"Stifled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ethel, raising her thighs, literally buried the girl's head between them and effectually stifled her cries. ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... sweep of the girl's robes upon the stairs; then, a moment later, a stifled exclamation of mingled surprise and anger fell upon her ears, after which the library door was hastily shut, and Edith began to breathe ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Mexico, and the effect thereby produced upon her domestic policy, must have a controlling influence upon the great question of South American emancipation. We have seen the fell spirit of civil dissension rebuked, and perhaps forever stifled, in that Republic by the love of independence. If it be true, as appearances strongly indicate, that the spirit of independence is the master spirit, and if a corresponding sentiment prevails in the other States, this devotion to liberty can not be without a proper ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... A stifled sob, entirely out of place in the presence of such general rejoicing, came from a little human ball rolled up on the steps below them. Eleanor and Allen quickly sprang toward her, but the boy better understood Patricia's tears. He sat beside ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... honor as a physician, to employ this discovery, which had been laid open to me by my mother's fatal illness, for the benefit of the man whose life was most harmful to Olivia and myself. I felt suffocated, stifled. I opened the window for a minute or two, and leaned through it to catch the fresh breath of ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... for the want of bread; and an insurrection once begun for that cause, may associate itself with those discontented for other causes, and produce incalculable events. But if the want of bread does not produce a commencement of disorder, I am of opinion the other discontents will be stifled, and a good and free constitution established without opposition. In fact, the mass of the people, the clergy, and army, (excepting the higher orders of the three bodies) are in as compact an union as can be. The National Assembly have decided that their executive shall be hereditary, and shall ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... painful journey downstairs, but Polly did not flinch. Again and again the little bell sent its loudest appeal out into the stormy night; but the merciless wind stifled its voice before it could reach a kindly ear. There were snow wreaths in the ringer's hair, and tears in her eyes, ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... and there was the usual sting which invariably accompanies that meeting. His school-mates laughed at his rustic dress and manners, and the poor little farm lad felt it bitterly. The natural and unconscious power by which he had delighted the teamsters was stifled, and the greatest orator of modern times never could summon sufficient courage to stand up and recite verses before these Exeter school-boys. Intelligent masters, however, perceived something of what was ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... table. A disliker of coarse expressions and extremes of every kind, with a perfect horror for revolutions and attempts to revolutionize, exclaiming now and then, as a shriek escapes from whipped and bleeding Hungary, a groan from gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from down-trodden but scowling Italy, 'Confound the revolutionary canaille, why can't it be quiet!' In a word, putting one in mind of the parvenu in the 'Walpurgis Nacht.' The writer is no admirer of Gothe, but the idea of that parvenu was certainly a good one. Yes, putting one in ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Something separated him. Everything went on there below those lamps, shut away from him. He could not get at them. He felt he couldn't touch the lamp-posts, not if he reached. Where could he go? There was nowhere to go, neither back into the inn, or forward anywhere. He felt stifled. There was nowhere for him. The stress grew inside him; he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... up, alarmed. This unexpected interpolation might spoil the efficacy of all that had gone before. She hadn't meant to ask anything for herself. Her stifled misery had betrayed her. She had been fighting down this thought for days: that Hoddy did not care, that he did not love her, that he had mistaken a vagary of the mind for a substance, and now regretted what he had done—married ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... guilty, by a court-martial, of an attempt to excite a war of colour. Piar (a man of colour himself) was the bravest of the brave, and adored by his followers; but his execution stifled anarchy in the bud. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... was subjected was only less trying than the open secrecy with which it was conducted. Heads were thrust into the passage to be withdrawn amid a paroxysm of giggling. Somebody was pushed into full view to retire precipitately amid an explosion of mirth. Preceded by stifled expressions of encouragement, a pert-looking lady's maid strolled leisurely past the newcomer, opened the back door, closed it, and returned as haughtily as she had gone. She ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... sprang up at the noise, and crept cautiously forward to listen. It had sounded like a stifled cry, and a splash, but so faint that in the stillness which followed they thought themselves mistaken. Their movement give Alan ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Baisemeaux almost more than stifled with joy and surprise at this regal present so liberally bestowed by the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... must set out to face fresh perils, and maybe meet newer disappointments. The bewildering maze of channels was once more threaded, this time with the varying strengths of the current to indicate the better routes. The dense, overhanging vegetation sheltered the voyagers by day and stifled them by night. Rests at friendly villages were eagerly welcomed, and no bad news awaited the weary band. A few Spanish boats had been seen in some of the channels, but they had asked no questions concerning the Englishmen, and the natives had given no information, fearing ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... when he went through all these accustomed acts of pacification as mechanically as a nurse soothing a fretful child. And once he had thought her weeping eloquent! He looked about him at the spacious room, with its heavy hangings of damask and the thick velvet carpet which stifled his steps. Everywhere were the graceful tokens of her presence—the vast lace-draped toilet-table strewn with silver and crystal, the embroidered muslin cushions heaped on the lounge, the little rose-lined slippers she had ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... had been reading yesterday's paper by the lamplight which streamed over her shoulder from the open parlour-window, sighed, stifled a yawn, laid the paper aside, and drew her pretty ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... indeed, no more mere simple Rosa Damascena? She felt so happy she could hardly breathe. She thought it was her happiness that stifled her; in real matter of fact it was the tight bands in which the ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... roll, Shall tyrants from the soul God's image tear, And call the wreck their own,— While, from the eternal throne, They shut the stifled groan And bitter prayer? ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... wits, and her first act was to lament the loss of her jewels. I gave her an imploring look. She understood, and quickly removed the gag that stifled me. She wished to untie the cords that bound ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... left. In his time, too, Mount Vesuvius suddenly woke from its rest, and by a dreadful eruption destroyed the two cities at its foot, Herculaneum and Pompeii. The philosopher Plinius, who wrote on geography and natural history, was stifled by the sulphurous air while fleeing from the showers of stones and ashes cast up by the mountain. His nephew, called Pliny the younger, has left a full account of the disaster, and the cloud like a pine ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sorry it was not farther, as he enjoyed driving. His companion leaned back at his ease and talked on various subjects. He paused a moment and Harry was startled by hearing a stifled child's voice just behind him: "Oh, let me out! Don't keep me locked ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... Microscopical Observations, save onely that a quantity of Vinegar repleat with them being included in a small Viol, and stop'd very close from the ambient air, all the included Worms in a very short time died, as if they had been stifled. ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... remorseless as an infant's bier She whisk'd against their eyes the sooty oil. Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil, Increasing gradual to a tempest rage, Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-pilgrimage; Until their grieved bodies 'gan to bloat And puff from the tail's end to stifled throat: Then was appalling silence: then a sight 530 More wildering than all that hoarse affright; For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen, Went through the dismal air like one huge Python Antagonizing Boreas,—and so vanish'd. Yet there was not a breath of wind: she banish'd These phantoms ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... and disappointment occasioned by a behaviour so slighting and unnatural was necessarily stifled in her breast, as decorum and her sex's pride obliged her to appear as if she disregarded it; but when, after taking leave, all of them left the boat, the anguish of her mind, which she had hitherto suppressed, could no longer ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you up to?" one of the Genoese exclaimed, angrily, as they rushed up on deck. "You have nearly stifled us down below putting on the hatch and ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... that the unfortunate and the oppressed of this land sit stifled and alone in their hope tonight. Hundreds of their servants and their protectors sit before me tonight here in this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... worries. He whistled bravely as he crossed the threshold and caressed his wife with his usual tenderness. Intuitively she divined the bitterness of the mood which lay beneath the torturer's seeming cheerfulness, but she stifled her curiosity like the wise little woman she was and hastened to lay his supper before him. Through the progress of the meal—prepared by her in the way the torturer loved so well—she diverted him with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... first time she had had reason to blush before him, and her emotion came near overwhelming her; but with a violent effort she stifled it, and remained outwardly calm. He began pacing up and down the floor with his head bent and his hands on his back. It suddenly occurred to her that he was a grown man, and that she could no longer hold the same relation to him as his ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... admit the reason for your visit may have its pertinence," my father admitted. "The fatigues of a long day, coupled with the evening's wine—" He stifled a yawn behind the back of his hand, and smiled ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... grand prince listened to any complaints from his subjects. The old magistrates had generally forfeited all claim to esteem. Regarding only their own interests, they trafficked in offices, favored their relatives, persecuted their enemies and surrounded themselves with crowds of parasites who stifled, in the courts of justice, all the complaints of the oppressed. Novgorod was first brought into entire subjection to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... window heard the words and nudged one another, with a stifled chuckle at their comrade's predicament. Captain Marsh, with one eye on ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... here,—he eats no supper) to his solitary room and bed. Before retiring, he goes to B———'s bedside, and, if he finds him awake, stands talking French, expressing his dislike of the Americans, "Je hais, je hais les Yankees!"—thus giving vent to the stifled bitterness of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious enough, eats pretty ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Timour's front was covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each other: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the great street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a short defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... to win a lawsuit. Forbidden to practise their rites in Britain, the Druids fled to the isle of Mona, near the coast of Wales. The Romans pursued them, and in 61 A. D. they were slaughtered and their oak groves cut down. During the next three centuries the cult was stifled to death, ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... old woman took my hand and dragged me along a perfectly dark passage, Miss T. following. This passage was paved with stones, and had stone walls on either side. Half stifled with peat smoke, we arrived, puffing and panting, in the kitchen. Here in a corner was the big peat fire which filled the whole dwelling with its exhalations. All around was perfect blackness, until our eyes got accustomed ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... bent her head over on her grandson's shoulder and wept aloud. Awful as the suspense had been, now that the last hope was removed the shock was terrible. She gave a stifled cry, then ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments—for the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of thought—such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of the most rigidly exact in science applied ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... shepherd's pipe was heard by Echo in the dale.... Most dear abode! Ah, were I but allowed Down in the shade by yon loquacious brook Henceforth to live! O sky! thou sea of love, Eternal spring of health, will not thy waters succour me? Must, my life's blossom wither, stifled by the weeds? ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... stared at each other for one second, and then, feeling that something was tearing its way up through the floor, they left for the interior of Africa with one accord. Ikun gave chase as soon as he got free, but what with being half-stifled and a bit cramped in the legs, and much encumbered with his vegetable decorations, the ladies got clear away and no arrests were made—but Society was saved. Scepticism became in the twinkling of an ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... him in. And the servant'll go for your motor." She went out of the room to give the order, and came back. Then as she saw Marcia under the storm light, standing in the middle of the room, and struggling with her tears, she suddenly fell on her knees beside the girl, embracing her dress, with stifled sobs ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Christine knocked at Mr. Bruder's door. There was no response, though she heard a stifled sound within. After a little she knocked more loudly. Then the door slowly opened, and Mrs. Bruder stood before her. Her eyes were very red, and she held in her hand an open letter. Christine expected to find ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... this, and more than once he had said so with bitterness. But when through the influence of Herhor he became viceroy and received the corps in Memphis, he grew reconciled with the priests and stifled his ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... moreover they made her giddy; so she simply got on her knees and peeped through the trap-door. But there was a fire directly below, and there was also a pretty strong smell of pipes of tobacco, so that she saw nothing and was stifled and disgusted. She sent Glover down, as people lower a dog into a mine where gases are suspected. After a brief absence ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... "but we maun ripe his pouches a bit, and see if the tale be true or no." Jean set up her throat in exclamations against this breach of hospitality, but without producing any change in their determination. The farmer soon heard their stifled whispers and light steps by his bedside, and understood they were rummaging his clothes. When they found the money which the providence of Jean Gordon had made him retain, they held a consultation if they should take it or no; but the smallness of the booty, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... just contemplation of the mercy of God, and the merits of his Saviour, he had brought himself to a right idea of the importance of his soul, and thereby took himself off from the superfluous consideration of this world and stifled those uneasy sensations with which men are naturally startled at the approach of death. Yet he did not in all this time alter a jot in his confession, but asserted calmly that he was innocent, and that Doyle had perjured himself in order ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... up in the unfrequented places. Had she not reiterated to him her wish to "get away from people," to see only the native life on the river? Those "other women" must wait to be envious, and she, too, must wait. She stifled an impatient sigh, and opened another door. After one ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... who are capable of higher feeling. Such persons are so afraid of sensibility, that they repress in themselves every thing that savors of it; and, though we may occasionally detect it in the mounting flush, or in the glistening tear, or in the half-stifled sigh, it is in vain that we endeavor to elicit any more explicit avowal. They are ashamed even of what they do betray; and one would imagine that the imputation of sensibility were almost a reflection on their character. They must ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... Another one telling her not to worry! She clenched her teeth that no one in the outer office might see how near she was to tears. Outside, in a stifled voice, she directed Williams to drive her back to the Manor, then sat very straight in the car as though those hateful eyes could pierce the thick walls and gloat ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... grand feast, to which Temudjin was invited with fulsome phrases. 'Formerly we knew not thine excellence,' he said, 'and lived in strife with thee. We have now learnt that thou art not false, and that thou art a Bogda of the race of the gods. Our old hatred is stifled and dead; condescend to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... was not happy at the Palazzo Lorenzoni, she could not wish that she had stayed with her cousins. She felt that their little life would have stifled her. Thinking of them, she saw them, happier than before, since poor Gemma had not been easy to live with, and quite satisfied to do the same things every day, waddling out of a morning to early mass and the marketing, eating and sleeping ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... life seems so fair and sweet, Yet tyranny is stalking here, And hate and lust and foul deceit Hang heavy on the atmosphere. Injustice seeks to throttle right, And laughter's stifled to a sigh. If death can take so great a blight From human ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... sprang out of the hedge and fluttered in front of his wheel, clucking madly. Grey pealed his bell, but it had no effect on the distracted chicken, which seemed bent on destruction. He clutched his brake; it would not work. There came a stifled squawk, and a ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... feels other, let them declare it!" and Mrs. Fancy retired, holding both hands to her temples, and uttering very distinctly sundry stifled moans. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... dead, and slippery with blood and gore, the cockpit full of wounded men, lately strong and hardy, now cripples for life, many dying, entering into eternity, without a hope beyond their ocean grave, Christless, heathens in reality if not in name, stifled groans and sighs, and oftentimes shrieks of despair on every side. Such sights I have seen in my youth, and I speak the language of some of the great preachers who have come down to these parts, and boldly put forth the gospel of salvation to perishing sinners ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... Soane stifled a groan. 'Called?' he said. 'At half-past six. Don't stare, booby! Half-past six, I said. And do you go now, I'll shift for myself. But first put out my despatch-case, and see there is pen and ink. It's done? Then be off, and when you come in the morning bring ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Kranitski without a trace; he became very pale and rested his hand on the arm of the chair; his eyes opened widely. Silence lasted some seconds; between those two men with faces as pale as linen hung the terror of a discovered secret. Darvid, with a voice so stifled that it was barely audible, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... had merely been a matter of being angry with him for a few days. But she heard my father coming from the dressing-room, where he had gone to take off his clothes, and, to avoid the 'scene' which he would make if he saw me, she said, in a voice half-stifled by her anger: "Run away at once. Don't let your father see you standing there ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he agreed soberly. "I found her in a broken sleep cage at a spaceport when I was a child. We were both cold and hungry, alone and hurt. So I stole and was glad that I stole Trav. For a little space we both were very happy...." Forcibly he stifled memory. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... the fellow, dropping a stout stick he held in his hand and beating a hasty retreat, half stifled by ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... the midst of a crowd—a mad, jigging crowd that seemed to have no sense of direction, no ability whatever to keep out of his way. For a moment the tuition of weeks stood by him. Then, a shock, a stifled cry from Minnie, and the first collision had occurred. And with that all the knowledge which he had so painfully acquired passed from Henry's mind, leaving it an agitated blank. This was a situation for which his slidings ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... water-power; that is all. I have often heard the Professor talk about hysterics as being Nature's cleverest illustration of the reciprocal convertibility of the two states of which these acts are the manifestations; but you may see it every day in children; and if you want to choke with stifled tears at sight of the transition, as it shows itself in older years, go and see Mr. Blake play ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... of it in the literature. This era produced nothing of inspired or reformatory force. A profound pessimism stifled all originality. Korolenko alone, who was living during the greater part of this time as a political prisoner in distant Yakutsk, where he did not imbibe the untoward influences of the reaction, remained unmoved ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... it twisted its way through the scrubby bushes lining the creek bank, were finally negotiated more or less satisfactorily. The mishaps were not as great as might have been anticipated. Sandy only scalded himself twice, and his curses had to be stifled by a sharp reprimand from the gambler. Toby skidded down the slope once, and only saved the laundry at the personal expense of a torn shirt and a grazed elbow. Sunny, except for his difference of opinion with the soap, enjoyed no other ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... It in the glorious day and open air, instead of in the Bottomless Pit—bound, stifled, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we passed, and then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the first classe from the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so full of light: it deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it stifled me, it was so ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of late that I must be stifled by the thing that troubles me. Yet it is a trifling thing; nothing, I am sure, but a foolish, wicked fear, a little disease within myself. If mamma were here, I should just go and lay my head on her knees, and tell her everything. Then she would stroke my eyes ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... and weeks, during that second winter, when she was tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a shudder, and at other times she ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... heard some encomium on the snug quarters provided for the weary guest, but Edna only looked round her indifferently, and then stifled a yawn. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... vexation, when I was last there, in a visit I made to a neighbour about two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the parlour, they forced me into the great chair that stood close by a huge fire, and kept me there by force till I was almost stifled. Then a boy came in great hurry to pull off my boots, which I in vain opposed, urging that I must return soon after dinner. In the mean time the good lady whispered her eldest daughter, and slipped a key into her hand. She ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... his beat about half-past one this morning, he heard a cry for help, which was evidently stifled. He ran towards the spot whence he thought the sound came, and as he neared the bridge he saw three men apparently engaged in a desperate struggle. He sounded his rattle for assistance; two of them, who evidently had ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... instant and giving mysterious indication of the presence of the swarming host that lay hidden in the bosom of the night. Yet more: there were strange sounds and voices in the air, subdued murmurings such as she had never heard before, and that made her start in terror; the stifled hum of marching men, the neighing and snorting of steeds, the clash of arms, hoarse words of command, given in guttural accents; an evil dream of a demoniac crew, a witch's sabbat, in the depths of those unholy shades. Suddenly a single cannon-shot rang ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... that Dr. Jennings was contemplating taking Anna's place at the lodge, and he comprehended after a moment that Anna was already gone. Even then the significance of the situation was a little time in dawning on him. When it did, however, he rose with a stifled oath. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... deprived of power of utterance, and with tongues glued to their mouths, for their lives were past saving. Those others usurped titles to fictitious clemency and justice, while prostituting the sacred doctrines of the sages: whom they affected to honour. They stifled public opinion in the empire in order to force acquiescence in their tyranny. The Manchu despotism became so thorough and so embracing that they were enabled to prolong their dynasty's existence by cunning ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... gentlewoman told Phoebe was a harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeed,—not having been played upon, or opened, for years,—there must have been a vast deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was hardly known to have touched its chords since the days of Alice Pyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melody ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shall look backward with scorn and derision And scoff the old book though it uselessly lies In the dust of the past, while this newer revision Lisps on of a hope and a home in the skies? Shall the voice of the Master be stifled and riven? Shall we hear but a tithe of the words He has said, When so long He has, listening, leaned out of Heaven To hear the old Bible my grandfather read? The old-fashioned Bible— The dust-covered Bible— The ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... hand above her heart as she stifled a sigh, and as she did so she felt the hard outlines of the photograph she had hidden there as she slunk from Malbihn's tent. Now she drew it forth and commenced to re-examine it more carefully than she had ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... friend, perchance, 25 May gaze with stifled breath; And oft, in momentary trance, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... form, must not in all its parts divide heresy from orthodoxy by too sharp a line. There must be left over and above the propositions to be subscribed, ubique, semper, et ab omnibus, another realm into which the stifled soul may escape from pedantic scruples and indulge its own faith at its own risks; and all that can here be done will be to mark out distinctly the questions which fall ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... not live constantly with such workers as we are without being stung by the same busy little bee. You have suggested genius to me from the first, and I am convinced it is not merely the genius of personality. Your life has stifled your talents, but now is the time to discover them and take your place ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... full of tobacco smoke that it nearly stifled Richard, and he was not sorry when Doc Linyard led the way straight ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... little forward as he strode, as if weary. Instantly I thought of years ago, and another figure coming up that street, with both hands laden, and walking in a manner of fatigue. I rose, gazed with a fast-beating heart at the man coming nearer at every step, stifled a cry that turned into a sob, and ran across the street. He saw me, stopped, set down his burdens, and waited for me, with a tired, kind smile. I could not speak aloud, but threw my arms around him, and buried my clouded eyes upon ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the army marched in battle-array, ten men deep; mounted the eminence whereon the fort stood, and being come there, set fire to some huts, with wild-fire thrown at the ends of darts; but the smoke stifled ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Harris, were quickly bound behind him. A light rope, wound securely about his ankles by George Warren, and made fast in sailor fashion, rendered him further helpless; while, at the same time, a long strip of cloth, procured by Young Joe for the purpose, and swathed about his head, stifled his roars of rage and fright. Red Bull, the great Indian chief, the terror of the plains, was most assuredly a captive—an astounded and helpless Indian, if ever there ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... too many luxuries and is over-civilised, and we will just go back to primitive ways. Now, Amy, be a Christian and say "Yes." You are always telling me that one must be self-sacrificing in this world; sacrifice yourself, and make those two lonely girls happy, to say nothing of me, who am stifled in this crowded barracks of a ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... Carlo lived elsewhere, and Hans had the care of the premises at night, sleeping in a little room at the back of the shop. The neighbors went out and advised Carlo to force the door. Very well. When they got in, they found Hans bound hand and foot, and so closely gagged that he was almost stifled. As soon as he could speak, he said that just after he had shut up the previous evening, there was a knock at the door. He had scarcely opened it, when he was seized by two ruffians with blackened faces, who threw him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... dusky and stifled chamber in which I spent wearily a considerable portion of more than four good years of my existence. At first, to be quite frank with the reader, I looked upon it as not altogether fit to be tenanted by the commercial representative of so ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that time they were always crowding on my imagination. So I struggled on there for two years. The work did not progress much in spite of all my efforts. I began to be tired of it, my friend bored me; I had come to sneer at him, and he stifled me like a featherbed; his want of faith had changed into a dumb resentment; a feeling of hostility had laid hold of both of us; we could scarcely now speak of anything; he quietly but incessantly tried to show me that he was not under my influence; my arrangements were either set ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... wrestling, the Senestro knew just a bit more. It was a whirling mass of legs and bodies in continuous convulsion, silent except for the terrible panting of the men, and the low, stifled exclamations of the onlookers. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... heavy creeping shade, The dead that travel fast, the opening door, The murdered brother rising through the floor, The ghost's white fingers on thy shoulders laid, And then the lonely duel in the glade, The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o'er,— These things are well enough,—but thou wert made For more august creation! frenzied Lear Should at thy bidding wander on the heath With ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... Charles Holland, I feel that we must meet again ere I can tell you all; but in the meantime let Flora Bannerworth rest in peace—she need dread nothing from me. Avarice and revenge, the two passions which found a home in my heart, are now stifled ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... set off at a run and, being certain that the figures were making straight for the forest, they did not pause to get another glimpse of them, but ran straight on. They had gone some seventy or eighty yards, when they heard a stifled exclamation; and then, without further attempt at concealment, two figures rose from a bush twenty yards ahead, and fled for the forest. There was no more occasion for stooping and, at the top of their speed, Oswald ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... No. 6, in E flat minor. Niecks praises it in company with the preceding one in E. It is beautiful, if music so sad may be called beautiful, and the melody is full of stifled sorrow. The study figure is ingenious, but subordinated to the theme. In the E major section the piece broadens to dramatic vigor. Chopin was not yet the slave of his mood. There must be a psychical programme to this study, some ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... first evening in London they went to the theater. They were both accustomed to the fresh air of the country, and they felt half stifled by the heat and the gas. However, they were so pleased with an amusement which was new to them that they went to another theater on the next evening. On this second occasion, John Zebedee found the heat unendurable. They left the theater, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... benevolence nor indulgence, and whose only crime is a disdain for prejudices that the vulgar regard as sacred, or that an erroneous and false policy considers useful to the state? Superstition has so greatly stifled all sense of humanity in many persons otherwise truly estimable, that they have no compunctions at sacrificing the most enlightened men of the nation because they could not be the most credulous or the most submissive to the authority of ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... what he saw there remained focussed on his mind ever afterwards; and always when he turned to that picture in the album of his memory, his gorge rose and a murderlust that could hardly be stifled filled ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Rhoda, with a stifled sigh. 'There is an old Eastern legend about the black camel that comes and lies down before the door of him upon whom Heaven is going to lay her chastening hand. Every time I have seen that awful trio on the fence-top, they were fairly surrounded by black ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he, Lord Blandamer, saw fit to spend upon the church, indeed to be the avenger? Was his own creature to turn and rend him? He smiled at the very irony of the thing, and then he brushed aside reflections on the past, and stifled even the beginnings of regret, if, indeed, any existed. He would look at the present, he would understand ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... more or less independent and empirical in its nature, and, while I trust I am neither prejudiced nor intolerant in my attitude towards pianoforte education in its general aspect, I cannot help feeling that a great deal of natural taste is stifled and a great deal of mediocrity created by the persistent and unintelligent study of such things as an 'even scale' or ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... and Exogamy and The Golden Bough [222] Among the Hereros the body of a dead chief was wrapped up in the hide of an ox before being buried. [223] In the Vedic horse-sacrifice in India the horse was stifled in robes. The chief queen approached him; a cloak having been thrown over them both, she performed a repulsively obscene act symbolising the transmission to her of his fructifying powers. [224] In other cases the king was identified with the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... beds of moss; but I instructed them to lie, as the sailors do, diagonally, and swinging the hammock, and told them that brave Swiss boys might sleep as the sailors of all nations were compelled to sleep. After some stifled sighs and groans, all sank to rest except myself, kept awake by anxiety for ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death with all its stifled grief; its noiseless attendants; its mute, watchful assiduities; the last testimonies of expiring love; the feeble, faltering, thrilling (oh, how thrilling!) pressure of the hand; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... beast changed its mind, and attack, just in time to avoid being taken at a serious disadvantage. The rush of Sonny's heavy body bore it backward clear of the Kid. The latter scrambled to his feet, stifled his sobs, and stared open-mouthed at the sudden fury ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Nannie, her godchild, shot up slim and tall from the dumpling baby that her aunt remembered, showing plainly the milky-fair, sunny-faced, wholesome woman that she was presently to become. Deb gazed at her with aches of regret—she had thought them for ever stifled in Claud's all-sufficing companionship—for her own lost motherhood, and of lesser but still poignant regret that she had not been allowed to adopt Nannie in Bob Goldsworthy's place. The joy of dressing and taking out a daughter ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... nothing short of perfection; and consequently our hearts are never satisfied until they behold beauty, which is perfection's crown and seal. Without it one of the deepest and divinest powers of our nature remains dwarfed, stifled, and repressed. ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the joy the discovery brought; but it was a carefully stifled joy, for with all his delight Boettger was far too discreet to allow his wonderful discovery to travel outside the confines of his laboratory. When the Elector Augustus was told the news at his Dresden palace near by he was wild with delight, and immediately began building a great porcelain ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... hours, though it was but half-an-hour, he went on playing. At length he heard a stifled sob. He rose, and peeped again into the room. The gray head was bowed between the hands, and the gaunt frame was shaken with sobs. On the table lay the portraits of himself and his wife; and the faded brown letter, so many years folded in silence and darkness, lay open beside them. He ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... this stimulating atmosphere. He warmed his hands at the divine fire; and the fact that all this richness of resource stimulated rather than stifled him is greatly to the credit of his real power. Favorable surroundings and circumstances did not serve him as a cushion on which to go to sleep, but rather as the pedestal on which he might climb to loftier altitudes. It was no lotus-eating experience into which the lad was lulled, but the vital ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... and fresco. All that teaching could do for a man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... good deal of an uproar in the big gymnasium as Mortimer walked in, threading his way through the palms and orange-trees; much splashing in the pool, cries and stifled laughter, and the quick rattle of applause from the gallery of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... There was the vibration of a stifled laugh, and her heart jumped to meet it. "So you anticipated a hauling ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... there was a turning of heavy hands in him to which he must not give thought. Watch the cafe, listen to Tesla, talk, eat and spit out a disgust for the things of which he was a part—things from which he demanded Rachel and a surcease to the pain in him. And that only stifled with the emptiness ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... "I have stifled and destroyed the spirit of brotherhood in the cradle of the Latin race. I have made history a liar, bringing a false morality to the interpretation of the most brilliant days and deeds. I have reduced to servility a Royal House that once was proud. I have cheated and deceived the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... and turned aside. Warwick glanced at his daughter, whom Elizabeth flatteringly caressed, stifled a sigh, and the air seemed lighter to the insects of the court as his proud crest bowed beneath the doorway, and, with the pomp of his long retinue, he vanished from ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shall follow your example," Marius said, and stifled a yawn, "if you will tell me how to reach my rooms from here through these labyrinthine passages of yours. This part of the house I do ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... that wears The imperial diadem goes down beside The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek. A funeral-train—the torrent sweeps away Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed Of one who dies men gather sorrowing, And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on; The wail is stifled and the sobbing group Borne under. Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul! The waters choke the shout ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... to play comedy wherever they may be, without cares and without tears!"—Watteau, with his twelve-year-old eyes, saw only the fair side of life. He did not guess, be it understood, that beneath every smile of Margot there was a stifled tear. Watteau seems to have always seen with the same eyes; his glance, diverted by the expression and the color, did not descend as far down as the soul. It was somewhat the fault of his times. What had he to do while painting queens of comedy, or dryads of the opera, with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... swarmed past were not sufficient to allow any identification. Perhaps they were passing out of the city; perhaps they were being massed in the Palace; perhaps.... Anything was possible, and, as one thought, imperceptibly the atmosphere seemed to become more stifled, as if a storm was about to break on us, and we knew our feebleness. Yet we are strong as we can ever be. The fortification work has gone on without a ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... that I'm sick of the hideousness of life, of the excruciating lower middle-class arrangement of this room. I don't know how I've stood it all these years. My soul must have been starved—stifled. I want to live in another atmosphere, to be surrounded by beautiful things. Don't laugh like that,—I know I'm not an artist; I couldn't paint a picture—how could I? I haven't been taught. But I know that Art is the only thing worth ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... crowd of bourgeois has not invaded Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flys full of stockbrokers' wives and children; and you can take the air in your chair upon the chain-pier, without being stifled by the cigars of the odious shop-boys from London." So Lady Kew's name was usually amongst the earliest which the Brighton newspapers ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... missing in her life—a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was ere long well-nigh stifled. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... its gates, and gave him a delay which he did not expect. Here an audience was given to the ambassadors of the Rhodians, and although the purport of their embassy was such as might kindle passion in the breast of a king, yet he stifled his resentment, and answered, that "he would send ambassadors to Rhodes, and would give them instructions to renew the old treaties, made by him and his predecessors, with that state; and to assure them, that they need not be alarmed at his approach; that it would involve no injury ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... out on the deserted lawn in front of the cottage. The moon was at the full, and shone brighter than day's twilight. The night was warm, but not oppressive,—for there was a gentle air blowing, filled with the invigorating briny odor of the ocean; yet I felt choked and stifled. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... hunted creature out into the streets. It was not long before he discovered that certain persons brought this feeling of oppression more quickly than others, that the presence of Margaret or of his parents stifled him, while Corinna made him feel as if a window had been suddenly flung open. The doctors, of course, had talked in scientific terms of diseased nerves and a specialist whom his mother had called in on one occasion had tried first to probe into the secrets of his infancy ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... overtopping the spiritual level of all his contemporaries and all succeeding generations, as even to surmise the total extent of the loss which would thereby be sustained? What fruitful discoveries and developments, what growth of spiritual power and insight would be stifled in the germ by one such rigid interdict upon abuse; and what violent convulsions and what decay might not come upon the State in consequence ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... it was to be giving a party, when the hall door opened to let in Peterkin and closed again in what might have seemed a mysterious manner but for the sound of stifled laughter on the outside. On the inside Peterkin stood looking cross-eyed in a vain endeavor to see the frill ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... I got up and looked everywhere. Yes, there it was again, but this time coming from under one of the men's beds. It was a piteous mew, and I was determined to find it. I spent a quarter of an hour on tiptoe looking everywhere. It was not till I heard a stifled chuckle from the bed next the Dutchman's that I suspected anything, and then, determined they should get no rise out of me, sat down quietly in my chair again. Though that cat mewed for the next ten minutes I never ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... front of him. Whereupon Down, apparently to satisfy herself that her kitten really was safe in the corner of the charcoal bunker where she had left it, retreated for a moment, so that as the searcher came round he saw nothing but the low, round arch. The next he gave a stifled yell, for something white that was all claws leaped right in his face, over he went and ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... as hours. The low moaning of women sounded in the room. Somebody moved a foot, scraping it in rude dissonance across the floor. A girl's voice broke out in sudden sobbing, which was as quickly stifled, with sharp catching of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... from his chair with a series of yawns that refused to be stifled and looked at his watch. It was close upon three in the morning. He made up his mind that he would lie down with his clothes on and get some sleep. It was safe enough, the door was locked on the inside and the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the king's pavilion facing the river, and were led, by a long, circuitous, and unpleasant road, through two tall gates, into a street which, from the offensive odors that assailed us, I took to be a fish-market. The sun burned, the air stifled, the dust choked us, the ground blistered our feet; we were parching and suffocating, when our guide stopped at the end of this most execrable lane, and signed to us to follow him up three broken steps of brick. From a pouch in his dingy coat he produced a key, applied it to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... consequences are in any measure silenced and stifled, a still more melancholy mockery betrays him, in the continuance of the illusion that he is happy and all is well, when all the while he is driving headlong to destruction. Many a man orders his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the portrait had been painted and presented to the Bow Break o' Day Club, by Lucy Brent, who in the fulness of time would have been Arthur Constant's wife. It was a painting for which he had sat to her while alive, and she had stifled yet pampered her grief by working hard at it since his death. The fact added the last touch of pathos to the occasion. Crowl's face was hidden behind his red handkerchief; even the fire of excitement in Wimp's eye was quenched for a moment by a teardrop, as he thought of Mrs. Wimp and Wilfred. As ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... sorrow, and by many colors of circumstance, to bring man into the form which is the highest and noblest in His sight, if only we received His gifts and myrrh in the right spirit. But when the cup is put away, and these feelings are stifled or unheeded, a greater injury is done to the soul than can ever be amended. For no heart can conceive in what surpassing love God giveth us this myrrh; yet this which we ought to receive to our soul's good, we suffer to pass by us in our sleepy indifference, and nothing ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... she herself lay down in the dark and slept. The girl seemed a good, quiet, tame little thing, and said her paternosters as she should do. But Nerina did not sleep. She was stifled in this little close room with its one shuttered window. She who was used to sleeping with the fresh fragrant air of the dark fields blowing over her in her loft, felt the sour, stagnant atmosphere take her like a ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... creatures in the world, they immediately did; but unluckily the fore paw of the elephant lighting on the top of the chimney, broke down the grate by its weight, but at the same time stopped up the passage so entirely, that all the enchantress's husbands were stifled for want of air. As it was a collection she had made with great care and cost, it is easy to imagine her vexation and rage. She raised a storm of thunder and lightning that lasted eight hundred and ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... him, displeasure keener than ever was aroused in him. A desire then asserted itself to speak out his mind to her, but dreading lest Tai-y should he in one of her sensitive moods, he, needless to say, stifled his anger and straightway left the apartment in a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... advanced towards the Bridge of St. Esprit (which was equally the road to Saint-Andiol and to Chambery) I began to reflect on Madam de Warrens, the remembrance of whose letters, though less frequent than those from Madam de Larnage, awakened in my heart a remorse that passion had stifled in the first part of my journey, but which became so lively on my return, that, setting just estimate on the love of pleasure, I found myself in such a situation of mind that I could listen wholly to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... enjoying himself. It was with real zest that he hit off his brothers-in-law to this sister, who afforded him an outlet for long-stifled emotions. He had been honestly loyal to the three homekeeping sisters and to their husbands also for that matter; and the fact that he could at last let himself go deepened his sense of the sympathy and the understanding that had always existed between ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... district, street, and block of houses, and undertake to inquire into the number of flats and houses which are empty and of those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome slums, and the houses which are too spacious for their occupants and might well be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements. In a few days these volunteers would have drawn up complete lists for the street and the district of all the flats, tenements, family mansions and villa residences, all the rooms ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... pensionary of Haarlem, and Uitenbogaard, the chosen confidant of Maurice, but the friend of Barneveldt, were next accused and sentenced to imprisonment or banishment. And thus Arminianism, deprived of its chiefs, was for the time completely stifled. The Remonstrants, thrown into utter despair, looked to emigration as their last resource. Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and Frederick, duke of Holstein, offered them shelter and protection in ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... his wife—and the mistress of his princely home? Alas! wealth was then the god which Lina Moore worshipped, and when Ralph Hastings, with his uncouth form and hundreds of thousands, asked her to be his wife, she stifled the better feelings of her nature which prompted her to tell him No, and with a gleam of pride in her dark blue eyes, and a deeper glow upon her cheek, she one day passed from the bright sunshine of heaven into the sombre ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... invasion and conquest of the weaker nature by the stronger, but an equal league of souls, each in its own realm still sovereign. Turn from such letters as these to those of St. Preux and Julie, and you are stifled with the heavy perfume of a demirep's boudoir,—to those of Herder to his Caroline, and you sniff no doubtful odor of professional unction from the sermon-case. Manly old Dr. Johnson, who could be tender and true to a plain woman, knew very well what he meant when he wrote that single poetic ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... which was quite close, Lisbeth had heard all. She began to struggle, and uttered a stifled scream. The man released her, and, to her surprise, gently ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the men of merit to themselves! The period of the Restoration has the credit of being a liberal one; yet we should certainly not like to live now under a regime which warped such a genius as Cuvier, stifled with paltry compromises the keen mind of M. Cousin, and retarded the growth of criticism by half a century. The concessions which had to be made to the court, to society, and to the clergy, were far worse than the petty annoyances which a ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... have read the last part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't." When Gulliver first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the filth which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of "Gulliver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language: a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against mankind—tearing down all shreds of modesty, past ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... into his Fob, Hold (says he to his Man) I have Twenty Guineas here, and I can make them up in Silver, and so flings his Supposed Guineas down upon the Counter; But was exceedingly surpriz'd to see that they had lost their Colour, and were all White instead of Yellow. However at the present he stifled his Resentments, and told his man that he must fetch the Money out of the Till, for he remember'd now he had paid away all his Guineas. Presently after which, (says my Gallant, that told the Story to me) he came to me, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... from time to time, went to My heart. Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... acrobat ascending a pyramid of decanters, and scrambled in. I then proceeded to divest myself of my articles of clothing. I noticed that the snoring of the gentleman in the berth underneath grew softer and somewhat stifled, and as I wound up my watch and placed it, as I thought, under the pillow, he jumped frantically out from behind his curtains and went head over heels amongst my improvised steps. Then I began to realise what had happened. I had not understood the mechanism ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... that in small things as well as in great ones the count acted towards his servants, his children, his wife, precisely as he had acted to me about the backgammon. The day when I understood, root and branch, these difficulties, which like a rampant overgrowth repressed the actions and stifled the breathing of the whole family, hindered the management of the household and retarded the improvement of the estate by complicating the most necessary acts, I felt an admiring awe which rose higher than my love and drove it back into my heart. Good God! what was I? Those tears that ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... hand on her breast, and drew a short, stifled breath. "Isn't it fearful?" she said, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... with an air of truth. What is still worse, Pigottism was so lucky as to get into the seat of despotic power, and to crush out all criticism of its frauds; so that, at length, everyone believed what no one heard questioned. It was Pigottism in excelsis. The liar gave evidence in the witness box, stifled or murdered the counsel for the opposite side, then mounted the bench to give judgment in his own favor, and finally pronounced a decree of death against all who refused to own him the pink ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... he crossed the threshold. There was a leap, a stifled cry, an instantaneous struggle; and before Colonel Geraldine could spring to his aid, the Prince held the man, disarmed and helpless, by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like temptations. We are told that if a soul is in grace and desires to serve God, then whenever our Lord speaks it is to bring sweetness with Him; and when it is the evil one, he brings disturbance. And that is why I am sure that these questionings are not from God. You feel stifled, is it not so, when you try to pray? and all seems empty of God; the waves and storms are going over you. But lie still and be content; and refuse to be disturbed; and you will soon be at peace again and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... gentleman, who still sat, as he had done during those two long days of suspense, with his face buried in his hands, as motionless as a statue. A profound stillness reigned in the hall during the absence of the jury, broken only occasionally by a stifled sob from some of the ladies present. After an absence of less than an hour the jury returned and handed in a written verdict; and as the fatal word "Guilty" fell from the white lips of the agitated clerk, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... revolved like a waning world; turned up the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground—so the last long ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville |
