"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... go to bed Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England Seemed bent on self-destruction Stand between hope and fear The evils resulting from a confederate system of government To stifle for ever the right of ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... awful demon who possesses them. Too horror-stricken to utter a sound, Gerald sprang at her, and seizing her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling girl by main strength down on to the floor. No one near to help! No water at hand! Not so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover, heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service. Gerald tore it off,—books, boxes, china cups, and glass vases crashing to the ground together,—and flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... and stifle in the grave, Or dungeon's gloom, my woman's voice, that it Shall not reverberate throughout the world. This he may do; but force me to speak aught Against my will, that can he not; though backed By all thy craft—no, he has missed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... consequently production is encouraged and trade and industry are stimulated. But under an appreciating standard the recompense of labor becomes smaller and smaller, and the share of the products of labor absorbed by the creditor larger, which tends to discourage industry and stifle enterprise. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... how sad steps, O Moon thou climb'st the sky. How silently, and with how wan a face!" [2] Where art thou? Thou whom I have seen on high Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race? Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh Which they would stifle, move at such a pace! The Northern Wind, to call thee to the chace, Must blow tonight his bugle horn. Had I The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be And all the Stars, now shrouded up in heaven, Should sally forth to keep thee company. What strife would then be yours, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... the darkness was broken by an unmistakable sneeze. True, the sneezer, if I may use such a term, tried to stifle the explosion, but he was not altogether successful. It was a sneeze, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... me!— I think thou hast a sword;—'twas the wrong side. Yet, cruel Haemon, think not I will live; He, that could tear his eyes out, sure can find Some desperate way to stifle this cursed breath: Or if I starve!—but that's a lingering fate; Or if I leave my brains upon the wall!— The airy soul can easily o'er-shoot Those bounds, with which thou striv'st to pale her in. Yes, I will perish in despite of thee; And, by the rage that stirs me, if I meet thee ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... few writers are insisting that the growing desire for labor, on the part of many people of leisure, has its counterpart in the increasing desire for general knowledge on the part of many laborers. They point to the fact that the same duality of conscience which seems to stifle the noblest effort in the individual because his intellectual conception and his achievement are so difficult to bring together, is found on a large scale in society itself, when we have the separation of the people who think from those who work. And ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... wiser than they, we had in a measure pined, and in a great measure starved; which is just answerable to the principles of those men who cry down all devices, or ingenious discoveries, as projects, and therefore stifle and choak improvements." According to a late writer, in the year 1830, there were 46,727 acres occupied in the cultivation of hops in Great ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... of his body ached where the doubled gravity had pressed his flesh to the unyielding wood of the floor. His eyes were gummy and his mouth was filled with an indescribable taste that came off in chunks. Sitting up was an effort and he had to stifle a groan as his ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... should have suffered pain, as it requires fasting to gain a good appetite. We, who can have all for a wish, little enjoy that all when we have possessed it. Seest thou yonder thick cloud, which is about to burst to rain? It seems to stifle me—the waters look dark and lurid—the shores have ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... comfort the human heart can crave. Those who have heard him, as many have, relate such touching episodes of the war, cannot recall without emotion the quivering lip, the face gnarled and writhed to stifle the rising sob, and the patient, loving eyes swimming in tears, which mirrored the tender pity of his gentle and loving nature. He seemed a stranger to the harsher and stormier passions of man. Easily grieved, he seemed incapable of hate.... It ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... witty; and I love his girlish timidity. My soul rests in his heart away from all corruptions, all ideas of knowledge, literature, the world, society, politics,—those useless accessories under which we stifle happiness. I am what I have never been,—a child! I am sure of him, but I like to play at jealousy; he likes it too. Besides, that ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... a few moments. Then Miss Patience, who had bravely tried to stifle her sobs, said with chattering teeth, "Perez, I'm pretty nigh froze ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... that which is already stirring in my breast, in my mind, in the marrow of my bones! I am already rich, as a star is rich in golden rays. And I will bear all, I will suffer all, because there is within me a joy which no one, which nothing can ever stifle! In this joy there ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Never a sociable man, he shunned the society of the neighbouring farmers, and they, on their side, resenting his outrageous conduct to his stepdaughter, studiously kept out of his way. Doggedly he set himself to do both the labours of the house and farm, and sought to stifle in hard work the memory of his wife's desertion of him, together with whatever twinges of remorse may have come to him when he thought of the revenge which he had taken upon her daughter. But as time went ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... country for years and will continue to do so. The plague strikes blindly but the present regime chooses its victims from the flower of the nation, taking all upon whom depend the fortune and glory of Russia. It is not a political party that they crush, it is a nation of a hundred millions that they stifle. That is what the Czar has done.'[14] Down with such despotism! Down ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... memory. The eyes of dukes of the blood royal have been plucked out for the good of the kingdom. Certain princes, too near to the throne, have been conveniently stifled between mattresses, the cause of death being given out as apoplexy. Now to stifle is worse than to mutilate. The King of Tunis tore out the eyes of his father, Muley Assem, and his ambassadors have not been the less favourably received by the emperor. Hence the king may order the suppression of a limb like the suppression of a state, etc. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... by telling me that he had found himself obliged to recognize his children to prevent slander attributing them to others, which would have injured the reputation of the three honest girls who bore them; and besides he could not stifle the voice of nature, which spoke so well on behalf of these little ones. His last words were, "There is no danger of the superior falling into the same fault, as he confines his attention to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... before whom Oates had laid his information, was found in a field near London with his sword run through his heart. His death was assumed to be murder, and the murder to be an attempt of the Jesuits to "stifle the plot." A solemn funeral added to the public agitation; and the two Houses named committees to investigate the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... the slow isicle hangs At the stifle thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumme the year, blithe as of old let us Mid noise and war, of peace and mirth discusse. This portion thou wert born for. Why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous miserie? An age that thus hath fooled ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... devils die,' cried the stout American mate, actuated by the generosity of the race he sprang from, which his degrading employment could not wholly stifle. Assisted by our men, who had jumped out of the boat, the hatches were soon removed, exposing to view a mass of human misery which, being once seen, must remain impressed on the memory for ever—the naked bodies of men, women, and children, writhing in a heap, contorted, gasping ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... pshaw! when such thoughts entered my heart and forced a tear or two from my eyes, I rebelled against myself. I said: 'My lad, when you earn but three thousand francs a year, and have an old and cherished father to support, it is your duty to stifle such desires, and remain a bachelor.' And yet I met a young girl. It is thirty years now since that time; well! just look at me, I am sure I am blushing as red as a tomato. Her name was Hortense. Who can tell what has become of her? She was beautiful and poor. Well, I was quite an old ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... as I thought, very composedly. I tried to persuade myself that I was not in the least ruffled or agitated by the scene I had passed through; but I was secretly conscious, notwithstanding, of a vague dread which I endeavored in vain to stifle. The defiance which the dwarf had so insolently flung at me, the contrast he drew between his shriveled frame and my physical advantages, and the Satanic pride with which he rose superior to his wretched deformities, gave me no slight cause for uneasiness, although I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... will be here soon," she murmured amiably; "I am rather tired of waiting." She affected to stifle ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... not at all new. Sporadic attempts to start and carry on various industries had been made during the colonial period. They had all failed, either because the watchful mother-country took pains to stifle them, or because lack of capital and experience, in addition to foreign competition, killed them almost at their birth. The idea of developing American industries was generally diffused for the first time when the colonists strove to bring England to ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... to the call of the open road; In your cities I'd stifle and die. I'm off to the hills in fancy I see— On the breast of old earth ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... cannot be [and striking his right hand on his breast, he went on:] I feel here something that rises and tells me: Never, Rameau, never. There must be a certain dignity attached to human nature that nothing can stifle; it awakes a propos des bottes; you cannot explain it; for there are other days when it would cost me not a pang to be as vile as you like, and for a halfpenny there is nothing too dirty for me ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... executioner, in order to cut short the sufferings of the victim, to stifle him in dense smoke before the flames had had time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the plaster scaffold made unusually ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... From the period of the Reformation in England up to the present time, she has kept her emissaries here—individuals contemptible in intellect, it is true, but cat-like and gliding, who, at her bidding, have endeavoured, as much as in their power has lain, to damp and stifle every genial, honest, loyal and independent thought, and to reduce minds to such a state of dotage as would enable their old Popish mother to do ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... thinkers found some rest: but not for long. The perplexity of the presence of this immediate order of things seemed solved; but another kept obtruding itself: what was going on before that "beginning?" Vain to stifle the inquiry by replying, "nothing."[168-1] For time, which knows no beginning, was there, still building, still destroying; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. What then is left but the conclusion of the Preacher: "That which ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... wonder. The women sat at the table with the men over in the Gap—why not here? Then her father went silently to his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten at the kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with never a word. Something began to stifle her, but she choked it down. There were the dishes to be cleared away and washed, and the pans and kettles to be cleaned. Her back ached, her arms were tired to the shoulders and her burned hand quivered with pain when all was done. The old woman had left her to do the last ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the other, and the quality of address and response is lost. Likewise, true religion disappears when it represents only what God says and eliminates the meaning of man's response. Religious dogma is sometimes used to shackle human creativity, and the form of belief is allowed to stifle the vitality of faith. Similarly, religion disappears when the address to God and the response of God are eliminated. The Pharisee in Jesus' parable had lost the dialogical quality of his prayer because he "stood and prayed thus with himself...."[6] He was not ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... weakness in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the influence which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese [187] civilization was immense, profound, multiform, incalculable; and the only wonder is that it should not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To state, as various writers have carelessly stated, that Buddhism became the popular religion, while Shinto remained the official religion, is altogether misleading. As a matter of fact Buddhism ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... be familiar to his hands, and the groans of the dying continually in his ears. But though the horrors of war were awfully familiar to him, the harshness of war never became so; he spilt no blood that he could spare, he took no life that he could save. The cruelty of his enemies was unable to stifle the humanity of his heart; even a soldier and a servant of the republic became his friend as soon as he ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Could it be that Berenger was only two miles—only half an hour's walk form Eustacie? The bound his heart gave as he touched the shore seemed to stifle him. He could not believe it. Yet he knew how fully he had believed it, the next moment, when he listened to what the fishermen ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cruelty. Not once more did I close my happy eyes Amid the thrush's song. Away! Avaunt! O 'twas a cruel thing."—"Now thou dost taunt So softly, Arethusa, that I think If thou wast playing on my shady brink, 980 Thou wouldst bathe once again. Innocent maid! Stifle thine heart no more:—nor be afraid Of angry powers: there are deities Will shade us with their wings. Those fitful sighs 'Tis almost death to hear: O let me pour A dewy balm upon them!—fear no more, Sweet Arethusa! Dian's self ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... look upon him as your enemy; but where the hatred is such that, while feeling you cannot, on a sober examination of your heart, account for it, there is little hope that you will ever be able to stifle the enmity that you entertain against him. This, however, in politics and religion, is what is frequently designated as principle—a word on which men, possessing higher and greater advantages than the poor ignorant peasantry ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... commissioned her to carry His good tidings to all peoples; and so long as she remained true to this commission and to her instruction book, the world's cunning sophistries could not deceive her, nor could the cruel power of a world empire stifle her voice. And now when her absent Lord is about to return again, it surely behooves her to set her house in order, and to return with candor and fidelity to that written code of instruction left with her by ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... knit together, with such tough matter, it must necessarilie binde and cleaue together, and so likewise the blacke clay, from whence most naturally proceedeth your best limestone, being mixt with white sand, doth also binde together and stifle the seede, if it be not preuented ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... Morok, who, with his arm encumbered by the sling, made a rush for the staircase, the soldier caught him by his long, streaming hair, pulled him back, clasped him with hands of iron, clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his outcries, and notwithstanding his desperate resistance, dragged him into the chamber, on the floor of which the burgomaster lay bruised ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in his sorrow by the thought that his son's memory would be forever glorious, manfully endeavored to stifle his misery and go about his daily tasks. The sympathy of his parishioners was not made apparent by their bearing toward him. He was disappointed in not receiving more direct consolation from his friends and those with whom he was in direct and almost daily ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... memory. If the sky were always as to-day, if there were always sunlight to stand in and the living air to drink, she might find the life before her in truth as little of a burden as it seemed this morning But the days would again be wrapped in nether fumes, the foul air would stifle her, her blood would go stagnant, her eyes would weep with the desolate rain. Why should Gilbert remain in England? Were there no countries where the sun shone that would give a man and a woman toil whereby to support themselves? Luke Ackroyd had spoken of going ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... be an eventful one, for when I entered the house and found Eliza ensconced in the upper hall on a chair, with Mary Anne doing her best to stifle her with household ammonia, and Liddy rubbing her wrists—whatever good that is supposed to do—I knew that the ghost had been walking again, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... flags are furled, the trumpets mute, And soft-voiced messengers replace the guns, Let it be yours to stifle old dispute And found a first-aid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... which any well-clad person could avoid; it was invading the very drawing-rooms, mingling itself with the comfortable fumes of port-wine and brandy, threatening to deaden with its murky breath all the splendour of the ostrich feathers, and to stifle Milby ingenuousness, not pretending to be better than its neighbours, with a cloud of cant and lugubrious hypocrisy. The alarm reached its climax when it was reported that Mr. Tryan was endeavouring ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in the ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its piety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed means of learning the love of God; and to stifle human affections must be very often to render the love of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... after a silence of some minutes, 'I would request a favour of you: You have a right to know on whom you confer an obligation. I will not therefore stifle a confession which covers me with shame; But permit me to comprise it in ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... crying for them, Susan," said Owen, trying to stifle his tears, "I am crying for myself; I cannot help it. I know you love me, and you always have ever since I could remember—if you punished me it was kindly done—and now you are going away, and I do not know ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... its aspects it was abundant enough. While Mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the fulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the mathematical key of the universe which would supersede Newton, and regarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and keep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key, with just that hair's-breadth of difference from the old wards which would make it fit exactly. Scattered here and there in every direction you might find a terrible person, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... garments were brought out. Even inside the palisade one could see a great change in apparel and adornment. The booths were no longer invitingly open, but here and there were inns and places of evening resort where the air was not only enough to stifle one, but so blue with smoke you could hardly see your neighbor's face. No merry parties sang songs upon the river nor went up to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... much in recognition of their goodness, that he became abashed by it. Mrs. Pasmer sat at the head of the table, and Alice across it from him, so far off that she seemed parted from him by an insuperable moral distance. A warm flush seemed to rise from his heart into his throat and stifle him. He wished to shed tears. His eyes were wet with grateful happiness in answering Mrs. Pasmer that he would not have any more coffee. "Then," she said, "we will go into the drawing-room;" but she allowed him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... man-power-carriage coolies, who in the exercise of our nightly avocation are called to distant parts of the town, where the knife that is invisible will speedily sever the head from the body, and the cloth that is impenetrable will stifle the last cry of him that hath none to avenge, and our heads go to make the water run within the pipe, and make firm the foundations ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... himself and struggled against the feeling, hated his brother-in-law. He disliked his vulgar feelings, his self-confident narrowness of mind, but, principally, because of his sister, who should so passionately, egotistically and sensually love such a poor nature, and to please whom she should stifle all her noble sentiments. It was always painful to Nekhludoff to think of Natalie as the wife of that hairy, self-confident man, with shining bald head. He could not even suppress his aversion to his children. And whenever he heard that she ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the confusion, Elaine, closely followed by her friend Susie, made her way fearlessly into the stifle ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... if at the threshold of some golden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if a bat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darkness again.... Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thought ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... later (o'er the trifle), When Araminta with her tactful gush Asked if the garden seemed to help or stifle The Muses' output, I responded, "Tush; When you go out, my dear, please buy a rifle; I want to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... our industrial towns, imposes prevailing methods of industry and technique of factory processes as final and determined. As industrial history and technique are taught in the schools, in effect they bind the children to the current industrial practice and to the current conditions. They stifle imagination and discourage the concept that industry is an evolving process. The effect of technical training in the German continuation schools (and the tendency is the same in our own industrial education courses) is to teach the children that the methods and ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... the meal was ended, and went up to the great empty deck. She felt as if she would stifle below. But, up above, the wash of the sea and the immensity of the night soothed her somewhat. She found a secluded corner, and leaned upon the rail, gazing out over the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... know," answered the individual addressed, shaking his head with a serio-comical expression; "but stifle me with the night-mar, if ever I'm cotched riding a race with death on ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... brief betrothal—and music would peal out upon them till Lady Landale's stormy heart could bear it no longer, and she would rise in her turn, fly to the shelter of her room and roll her head in the pillows to stifle the sound of sobs, crying from the depths of her soul against heaven's injustice; anon railing in a frenzy of impotent anger against the musician, who had such passion in him and gave it to his ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the art to hide their jealousy under a tone of angelic kindness; they are, like Lady Dudley, over thirty years of age. Such women know how to feel and how to calculate; they press out the juices of to-day and think of the future also; they can stifle a moan, often a natural one, with the will of a huntsman who pays no heed to a wound in the ardor of the chase. Without ever speaking of Madame de Mortsauf, Arabella endeavored to kill her in my soul, where she ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... dreadful wave of homesickness roll over her. Then the tears came, hot, scalding tears that rolled down her cheeks in ever increasing number. She made no noise, lest she waken the other girls but the effort to stifle her sobs made her cry harder, and she buried her face in the rough worsted of the sofa pillow and wiped her eyes with ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Spaniards and Portuguese afforded another opening, English traders smuggled. The Spaniards, with monstrous fatuity, refused to make use of the superb waterways provided by the Parana and Paraguay, and endeavoured to stifle all trade. England's main struggle was with France. It was prolonged by her entanglement in European disputes and by political causes, by the want of co-operation among the English colonies and their jealousy of control by the home government. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for it took her back to that dreadful day. She could not bear to think that Billy Dale's blood lay on her and Monohan, neither could she stifle an uneasy apprehension that something more grievous yet might happen on Roaring Lake. But at least she had done what she could. If she were the flame, she had removed herself from the powder magazine. Fyfe had pulled his cedar crew off the Tyee before ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... into the conservatory the music ceased and there was a flutter as the dancers sought seats, or stepped out upon the lawn. Archie, acutely uncomfortable, heard the Governor stifle ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families, dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand design of his czar; God ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the shop where they buy their clothing smiles as she wraps for them their packages. Such attentions would be passed by without a thought at ordinary times, but now notice means much to a heart that is trying hard to stifle its loneliness and sorrow, struggling to learn in an unknown tongue the knowledge of the West; in lieu of mother, sister, or sweetheart of his own land, the boy is insensibly drawn into a net that tightens about him, until he takes the fatal step and brings back ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... at her fate. There were hours, even yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her mingled ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... to make our hut more weather-proof. Then with great difficulty we got the blubber stove to start, and it spouted a blob of boiling oil into Bill's eye. For the rest of the night he lay, quite unable to stifle his groans, obviously in very great pain: he told us afterwards that he thought his eye was gone. We managed to cook a meal somehow, and Birdie got the stove going afterwards, but it was quite useless ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream shops and generally having a good ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... had pondered it since! In this intense trance of feeling it breaks upon her finally that he is right. May it not be that he with his clearer thought, his wider knowledge of life, has laid his finger on the weak point in her guardianship of her sisters? 'I have tried to stifle her passion,' she thought, 'to push it out of the way as a hindrance. Ought I not rather to have taught her to make of it a step in the ladder—to have moved her to bring her gifts to the altar? ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now and then disturbed by little gusts of passion and prejudice; but the faculty was there to be strengthened by every opportunity of exercising it. This faculty had been stirred within her when Lady Alice first told her of her father's existence; but she had tried to stifle it as an accursed thing. She held it wicked to be anything but a partizan. And now it had revived within her, and was urging her to form no rash conclusions, to be careful in her thoughts about her new acquaintances, to weigh her opinions before expressing them. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... past, I said to myself: "Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Durham—you four great universities—you terrors of Europe—that road is older than you: and meanwhile I drink to your continued healths, but let us have a little room ... air, there, give us air, good people. I stifle ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... and the tender, throbbing voice pleading to be taught the fullness of human love, that she might find the largeness of the Infinite. Turning swiftly to the window, he pressed his lips together to stifle his emotion. He could no longer bear the stab at his heart, nor risk the mist rising in his eyes. Tessibel, wholly unconscious of the stir she was making, sang on and on, her gaze on the sheet in her hand. Suddenly she raised her eyes and there near the door was Frederick ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... cosmopolitan extraction (who had not been extracted quite far enough to be sure of British tastes) gave the audience four verses where one would have been better. And all this time the anger of the Pacificist grew. His cheeks burned, and the excited pounding of his heart was like to stifle him. He knew himself one, alone, against hundreds; impressing them, no doubt (despite their pretence of indifference), with the courage of a right cause. To face odds like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... limbs and his twisted soul. He lay quite still a while longer, staring. Charlotte, with her eyes upon him, and the squirrel with his eyes upon him, never stirred. Charlotte heard her heart beat, and wished for some way to stifle it, but that she could not do. It seemed to her that the beating of her heart was like a drum, as if it could be heard through all the grove. She realized that she could not hear the sound of passing wheels on the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the most amiable member of it. For my own part, I can control my temper when it is not running away with me, and be fairly kind to the little ones, so long as they do what I tell them. But, at a crisis like this, I can no more yield to your unreasonable wishes, stifle my just anger, apologize for a little wrong to you who owe apologies for a big one, and pave the way to peace with my own broken will, than the leopard can ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the editor of a Washington newspaper; another pro-slavery member, from Arkansas, had violently attacked Horace Greeley on the street; a third pro-slavery member, from California, had shot an unoffending waiter at Willard's Hotel. Was this fourth instance the prelude of an intention to curb or stifle free Congressional debate? It is probable that this question was seriously considered at the little caucus of Republican Senators held that night at the house of Mr. Seward. The Republicans had only a slender minority in the Senate, and a plurality in the House; they could do nothing ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... to create by an effort of will a feeling of love in ourselves which otherwise would have had no existence; the feeling must arise naturally or it cannot arise at all. But a number of causes which are removable may interfere to prevent the feeling from arising or to stifle it as it arises, and we are commanded to remove these hindrances. It is natural to man to love his kind, and Christ commands us only to give nature play. He does not expect us to procure for ourselves hearts of some new supernatural texture, but merely the heart of flesh for the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... possession of the poison, and said that the 100,000 francs which he had invested he had inherited from an uncle. Through Goupil he succeeded in communicating with his mother in the hope that she would use her influence to stifle some of the more serious evidence against him. Through other prisoners he tried to get at the chemists from whom he had bought acetate of morphia, and persuade them to say that the preparation of morphia which he had purchased ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the sparrow. But whatever may be said, let us drop the past. Let us consider the present. I beg of you, leave this boy—let him develop without your attempting to stifle the life in him or impressing upon it the stamp of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... bed, Herbert could see his mother's face as she knelt on a stool at the bedside. His father was turned away from him, and lay with his hand inside his wife's, and Emmeline was sitting on the foot of the bed, with her face between her hands, striving to stifle her sobs. "Here is Herbert now, dearest," said Lady Fitzgerald, with a low, soft voice, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to cause no effort in the hearing. "I knew that he would not be long." And Herbert, obeying the signal of his mother's eye, passed ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... greasy mop on top of her round head. Her figure is flabby and fat; her breath comes in wheezy gasps; she speaks in a loud, mannish voice, punctuated by explosions of hoarse laughter. But there still twinkles in her blood-shot blue eyes a youthful lust for life which hard usage has failed to stifle, a sense of humor mocking, but good-tempered. She wears a man's cap, double-breasted man's jacket, and a grimy, calico skirt. Her bare feet are encased in a man's brogans several sizes too large for her, which gives her ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... Beatrice, trying to stifle her laughter, increased by Marie's witticism: "the child is ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... the chevalier; "I understand all you would say. You thank me in his name, and ask me to leave you: I obey-yes, madame, I am going; at the risk of my life I will prevent this meeting, I will stifle this fatal revelation. But grant me one last prayer-permit me to look forward to seeing you once more before I leave this city, to which I wish I had never come. But I shall quit it in a day or two, to-morrow perhaps—as soon as I know that your happiness is assured. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... shoulders, tremendous quarters, exceptionally short of cannon bone and long from hock to stifle as a greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best points ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... have closed his ears, and, hoping to stifle the remorseful pangs that seized upon his very vitals with the sharpness of serpents' teeth, he strove to dwell upon the frequent and severe acts of penance he had performed. But he now found that his penitence had never been sincere and efficacious. This one damning sin ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... not life be all a sigh! Good Snell, do thou a burthen try Shall change our sadness into joy: Such as thou trollest in blythe mood, On days of sunshine in the wood. Tell out thy heart withouten fear— For none shall stifle free thoughts here! But, bear the mead-cup, Edith sweet! We crave our stranger guest will greet All hearts, again, with minstrelsy, When Snell hath ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... organized into trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... comparatively rare occurrence of an individual, surrounded with almost every description of temptation to stifle conviction, and, by his silence at least, to perpetuate a corruption in the Christian church, which for ages has been protected by legislative authority, popular favour, and implicit faith, not only nobly triumphing over every inducement to compromise ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... times would be a scourge to the human race, would now be useful to the public welfare. This salutary crisis would elevate the people to the level of their destiny; it would restore to them their pristine energy—it would re-establish our finances, and stifle the germ of intestine dissension. In a similar situation Frederic the Great broke the league formed against him by the court of Vienna, by forestalling it. Your committee propose that the preparations for war be accelerated. A congress would be a disgrace—war is necessary—public ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... democratic prejudices to stifle our understanding in such matters. We are trying to get clearly in perspective a ruler, who claims to rule in obedience to no mandates from the people, but in obedience to God. We could not be ruled by such a one in America; and in England such a ruler would ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... wish,"—went on the Prince—"that I should stay in the palace more, I will obey you. If you desire me to be seen oftener in the capital, I will endeavour to fulfil your command, though the streets stifle me. But, for God's sake, do not make me a puppet on show before my time,—or marry me to a woman I hate, merely for the sake of heirs to ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... counsel of life was most remote from such cabals. But certain of the nobility (for what reason it is more proper that ye should judge than that I, as a magistrate, should, without proof, insinuate) have laboured to stifle entirely the inquiries; and then, finding their strength unequal to it, rather than stand a trial have fled for refuge to the stronghold of their adversaries, an appeal and the support of the tribunes; and on being there also repulsed, (so fully were ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... sometimes to be a little obstinate, etc. In short, it all comes to this, that many M.P.'s are afraid of losing their seats by a dissolution, and many others whose boroughs are disfranchised hate the Reform Bill, and many more are anti-Reformers by nature, and all these combine to stifle it.... And to tell Lord John that really he has such a quantity of spare character that it can bear a little damaging! I am ashamed and sick of such things, and should think my country no longer worth caring for, but for those ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... inevitable! As between such competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion, although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have gathered about the name of Caesar. But enough transpired to show which way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Caesar. And Pompey, who was much more forced ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... levelled with so true an aim, that it stretched him at his length upon the ground. No terrors of impending vengeance, had they been a thousand times stronger than they were, could at this moment have availed to stifle the cry of triumphant pleasure—long, loud, and unfaltering— which indignant sympathy with the oppressed extorted from the crowd. The pain and humiliation of the blow, exalted into a maddening intensity by this popular shout of exultation, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... fireworks in her other hand, she crossed this train with the light and set it on fire. Then the brave woman, throwing away the parachute and the match, strove to close the mouth of the balloon, and to stifle the fire. These efforts being unavailing, Madame Blanchard was distinctly seen to sit down in her ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... that somebody had lied. In fact, all men of her race had been lying from the beginning of time, for what, after all, did civilization amount to if it were not convincing? Did it ever soothe a wounded heart, stifle the pangs of jealousy, or was it ample compensation for the loss of the great ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... And how perfect a proof of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible—by a little ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... literary genius to reveal our thoughts to us, as it often does, certainly the average person will not discover his own characteristics alone. Even with firm intentions he will merely grope about, and from blindness and want of skill will stifle a good portion of his ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... touch of a child's hand will rob the canary bird of its life—stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... mean, endurable to each other. We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force; to get people out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set up on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be clean; overawe their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, and choose the generous expression, and make them know how much happier the generous ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the stoutest hand must seize the helm. Rome must be cleansed,—cleansed to the very roots; The sluggish we must waken from their slumber,— And crush to earth the power of these wretches Who sow their poison in the mind and stifle The slightest promise of a better life. Look you,—'tis civic freedom I would further,— The civic spirit that in former times Was regnant here. Friends, I shall conjure back The golden age, when Romans gladly gave Their lives to guard the honor of the nation, And ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... deprived them of a darling folly; they did not perceive that I acted from goodwill, not knowing that no god is the enemy of man—that was not within the range of their ideas; neither am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, 'What is knowledge?'—and do not say that you cannot tell; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will be able ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... Barry Houston was in New York, swirling along Seventh Avenue toward Bellstrand Hospital. There he sought the executive offices and told his story. "Five minutes later he was looking at the books of the institution, searching, searching,—at last to stifle a cry of excitement and bend closer ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... telephone, which was in the next room. The instant the door had closed behind her Uncle Henry leaned forward, tapped Elizabeth Ann on the shoulder, and nodded toward the sofa. His eyes were twinkling, and as for Aunt Abigail she began to laugh silently, shaking all over, her napkin at her mouth to stifle the sound. Elizabeth Ann turned wonderingly and saw the old dog cautiously and noiselessly letting himself down from the sofa, one ear cocked rigidly in the direction of Cousin Ann's voice in the next room. "The old tyke!" said Uncle Henry. "He always sneaks up to the table to be fed ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... the main the clergy are right in what they preach though they give the wrong reasons. We must try to regulate our passions or they will master us, stifle what is really good in us. My solution of this problem which I am so sick of discussing.... But let's finish with it while we are about it—my solution is that the State and the Community should do their utmost to encourage, subsidize, reward ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... highness was sorry that she had caused the box to be opened in such good company; for being before such witnesses, she rightly judged it was impossible to stifle this adventure; and, at the same time, there being no possibility of retaining any longer such a maid of honour, Miss Price had her valuables restored to her, with orders to go and finish her lamentations, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... maid guess that she wondered at this or cared aught for the ungrateful captain. She steeled her heart against him, but though as the days went by she succeeded in ceasing to care for one who was so unworthy of her regard, she could not stifle the poignant regret that he ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... in vain they cried for help. He put his arm about the neck of each, and swore to stifle them with kisses if they were not as silent ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... a long pause, only broken by the woman's sobs, which she appeared endeavouring to stifle. At last the man rose, and in a tone so soft that it seemed literally like music, addressed her in the most endearing terms. She soon yielded to their persuasion, and replied to them with interest. "Spite of the stings of my remorse," she said, "as long as I lose ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to drink to Canada, our adopted country,' put in Benson, willing to stifle the incipient quarrel—'the finest country on the face of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... respectably—to lie low till the funeral is over. Of course this is all very annoying, especially as you have such a lovely lot of new frocks and all the rest of it, but I dare say they will come in later on. Not that it matters, seeing that you have a husband who could stifle you in pretty frocks and never miss the money. What a funny girl you are, Bee. You don't seem to appreciate your good ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White |
