"Damper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you?" sighed Larry. "He looks as black as thunder when he speaks first to one and then to another. They're dead afraid of him, that's what! They've had their say, and he's put a damper on it all. See him shake his fist at that fellow; and how he cringes like a whipped cur! Oh! Phil, whatever did you come down here to try and do anything ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... nearly half of the heat of the fire was lost. With a view to overcoming this loss at least partially, he used an internal furnace with a smoke flue winding through the water in the form of a worm in a still. In order that the length of passage of the gases might not act as a damper on the fire, Dr. Allen recommended the use of a pair of bellows for forcing the sluggish vapor through the flue. This is probably the first suggested use of forced draft. In forming an estimate of the quantity ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... cruiser's commander, that there were three luggers hovering off the coast, and these volunteers offered a number of their men to reinforce the Swan's crew so that the luggers might be captured. To this Comben replied with a damper to the volunteers' enthusiasm: "If I was to take them on board and fall in with the enemy we could not ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... worst plan you've suggested yet," said Meldon. "If I go without you I shall be a damper on the whole proceedings. A third person on these occasions always finds the greatest difficulty in not being in the way, whereas if you come we can stroll off together after lunch under pretext of searching for lobsters or ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... rank as weed, An' puts on such a damper, Wal th' foaks declare i' great despair, It's up wi' th' ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out, leaving nothing but the collar, sleeves, and front. As may be supposed, this was a damper upon his amatory proceedings; indeed we never saw a man look so small, as he shuffled away amidst the titters of the company, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... subjects. Their father had to remind them once or twice that older people must be allowed a chance to talk as well as themselves; but his tone was not stern, and the slight reproof, though sufficient to produce the desired effect, threw no damper upon ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in a low voice, as ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for the most part is dry, although the nights are often damp. The Mount Lofty Ranges, close to Adelaide, afford a cool retreat; they have a very large rainfall, in some years over 50 inches. The climate at Mount Gambier, in the south-eastern part of the colony, is cooler and damper; it has also a much heavier rainfall ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... the ground began to grow damp. The farther he went, the damper it grew. Presently it became fairly wet, and there was a great deal of soft, cool, wet moss. How good it did feel to Grandfather ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... nipple; adjusted a cap; and, dismounting, set forth upon the stalk. The spreading tops of the cotton-woods concealed me; and, crouching under them, I made my approaches as rapidly as the nature of the ground would permit. It grew damper as I advanced; and, presently, I passed pools of water and patches of smooth mud—where water had recently lain. It was the bed of an intermittent stream—a hydrographic phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the central regions of ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... small sample of the sense cells of the cochlea. The hairs of the sense cells are shaken by the vibration of the water, and pass the impulse back to the end-brushes of the auditory axons, The tectorial membrane looks as if it might act as a damper, but may be concerned, as "accessory apparatus," in the stimulation of the hair cells. The basilar membrane consists in part of fibers extending across between the ledges of bone; these fibers are arranged somewhat after the manner of piano strings, and have ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... towards evening; there was still a faint mist, but it had cleared a little except in the damper tracts of subjacent country and along the river-courses. He thought again of Christminster, and wished, since he had come two or three miles from his aunt's house on purpose, that he could have seen for once this attractive city of which he had been told. But even if he waited ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... of St. Patrick's, dreary enough in itself seems to grow damper and chillier as one's footsteps disturb the silence between the grave of its famous Dean and that of Stella, in death as in life near yet divided from him, as if to make their memories more inseparable and prolong the insoluble problem of their relation to each other. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... indicates a cast-iron damper built in the throat. This is not necessary, for it contributes nothing to the efficiency of the fire itself. Its one great advantage is that by furnishing the mason with an unalterable form, it forces him to build the throat properly rather than in one of the wrong ways that his own ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor
... from the spring, was slung from three green sticks over the fire, and a pannikin of weak tea, together with a biscuit, served out to each of the party, save Grimes, who declared himself unable to eat. Breakfast over, Bates made a damper, which was cooked in the ashes, and then another council was held as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... stove pipe is for this. But the game you have to play with your stove is to let the smoke and gases run up chimney, but to save all the heat you can for the work to be done. So your stove is supplied with dampers. When the fire is new, and there is much smoke or gas, you open the damper into the stovepipe, and in the stovepipe. Try to get a picture of the way the heated air goes from the fire-box up into the chimney. We call this direct draft. Of course a great deal of heat runs away through the chimney, ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... exposed detachment of the enemy for the purpose of capturing it...I believe that if you can spare Hill, and let him move here at once, you will never have occasion to regret it. The very idea of reinforcements coming to Winchester would, I think, be a damper to the enemy, in addition to the fine effect that would be produced on our own troops, already in fine spirits. But if you cannot spare Hill, can you not send me some other troops? If we cannot be successful in defeating the enemy should he advance, a kind Providence may enable ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... In a damper climate, or where there was more or less rain, the bird-droppings would putrefy, and the ammonia would be liable to evaporate, or to be ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... more, scalding tears of still another sort of penitence: Aunt 'Senath was such a darling! The back of Miss Asenath's woolly white wrapper was rapidly getting damper ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... Second as he goes round to have a look at the pumps. Cautiously the stop-valve is opened out, and the engines get into their sixty-two per-minute stride. The firemen are at it now, trimmers are flogging away the wedges from the bunker doors, and the funnel damper is full open. And then, and then—how shall I describe the sensation of that first delicate rise and fall of the plates. I experience a feeling of buoyant life under my feet! It means we are out at sea, that we have crossed the bar. The Chief and Second have gone to get washed for dinner, George ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... plates is to prevent the heated air of the room from passing up to the ceiling, and send it out into the room. To prevent any of the pipes acting as chimneys, and bringing the products of combustion back into the room, as well as to avoid any back-pressure, a damper is attached to the outlet receptacle. The heated gas becomes cooled so much (to about 100 deg. Fahr.) that water is condensed and precipitated, and collects in the vessel below the outlet. Each burner has a separate cock, by which it may be kept closed, half-open, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... enough to check the Bonanza .375 both visually and perceptively and then loaded it full. I consulted a road map to chart a course. Then I took off with the coal wide open and the damper rods all the way out and made the wheels ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... air and a very hot sun, yet altogether a nice dry heat which quickly brought all the skin off my face at Simon's Bay after one day's march with the Battalion up the hills. I expect to find Natal much damper, and no doubt it will be very wet and cold at night in the ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... that the debut party was given to little Judith Buck in no way served to throw a damper on the festivities. On the contrary, the gaiety of the guests increased. Supper was a decided success and the stylish waiters from Louisville saw to it that everyone was served bountifully. Old Billy crept from ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... killed by the Base, who still boasted of the swords that they possessed as spoils from that occasion. The Base knew this spot as the favourite resting-place of the Hamran hunting-parties, and they might be not far distant now, as we were in the heart of their country. This intelligence was a regular damper to the spirits of some of the party. Mahomet quietly retired and sat down by Barrake, the ex-slave woman, having expressed a resolution to keep awake every hour that he should be compelled to remain ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... a while. He'd kept undher cover f'r months, livin' in freight cars an' hidin' undher viadocks with th' pistol in his hand. Wan night he come out, an' broke into Schwartzmeister's place. He sneaked through th' alley with th' German man's damper in his arms, an' Clancy leaped on him fr'm th' fence. Th' kid was tough, but Clancy played fut-ball with th' Finerty's on Sundah, an' was tougher; an', whin th' men on th' other beats come up, Carey was hammered so they had to carry ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... sometimes apt to play off on others the tricks that nature has played them. This, however, is a remark that, perhaps, ought not to have been made. I know a person to whom it has been objected as a disqualification for friendship, that he never shakes you cordially by the hand. I own this is a damper to sanguine and florid temperaments, who abound in these practical demonstrations and 'compliments extern.' The same person who testifies the least pleasure at meeting you, is the last to quit his seat in your company, grapples with a subject in conversation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to spit in this holy place." If we might judge from the observation of one morning, I should say that the better classes in Pascuaro are fairer and have more colour than is general in Mexico; and if this is so, it may be owing partly to the climate being cooler and damper, and partly to their taking more exercise (there being no carriages here), whereas in Mexico no family of any importance ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... more flourishing three years ago, than at present. Most of the trees, on the spot originally planted, are dead, and the rest in a sickly condition; while the most thriving trees are to be seen on the lower and damper land adjacent, which, at my former visit, was covered with a dense forest. Beyond a doubt, the coffee tree is as well adapted to this soil and climate as to those of Cuba, and produces a larger and better flavored berry; but I repeat my opinion, that the Liberian, hiring ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... pimpernel and convolvulus. Gladiolus springs amid the young corn-blades beneath the almond-trees; while a beautiful little iris makes the most unpromising dry places brilliant with its delicate greys and blues. In cooler and damper hollows, around the boles of old olives and under ruined arches, flourishes the tender acanthus, and the road-sides are gaudy with a yellow daisy flower, which may perchance be the [Greek: elichrysos] of Theocritus. Thus the whole scene is a wilderness of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the very day of the anniversary," Pao-yue rejoined. "Grandmother and my mother bade me put this on and go and pay my visit; and here I go and burn it, on the first day I wear it. Now isn't this enough to throw a damper over my good cheer?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... apprehension of war was so great at that time that I received calls—I was the President of the cabinet—from merchants and manufacturers, who said: "The uncertainty is unbearable. Why don't you strike the first blow? War is preferable to this continued damper on all business!" We waited quietly until we were struck, and I believe we did well to arrange matters so that we were the nation which was assailed and were not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... support. Some went so far as to wear a tiny bit of ribbon by way of asserting allegiance to this or that crew, which sported the same color in cap, uniform, or flag. This, strange to say, did not act in the least as "a damper" on the pastime; even the fact that girls became popular as coxswains did not take the life out of it; all of which, as Dorry said, served to show the great hardihood and ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... think that Sir Colin would be more likely to choose the 75th, or, in fact, any of the other regiments than us. Still if the worst comes to the worst we must not grumble. Other regiments have had weary times of waiting, and it may be our turn now. Your suggestion has come as a damper to our spirits, and, as I don't mind acknowledging that I am dog tired with the march, after not having used my legs for the last seven or eight weeks, I shall try to forget it by going ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... in the Prince's own apartment, As fits a noble guest:—'tis damp, no doubt, Not having been inhabited these twelve years; But then he comes from a much damper place, So scarcely will catch cold in't, if he be Still liable to cold—and if not, why He'll be worse lodged to-morrow: ne'ertheless, I have ordered fire and all appliances To be got ready for the worst—that is, In case he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... grand bed, for, like all things in the cottage, it seemed also to be getting colder and damper. But as she was very young, although she still continued weeping, it ended by her ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Carpenter was missed from the camp. It was discovered that he had absconded during the night, carrying off with him a damper weighing about eleven pounds, two pounds of tea, and ten pounds of sugar. We had breakfast as quickly as possible, and Mr. Kennedy sent four men on horseback to scour the country around in search of him. They returned from an unsuccessful search, but had received intelligence from ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... The passageway was growing damper; water trickled down the walls and gathered in fetid pools on the floor. Dalgard's dislike of the place grew. His shoulders hunched involuntarily as he strode along, for his imagination pictured the rock above them giving away to dump tons of the oily river water down ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... from behind the curtains. "I'm ready if you are. Did I talk your head off? I ask your pardon; but that 'Heart of a Sailor' touched mine, I guess. I know I was afraid I'd laugh until it stopped beatin'. And all around the people were cryin'. It was enough sight damper amongst the seats than ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pretty equally, with the exception that the hot and dry periods of summer and autumn are marked by the most destructive class of conflagrations, owing to the greater inflammability of the materials, than in the damper portions of the year. This, from the desiccating nature of the climate, is especially the case in Canada and the United States, and, coupled with the extensive use of wood in building, has a large influence in ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... made fun of her. One day the Prince's valet, who thought himself a clever fellow, said before all the other servants that Mother Damper had arrived. Of course they all roared with laughter ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... the Russians." Count Haugwitz seemed deeply impressed, and Duroc said to us, after we had left the room, "The count will write tonight to Berlin, to tell his government of the destruction of Jellachich's force, which will put a damper on the war party, and give the king new reasons for holding off. Which is what ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... not good with the grocer, so long as they revelled in mountains of fictitious wealth and raved in the frenzied cant of the hour over their immediate prospect of fabulous riches! But at last the practical necessities of living put a sudden damper on their enthusiasm. Clemens was forced at last to abandon mining, and go to work as a common labourer in a quartz mill, at ten dollars a week and board—after flour had soared to a dollar a pound and the rate on ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... dancing a jig on the way back to his bunk, and not even the scowling face of Damase, who had been listening to the conversation in the foreman's room with keen Indian ears, and had caught enough of it to learn of the arrangement made, could cast any damper upon his spirits. In this case half a loaf was decidedly better than no bread at all. Freedom from the restraints and irksome duties of chore-boy's lot for even half the day was a precious boon, and the happy boy lay down to rest that night feeling like quite a different person from what he had been ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... to ascend the river a tempest arose, which kept me a weary prisoner among the reeds of the rice marsh. The hollow reeds made poor fuel for cooking, and when the dark, stormy night shut down upon me, the damp soil grew damper as the tide arose, until it threatened to overflow the land. For hours I lay in my narrow canoe waiting for the tidal flood to do its worst, but it receded, and left me without any means of building a fire, as the reeds were wet by the storm. The next ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... the lungs of inmates. Thus the question is, Shall we shut up a chamber and breathe night air vitiated with carbonic acid or night air that is pure? The only real difficulty about night air is, that usually it is damper, and therefore colder and more likely to chill. This is easily prevented by ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... noiseless—rising and dipping through miles and miles of rolling fields and woods. Its sides were thickly woven vines, and younger trees and shrubs, which gave out a woody fragrance; especially in the cooler, damper places sloping down to meet and pass beneath ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their way. Given these forests—which, by the way, extended over the greater part of England—we must infer a climate totally unlike ours of this present day, damper perhaps, but milder. Within his belt of trees the colonist, secure from the prevailing winds, would plant a garden to rival your gardens of the South—'primus vere rosam atque autumno ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of those parties where Julia's sweet face Added interest to beauty, and archness to grace, Where many fine folks met; and one very great, Proud and stupid, an embryo minister sate; Like a damper he came to put good humour out, And it chanced that, as Julia's pet-bird flew about. It presumptuously 'lit on this mighty man's head; When her lore-laughing sister, sweet Eleanor, said, "Naughty bird! I must cage you for being so rude, On Lord———head, oh! how dare you intrude?" ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... me, and again at the indian; then, stepping up to him, he patted him on the back as a father might a spoiled child, saying, "Come, come, son; don't be a fool; three good days' wages for an hour's time; take your peso and be gone." We had feared the incident would cast a damper on our work and hinder other subjects. Far from it. We were supplied as rapidly as our men could work at the same price we ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... later Theodore wrote to Mr. Rassam requesting him to write for workmen, and to await their return. Until that date all had been plain sailing. I acknowledged that the letter was rather a "damper" on Mr. Rassam. Two courses were left open to him: to decline, in courteous terms, on the ground that his instructions did not warrant his making such a request; or accept, on condition that the former captives should be allowed to depart, himself remaining with one of his ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... logs for barn, and drawing lumber, Our hero spent of days a goodly number. Amongst deep snow, and with a slow ox-team, One thinks 'twould prove a damper to his dream. Not so, however; though his food was scant, Of liking for the Bush he felt no want. He and his brother scoured the woods around, Where'er 'twas likely straight logs could be found. These cut, were left ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... they reached the point of the ridge, Ashton was panting and sweating, and his handsome face was red from exertion and anger. But his indignation at being misguided up so difficult a line of ascent received a damper when he reached the lower end of the ridge crest. Blake, who had waited patiently for him to clamber up the last sharp slope, gave him a cheerful nod and pointed to the long but fairly easy ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... and as the other stepped in, it was closed and barred behind him. The cell was about seven feet square and as high. The floor was a foot lower than the corridor, and correspondingly damper. It must have been on or below the level of the ground, and the floor, as well as the lower end of the planks which formed the walls, was black with moisture. The cell was littered with straw and every kind ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... took her stockings over to the stove, and hung them on the damper. It was a queer damper, and she turned it about, and then, stepping lightly on her bare feet, returned to the bench and sat down there ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... To dinner, I suppose," said the doctor dismally. "Potatoes and damper! Oh, boys, I did think you would have had a ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... all. Proceeding upon the superadded meaning, we speak of damping a man's ardor, a metaphor where the cooling is the only circumstance concerned; we go on still further to designate the iron slide that shuts off the draft of a stove, 'the damper,' the primary meaning being now entirely dropped. 'Dry,' in like manner, through signifying the absence of moisture, water, or liquidity, is applied to sulphuric acid containing water, although not thereby ceasing to be a moist, wet, or liquid substance." ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... a host, would have required all my horses as well as my stock of rations, so I singled out Tommy, his two brothers, and the other original little two, at the same time, giving Tommy's father about half a damper I had already cooked, and told him that Tommy was my boy. He shook his head slowly, and would not accept the damper, walking somewhat sorrowfully away. However, I sent it to him by Tommy, and told him to tell his father he was going with me and the horses. The damper ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... wrong. It was so very stale, the hotel business, with the moonlight river excursions and the Livingstone trips, far too much sleeked and smoothed by foresight, and tamed by taking of thought. If one had only traveled up with pack donkeys, provisioned with leathery meat and leathery damper! For Vine had known better times in Africa. He had known pioneer adventures in his headstrong youth but had fallen out of his Column after three crowded months. Tempted of fever, he had made a great refusal. And ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... effects of want now attacked poor Kit. He could obtain no employment. His expectations in this respect, as well as his earnest efforts, received so little encouragement that he began, finally, to despond. Extreme poverty is a wet damper on the fires of the best genius; but, as was the case with Kit, it does not effectually put it out. Kit saw with sorrow that he must retrace his steps. To obtain means to carry out his ardent desires, in the spring of 1827 he started on a backward trip to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Elliott and his party was the only damper upon our pleasure, and the only drawback to the very successful expedition. There was no definite information as to the detachment, —and Custer was able to report nothing more than that he had not seen Elliott since just before the fight began. His theory was, however, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the western sky had grown considerably larger than when first noticed. Not that he did not think the yacht could weather a blow, but he was afraid the young ladies would get seasick. However, as he did not wish to put a damper on their fun, he said nothing, resolved to turn back at the first sign of any "inward ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... catgut—your fluent organ a vile box of whistles, fit representative of its Tube-al inventor—and the sweetest pipe ever resonant with the clear, music-breathing air of Italy, or bravely struggling against the damper atmosphere of our humid isle, sounds harsh and shrilly in our ears, instead of soothing our "savage breast," which seems to marshal all its powers the more emphatically to give the poet the lie. This—now that we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... the antique architecture. Where the sun streamed upon it, high over head, through the narrow windows above, it reminded me of a pall of rich green velvet. It seems subject, on some of the lower mouldings and damper recesses, especially amid the tombs and in the aisles, to a decomposing mildew, which eats into it in fantastic map-like lines of mingled black and gray, so resembling Runic fret-work, that I had some difficulty in convincing myself that the tracery which it forms,—singularly appropriate ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the damper of the stove ostensibly to shake down the ashes, but really to pull himself up out of ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... Santo. As usual, it was a very rainy day when we started, but once across the divide the air became much drier. The clouds, driven by the south-east trade-wind, strike the islands on the east side, and this is the reason why the east coast is so much damper than the west, and why the vegetation is so immoderately thick on the one side, and much less luxuriant on the other. On the west side the bush is thinner and there are wide stretches of reed-grass, but there is plenty of water, bright creeks fed by the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Bray's," said grandma, "they thought it was no good, and it was only because of some damper that ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... is plain therefore that we must abstain from freedom of speech when men are in their cups. For he disturbs the harmony of a social gathering[454] who, in the midst of mirth and jollity, introduces a topic that shall knit the brows and contract the face, and shall act as a damper to the Lysian[455] god, who, as Pindar says, "looses the rope of all our cares and anxieties." There is also great danger in such ill-timed freedom of speech. For wine makes people easily slip into rage, and oftentimes freedom of speech in liquor makes enemies. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... put a damper on it, but now all the girls are anxious to play and we have challenged the sophomores to play against us the second Saturday afternoon in February. I am going to play right guard, and Miriam is to play left forward. A Miss ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... is highly important, can be more easily and more effectually maintained where a stove is employed, furnished with a damper, and supplied with dry, hard wood, than where a fire-place is used. In the former case the draft may be regulated, in the latter it can not be. A great amount of air enters into combustion even where a stove is used. ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... overview: Severe volcanic activity, which began in July 1995, has put a damper on this small, open economy. A catastrophic eruption in June 1997 closed the airports and seaports, causing further economic and social dislocation. Two-thirds of the 12,000 inhabitants fled the island. Some began to return ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... enough to be green and slippery. Presently we came to the top of a flight of stone steps, each step being made of one enormous block and worn smooth by the sandalled traffic of centuries. It grew damper as we descended, and those great blocks were tricky things for a man in boots to walk on; yet the Gray Mahatma, swinging his lantern several steps below us, kept ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... Cutty, his conscience pricking him. But he welcomed that "Olga." It would naturally put a damper on Kitty's interest. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a damper, but I couldn't help enjoying ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... emanating from the legislative department—were, up to the year 1769, nearly all prepared by Mr. Otis; but it was generally necessary to tone down the first drafts of his work. For this duty the speaker (Thomas Cushing) and Samuel Adams were generally selected. It was reckoned necessary to put the damper on the fire! ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... of the house looked on to a little, damp, melancholy, neglected garden, enclosed by a wall of regular elevation; and the other on to a dull, even damper, narrow street which ran between the house and the black, discoloured wall of the church of San Rafael. To pass from the palace to the church, where the Quinones had a private pew, was a little gallery, or covered way, smaller, but similar to that ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... of the French as no longer deserving the pains men took for them, since they were a people old and without continuity or coherence;[27] of their leaders as poor creatures engaged on low plots; and of the damper which such a spectacle puts on ambition. Clearly the lesson of moderation which he inculcates is for the first time sincerely given. The preacher, according to his own judgment for the time being, is no Frenchman, no demagogue, nothing but a simple Corsican anxious to live far from the madness of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... on the Monarch from the damp in the house before last, and there was cook, very red and damp in the face, and with a clean apron tied on all crooked over the dirty one that she had dished up those dear delightful chickens in. She stood there and she seemed to get redder and damper, and she twisted the corner of her apron round her fingers, and she ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... contention were over, a vote of confidence had been passed in their Government, and the House was silent. The pheasants in the park shook their wings and crowed 'kuck, kuck—kow,' and went to roost; the water in the furrows ceased to reflect; the dark earth grew darker and damper; the elms lost their reddish brown; the sky became leaden behind the ridge of the Downs; and the shadow of night ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... destination the same evening, when, tethering the horse, we proceeded to make ourselves comfortable for the night round a camp fire, whereon we boiled our tea and fried chops, and after placing the usual damper under the hot ashes so as to be ready for the morning, we rolled our blankets around us and with feet ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... yet lovelier as the track wound through deep wooded ravines, or snaked along the narrow tops of spine-like ridges; the air became cooler, damper, and more like elixir, till at a height of 1500 feet we came upon Makaueli, ideally situated upon an unequalled natural plateau, a house of patriarchal size for the islands, with a verandah festooned with roses, fuchsias, the water lemon, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... putting a damper on me. It was you who advised me to go in for dry-farming," Wallie ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... evening passed off with credit and honor to everybody concerned, even to Jane, who had the discretion to recover instead of growing worse and acting as a damper to the general enjoyment. The Burches left with lively regrets, and the little missionaries, bathed in tears, swore eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into their hands at parting a poem ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in the very heights of the ecstacies, a playful young monk, that had been exchanging "sheep's eyes" with "Paterno," in a fit of playfulness made a grab for the latter's tail, but lo! there was none. The news spread like the incoming of "amigos" after the capture of a Filipino town. A damper fell upon the meeting. All scorned the maimed fellow with that frosty bearing that a reigning belle bestows upon a promising debutante, or the monkey family toward their ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... that I wished to see my mother, but I might as well have asked for a captain's commission. The time was too precious, and we were of too much use to be spared to see our mammas, so the second lieutenant said, and that was a sufficient damper. He had his wife in snug lodgings at Dock; he neither felt for us nor our mammas, so one of the ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... her on the sand, brought his anchor ashore and shoved her off, to swing lazily the while. When I paid him a ceremonious visit, I found that he had but one arm. The empty right sleeve was the more pathetic when I saw him mixing his flour for a damper, and in the cunning twists and wriggling by which the fingers freed each other of the sticky dough and other dextrous manipulations, I soon came to recognise that with his left hand he was as deft as many men with their right ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... two hours each during night; the morning watch boiled the water, and woke the rest at four. We made our breakfast of tea or coffee, damper, and pork, which we ate raw, and went out for the horses; which were generally saddled up, and on the move, before sunrise. We travelled till one or two, when we led the horses to water, looked to any sores ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... which hospitably extended its arms to take her in. But with Katharine it was a different matter. Critical of others, and constantly studying the effect of all that she herself said or did, she was rather a damper on the good times of the girls. Fortunately, she usually scorned them as children, and spent much of her time with her mates in the fashionable boarding-school at which she and her sister were day pupils. And yet, she was ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... a meal, anyway, if you're a sun-downer," he said. "And usually there's a job of sorts that'll keep you in grub. I say, old girl, we'll have to live on damper and billy-tea. It's ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... remark about the trip out, he placed a crisp, newly baked damper on the tea-towel that acted as supper cloth; but when we all agreed that he was "real slap-up at damper making," he scented a joke and shot a quick, questioning glance around; then deciding that it was wiser ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the subscription-books with which I had provided myself. I had rented an office and employed a clerk. These were two items of expense that had not occurred to me when making my first calculation. It was rather a damper on the ardency of my hopes, to find, that instead of the large number of subscribers I had fondly expected to receive, the aggregate from all quarters ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... variableness. Hence, whenever the melodic movement and harmonic changes are not too rapid, a pianist should press the pedal constantly, whether he plays loudly or softly; because it is only when the damper is raised from the strings that the overtones can enrich and beautify the sound by causing their corresponding strings to vibrate in sympathy with them. Those who heard Schumann play say that he used the pedal persistently, sometimes twice in the same bar to avoid harmonic confusion; ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the postal cards that have not been used under the distributing table, and the coal down in the cellar. If the stove draws too hard, close the damper in the pipe and shut the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... fear of Dakota, which must be taken into account when he meditated any action prompted by his jealousy, and his fear of Dakota was a check on his desires, a damper which must control the heat of his emotions. He might hate Dakota, but his fear of him would prevent his taking any action which might expose his own life to risk. On the other hand, jealousy urged him to accept any risk; it kept telling him over and over that he was a fool to allow Dakota to live. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... said Dallas, speaking in a more manly way. "I beg your pardon. So does my cousin here. We're fagged out, and this does seem such a damper. I wish we were back somewhere in ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... brush. Do not apply to a perfectly dry skin, like tanned hide for a robe or rug, but dampen the inside first with clear water, then paint over with the paste and it will strike through to the fur side and be taken up around the fur roots by capillary action. This tends to put a damper on the activities of the moth, whose favorite grazing ground is at the hair roots just outside ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... Burroughs was dropping the Emersonian manner, and while his style was in the transition stage, he wrote an essay on "Analogy," and sent it also to the "Atlantic," receiving quite a damper on his enthusiasm when Lowell, the editor, returned it. But he sent it to the old "Knickerbocker Magazine," where it appeared in 1862. Many years later he rewrote it, and it was accepted by Horace Scudder, then the "Atlantic's" ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... this last walk together as pleasant as possible, Lloyd immediately put Bernice out of her mind as far as she was able. But she could not rid herself entirely of the recollection that something disagreeable had happened. The impression bore down on her like a heavy cloud, and was a damper on her high spirits. Outwardly she was as gay as ever, and when the walk was over, led the party on a foraging ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... day was a work-day, and the thought of it put a damper on the men's spirits. Most of them, moreover, had spent their money. Some were already rolling dismally home, to sleep in preparation for the morrow. Mrs. Morel, listening to their mournful singing, went indoors. Nine o'clock passed, and ten, and still "the pair" had not returned. On a doorstep ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... put a damper on de yuthers, but 'fo' Mr. Rooster git outer sight en year'n dey went ter wuk on de pile w'at wuz 'pariently co'n-bread, en, lo en beholes, un'need dem pone er bread wuz a whole passel er meat en greens, en ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... were compelled to halt for the night in a dense thicket, without a single blade of grass or even scrub of any kind which could afford food for the horses; water it was hopeless to look for; and after a supper of raw bacon, damper, and a pint of water each, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... him, and again Biffton relapsed into silence. Rather a damper on a man of his calibre, when a fellow wouldn't touch a bell ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... so intimately every minute of the day, and so often on the point of speaking—often almost necessitated to do so by circumstances, and frequently through forgetfulness—their unfortunate difficulty and enmity stole the freshness from their sports, and acted as a check and damper on the spirits of all our little company. However, the finale was not far-distant, but it was postponed ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sam heartily: "let us come together by all means, and if we are to go to the ranges, we had better take a blanket a-piece, and a wedge of damper. So if you will get them from the house, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... are simple slips of walnut measuring about 3/16" by 7/16" by 3-1/8". The arrangement of the tongue, spring, plectrum, and damper are shown in figure 11. The dampers are small pieces of buckskin held in slots at the tops of the jacks. The plectra, perhaps not original, are of leather. Of course, there are no adjusting screws or capstans of ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... the letter quoted from, that you might publish the whole of that which is garbled to answer a purpose. In a part of the letter not published, I put such a damper on the attempt to fix on me the desire to break up our Union, and presented other points in a form so little acceptable to the unfriendly inquirers, that the publication of the letter had to be ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... not being well shook us up bad. Everybody was friends with her, same as she was friends with everybody—even when she got into one of her tantrums, and took to jawing you, you couldn't help liking her—and knowing she wasn't feeling like she ought to feel put a big lot more of a damper on all hands. So we just kept on taking drinks and getting miserabler with 'em—and feeling all the time surer something was coming bouncing out at us from round the corner, and wondering what kind of a stir-up we was likely ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... put a little damper on our picnic," remarked Fred. "We should have eaten our lunch ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... wondered why he should have been so desponding an hour ago. He had made excuses for himself—he began to make them for Maud, nay, he was fast returning to his allegiance, the allegiance of a day, thrown off in five minutes, when he sustained another damper, such as the total reversal of his outrigger and his own immersion, head uppermost, in the Thames, could ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... prosperity that we have thus far obtained, shall be enabled to continue its work without being supplanted by monopoly. In a general way I should include public monopoly as well as private among the things which would put a damper on the progress of improvement and lessen the income on which the comfort of laborers in the near future will be dependent. Monopoly of any sort is hostile to improvement, and in this chiefly lies the menace which it holds ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... occasion by the instant introduction of a brief double-shuffle. Barry Cornwall told me that when he and Charles Lamb were once making up a dinner-party together, Charles asked him not to invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said Lamb, "he would cast a damper even over a funeral." I have often contrasted the habitual qualities of that gloomy friend of theirs with the astounding spirits of both Thackeray and Dickens. They always seemed to me to be standing in the sunshine, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... my sight, Though far removed from us, for thou alone Hast touched the inmost fibres of the breast, Since Tasso's tears made damper the damp floor Whereon one only light ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... being received in some kind way or other when he came out—comrades singing, perhaps, or a woman and two children standing on the white highroad, waiting for him! And there had only been Ferdinand to meet him! Well, it had been a damper, and now he shook off the disappointment and set out at a good pace. The active movement set his pulses beating. The sky had never before been so bright as it was to-day; the sun shone right into his heart. There was a smiling greeting in it all—in the wind that threw ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo |
