"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... helpless in the sling by which they had secured him. Half the time he was mercifully unconscious; the other half his jaw was set rigid and his lips were compressed to stifle his groans of agony. Whenever possible Ashton climbed beside him, striving to ease the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... especially two Things wherein our Union must carry us along together. We are to unite in our Endeavours to deliver our distressed Neighbours, from the horrible Annoyances and Molestations with which a dreadful Witchcraft is now persecuting of them. To have an hand in any thing, that may stifle or obstruct a Regular Detection of that Witchcraft, is what we may well with an holy fear avoid. Their Majesties good Subjects must not every day be torn to pieces by horrid Witches, and those bloody Felons, be left ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... dragged before the courts; and they ended by considering their little lawsuit as one of the historic state trials of the world. Henceforth, in every personal matter—and their art was intensely personal—they lost all sense of proportion, believing that there was a vast Semitic plot to stifle Manette Salomon and that the President had brought pressure on the censor to forbid an adaptation of one of their novels being put upon the boards. Monarchy, Empire, Republic, Right, Centre, Left—no shade of political thought, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... never been unswathed before. The operation interested him keenly. He thrilled all over with curiosity, and his birdlike head protruded further and further from behind the door. When, however, the last roll had been removed from the four-thousand-year-old head, it was all that he could do to stifle an outcry of amazement. First, a cascade of long, black, glossy tresses poured over the workman's hands and arms. A second turn of the bandage revealed a low, white forehead, with a pair of delicately arched eyebrows. A third uncovered a pair ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the affairs of Spain, let me pass lightly over an event which, engrafted upon some others, made much noise, notwithstanding the care taken to stifle it. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lovely inclosure to suggest that the straightness of the lines in which the trees are planted on Boston Common, and the rapidly increasing thickness of their foliage, destroy in the summer season the effect of breadth and liberty, hide both the immediate and the distant landscape, stifle the breeze, and diminish the attractiveness of the spot? Fewer trees, scattered in clumps and paying little regard to paths, would vastly improve the effect. The colonnades of the malls furnish all the shade desirable in so small ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... a preoccupied good-by to sweet companionship. Nay, a mind too preoccupied for 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
... Dorothy sat trembling there, the impulse was strong upon her to fly from the house. The very air seemed to stifle her. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... perfect if it has set in at an early stage. In the late and tardy recoveries a partial paralysis of the hind limbs may last for months. A frequent sequel of these tardy cases is an extensive wasting of the muscles leading up from the front of the stifle (those supplied by the crural nerve) and a ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... sorrow where there was only boredom? She pondered, and had almost concluded that the latter was the saner explanation when—watching—she saw a sudden spasm cross his face of such agony that she caught her lip fiercely between her teeth to stifle an exclamation. In the fleeting expression of a moment she had seen the revelation of a soul in torment. She looked away hastily, feeling dismayed at having trespassed. She had discovered a secret wound. She sat tense, and a quick fear came lest the others might have also seen. She glanced at them ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... that is to say, Harry had gradually trained him to bear without flinching the situation as Harry represented it. He believed Harry had a hopeless romantic affection for Mrs. Romer Wyburn which he was trying to stifle, and that Miss Walmer being hopelessly in love with him, he was doing his best to marry her, partly, as he ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... praised him, and patted him on the back; told him that he was a brave fellow,—that he was beginning right, and that there was good stuff in him. And Rodney laughed, tickled by such praises, and drank what they offered, and tried to stifle his conscience and harden himself in sin. Yet often, when he was alone, did he shrink from himself, and writhe under the lashings of conscience; and the remembrance of home, and thoughts of his conduct, ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... 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
... than she could bear. She remembered that there was another train a half-hour later, and she resolved to remain down for that. She thought that she would go to Mr. Anderson's store and purchase some cereal for breakfast, that she might have that charged. She was conscious, but she tried to stifle the consciousness, of a hope that Mr. Anderson would be there, and she might tell him that her father had not arrived on that train, and he would reassure her. But Mr. Anderson had naturally gone straight home from the post-office to supper. Charlotte ordered her cereal, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sorrow, you will cease to look upon him as your enemy; but where the hatred is such that, while feeling you cannot, on a sober examination of your heart, account for it, there is little hope that you will ever be able to stifle the enmity that you entertain against him. This, however, in politics and religion, is what is frequently designated as principle—a word on which men, possessing higher and greater advantages than the poor ignorant peasantry of ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... take an annuity for himself and her son, rather than enter into a lawsuit with a powerful man; and she had gradually brought herself to believe that she had been her lover's wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured and deprived of their just rights, and was ready to assert her marriage boldly, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... informs us that great military talent and victory often give the power, which, in its tern, procures the means of gratifying ambition. Napoleon was always persuaded that that power was essential to him, in order to bend men to his will, and to stifle all discussions on his conduct. It was his established principle never to sign a disadvantageous peace. To him a tarnished crown was no longer a crown. He said one day to M. de Caulaincourt, who was pressing him to consent to sacrifices, "Courage may defend a crown, but infamy never." In ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... she saw that the other bunk was empty. She raised her arms quickly, as if to stifle a yawn, and sat up in the bunk, holding the blanket close about her shoulders. The face she showed to Nash ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... that they could no longer dispense with it. A guard on the outside of a theatre is unquestionably necessary, and proper for the preservation of order; but that the public should not be at liberty to approve or condemn such a passage, or such an actor, is at once to stifle the expression of that general opinion which alone can produce good performers. The interior police of the theatre being at present almost entirely in the hands of the public themselves, it is, on that account, more justly observed and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... with a look of heart-felt sympathy into the archduke's mournful face; he saw the tears filling John's large blue eyes; he saw that he firmly compressed his lips as if to stifle a cry of pain or rage, and that he clinched his hands in the agony of his despair. Animated by tender compassion, the general approached the archduke, who had sunk into a chair, and laid his hand gently on his shoulder. "Courage, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... false, I shall believe so firmly in him that I shall make him true!—Yes, the lowest, the most senseless superstitions, I venerate them, I exalt—I glory in them! The ugliest, the most deformed, the most unreal of our gods, I adore them, and I bow down before their impossibility. [She kneels] Oh, I stifle in their petty narrow world, sad as a forest without birds! Air! Air! Singing! The sound of wings! ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... "You must stifle this longing for vulgar sensation, Tuppence. Remember that if Mr. Brown is all he is reported to be, it's a wonder that he has not ere now done us to death. That's a good sentence, quite ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... contemptuously. "Tinker, you're in your dotage! Look at what I've done: Haven't I made my way in spite of everything they could do to stifle me? And have I ever compromised for one moment? Haven't I ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... times, I am fully supported in the position that prosecutions of this kind are not only useless but hurtful. By free argument and debate errors cease to be dangerous, if they are not exploded; but attempts to stifle even errors by power and punishment, provoke a stubborn adherence to them, and awake an eager spirit of propagation. If erroneous positions are published, meet them by argument, and refutation must ensue. If falsehood uses ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... 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 in ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rage that held him now, a rage divided against itself—that longed to strike down, to crush, to stifle the thing it coveted. He had almost a fear of ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... SIDO. But to embrace this delicate waist. Thou art mine: I've sighed and thou hast spurned. What is not yielded In war we capture. Ere a flying hour, Thy hated Burgos vanishes. That voice; What, must I stifle it, who fain would listen For ever to its song? In vain thy cry, For none are here ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... Guilty, a piece of evidence had been handed in, proving innocence, averting the death sentence. A wave of excitement passed over him, leaving him cold and still. In the other room a girl put her hand to her mouth to stifle ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the whole matter to his satisfaction he sought to put it out of his mind, but that was more easily said than done; and he could not prevent the regrets nor stifle the misgivings which sometimes tormented him. He was so young and had so few friends that immortality had no particular attractions for him, and he was able without trouble to give up belief in it; but there was one thing ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the people as many opportunities as possible to acquaint themselves with political affairs, and do not stifle the aspirations of the people or weaken their strength or damp their interest or crush their self-respect. Then within a few years we shall be rewarded with results. If, instead of doing all these things, we vainly blame the form of State, we are, as Chu Tse says, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... now ended. I speak for myself—there was no event that tended so much to reconciliation and forgiveness as this immense slaughter of the English. We felt that this victory was too bloody not to stifle loud exultation. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Alice received him very much as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe. She had arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cushions, her feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap. Her brother had to stifle anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had swept away his own happiness ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... ought we—you—to attempt this, even for the sake of universal power? Your plan contemplates a monopoly such that everybody who refused or was unable to buy your product would, at best, have to get along with vitiated air, and at worst would have to stifle. Do you really think we ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Oh! 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. ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... have just come to see how you are getting on," continued the girl, as she advanced towards the table, scanning everything that it held, "and whether I can—oh, my!" she burst out, snatching up her apron and holding it to her mouth to try and stifle back ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... reasonableness was never applied by the court at common law to contracts or combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade whose purpose was or whose necessary effect would be to stifle competition, to control prices, or establish monopolies. The courts never assumed power to say that such contracts or combinations or conspiracies might be lawful if the parties to them were only moderate in the use of the power thus secured and did not exact from the public too great and exorbitant ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... know not; what they said, if they said anything, I did not comprehend. For me the house was bursting, walls seemed to cramp and to stifle, the roof was jumping and lifting. Escape was the imperative thing—to escape into the open air, to shake off bricks and mortar, and to wander in the unfrequented places of the earth, the more properly to take in the passion and the promise ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... shelter in a small inn, where the men seemed anxious to drown the remembrance of danger in a bowl of punch. How faithful a monitor is conscience! This voice is listened to in extreme peril; but O, infatuated man, how anxious art thou to stifle the warnings of wisdom in the hour of prosperity. Thousands of our race, no doubt, delay their preparation for eternity until, by sudden death, they have scarcely a moment left to perform this ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... ministration to their natural subjects—such a young woman is an abnormal specimen. The desire of every little girl for a doll, the craving of every boy for an animal pet, is but the manifestation of the deep-seated instinct of parenthood. Do nothing to stifle it. Minister to its growth and development. And young man—young woman, you who have left behind the days of knee trousers and short dresses, and with them have laid aside the doll and the pet, think it not weakness when you find yourself ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... products of the soil will grow indiscriminately throughout the year, and the only care of the husbandman, after the first preparation of the soil, is to keep down the vast growth of weeds, which might stifle the crops. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... with doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorsefully questioned with herself whether the misery, already accruing from her influence, should not warn her to withdraw from his path. In this momentous ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the just delineation of thy character? How shall I detail the means which rendered the secrecy of thy purposes unfathomable? But I will not anticipate. Let me recover if possible, a sober strain. Let me keep down the flood of passion that would render me precipitate or powerless. Let me stifle the agonies that are awakened by thy name. Let me, for a time, regard thee as a being of no terrible attributes. Let me tear myself from contemplation of the evils of which it is but too certain that thou wast the author, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... tendencies towards the extinction of the moral sensibilities. This was the circus, and the whole machinery, form and substance, of the Circensian shows. Why had tragedy no existence as a part of the Roman literature? Because—and that was a reason which would have sufficed to stifle all the dramatic genius of Greece and England— there was too much tragedy in the shape of gross reality, almost daily before their eyes. The amphitheatre extinguished the theatre. How was it possible that the fine and intellectual griefs of the drama should win their way to hearts seared and rendered ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... tables and fauteuils and are appropriated to the sittings of the various committees. These antichambers are hung round with pictures representing the victories of the French armies; but they are covered with green baize and carefully concealed from the public eye in order to stifle recollections and prevent comparisons. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... crowded, ill-lighted hall, barn-like in its proportions, and the smoke-laden air gave a peculiar distortion to everything. She felt as though she would stifle. There were shrill cries of boys selling programmes and soda water, and there was a great bass rumble of masculine voices. She heard a voice offering ten to six on Joe Fleming. The utterance was monotonous—hopeless, ...
— The Game • Jack London
... the individual addressed, shaking his head with a serio-comical expression; "but stifle me with the night-mar, if ever I'm cotched riding a race with death ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... drawing her more and more into the penetralia of his affection; but from the hour in which he learned her history he had torn away the clinging tendrils of love,—had endeavored to expel her from his heart, and to stifle its wail for ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... led to what might have been a serious accident to her especial charge. It had further made a very unpleasant confession needful, and Lionel's vexation and irritation seemed to have overcome all his late improvement. The thought of what poor Caroline was going through was enough to stifle everything else, and Marian wondered at herself, as for a sort of unkindness, in having been so fully occupied as to have had no ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... either side seemed to Dorothy Thornton to close in and stifle her, and the bracing, effervescent air of the high places had become dead and lifeless in her nostrils, as to one ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the progress which the opinion of the injustice of this trade was making in the nation at large, as manifested by the petitions; which had almost obstructed the proceedings of the House by their perpetual introduction. It was impossible for them to stifle this great question. As for himself, he would renew his profession of last year, that he would never cease, but with life, to promote so glorious ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... when a scorching wind seemed to stifle the countryside with its breath, Josephina capitulated. They were in their room, with the windows closed, trying to escape the terrible sirocco by shutting it out and putting on thin clothes. She did not want ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... difficulty in foregoing my hundred petty elegancies and luxuries,—for to these, thank Heaven, I was not so indissolubly wedded that one wholesome shock could not loosen my bonds,—but that I manage more cleverly than I expected to stifle those innumerable tacit allusions which might serve ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... expression of individual needs and desires and for reference to the immediate and local circumstances of the believer. A church in which there is no spontaneous and extempore prayer, which only harked backward to the past, might build the tombs of the prophets but it might also stifle new voices for a new age. But extempore prayer should not be impromptu prayer. It should have coherence, dignity, progression. The spirit should have been humbly and painstakingly prepared for it so that sincere and ardent feeling may wing and vitalize its words. The ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... them, Susan," said Owen, trying to stifle his tears, "I am crying for myself; I cannot help it. I know you love me, and you always have ever since I could remember—if you punished me it was kindly done—and now you are going away, and I do not know when I shall see you again. Mr Rowe is very kind and good, and ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... form within his reach. He candidly states, "for some months a conflict of feelings, principles, &c., which are directly contradictory the one to the other, has been raging within me; I wished to stifle all recollection, and become what schoolmasters, preachers, uncles, and aunts call profligate." There was none in the circles which he frequented to encourage him in his desire to reach out after better things, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... promised, if I have not told you that I loved you, if I have not told you that I should always love you, I have lied. Read my—heart; you will behold your name, your name alone, written there; and tell me, courageous creature, noble-hearted woman, how can one stifle the aspirations of a love which has been the only joy, the only torment of one's life? Remember the past, Dolores—our childhood, the blissful existence in which love was first awakened in our hearts. I do not know what was passing ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... they cried for help. He put his arm about the neck of each, and swore to stifle them with kisses if they were not as silent as ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... still muttered Mr. Cleveland to himself, "that these thoughts will continually intrude themselves upon me. They give me no peace of my life. Stifle them as I may, they come with tenfold force. People have no business to be poor. I was poor once, and nobody gave charity to me. I had to help myself up in the world as well as I could. I hate poor people; ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... encouragement—that he could make no reply, but, with a profound bow, retired hastily from her presence, went to his lodgings, and sat down with his elbows on the table, and his face buried in his large hands, the fingers of which appeared to be crushing in his forehead, as if to stifle the thoughts that burned there. After sitting thus for half an hour he suddenly rose, with his face somewhat paler, and his lips a little more firmly ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... They came to him while he was asleep, and pressed him down with heavy feather beds, which they cast upon him to stifle his cries, and then thrust a red-hot spit up into his bowels through a horn, as some said, or a part of the tube of a trumpet, according to others, so as to kill him by the internal burning without making any outward mark of the fire on his person. Notwithstanding ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... feeling, but I can't succeed. This afternoon I made up my mind to return to our villa and write my diary. The day was lovely, and I meant to enjoy a rest and a scribble, but so strong was the horrid influence of the place that I couldn't settle to anything. I can't describe it, but it seemed to stifle me, and I can only compare it to some second sight in which one sees death. I sat as long as I could doing my writing, but I had to give in at last, and I tucked my book under my arm and walked back to ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... but Drollery. Caricature, one must remember, has two mortal enemies—a small and a great: artistic excellence of draughtsmanship, and national prosperity with its consequent contentment. Good harvests beget good-humour. They stifle all motive for genuine caricature, for "satire thrives only on the wrath of the multitude." A joke may be only a joke—or a comedy, or a tragedy; but the greatest caricature (which need by no means display ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Dolzhikovs'. My serge trousers were sold. There was nothing doing in the painting trade. I knew the pangs of hunger again, and earned from twopence to fourpence a day, where I could, by heavy and unpleasant work. Struggling up to my knees in the cold mud, straining my chest, I tried to stifle my memories, and, as it were, to punish myself for the cheeses and preserves with which I had been regaled at the engineer's. But all the same, as soon as I lay in bed, wet and hungry, my sinful imagination immediately ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... raising his head): Aurora's silver rays begin to glint e'en now on the copper pans, and thou, O Ragueneau! must perforce stifle in thy breast the God of Song! Anon shall come the hour of the lute!—now 'tis the hour of the oven! (He rises. To a cook): You, make that sauce ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... his face became ashy-grey. Sister Ursula had never seen Terror in the flesh, well-dressed and fresh from a round of calls. She gathered herself up to climb on, but the man within uttered a cry that even the double windows could not altogether stifle, and ran round the room in circles as a dog runs seeking a ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... messenger ushered Richard into that statesman's study, the radiant Dorothy, perched at the end of Senator Hanway's table, was the picture that greeted his eyes. Our radiant one sought to stifle her effulgence beneath a look severe and practical. This expression of practical severity was a failure, and served to render her ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... depraved—which certainly is indisputable in the century in which it was born. According to it, man must change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation and meditation let us ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... dispersed, hidden, disorganised, undiscovered, unsuspected even by themselves, the samurai of Utopia are in this world, the motives that are developed and organised there stir dumbly here and stifle in ten ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... however, she rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her mingled ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... 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 it to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... anchors within easy throw of her, and there is a frightful beating of gongs. When this has reached its lawful limit as to time it is hushed and the soldiers throw a stated number of stink-pots on board the offending craft. These, exploding as they strike, stifle the captain and crew with an intolerable odor. In the case of a large proa having a cargo of such commodities as the Tortirrans particularly need, this bombardment is continued for hours. At its conclusion the vessel is permitted to land and discharge ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... away the pile of photographs from me, and had looked up at him when I began, but my voice and courage rather failed before the end, and my eyes fell. There was a silence—a silence that seemed to stifle me. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... by forever considering only yourself and never me! That could not help but stifle all my feelings in time. I fought against it as long as I could, Hella, but it had to come ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... surely as my name is Euergetes my uncle Antiochus was right in liking to mix among the populace. The splendid puppets who surround us kings, and cover every portion of their own bodies in wrappings and swaddling bands, also stifle the expression of every genuine sentiment; and it is enough to turn our brain to reflect that, if we would not be deceived, every word that we hear—and, oh dear! how many words we must needs hear-must be pondered in our minds. Now, the mob on the contrary—who think themselves beautifully ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... or opposition, to disappear into oblivion before disappearing in the tomb ... ah! all the furies, all the bloody reprisals, the dungeons, the gibbets, the massacres, all the martyrdoms by which human wickedness strove to stifle the voice of the just, are less horrible than this extermination ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... of a child's hand will rob the canary bird of its life—stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... to the argument thus far will admit that the testimony of the witnesses to the resurrection is conclusive, unless he suspects that by some cause they were either incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud; and no one has ever been able to support the position even with moderate plausibility. Granting, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... himself in exterior functions of the ministry. He must have mortified the deeds of the flesh by compunction, and the habitual practice of self-denial; and the fruits of the spirit must daily more and more perfectly subdue his passions. These fruits of the spirit are charity and humility, which stifle all the motions of anger, envy, and pride: holy joy, which banishes carnal sadness, sloth, and all disrelish in spiritual exercises; peace, which crushes the seeds of discord, and the love and relish of heavenly ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... another—that of moderating the superfluity of vegetation. Like all the mighty who are worthy of their strength, the oak is generous; it produces acorns by the bushel. What could the earth do with such prodigality? The forest would stifle itself for want of room; ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... uncompromising calumny The evils resulting from a confederate system of government This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination To milk, the cow as long as she would give milk To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry William Brewster Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome Yes, there are wicked men about Yesterday is ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... long play-day in green fields and woods, because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, when he has drained his wine-cups and laughed his heartiest laugh, and wakes to another morning, because he is a man. The cry of humanity echoes in our souls. We cannot stifle it; we may hush it, and follow our idle joys, but the day comes when we bend our head with Antinous and Solomon and the rest of them, and sigh out our vanitas, vanitas also, in ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... do. What is there not commendable in every action of yours? I love you; I live always in the hope that some day you will be more to me than you are to-day. A presumptuous hope perhaps," with a rather forced smile, "but one I will not stifle. I suppose every one lives in a visionary world at times, where some 'not impossible she' reigns as queen. I dare say you think my queen is impossible, yet you little know what dreams have been my playmates, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... "that what I have done is wholly 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
... ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly; they did not perceive that I acted from goodwill, not knowing that no god is the enemy of man—that was not within the range of their ideas; neither am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, 'What is knowledge?'—and do not say that you cannot tell; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... perform, and He will not let His servant suffer for striving 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 ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the clergy are right in what they preach though they give the wrong reasons. We must try to regulate our passions or they will master us, stifle what is really good in us. My solution of this problem which I am so sick of discussing.... But let's finish with it while we are about it—my solution is that the State and the Community should do their utmost to encourage, subsidize, reward early marriages; and at the same ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... small appreciation of this—of either their temporary safety, or the perils that menaced them. Suddenly the thick air seemed to stifle them. They could neither breathe nor see. The lamps had been lost when they were flung—like dice in a ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... him to stifle his resentment, and he paid, mentally adding another item to the long list of his personal animosities to be wiped ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... out in a week, Peter—sure thing!" called Nat shutting his lips tightly together to stifle a moan as the ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... adds, 'assisting to drag a sort of light plough, and the harrow. The easier task, that of directing the machine, is left to the husband.' [68] The Chinese value their daughters so little, that when they have more children than they can easily maintain, they hire the midwives to stifle the females in a basin of water as soon as they are born.' [69] Nothing can exceed the contempt towards women which the maxims of the most celebrated of their lawgivers express. 'It is very difficult,' said Confucius himself, 'to govern women and servants; for if you treat them with ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... filled the air with loud invocations to the great Wahconda, and with petitions to him, that, in the succeeding sacrifice, he would reveal the meaning of the dream which had so filled their minds. Lest the unexpiated sins of the uninitiated, the women and the children, should stifle their own purer voices, the priest sent by the hands of the oldest of the women a portion of the small green leaves of the beloved weed[B] to the sinners. And thus, for three suns, the priests and warriors of the Lenapes ate ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... silence of the darkness was broken by an unmistakable sneeze. True, the sneezer, if I may use such a term, tried to stifle the explosion, but he was not altogether successful. It was a sneeze, and nothing could ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... foresight? Do we tell another of his faults, when the communication, though probably beneficial to him, cannot be made without embarrassment or pain to ourselves, and may probably lessen his regard for our person, or his opinion of our judgment? Can we stifle a repartee which would wound another; though the utterance of it would gratify our vanity, and the suppression of it may disparage our character for wit? If any one advance a mistaken proposition, in an instance wherein ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... sob followed, while the little fellow rose with his teeth closely set and lips compressed, as he tried to stifle the cries that were struggling to escape, and then stood leaning against his nearest companion ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... phantasm. An intestine war, Of all the most unnatural and cruel, Will burst out into flames, if instantly We do not fly and stifle it. The Generals Are many of them long ago won over; 115 The subalterns are vacillating—whole Regiments and garrisons are vacillating. To foreigners our strong holds are entrusted; To that suspected Schafgotch is the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... most imperious, envious, and spiteful in disposition; but on coming to the Hotel de Chalusse she had provided herself with any amount of sweetness and sensibility, and when she entered the room, she held her handkerchief to her lips as if to stifle her sobs. The General led her toward Mademoiselle Marguerite, and, in a semi-solemn, semi-sentimental tone, he exclaimed: "Dear Athenais, this is the daughter of my best and oldest friend. I know your heart—I know that she will find in ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 enterprise. Perhaps this would have been the ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... originality even by the conventional standard than now develops. Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. And measuring originality by deviation from the mass breeds eccentricity in them. Thus we stifle the distinctive quality of the many, and save in rare instances (like, say, that of Darwin) infect the rare geniuses with ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... the following afternoon. It was not often that we all sat down to lunch together, but the satisfaction of witnessing the delivery of three precious tons of coal in the teeth of the authorities was more than we could forego. The butler was admitted to our confidence, and instructed to stifle any attempt to allay curiosity, by interpretation of the carman, that might originate in the servants' hall, and immediately after luncheon, which finished at three minutes to two, an O.P. was established by the side of one of the dining-room windows, in which Jill was posted with orders to ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... accepted this place as home; after the tiny cabin it did not seem very small; she was too mentally anxious to feel actual disadvantages. It was days before the cramping influence of four walls made her stifle and gasp for breath. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... so painful, that she was glad—how glad when morning came. She compared her present with her former self, and the contrast was misery; but even as her ill-fated aunt had done, she summoned pride to stifle every feeding of remorse. ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... when such thoughts entered my heart and forced a tear or two from my eyes, I rebelled against myself. I said: 'My lad, when you earn but three thousand francs a year, and have an old and cherished father to support, it is your duty to stifle such desires, and remain a bachelor.' And yet I met a young girl. It is thirty years now since that time; well! just look at me, I am sure I am blushing as red as a tomato. Her name was Hortense. Who can ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... that she had caused the box to be opened in such good company; for being before such witnesses, she rightly judged it was impossible to stifle this adventure; and, at the same time, there being no possibility of retaining any longer such a maid of honour, Miss Price had her valuables restored to her, with orders to go and finish her lamentations, or to console herself for the loss ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries, dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or to take a step without stumbling ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... brothers, the duke and cardinal, were the arbiters of the greatest revolution attempted in Europe since that of Henry VIII. in England, which was the direct consequence of the invention of printing. Adversaries to the Reformation, they meant to stifle it, power being in their hands. But their opponent, Calvin, though less famous than Luther, was far the stronger of the two. Calvin saw government where Luther saw dogma only. While the stout beer-drinker and amorous German fought with the devil and flung ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to his own account,[4] with the king for him as well as for Langhorne and Plunket. His independent attitude drew upon him an attack by Dangerfield, and in the Commons by the attorney-general, Sir W. Jones, who accused him of endeavouring to stifle the evidence against the Romanists. In March 1679 he protested against the second reading of the bill for disabling Danby. In 1681 Anglesey wrote A Letter from a Person of Honour in the Country, as a rejoinder to the earl of Castlehaven, who had published memoirs ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... code, the manufactures Arts, sciences I builded, democratic Triumphs which I won will live for ages— These are my witnesses, will testify Forever what I was and meant to do. The ideas which I brought to power will stifle All royalty, all feudalism—look They live in England, they illuminate America, they will be faith, religion For every people—these I kindled, carried Their flaming torch through Europe as the chief Torch bearer, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... said that I was an abnormal being, and he would have wanted to treat me. But in us there was nothing requiring treatment. All this mental malady was the simple result of the fact that we were living immorally. Thanks to this immoral life, we suffered, and, to stifle our sufferings, we tried abnormal means, which the doctors call the 'symptoms' of a ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... those who stifle their consciences, and commit crimes, would set up a sort of medico-moral diary, and record their symptoms minutely day by day. Such records might help to clear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... in every respect; and especially that of freedom, which they cannot but be sensible, is daily decreasing under the insidious encroachments and blandishments of the French, who never cares but to enslave, nor hug but to stifle, whose pretences, in short, to superior humanity and politeness, are not amongst their least ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... 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 ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the court. Sobs were heard. The most prejudiced of those who had bandied her name about for the past few weeks felt a dim sense of shame. Only a few out of all those present were unmoved: the judge, schooled to conceal all trace of emotion, nay, schooled to stifle it as it rose; the jury, too overcome by the duty thrust upon them to be just then alive to what was happening; the counsel on both sides, who, for different reasons, forbore as long as they could from looking at ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... last for Peter. He did not like his errand, was very vague, indeed, as to just what that errand might be. He was stiff and rather cold. Also he thought the cat might stifle in the oilcloth, but the old woman too clearly distrusted him to make it possible to interfere. Anyhow, he did not know the German for either cat ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the cottage, 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
... husband closed the door. Whether the memory of his father's words was exact or not, Stefan knew their effect by heart. The door shut, his mother would begin to cry, quietly at first, then with deep, catching sobs that seemed to stifle her, so that she rose and paced the room breathlessly. Then she would hold the boy to her breast, and slowly the storm would change again to gentle tears. That day there ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... heart of man lieth close hid oft time, men do not carry it in their hand, nor should they do so that wish to thrive in these times and in these places; I say this that your own honesty may not show itself too much, and turn to your own ill favor. Stifle your understanding as much as may be; mind your books and make your jests, but take heed who they light on. My love hath overcome almost my confidence and trust, which my truth and place demandeth. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... indictment of our existing prison system" (as orators have it); but Lady 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... prognosticate king, emperor winding, sinuous hint, insinuate burn, incinerate fire, incendiarism bind, constrict crab, crustacean fowls, poultry lean, incline flat, level flat, vapid sharpness, acerbity sharpness, acrimony shepherd, pastor word, vocable choke, suffocate stifle, suffocate clothes, raiment witness, spectator beat, pulsate mournful, melancholy beginning, incipient drink, imbibe light, illuminate hall, corridor stair, escalator anger, indignation fight, combat sleight-of-hand, prestidigitation build, construct ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... not know how long she sat on that hard chair in the ugly room that night. She only knew how valiantly she struggled to stifle the sobs that wrenched her slight body. Early in the evening she had heard a soft impact against her door, which she knew meant that the watchdog was in ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... fill her oil-pot, and returned into her 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 - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Not I!" she said, and tapped her fingers on her lips to stifle a yawn. "Or if I did, I have forgotten. Why should I have sent ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Friday passed without my receiving any tidings I commenced to get fidgety and anxious. My feelings were not assuaged by hearing volleys ring out every morning, followed by a death-like stillness. These reports appeared to stifle the cries and groans of the prisoners a little while. To me the sounds presaged serious news. Apparently there were several prisoners condemned for spying, and each volley, I was told, signified the flight of ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... account. Ah, he has a false insinuating tongue. Well, sir, I will stifle my just resentment at my nephew's request. I will endeavour what I can to forget, but on proviso that you resign the contract ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... were always as to-day, if there were always sunlight to stand 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? ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took the baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand, and ran up to the bush where Moodie ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the inner room. A swift sensation of coming evil swept over her, and without taking thought of consequences, she slipped under the kitchen table, drawing the pail after her. The long fringe from the red cloth hung down about her in small, even tassels. The dining room door opened and she tried to stifle her swiftly coming breaths. Virginia could see a pair of legs, man's legs, and they weren't country legs either. Following them were the light ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... patient, he assured her, and asked her to forgive him if he had been brusque, his refined voice full of adoring contrition. He caught at any gossamer thread to stifle the obvious thought that if she loved him even ever so little he would not have to accustom her to caresses; she would long ago have been willing to learn all of their meanings in his arms!—and this was only the second time during their acquaintance ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... have not at present, reason enough for "exclaiming with the roman patriot, 0 tempora, 0 mores ". The true patriot therefore, will enquire into the causes of the fears and jealousies of his countrymen; and if he finds they are not groundless, he will be far from endeavoring to allay or stifle them: On the contrary, constrain'd by the Amor Patrae, and from public views, he will by all proper means in his power foment and cherish them: He will, as far as he is able, keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances; and ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... withdrew to attend to their respective duties, while the man too, who had been flogged, walked away, as he did all he could to conceal his shame and stifle his tears. About this time arrived and went, in an incessant stream, servants from both the Jung and Ning mansions, bent upon applying for permits and returning permits, and with one by one again did lady Feng settle accounts. And, as in due course, the inmates of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... indignation at that unhappy transaction at Manchester that they did venture to come openly forward—with perfect peacefulness and most careful observance of the peace to express their real sentiments—that the ministry proclaimed down the procession, and now prosecute us in order to stifle public opinion? Gentlemen of the jury, I have said enough to convince any twelve reasonable men that there was nothing in my conduct in the matter of that procession which you can declare on your oaths to be "malicious, seditious, ill-disposed, and intended to disturb the peace and ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... in it the expected satisfaction. Others begin to feel that, whatever economists may say about wealth being the reward of capacity, their own reward is exaggerated. The conscience of human solidarity begins to tell; and, although society life is so arranged as to stifle that feeling by thousands of artful means, it often gets the upper hand; and then they try to find an outcome for that deeply human need by giving their fortune, or their forces, to something which, in their opinion, will promote ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... 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 you may never say, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... again, is directed against "that philosophy of a day, which is born and dies in the corner of a city, and would fain stifle the cry of nature and the unanimous voice of the human race" (p. 131). The same intrepid spirits who had brought reason to bear upon the current notions of providence, inspiration, ecclesiastical tradition, and other unlighted spots in the human mind, had perceived that ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... bandages, sir; only this." He held out a shirt belonging to the engineer; his eyes pleaded his question. Neville nodded, and Dan tore the shirt in strips. When he finished the task, strange to his clumsy hands, Larry had regained consciousness and lay trying pitifully to stifle his moans. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gulfs and blind alleys. A thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man's day is his own—even at the best! And then come those false friends, those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and kill ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... of his body ached where the doubled gravity had pressed his flesh to the unyielding wood of the floor. His eyes were gummy and his mouth was filled with an indescribable taste that came off in chunks. Sitting up was an effort and he had to stifle a groan as ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... abbot have closed his ears, and, hoping to stifle the remorseful pangs that seized upon his very vitals with the sharpness of serpents' teeth, he strove to dwell upon the frequent and severe acts of penance he had performed. But he now found that his ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... tell me of a man so dear to you. Though I am attached to the exiled family, and bound, of course, to hold monarchical opinions, I am not among those who think it is impossible to be both republican and noble in heart. Monarchy and the republic are two forms of government which do not stifle noble sentiments." ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... impulse of unbounded gratitude; and I am therefore asked to do this service, as if to show that no difference of opinion upon subjects, however important—no long course of opposition, however contracted upon public principles—not even long inveterate habits of public opposition—are able so far to stifle the natural feelings of our hearts, so far to obscure our reason, as to prevent us from feeling as we ought—boundless gratitude for boundless merit. Neither can it pluck from our minds that admiration proportioned to the transcendant ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... Motion must obstruct and check the Passion: And therefore an Historian and a Writer of Historical Plays, passing from Events of one nature to Events of another nature without a due Preparation, must of necessity stifle and confound one Passion by another. The second Reason why the Fiction of a Fable pleases us more than an Historical Relation can do, is, because in an Historical Relation we seldom are acquainted with the true Causes of Events, whereas ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... persevere in a state of sin, they are then said to resist the Holy Ghost, whereby their condition becomes very deplorable, and their conversion very difficult; for the more men resist the importunities, and stifle the motions of the Holy Spirit, the stronger do the chains of their corruption and servitude become. Every new act of sin gives these a degree of strength, and consequently puts a new obstacle in the way of conversion; and when sin ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... proud: I undertook miracles. I soon found my pride was a molehill and my love a mountain. I could not hold out by day if I did not ease my breaking heart at night. How unfortunate! I kept my head under the bed-clothes, too; but you have such ears. I thought I would stifle my grief, or else perhaps you would be as wretched as I am: forgive ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... miscreants in reply to their witticisms were so threatening, that they ran back to the library to stifle their laughter; but five minutes had not elapsed before they were back ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Isabel? My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh That you shall stifle in your own report, And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes That banish what they sue for: redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the highest respect for the talents and virtues of Reynolds, but I do not like that his reputation should overshadow and stifle the merits of such a man as Hogarth, nor that to mere names and classifications we should be content to sacrifice one of the greatest ornaments ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... stifle her agitation as best she could, and almost before she realized it her aunt had come to summon her to get ready ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... We fight for freedom—not for the vanity of the world, not to have a fine conceit of ourselves, not to be as bad—or if we prefer to put it so, as big as our neighbours. The inspiration is drawn from a deeper element of our being. We stifle for self-development individually and as a nation. If we don't go forward we must go down. It is a matter of life and death; it is out soul's salvation. If the whole nation stand for it, we are happy; we shall ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... Out of the few friends of his childhood he could ill afford to lose one, and he grieved much for his father, to whom the loss was very great. The Earl strove, in his old fashion, to stifle sorrow in letters of business, but could not succeed: the result was, that he would discuss the one, Mary's past, and the other, Mary's future, till time waxed so short that he gladly accepted his son's assistance. Conversations with Richardson and orders to Frampton ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excess of nervous energy; it develops the will; it develops ambition to be virile. All wholesome recreation is an enemy of impurity. Jane Addams says that recreation is stronger than vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice.[51] Recreation which involves physical activity is the most helpful to the ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... Happy am I now, and proud, that I had the virtue to stifle it. For myself, escape by flight might not have been so problematical. A steed stood near that could have carried me beyond all danger. It only needed to fling myself into the saddle, and ply the spur. Even without ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... turned aside to wipe his eyes, and stifle the rising at his heart; and again he sat, and again he sought to soothe. At length Cesarini, seemingly more calm, gave him leave to depart. "Go," said he, "go; tell Teresa I am better, that I love her tenderly, that I shall live to tell her children ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... will and intellect is by far too easy, if well considered, to be the course prescribed by God to Man in this life of probation—for they evade probation altogether, though foolish people think otherwise. Chop off your legs, you will never go astray; stifle your reason altogether and you will find it is difficult to reason ill. 'It is hard to make these sacrifices!'—not so hard as to lose the reward or incur the penalty of an Eternity to come; 'hard to effect them, then, and go through with them'—not ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... 'Come away, Roger, ere I stifle—come, i' the devil's name!' So they went and I, lying hid secure, watched them ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... will be here soon," she murmured amiably; "I am rather tired of waiting." She affected to stifle a yawn. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... first played the tune all our sheep know as, one after one, So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed; And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 40 Into eve and the blue far above us—so blue and ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... was repeatedly heard at intervals, which coming from him who, by those who did not know him, had been so often assimilated to that ferocious animal[1033], while we who were sitting around could hardly stifle laughter, produced a very ludicrous effect. Silence having ensued, he proceeded: 'We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.' Mr. Gibbon muttered, in a low tone ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... well enough," said Ramorny, "that the rumour may stifle the truth for a short time. But ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... sight the rifle, And smite with spear and knife, Let no base cunning stifle Each lesson of your life: How won your gallant sires The country which ye keep? By soul, which still inspires The soil on which ye weep! Leap up! their spirit fires, And ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... that it is lavished oftener upon others than upon himself; he gives without thought or stint, and is the continual dupe of his benevolence and his trustfulness in human nature. We may say of him as he says of one of his heroes, "He could not stifle the natural impulse which he had to do good, but frequently borrowed money to relieve the distressed; and when he knew not conveniently where to borrow, he has been observed to shed tears as he passed through the wretched suppliants who attended ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the possibility of overcharging the public to make returns on watered stock is cut out, and the loss falls upon the investor. But in the case of monopolies, such as railways, or of combinations which practically stifle competition, the public may be charged enough to "pay a fair dividend to investors," although the money upon which dividends are being made went not into improving the service, but into fattening the promoters' purses. [Footnote: On stock watering, see ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the lessees who sublet them, but I call it pathetic that they should count it joy to come where we should think it misery to stay. Still, everything is comparative, and I suppose they are as reasonably happy in New York as I am in my London lodgings in the London season, where I sometimes stifle in a heat not so pure and clear as that I ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... responsibility, and thrift,—germs absolutely necessary to the well-being of a race. It laid no foundation of morality, but in place of morality saw cultivated a superstitious, emotional, hysterical religion. It is true that it taught a savage race subordination and obedience. Nor did it stifle certain inherent temperamental virtues, faithfulness, often highly developed, and frequently cheerfulness and philosophic contentment in a situation that would have broken the spirit of a more sensitive race. In short, under all the disadvantages ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to nature. I no more will school my heart To stifle its best feelings, play an idle ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... were covered with buffalo or bear hide, and winter garments were brought out. Even inside the palisade one could see a great change in apparel and adornment. The booths were no longer invitingly open, but here and there were inns and places of evening resort where the air was not only enough to stifle one, but so blue with smoke you could hardly see your neighbor's face. No merry parties sang songs upon the river nor went up to the lake in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than in the dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.' This evil was chiefly due to 'the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press. His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 167. Smollett in Humphrey Clinker (published in 1771) makes ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... friends to nightly comfort, a first-class spring and a hair mattress, are vastly important. If the still, small voice of economy whispers that other mattresses are "just as good," stifle it. The hair mattress is the only really sanitary one, since it can be washed and made over and plumped up times without number, and surely no other enjoys the distinction of descending from generation to generation, with the other family treasures. Hair mattresses cost ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... understand the real meaning of the new movement. Although the wider effect of the scientific revival in modifying theological doctrine was not yet fully apparent, the irreconcilables grew fewer and less noisy, while the injustice of their attempts to stifle the new doctrine and to ostracise its supporters ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley |
