"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he had not had the best part of this affair. Besides, he felt obliged to stifle from this moment the secret passion with which the beautiful and singular girl had inspired him. Wife or widow of the General, it was clear that Mademoiselle d'Estrelles had forever escaped him. To seduce the wife of this good old man from whom he accepted such favors, or even ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... evening, that was to have been 'her treat,' was the most miserable she had ever spent. God knows she tried to stifle her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... any. But even now let them speak out and tell me that they have a plan to lay before us, and I will give them an example of candour they are by no means deserving, by instantly withdrawing the present bill. The indecent attempt to stifle this measure in embryo may promise consequences the very reverse of what I am certain will be the case. The friends of the present motion may flatter themselves that the contents of the bill will sink into silence and be forgotten; but I believe they will find the contrary. This ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hands. I confess I knew neither how to solicit, nor what to solicit; this last message suspending the project on which we had acted before, and which I kept as an instruction constantly before my eyes. It seemed to me uncertain whether you intended to go on, or whether your design was to stifle, as much as possible, all past transactions; to lie perfectly still; to throw upon the Court the odium of having given a false alarm; and to wait till new accidents at home, and a more favourable conjuncture abroad, might tempt you to resume the ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... some fifty miles, partly to save his money, partly because he felt the need of exercise, not to stifle thought, but to clear it, he left the coach, and betook himself to his feet. Alternately walking and riding, he found his strength increase as he went on; and his sorrow continued to be that of a cloudy summer day, nor was ever, so long as the journey lasted, again ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... not, I know not," she answered, with a little sob. "It only seems sometimes as though I could not bear the life any longer; it is all so drear, so dull, so dead! one day like another—always the same. Sometimes I think the narrow house will stifle me! O father, chide me not; I have struggled against the feeling, but the life is killing me! I know ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of coughing were very near being her last, but she wrestled with her trouble, seeming at times to stifle it, and then for weeks she managed to go to her work, which was still hers, because Shovel's old girl did it for her when the bronchitis would not be defied. Shovel's old slattern gave this service unasked and without ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... this radiant halo is by the symmetrical development of every part of her organization, muscle, ovary, stomach and nerve, and by a physiological management of every function that correlates every organ; not by neglecting or trying to stifle or abort any of the vital and integral parts of her structure, and supplying the deficiency by invoking the aid of the milliner's stuffing, the colorist's pencil, the druggist's compounds, the doctor's pelvic supporter, and the ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... description of the blasphemy of the infidels, the desolation of the sacred places, and the misery of the Christians. He had seen the very ministers of God insulted, beaten, even put to, death: he had seen sacrilege, profanation, cruelty; and as he described them, his voice became stifle, and his eyes streamed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... hankers for the serene and balanced seat in the centre of the see-saw, it seems a little pitiful, and constricted; a confession of defeat, a hedging and limitation of the soul. Need we put up with this, must we for ever turn our eyes away from things as they are, stifle our imaginations and our sensibilities, for fear that they should become our masters, and destroy our sanity? This is the eternal question that confronts the artist and the thinker. Because of the inevitable decline ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ugly room; or the girl in the shop where they buy their clothing smiles as she wraps for them their packages. Such attentions would be passed by without a thought at ordinary times, but now notice means much to a heart that is trying hard to stifle its loneliness and sorrow, struggling to learn in an unknown tongue the knowledge of the West; in lieu of mother, sister, or sweetheart of his own land, the boy is insensibly drawn into a net that tightens about him, until he takes the fatal ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... forth. Already doubts and misgivings had given way, and the North was now practically unanimous in its determination to stifle rebellion. There was a common belief that secession was the work of a minority, skillfully led by designing politicians, and that the loyal majority would rally with the North to defend the flag. Young men who responded jubilantly ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... friend, are you taking care that the Divine Life in you shall grow after this Christ-like fashion? When I hear Christian people say: "Oh, I have so little love, so little faith, so little joy," I generally find that it is so because they stifle and quench the blessed yearnings of the Divine Spirit to seek the souls of others; because they leave unanswered the urgings and promptings of duty which God in their conscience is demanding; because they neglect prayer, and self-denial, and heart-searching, and the ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... compel our guardians of the peace to go around assassinating dogs. Men, who as citizens, would cut their hands off before they would injure a neighbor's property, or speak harsh to his dog, when they hire out to the city must stifle all feelings of humanity, and descend to the level of Paris scavengers. We compel them to do this. If they would get on their ears and say to the city of Milwaukee, "We will guard your city, and ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... she could not stifle a certain sympathy for this young man. She imagined that his rebellion, whatever shape it had assumed, had been provoked by that weal upon his face; and it seemed to her then that he had been less than a man had he not attempted to exact some reparation for the hurt ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... interfere with the carrying out of this intention he refused to allow the boy to attend school, lest his fondness for music should induce some one to teach him his notes. Poor George was therefore compelled to stifle his longing whilst in his father's presence, and content himself with 'making music' in the seclusion of his own chamber. It may seem strange that Handel's mother should not have interposed in order that her boy should be taught music, but there is no doubt that the elderly ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... been a girl of the East Side he would not have hesitated upon the present occasion or in the present surroundings. But she was a girl of wealth and high position. It was not enough that his hands could stifle an outcry, or that the policeman upon the nearest beat was more in his own employ than in that of the city. Cold reason showed him that in the present case impunity was ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... be a groundless panic. His aides-de-camp suspected that it was Cossacks whom they saw, but they marched in such regular platoons that they still had doubts on the subject; and if those wretches had not howled at the moment of attack, as they all do to stifle the sense of danger, it is probable that Napoleon would not have escaped them. A circumstance which increased the peril was, that their cries were at first mistaken for acclamations, and their hurrahs ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... thought it to be her duty as a mother to show no tendency to sympathize with her girl's sorrow. Such heart-breakings were occurring daily in the world around them. Who were the happy people that were driven neither by ambition, nor poverty, nor greed, nor the cross purposes of unhappy love, to stifle and trample upon their feelings? She had known no one so blessed. She had never been happy after that fashion. She herself had within the last few weeks refused to join her lot with that of a man she really liked, because her wicked son was so grievous ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... this unexpected intelligence was brought to St Jago, it gave great uneasiness to Villagran, who foresaw all the fatal consequences which might result from this new war, having already had long experience of the daring and invincible spirit of the Araucanians. In order if possible to stifle the threatening flame at its commencement, he immediately dispatched his son Pedro into the south, with as many troops as could be collected in haste, and soon after took the same direction himself with a more considerable force. The first skirmishes between the hostile armies were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... know Richard Wharton's dead! Now, hear your fate! Nobody saw you come into this house to-night. Nobody shall see you leave. Look here, sir, at this bottle. It's chloroform: do you understand? Chloroform—chloroform—chloroform! I shall hold it to your nose—so. I shall stifle you quietly—no blood, no fuss, no nasty mess of any sort. And when I'm done,—do you see these flasks?—I can reduce your damned carcase to a pound of ashes with chemicals in half-an-hour! You've found out too much. But you've mistaken your man! Courtenay ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... is they in particular who are packed into the least space. As though the vitiated atmosphere of the streets were not enough, they are penned in dozens into single rooms, so that the air which they breathe at night is enough in itself to stifle them. They are given damp dwellings, cellar dens that are not waterproof from below, or garrets that leak from above. Their houses are so built that the clammy air cannot escape. They are supplied bad, tattered, or rotten clothing, adulterated and indigestible ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... cheat with flames of passion, my despair. So when the sinking sun draws near to night, The sky's bright cheeks fade 'neath those tresses black. Ye laugh—but silently the soul weeps on; Ye cannot stifle her sincere lament. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... Portuguese afforded another opening, English traders smuggled. The Spaniards, with monstrous fatuity, refused to make use of the superb waterways provided by the Parana and Paraguay, and endeavoured to stifle all trade. England's main struggle was with France. It was prolonged by her entanglement in European disputes and by political causes, by the want of co-operation among the English colonies and their jealousy of control by the home government. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... stifle that laugh, Tellheim, I implore you! It is the terrible laugh of misanthropy. No, you are not the man to repent of a good deed, because it may have had a bad result for yourself. Nor can these consequences possibly be of long duration. The truth must come to light. The testimony of ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... extinguish, (do out,) as analogous to don, doff, and dup. He would rather connect it with toedten, tuer. He cites as allied words Bohemian dusyti, to choke, to extinguish; Polish dusic, to choke, stifle, quell; and so arrives at the English slang phrase, "dowse the glim." As we find several other German words in thieves' English, we have little doubt that dowse is nothing more than thu' aus, do (thou) out, which would bring us back to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... CONSTANCE LYTTON is careful to punctiliousness in her recognition of the kindness and natural sympathy of many of the officials, even while she condemns the rules and regulations which tend to cramp and stifle the gentler side of human nature. Still, our prison system has had to stand a good deal of attack before this. We should most of us be thankful to change it if we knew how, and I need never despise hints in this direction. The interest of the book, however, is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... Infinities at either end, with the huge puzzle set before us. A method has been invented, is now traditional, of closing the eyes easily and thoughtlessly to the whole; and we are content to catch that contagion from our predecessors: we eat and drink, we work and play, and stifle the restless questioning that springs up so resolutely in our spaces of solitude here; and what will it do ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... geological work—that relating to the origin of the crystalline schists,—geologists were not at the time prepared to receive his revolutionary teachings. The influence of powerful authority was long exercised, indeed, to stifle his teaching, and only now, when this unfortunate opposition has disappeared, is the true nature and importance of Darwin's purely geological work ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... the sky, the open sky, For the home of a song-bird's heart! And why, and why, and for ever why, Do they stifle here in the mart: Cages of agony, rows on rows, Torture that only a wild thing knows: Is it nothing to you to see That head thrust out through the hopeless wire, And the tiny life, and the mad desire To be free, to be free, to be free? Oh, the sky, the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... only step that could effectually prevent the object you had in view, (for this, together with the offensive manner in which it was done, supplied her with a motive which aided essentially to enable her to carry out her determination to stifle all feelings of love towards him, in fact to forget him.) He now saw the folly of the course he had adopted, she would soon forget him altogether, perhaps find another more patient and gentle, who could make her happier than he would have done, such thoughts ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... sang out to a midshipman, 'Let my cab be brought round to the door.' The youngster stared. 'Do you hear? What did I say?' 'You desired to have your cab brought round to the door, sir,' answered the midshipman, trying to stifle his laughter. 'Ah! did I?' exclaimed the commander. 'Well, possibly. It's no easy matter to change one's mode of expression on a sudden. I mean, man my gig; I am going on shore.' The first day he attempted to ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... its effect upon the young officer was profound. The moment before, discouraged by her apparent reserve, he had stood coldly by, but now startled into animation, he bent upon her an earnest and corresponding look; then with a wild tumult at his heart, which he neither sought to stifle nor to analyze, and wholly forgetting what had brought him to the spot, he turned and joined his brother, who, at a short ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... linen, the rich array of silver, pewter, and brightly-coloured glass, were a great contrast to the bare walls and scant necessaries of Schloss Adlerstein; but Ebbo was resolved not to expose himself by admiration, and did his best to stifle Friedel's exclamations of surprise and delight. Were not these citizens to suppose that everything was tenfold more costly at the baronial castle? And truly the boy deserved credit for the consideration ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sad. She is constituted to expect and need a happiness that cannot exist on earth. She must stifle such aspirations within her secret heart, and fit herself, as well as she can, for a life of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... endurable to each other. We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force; to get people out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set up on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be clean; overawe their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, and choose the generous expression, and make them know how much ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... forgive you." Many a time he dreamt of this and started up from sleep with those words ringing in his ears, "My boy, I forgive you," and then finding himself alone in his dark, dismal little room, he would bury his wet cheeks in the pillow and try to stifle the longing in his lonely, ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... at that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired skill as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a well-covered stifle, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without any go to them, that suit a country-parson, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... there been no 'murmuring' before we yielded? A voice has said to us, 'Give up such and such a habit,' or 'such and such a pursuit is becoming too engrossing': do we not all know what it is not only to feel obedience an effort, but even to cherish reluctance, and to let it stifle the voice? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... seize the helm. Rome must be cleansed,—cleansed to the very roots; The sluggish we must waken from their slumber,— And crush to earth the power of these wretches Who sow their poison in the mind and stifle The slightest promise of a better life. Look you,—'tis civic freedom I would further,— The civic spirit that in former times Was regnant here. Friends, I shall conjure back The golden age, when Romans gladly gave Their lives to guard the honor of the nation, And all their ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... are still doing service on the farm, after more than seven years. One of the bays died in the summer of '98, and one of the roans broke his stifle during the following winter and had to be shot. The bereaved relicts of these two pairs have taken kindly to each other, and now walk soberly side by side in double harness. I sometimes think, however, that I see a difference. The personal relation is not just as it was ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... of melodrama. And to think that you should have actually taken yourself in it by it. One acts so badly with only oneself for audience. You know perfectly well that you are not going to give in, you are not going to attempt to stifle that which is the centre of your life; you have not courage for such slow suicide. Don't add insincerity to the other faults that are laid to your account——" She mused over the little self-administered lecture. And probing down into her consciousness, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... unlocked, the cries of the "extras," and the merging of thousands of human voices in a dull murmur. The great world of London was closing its shutters for the night, and putting out the lights; and the new lodger from across the sea listened to it with his heart beating quickly, and laughed to stifle the touch of fear and homesickness ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... don't know. I hate it all; but if I were in the midst of everything again, it might stifle the pain a little. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and a new fence erected. People began to speak of Jane as a surprisingly smart woman, and to say that her husband's desertion had been a blessing in disguise. But in spite of her prosperity there was an ache ever at Jane's heart, and a regret which no good fortune could stifle. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... not easily to be recovered. Tacitus assigns a very proper Reason for this. "[K]Such is the Nature, saith he, of Humane Infirmity, that Remedies cannot be applied, as quick as Mischiefs may be suffered; and as the Body must grow up by slow Degrees, but is presently destroyed; so you may stifle a Genius much more easily than you can recover it. For you'll soon relish Ease and Inactivity, and be in Love with Sloth, which was once your Aversion." This can hardly fail of raining the best Capacity, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... restlessness and discomfort with which it begins, and the trouble it causes in the soul while it lasts; from the obscurity and distress, the aridity and indisposition for prayer and for every good work, which it produces. It seems to stifle the soul and trammel the body, so as to ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... been inoculated, never persons behaved better, no whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but cannot avoid being in much anxiety.' A few days later he wrote:—'You may imagine I never passed such a day as this in my life! grieved to death myself for the loss of so sweet a child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as possible for the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or dwell on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as it were by our own means, tho' well intended ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus? A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus. The corruption of verse; for, when all is done, It is but a paraphrase made on a pun. But a genius like hers no subject can stifle, It shows and discovers itself through a trifle. By reading this trifle, I quickly began To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man. Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff, Which others for mantuas would think fine enough: ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... whom you had ever loved, could remain blind to your inconstancy, or feel secure indifference? Happy woman! in you to love is not a crime; you may glory in your passion, whilst I must hide mine from every human eye, drop in shameful secrecy the burning tear, stifle the struggling sigh, blush at the conflicts of virtue and sensibility, and carry shame and remorse with me to the grave. Happy Leonora! happy even when most injured, you have a right to complain to him you love;—he is yours—you ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... my conceptions urged me to consider it my duty to simply stand aside and stifle my affection, as I did—as I already told you even before any other person had an idea of the intentions of my father. I gradually grew ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... marriage, at Molly's own gay suggestion, during their brief betrothal—and music would peal out upon them till Lady Landale's stormy heart could bear it no longer, and she would rise in her turn, fly to the shelter of her room and roll her head in the pillows to stifle the sound of sobs, crying from the depths of her soul against heaven's injustice; anon railing in a frenzy of impotent anger against the musician, who had such passion in him and gave ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Claude, burning some straw and then digging, spoils the combs, as Wat does it; now I have got some puff-balls and sulphur to put into the hole, and set fire to them with a lucifer match, so as to stifle the wasps, and then dig them ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... why this blind insistence offended me. Until then I had remained calm; but at her words there burst from the depths of my being the voice of instinct, that voice which I had tried to stifle, almost unconsciously, by force of habit and training.... Oh, that blatant, piercing voice! It seemed to me to rend the darkness, to scoff at my heart and my sweet reasonableness! It was as though I saw ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... or tongue ne'er had, nor has, the skill, Does voice or lettered page the thought impart, Though each, with all its power, increase the ill, Diminishing the good with all its art, So female fame to stifle, but that still The honour of the sex survives in part: Yet reacheth not its pitch, nor such its flight, But that 'tis far below its ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... driven the spray into their faces, they saw the white folds of the waterfalls, embroidered with rainbows, and the dark rocks behind its rushing flood, stained deep red, and gold and blue, as if generations of rainbows had dried there. Nothing could stifle the thrill of that wild drive, down steep roads that tied themselves ribbonlike, round the mountain-side, and seemed to flutter, as ribbons might flutter, over precipices. Yet the magic of four days ago was dead. Carmen, sitting between Nick and Angela, had killed it. Neither rivers ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... short of murder to stifle the threatening exposure. Sterner methods were necessary. All at once his eye spied a coil of rope in the corner and he sprang ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a march), and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and phrases as "bulldog" and "little fat capon." Then suddenly recollecting that he was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour and endeavoured to stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the result that when Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed to himself, inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the presence of mind to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... lurid inane fulminant over the plain. Fear not his wizardry white that circles and circles and settles Stealthily hour by hour, feathery flower upon flower, Over the spell-bound sleeper, till last the pitiless petals Darkly in icy death stifle his ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... clothes belonged. Then he remembered, remembered with a cold shiver which blanched his cheeks and brought a little agonised murmur to his lips. The moment passed, however, crushed down, stifled as he had sworn that he would stifle all such memories. He turned in at a barber's shop, had his hair cut, and yielded to the solicitations of a fluffy-haired young lady who was dying to go to America if only somebody would take her, and who was sure that he ought to have a manicure before his voyage. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Arthur had been very confident. So much that he had said had carried with it a certain ring of truth. Youth and the temperament of youth were surely irresistible. Like calls to like across the garden of spring flowers with a cry which no interloper can still, no wanderer of later years can stifle. Somehow it seemed to me just then that the sun had ceased to shine, and a touch of winter after all was lingering in the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... discriminating toleration is, that it is of no use to attempt to stop heresy or schism by persecution, unless, perhaps, it be conducted upon the plan of direct warfare and massacre. You cannot preserve men in the faith by such means, though you may stifle for a while any open appearance of dissent. The experiment has now been tried, and it has failed; and that is by a great deal the best argument for the magistrate ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... these, in the mouth of the multitude, seem rather adulation than adoration of the Deity), and that faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! (29) Piety, great God! and religion are become a tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... tender and loving; cherished, because her repressed soul is timid and doubting. We have lacked light, freedom, space for action and growth, yet are there pleasant places there. All these are now before us. Dry your tears, O tender souls, suppress your sighs, stifle your groans. Let us press forward in courage and hope. Forty years, it may be, in the wilderness, but deliverance at last. The gentle cloud will be over us by day, the path of duty will shine as a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... historical figure whom all men reverence and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us—who lived our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the hands of his enemies—shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example? We have his words, which no one can deny; and shall we not quote them to the people, and prove to them what he was, and what he taught, and what he did? No, no, a thousand times no!—we shall use his authority to turn out the knaves and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... in, or I go in to Palomides.... She also had a right to life; and she has done nought but to live.... But that we cannot stifle in their passage their deadly words!... We are without help, my poor sisters, my poor sisters, and hands cannot ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... a message to the Houses, and to desire their counsel and support in such an exigency? It would put him forward with advantage in the eyes of the people; it would teach them to look upon him with respect, as a person possessed of the spirit of command; and it would, I am persuaded, stifle a hundred cabals, both in parliament and elsewhere, which, if they were cherished by his apparent remissness and indecision, would produce to him a vexatious and disgraceful regency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... valiant man, for [1434]Tam inter epulas fortis vir esse potest ac in bello, as much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains, and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus they many times wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the character of every minister! Then don Andres would be there, that boresome Mentor who, at the instance of Rafael's mother, would never let him out of sight for a moment. Bah! The Club could wait! He would have plenty of time later in the day to stifle in that smoke-filled parlor where, the moment he showed his face, everybody would be upon him and pester the life out of him with ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... oil pot, and returned into the kitchen, where, as soon as she had lighted her lamp, she took a great kettle, went again to the oil jar, filled the kettle, set it on a large wood fire, and as soon as it boiled, went and poured enough into every jar to stifle and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... have been Almagro's original purpose, Pizarro knew that the richness of the vein he had now opened in the land would be certain to secure his cooperation in working it. He had the magnanimity, therefore,—for there is something magnanimous in being able to stifle the suggestions of a petty rivalry in obedience to sound policy,—to send at once to his ancient comrade, and invite him, with many assurances of friendship, to Caxamalca. Almagro, who was of a frank and careless nature, received the communication in the spirit in which ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... and incisively, as if hoping that the sound of their utterance would stifle the whisper in ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... of Hebert, actually proposed that the Jacobins should instantly march against the two committees, which Robespierre charged with being the focus of the anti-revolutionary machinations, surprise their handful of guards, and stifle the evil with which the state was menaced, even in the very cradle. This plan was deemed too hazardous to be adopted, although it was one of those sudden and master strokes of policy which Machiavel would have recommended. The fire of the Jacobins spent itself ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... growth of professionalism has tended to level the quality of work. The mass of thoroughly competent criticism issued to-day has raised enormously the general tone of the press; but genuine men of letters are seldom employed to welcome, or stifle, a newcomer; though Meredith, and more frequently Swinburne, have on occasion elected to pronounce judgment upon the passing generation; as Mrs. Meynell or Mr. G.K. Chesterton have sometimes said the right thing about their contemporaries. The days when ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... things that were not wanted, and excursions to the other end of the room for things that were wanted; when the chairs were drawn up; when the grateful old man and his little daughter, with those tender hands over their mouths to stifle the gratitude they struggled to utter, were duly seated at the table, and when the kettle was singing its approval in the corner, then, only,—when all these preliminaries were gone through with,—did the possessors of the hands that devised them seat ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... rose from her heart parted her death-white lips, but remained unuttered. Wider and wider grew her eyes as she gazed with horror across the room. The power of action seemed to be denied to her. Her knees shook; a sort of paralysis seemed to stifle every sense of movement. She swayed and nearly fell, but her hand met the corner of the mantelpiece and she held herself erect. Gradually, second by second, the arrested life commenced to flow once more through ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her, any more than she understood now why his black discouragement awakened in her a sudden warmth as different from her old perversity as the pulse in her throat was painful. And yet she couldn't stifle that impulse. She giggled aloud. And when he turned—when he wheeled and encountered her shining eyes, still wet and brimming above the screen of his own handkerchief, she sensed immediately that he was flushing as little, too-sensitive Steve had flushed years before, when she had laughed ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... finest of aims; and even as a physician, that was, most likely, his motive until later years and a better self-knowledge had taught him that to do good was still finer and better. He waged war—against malady. To fight; to stifle; to cut down; to uproot; to overwhelm;—these were his springs of action. That their results were good proved that his sentiment of benevolence was strong and high; but it was well-nigh shut out of sight by that impatience of evil which is very fine and knightly in youngest ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... learning. They gathered men of erudition round them in the Vatican, and established a press for the purpose of printing the Fathers and diffusing Catholic literature. But they were met in the pursuance of this project by very serious difficulties. Their own policy tended to stifle knowledge and suppress criticism. The scholars whom they chose as champions of the faith worked with tied hands. Baronio knew no Greek; Latini knew hardly any; Bellarmino is thought to have known but little. And yet these were the apostles ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... yours. Duty; for my own sake; just time left to retrieve my errors; sends copy of letter to clergyman; new proof never before thought of; merest tyro would laugh if I were to stifle it, whether by rhodomontade or silent contempt; keep your temper. I shall be convinced; and if world be right in supposing me incapable of a foul act, I shall proclaim glorious discovery in ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... to do His bidding. The wounded stranger, Gentile though he be, needs hospitality, and I dare not refuse it. If the Lord hath guided him to the home of Hadassah, the Lord will send a blessing with him." And trying to stifle her misgivings, the widow lady ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... was built, and they could be used to make our hut more weather-proof. Then with great difficulty we got the blubber stove to start, and it spouted a blob of boiling oil into Bill's eye. For the rest of the night he lay, quite unable to stifle his groans, obviously in very great pain: he told us afterwards that he thought his eye was gone. We managed to cook a meal somehow, and Birdie got the stove going afterwards, but it was quite useless to try and warm the place. I got ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... so. The plague strikes blindly but the present regime chooses its victims from the flower of the nation, taking all upon whom depend the fortune and glory of Russia. It is not a political party that they crush, it is a nation of a hundred millions that they stifle. That is what the Czar has done.'[14] Down with such despotism! Down ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... in and the living air to drink, she might find the life before her in truth as little of a burden as it seemed this morning But the days would again be wrapped in nether fumes, the foul air would stifle her, her blood would go stagnant, her eyes would weep with the desolate rain. Why should Gilbert remain in England? Were there no countries where the sun shone that would give a man and a woman toil whereby to support themselves? Luke Ackroyd had ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... and—why should I attempt to conceal it?—and I have wished—for I could not help it, though against the feelings, and, perhaps, the best interests of a generally kind parent—I have long secretly wished, and even prayed, for your success; because I could not stifle the conviction of the truth of what you assert respecting the wrongs of the American people, and the justice of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... uneasiness; for, as I added, I did not doubt she had observed in my behaviour, ever since I first saw her, a peculiar tenderness for her, and a sedulous concern not to offend, which had obliged me hitherto to stifle several questions I had to ask her whenever they would be agreeable to her. She then bid me begin; for as she was now my wife, whilst I was speaking it became her to be all attention, and to give ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... and on their ragged biers Lay dead the sweets of summer—damask rose, Clove-pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers Only keen salt-sea odors filled the air. Sea-sounds, sea-odors—these were all my world. Hence is it that life languishes with me Inland; the valleys stifle me with gloom And pent-up prospect; in their narrow bound Imagination flutters futile wings. Vainly I seek the sloping pearl-white sand And the mirage's phantom citadels Miraculous, a moment seen, then gone. Among the mountains I am ill at ease, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and whose meat and drink it was to do good, withdrew from me; and men and women came around me who cared only for earth and self; whose talk was of gain, and fashion, and self-indulgence; and whose desire it was to silence conscience, and to stifle ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... his hand, and pointed to a place, but his eyes were misty, his voice faltered, broke down, and he was obliged to press his face down on the pillows to stifle his sobs. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... present to her—a set of black bear furs, which he had brought down with him from New York. Turning away from the window, she slipped the neck-piece over her shoulders, and as she did so, she tried to stifle the wonder whether he would have bought them—whether even he would have remembered the date—if Harry had not been with him. Last year he had forgotten her birthday—and never before had he given her so costly ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... snowed. That was life to her. For the rest, she drudged in the house, which work she would not have minded had not her clean red floor been mucked up immediately by the trampling farm-boots of her brothers. She madly wanted her little brother of four to let her swathe him and stifle him in her love; she went to church reverently, with bowed head, and quivered in anguish from the vulgarity of the other choir-girls and from the common-sounding voice of the curate; she fought with her brothers, whom she considered brutal louts; and she held not ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... right. Had I turned my back upon her I should have scorned myself.... That I should stop to ask if my act would injure the reputation of any movement never crossed my mind, nor will I allow such a fear to stifle my sympathies or tempt me to expose her to the cruel inhuman treatment of her own household. Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... movement of burrowing as though she would have crawled up and hidden under his skin, and tears, the most violent he had ever seen her shed, broke from her. They came in bursting sobs, a succession of rending throes that she struggled to stifle, swaying ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Cord, the smallest thred That euer Spider twisted from her wombe Will serue to strangle thee: A rush will be a beame To hang thee on. Or wouldst thou drowne thy selfe, Put but a little water in a spoone, And it shall be as all the Ocean, Enough to stifle such a villaine vp. I do suspect thee ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... established, publicly to proclaim, after a battle, the name of the man that had showed the greatest courage. Nothing could be more proper to animate the officers and soldiers, to inspire them with resolution and intrepidity, and to stifle the natural apprehension of death and danger. Two illustrious champions entered the lists on this ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... got a pretty tolerable collection by me, which I am in doubt whether to publish by itself in a large volume in folio, or scatter them here and there occasionally in my papers. Though indeed I am sometimes thinking to stifle them altogether; because such a history will be apt to give foreigners a monstrous opinion of our country. But since it is your absolute opinion, the world should be informed; I will with the first occasion pick out a few choice instances, and let them take their ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... age have been wholly "without the academic circle." Analysing with the same view the lives of the British poets of real note from Barbour to Tennyson, we find the proportion of University men increases. "Poeta nascitur et fit;" and if the demands of technical routine have sometimes tended to stifle, the comparative repose of a seclusion "unravaged" by the fierce activities around it, the habit of dwelling on the old wisdom and harping on the ancient strings, is calculated to foster the poetic temper and enrich its resources. ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... made to have these festivities joyous. Especially should the wife subdue her emotion if the review of the years since her bona fide wedding day have seen the loss of beloved children. She must stifle her sad recollections for the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Fulton-Livingston monopoly to build the Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet of ships that now whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular lines of steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly threatened to stifle the natural development of transportation ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... He remembered vaguely, while lying rigid under the grip of the drug, that he had heard Ilse Dumont's voice mention somebody called Karl. And he had an idea that this Karl might easily be the big, ham-fisted German who had tried so earnestly to stifle him and throw him from the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... you will end as you have begun, without help, alone." The abbe remained in thought, then shook his head, and went on: "Let us leave the subject, however, for we cannot anticipate the designs of God; to sum up, try to stifle in prayer your attacks of the flesh, it is a less matter not to be overcome at the moment, than to direct all your ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... being so cosy, the appointments of the table so beautiful, the flowers so prettily arranged in a cut-glass bowl on the white table-cloth, and above it all a soft subdued light under a green silk shade. Kate was so monosyllabic that Paul soon seized the newspaper, and the boy, after trying to stifle his yawns, at last got up. It was really too awfully slow to have to sit there. Should he drive into Berlin again or go to bed? He did not quite ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the comparatively rare occurrence of an individual, surrounded with almost every description of temptation to stifle conviction, and, by his silence at least, to perpetuate a corruption in the Christian church, which for ages has been protected by legislative authority, popular favour, and implicit faith, not only nobly triumphing over ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... know, Harmon," interrupted Mrs. Willoughby, affecting to stifle a yawn "but Willard, fortunately, doesn't have to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... more, till it be filled with all the fulness of God." "It is not a melancholy kind of sitting still, and slothful waiting, that speaks men enlivened by the Spirit and power of God. It is not religion to stifle and smother those active powers and principles which are within us.... Good men do not walk up and down the world merely like ghosts and shadows; but they are indeed living men, by a real participation from Him who is indeed a ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... she screamed, and ran out of the vault. The abbot pursued her in desperation; he caught her; he could not stifle her cries. Frantic in his desire to escape, he grasped Matilda's dagger, plunged it twice in the bosom of Antonia, and fled back to the vault. It was too late he had been seen, the glare of torches filled the vault, and Ambrosio and Matilda were seized and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... rose suddenly in my breast; and so savage and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle and subdue it. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... speak, when, one fine day while she was at her toilet, at which she had allowed him to be present, he seized a moment when the maid had left her alone, to cast himself at her feet and tell her that he had vainly tried to stifle his love, and that, even although he were to die under the weight of her anger, he must tell her that this love was immense, eternal, stronger than his life. The marquise upon this wished to send him away, as on the former ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... different parts of which the imposing mass of buildings is composed. In the center is a singular bit of architecture. In vain the neighboring masses extend their circle around it: their great arms are unable to stifle it; but it possesses a seriousness of character that attracts the eye more strongly than their high white walls. This is the remains of the chateau built by Louis XIII at Versailles. Louis XIV did not wish ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... much more violent and personal than the first—at least, previous to the Speaker's leaving the chair. I left the House after that, and know not what was done. The evident disposition of the House is to stifle all further proceedings regarding the Queen, but it is equally the intention of the Opposition to pursue it; but the latter must ultimately give way, for the House will not hear them. The saints—Butterworth, Wilberforce, &c. &c.—are favourable ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... reproaching us on its dereliction. We recognise it as the sweetest and most troublesome of visitants; sweetest when the peace unspeakable sinks into our souls, most troublesome when we have been guilty of a great betrayal. So delicate is that voice that nothing is easier than to stifle it; so clear is it that no one by any possibility can ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... had finished speaking I thought that I heard a sound in the dense green bush behind us. It reminded me of the noise a man makes when he tries to stifle a cough, and frightened me. For if we had been overheard by a spy, Magepa was as good as dead, and the sooner I was across ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... any good-by to any companionship for the remainder of this voyage, if not forever. It was humiliating to have even so much thought of such a kind at such a time; yet suppress it as he might, he could not wholly stifle it, even at his ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... moment she was bounding upstairs over those thick Axminster carpets—those awful carpets, into which her feet sank—down a corridor, also heavily lined with Axminster, past great velvet curtains, which seemed to stifle her as she pushed them aside, and the next instant she had burst open ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... absolute emancipation from every form of serfdom, you must go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its joyous return; you must penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty." Then, and not till then, can you stifle the ennobling aspiration of the American Negro for the unabridged enjoyment of every right guaranteed under the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... stampede of heroism seems to have left them cold. A Gospel of the Province first congealed the none too fiery blood of the habitants, small farmers, very poor, thinking in terms of narrowest economy, of one pig and ten children, of painstaking thrift and a bare margin to subsistence. Such conditions stifle world interests. The earthquake which threatened civilization disturbed the habitant merely because it hazarded his critical balance on the edge of want. The cataclysm over the ocean was none of his affair. ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... carry you to a Lady, Master, that shall stifle you with Kindness, as pretty a piece of Wild-fowl as paddles about Covent Garden; but you'll tip her a Guinea, her Lodgings are extremely fine; and you must know a ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... ever so slightly, the bondage of the creeds' traditions be loosened from the lives they stifle, and those multitudes—so weary, so feverish, so much more to be pitied than condemned—become less blind, less brute, the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... 5th. To stifle a baby's cry, by pushing the comforter into its mouth, is as bad as giving it chloroform to mask a serious and dangerous pain. If may have a just reason for crying, as is explained elsewhere, and if that reason ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... therefore of these Women is no other, than what I have call'd it, their Vanity, the undoubted Offspring of Self-liking, a palpable Excess, an extravagant Degree of the Passion, that is able to stifle the loudest Calls of Nature, and with a high Hand triumphs over all other Appetites and Inclinations. What Sort of Education now do you think the fittest to furnish and fill young Ladies with this high Esteem for themselves ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... to be a shade more liberal and less corrupt than that of his predecessors. Of this administration Flood, to his own misfortune, became a member. What his motives were it is rather difficult to say. He was a rich man, and therefore had no temptation to sell or stifle his opinions for place. Whatever they were, it is clear, from letters still extant, that he not only accepted but solicited office. He was made Vice-Treasurer, a post hitherto reserved for Englishmen, at a salary of L3,500 ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... pondered it since! In this intense trance of feeling it breaks upon her finally that he is right. May it not be that he with his clearer thought, his wider knowledge of life, has laid his finger on the weak point in her guardianship of her sisters? 'I have tried to stifle her passion,' she thought, 'to push it out of the way as a hindrance. Ought I not rather to have taught her to make of it a step in the ladder—to have moved her to bring her gifts to the altar? Oh, let me take his word for it—be ruled by him in this ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... other resolution. . . . I give notice that, under the rules of the Senate, we are able to be heard, and that we will be heard, in despite of the honorable Senator from Ohio, who appears to be so anxious to stifle debate." ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... out.] How calm the night when I would have it wild! Aloof and bright which should have rushed to me Hither with aid of thunder, screen of lightning! I looked for reinforcement from the sky. Arise, you veiling clouds; awake, you winds, And stifle with your roaring human cries. Not a breath upon my cheek! I gasp for air. [To OTHERS.] Do you suppose the very elements Are conscious of the workings of this mind? So careful not to seem to share my guilt? Yet dark is the record ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... Boxers, with half the governments of Europe, led by England, as we know by our telegrams, seeking to minimise their importance—in fact, trying to stifle the movement by ignoring it or lavishing on it their supreme contempt—have already moved from their particular habitat, which is Shantung, into the metropolitan province of Chihli. Already they are in some force at Chochou, only seventy miles to ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the kind action. He comes in some deep conviction, calling us to a new life. We feel that we ought to leave our frivolity, and live for God and eternity—live for what is real and permanent. But we stifle these convictions, and go back to our old lives, and so judge that we are not worthy to become the friends and fellow-workers of Jesus, and companions of the pure and good. The great feast is ready, and the invitation is sent to us, and we, with one consent, begin to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... national life of the country, and it seemed as if no pressure of tyranny, no amount of humiliation, could make the Greeks forget the history of their glorious days and the deeds of their ancestry, or compel them to stifle, even for a season, their hopes of national independence. A great struggle broke out against the Ottoman rule, and it roused the passionate sympathy of the lovers of freedom all over the world. Byron threw his whole soul ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... anything to-day. Your father has a very difficult nature. [He takes a bottle out of the sideboard] May I? [He pours himself a glass of vodka] We are alone here, and I can speak frankly. Do you know, I could not stand living in this house for even a month? This atmosphere would stifle me. There is your father, entirely absorbed in his books, and his gout; there is your Uncle Vanya with his hypochondria, your grandmother, and finally, ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... as after a fearful illness during which on several occasions she was at the very doors of death, Lysbeth van Goorl had been declared out of danger, Elsa, her nurse, ventured to leave her for a few hours. That evening the town seemed to stifle her and, feeling that she needed the air of the country, she passed the Morsch poort and walked a little way along the banks of the canal, never noticing, poor girl, that her footsteps were dogged. When it began to grow dusk, she halted and stood a while ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... up to with reverence by a large and influential portion of the community, and whose memory is still warmly cherished by not a few. But truth is truth, and the simple fact of the matter is that Dr. Strachan did more to stifle freedom and retard progress in Upper Canada than any other man whose name figures in our history. His baneful influence made itself felt, directly or indirectly, in every one of the public offices. Wherever liberty of thought and expression, whether as affecting things ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... system itself that I wish to direct the attention of the reader. If it is proved that, as a system, this is not calculated to elevate and enlarge the sphere of the arts, but on the contrary, that its tendency is to degrade and stifle all that is lovely and desirable in their pursuit, then there will be no need of troubling ourselves with the lower and baser subject of management; for there is no bad system, which, by any method, can be managed into ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... free speech, free parliaments and a free press. His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian spies were everywhere, searching out ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... astonished ears, "Capital, capital! do it again! oh, do it again!" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception, extended to the whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded from Captain Phillips, in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was nearly choking him, were too much for the gravity of even the polite Mr Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways, that the captain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... this frightful carnage, of which he in vain sought the cause, drew back towards the pillar behind which Porthos was concealed. Then a gigantic hand issued from the shade, and fastened on the throat of the captain, who uttered a stifle rattle; his stretched-out arms beating the air, the torch fell and was extinguished in blood. A second after, the corpse of the captain dropped close to the extinguished torch, and added another body to the heap of dead which blocked up ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... engineer was, he realized that for the first time the girl had called him by his Christian name. Not even the perilous situation could stifle the thrill that ran through him at the sound of it. But ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... be continued till the Trees are become large, and their Branches spreading, cast such a Shade as to hinder the Weeds from coming up; and afterwards, the Leaves falling from the Trees, and covering the Earth, will contribute to stifle them intirely. When this troublesome Business of Weeding is ended, it will be sufficient to overlook them once a Month, and pluck up here and there those few Weeds that remain, and to carry them far into the Woods for ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... attacked Pascal Ferailleur when he awoke for the first time in the abode where he had hidden himself under the name of Maumejan. A frightful slander had crushed him to the earth—he could kill his slanderer, but afterward—? How was he to reach and stifle the slander itself? As well try to hold a handful of water; as well try to stay with extended arms the progress of the poisonous breeze which wafts an epidemic on its wings. So the hope that had momentarily lightened his heart faded away again. Since he had received that fatal letter ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... only did it remove a sure victim from the band of savages that held possession of the school through every weekly holiday, but it gave one miserable boy just enough respite from his wretchedness to stifle the revelations which time and suffering would otherwise have surely brought. Even so, at first, Becker trembled lest the terrible Chief should be made aware of his son's treatment at that noted ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... time in my life, I knew what pain was; that pain has steadily increased until this moment, when I speak with you for the last time. What matters now my father's position? You know all. I could, by the help of my love, have conquered my illness and borne its sufferings; but I cannot stifle the voice of doubt. Is it not probable that my origin would affect the purity of your love and weaken it, diminish it? That fear nothing has been able to quench in me. There, Jules, is the cause of my death. I cannot live fearing a word, a look,—a word ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... of fear," Mount Dunstan said, "and by way of safeguard they shut out every breath of air and stifle indoors. Something ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... experienced at my hands, and for the ambition that occasioned it. Cursed ambition! Did the coronet I gained by my neglect of you, beloved object of my first and only affection, console my heart under the cries of conscience, or stifle the grief which returned for you, when that ambition was gratified? Ah, that false and precipitate step! How much misery has it not occasioned me since I awoke from my dream! Your gentle spirit seemed to haunt me through life, but ever with that melancholy smile of tender and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and put out the light," whispered Hal. "They're coming in." The light was extinguished promptly. Then Hal added: "Be ready to grab them and stifle their cries the minute they are inside and I have closed the door ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... have believed, had anyone told him previously, that he could have done anything so absolutely noble, and the thought comforted him even while the cuts and scratches smarted. He tried to stifle his sobs as he reached the shed, and even stuffed half a handful of currants into ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... that will give his son apples, or sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him learn his book, does but authorize his love of pleasure, and cockers up that dangerous propensity, which he ought, by all means, to subdue and stifle in him. You can never hope to teach him to master it, whilst you compound for the check you give his inclination in one place, by the satisfaction you propose to it in another. To make a good, a wise, and a virtuous ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... protested Dick, trying to stifle his disappointment, both on his mother's account and his own, "probably we'll all live to see more Christmases. But, mother, I'm awfully sorry about the loss of your gift. Dad thought, too, that I ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... life with a broader, saner mind and catch glimpses and vistas of truth with a clearer vision than can ever come to one whose most susceptible years are spent walled in and overtopped by the houses of the city that shut out and stifle "the larger thought of God." And Tillie, in spite of her narrowing New Mennonite "convictions," did reach through her growing love for and intimacy with Nature a plane of thought and feeling which was immeasurably ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better of me and stifle me, Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and embraces.—Where I witnessed this scene, there were eight or nine Children, and the eldest Daughter and the Mother wept aloud for joy and tenderness; and the tears ran down the face of the Father, and he clasped all his Children so tight to his breast—it seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising within him.—I was very much affected.—The Shadow of the Bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the Ceiling, made a pretty Picture—and then the raptures of the "very" little Ones, when at last the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... silent, knowing too well why she sought to stifle care in employment; and feeling embittered against the whole world, against her father, against his own circumstances, against the happiness of others; nay, perhaps, against the Providence which had made ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Atholl in the last days of July. It is certain that a letter was sent to Gowrie about July 20, possibly a sporting invitation, not that there was any harm in an invitation to join a hunting party. James is next accused of 'trying to stifle the rumour' about this 'letter,' by a direct denial. This means that Craigengelt, Gowrie's caterer, was asked whether he knew of any man or boy who came to Gowrie from Court, and said that he did ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang |
