"Constriction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... point of the Island of Orleans," says Parkman, "a constriction of the vast channel narrows it to a mile; on one hand, the green heights of Point Levi; on the other, the cliffs of Quebec. Here, a small stream, the St. Charles, enters the St. Lawrence, and in the angle betwixt them rises the promontory, on two sides a natural ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... matter with his throat—something he had never felt before—a constriction such as, had he been superstitious, he might have taken for the prologue to a rope. Then the thought came—what a brute he must be that his wife should have been afraid to tell him her trouble! Thereupon he tried to speak, but his throat was irresponsive to his will. Eve's ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not self-expression. You were saying that, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... white, for the outer layer of fungus threads, which are dark brown, is torn and separated into patches or scales, showing between the delicate meshes of white threads which lie beneath. The upper part of the button is already forming the cap, and the slight constriction about midway shows the lower boundary or margin of the pileus where it is still connected with ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... eyes—turned hastily away from a window, and with a stride added his cap and cloak to the hatrack's burden. He had an almost childishly guilty air of not wishing to be caught at something. And what that something was, Max Doran guessed with a queer constriction of the throat as he looked through the window. This opened into a dim room, which was labelled "Bureau," and framed the head and bust ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... above, which are essentially painful, and they are feelings of boredom and ennui. We have yet to examine the ideas in mind and their behavior at time of fatigue. They come sluggishly, associations being made slowly and inaccurately, and we make many mistakes. But constriction of ideas is not the sole effect of fatigue. At such a time there are usually other ideas in the mind not relevant to the fatiguing task of the moment, and exceedingly distracting. Often they are so insistent in forcing themselves upon our attention that we throw up the work without ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... be the gout, what execrations, and, dear me, to hear him talk of money, taking out his leather purse and grudging even the smallest silver coin, secretive and suspicious as an old peasant woman with all her lies. Strange paralysis and constriction—marvellous illumination. Serene over it all rides the great full brow, and sometimes asleep or in the quiet spaces of the night you might fancy that on a pillow of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... cases of great constriction of the uterine canal which have reflex irritability in the stomach. Those having the stomach affected cannot take food, the least thing is rejected. It is best for such to remain quiet in bed, applying heat to the stomach and abdomen and to the feet until relief is experienced. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... particular infirmity, which recalled to him the sad spectacle of wounds and amputations, touched, on that account, the old soldier. He felt almost a constriction of the heart at the sight of that sorry creature, half-clothed in her tattered petticoats and old chemise, bravely running along behind her geese, her bare foot in the dust, and limping ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... what Sabre called "flying up." She "flew up" without her speech first warming up; but of her flying up, unlike her sudden burst of laughter, Sabre came to know certain premonitory symptoms in her face. Her face what he called "tightened." In particular he used to notice a curious little constriction of the sides of her nose, rather as though ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... perfectly level, and, as regards the central portion of the latter, without visible detail. Under morning illumination I have, however, frequently seen something resembling a ridge partially crossing "the neck," and, near sunset, a tongue of rock jutting out from the E. flank of the constriction, and extending nearly from side to side. At the base of the cliff bordering the valley on the S.W., five or six little circular pits have been noted, some of which appear to have rims. They were seen very perfectly with powers of 350 and 400 on ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... over the granite boulders, unable to lift himself more than a few feet in the air, while the pipit and the leucosticte, inured to the heights, would mount up to the sky and shout "Ha! ha!" in good-natured raillery at the blue tenderfoot. And would the feathered visitor feel a constriction in his chest and be compelled to gasp for breath, as the human tourists invariably do? It is even doubtful whether any eastern bird would be able to survive the changed meteorological conditions, Nature having designed him ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... this self-composed city chap in hearing a thing like this from the lips of the mother whose beloved son was gone forever beyond her teaching but had "been ready." Reyburn looked at her steadily, soberly, and then with a queer constriction in his throat he looked down at the floor thoughtfully ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... directions, and though the immediate pressure upon the ship was not severe, I realized that the respite would not be prolonged. The pack within our range of vision was being subjected to enormous compression, such as might be caused by cyclonic winds, opposing ocean currents, or constriction in a channel of some description. The pressure-ridges, massive and threatening, testified to the overwhelming nature of the forces that were at work. Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and tossed aside as other masses rose beneath ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... muscle (see HEART: Disease). An attack of angina pectoris usually comes on with a sudden seizure of pain, felt at first over the region of the heart, but radiating through the chest in various directions, and frequently extending down the left arm. A feeling of constriction and of suffocation accompanies the pain, although there is seldom actual difficulty in breathing. When the attack comes on, as it often does, in the course of some bodily exertion, the sufferer is at once brought to rest, and during the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... movement, throwing himself backward. "What is the matter?" he cried. "What have I said?" Instantly his face paled, his lips quivered; he felt his heart beat tumultuously and his throat pressed by painful constriction. "But nothing is the matter," she answered, looking at him tenderly. "You have said nothing." To come to the point, why should he have spoken? During his frightful dreams, his nights of disturbed sleep, he might have cried out, but he did not know if ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... while with this particular revolt she ceased to think of herself and of what, as regarded herself, Selina had intended: all her thought went to the mere calculation of Mrs. Berrington's return. As she did not return, and still did not, Laura felt a sharp constriction of the heart. She knew not what she feared—she knew not what she supposed. She was so nervous (as she had been the night she waited, till morning, for her sister to re-enter the house in Grosvenor Place) that when Mr. Wendover occasionally ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... severest diseases. The patients succumb to it as a consequence of suffocation, just as if they were choked or hanged. For this reason, perhaps, the affection bears the name synanche, which means constriction." He then points out various other forms of inflammation of the throat, acute and chronic, suggesting various names ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... hernia, obstruction, and other causes. Physiologists, it would appear, have never busied themselves to find an explanation for this apparent breach of the laws of gravity. The intestinal canal is a tube with various dilatations and constrictions, but at no spot except the pylorus does the constriction completely obliterate the lumen of the tube, and here only periodically. It is perfectly evident, then, that, unless some system of trap exists in the canal, gases are free to travel from below upward in obedience to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... apple a dilatation of the flower-stalk below the ordinary fruit may occasionally be observed, thus giving rise to the appearance of two fruits superposed and separated one from the other by a constriction. (See fig. 176, p. 327.) The lower swelling is entirely axial in these cases, as no trace of carpels is to be seen. M. Carriere[490] mentions an instance wherein from the base of one apple projected a second smaller ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... at the fool's simplicity; and, having plenty of time to indulge his facetious humour, he gravely installed himself upon the perch indicated, and shutting his eyes, counterfeited a profound slumber. He was aroused soon after by a sharp constriction of the throat. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... recalled the tremendous impatience with which he had met the convenient enclosure of a practicable, organized society. Even at Myrtle Forge, where—in contrast to dwelling in the confines of a city—he had had a rare amount of actual freedom, a feeling of constriction had sent him day after day into the woods, hunting or merely idle along the upper reaches of still unsullied streams. Yet it had been an especial kind of wildness; he owed that recognition to his vanished youth. The term generally included champagne parties and the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer |
