"Constraint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In order to render human actions meritorious or otherwise, liberty from necessity is not required, but only liberty from constraint. ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... real desire to take up again. He sought her society at Rosings Park, he called familiarly at the rectory, he waylaid her in her favourite walk; and all the time, in all his intercourse with her, he revealed such a mixture of interest and constraint as demonstrated only too clearly that some internal struggle ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... that wife whom he left in that cabin, two miles from any neighbor, with five small children, not one of whom was old enough to render any aid toward the support of the family? And it was not grudgingly nor of constraint that she gave him up to the work of the ministry; but, on the contrary, knowing the desire of his heart to be wholly devoted to the ministry, she long prayed that a door might be opened to him, so that when he consented ...
— The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society • Thomas Aiken Goodwin
... that the conversation had ceased. She looked up to see the tall, lithe form of Jonathan Zane as he strode across the porch. She could see that a certain constraint had momentarily fallen upon the company. It was an involuntary acknowledgment of the borderman's presence, of a presence that worked on all alike with a subtle, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... the awful knowledge of awful guilt with which Rosalie sits there and freezes in guilty agony at every pause in the conversation and could scream to notice how the pauses grow longer and longer, more frequent and more frequent yet. There's a frightful constraint, a chilly, creepy dreadfulness steals about the party. They go upstairs—Aunt Belle and Rosalie and beautiful Laetitia—and the constraint goes with them. They sit and stare and hardly a word said. Something's up! What's up? What's the matter with everything? Why is everything ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... drinking. Sherwood was naturally reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a pleasant dinner—without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... us that they are sadly depraved, nor can I describe many of the scenes which take place. Suffice it to say that, like other heathens who know not God, they give themselves up to work all manner of abominations without constraint or shame. We place a guard during the night; but when we awake there is great shouting among our party for missing articles, and it is found that we all have been robbed of articles of dress, knives, pistols, handkerchiefs, and pocket-books. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Satrughna heard He calmed the rage his breast that stirred, Releasing from her dire constraint The trembling wretch with terror faint. Then to Kaikeyi's feet she crept, And prostrate in her misery wept. Kaikeyi on the hump-back gazed, And saw her weep and gasp. Still quivering, with her senses ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... men never think of doing! At this moment, I could swallow a pen, taste the ink in the ink-well, throw my papers from the window, hurl the porcelain jar on the chimney-piece at the cat next door, swing on the chandelier. I am conscious of no constraint in not doing these things. Why? I have become to some degree adjusted to the type which the social will ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... time, messengers from the council proceeded with all speed to Hatfield, to announce to Elizabeth the death of her sister, and her own accession to the sovereign power. The tidings, of course, filled Elizabeth's mind with the deepest emotions. The oppressive sense of constraint and danger which she had endured as her daily burden for so many years, was lifted suddenly from her soul. She could not but rejoice, though she was too much upon her guard to express her joy. She was overwhelmed with a profound agitation, and, kneeling down, she exclaimed in Latin, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... must utter himself. The sense of need is so real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it, addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely there is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so expose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that gives it a ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... it will have no constraint on you, nor do harm any way, for me to say I am a little afraid lest Lee sends reinforcements to Early, and thus enables him ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the Horror which had hung upon my spirit even during the days when I hardly knew in any intelligible sense the cause of it. But the drawing-room and dining-room both produced upon my mind a vague consciousness of constraint. I was dimly aware of being ill at ease and uncomfortable in them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave me a pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and security: while the servants'-hall and the kitchen seemed perfect ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... alone frequently threw off the constraint which fettered all, and one even turned with the gayest ease from one person to another. This was Baron Malfalconnet, one of the Emperor's major-domos. He was permitted to do what no one else ventured, for his cheerfulness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he obeys his own commanding. Though throned above all nations, a king of kings, yet the faithful humble vassal of his own heart; though he serve, yet regal, doing imperial service; he escapes outward constraint by inward anticipation; and all that could he rightly named as his duty to others, he has, ere demand, already discovered, and engaged in, as part of his duty to himself. Now it is the expression of royal freedom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... strange and unfamiliar. They were all a little afraid of each other, as people are apt to be when they are well dressed and met together for social purposes in the country. To be at a real party was a novel thing for most of them, and put a constraint upon them which they could not at once overcome. Perhaps it was because they were in the awful parlor,—that carpeted room of haircloth furniture, which was so seldom opened. Upon the wall hung two certificates framed in black, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... an iron constraint on himself). Nothing but this: that either you were right this morning, or Candida ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... to observe the family compact which he had signed at the time of his marriage with Countess Sophie Chotek. It was thought that he perhaps reserved the right to declare it null and void, in view of the constraint that had been put upon him. The successive honours that had drawn the Duchess of Hohenberg from the obscurity in which the morganatic wife of a German prince is usually wrapped, and had brought her near to the steps of the throne, showed ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... may rest assured that not one halfpenny has been deducted for working expenses. In fact, when the donations come to be realised the Operative may be the loser. But no matter. "Expend your money in pious uses, either voluntarily or by constraint." ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... mean time, Raymond had remained with Adrian and Idris. He was naturally frank; the continued absence of Perdita and myself became remarkable; and Raymond soon found relief from the constraint of months, by an unreserved confidence with his two friends. He related to them the situation in which he had found Evadne. At first, from delicacy to Adrian he concealed her name; but it was divulged in the course of his narrative, and her former lover heard ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... And again, Iamblichus, writing to Agathocles, says:—"There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you have been told concerning the sacred sleep, and seeing by means of dreams. I explain it thus:—The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. In sleep the soul is liberated from the constraint of the body, and enters, as an emancipated being, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds objects that truly are—the objects in the world of intelligence— stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can be astonished that ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... time away in other mining districts in which he had ventures. When thus absent, he would live as Jack Brien and his friends were living at Mrs. Henniker's, and was supposed to enjoy the ease of his inn more thoroughly than he did the constraint of his grand establishment. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... double-crested, Where the clouds do have their dwelling. And the rain forever raineth, Shedding his divine refulgence, And revealing to our vision Ev'ry landmark that in darkness And in shapeless gloom was shrouded;— Till for joy our belts we loosen'd, Casting off constraint, and sported. Danker now than in the dulcet Spring-time grew the summer grasses; Yet to-day our ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... pale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and with deliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainly unprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discern uneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept her invisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which none of ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... lipless mouth, resembling a single line, denotes coldness, industry, a love of order, precision, house-wifery, and, if it be drawn upwards at the two ends, affectation, pretension, vanity, malice. Very fleshy lips have always to contend with sensuality and indolence. Calm lips, well closed, without constraint, and well delineated, certainly betoken consideration, discretion, and firmness. Openness of mouth speaks ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... new presence she would have been bashful enough under any circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side. Observing that he ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... are disputable principles in grammar, as there are moot points in law; but this circumstance affects no settled usage in either; and every person of sense and taste will choose to express himself in the way least liable to censure. All are free indeed from positive constraint on their phraseology; for we do not speak or write by statutes. But the ground of instruction assumed in grammar, is similar to that upon which are established the maxims of common law, in jurisprudence. The ultimate principle, then, to which we appeal, as the only true standard ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... small fit of despair took the stocking to a little distance and sat down to work. The marble egg was heavy to hold. It took a long while to go up one side of the heel and down the other. She was tired of sitting under constraint and so still. And her Aunt Candy seemed like a jailer, and that perfumed room like a prison. The quicker her work could be done, the better for her. So Matilda reflected, ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... and the fact that he was planning to stay, was slow in coming to Peterson. After supper, when they had returned to the room, his manner showed constraint. Finally he said:— ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... more particularly echoes, however, two passages in the nineteenth essay: "There is no evil in life for him that hath well conceived, how the privation of life is no evil. To know how to die, doth free us from all subjection and constraint." "No man did ever prepare himself to quit the world more simply and fully ... than I am fully assured I shall do. The ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man of business who had lurked in her imagination—a man with clothes smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Spanish cavaliers were there, leading their native infantry; and there were the Burgundian lances. The army was commanded by Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, who had aspired to the hand of Elizabeth. Philip earnestly seconded his suit, but Mary, wisely and kindly, would not put a constraint upon her sister's inclinations. The wary Princess saw that the crown would probably be hers at no distant day; and she would not risk the loss of the people's affection by marrying a foreign Catholic. She had sensible advisers about her, who seconded her own prudence; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... That I should be so closely bound With neither terror nor constraint, Without a murmur of complaint, And lose myself ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, and disclosed the project. Then when they were alone the King's daughter said to her eleven girls, "Put some constraint on yourselves, and do not look round at the spinning-wheels." And next morning when the King had his twelve huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once looked at the spinning wheels. Then the King again said to the lion, "Thou hast deceived me, they are ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... moment's silence; then quietly and kindly she asked one or two questions about the boy who had died. The father answered in an awkward, confused way, as if speaking only by constraint. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... sanctuary; nor had the dependent and discipular attitude, the reverential attachment to venerable persons, been in the least congenial to him. He had always rather effaced himself in the presence of our ecclesiastical visitors, and had avoided the constraint of their dignity. Indeed, up to this time he had not much gone in search of personal relationships at all except with ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with them. (They returned it next day in postage stamps, with a charming note.) The assurance with which I tendered the slight service astonished me myself. At any other time I should have hesitated, argued with my fears, offered it with an appearance of sulky constraint, and been declined. For a moment they were doubtful, then, looking at me, accepted with a delightful smile. They consulted me as to the way to Paternoster Row. I instructed them, adding a literary ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... art of fascination. Advisedly overlooking the monarch in the man, she conversed with a perfect self-possession, which enabled her to display all the resources of a cultivated mind and a lively temperament; while Henry was enchanted by a gaiety and absence of constraint which placed him at once on the most familiar footing with his young and brilliant hostess; and thus instead of departing on the morrow, as had been his original design, he remained during several days at Malesherbes, constantly attended by the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... high birth, and I could, with the most perfect honesty, expatiate on Lord Errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of my praise. His agreeable manners and softness of address prevented that constraint which the idea of his being Lord High Constable of Scotland[317] might otherwise have occasioned. He talked very easily and sensibly with his learned guest. I observed that Dr. Johnson, though he shewed that respect to his lordship, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... man's!—such a jacket, with lapels to the pockets, which he said "the sailors wore on the sloops, and called 'em monkey-jackets"!—such a way as he had of putting a quid in his mouth! for Nat Boody chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the world and such large range of action. The most of us never get over a wonderment at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... to the other side of the room, and took up a book; thus relieving the little ladies from the constraint of his presence, while at the same time he could keep an eye upon Elsie, and see that she did not over-fatigue ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... been moved as you see from No. 13. I'm with the men now, and though I hated going at first—yet, now, I think I almost prefer it. With the officers there must always be a little constraint—at least, I have never been able to get rid of the feeling. Perhaps with more experience it would vanish je ne sais pas . . . but with the men it's never there. They're just children, Derek, just dear helpless kiddies; and so wonderfully grateful for ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Order was wont to come with her presence, and she hardly knew the aspect of tumultuous idleness or insubordination to unenforced authority; for her eye and voice in themselves brought cheerful discipline without constraint, and upheld by few punishments, for the strong influence took away ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... free From all constraint of verses, may Goodness and honour, grace and glee, Attend you ever on your way - Up to the measure of your will, Beyond all power of mine to say - As she and I desire you still, Miss Cornish, on ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were accompanied with prayers and tears; but they were to no purpose, and Xavier was stedfast to his resolution. His friends perceiving they could gain nothing upon him by intreaties, had recourse, in some measure, to constraint; so far as to obtain from the governor of Ternate a decree, forbidding, on severe penalties, any vessel to carry the Father to the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... ante-chambers almost empty, or occupied by the grey uniforms of the Switzer guards. Where I had looked, to see courtiers assembling to meet their sovereign and assure him of their fidelity, I found only gloomy faces, watchful eyes, and mouths ominously closed. An air of constraint and foreboding rested on all. A single footstep sounded hollowly. The long corridors, which had so lately rung with laughter and the rattle of dice, seemed already devoted to the silence, and desolation which awaited them when ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... constraint to her tearful speech, with an empty smile. He had knives in his bowels, he was so empty, and the beer was going to his head. He remembered all the details of Stone Farm, where he had first seen and heard the Sow, just as Father ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... with the same painful constraint. "I have heard about your revolutionary war, and I think on the whole that I would ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... depicting it with careful detail, a limpid brush, and good textural effects. In 1825 he travelled abroad, was gone some years, was impressed by Velasquez, Correggio, and Rembrandt, and completely changed his style. He then became a portrait and historical painter. He never outlived the nervous constraint that shows in all his pictures, and his brush, though facile within limits, was never free or bold as compared with a Dutchman like Steen. In technical methods Landseer (1802-1873), the painter of animals, was somewhat ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... as an event certain to occur, which any day may bring forth; and when the heavy news is brought to you, bear it as a Christian woman should bear the afflictions of this, world. I do not ask you not to weep for me, for that would be putting too violent a constraint upon your nature, but do not weep over much. Above all, Victorine, do not allow your sorrow to paralyse your actions. You will have to act then, not only for yourself, but for your child—for my daughter; and if you then give way to the violence ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compel me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... there. From the first moment of her arrival she had acted upon his lessons. Gentle, timid, but adroit, fearing to give the slightest pain to anybody, and though all lightness and vivacity, very capable of far-stretching views; constraint, even to annoyance, cost her nothing, though she felt all its weight. Complacency was natural to her, flowed from her, and was exhibited towards every ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to be seated, which he did with no small degree of embarrassment and constraint, and upon the extreme edge of the gilt and satin-covered chair, the negress who had been his conductor left him for the time being ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the rest of the party theirs as listeners—a 'Circa herd'—without any previous arrangement having been gone through. I will just add that there can be no good society without perfect freedom from affectation and constraint. If the unreserved communication of feeling or opinion leads to offensive familiarity, it is not well; but it is no better where the absence of offensive remarks arises only from formality and an assumed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... followed. There was a certain constraint in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and all ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... special plan, but believing that such guarantee might be adequately afforded by a partition of power in the Senate between the two sections, and by a recognition that ours is a Union of freedom and consent, not constraint and force, he respectfully submits, for consideration by members of the Convention, the plan hereto ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Mr. Webster adhered to the nomination; in the latter, he rejected it. In 1848 he might still hope to be President through a Whig nomination. In 1852 he knew that, even if he lived, there would never be another chance. He gave vent to his disappointment, put no constraint upon himself, prophesied the downfall of his party, and advised his friends to vote for Franklin Pierce. It was perfectly logical, after advocating the compromise measures, to advise giving the government ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... mind, when he demands an internal juristic necessity drawn from the nature of possession itself, and therefore rejects empirical reasons. /2/ He finds the necessity he seeks in the freedom of the human will, which the whole legal system does but recognize [208] and carry out. Constraint of it is a wrong, which must be righted without regard to conformity of the will to law, and so on in a Kantian vein. /1/ So Gans, a favorite disciple of Hegel, "The will is of itself a substantial thing to be protected, and this ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... development of power—that is to say, efficiency—means. The error is in implying that we must adopt measures of subordination rather than of utilization to secure efficiency. The doctrine is rendered adequate when we recognize that social efficiency is attained not by negative constraint but by positive use of native individual capacities in occupations having a social meaning. (1) Translated into specific aims, social efficiency indicates the importance of industrial competency. Persons ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... or three of the most distinguished men of the day, with the very toast in their mouths, afraid to bite. It was curious to see Lawrence in this predicament, to hear him bite by degrees, and then stop, for fear of making too much crackle, his eyes full of water from the constraint; and at the same time to hear Mrs. Siddons' 'eye of newt and toe of frog,' and to see Lawrence give a sly bite, and then look awed, and pretend to ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... aroused Plutina from the apathy into which she had fallen, during the last half-mile of difficult scrambling, made more toilsome by the constraint of her bound wrists. Now, puzzlement provoked interest in her surroundings. She had expected that the outlaw would bear her away to the most convenient or the most inaccessible of the various secret retreats with which rumor credited him. But here was neither cave nor shack—only the level ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... He was wishing strongly that Cornelia was away, and he could talk to her uncle with less constraint. He felt that he was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... and the open somehow brought relief and the delicate constraint between them relaxed as they sauntered slowly into the house where Shiela presently went away to dress for the Ascott function, and Hamil sat down on the veranda for a while, then retired to undertake the embellishment of his ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... liberal officers was still most trying. In the streets and among the people they were in a congenial atmosphere; behind the closed doors of the drawing-rooms, in the society of ladies, and among their fellows in the mess, there were constraint and suspicion. Out of doors all was exultation; in the houses of the hitherto privileged classes all was sadness and uncertainty. But everywhere, indoors or out, was spreading the fear of war, if not civil at least foreign war, with the French emigrants as the allies of the assailants. On ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and by the favours which he had bestowed. At first Bernadotte's correspondence with him was that of a grateful inferior, but the very moment he was fairly out of France, feeling himself as it were relieved from a state of long and painful constraint, it is said that his hatred to Napoleon vented itself in threatening expressions, which, whether true or false, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... mother," Macleod said, eager to account beforehand for any possible constraint in her manner. "Shall ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... arrangements had reference only to two days. After two days, Adrian was to return to Basle, and to be seen no more at Granpere till he came to claim his bride. In regard to the choice of the day, Michel declared roundly that no constraint should be put upon Marie. She should have her full privileges, and no one should be allowed to interfere with her. On this point Marie had brought herself to be almost indifferent. A long engagement was a state of things which would ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... guarded phrases, colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and bores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain, straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the water of the sun-baked puddles of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... meadow, and the fields rejoicing in the soft May weather; Martha busied herself in kitchen and cellar, filling up the pauses of her labor with cheerful talk; and when the four met at the table, so much of the constraint in their relation to each other had been conquered, that a stranger would never have dreamed of the gulf which had separated them a few hours before. Martha shrewdly judged that when Alfred Barton had eaten ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... magistrate, to enjoy more power than is consistent with the good of mankind; nor is it of any benefit to a man to be unjust: but these maxims are a feeble security against the passions and follies of men. Those who are intrusted with power in any degree, are disposed, from a mere dislike of constraint, to remove opposition. Not only the monarch who wears a hereditary crown, but the magistrate who holds his office for a limited time, grows fond of his dignity. The, very minister, who depends for his place on the momentary will of his prince, and whose personal interests are, in every ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... customs. What was it to Anna that she was to be deprived of earthly elevation and power—what cared she that she henceforth would no more have the pleasure of commanding others? She was free, free from the task of ruling slaves and humanizing barbarians; free from the constraint of greatness, and, finally free to live in conformity with her own inclinations, and perhaps, ah, perhaps, to found a happiness, the bare dreaming of which already caused her heart ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to speak again, she closed the door, leaving him once more in darkness. Sitting in the constraint she imposed upon him, he could hear her moving in the outer room, where, owing to the lightness of the wooden partition, it was not difficult to guess what she was doing at any given moment. He knew when she opened the outer door ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... believers walked in silence. Some hypocritically smiled, as if to say: "The affair is none of ours!" Others spoke with constraint, but their low voices were drowned in the rumbling of movement, and the loud ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... flattering and soothing to that same vanity in the idea of having been specially singled out as the object of the protection and solicitude of the divine powers; this idea at all events takes the galling sting from the constraint of obedience. Hence every nation has very jealously insisted on and devoutly believed in the divine origin of its rulers and the divine institution of its laws and customs. Once it was implicitly admitted that the world teemed with spirits and gods, who, not content with ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... aspirations, the same emotions and intellect and accountability.... The Chinamen for centuries have taken peculiar means for restricting women's activities by binding the feet of girl babies and yet there remains the significant fact that, after centuries of constraint, God continues to send the female child into the world with feet well formed, with a foundation as substantial to stand upon as that of the male child. As in this instance, so in all cases of restriction put upon women—they do not come from God but from ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... room the photographs of Mimi, of her grandfather, and of Adam Salton, whom by now she had grown to look on with reliance, as a brother whom she could trust. She kept the pictures near her heart, to which her hand naturally strayed when her feelings of constraint, distrust, or fear became so poignant as to interfere with the calm which she felt was necessary to help her ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... king, modifying his last observation, "if women are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little constraint—a natural blush to punctuate their talk—the meeting seemed conventional enough. 'Tis through your own romantic heart ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a family, who were early attended to in all these little particulars, were produced at table when they were four or five years old; they suffered no constraint, nor were they ever banished to the nursery lest company should detect their evil habits. Their eyes and ears were at liberty during the time of dinner; and instead of being absorbed in the contemplation of their plates, and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... repair to the point of elevation the next day, nor the day after; but she met him the third day near the Seventy-second Street entrance. More than that, she insinuated herself at his side; at first rather to his discomfort. Later he forgot the constraint her presence occasioned him, when something she said caused him to look upon her with new favor. Beauty had momentarily escaped his vigilance and enjoyed a mad romp after a squirrel ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... constraint settled upon the gathering so fluent a moment before, and psychologically considered, there was food for reflection in the sudden embarrassed silence. These good women were far from being vulgar gossips with one or two possible exceptions. They were shocked ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... into what he pleases. O man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of nature? Behold the weed; grown among hindrances and constraint, how it scarcely yields an indication of inner law; behold it in nature, in field or garden, how perfectly it conforms to law—a beautiful sun, a radiant star, it has burst from the earth! Thus, O parents, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... so much in outward actions as in simplicity and truth of character, it stands outside the sphere of law and public authority. (190) Simplicity and truth of character are not produced by the constraint of laws, nor by the authority of the state, no one the whole world over can be forced or legislated into a state of blessedness; the means required for such a consummation are faithful and brotherly admonition, sound education, and, above all, free ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... away—wished almost that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at least, you knew what you were up against. The job might be hard enough, but it wasn't baffling and queer, with hidden undercurrents that you couldn't chart. It seemed to him that this baffling feeling of constraint had rushed to meet him on the very threshold of the drawing-room, when he made his ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... sovereign, the savage coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. [152] It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... that the years must inevitably make a change in Hagar. That glimpse he had had of her on the Flying W ranchhouse porch had made him think, but her appearance now caused him to think more deeply. It made constraint come into his manner. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—moonlight—I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... her act be voluntary[e]. She cannot by will devise lands to her husband, unless under special circumstances; for at the time of making it she is supposed to be under his coercion[f]. And in some felonies, and other inferior crimes, committed by her, through constraint of her husband, the law excuses her[g]: but this extends not ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... a room they seem to roll about, as it were, but when they walk to any distance, they proceed straight forward with a gait like other people. As they rise up or sit down, or stoop, their movements are playful, though strange, not ungraceful, and without the appearance of constraint. The average height of their countrymen is less than that of Europeans, and they seem rather short for their age, even judging them by their own standard. They are much shorter than the ordinary run of youths in this country at eighteen years of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... E. I can talk away freely, and without constraint. I am never very sure that he does not know the things he questions me on better than myself—a practice some of his order rather cultivate; but, on the whole, our intercourse is easy. I know he is not a little puzzled about me, and I intend ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... they may suffer a temporary disguise, are devils incarnate. The tide of passion at length broke loose, and with redoubled violence for having suffered constraint. To add to the misfortune, my thirst after knowledge was the cause, or at least the pretext, of this change. It happened that an old book of arithmetic fell in my way, and, as this was at that time the sole treasure of instruction within my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... not by the nails through His hands and feet that He was held, nor by the ropes with which His arms were bound, nor by the soldiers watching Him; no, but by invisible bands—by the cords of redeeming love and by the constraint of a Divine design. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... I was powerless to contend with a love which made my mother happy; because I was weary of keeping up the daily constraint of my relations with her and him, and also because I hoped that when once I was free I should be better fitted for my task as a doer of justice. I myself asked to be permitted to leave the house, so that at nineteen I possessed ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... that she was in his drawing-room, he could scarcely believe his joyful ears. He had to put a constraint on himself to walk to its door in a decorous fashion fit for Mawley's eyes, and not dash to it at full speed. He entered the room with his ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... began, the employers very soon detected that it was running below its possible output. There was a curious lack of briskness in the work—a curious constraint among the new workers. Yet the employers were certain that the women were keen, and their labour potentially efficient. They put their heads together, and posted up a notice in the factory to the effect that whatever might be the increase in the output ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, was not discouraged; she continued her solicitations unremittingly, day after day,[118] month after month, for a whole year, but always without the least success, for Joseph in his chastity did not permit himself even to look upon her, wherefore she resorted to constraint. She had an iron shackle placed upon his chin, and he was compelled to keep his head up and look ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the manner of the Secretary was cordial; but with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost fancied our positions reversed,—that, instead of our being in his power, the Secretary was in ours, and momently expecting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... pathos, but 'tis gone. They have declared the spirit's sore Sore load, and words can do no more. Beethoven takes them then—those two Poor, bounded words—and makes them new; Infinite makes them, makes them young; Transplants them to another tongue, Where they can now, without constraint, Pour all the soul of their complaint, And roll adown a channel large The wealth divine they have in charge. Page after page of music turn, And still they live and still they burn, Eternal, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... there wasn't another man that could hold a candle to Acton there. The committee doggedly, and with meaning, elected the only player there was to elect, and Acton signified that he was willing to play. Bourne, as usual, was there, and no one felt more than he the air of distrust and constraint which hung over the meeting. When Acton was unanimously elected for back Phil stolidly wrote out the list of the team and had it pinned up on the notice-board. He had carefully drawn the line in red ink above the last name—Acton's—which showed that the pride ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and left the room by a small masked door in a corner. The King waited till he saw it close before he spoke again. His tone changed a little then and his words came quickly, as if he felt here constraint. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... to be here," he said, with a sudden constraint not difficult to understand, "I shall be happy to ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... and soft sided indeed is she." Now when Julnar heard what Salih said, she replied, "Thou sayest sooth, O my brother! By Allah, I have seen her many and many a time and she was my companion, when we were little ones but now we have no knowledge of each other, for constraint of distance; nor have I set eyes on her for eighteen years. By Allah none is worthy of my son but she!" Now Badr heard all they said and mastered what had passed, first and last, of these praises bestowed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... "Nay, not so!" said she. "The Saviour went on foot, and bore His cross to the place of execution. I will tread His path. Show me the way, I follow you. But let no one dare touch me. I will show you that not by constraint, but gladly and freely, I tread the path of suffering, which I shall endure for the sake of my God. Rejoice, oh my soul!—sing, my lips! for the bridegroom is near, and the feast ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... of the desire expressed by it, (it matters little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of deciding by free vote-without the slightest constraint, after the complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general-the form of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes an annexation-that is to say, conquest ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... talked of other things, Jacinth exerting herself doubly, to prevent Lady Myrtle's noticing Frances's silence and constraint. But afterwards, when they were by themselves for a moment, she took ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... slowly, however, on implementing needed structural reforms, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labor market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labor unions. But the leadership faces a severe economic constraint: the budget has breached the 3% ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... I fear shame more than death. Tacitus said: Omnia serviliter pro dominatione. My tendency is just the contrary. Even when it is voluntary, dependence is a burden to me. I should blush to find myself determined by interest, submitting to constraint, or becoming the slave of any will whatever. To me vanity is slavery, self-love degrading, and utilitarianism meanness. I detest the ambition which makes you the liege man of something or some-one—I desire to be simply my ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in ideas which, tho' experienced in, were not less ravishing: she was not of a temper to put any constraint on her inclinations; and having entertained the most amorous ones for the count de Bellfleur, easily overcame all scruples that might have hindered the gratification of them:—her head ran on the appointment she had made him:—the means she would take to engage his constancy,—resolved to ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Enter to thy seat there lowly, Yet come slowly, For the viands thou seest were baken By God most high. 75 Lo ye my pillars, doctor, saint, Ambrose, Thomas and Jerome And Augustine, In my service wax not faint, Nor show constraint, And to thee, soul, shall be welcome This fare of mine. 76 To the holy kitchen go: Let us this frail soul restore, That she find grace To reach her journey's end and know Her path, that so By God brought hither she no more ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... become our property. Each individual is altogether devoted to his master, assumes his manners, knows and defends his goods, and remains attached to him until death; and all this proceeds neither from want nor constraint, but solely from true gratitude ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... come not without constraint; But uncompell'd comes Chester to this place, Telling thee, John, that thou art much to blame, To chase hence Ely, chancellor to the king; To set thy footsteps on the cloth of state, And seat thy body ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... considerations, he is assured that, though he became master of every thing else, nothing can be safe for him while you are under popular government: should any reverse ever befall him, (and many may happen to a man,) all who are now under constraint will come for refuge to you. For you are not inclined yourselves to encroach and usurp dominion; but famous rather for checking the usurper or depriving him of his conquests, ever ready to molest ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... had first found this home for Tessa, on his return from Rome, more than a year and a half ago, he had acted, he persuaded himself, simply under the constraint imposed on him by his own kindliness after the unlucky incident which had made foolish little Tessa imagine him to be her husband. It was true that the kindness was manifested towards a pretty trusting thing whom it was impossible to be near without ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she would have me. That was the question—"Would she have me, or would she not?" He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and added, that "I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to the suggestions of my friend, Mr. ——, who had desired me to take no notice whether she came near me or ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... a slow time!" An electric current quivered through the room, the two boys in the corner writhed in a spasm of giggles, and the minister said sternly, "Hush!" But the next instant the necessity for constraint was over. A tremendous uproar burst from the front doorway, and into the midst of the wedding guests there dashed an astounding pair—a small, turbulent creature, dressed exactly like the bride, in blue silk and a streaming white veil, followed ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... be at home, it was not with the air of a person with whom his bread and butter is the first thought. Gladness shone in every look and movement; but at the same time over all the gladness there was a slight veil; it might be gravity, but it might not be all gravity, for part of it was very like constraint; the eyes were more ready to fall than to rise; and the words, though free to come, had a great facility for running in short sentences. But Mrs. Derrick was too happy to notice such light streaks of mist in the sunshine, and talked away at a most ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... she awoke to see that the morning light was sifting through the darkness. Her bones and muscles ached from the constraint of the position in which the rope held them. She was shivering with the chill of an Arizona mountain night. Turning her body, the girl's eyes fell upon her captor. He was looking at her in the way that no decent man looks at a woman. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the captive Gelimer, who, with a purple robe on his shoulders, paced through the streets, shouting ever and anon in a melancholy voice, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity". When the procession reached the palace, Gelimer by constraint and Belisarius willingly prostrated themselves at the feet of "Justinianus Augustus". The promises on the faith of which the Vandal king had surrendered himself were well kept. He might have been raised to the dignity of Patrician, if he would have renounced his Arian creed. As it ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... stiff bow and 'Will you follow me, sir?' led the way along the hall towards the council chamber, with Mercier close behind him. As they turned into the corridor leading to the chamber, Mercier, feeling some constraint and wishing to make a little conversation, said, half jokingly, 'Sir John, I wish you would tell us whether you are going to disallow our Jesuits' Estates Act or not.' Suddenly the old man unbent, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind. Then they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with constraint, clambered through the ruins and recrossed the ditch upon the rafter. Matcham had picked up the windac and went first, Dick following stiffly, with his crossbow on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... itself in dreams of wonders and doctrines, and what were called higher and holier things than barns and byres and sheep-pens. Yet the truth had been staring me in the face all the time, if only I could have seen it; that the sense of constraint and unreality that fell upon one in religious matters, when some curious and intricate matter was confusedly expounded, was perfectly natural and wholesome; and that the real life of man lay in the things to which one returned, on work-a-day mornings, with such relief—the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bring charges against both women and men,—charges not serious enough for capital punishment but prolific in threats and terror.] Some of these persons he murdered, to others he sold preservation in return for their property [and got something from them by constraint under the pretence that it was a voluntary offering]. And finally on his birthday he ordered us, our wives, and our children each to contribute two aurei [a year as] a kind of first-fruits, and the senators in all the other cities five denarii per head. [Of this, too, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... like at all this new-made burgomaster! His insolence grows daily ever faster. No good from him the town will get! Will things grow better with him? Never! We're under more constraint than ever, And pay more tax ...
— Faust • Goethe
... he could do toward collecting his bill. His absence for a whole day was nothing new, and yet the house seemed to have assumed a novel appearance that morning. When, after breakfast, Lucy ran out into the street I felt as though Dora and I were alone for the first time, and from her constraint I could see that she was experiencing a similar feeling. I hung around the house awkwardly. She was trying to keep herself busy. Finally I said: "I think I'll be going. Maybe there is some news ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... place into sets and pairs. The best are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... that the cloud had lifted—that the spell of constraint was removed; and yet none of them precisely ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... the ritual and the sermon the two walked forth together in silence, their former brief intimacy a mere memory, neither realizing exactly how best to resume a conversation which had been interrupted by so solemn a service. It was Miss Norvell who first broke the constraint. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... similarly oiesis is nothing but the movement (oisis) of the soul towards essence. Ekousion is to eikon—the yielding—anagke is e an agke iousa, the passage through ravines which impede motion: aletheia is theia ale, divine motion. Pseudos is the opposite of this, implying the principle of constraint and forced repose, which is expressed under the figure of sleep, to eudon; the psi is an addition. Onoma, a name, affirms the real existence of that which is sought after—on ou masma estin. On and ousia are only ion with an iota broken off; and ouk on is ouk ion. ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... her hand in the American fashion, and Gheta smiled from—Lavinia saw—her best facial angle. The Spaniard regarded Gheta Sanviano so fixedly that after a moment she turned, in a species of constraint, to Anna. The latter spoke with her customary facility ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... so much valued by Miss Hacket, that Gillian thought how once she should have felt it a privation not to be allowed to tell her whence they came; but to her surprise on the Sunday, instead of the constraint with which of late she had been treated at tea-time, the eager inquiry was made whether this was really ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been there more than half-an-hour, when, moving with the crowd from one room to another, he suddenly came face to face with Lettice and the Grahams. All of them were taken by surprise, and there was a little constraint in their greeting. Perhaps Lettice was the least disturbed of the four—for the rest of them thought chiefly of her, whilst she thought of Alan's possible embarrassment, which she did her best to overcome, with the ready ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... himself, smiled, tried to move without constraint, but unconquerable suffering was evident on his features and in the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the "Giant's Castle"—charmed with one another, and at every step of the way seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The crimson sunset burned about them like the widening ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the two of them? Little enough—mere merry chat. But on his part so rigid a self-constraint underlying it that we are not sure some of the little waves didn't say—not Sally at all, but—Miss Nightingale! And a persistent sense of a thought that was only waiting to be thought as soon as he should be alone—that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are a constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close knowledge of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by something of that sort. I am on the lookout for nothing but bad qualities in Gnekker; I quickly find them, and am fretted at the thought that a man not ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of constraint through the house, which Flora de Barral coming down somewhat later than usual could not help noticing in her own way. Everybody seemed to stare so stupidly somehow; she feared ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... said Father d'Aigrigny, with an air of constraint: "but I will observe to your reverence, that it was, perhaps, rather dangerous thus to excite Marshal Simon ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... moments we sat in silence, but I fear my grace was as graceless as my morning worship had been. Miss Warren's manner was reverent. Were her thoughts also wandering? and whither? She certainly held mine, and by a constraint ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... we parted, we should leave in one another's power all the incriminatory moral secrets of which we had made mutual confession. At the same time, our rule of frankness had long ceased to be faithfully observed, but, on the contrary, proved a frequent cause of constraint, and brought ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... could, in the condition he was. The people about him said, he had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him, he had his understanding as well as ever I knew, and spake strong and hearty, without any seeming uneasiness or constraint. After I told him how sorry I was to see him in those melancholy circumstances, and said some other civilities, suitable to the occasion, I desired him to tell me freely and ingeniously, whether the predictions Mr. Bickerstaff had publish'd relating to his death, had not too much affected ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he regarded iniquity in his heart—he did not wish to be taken at his prayer—he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... enlightening, directing, and we get all these in the good news of One that has died for us, and that lives to be our Lord. The will needs authority which is not force. And where is there an authority so constraining in its sweetness and so sweet in its constraint as in those silken bonds which are stronger than iron fetters? Hope, imagination, and all other of our powers or weaknesses, our gifts or needs, are satisfied when they feed on Christ. If we feed upon anything else it turns to ashes that break our teeth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... concentric rows of spectators. Lastly she took in the Promenade, in which she stood. She surveyed the Promenade with a professional eye. It instantly shocked her, not as it might have shocked one ignorant of human nature and history, but by reason of its frigidity, its constraint, its solemnity, its pretence. In one glance she embraced all the figures, moving or stationary, against the hedge of shoulders in front and against the mirrors behind—all of them: the programme girls, the cigarette girls, the chocolate ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... across whose top peeped an elbow of ivy geranium. It was as though the unseen garden beyond, tired of constraint and drowsily stretching, had disclosed this hint of ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... that the queen sought in them, but because of the real importance that the weather should be cloudy, that darkness might aid them in their flight. While the two prisoners were watching the billowy, moving vapours, the hour of dinner arrived; but it was half an hour of constraint and dissimulation, the more painful that, no doubt in return for the sort of goodwill shown him by the queen in the morning, William Douglas thought himself obliged, in his turn, to accompany his duties with fitting compliments, which compelled the queen to take a more active part in the conversation ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... face settled in a smile; but a smile that betrayed solicitude, timidity, and constraint. He accosted his favourites with familiarity and softness; but they durst not speak without premeditation, lest they should be convicted of discontent or sorrow. He proposed diversions, to which no objection was made, because objection would have implied uneasiness; but they were ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... rather enhanced the pleasant freedom and life of their house. The rest of the family were seen once or twice, when passing through London, but only in calls, which, as Babie said, were as good as nothing, except, as she forgot to add, that they broke through the constraint on her correspondence ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together for some minutes on the past—the present; but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides—it was so difficult to avoid one subject; and after sixteen years of absence, there is little left in common, even between those who once played together round their parent's knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find an excuse in Catherine's fatigue to leave her. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an interval of silent constraint, "is very Southern. Any sort of kinship means a great deal to her. I, of course, am Northern, and regard such ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... but she made no mention of anything unusual. And when Mr. Stuart came in to breakfast he looked as embarrassed and uncomfortable as a boy. There was a constraint over the little party at breakfast that had not been there the ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself—I am not a slave, I am a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... not serve to restore confidence; the constraint remained, and increased with time. Jim noted its effect on Aurora with some misgiving. His appearance in the tent was the signal for a display of boisterous animation on her part. If she had been depressed before, she suddenly became gay; if she had been ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to mark the air of constraint and dispirited lassitude which had characterized the Marchese during the commencement of their conversation. And he, as others had done, attributed it to the supposition that the Marchese was very rapidly growing old—likely enough, was breaking up. Nor did he ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... quality of it which was so striking. It was not a reserve which was raised of aloofness; there was no particle of that, no self-esteem, no egoism—common builders of reserve—yet on the other hand it was not the retreat of shyness as many might have thought, though out of it a certain constraint was undoubtedly born. One might almost say it was a result rather than a reserve; the result of a something hard at work within; a preoccupying something; a gestating something, the offspring of which ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... boorish demeanour of his companion, whose extorted bows resembled the pawings of a mule, who hung his head in silence like a detected sheep-stealer, who sat in company under the most awkward expressions of constraint, and whose discourse never exceeded the simple ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... starting up, and laughing, with a slight degree of constraint, which caused Amy, who was helping her to dress, to exclaim, 'Has anything ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looking away with an effort, and turning over the papers he had brought with him; "there are several points in the case I should like to mention to you." He paused for a minute, apparently to collect his thoughts, and to Herbert's sensitive ears there was a sudden coldness and constraint in his voice and manner. "You will, of course, take instructions in the main from Grainge and Co.; but what I wished to point out to you was—ahem——" here his voice unaccountably faltered, and his eyes, as though drawn by a magnet, returned once more with ominous displeasure to ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... over. The guests left, the members of the Council, each with a wife on his arm, frowsy, overdressed women most of them. The Council was chosen for ability and not for birth. At last only the suite remained, and constraint vanished. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Bee were unusually grave and silent; Mr. Brudenell was always sad; Ishmael was no conventional talker, and therefore could not seem other than he was—very serious. It was quite in vain that Mr. Middleton and Walter tried to get up a little jesting and badinage. And when the constraint of the breakfast table was over ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... let myself out, it would look like unbecoming pressing of myself, considering what I am; but if you think I ought, I will say more. I have become so much used to writing letters under constraint, that I ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than reserved, she showed herself cold and taciturn. With people who inspired her with respect, she was amiable and charming; but her real disposition was gay, petulant, active, and, above all, opposed to constraint. Great dinners, long soirees, commonplace visits, balls themselves, were odious to her. She was the woman of the fireside or of the rapid and frolicking walk; but in her interior, as in her goings abroad, intimacy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... No constraint of hands hath bound her, Not a chain hath e'er been round her; Silver star hath sealed her brow, Holy as ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... of confectionary, of fruits then in season, peaches, plumbs, grapes, chesnuts, walnuts, and water-caltrops. We very soon found indeed that we were treated with more studied attention, with a more marked distinction, and with less constraint, than when we ascended the river. Our dignified conductor made no difficulty in allowing us to walk on shore as much as we pleased; but recommended us not to quit the banks of the river for fear of retarding the yachts or of being left ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... ridden on ahead with Benito and Dolores; Dave and Alaire followed leisurely. Now that the moment of their parting was at hand, they lingered by the way, delaying it as long as possible, feeling a natural constraint at what was in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... watch on Washington, and as soon as he was in a separate command he began to curry favor with Congress and scheme against his commander. This was not unknown to Washington, who afterwards wrote, "I discovered very early in the war symptoms of coldness & constraint in General Gates' behavior to me. These increased as ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often pejoratively referred to as 'tick-tick-tick' simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, independent chains of ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... derive from beggary or robbery, formed their chief subsistence; for many of them were positive mendicants, and were so denominated: and being possessed of a sanctuary within their own quarters, to which they could at convenience retire, they submitted to the constraint of no laws except those enforced within the jurisdiction of the university, and hesitated at no means of enriching themselves at the expense of their neighbors. Hence the frequent warfare waged between ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... should come to meet them on their landing. "We shall reach Southampton," wrote Mrs. Trevor, "tired, pale, and travel-stained, and had much rather see you first at dear Fairholm, where we shall be spared the painful constraint of a meeting in public. So please expect our arrival at about seven ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... time died Archbishop Lanfranc; by whose death the King, loosed from that awe and constraint he was under, soon began to discover those irregularities of his nature, which till then he had suppressed and disguised, falling into those acts of oppression and extortion that have made his name and memory infamous. He kept the see of Canterbury four years vacant, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... the same fate, his melancholy, his resignation before me, his looks full of that love and tenderness which once made my happiness, has touched my soul in the most nice and delicate part: I dare not discover myself, before I know their sentiments; and the constraint I have put on myself, has been such, as nature scarce can bear—-Preserve my secret, dear Sayda, and don't expose me again to tremble for lives on which my own depends." "Doubt not of my fidelity, madam," answered the other, "'tis inviolable, my religion, your goodness ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown |
