the Word and through Providence: these are the things that 'grieve the Holy Spirit ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... cry of rage, caught her to his breast, and pressed her to him as though he would smother her. Then, bounding from the portico, he rushed in the direction of the firing with the speed of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... moment he saw Captain Shirril start forward to smother the fire, by throwing one of his heavy blankets over it, he lifted the heavy bolt from its place, and leaned it against the wall at the side of the door. Having decided on the step, he was wise in not permitting a ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... the students took the Senior's comforter and laid it on me; then four of them sat down, one on each corner, to keep me underneath. I have told you that it was a sultry August day. I thought that I should smother. I told them so, as well as my choked voice would allow; but one of them said, in a soft, meek tone, as I writhed in distress, "Hush, Gustavus, lie still; you are certainly laboring under a delusion." This was all the more painful ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... When Crawford's name is said, Of days and friends for whose dear sake That path of Hades unto me Will have no more of dread Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice! O Crawford! husband, father, brother Are in that name, that little word! Let me no more my sorrow smother; Grief stirs me, and I ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... once my soul, like thine, was pure, And all its rising fires could smother; But, now, thy vows no more endure, Bestow'd ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... are not necessarily the best teachers. If a man has too much skill along a certain line he will overpower and kill the individuality in his pupil. There are teachers who smother a pupil with their own personality, and thus it often happens that the strongest men are not the most useful as instructors. The ideal teacher is not the one who bends all minds to match his own; but the one who is able to bring out and develop the good ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... smile, Why, what a stinking smother will they utter! Yes, he shall undertake, Sir, as my Champion, Since you propound it mirth, I'll venture on it, And shall defend my cause, but as y'are ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... find that holy writ in many places Hath semblance with this method, where the cases Do call for one thing, to set forth another; Use it I may, then, and yet nothing smother Truth's golden beams: nay, by this method may Make it cast forth its rays as light as day. And now before I do put up my pen, I'll shew the profit of my book, and then Commit both thee and it unto that Hand That pulls the strong down, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... scorned all restraint, all laws except those of my desires, and so, perhaps, I am a vandal. Make sure of this, however—I shall not injure you. Christ is no more sacred to me than you, my heart's treasure. You accuse me of indelicacy because I lack the strength to smother my admiration. I adore you; my being dissolves, my veins are afire with longing for you; I am mad with the knowledge that you are mine. Mad? Caramba! I am insane; my mind totters; I grope my way like a man blinded by a ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... only played her former part, without awakening attention by greater harshness. She experienced extraordinary pleasure in deceiving Camille and Madame Raquin. She was aware she was doing wrong, and at times she felt a ferocious desire to rise from table and smother Laurent with kisses, just to show her husband and aunt that she was not a fool, and ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... receive a mulch of leaves, manure or litter, to the depth of 4 inches or more, according to the latitude and the kind of material. If leaves are used, 3 inches will be enough, because the leaves lie close together and may smother out the frost that is in the ground and let the bulbs start. It will be well to let the mulch extend 1 foot or more beyond the margins of the bed. When cold weather is past, half of the mulch should be removed. The remainder may be left on till there ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... No man shall ever bully and insult me, and then wake me out of my first sleep to smother me because my maid has lost one of his ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... you everything, you see. I offered Irons what would have been a fortune to him—he was attending occasionally in Sturk's sick-room, and assisting in dressing his wounds—to watch his opportunity and smother him with a wet handkerchief. I would have done it myself afterwards, on the sole opportunity that offered, had I not ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... shall be delivered to the morn Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother Survive to know the blood-spent offspring, torn From her racked flesh?—What splendour from the smother? What new-wing'd world, or ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... could not hope to obtain her hand, and I almost fancied I would stab anyone who advised me to seduce her. I felt that I wanted some diversion: I went to the gaming-table. Playing is sometimes an excellent lenitive to calm the mind, and to smother the ardent fire of love. I played with wonderful luck, and I was going home with plenty of gold, when in a solitary narrow street I met a man bent down less by age than by the heavy weight of misery. As I came near him I recognized ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... hush, boy?" demanded Bruno, yet unable to wholly smother a laugh, so ridiculous did it all ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... the eaves o'erbrim, Deep drifts smother the paths below; The elms are shrouded, trunk and limb, And all the air is dizzy and dim With a whirl ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... to misterm my love: Although a millers daughter by her birth, Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice To hide the blemish of her birth in hell, Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce, But endless darkness ever smother it. Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love, Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while, Decking her body with such costly robes As may become her beauties worthiness; That so thy labors may be laughed to scorn, And she thou seekest in foreign regions Be darkened ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... a restless night. She went out on the deck, longing for the tonic of pure air. The morning was misty—it had rained during the night—and clouds hung heavy and low over the city. Out from this gray smother the city gleamed like a veiled opal. Neither Felix nor her aunt was to be seen. When she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back and forth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youth showing no sign of her vigils. She was saying ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... but he might as well, I can warn him, or he will preach to empty pews; it beats all, and to-day was communion day, too; I should have thought more would have turned out; but, I declare, I thought I should smother when I went up to the rails; and, to cap all, that old Mrs. Godfrey, who weighs at least three hundred, came and knelt close by me, and just completely crushed all one side of my flounces; I was provoked and indignant; ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... the hope to find in each The wisdom each denies the other; These mazes of conflicting speech All theories of culture smother. I'll raise and reap, with honest hand, The native harvest of my land; Do thou the same, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... dug entirely out and removed. Sometimes in small areas they may be killed by crude sulphuric acid or may be starved by covering them with boards or a straw stack or in some other convenient way. A method that is very effective is to smother the weeds by a dense growth of some other plant, for example, cowpeas or buckwheat. Cowpeas are to be preferred, since they also enrich the soil by the ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... a smother'd sigh, Rose the snowy bosom high Of the blue-eyed lassie. Fleeter than the streamers fly, When they flit athwart the sky, Went and came the rosy dye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... PASSION OF FREEDOM is one of the rarest of spiritual flames, and it can not be quenched. Make your appeal to history. Again and again militarism has sought to crush it, but it has seemed to share the very life of God. Brutal inspirations have tried to smother it, but it has breathed an indestructible life. Study its energy in the historical records of the Book or in annals of a wider field. Study the passion of freedom amid the oppressions of Egypt, or in the captivity of Babylon, or in the servitude of Rome. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and thus exposed to be devoured by dogs. They were covered with pitch and set on fire to serve as lamp-posts to the streets of Rome. To justify such atrocities, and to smother all sentiments of compassion, these persecutors accused their innocent victims of the most ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... of the organization of slaves at Beaufort, Mr. Lincoln exclaimed, "Slavery is a big job, and will smother us!" It will, if dealt with in your way, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... he started off again toward Connecticut Avenue. He dared not hail a car, and he would not have dared had he possessed the fare. Some one might recognize him. He walked briskly for ten minutes. The humor of the escapade appealed to him greatly, and he had all he could do to smother the frequent bursts of laughter which surged to his lips. He reached absently for his cigar-case. No ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... origin of the forms of life peopling our globe, with which Darwin's name is bound up as closely as that of Newton with the theory of gravitation, nothing seems to be further from the mind of the present generation than any attempt to smother it with ridicule or to crush it by vehemence of denunciation. "The struggle for existence," and "Natural selection," have become household words and every-day conceptions. The reality and the importance of the natural processes on which Darwin ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... cry at intervals, "Don't leave me, Jack, don't leave me." At last she fell into a sort of slumber from exhaustion, and in this state she remained for more than an hour. One thing was evident to me, which was, that the party, whoever it might be, had attempted to smother the poor old woman, and that in a few seconds more he would ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... cover till frost will hold up a loaded wagon. Two inches of mulch, that covers the plants and paths from sight is enough, but I see you cover deeper, from four to twelve inches in Minnesota, and often smother the plants. If we could have a snow blanket come early and stay on late in spring, that would protect the plants, but we want the mulch also to protect from drouth and keep the berries clean. A January thaw is liable to kill out any field ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... she could scarcely smother, Yet a glance, in its daring, half-awed and shy, She added,—"While they were about it, mother, I wish they'd just finished ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... But it might prove tedious reading, so suffice it to say, that with one man standing erect in the stern with a steering oar, and the others paddling like demons, the Ivory Coast boatmen invariably land their passengers, in a smother of foam which seems overwhelming, without spilling a drop of water on them. Not a visitor to this coast but has been impressed by their ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... dearest son; So long as fierce revenge possessed my heart, I did not feel my dwelling's dreary void; But now, returning home, my rage appeas'd, Their kingdom wasted, and my son aveng'd, I find there nothing left to comfort me. The glad obedience I was wont to see Kindling in every eye, is smother'd now In discontent and gloom; each, pondering, weighs The changes which a future day may bring, And serves the childless king, because he must. To-day I come within this sacred fane, Which I have often enter'd to implore And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... roll! Rushing up a maddening mountain, she would poise like a cockle-shell on the giddy summit, breathless and rolling, leap outward and down into the yawning chasm beneath, and bury herself in the smother of foam at the bottom. Then the recovery, another mountain, another sickening upward rush, another poise, and the downward crash. Abreast of him, to starboard, like a ghost of the storm, Chris saw the cook dashing apace with the schooner. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... have a large blanket at hand to smother flames in burning clothing—also a bucket of water and a quantity of sand. A siphon of carbonic water ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... among them like a plague. Honesty is nothing to the purpose. Men bow before the power of genius; they hate it, and try to slander it, because genius does not divide the spoil; but if genius persists, they bow before it. To sum it all up in a phrase, if they fail to smother genius in the mud, they fall on their knees and worship it. Corruption is a great power in the world, and talent is scarce. So corruption is the weapon of superfluous mediocrity; you will be made to feel the point of it everywhere. You will see women who spend more than ten thousand francs ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... was no Male kind belonging to the Family, her Father and Brother, as she told me at other Times, being in Spain, to take care of some Effects they expected by the Flota from the West Indies. However, I endeavour'd to smother this Impression of Jealousy, attributing the Mistake to the Circumstances of Night, Candle Light, or some other false Medium that might ground it, so I was resolv'd to take no notice of it at my next Visit. But ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... recent years, been of trifling inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms, flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we seldom encounter in ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... he spoken than, as the big red boat dashed past in a smother of foam, there came a ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... used to imagine that the great cases were swaying and dancing a minuet, and she fully expected the tomes would all come a-toppling down and smother her—and she didn't care much if they would; but they never did. She was the mother of two children—the boy Robert, born the year after her marriage; and in a little over another year a daughter came, and this closed the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... below the darksome cloud Soon the night-wind roar'd, Wi' rainy storms that zent the zwollen streams Over ev'ry vword. The while the drippen tow'r did tell The hour, wi' storm-be-smother'd bell, An' over ev'ry flower's bud Roll'd on the flood, 'ithin ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... to listen to him and talk with him as a friend, but often, too, he repulsed him more sharply than the haughtiest upstart would repel the meanest of his servants. At last the slave took courage and called the lad by his name, for it seemed less hard to submit to a scolding than to smother the utterance of a strong, warm feeling, unimportant as it might be, which was formed in words in his mind. Antinous raised his head a little on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he would never fight other dogs; and even allowed a little King Charles spaniel named Raith to run off with any bone he might have been gnawing, and to tyrannise over him in a variety of ways. If attacked by an inferior enemy, he would throw his immense bulk down upon his antagonist and nearly smother ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... and following days Hippolyte threw himself into his work, and to try to conquer his passion by the swift rush of ideas and the ardor of composition. He half succeeded. Study consoled him, though it could not smother the memories of so many tender ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... broken-hearted that in youth he missed his call, While that same unhappy farmer is the envy of us all. Any task you care to mention seems a vastly better lot Than the one especial something which you happen to have got. There's but one sure way to smother Envy's heartache and her sob: Keep too busy at your own to ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... warmly with the yardmaster and walked over to the Silver Dollar saloon, where, in order to smother his distress, he played game after game of solitaire. Here, shortly after his arrival, he had learned of Borax O'Rourke's latest move, and when the latter entered the saloon an hour later, Harley P. had delivered ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... and to the end of their lines misconstrue and lose each other. Nay, it seems to be a kind of luxury to them to believe that those who could and would love them are false to them. We make haste to doubt the divinest fidelity; we drive the dagger into each other, and we smother the Desdemona who would have been the light of life to us, not because of any deadly difference or grievous injury, but because we ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... We may either smother the divine fire of youth or we may feed it. We may either stand stupidly staring as it sinks into a murky fire of crime and flares into the intermittent blaze of folly or we may tend it into a lambent flame with power to make clean and bright ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... in two let's breake, Confounded with the touch, But halfe words let vs speake, Our Lip's imploy'd so much, 60 Vntill we both grow weake, With sweetnesse of thy breath; O smother me to death: Long ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... was the reply, "I abhor peppermint; but I have got some lozenges, if that will satisfy you. And when I smell ghosts, I can smother ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fire—lying on the hearth, letting me nurse. The door was open and a gust of wind blew her dress in the fire. She dropped me and she screamed and run out into the yard. Old Miss saw her from the house. She grabbed a quilt and started out. She got to my mother and she wrapped her in the quilt to smother out the fire. But my mother done swallowed fire. She died. That's the story they tell me. I was too ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... influence, without money, standing almost alone, could ever make good those courageous words. The country, in Church and State, had decreed silence on the subject of slavery; the patriotism of the North, its commerce, its piety, its labor and capital had all joined hands to smother agitation, and stifle the discussion of a question that imperilled the peace and durability of Webster's glorious Union. But one man, tearing the gag from his lips, defying all these, cried, "Silence, there shall not ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... Tuileries crashed in. In these days of the plain French Republic,—of its sober, unornamental, business government,—the contrast is vivid with the glitter and "go" of Louis Napoleon's regime. And the nation feels it, and involuntarily grieves over it. The twenty years have far from sufficed to smother that certain inborn Gallic joy in monarchy,—autocratic rule, a brilliant court, leadership in fashion, and all the pomp and pageantry which the French ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... convincing, because they appear to be—what they have a doubtful right to be in reality—studied. Have you ever seen a speaker use such grotesque gesticulations that you were fascinated by their frenzy of oddity, but could not follow his thought? Do not smother ideas with gymnastics. Savonarola would rush down from the high pulpit among the congregation in the duomo at Florence and carry the fire of conviction to his hearers; Billy Sunday slides to base on the platform ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... of his time as prudence allowed, and meanwhile pleaded his tale of love, to which she was not deaf; and when she confessed that she, too, had long regarded him with a favorable eye (but a sense of duty had caused her to smother her growing fondness), his measure ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... thing that is fighting for air—the thing you won't own—the thing that drove you to Grange for protection—will never die. That is why you are miserable. You may do what you will to it, hide it, smother it, trample it. But it will survive for all that. All your life it will be there. You will never forget it though you will try to persuade yourself that it belongs to a dead past. All your life,"—his voice vibrated suddenly, and the ever-shifting eyes blazed into leaping flame—"all ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... with her, only in her Night-Gown and Slippers, she goes to the Bed of the Unfortunate Henault, with a Penknife in her hand; but considering, she knew not how to conceal the Blood, should she cut his Throat, she resolves to Strangle him, or Smother him with a Pillow; that last thought was no sooner borne, but put in Execution; and, as he soundly slept, she smother'd him without any Noise, or so much as his Strugling: But when she had done this dreadful Deed, and saw the dead Corps of her once-lov'd Lord, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... mind of every one. Sometimes its existence is unrealized, but it is there. It is there to be developed and brought forth, like the culture of that obstinate but beautiful flower, the orchid. To allow it to remain dormant is to place one's self in obscurity, to trample on one's ambition, to smother one's faculties. To develop it is to individualize all that is best within you, and give it to the world. It is by an absolute knowledge of yourself, the proper estimate of your ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work-work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... case," the youth said solemnly, and Nancy's old happy laugh rang out as he flung the plaster Psyche in a smother of ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... declaration of love than the 'Bourgeois gentilhomme' does in this happy form of words, 'Mourir d'amour me font belle Marquise vos beaux yeux'. I defy anybody to say more; and yet I would advise nobody to say that, and I would recommend to you rather to smother and conceal your passion entirely than to reveal it in these words. Seriously, this holds in everything, as well as in that ludicrous instance. The French, to do them justice, attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to France and with neither mamma now nor Mrs. Beale nor Mrs. Wix nor herself at his side, he must be fearfully alone in England. Hour after hour she felt as if she were waiting; yet she couldn't have said exactly for what. There were moments when Mrs. Beale's flow of talk was a mere rattle to smother a knock. At no part of the crisis had the rattle so public a purpose as when, instead of letting Maisie go with Mrs. Wix to prepare for dinner, she pushed her—with a push at last incontestably maternal—straight into the room inherited from Sir Claude. She titivated her little charge with ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... man could live in it, we'd make the attempt without ye, sir," declared Long Jerry, warmly. "But neither dogs nor men could find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and oxen will have to be shot to save them ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... wheeled with flaming face toward the chair. "I have been willing," she said, "to smother my life in an effort to meet your ideas, though I knew them to be little ideas. Now I see that in yielding everything one can no more please you than in yielding nothing. If he goes, I go, too. You may ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... his throat, and throttles the wretched victim, who meanwhile is patting his shoulder; that will be a form of supplication; he is asking not to be quite choked to death. Regardless of their fresh oil, they get all filthy, smother themselves in mud and sweat till they might as well not have been anointed, and present, to me at least, the most ludicrous resemblance to eels slipping ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... unfit ones, for towns and resorts in the region have been growing and sanitary facilities have not been keeping pace. Already some arms of the superb natural harbors formed by the tributary creeks are noxious with discharges from boats at big marinas, and gravel dredging is stirring up silt to smother bottom life, including shellfish. As Tidewater agriculture revives and modernizes, pesticides and artificial fertilizers are coming to be as much a part of the scene there as in other farming regions, and may ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's. Our feelings we with difficulty smother When constabulary duty's to be done: Ah, take one consideration with another, A policeman's lot ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... rose beneath my feet Like memories dear of those who slept, And all around to me was sweet, Although, perchance, I sometimes wept. I wept, but not, oh not in sadness, And those bright tears I would not smother, For less they flowed in grief than gladness, So blest the memory of my mother. And she was linked, I know not why, With leaves and flowers, and landscapes fair And all beneath the bending sky, As if she still were with me there. The echo bursting from the dell, Recalled her ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... them, as I hear women of her fashion do whiles, I called her back and took them, full of despite, from her hands and have brought them to you, so you may return them to him and tell him I want none of his trash, for that, thanks to God and my husband, I have purses and girdles enough to smother him withal. Moreover, if hereafter he desist not from this, I tell you, as a father, you must excuse me, but I will tell it, come what may, to my husband and my brothers; for I had far liefer he should brook an affront, if ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... I can't help it—what would you do, Matthew? It blows like thunder: I can't tell how fast she's going,—I don't want to over-shoot the light, and then have to thrash back through such a smother of a sea." ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... town-yard? Under t' mud and ash? T' lad'll smother, woman! He wur born in t' lane moor, where t' air is frick and strong. Take hur out, for God's sake, take hur ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... animals (including people) in the world, all the free oxygen in the air would in time be combined by the animals with hydrogen to make water and with carbon to make carbon dioxid (CO2). As animals cannot breathe water and cannot get any good from carbon dioxid, they would all smother. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... cradle. The baby's arms are placed straight by its sides, and in this position it is so strapped in its cradle that it cannot even move a hand. These cradles have hood-shaped tops, and over the whole thick coverings are placed, so that the wonder is the child does not smother. The cradle is usually deposited in some safe corner, and the baby is left to sleep or amuse itself with its infantine thoughts. The cradle is sometimes attached to two ropes to form a swing, and when the mother becomes conscious of the child's awakening she uncovers its head at times and ...
— The Religious Life of the Zuni Child - Bureau of American Ethnology • (Mrs.) Tilly E. (Matilda Coxe Evans) Stevenson
... must be the prince!" Mrs. Orton Beg responded, raising her slender white hand to smother a yawn. "And it must be good-night, too—or rather, good-morning! Just look at the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... he exclaimed triumphantly, collapsing back upon his haunches and taking a long, deep breath. Beside the triumph in his voice there was a touch of indescribable, gruff sweetness the children knew was always in his heart—no amount of curried-liver trouble could smother that. Just now it was ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed me to say, "Well, take the risk!" The little affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... discover some fine morning that the street in which you live is blockaded with furniture vans, all endeavouring to deliver furniture you don't require and never heard of before, while your staircase is a mass of flowers and fruit constantly increasing upon you and threatening to smother you with their amount no less than with their scent. It would gradually appear that the deliveries both of the flowers and the furniture were being executed in accordance with the orders of one of your friends, and that you had to grin and bear it as best you might. I cannot say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... so he will, madam, without you consent to the proposed arrangement. Lucy has always treated you with respect, and expressed the warmest gratitude for your protection; but, as for Peter, he will be more bearish and insolent than ever, again smother you with his nauseous kisses, and claim them as ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... noticeable fact that Mr. Clark's complexion invariably grew more sultry than its wont, and that his eyes, forever moist, grew dewier, and that his lips and tongue would seem covertly entering upon some lush conspiracy, which in its incipiency he would be forced to smother with his hastily drawn handkerchief. Then the eccentric Mr. Clark would laugh nervously, and pouncing on some subject so vividly unlike the one just preceding it as to daze the listener, he would ripple ahead with a tide of eloquence that ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... frantically. "I thought I'd never find you. Over here to the right. Let your horse come. He'll follow mine. The Gaunt Rocks," she yelled back over her shoulder, "we can make them yet! There's nothing there to burn. We may smother. But we ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... desert! My wilds do not hold him; Pale thirst doth not rack, Nor the sand-storm enfold him. The death-gale pass'd by And his breath failed to smother, Yet ne'er shall he wake To the voice of his mother Alas! for the white man! o'er deserts a ranger, No more shall we welcome the ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... fragments and connected with so-called 'fox holes'—small shelters in which the garrisons are safe against the heaviest shells. Sand trenches, skillfully laid out, so that they are mutually outflanking, smother exploding projectiles. The flanking fire of the machine guns often annihilates the assailants when they are apparently successfully attacking. One company alone thus lost fifty-one dead in one day. Between September 15 and October 26, 1915, Dvinsk, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... my heart, all are equally cherished, Every thought of exclusion within me I smother, None is dearer to me than another, In their turn, I for each one ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon |
