DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Oppressive' Quotes from Famous Books

... escape these oppressive laws that many emigrated to the colonies in America and established new settlements. Not only was the stream of emigration kept up by religious persecutions, but the prosperity and abundant opportunity for advancement furnished by the colonies ...

— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... and oppressive silence. Charity, quivering with anger, started forward, and then stood silent, too humbled for speech. Harney's eyes had dropped under the old man's gaze; but he raised them presently, and looking steadily at Mr. Royall, said: "Miss Royall is ...

— Summer • Edith Wharton

... very subdued throughout the next day; his head was full of the oppressive secret, and he had no heart for new enterprises. At school his mates found him taciturn and uncompanionable, and Joel Ham was astonished at his obedience and industry. Harry Hardy returned home on the Wednesday evening, and visited Mrs. Haddon's kitchen that night. His head was swathed ...

— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... seats in fact were now occupied by ladies, and what with the strong perfume of violets and the exhalations of warm necks and shoulders the atmosphere was becoming most oppressive. The fans flapped more briskly, and clear laughter rang out amidst a growing hubbub of conversation in which the same words constantly recurred. Some news, doubtless, had just arrived, some rumour was being whispered from group to group, throwing ...

— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... a long time, swelling at moments into a roar of frenzied rage, then sinking to an uneven growl, broken by spasmodic yells. On asking what it meant, I was told that a crowd of poor folk had gathered before the Municipio to demonstrate against an oppressive tax called the fuocatico. This is simply hearth-money, an impost on each fireplace where food is cooked; the same tax which made trouble in old England, and was happily got rid of long ago. But the hungry plebs of Cotrone lacked vigour for any effective self-assertion; they ...

— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... could see no sign of any kind of life. What was more portentous, the mossy sod he stood upon was frozen, and there were smears of snow among the straggling firs upon a rather higher ridge. Inland, the little breeze seemed to have fallen dead away, and there was an oppressive silence which the rumble of ...

— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... to be paid annually at Easter. Thus cut off from their ordinary modes of living, they had recourse to the clipping of money and other illegal modes of debasing the coin; and after trials, fines, and executions of the most oppressive and unjustifiable description, were finally banished ...

— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... within him—for the half-clad woman, who went out alone into the dark of the chilly May night. He hastily came out on the deck—it was a starlit, but moonless night; the coolness and the darkness embraced him. On the shore the golden-red pile of coals was still glimmering. Foma listened—an oppressive stillness filled the air, only the water was murmuring, breaking against the anchor chains. There was not a sound of footsteps to be heard. Foma now longed to call the woman, but he did not know her name. Eagerly inhaling the fresh air into his broad chest, he stood on deck for a few minutes. ...

— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... all round, wondering how he got there, and moved off toward the T—— bridge. He was pale and his eyes were hot, and feebleness was in all his members, but he seemed to breathe easier. He felt that he had thrown off the old time which had been so oppressive; and in its place had come peace and light. "Lord!" he prayed, "show me my way, that I may renounce these horrid thoughts ...

— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This oppressive system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages as a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction of letters, mitigated the fierceness of ...

— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... What place does free will hold among the nations of to-day? Patriotism has assumed an extraordinarily oppressive form. During no other age in history has it been so tyrannical and so exclusive. It devours everything. Our country, to-day, claims to rank above religion, above art, science, thought, above civilisation. ...

— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... the Court granted an arrest chiefly on the informality of the indictment. No man has a higher reverence for the law of England than I have; but, with all deference I cannot help thinking, that prosecution by indictment, if a defendant is never to be allowed to justify, must often be very oppressive, unless Juries, whom I am more and more confirmed in holding to be judges of law as well as of fact, resolutely interpose. Of late an act of Parliament has passed declaratory of their full right to one as well as the other, in matter of libel; and the bill having been brought in by ...

— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... people on earth, and the chief political problem with which we are wrestling to-day is to see that that enjoyment is confirmed to them in perpetuity—not taken from them or hampered or limited by any power of an oppressive capitalism. We are spending more money, more energy, more earnest thought on the study of education as a science or art and on the endowment of educational establishments than any other people; as a result we hope that the next generation of Americans, besides being the most ...

— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... when the Roxbury community was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of competition, he would gladly have been laid under the sod, as the isolated home seemed so solitary, silent, and selfish that the whole atmosphere was oppressive. ...

— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... through the forest. It was toilsome work, as they often had to clear a way with axes through the undergrowth and tangle of creepers. But at noon they reached level ground. The heat was now intense, even under the trees, and the air close and oppressive. On the way down Harry shot a wild turkey. When they halted, this was cut up and broiled over a fire, and after it had been eaten all lay down and slept for ...

— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... and looked up at me until the silence between us grew oppressive. Then with a sudden, "Oh, what's the use!" turned and hurried off. But I caught up with her ...

— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... to get away from the Dip, and back to the manager's house, where we refreshed ourselves by a delicious cup of tea, and soon after started for a nice long drive home in the cool, clear evening air. The days are very hot, but never oppressive; and the mornings and evenings are deliciously fresh and invigorating. You can remain out late without the least danger. Malaria is unknown, and, in spite of the heavy rains, there is no such thing as damp. Our way lay through very pretty country—a series of terraces, with a range ...

— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... hastened his son's departure, that the voyage might be made before his increasing weakness should set it aside; his parting from Maurice, therefore, he dreaded as a final one. Mrs. Costello had vaguer, but equally oppressive forebodings. She saw that in all probability a few weeks longer would find her peaceful home deserted, and herself and Lucia fugitives. Even if Maurice, transported into a new world with new interests and incalculably brighter prospects, should still retain ...

— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... others it was half a mile wide. When the rocks were not precipitous the sides were clothed with a luxuriant foliage, among which the birds maintained a concert of call and song. So sheltered were they that, high as it was above the sea, the heat was very oppressive; and when they reached the head of the valley, late in the afternoon, they were glad indeed of a bathe in a pool ...

— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... fortnight after the time when this ship crossed these parts of the Atlantic, a similar effect was produced on board the English ship Roxburgh. One of the passengers, the Rev. W. B. Clarke, says:—"The sky was overcast, and the weather thick and insufferably oppressive, though the thermometer was only 72 degrees. At 3 P.M. Feb. 4, the wind suddenly lulled into a calm; then rose from the SW. accompanied by rain, and the air appeared to be filled with dust, which ...

— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... of the tax were to be divided one-third to Ulster, one-third to Connaught, and the remainder between the Queen of the Monarch and the ruler of Munster. In this way all the other Provinces became interested in enforcing this invidious and oppressive enactment upon Leinster which, of course, was withheld whenever it could be refused with the smallest probability of success. Its resistance, and enforcement, especially by the kings of Munster, will be found a constant cause of civil ...

— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... we have entered the sanctuary, and the alarming sensation of nature's hostility is softened. We white men like to talk about our mastery over nature, but is it not rather true that we flee from nature, as its most intense manifestations are oppressive to us? Is not the savage, living so very close to nature, more its master, or at least its friend, than we are? We need space and the sight of sun and sky to feel happy; the night of the forest, the loneliness of the ocean are terrible ...

— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... felt the weight of this question so oppressive that they left the irritating company of Mr Bramble, and walked off and joined themselves to a group of Fourth Form fellows, who were watching the match with sulky interest, evidently sore that they had none of their men ...

— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... were none with us. The stillness of the Sabbath was over all. The gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us. The lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on either side and tinged the water calm and still. The silence grew oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. We saw on the right as the only moving thing, a long, slim yacht dart out from among the bushes and steal its way up half-hidden in the shadows. Suddenly it was overtaken by either message or ...

— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... a gentleman belonging to the law, and one of the best gentlemen that ever I knew, for he was not only good to me, but I know a thousand good and charitable acts which he did while I staid with him; and I have known him often refuse business because it was paultry and oppressive." "You need not be so particular," said Allworthy; "I know this gentleman, and a very worthy man he is, and an honour to his profession."—"Well, sir," continued Partridge, "from hence I removed to Lymington, where I was above three years in the service of another lawyer, who ...

— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... which the capitalists made their profits, and under which the workers had to toil, were very oppressive to the workers. The hours of work at that period were from sunrise to sunset. Usually this rule, especially in the seasons of long days, required twelve, and very often fourteen and sixteen, hours a day. Yet the so-called statesmen and the pretentious cultured ...

— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... man approached us. He was very heavy, very unwieldy, very unctuous and oppressive. He affected the "honest farmer," but so badly that the poorest husbandman would have resented it. There was a suggestion of a cheap lawyer about him that would have justified any self-respecting judge in throwing him over the bar at once. ...

— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... election. And, acting so, this political conspiracy is able to delay, mutilate or defeat sound and needed laws for the people's welfare and the prosperity of honest business and even to enact bad laws, hurtful to the people's welfare and oppressive to ...

— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... unearthing of the plans of the anti-trust advocates. In every city detectives are untiring in their efforts to discover the work of the Committee of Forty. It is suspected that the committee is to obtain damaging evidence against some of the most oppressive of the monopolies and bring the full story of the wholesale robbery of the people out as a climax in ...

— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... looked to it for the progress of humanity, there came the wind of brute force: the inability of the majority to govern themselves, their venality, their corruption, their base and fearful hatred of all superiority, their oppressive cowardice, raised the spirit of revolt: the minorities of energy—every kind of minority—appealed from the majority to force. A queer, yet inevitable alliance was brought about between the royalists of the Action Francaise ...

— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... tell you how monotonously oppressive the daily round of institution life gets to be. The only glimmer in the whole dull affair is the fact that Betsy Kindred spends four days a week with us. Betsy and I were in college together, and we do occasionally find something ...

— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... slowly on his way his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly Autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples—some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts and holding out the promise of cakes ...

— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... Honolulu reluctantly, but tarried there joyfully. The fine climate, with its even temperature of about eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and with all that is enervating or oppressive in that degree of heat winnowed out of it by the ceaseless trade winds; the almost unbroken sunshine, perfumed now and then by a sprinkle of sunlit rain from the mountains; the wonderful sea laving the shores on the one hand and ...

— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... favoured of health resorts (especially since our good Queen Adelaide resided there), and particularly for chest complaints. But, from my own experience and that of many others (Europeans) who have resided there a long time, I can scarcely reconcile this to fact. It is exceedingly hot and oppressive in summer, the glare from the rocks and stone buildings being very injurious to the eyes, and the heat retained by the limestone during the day making the houses very close and sultry in the night. Towards autumn and winter there are violent ...

— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... and silence was too oppressive to be endured, so she cast about desperately for a topic of conversation. The entourage was not particularly suggestive,—four white-washed walls and the chair she was sitting on comprised the furniture. Clearly she could not take in ...

— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... blindly in the unaccustomed glare. As the karlon bored still deeper, the living things became scarcer, but still occasional fleeting glimpses were obtained of the living nightmares which inhabited the oppressive depths of these strange seas. Continuing downward, the karlon plumbed the nethermost pit of the ocean and came to rest upon the bottom, stirring up a murk ...

— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... the monotony of this strange prospect grows oppressive. I seek the engine room, and in the company of some of the few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked up from temporary rafts, I forget the general aspect of desolation in their individual misery. Later we meet the San Francisco ...

— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... only the planning where to put tables and chairs that would have tried her today: she has had Mr. Vigors on her hands all the afternoon, and he has been—here's her little note—what are the words? No doubt 'most overpowering and oppressive;' no, 'most kind and attentive,'—different words, but, as applied to Mr. Vigors, they mean ...

— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Charles Frohman. It is pleasant, at times, to record managerial enterprise that cannot possibly be a bid for pecuniary reward. Mr. Frohman, whose name is often unfortunately mentioned in connection with the sad, cruel, oppressive, commercial speculators in dramatic "goods," belongs absolutely and utterly to another class. It is ten thousand pities that the enthusiasm and real artistic fervor of this undaunted, farseeing manager should ...

— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... phial not being attended to, two doses of it were given after a nausea had been excited, which, with occasional vomitings, became exceedingly oppressive. A saline draught, given in Dr. Hulme's method, a draught sal. c. c. gr. xii. c. conf. card. gr. x. produced no immediate effect, but the nausea gradually abating, inf. bacc. junip. was ordered; but ...

— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... the great advantage, it seems to me, that America possesses over the Old World is its material and moral plasticity. Even among the giant structures of this city, one feels that there is nothing rigid, nothing oppressive, nothing inaccessible to the influence of changing conditions. If the buildings are Cyclopean, so is the race that reared them. The material world seems as clay on the potter's wheel, visibly taking on the impress of the human spirit; and the human spirit, as embodied ...

— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... in fitful dashes from the southeast, began to come more steadily and swiftly after eleven o'clock, and was so warm that the snow softened to a sloppy state. The air carried a tinge of haze, and conditions were oppressive. It was labor to breathe. Never, except one deadly hot July day in New York City, have I felt so overcome with heat and choking air. Perspiration simply streamed from me. These oppressive conditions continued for ...

— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... memorable motto, "Ecrasez l'Infame," is interpreted and applied. He did not mean Jesus Christ by l'Infame; he did not mean the Christian religion by it; he did not even mean the Christian Church by it; he meant the oppressive despotism and the crass obscurantism of the Roman-Catholic hierarchy. At least, this is what he would have said that he meant, what in fact he substantially did say that he meant, when incessantly reiterating, in its various forms, his watchword, ...

— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... though the heat pour'd down with a strength little less oppressive than at noon. Frank had accomplish'd the greater part of his journey; he was within two miles of his home. The road here led over a high, tiresome hill, and he determined to stop on the top of it and rest himself, as well as give the animal he rode a few minutes' breath. How well he ...

— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... lower levels than we need to do. We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys, when we might be climbing the sunlit hills. God puts into our hands the Book of Life, bright on every page with open secrets, and we suffer it to drop out of our hands unread. Emerson says, ...

— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Ned could not see the red flag on the tower of the church of San Fernando. But he knew it was there, waving a little in the soft wind which blew out of the southwest, herald of spring. Nothing broke the silence. After so much noise, it was ominous, oppressive, surcharged with threats. Fewer lights than usual burned in the town and in the Mexican camp. All this stillness portended to Ned the coming ...

— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... new and costly buildings. Senators, knights, young men of rank who had been extravagant, had been relieved by his generosity and were his pensioners. Gaul might have been impatient at its loss of liberty, but no word of complaint was heard against Caesar for oppressive government. The more genius he had shown the more formidable he was. Let him be consul, and he would be ...

— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... system. They made their theology more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities, Brahma, the author of all things, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva ...

— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... been less of an object of her thoughts, less of a motive for her labours, she could sooner have realized it. As it was, she followed his poor, cast-off, worn-out body as if she were borne along by some oppressive dream. If he were really dead, how could ...

— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... He turned irresolutely, and they walked together down the plank pathway, Kitty with an oppressive sense of having fallen into the clutch of one of the Primal Forces, who was about to settle her destiny for her; in which she stumbled almost on the truth. Miss Muller was quite aware of the fact of her brother's ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.' Who could imagine, that, in the face of this solemn declaration, acts, the most oppressive and tyrannical, would be passed—compelling pretended uniformity in belief and real uniformity in the mode of public worship—driving the most pious and useful clergymen from their pulpits and livings—preventing ...

— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... things are my diversion." They sat by him while he perused it, and saw his features writhing with anguish: and young Richardson said to his father, when they returned, that he hoped to be preserved from such diversion as had been that day the lot of Pope. From this time, finding his diseases more oppressive, and his vital powers gradually declining, he no longer strained his faculties with any original composition, nor proposed any other employment for his remaining life than the revisal and correction of his former works, in which he received advice and assistance from Warburton, whom he appears ...

— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... an array of glittering poets, Shelley, Rossetti, Keats, Browning, and odd volumes of Ruskin, South Place Sermons, Socialistic publications in torn paper covers, and above, science text-books and note-books in an oppressive abundance. The autotypes that hung about the room were eloquent of aesthetic ambitions and of a certain impermeability to implicit meanings. There were the Mirror of Venus by Burne Jones, Rossetti's Annunciation, Lippi's ...

— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... pushed past, and occupied a vacant chair, between the other officers, laying his sword on the table. My eyes swept about the circle of faces seeking De Artigny, but he was not present. But for a slight shuffling of feet, the silence was oppressive. Cassion's unpleasant ...

— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... majority of the white voters of the District are opposed to the contemplated law, that they have recently given a public expression of their opinion against it, and that for that reason it would be unjust and oppressive in Congress to pass this law. In my judgment, this is a question not concerning alone the wishes and prejudices of the seven thousand voters who dwell in this District, but involving, it may be, the ...

— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... fifteen minutes slipped by without the return of either Ailsee or her father. The footfalls in the forest died away, and the stillness was becoming oppressive. ...

— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... monopolies had gone on continually increasing; scarce any article was exempt from these oppressive patents. When a list of them was read over in the House, a member exclaimed: "Is not bread among the number?" The House seemed amazed. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy is found for them, bread will be there before the next parliament." Every tongue seemed now unloosed, each ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... breeze could scarcely be felt, yet, though the sun scorched me, the heat was not oppressive. The woods, dense and tangled though they were, threw up no exhalations of mud or rotting leaves, but a clean, aromatic odour. It seemed to give them a substance without which they had been but a mirage, a scene painted on a cloth, so motionless and apparently lifeless ...

— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... began to consider that several days passed thus aimlessly would be difficult to bear. I could not keep correct count of time, my watch having stopped, and there was no clock or chime of any sort in the place that I could hear. The stillness around me would have been oppressive but for the soft dash of little waves breaking on the beach below my window. All at once, to my great joy, the door of my room opened, and the personage called Honorius entered. He bent his head slightly by way of salutation, and ...

— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... an hour did not abate for a considerable time. This, of course, was owing to the fact that there was a continuous current blowing northward in the higher regions of the atmosphere. The sun, meantime, glowed overhead with four mock-suns around him, nevertheless the heat was not oppressive, partly because the voyagers were sitting at rest, and partly because a slight current of cool air, the creation of their own progress, fanned their cheeks. Still further to add to the charm, flocks of sea-birds circling in the air or dipping in the water, a berg or two floating ...

— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... ballast, and with nothing but vapid sweets and faded flowers on board. The profusion, indeed, of flowers and birds, which this poet had ready on all occasions, —not to mention dews, gems, etc.—was a most oppressive kind of opulence to his hearers; and had the unlucky effect of giving to his style all the glitter of the flower garden without its method, and all the flutter of the aviary without its song. In addition to this, he chose his subjects ...

— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... himself, in scattered scenes, in haphazard glimpses into the lives of his characters, in seemingly trivial conversations, has succeeded in so concentrating the atmosphere of the Russia of his day that we feel it in every line we read, oppressive as the mists that hang over a lake at dawn, and, like those mists, made visible to us by the ...

— Swan Song • Anton Checkov

... darkly tinted, strongly built man, with big brown eyes, tremendous arms, and an oppressive manner. To him Mr. Ricketty at ...

— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... courtesan of the Italian Renaissance, Japanese geishas, Chinese flower-girls, and Indian bayaderas, all show some not unnoble features, the breath of a free artistic existence. They have achieved—with, it is true, the sacrifice of their highest worth—an independence from the oppressive rule of man and of household duties, and a part of the feminine endowment which is so often crippled comes in them to brilliant development. Prostitution in its best form may thus offer a path by which these feminine characteristics may exert ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... channel, is more temperate in the interior, although the coasts are hot. The site of the city of Manila is hot, for it is on the coast and is low; but in its vicinity, quite near the city, there are districts and settlements much cooler, where the heat is not oppressive. The same is true of the other head of the island, opposite China, named Cagayan. The seasons of the year—winter and summer—are contrary to those in Europe; for the rains generally last in all these islands ...

— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... like areas, the lower atmosphere is gradually heated from week to week, and, as in Australia the quivering of the air over the hot ground foreshadows the whirlwind, and in Africa the mirage threatens the simoom, so in the West Indies a continuance of close, sultry weather, an oppressive calm, precedes the hurricane. When at last the huge vortex is formed, the heated atmosphere rushes towards it from all sides, and is drained upwards in a spiral column, just as in the dust-eddy, on a gigantic scale. Unlike the air of the dust-eddy, that of the hurricane coming from the warm ...

— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... immediate prospect, men are encouraged to give the rein to their passions, trusting that the coming ceremony will wipe out the score which they are running up so fast. On the other hand, when the ceremony has just taken place, men's minds are freed from the oppressive sense, under which they generally labour, of an atmosphere surcharged with devils; and in the first revulsion of joy they overleap the limits commonly imposed by custom and morality. When the ceremony takes place ...

— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Union and Criminal Amendment Bills he attempted several amendments on behalf of the working man, and was successful in some, particularly in excluding the jurisdiction of Justices of Peace from such cases in Scotland, which renders that Act less oppressive in Scotland ...

— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... attached 65 To principles, not persons, spurn the idol They worshipp'd once. Yes, Robespierre shall fall As Capet fell! Oh! never let us deem That France shall crouch beneath a tyrant's throne, That the almighty people who have broke 70 On their oppressors' heads the oppressive chain, Will court again their fetters! easier were it To hurl the cloud-capt mountain from its base, Than force the bonds of slavery upon men Determined to be free! ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... of the new ring gave her a momentary pleasure, but she was in a mood that nothing could please her long. When she strolled into the drawing-room, everything was in spotless order, and so quiet that the stillness was oppressive. Even the fire burned with a steady, noiseless glow, without the usual crackle, and the ashes fell on the hearth with ...

— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the common near the station, and entered the pillared aisles of the pines, the air was less oppressive, but a dun haze seemed on every side to curtain the horizon, and the stars looked bleared and tired in the breathless vault above her. A man driving two cows toward town, stared at her; then a wagon drawn by four horses rattled along, ...

— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... businesses like telegraph, railway, and mining, must sooner or later be bought and operated out and out by public authority. Nothing had done so much to promote this conviction as the rise, procedure, and wealth of these Trusts, for from the oppressive greed of many of them no legislative regulation seemed sufficient to ...

— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... by the panic of 1819, the popular antagonism to the banks in general, and especially to the Bank of the United States, as "engines of aristocracy," oppressive to the common people, and the general discontent with the established order, had, as we have seen, produced a movement comparable to the populist agitation ...

— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... cheerful, where each herb Was in itself a meal, and every vine Rained, as it were, the beverage which makes glad The heart of man; and the ne'er unfelt sun (But rarely clouded, and when clouded, leaving His warmth behind in memory of his beams) Makes the worn mantle, and the thin robe, less Oppressive than an emperor's jewelled purple. But, here! the despots of the north appear To imitate the ice-wind of their clime, 720 Searching the shivering vassal through his rags, To wring his soul—as the bleak elements His form. And 'tis to be amongst these sovereigns My husband pants! and such ...

— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... speak to any one, I am greatly distressed, and I suffer so much that it makes me weep abundantly; for my whole desire is to be alone, and solitude comforts me, though at times I neither pray nor read, and conversation—particularly of kindred and connections—seems oppressive, and myself to be as a slave, except when I speak to those whose conversation is of prayer and matters of the soul,—in these I find comfort and joy; [4] yet these occasionally are too much for me, and I would rather not see them, but go where I might be alone: though this ...

— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... twenty-third birthday was bright and sunshiny; she had slept well, but awoke with the oppressive consciousness that a terrible hard duty lay before her. When she came down there was a serious look in her eyes which did not escape Raeburn's keen observation. He was down before her, and had been out already, for he had managed somehow to procure a lovely handful of red and white roses ...

— We Two • Edna Lyall

... signification here (nobody ever pays the least attention to the sound, however hideous), the moaning and screaming of cats is believed to bode death; and in these times folks never appear to feel too sleepy to rise at any hour and drive them away when they begin their cries.... To-night—a night so oppressive that all but the sick are sitting up—almost a panic is created in our street by a screaming of cats;—and long after the creatures have been hunted out of sight and hearing, everybody who has a relative ill with the prevailing malady ...

— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of power which they believe to be illegal, and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive. ...

— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... upon a more extensive and liberal footing. But this last observation applies rather to the traders at a distance from the capital and to their transactions than to the conduct observed at Achin, which, according to the temper and example of the reigning monarch, is often narrow, extortionary, and oppressive. Their language is one of the general dialects of the eastern islands, and its affinity to the Batta may be observed in the comparative table; but they make use of the Malayan character. In religion they are Mahometans, and having many priests, ...

— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... should not care to be under so great obligations to any one. The burden would be oppressive. I should be all the while wondering what more I could do, while you, too, would be afraid that the little kindnesses which now are prompted in a great measure by love would be rendered from a sense of gratitude and duty. Wouldn't it be ...

— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... an insistent atmosphere of candor and fairness about this book which is engaging at first, then a little burdensome, then a trifle fatiguing, then progressively suspicious, annoying, irritating, and oppressive. It takes one some little time to find out that phrases which seem intended to guide the reader aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which seem intended to throw light are there to throw darkness; that phrases which seem intended to interpret a fact are there to misinterpret ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... friend successfully assume the lineaments of a gawk, and the deportment of a gorby, that he might evade the oppressive attentions of a companion given to gawster. The enemy whom he so adroitly dispersed bore a strong family likeness to a fraternal nuisance, whom we recently inspected, being, in fact, a new edition, on ...

— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... Russian Empire Was filled with estates Of wealthy Pomyeshchicks.[11] They lived and increased, And they let us live too. What weddings were feasted! What numbers and numbers 300 Of children were born In each rich, merry life-time! Although they were haughty And often oppressive, What liberal masters! They never deserted The parish, they married, Were baptized within it, To us they confessed, And by us they were buried. 310 And if a Pomyeshchick Should chance for some reason To ...

— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... regarded as the sole method of establishing power; the consequence was an almost perpetual revolutionary state of affairs."[64] Again, in the next chapter, commenting on the period between 1740 and 1786: "Hungary, in fact the chief, was treated like a conquered province; subjected to the most oppressive commercial restraints, it was regarded as a colony from which Austria exacted what she could for her own advantage. The injurious consequences of this internal discord are evident." Coming to modern times we find that oppression ...

— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... we dashed on with undiminished speed, when we felt the earth trembling behind us, and soon afterwards the distant bellowing mixed up with the roaring and sharper cries of other animals, were borne down unto our ears. The atmosphere grew oppressive and heavy, while the flames, swifter than the wind, appeared raging upon the horizon. The fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with ...

— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... darkness. He was hungry and thirsty, and he looked round for those fruits he had heard of; but he could see none of them at the time, and the more he sought his way out, the deeper he seemed to get into the forest. The air was very sultry and oppressive, too; he grew weary and faint, quite sick at heart, and even the limbs of his good horse seemed to be failing him, and hardly able ...

— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... more womanly than I had supposed, and simpler. Even yet I don't see how you can carry this oppressive weight of advertising glory and still ...

— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... a momentary tribute to Wentworth Higginson. Devoting himself heroically to his great work, absorbed in its duties, and bearing his oppressive responsibility as the leader of a regiment in which to a great extent are now involved the fortunes of a race, he adds another honorable name to the true chivalry of ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... name was off the roster of the house, and till the end of the month her time was her own. The afternoon was hot and very still. Even in the cool, stone-built agency, with its windows wide and heavily shaded with awnings, the heat was oppressive. For a long time Lloyd had been shut away from fresh air and the sun, and now she suddenly decided to drive out in the City's park. She rang up her stable and ordered Lewis to put ...

— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... Whoever watched the course of events during the last four years of the Empire must have observed, as I did, that from the date of Napoleon's marriage with Maria Louisa the form of the French Government became daily more and more tyrannical and oppressive. The intolerable height which this evil had attained is evident from the circumstance that at the end of 1813 the Legislative Body, throwing aside the mute character which it had hitherto maintained, presumed to give a lecture to him who had ...

— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... listen, and the moving and eloquent words of his wife at length found a willing ear. Simon's face gradually lightened up, and it seemed to him that he was now able to release his wife from an oppressive, burdensome load. ...

— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... teachers and parents,—and the pupil must, of course, co-operate in their plan,—to enlarge her mental vision, to fortify her intellect against limited notions, and to strengthen her judgment. The atmosphere of the fireside is often close and oppressive; let her in her youth, breathe the free air of heaven. So will her mental constitution be invigorated and ...

— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... in another interview all would be arranged according to the wishes his client had so nobly conveyed to him. Mr. Beaufort's conscience on this point was therefore set at rest. It was a dull, close, oppressive morning, upon which the remains of Catherine Morton were consigned to the grave. With the preparations for the funeral Philip did not interfere; he did not inquire by whose orders all that solemnity of mutes, and coaches, and ...

— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of a more thrilling character than that of Mafeking, but if you consider the story of this little town's defence you will find, I believe, that in few other cases have difficulties of so oppressive a character been borne with greater fortitude and courage. In a large town a siege is not so wearing to the nerves as it is in a little village the size of Mafeking; and in the case of this miniature garrison the troublesomeness has been doubled by the small number ...

— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... sword in his hand, Tressilian found that a turn to the left admitted him and Hobgoblin, who followed closely, into a small, square vault, containing a smith's forge, glowing with charcoal, the vapour of which filled the apartment with an oppressive smell, which would have been altogether suffocating, but that by some concealed vent the smithy communicated with the upper air. The light afforded by the red fuel, and by a lamp suspended in an iron chain, served to show that, besides an anvil, bellows, tongs, hammers, a quantity ...

— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... the room to see that his child was "tucked up" and properly covered for the night. Finding himself in the dark, where he could not be observed, he laughed deeply and silently, his mirth all the greater because of the oppressive gravity of every one else. Then bending over, he said, as ...

— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... it was cool even at noontide, but in Dringenstadt the heat was oppressive, and in spite of the sun-blinds the glare of light ...

— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous

... fairy table, and strolled out through the open windows into the garden. The air had grown hotter and more oppressive, the thunder louder. Frequent ...

— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... talk about besides your old woman?" asked the gambler, after an oppressive silence in which Montgomery heard only the thump of ...

— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... opinion and expression permitted among us, and their minds and consciences have become nerveless and supine to an astonishing degree; or, if thinking and feeling, as very many do, they suffer in silence, not daring to resist the oppressive faction that has ruled them so long. Moral force and courage is not the fruit of subserviency to the principles and ideas that have gradually filled the Southern mind. No wonder that the Union sentiment ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... chamber. Was the air oppressive? She opened the window and sat down by it. A soft south wind was blowing, eating away the remaining patches of snow; the sky was full of fleecy clouds. Where do these days come from in January? Why should nature be in a melting mood? Margaret instinctively would have preferred a wild ...

— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... and small has for its first rule: Meet the inquirer more than half way. To the stranger a library is often an oppressive place, an awesome place—in his imagination. He comes in shyly; everyone appears busy, his question suddenly seems to him trivial; he won't trouble these wise and busy people with ...

— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... in London to clear himself of charges preferred against him by the planters, while a Captain James was exercising authority as "President" in the island. (C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660. pp. 313, 314.) Fload was probably the "English captain" referred to in de Poincy's memoir. His oppressive rule seems to have been felt as well by the English as by ...

— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... two set forth from the house. The day was as fine as could be; there was no wind, there was no dust; the sun was not oppressive; and Mrs. Montgomery did feel refreshed and strengthened during the few steps they had to take to their ...

— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... below again is found another bed of rock salt, which averages in thickness about 90 feet. It is the lower bed of rock salt which is mined. The bottom of the mine down which I went was 330 feet below the surface, but the atmosphere was delightful, being cool and dry and not in the least oppressive. A magnificent chamber, 25 feet high and 17 acres in extent, had been dug out of the salt, and its extent could easily be gauged by the help of the candles which had been lit all round the mine. Massive pillars of salt of 10 ...

— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... century, the Turguts, a branch of the Kalmuck Tartars, unable to endure the oppressive tyranny of their rulers, trekked into Russia, and settled on the banks of the Volga. Some seventy years later, once more finding the burden of taxation too heavy, they again organized a trek upon a colossal scale. Turning their faces eastward, they spent a whole year of fearful suffering ...

— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... sailed over the calm ocean, the surface just rippled by a gentle breeze, generally so much in our favour that we were able to rig out our big square sail, and to carry a topmast studding-sail. Though it was near the line the heat was not very oppressive, unless when the wind fell altogether, and then it was hot. Though I speak of the ocean being calm, there was always a perceptible swell, more perceptible when we were on the weather-side of a coral reef, against which the swell, finding an impediment ...

— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... think how little I had foreseen when Soviet Russia was compelled last year to sign an oppressive peace with Germany, that the time would come when they would be trying to buy peace from ourselves. As I went out I saw another unhappy figure, unhappy for quite different reasons. Angelica Balabanova, after dreaming all her life of socialism in the most fervent Utopian spirit, had come ...

— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... alluring in May and June, had become an oppressive weight to those most sensitive to the weather, and as the air grew chill and the skies overcast, the women turned with apprehensive faces to the untracked northwest, out of which the winds swept pitilessly cold and ...

— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... could have done it. But when the Czechs did it, a Slavic, Russian-speaking people gained control of a city that gladly welcomed their intervention. The same idea explains their marvelous success in Russia. Having braved death rather than fight Russians, the Czechs can now fight oppressive Russian elements without having their motives misunderstood or ...

— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... all the rest of the table furniture, sir; though I suppose these muscle-men will not have much use for any but the oyster-knives, as I am informed they eat with their fingers. I declare it is quite oppressive and unhuman to have such ...

— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Russia during the eighteenth century, the Turks lost nearly all their European possessions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The subject peoples had kept their national traditions and customs and from time to time they aimed at independence. The Turkish rule was oppressive and at times its methods were barbarous. If there had been no jealousies among the great European powers, it is probable that Russia would have occupied Constantinople long ago. The other powers, fearing this might make Russia too strong, interfered on several occasions to prevent such an occupation. ...

— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was tremendous—so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have burst. The struggles of the tiger became more violent than ever, and its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold perspiration broke out all over the man, and he ...

— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and ...

— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... the way?" insisted Ricardo with an affectation of incredulity which Heyst accepted calmly, though the air in the room seemed to grow more oppressive ...

— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... action, the tone of the system is greatly impaired, and it responds more feebly to the influence of curative agents. Tobacco itself, when its use becomes habitual and excessive, gives rise to the most unpleasant and dangerous pathological conditions. Oppressive torpor, weakness or loss of intellect, softening of the brain, paralysis, nervous debility, dyspepsia, functional derangement of the heart, and diseases of the liver and kidneys are not uncommon consequences of the excessive employment of this ...

— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... development. The result of his numerous wars had been the extension of his frontiers, and the subjugation of various nations; these latter welcomed the Spaniards with eagerness, thinking that their dominion must surely be less oppressive and less cruel than that ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... men, besides two clerks and four midshipmen. It was pretty close stowing, when all hands except those on watch were below, and the atmosphere, redolent of tobacco-smoke and rum, was occasionally somewhat oppressive. As the brig had been some time in commission, the greater part of the glass and crockery had disappeared. There were a few plates of different patterns, which were eked out with platters, saucers, and two or three wooden ...

— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... from Great Britain was justified. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." This famous aphorism of James Otis, although sufficient for the occasion when it was put forth, expresses but a fragment of the principle, because government can be oppressive through means of many appliances besides that of taxation. The true principle is, that all government over persons deprived of any voice in such government, is tyranny. That is the principle of the Declaration of Independence. We were slow in allowing its application to ...

— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... this Paris Pandemonium, or City of All the Devils!—And yet the Night, as Mayor Petion walks here in the Tuileries Garden, 'is beautiful and calm;' Orion and the Pleiades glitter down quite serene. Petion has come forth, the 'heat' inside was so oppressive. (Roederer, Chronique de Cinquante Jours: Recit de Petion. Townhall Records, &c. in Hist. Parl. xvi. 399-466.) Indeed, his Majesty's reception of him was of the roughest; as it well might be. And now there is no outgate; Mandat's blue Squadrons turn you back at every Grate; nay the Filles-Saint-Thomas ...

— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... a powerful aristocracy, nor is it possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are ruthless tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects punishments more grievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visited with; not content with beating them with sticks or flogging them with knotted ropes, they are in ...

— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... when the president took the chair with a grave, solemn countenance. This countenance told the deputies of the people that the president had an important and very unusual message to communicate, and a deep stillness, an oppressive silence, overspread the whole assemblage as the president rose from his ...

— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... incidents of the prophet's call and the incidents between the first and the second captivities; they then denounce those nations that had part in the destruction of Jerusalem and those that had been bitter and oppressive in their dealings with Israel and Judah; they close with messages of comfort and cheer for the exiled people; (2) Daniel. (3) Lamentations. Besides a portion of the book of Jeremiah and probably of ...

— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... travelling for an interminable time, but it was barely eleven o'clock. I sat down to eat, and the thought occurred to me that this would make a good camping place, if necessary, for it was quite warm at such a depth below the surface of the hills, and my fur coat had begun to feel oppressive. I felt drowsy, too, and somehow, before I was aware of any fatigue, I ...

— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... of Paris, and everything had the air of suspended animation. The solitude of the Place Vendome was something oppressive; I felt, as I trod its lonely sidewalk, as if I were wandering through Tadmor in the Desert. We were indeed as remote, as unfriended,—I will not say as melancholy or as slow,—as Goldsmith by the side of the lazy Scheldt or the wandering Po. Not a soul did either of ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... existence as an independent state; Basil II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general treatment of the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a protectorate than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule became much more oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972 established at Okhrida) was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025 the see was given to a Greek, who lost no time in eliminating the Bulgarian element from positions of importance throughout his diocese. Many ...

— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... her share of the magnificent standing-pie, that Mrs. Underwood reproved herself for thinking what the poor child would be if she had such fare and such air daily, instead of ill- dressed mutton in the oppressive smoke-laden atmosphere. ...

— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... about 10s. a head. Hepworth of Eardly was a very good fellow, who gave himself no airs and understood his duties as a country gentleman; but he could not be more than on a par with Carbury of Carbury, though he was supposed to enjoy L7,000 a year. The Longestaffes were altogether oppressive. Their footmen, even in the country, had powdered hair. They had a house in town,—a house of their own,—and lived altogether as magnates. The lady was Lady Pomona Longestaffe. The daughters, who certainly were handsome, ...

— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... probably on October 21, it was voted to expunge the plan, together with all resolutions referring to it, from the minutes. Nothing, as Benjamin Franklin wrote from England, could so encourage the British Government to persist in its oppressive policy as the knowledge that dissensions existed in the Congress; and since these dissensions did unfortunately exist, there was a widespread feeling that it would be the part of wisdom to conceal ...

— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... existence of these natural sources of alienation and disunion must be admitted, they furnish no justification for the general policy of England—first negligent, then jealous, then oppressive, and finally ...

— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy will be found in a Novelists' League, with tickets, and boycotting, and strikes, and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our own way in an oppressive world. There will be a secret society of professionals. Lady novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; their blotting-paper and French dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; their publishers will be boycotted by all members of the League, who will decline to publish with any man known to deal ...

— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... the haze in the west had thickened somewhat. The air, however, remained warm, almost oppressive, and the sharp cold that usually fell at night was wanting. The Ventisquero Peaks were hidden by a mass of cloud. At seven o'clock the night crew began work, as ordinarily; no wind was stirring and the steam that came from the horses' nostrils ...

— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... astonished when his wife had the affectation to die of a broken heart. I cannot pretend to explain this conduct. She ought, of course, to have been happy in the possession of so good a man; but good men are sometimes oppressive, and to have one in the house with you and to live in the daily glare of his goodness must be a tremendous business. After bearing him seven sons and three daughters, therefore, my grandmother died in the way described, and afforded, said my grandfather, another and a very curious ...

— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of that homeward voyage. He was comfortable at first, and then we ran into the humid, oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and he could not breathe. It seemed to me that the end might come at any moment, and this thought was in his own mind, but he had no dread, and his sense of humor did not fail. Once when the ship ...

— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... been less fortunate in war than yourselves. It is God who casteth down and who buildeth up, nor is there in the world a prospect to which the Varangians would look forward with more pleasure than that a hundred of their number should meet in a fair field, either with the oppressive Normans, or their modern compatriots, the vain Frenchmen, and let God be the judge which is ...

— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... little in fear of them it wasn't because they bullied me, because they had got an oppressive foothold, but because in their really pathetic decorum and mysteriously permanent newness they counted on me so intensely. I was therefore very glad when Jack Hawley came home: he was always of such good counsel. ...

— Some Short Stories • Henry James

... announce his arrival in India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship's arrival reached the office of the owners, and the Captain's wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her that the owners had given up Hope of ever hearing more of the Betsy-Jane, and had sent in their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone for ever, ...

— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... recollect that the old Eastern Empire, under which they were for many centuries, did not teach much uprightness or good faith; and that since that time they have had four hundred years of desperate fighting for their homes and their creed with a cruel and oppressive enemy, and that they deserve honour for their constancy even to the death. Let us hope they will learn all other virtues ...

— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Castlereagh, mischievous idiots like Perceval, were the tyrants, the curses of the country, the destroyers of her trade. It was their infatuated perseverance in an unjustifiable, a hopeless, a ruinous war, which had brought the nation to its present pass. It was their monstrously oppressive taxation, it was the infamous "Orders in Council"—the originators of which deserved impeachment and the scaffold, if ever public men did—that hung ...

— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... ever made me feel quite so old as that remark. That in my life, not yet, to me at least, a long one, I should see such an arc described seemed actually oppressive until I realized that, after all, the arc was merely a rainbow of time showing how gloriously realized were the hopes of the ...

— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... gain so much as she makes the colony lose. If, therefore, the mother-country refuses to acknowledge any reciprocity of obligations, she imposes a tribute on the colony in an indirect mode, greatly more oppressive and injurious than ...

— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... was apprised that his orders were fulfilled, his army united, and that a battle claimed his presence. He at length departed from Wilna on the 16th of July, at half-past eleven at night; he stopped at Swentziani, while the heat of the 17th was most oppressive; on the 18th he was at Klubokoe: taking up his residence at a monastery, whence he observed that the village which it commanded bore more resemblance to an assemblage of savage huts than ...

— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... to a great depth, we found on the right hand a narrow passage, perhaps not more than six feet wide, obstructed by great stones, over which we climbed and came into a second cave, in breadth twenty-five feet. The air in this apartment was very warm, but not oppressive, nor loaded with vapours. Our light showed no tokens of a feculent or corrupted atmosphere. Here was a square stone, called, as ...

— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... mental balance is visible in all that Lord Cromer wrote, whether, in his official despatches, his published books, or his private correspondence." It was audible, too, in his delightful conversation, which was vivid, active, and yet never oppressive. He spoke with the firm accent of one accustomed to govern, but never dictatorially. His voice was a very agreeable one, supple and various in its tones, neither loud nor low. Although he had formed the life-long habit ...

— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... the fire came. Weaver stood by his well, ready for the emergency, yet curious to see the breaking-in of the flames. The roaring increased in volume, the air became oppressive, a cloud of dust and cinders came showering down, and he could see the flame through the trees. It did not run along the ground, or leap from tree to tree, but it came on like a tornado, a sheet of flame reaching from the earth to the tops of the trees. As it struck the clearing he jumped ...

— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... with gloomy tidings. He had been authorised to make the most tempting offers to the inhabitants of that region. In particular he had promised that, if proper respect were shown to the royal wishes, the trade in tin should be freed from the oppressive restrictions under which it lay. But this lure, which at another time would have proved irresistible, was now slighted. All the justices and Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single dissenting voice, declared that they would ...

— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... which they were treacherously withdrawn. From them we learn that the Government soldiers were a terror to more than the king's enemies, that the king's rents were collected at the sword's point, and that numerous monopolies and oppressive taxes impoverished the country. There was little security for estates in any part of Ireland, and none at all for estates in Connaught. No man could sue out livery for his lands without first taking the oath of the royal supremacy. The soldiers enjoyed ...

— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... With vast increase beneath my care it spreads: A stately breed! and blackens far the meads. Constrain'd, the choicest beeves I thence import, To cram these cormorants that crowd his court: Who in partition seek his realm to share; Nor human right nor wrath divine revere, Since here resolved oppressive these reside, Contending doubts my anxious heart divide: Now to some foreign clime inclined to fly, And with the royal herd protection buy; Then, happier thoughts return the nodding scale, Light mounts despair, alternate hopes prevail: In opening prospects ...

— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... time affairs in the Southern States were, as a rule, growing worse and worse. The unreasonable arrogance and oppressive extravagance of the freedmen where they were in control, under the leadership of reckless carpet-baggers, and still more reckless and malicious white natives, had produced a revulsion in the minds of all ...

— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... suffrage of the people, are so distributed among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, into which the general government is arranged, that it can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form, so long as there shall remain any virtue in ...

— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... my mother, who had been for several years in a very declining state of health, from a violent nervous affection, which produced a constant oppressive head-ache, was put to bed of a son, her sixth child, and to the great joy of my father, as well as all her friends, as she recovered her strength, and the natural effects of her lying-in wore off, she appeared also to have recovered her general good health, and her usual cheerfulness. ...

— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... quarrel had arisen out of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of the favourites of the last Bey. "A story with a woman at the bottom of it, in short," said Jansoulet, and a story which he would have been glad to see come to an end, since his exuberant nature found every antipathy oppressive. But it seemed that the baron was not anxious for any settlement of their differences; for, notwithstanding his word passed to Jenkins, his wife arrived alone, ...

— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... question is," continued Cicely, as the silence became oppressive, "whether one is to mope and hold aloof from the national life, or take our share in it; the life has got to go on whether we participate in it or not. It seems to me to be more patriotic to come down into the dust of the marketplace than to ...

— When William Came • Saki

... inclined. The whole desert, however, wears a more arid appearance. Yet there were some lote-trees here and there, and a few tholukhs. The, traces of the aoudad were noticed; and the blacks, picking up its dung, smelt it as musk, saying, "It is very good." As I jogged on upon my camel, the oppressive heat caused me to sleep and dream in the saddle of things that had now become ...

— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... with its door of communication blocked with a wardrobe, his frame of mind remained as uncomfortable as the chair in which he was seated. His heart ached with a dull, unpleasant sensation, with a sort of oppressive emptiness. ...

— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... I am very tired, though I have not done much more than usual to-day, but the weather is beginning to be oppressive to me, who hate heat; but I find the people, and especially the sick in the hospital, speak of it as cold. I will tell you hereafter of a most comical account Mr. —— has given me of the prolonged and still ...

— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... to have that flow of expression which is so remarkable in him on all other subjects. It is as if the sadness connected with her present condition was too much for him to dwell upon in connection with the past, although habit and the 'omnipotence of circumstance' have made its daily presence less oppressive to his spirits. He said that his sister spoke constantly of their early days, but more of the years they spent together in other parts of England than those at Grasmere. As we proceeded on our walk he ...

— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... were often cold,—so cold that comfortables and blankets seemed all too few, and Clover roused with a shiver to think that presently it would be her duty to get up and start the fires so that Phil might find a warm house when he came downstairs. Then, before she knew it, fires would seem oppressive; first one window and then another would be thrown up, and Phil would be sitting on the piazza in the balmy sunshine as comfortable as on a June morning at home. It was a wonderful climate; and as ...

— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... a ravine, and nothing remained to indicate that these two were fugitives, hiding for their lives, and facing a desperate expedient in an effort to escape their pursuers. As the speaker finally concluded the silence was almost oppressive. ...

— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... time, the difficulties between England and America increased. The king and his ministers grew more haughty and oppressive. The Americans waxed more firm and confident. Several events tended to make the breach wider and wider. The British parliament taxed the Americans—next the people of Boston threw into the sea a large quantity of tea, ...

— Whig Against Tory - The Military Adventures of a Shoemaker, A Tale Of The Revolution • Unknown

... their wealth, being to a large extent derived from the teinds of parishes, should have been devoted to the spiritual interests of these parishes, whereas the vicars appointed by them being generally put off with a miserable pittance and left largely dependent on these hated and oppressive exactions—corpse presents, uppermost cloth, Pasche-offerings—could not fail to alienate the peasantry from the monasteries and their rural representatives. Such charges of oppression could never have been so publicly made against them had they not been notoriously true. And if ...

— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... wish of the author that milder measures may be pursued in reference to the Gipsies. To endeavour to improve their morals, and instruct them in the principles of religion, will, under the divine blessing, turn to better account than the hateful and oppressive policy so long adopted. ...

— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man's mind, that he wants to do nothing; thus acid things are also cold. Hence sloth implies a certain weariness of work, as appears from a gloss on Ps. 106:18, "Their soul abhorred all manner of meat," and from the definition of some ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... a great comfort to me that I have had a room to myself so far on this campaign. I find the communal spirit is not in me. The noisy meals, the heavy bowls of soup, the piles of labelled dinner-napkins, give me an unexpected feeling of oppressive seclusion and solitude, and only when I get away by myself do I feel that my ...

— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... the feeling that she had a wrong to make reparation for, but that she must again politely visit some one to whom she had become a stranger for no valid reason. She chose the way through the chestnut avenue. There the heat was particularly oppressive that day. When she passed out into the sun again a gentle breeze was blowing and the foliage of the trees in the cemetery seemed to greet her with a slight bow. As she passed through the cemetery gates ...

— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... was several minutes before I mustered sufficient courage to slip down into that intense blackness. It was not so much fear of men which deterred me, but the oppressive silence, the mystery of what awaited me below, rested heavily upon the nerves, binding me to the spar, intently gazing and listening for either sight or sound. It was recollection of that last, trustful look within the dark eyes of Eloise which finally aroused ...

— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... person was more likely to have elevated Dryden to the temporal greatness and wealth acquired by the sequestrators and committee-men of that oppressive time, than to have aided him in attaining the summits of Parnassus. For, according to the slight records which Mr. Malone has recovered concerning Sir Gilbert Pickering's character, it would seem, that, to the hard, precise, fanatical contempt of every illumination, save the inward light, which ...

— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... people of all denominations in these parts, viz. that of the negroe trade, the purchase and bringing the poor negroes from their native land, and subjecting them to a state of perpetual bondage, the most cruel and oppressive, in which the English nation is so deeply engaged, and which with additional sorrow we observe to be greatly increasing in their northern colonies, and likely still more to increase by the acquisition the English have lately ...

— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... 1775, the freeholders of Fincastle presented an address to the Continental Congress, declaring their purpose to resist the oppressive measures of the home government. Among the signers were William Christian, Rev. Charles Cummings, Arthur Campbell, William Campbell, William Edmundson, William Preston and others. Several other counties in the same state, inhabited mainly by Scots or ...

— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black

... was happening in his home. The atmosphere was unbearably oppressive, and if he had not been able to spend most of his time with Hilda he would have asked his father's permission to take his knapsack and go for a walking expedition in Switzerland, on the chance of falling in with a fellow-student. He had noticed the change in his mother from the first, and ...

— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... scheme. He regularly talked in a considerate manner and assumed a kindly expression and attitude; he threw kisses on his fingers to everybody and made many promises. But the fact did not escape men that his rule was sure to be more licentious and oppressive than Nero's. (Indeed, he had immediately applied ...

— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... did," he answered, "and this is the way it came about. Something—I think it was the heat of the windless day—caused her to refer to the oppressive costume of the sisters of the House of Martha, and she then remarked that she supposed I knew she was one of that sisterhood. I replied that I had been so informed, and then betrayed as much natural interest in regard to the vocations ...

— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... its scorching breath every vestige of verdure on the mountain sides and foothills, and leaving them dull and dun. On this particular morning the heat seemed more terrible than ever, and there was not a breath of air stirring to cool the oppressive atmosphere. The earth and sky were suffused with a bright, red light, which gradually died away into a dim, purplish haze, through which the sun ascended like a ball of fire; while every blade and leaf hung motionless, ...

— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... political philosophy. The belief that all men were born free and equal, and that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, became prominent in early American politics. Where the democratic tendencies of the settlers were reinforced by such traditions, an oppressive government could not last. In Carolina in 1670, for example, an attempt to set up an undemocratic government failed, and when half a century later a similar attempt was made in Georgia, the settlers objected so ardently that the founders of the ...

— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... e'er thy breast with freedom glowed, And spurned a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive ...

— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... the drugged food. Then I wondered whether we would escape in safety. Then my thoughts dwelt on the words she had spoken of me, and I remembered the pleased look upon her face when we met in Rudolph's room, and my visions became very pleasant. Even the dead silence and oppressive solitude of the two great rooms could not still the rapid beatings of my heart. I forgot my mission and thought only of ...

— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... about 3 p.m. The day has been perfect, the temperature moderate till we came near land when the sun simply scorched us. At sea there is always a breeze, but as we now lie at anchor in the middle of the harbour the air is absolutely still and oppressive. We seemed to describe the letter "S" as we approached from the sea, this course being likely due to sand bars. To one who has never been in the East before the sight of this town with its huge commercial buildings, its great palm trees which are visible not far from the water's edge, ...

— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... to be educated abroad, preferably outside of Spain, but if they could do no better, at least go to the Peninsula. He urged that through education only could progress be hoped for. In one of his speeches he had warned the Spanish government that continued oppressive measures would drive the Filipinos from their allegiance and make them wish to become subjects of a freer power, suggesting England, whose possessions surrounded ...

— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... Pertuan, the Sultan of Brunai, aetat one hundred or more, and now in his dotage: the abode of some 15,000 Malays, whose language is as different from the Singapore Malay as Cornish is from Cockney English, and the coign of vantage from which a set of effete and corrupt Pangerans extended oppressive rule over the coasts of North-West Borneo, from Sampanmangiu Point to the Sarawak River in days gone by, ere British enterprise stepped in, swept the Sulu and Illanun pirates from the sea, and opened the ...

— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... the Orkney folk to see him among them once again, for now they deemed that he had come to fulfil his former promise and deliver them from the oppressive rule of Earl Hakon. ...

— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... was called before the Duma to explain the inconsistency between the "inflexible will" of the Czar, as expressed in the freedom manifesto, and the policy of the administration, as shown in a long series of arbitrary and oppressive acts of violence, he coolly said that while the freedom manifesto "laid down the fundamental principles of civil liberty in a general way," it had no real force, because it did not specifically repeal the laws relating to the subject that were already ...

— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... inexperienced young king who had just ascended the throne of his father Charles XI., King of Sweden. If Peter ever "opened a window" into the West, it must be done by first breaking through this Swedish wall. Livonia was deeply aggrieved just now because of some oppressive measures against her, and her astute minister, Patkul, suggested to the King of Poland that he form a coalition between that kingdom, Denmark, and Russia for the purpose of breaking the aggressive Scandinavian power in the North. The time was favorable, ...

— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... alighted on the flowers, and great birds of resplendent plumage flashed from grove to grove. A sun, twice the diameter of ours, blazed in the northern sky, but the intensity of his rays was tempered by a thin veil of cloud. The atmosphere although warm and moist, was not oppressive like that of a forcing-house, and the breeze was balmy with ...

— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... all that he held his tongue at home about the sufferings incurred through the medicine-bottle, but because his father thought he was learning bad manners. This he imparted to me in confidence at the time, and I remember how it increased my oppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who had appeared to me in glimpses as a sort of high priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was a widower—a fact which seemed to produce in him a sort of preternatural ...

— Eugene Pickering • Henry James

... several lords wagered that the goldsmith would abandon his suit, while the ladies took the opposite side. The goldsmith having complained with tears to the queen that the monks had deprived him of the sight of his beloved, she thought it detestable and oppressive. Whereupon, pursuant to her command, the goldsmith was allowed to go daily to the parlor of the abbey, where he saw Tiennette; but always in the company of an aged monk, and attired in true magnificence, like a lady. It was with great difficulty that he persuaded her to ...

— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... sign to approach the dreaded presence. His imperious and abrupt manner, his alternation of deferential concern for some and disdainful impatience for others, gave her small hope that he would heed her prayer. She waited hours, sitting in the crowded room, ill from the oppressive air, the fixed stare of the officers, and the sobbing of others like herself waiting a word with the autocrat. At length, late in the afternoon, when the crowd had quite gone, she heard the Secretary ...

— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... camp-bed and, towards dusk thinking with grim humour of his wife and the Penhallow guns, fell asleep. About four in the morning the mad clamour of battle awakened him. He got up and went out of the tent. The night air was hot and oppressive. Far to our right there was the rattle of musketry and the occasional upward flare of cannon flashes against low-lying clouds. From the farthest side of the Taneytown road at the rear he heard the rattle of ambulances arriving from the field of fight ...

— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... that Eli Cronk drew his sleeve across his face to break the oppressive stillness. Here, in the dead of night, his somber brother had been transformed into another creature,—a passionate creature, responding to the call of a dead woman, a man whose hatred would ...

— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... was himself at heart, had broken through the heavy clouds that had been obscuring him. An oppressive burden was lifted from his mind and conscience. That sword-thrust through the back a month ago had been guided, he opined, by the hand of a befriending Providence; for although he had, as you see, survived it, it had none the less solved for him that hateful problem he could never have solved ...

— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... for us in the house of his servant David, as He spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began." Next the father would tell as much of the story of Herod's crimes, and of his oppressive rule, as the lad could understand; and explain how there would soon be "salvation from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them." And his young soul would be thrilled by the hopes which were bursting in the bud, and so near ...

— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... art shows evidence that an intimate contact with the social movement was no longer sustained. The tendency to repeat himself, to produce his weekly picture by a sort of formula, becomes noticeable; and the absence of variety in his work becomes oppressive. ...

— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... too wide to leap, too deep to cross readily, had deflected the boy in his ride until he found himself to the lee of the fire, and the heat of it, oppressive and menacing, ...

— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... more than that. For when later, at Argeles, I looked over the day, I was able to formulate for the first time the extraordinary impressions that Lourdes had given me. There was everything hostile to my peace—an incalculable crowd, an oppressive heat, dust, noise, weariness; there was the disappointment of the churches and the image; there was the sour unfamiliarity of the place and the experience; and yet I was neither troubled nor depressed nor irritated nor disappointed. It appeared to me as if some great benign influence were abroad, ...

— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson

... all cases of jobbery. Again, prisoners should be assigned tasks according to their ability. All men are not alike equally skilled in the same kind of labor. All these things should be taken into account. No prisoner should be forced to carry a burden that is oppressive, in order to fill the coffers of avaricious contractors. Again, I ask that there be some humane person, whose duty it is to see that these helpless men, whose lips are sealed, are not oppressed by this damnable ...

— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... uncivilized countries to conceal minerals or other natural products with which they may become acquainted, from the fear of being obliged to pay increased tribute, or of bringing upon themselves a new and oppressive labour. ...

— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... and court. The lieutenant-governor, freed from even the slight control afforded by their presence, had given full scope to the worse parts of his peculiar and complicated character. More than ever was his administration of his native island marked by unblushing egotism. Oppressive, grasping, unguarded in speech, and almost unrestrained in action, he seemed, from one point of view, the model of a sordid, short-sighted despot, making hay while the sun shone. But he had a fund of ...

— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... and behoof." Change the word "American" to "Spanish," and the Cuban situation is exactly defined. The situation in America in the 18th Century was almost identical with the situation in Cuba in the 19th Century. Both, in those respective periods, suffered from oppressive and restrictive trade laws and from burdensome taxation, from subordination of their interests to the interests of the people of a mother-country three thousand miles away. Unfortunately for the Cubans, Spain was better able to enforce its exactions than England was. ...

— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... to numbers. For instance, the seventh day must have about it something awful and oppressive; the fast must be seven times seven days, and so forth. We Europeans have always smiled in our hearts at these things. We would take this day or that, and make up a scheme of great and natural complexity, full of interlacing seasons; and nearly all our special ...

— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... The actual feature of society, and of the laws that lie at the bottom of its development, had first to be known, before a general movement could take place for the removal of conditions, recognized as oppressive and unjust. The breadth and intensity of such a movement depends, however, upon the measure of the understanding prevalent among the suffering social layers and circles, and upon the measure of freedom ...

— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... thousand ways are found to defeat the will of the majority. There are bribery, fraudulent elections, and an infinite variety of corrupting methods. There is the control of parliaments, of courts, and of political parties by special privilege. There are oppressive and unjust laws obtained through trickery. There is the overwhelming power exercised by the wealthy through their control of the press and of nearly all means of enlightenment. Through their power and the means they have to corrupt, the majority is indeed so constantly deceived that, when ...

— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... monks who sat nearest to the centre of illumination. Their features, in deep masses of alternate light and shadow, looked as if carved out, hard and immovable, from the oak wainscot. Occasionally, a dull roll of the eye relieved the oppressive stillness, and the gazer would look out from the mystic world he inhabited, through these loop-holes of sense, into the world of sympathies and affections, with which he had long ...

— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... In sultry noon's oppressive ray, Beneath the holme, of ample shade, His listless limbs he loves to lay On herbage, matted in the glade; Hears down the steeps the white rills dashing play, Till under the long grass they purl away; While, on wing of swift vibration, Murmuring ...

— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... to make himself the most hated of the governors sent to represent the king in New England. A spirit of independence, born of a free soil, was already moving in the people's hearts, and the harsh edicts of this officer, as well as the oppressive measures of his master, brought him into continual conflict with the people. He it was who went to Hartford to demand the surrender of the liberties of that colony. The lights were blown out and the patent of those liberties ...

— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... was oppressive. The minister sort of squirmed around and began the service over. At the last word he made another effort to immerse the sinner. Again his strength was insufficient, both ...

— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... sidelong at him, Rosalind saw his face whiten under the deep tan upon it. It carried, too, to the other side of the street, and the girl saw faces grow suddenly tense; noted the stiffening of bodies. The flat, ominous silence that followed was unreal and oppressive. Out of it came the rider's voice as he urged the black to a point within three or four paces of Corrigan and sat in the saddle, looking at him. And now for the first time Rosalind had a clear, full view of ...

— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... abbots of Jedburgh, supported by their chapters, had granted certain of their appropriate churches to priests with a right of succession to their sons" (see 'The Mediaeval Church in Scotland,' by the late Bishop Dowden, chap. xix. Mac- Lehose, 1910.) Oppressive customs by which "the upmost claith," or a pecuniary equivalent, was extorted as a kind of death-duty by the clergy, were sanctioned by excommunication: no grievance was more bitterly felt by the poor. The once-dreaded curses on evil-doers became a popular jest: ...

— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... yet it seemed unbecoming to him, in the critical condition of the country, to make any personal effort to that end. To these considerations were added his extreme weariness and longing for release from his oppressive burdens. He was also, as Mr. Welles records in his Diary, "greatly importuned ...

— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... quicksands he feared, as Tressa supposed, but the bohunks. Things were going too smoothly in bulk—the disturbing incidents were so trifling and ineffectual. Accustomed to difficulties, the absence of friction since the tragedy of the falling log was oppressive to him. It was unnatural. Koppy was too tractable, the camp too peaceful. In the idleness of those days he had time to brood ...

— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... horrible mass of human flesh, he saw his father's body, crushed and terribly mangled; his face wore an expression of suffering, his whole body seemed borne down by a heavy and oppressive weight. ...

— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... the walkers, whilst they cantered over the plain from which our ascent commenced; this, 4000 feet almost gradual in forty miles, is not fatiguing; and thus, although we found the path through a wood about three miles long, very deep, and the air oppressive, we all arrived together without distress at the "half-way house," by 1 P.M. Suppose a haystack hollowed out, and some holes cut for doors and windows, and you have a picture of the "half-way house," and the ordinary dwellings of the natives of these islands; ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... tiny, that he might almost have taken her between his thumb and finger, and twirled her above his head; yet she poised herself before him on a mullein-stalk, and looked every inch a queen. Robin found her gaze oppressive; for her eyes were hard and cold and gray, as if they had been ...

— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... pride in London; and this feeling must ere long make itself effective and dominant. For the great advantage, it seems to me, that America possesses over the Old World is its material and moral plasticity. Even among the giant structures of this city, one feels that there is nothing rigid, nothing oppressive, nothing inaccessible to the influence of changing conditions. If the buildings are Cyclopean, so is the race that reared them. The material world seems as clay on the potter's wheel, visibly taking on the impress of the human spirit; and the human spirit, as embodied ...

— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... under control. Taxes have begun to go down. The cost of our government has been reduced and its work proceeds with some 183,000 fewer employees; thus the discouraging trend of modern governments toward their own limitless expansion has in our case been reversed. The cost of armaments becomes less oppressive as we near our defense goals; yet we are militarily stronger every day. During the year, creation of the new Cabinet Department of Health, Education, and Welfare symbolized the government's permanent concern with the ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... off on our seaward march, having just time to regain the brig before the day became oppressive. We took with us, as prisoners, such of the buccaneers as had been caught; what became of the rest I never knew. Vetch marched with them, amid a guard ...

— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... Ethiopia, whither his love of romantic conquest had conducted them. He appears to have penetrated into the interior provinces of Abyssinia, and to have subdued the rude tribes which dwelt on the shores of the Red Sea, levying on the unfortunate natives the most oppressive contributions in cattle, gold, perfumes, and other articles belonging to that valuable merchandise which the Ethiopians and Arabs had long carried on with their Egyptian neighbours. At Adule, the principal seaport of Abyssinia, ...

— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... are guided, almost forced, by the laws of nature, to do right in art. Had granite been white and marble speckled (and why should this not have been, but by the definite Divine appointment for the good of man?), the huge figures of the Egyptian would have been as oppressive to the sight as cliffs of snow, and the Venus de Medicis would have looked like some exquisitely graceful species of ...

— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... had this faculty to its full modern extent. It is true that his ego was constantly to the fore, even in dealing with Nature, but his landscapes were full of sympathetic feeling. He had Rousseau's melancholy and unrest, and cared nothing for those 'oppressive masses,' mountains, except as backgrounds; but he was enthusiastic about the scenery which he saw in America, the virgin forests, and the Mississippi—above all, about the sea. His Rene, that life-like figure, half-passionate, half-blase, measuring ...

— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... was still blowing moderately and by the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess how fast she was traveling. For a moment or two there was an oppressive silence in the little cabin. ...

— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... thunder-cloud, born of a wreath of mist, hung arrested, quivering with lightning. It was well known that Bastide Grammont, the tenant of La Morne, in spite of his relationship to the lawyer Fualdes, lived in a state of animosity, or at least of the oppressive dependence of a debtor, with the old man. Every one knew, or thought he knew, that stormy scenes had often taken place between uncle and nephew. Was not that enough? Moreover, Bastide's domineering temperament and harsh nature, the sudden ...

— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... Captain Jones waved a farewell to the party and went off, leaving them to digest his news. For some time they sat still, the mate and Miss Cooper exchanging whispers, until at length, the stillness becoming oppressive, they withdrew to their respective berths, leaving the skipper sitting at the table, gazing hard at a ...

— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... was silence and portentous gloom. Nature seemed to pause and hold her breath in dread anticipation. Then came a muffled, jarring sound, as of far distant artillery, which died away into an oppressive stillness. Suddenly from zenith to horizon the cloud was cut by a fiery stroke, an instant visible. Following this, a heavy thunder-peal shook the solid earth, and rattled in booming echoes along the hillsides and amid the ...

— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... treasury-pap and fat offices for the pensioned few. Punch is loyal, sings lustily, "God Save the Queen," and stands by the Constitution. He is a true-born Englishman, and patriotic to the backbone; but none are too high in place or name for his merciless ridicule and daring wit, if they countenance oppressive abuses. It is a tall feather in his fool's-cap, that his fantastic person is a dread to evil-doers on thrones, in cabinets, and red-tape offices. Crowned tyrants, bold usurpers, and proud statesmen are sensitive, like other mortals, to ridicule, and know very well how much easier it is to cannonade ...

— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... words are lost as the three go out. A moment later, Eileen enters from the dining-room. She has grown stouter, her face has more of a healthy, out-of-door colour, but there is still about her the suggestion of being worn down by a burden too oppressive for her courage. She is dressed in blouse and dark skirt. She goes to the armchair, left forward, and sinks down on it. She is evidently in a state of nervous depression; she twists her fingers together in her lap; her eyes stare sadly ...

— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... to be in a living tomb. And after a time, taking the risk of being heard from outside the laboratory, he beat heavily upon the door with his fist. No response came: the silence all around him was more oppressive, if possible, than before. ...

— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... father's sister; and these shall dwell with their male kinsmen, according to the degree of relationship and right, as we enacted before. Now we must not conceal from ourselves that such laws are apt to be oppressive and that there may sometimes be a hardship in the lawgiver commanding the kinsman of the dead man to marry his relation; he may be thought not to have considered the innumerable hindrances which may arise among men in the execution of such ordinances; ...

— Laws • Plato

... stately giant canopy. All—men and beasts—were exhausted, though we had been scarcely three hours on the march; the previous running and racing about in camp for four hours had been the reverse of refreshing to us, and after ten o'clock the heat had become most oppressive. Johnston comforted us by saying that it would be better in future. In the first place, we should henceforth be less time in getting ready to march, and should therefore start earlier—if it depended upon him, soon after four—doing the greatest part of the way in the cool of the morning, ...

— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... were originally divided into two great classes; those which were called the military tenures, or knight's service, and soccage. The first tenure was that which became oppressive in the progress of society. Soccage was of two kinds; free and villian. The first has an affinity to our own system, as connected with these leases; the last never existed among us at all. When the knight's service, or military ...

— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... feather all round the country, that nothing was too good for them. Offerings poured in at the Doone gate, faster than Doones could away with them, and the sympathy both of Devon and Somerset became almost oppressive. And perhaps this wealth of congratulation, and mutual good feeling between plundered and victim, saved us from any piece of spite; kindliness having won the day, and every one ...

— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... power and all the philosophical and mathematical learning and ingenuity of France and of Great Britain" had during that period been incessantly directed. It was fairly enough described as a "fearful and oppressive task." Upon its dry and uncongenial difficulties Mr. Adams had been employed with his wonted industry for upwards of four years; he now spoke of the result modestly as "a hurried and imperfect work." But others, who have had to deal with the subject, have ...

— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... activity of mind. For truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with ...

— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... she had not calculated on such a scene as this. Her affection for the Baron had too much of the vague in it to afford her trustfulness now. She wished she had not come. On a sign from the Baron the lawyer brought her a chair, and the oppressive silence was ...

— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... been productive of much good in this country. The reformation of some of the most oppressive laws has taken place, and is taking place. The allotment of the State into subordinate governments, the administration of which is committed to persons chosen by the people, will work in time a very beneficial change ...

— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... men of the Hojo family were followed by weak and vicious ones. Their tyranny and misgovernment grew unbearable. They gave themselves up to luxury and debauchery, oppressed the people by taxes to obtain means for their costly pleasures, and crushed beneath their oppressive rule the emperor, the shogun, and the people alike. Their cup of vice and tyranny at length overflowed. The day of retribution was ...

— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... followed this summer. Snow-storms swept over land and sea, and there was difficulty in getting from one place to another. How unequally things are distributed in this world! Here there was bitter cold and snow-storms, while in Spain there was burning sunshine and oppressive heat. Yet, when a clear frosty day came, and Jurgen saw the swans flying in numbers from the sea towards the land, across to Norre-Vosborg, it seemed to him that people could breathe more freely here; the summer also in this part of the world was splendid. In imagination he saw ...

— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... at this time. The glory of my dream had fled. The trees, bare and brown and dripping with rain, offered no shelter. The benches were sodden, the paths muddy, and the sky, lost in a desolate mist shut down over my head with oppressive weight. I crawled along the muddy walk feeling about as important as a belated beetle in a July thunderstorm. Half of me was ready to surrender and go home on the next train but the other half, the obstinate ...

— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... It contains, however, provisions which materially change, and by implication repeal, important parts of the laws for the regulation of the United States elections. These laws have for several years past been the subject of vehement political controversy, and have been denounced as unnecessary, oppressive, and unconstitutional. On the other hand, it has been maintained with equal zeal and earnestness that the election laws are indispensable to fair and lawful elections, and are clearly warranted by the Constitution. Under these circumstances, to attempt in an ...

— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... Pierre drew near to it for a moment, and glanced at the arm-chair with damaged, sunken seat, the screen which sheltered it from draughts, and the old inkstand splotched with ink. And then, in the lifeless and oppressive atmosphere, the disquieting silence, which only the low rumbles from the street disturbed, he began to ...

— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... forbidden me to talk," she answered simply; "and I wanted to talk. I refuse ever again to carry around with me other people's secrets. It's too oppressive." ...

— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... appealing to free participation in public matters, Edward I did not refrain from the arbitrary imposition of taxes, and those the most oppressive: the eighth, even the fifth part of men's income. For the campaign in Flanders he summoned the under-tenants as well as the tenants in chief. We find instances of arbitrary seizure of whatever was necessary for ...

— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... relative to the disabilities under which the Catholics of the United Kingdom labored previous to the emancipation of 1829 will serve to show in some measure the oppressive operation of those laws which placed the foot of one tenth of the population of Ireland upon the necks ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... would assign you to this Edwards case," panted Kennedy, mopping his forehead, for the heat in the terminal was oppressive and the crowd, though not large, was closely packed. "Mr. Jameson is my right-hand man," he explained to Waldon, taking us each by the arm and urging us forward. "Waldon was afraid we might miss the train or I should have tried to get you, Walter, ...

— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... it responds more feebly to the influence of curative agents. Tobacco itself, when its use becomes habitual and excessive, gives rise to the most unpleasant and dangerous pathological conditions. Oppressive torpor, weakness or loss of intellect, softening of the brain, paralysis, nervous debility, dyspepsia, functional derangement of the heart, and diseases of the liver and kidneys are not uncommon consequences of ...

— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... memory of the fat Kreutzkammer lingered in her husband's crippled mind—something as confused as the revolving engine's connexion with the German volkslied. But enough to prevent his feeling the ten francs' worth of cigars an oppressive benevolence. It was very strange to her that it should so happen, but, having happened, it did not seem unnatural. What was stranger still was that Gerry should be there, loving Sally like a father—just as her own stepfather Paul Nightingale ...

— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... resumed; "then I don't know how many weeks of the oppressive heat here you would have to endure, instead of enjoying the cool, refreshing breezes sweeping over Nantucket. Surely, you cannot give it all up without ...

— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... the first rank of all those epochs were by such false fundamental conceptions; and how especially all insight into the true substance and working of Nature was hemmed in on every side. During the whole of the Christian period Theism lay like a kind of oppressive nightmare on all intellectual effort, and on philosophical effort in particular, hindering and arresting all progress. For the men of learning of those epochs, God, devil, angels, demons, hid the whole of Nature; no investigation was carried out to the end, no matter sifted to the bottom; everything ...

— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer