"Constrained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dearest mother, that of late, my letters have been more constrained and less cheerful than usual, and you conjure me not to conceal from you any thing which may concern my happiness. I have ever found you my best and most indulgent friend, and there is not a thought or feeling of my mind, however ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... and space and matter have been already conquered to such an extent that our globe, once so seemingly vast, has virtually shrunken to the dimensions of an ancient province; and manifold peoples of divers tongues and traditions and customs and institutions are now constrained to live together as in a single community. There is thus demanded a new ethical wisdom, a new legal wisdom, a new economical wisdom, a new political wisdom, a new wisdom in the affairs of government. For the new visions our anguished times cry aloud but the only answers are reverberated ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... have propagated immorality and corruption, if the Government had not taken in good time means to prevent such a sad result. A house was founded in the early days of the settlement for the reception of young girls whose parents were too poor and too constrained in their circumstances at the commencement of their sojourn there to be able to devote much care to them; while if parents, when emancipated, so conduct themselves that their example or their course of life is likely to have ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... from the scene of butchery as rapidly as they were able. After the officers had retired to their cabins, the rough-featured sailors gathered before the mast, and loud and bitter were the curses they uttered against slavery and against those officers of government who had then constrained them to murder women and helpless children, merely ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... be said for those starving men and women, who are making so heroic a fight for the right to live. Altogether, the situation was awkward and even distressing. The House, divided between the desire to remain neutral and to be sympathetic, was puzzled, constrained, and silent. It was at this moment that Mr. Lockwood made a most welcome and appropriate intervention. Gathering together the scattered and somewhat tangled threads of the debate, he put to Mr. Mundella several pertinent questions—among others, the very relevant one, whether or not ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... saints be misdoubted of men. It therefore behoves me not to hold back the truth which I know, and which this tale makes plain and undeniable even by Hussites, Lollards, and other miscreants. For he who reads must be constrained to own that there is no strait so terrible but the saints can bring safely forth therefrom such men as ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... much of the general taste of the place: everything you behold savors too much of art; all is forced, all is constrained about you; statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar loaves and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting jets- d'eau, besides a great sameness in the walks, can not help striking one ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... order become disorder, and good and right become evil and wrong; honesty and loyalty, vices; and fraud, ingratitude, and vice, virtues. Omnipotent power, infinite, and existing alone, would necessarily not be constrained to consistency. Its decrees and laws could not be immutable. The laws of God are not obligatory on us because they are the enactments of His POWER, or the expression of His WILL; but because they express His infinite WISDOM. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... shall be compelled to say to the king,'—you understand, my dear Monsieur Percerin, that these are M. Fouquet's words,—'I shall be constrained to say to the king, "Sire, I had intended to present your majesty with your portrait, but owing to a feeling of delicacy, slightly exaggerated perhaps, although creditable, M. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was the opposite of his brother in almost every respect, being unusually shy and reserved. Yet he had a certain charm of manner, and I fancied that, if one really knew him well, one could have a deep affection for him. I had always fancied that his manner to Cynthia was rather constrained, and that she on her side was inclined to be shy of him. But they were both gay enough this afternoon, and chatted together ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... favourite dwelling on Zion. Finally, the fact that twenty years afterwards Jerusalem made her triumphant escape from the danger which had proved fatal to her haughty rival, that at the critical moment the Assyrians under Sennacherib were suddenly constrained to withdraw from her, raised to the highest pitch the veneration in which the temple was held. In this connection special emphasis is usually laid— and with justice—upon the prophetical activity of Isaiah, whose confidence in the firm foundation of Zion continued unmoved, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... task to speak in terms of disparagement of a lady. There is one, however, of whom, even in this gracious presence, I am constrained to speak without restraint. To the splendid assemblage before me she was unknown; possibly, however, some veteran upon this platform may have enjoyed her personal acquaintance. I refer to the late Mrs. Macbeth. I would not be misunderstood. My criticism of the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... was SHE, then, who was in the room! I drew nearer my door, which was still fixed ajar. Presently a voice,—Mrs. Saltillo's voice,—with a constrained laugh in it, came from behind the door: "Not a bit. I'll come down ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... much she feels leaving her precious little daughter," whispered Ida, drawing the little figure, which resisted rigidly, towards her. "She would not do it if she were not afraid of losing her health completely." Evelyn remained in her attitude of constrained affection, bending over her mother. "Mamma will write you very often," continued Ida. "Think how nice it will be for you to get letters! And she will bring you some beautiful things when she comes back." Then Ida's voice broke, and she found her handkerchief under ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... after the occurrence of the events above narrated. Everything looked the same as when I had left it; the old trees stood as graceful and as grand as ever; no plough had violated the soft green sward; no utilitarian hand had constrained the wanderings of the clear and sportive stream, or disturbed the lichen-covered rocks through which it gushed, or the wild coppice that over-shadowed its sequestered nooks—but the eye that looked upon these things was altered, and memory ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... time, all his plans were changing to suit this new ally of his—this miraculous Fate which was shaping matters for him as he waited. Sylvia had started up-stairs like a fragrant whirlwind, but her flying feet halted at Leila's constrained voice from the drawing-room, and she spun around and came into the darkened ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... which arose in the English Congregation at Frankfort, in regard to the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and the introduction of various ceremonies. Knox was constrained to relinquish his charge; and having preached a farewell discourse on the 26th of March, he left that city, and returned to Geneva. Here he must have resumed his ministerial labours; as, on the 1st of November that year, in the "Livre des Anglois, a Geneve," it is expressly said, that Christopher ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... birth little by little in his mind. It is necessary that this labour and this slowness appear in the reciting, or it will always come short of nature. Take time to reflect, to feel, and to allow ideas to come, and hurry your recitation only when constrained by some particular consideration."... ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... decent, and inhabitable for years together. I have to deal here with the state of the houses and their inhabitants, and it must be admitted that no more injurious and demoralising method of housing the workers has yet been discovered than precisely this. The working-man is constrained to occupy such ruinous dwellings because he cannot pay for others, and because there are no others in the vicinity of his mill; perhaps, too, because they belong to the employer, who engages him only on condition of his taking such a cottage. The calculation with ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... divided the Speeches contained in these volumes into groups. The materials for selection are so abundant, that I have been constrained to omit many a speech which is worthy of careful perusal. I have naturally given prominence to those subjects with which Mr. Bright has been especially identified, as, for example, India, America, Ireland, and Parliamentary Reform. But nearly every topic of great ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown
... conceal from themselves the fact that while, on the one hand, the Esquimaux appeared to be perfectly sincere and cordial in their professions, on the other hand the Indians evinced a good deal of taciturnity at first, and even after their reserve was overcome, seemed to act as men do who are constrained to the performance of ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sigmund did drop to sleep. Eugen carried him to his bed, tucked him up, and returned. We sat in silence—such an uncomfortable constrained silence, as had never before been between us. I had a book before me. I saw no word of it. I could not drive the vision away—the lovely, pleading face, the penitence. Good heavens! How could he repulse ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... thoroughly. I could see that she was really looking at things and let nothing escape her, and as I watched her, an uncomfortable feeling that she had been a little touched by love of the deft, ready, and handsome Dick, and that she had been constrained to follow us because of it, faded out of my mind; since if it had been so, she surely could not have been so excitedly pleased, even with the beautiful scenes we were passing through. For some time she did not say much, but at last, as we had passed under Shillingford Bridge ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... to her, and having mounted another himself, he conveyed her beyond the reach of immediate pursuit; when, after having supplied her with food, and admonishing her to make the best of her way to her own nation, which was at the distance of at least four hundred miles, he was constrained to return to his village. The emancipated Ietan had, however, the good fortune, on her journey of the subsequent day, to meet with a war-party of her own people, by whom she was conveyed to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... admiration which they knew their best clothes must attract; in some of the fine private coaches, no one but indian nurses or favored servants rode. Even here, few of the parties were really dashing, lively or beautiful. The whole thing was constrained, artificial and sedate. An occasional group seemed to really enjoy the occasion. One bony horse dragged an ancient buggy or cart, which might well be that of some country doctor, and in it was the gentleman himself, commonly dressed, but with a whole family of ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... dragged and ankles that wobbled through inexperience in walking. Ah yes! I'm quite awake and the same Barbara, though looking over a wider and eye-opening horizon, having had three rows of candles, ten in a row, around my last birthday cake and one extra in the middle, which extravagance has constrained the family to use lopsided, tearful, pink candles ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... him, waiting. Even if nurses had not been, presumably, under some such bond of honourable secrecy as constrained the medical profession, he knew she was to be trusted. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... remain in the house till his wound is healed. His presence is to be a secret in the household. He will occupy the southwestern chamber." She then turned and spoke, in a constrained manner, to Peyton, not meeting his look. "It is the room your General Washington had when he was my ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... sleep, the enemy comes and sows tares; that if good school-houses do not elevate, neglected ones will pollute their children. I have already alluded, in the language of others, to the representations of vulgarity and obscenity that meet the eye in every direction. But I am constrained to add, that, during the intermissions, and before school, "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort" sometimes lecture in the hearing of the school generally, boys and girls, large and small, illustrating their subject by ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... self-consciousness, which makes it difficult or impossible to put themselves at ease among those with whom they would like to associate. They are painfully aware of their own surplus ego; they are constrained and awkward; they feel that in some way they are outsiders, that, as the slang phrase puts it, they do not belong. It is probable that more social failures are due to this trait than to ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... prediction, Maggot collected all his energies, and sprang from his narrow perch into the air, with arms and hands wildly extended. His effort was well and bravely made, but his position had been too constrained, and his foothold too insecure, to admit of a good jump. He missed the rope, and, with a loud cry, shot like an arrow into ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... who, in the emergency, felt constrained to offer his services to Carrie though he would greatly have preferred 'Lena's company alone. "The road is wide enough for three, and I am fully competent to take charge of two ladies. But why don't you go?" turning ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... every domestic circle should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... greater if they either return to their villages, or take up their abode with the family of some woodman—or rather, Marthe's safety would be greater. As to Francois, he has long been eager to join in the fighting, and it is only his fidelity that has constrained him to remain in what he considers is a disgraceful position, when every other man who can bear arms is fighting. We will therefore take him with us and, when the day of battle comes, he will join the fighting men ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... across the path of Nicholas Trevlyn, who made her his wife. I trow she many a time rued the day when she was thus persuaded; but repentance came too late, and death soon relieved her of her load of misery. That she bequeathed to her children; and here am I this day a wanderer from my father's house, constrained to seek shelter from her kindred, since flesh and blood can no longer endure the misery of dwelling beneath ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness. I said that a race which had come to this effect in any member of it, had attained civilization in him, and I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative; and I held that if his black poems had been written by a white man, I should not have found them less ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... and feared to speak; but the anxiety painted on the white face of the old man was so cruel that he was constrained to point to the canvas ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... Lydia constrained her to lie down again. She was unwilling at first, but in the end fell back with a sigh ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... The slightly constrained laugh which went round the table after Miss Minty's speech was due quite as much to the faint flush that had accented Mainwaring's own smile as to the embarrassing remark itself. Mrs. Bradley and Miss Macy exchanged rapid glances. Bradley, who alone retained his composure, with a slight flicker ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained to give him my best counsels, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... soon discover that free trade and smuggling will not compensate them for the loss of the Reciprocity Treaty. They will stay out in the cold for a few years and try all sorts of expedients, but in the end will be constrained to knock for admission into the Great Republic. Potter was right when he predicted that the abrogation of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Gracie's manner was abrupt, and her voice constrained. It was evident that she was making great effort to control herself, and appear ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... everywhere. By dint of supposing wicked intentions, and of comprehending them, in order to reach the truth hidden under so many contradictory actions, it is impossible that the exercise of their dreadful functions should not, in the long run, dry up at their source the generous emotions they are constrained to repress. If the sensibilities of the surgeon who probes into the mysteries of the human body end by growing callous, what becomes of those of the judge who is incessantly compelled to search the inner folds of the soul? Martyrs ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... the young doctor felt constrained in his presence. He could not forget their first interview; so he confined his remarks and questions to strictly professional matters, and made his visits as ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... France, and France only, is mistress of the human mind. Russia has her fervid declaimers of holy excellence and the superior quality of the Slav character. It does not matter whether the country is great or small, whether it be Montenegro or Cambodia, it always contains souls who feel constrained to give the world a demonstration of their overflowing superiority. Pan-Germanism, pan-Slavism, pan-Magyarism, pan-Anglosaxism, pan-Americanism grow out of such conceit, systematized by ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... despair! And all this might be seen on board the Chilian barque, on the morning after she was abandoned by her traitorous and piratical crew, A sad night has it been for the three unfortunates left aboard, more especially the two constrained to sit at the cabin-table. Both have bitterest thoughts, enough to fill the cup of their misery to the brim. A night of anguish for the ex-haciendado. Not because of having seen his treasure, the bulk of his fortune, borne off before his eyes; ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Marian only gave a constrained smile, and answered, "Thank you," in such an awkward, cold way, that Caroline was thrown back. Her sister, only conscious of freedom from the restraints of the drawing-room, began exclaiming in short sentences, "O what ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and whether it be the same charity which, for three centuries past, has led you to harrass the habitations of the people of three continents, of whom the most prudent, the Chinese and Japanese, were constrained to drive you off, that they might escape your chains ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die—oh, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... not before excited masses out of doors. I agree entirely that the case does raise considerations, somewhat extensive, of the true character of our American system of popular liberty; and although I am constrained to differ from the learned counsel who opened the cause for the plaintiff in error, on the principles and character of that American liberty, and upon the true characteristics of that American system on which changes of the government and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... $23,778.24 over the receipts. Our committee has denied many appeals pressed upon it, from the workers in the field, for needed growth and strengthening; but some calls have come with such urgency to save the work already in hand, that it felt constrained to grant the additional appropriations, and we are very confident that if our constituents had been present, they, too, would have concurred heartily ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... with the Green Dragon, he would have noticed that the landlady, its presiding genius, was stiffer than usual; the rosy smile was more constrained, as if a great host had to be embraced, and were trying it to the utmost stretch. There was, however, no asperity about her, and when she had led him to the door he was to enter to prefer his suit, and she had asked whether the young woman was quite common, and he had replied that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with effusion, bowing low over her hand. When she introduced him to the English lady, he bowed again ceremoniously. But his blue eyes lost their smile. The gesture was formal, the look constrained. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... company in "Cape Cod harbor" have made us familiar, and perhaps other smaller boats,—besides the Master's "skiff" or "gig," of whose existence and necessity there are numerous proofs. "Monday the 27," Bradford and Winslow state, "it proved rough weather and cross winds, so as we were constrained, some in the shallop and others in the long-boat," etc. Bradford states, in regard to the repeated springings-a-leak of the SPEEDWELL: "So the Master of the bigger ship, called Master Jones, being consulted with;" and again, "The Master of the small ship complained his ship was ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... at the very last that he confided to me that he, too, had felt something at our first meeting "different" to what one generally feels, that he had always wanted to turn our acquaintance into friendship and had been too shy. I also was shy—and so we missed one another, as I suppose in this funny, constrained, traditional country of ours thousands of people miss ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... restrained, constrained, repressed; bounden; destined, sure, certain; (Colloq.) determined, resolved; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... levee. About that time Madame Heries opened the Planter's Hotel on Canal Street, which some years after fell and crushed to death some thirty persons. There were many boarding-houses, where ladies were entertained, and to these were all ladies visiting the city constrained to resort. Some of these were well kept and comfortable, but afforded none or very few of the advantages of public hotels. They were generally kept by decayed females who were constrained to this vocation by pecuniary misfortunes. The liberal accommodation afforded in hotels, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... also sent for Beth, and requested her to repeat the story, that she might judge for herself if she should be allowed to go on with it; and Beth repeated it, being constrained; but the recital was so wearisome that Miss Clifford dismissed her before she was half-way through, with leave to finish it if anybody cared to hear it. When Thursday came, the girls and Miss Smallwood cared very much to hear it, and Beth, stimulated by their clamours, went ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Hindoostanee, our conversation was carried on through the medium of a little bare-headed rosy-cheeked Lama, named "Tchebu," clad in a scarlet gown, who acted as interpreter. The conversation was short and constrained: Tchebu was known as a devoted servant of the Rajah and of the heir apparent; and in common with all the Lamas he hates the Dewan, and desires a friendly intercourse between Sikkim and Dorjiling. He is, further, the only servant of the Rajah capable of conversing both in Hindoo and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... manner so different from that with which she had received him at dinner, that it a little surprized him. And now he soon perceived her behaviour totally changed; for instead of that natural affability which we have before celebrated, she wore a constrained severity on her countenance, which was so disagreeable to Mr Jones, that he resolved, however late, to quit the house ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... his sire's place, and held the sway aright, Steering his state with watchful wariness. Third in succession, Cyrus, blest of Heaven, Held rule and 'stablished peace for all his clan: Lydian and Phrygian won he to his sway, And wide Ionia to his yoke constrained, For the god favoured his discretion sage. Fourth in the dynasty was Cyrus' son, And fifth was Mardus, scandal of his land And ancient lineage. Him Artaphrenes, Hardy of heart, within his palace slew, Aided by loyal plotters, set ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... the fine air given them by the cordon bleu (worn under the frock coat, usually, or on great occasions over a coat covered with gold lace and shining decorations), the traditional object of ambition for those most in favor at court; but they seemed to me to present a constrained figure, as I saw them soberly ranged in the stalls of the canons, clad in a costume of no particular epoch, wrapped in long mantles of motley color, and following, with a distracted air, the phases of a ceremony to which they were so little accustomed that they ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... think was exceedingly charitable, considering that it was said to a holder of slaves; and perhaps quite too much so; for the truth is not to be spoken at all times, and especially not of those who hold their fellow-men in bondage. I am often constrained to think that it was an inconsiderate, unwise thing in the Apostle to take this favorable view of that slave-holder; he may, however, have written by permission, not by commandment; that would save his inspiration from reproach; ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... when he slept, to give him over into the hands of any one who chooses to lead him into wrong. The consecrated locks of the Nazarite—I mean, purity and innocence of heart—have been shorn away completely in the lap of one Delilah or another; and though he hates those who hold him captive, he is constrained to follow where they lead. I think you may do him good, Wilton; I am certain he can do you no harm: I believe that he is capable, and I am certain that he is willing, to make your abode in London more pleasant to you, and to open that path for your advancement, which his father would have put ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... deserving of a little sympathy. He had borne the burden and heat of the day, and now another was entering into his labour. But the tutor's tone had an ugly ring about it, which, for the moment, cowed the injured gentleman, and constrained him, after glowering for a moment or two, and trying to articulate ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... be compelled to say to the king'—you understand, my dear Monsieur Percerin, that these are M. Fouquet's words—I shall be constrained to say to the king, 'Sire, I had intended to present your majesty with your portrait, but owing to a feeling of delicacy, slightly exaggerated perhaps, although creditable, M. Percerin opposed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... mothers, who will suckle indifferently any infant that might happen to be assigned to them for the purpose. Here, as in other instances, Plato goes far beyond the limits set by the current sentiment of the Greeks, and in his later work is reluctantly constrained to abandon his scheme of community of wives and children. Yet even there he makes it compulsory on every man to marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, under penalty of fine and civil disabilities. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... of yesterday's date, Valley Forge speaks of many more papers "which are yet to come:" we suppose he means yet to be published. If so, we feel constrained to say now, that we cannot publish any thing more relating to the matter until he announces to us, at least, his ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry—in marrying her at all as you said—but I would like to make it up to her some day—and I suppose if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and wants ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth upwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth the cry ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Though the horror excited by such atrocious details must be serviceable to humanity, I am constrained by decency to spare the reader a part of them. Let the imagination, however repugnant, pause for a moment over these scenes—Five, eight hundred people of different sexes, ages, and conditions, are taken from their prisons, in the dreary months of December and ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... with a constrained and melancholy air; he could not smile; but he seemed to wish to welcome that naive sentiment which soothed his wound, though it could not cure ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... change her frock or something. Not that he personally thought she should change it. If he might be pardoned for saying so, he thought it a most becoming frock; but women were curious about such things, now honestly weren't they? And Mrs. Propbridge was constrained to confess that about such things women were curious. She had a conviction that if all things moved smoothly she presently would be urged to waive formality and join the party at luncheon. Mr. Murrill had not exactly put the idea into words yet, but she sensed ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... smell—the sense so closely connected with the brain that, through its instrumentality, the mind, it is said, is quickest reached, is soonest moved. So that when perfumes quiver through us, are we oftenest constrained to blush and smile, or shrink and shiver. Perhaps through perfumes also memory knocks the loudest on our heart-doors; until it has come to pass that unto scented handkerchief or withering leaf has been given full power to fire the eye or blanch the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... poor, although the poor die in a double proportion to the rich. How can we deliver ourselves from this scourge? Only on condition that there be no more sources of infection, that is to say, that there be no longer unhealthful places in the world, and no underfed people constrained to work beyond their strength. The only way by which the individual may escape is that by which all humanity may be saved. This is a great principle, which seems to ring like a trumpet call: Men, help one ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... each one masking his real feelings in intercourse with the others. The bishop, his son and his scheming chaplain were actors in a comedy of life which—in the opinion of the last—might easily end up as a tragedy. No wonder their behaviour was constrained, no wonder they avoided one another. They were as men living over a powder magazine which the least spark would explode with thunderous noise and ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... thank thee! and, if yet dissent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I cannot censure what was nobly meant. But, while constrained to hold even Union less Than Liberty and Truth and Righteousness, I thank thee in the sweet and holy name Of peace, for wise calm words that put to shame Passion and party. Courage may be shown Not in defiance of the wrong alone; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was quickly avenged by his overthrow of the marauders at Ancrum Moor. Henry had yet to learn the uselessness of mere force to compass his ends. "I shall be glad to serve the king of England, with my honour," said the Lord of Buccleugh to an English envoy, "but I will not be constrained thereto if all Teviotdale be burned ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... of lead, and, after shedding the blood of the helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the inglorious victory. The triumphs of Frederic in the war of repartee were of much the same kind. How to deal with him was the most puzzling of questions. To appear constrained in his presence was to disobey his commands, and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his associates were enticed by his graciousness to indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was certain to make them repent of their presumption ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... make any distinction between "conservatives," "copperheads," and "rebels." So powerful and persistent was the radical influence that even so able a lawyer as Edwin M. Stanton, then Secretary of War, was constrained to send an order to the commander of the District of Missouri, directing him to execute the act of Congress of July 17, 1862, relative to the confiscation of property of persons engaged in the rebellion, although the law provided for its execution in the usual way by the judicial department of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... out of casting dull care away, at once rose superior to her embarrassment and confusion, and responded to my advances with the utmost liveliness and gayety. The change was instantaneous and marked. A moment ago she had been constrained and stiff and shy; now she was gay and lively and spirited. This change, which thus took place before my eyes, served in some measure to explain that difference which I saw between the Lady of the Ice and Miss O'Halloran ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... are never easy till we are half drunk among our whores and companions; nor sleep sound, unless we drink longer than we can stand. If we go abroad in the day, a wise man would easily find us to be rogues by our faces; we have such a suspicious, fearful, and constrained countenance; often turning back, and slinking through narrow lanes and alleys. I have never failed of knowing a brother thief by his looks, though I never saw him before. Every man among us keeps his particular whore, who is however ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... "Our situation is disagreeable; constrained, a kind of spasm: but my determination is taken. If we needs must fight, we will do it like men driven desperate. Never was there a greater peril than that I am now in. Time, at its own pleasure, will untie this knot; or Destiny, if there is one, determine the event. The game I play is so high, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fact of persistent violence, persistent accident, did remain. It stared him in the face, so to speak, defiant of denial. And the deduction, consequent upon it, stared him in the face likewise. He was constrained to confess that the first clause of the deeply wronged mother's prediction had found ample fulfilment.—Julius paused, shifted his position uneasily, somewhat fearful of the conclusions ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the recent case of Ouseley v. Ouseley, Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too complicated to explain here, presented points of considerable interest to the legal mind. To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the more striking of his recent symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make at ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... hardly debated. On that fateful 10th of August the House of Lords split into three groups on quite a different point. The King's Government had seized on the King's Prerogative and uttered threats. Should they or should they not be constrained to make good their threats, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... force is not wasted and abused in the senses, but constrained to reunite with subtler spinal energies. By such reinforcement of life, the yogi's body and brain cells are electrified with the spiritual elixir. Thus he removes himself from studied observance of natural laws, which ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... in another year it would, in my poor judgment, be quite time to think about such worldly matters; that at the present the Lady Margaret was receiving an education suitable to her rank; that she was happy here; and that unless constrained by force—of which, I said, I could not suppose that any possibility existed—I should not surrender the Lady Margaret into any hands whatsoever, unless, indeed, I received the commands of her lawful guardian, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... religion, our government pays no premium to hypocrisy by having fastened to its shirts one creed above all other creeds, made thereby more respectable and more fashionable. 'It is a part of their system,' Mr. Trollope continues, 'that religion shall be perfectly free, and that no man shall be in any way constrained in that matter,' (and he sees nothing to thank God for in this system of ours!) 'consequently, the question of a man's religion is regarded in a free-and-easy manner.' That which we have gladly dignified ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... plunged into, what rocks they wore away, what echoes they invoked! In one part where I went, they were pressed into the service of carrying wood down, to be burnt next winter, as costly fuel, in Italy. But, their fierce savage nature was not to be easily constrained, and they fought with every limb of the wood; whirling it round and round, stripping its bark away, dashing it against pointed corners, driving it out of the course, and roaring and flying at the peasants who steered it back again from ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... music, for she has only learned three years, and can play a number of pieces very well. I find it difficult, however, to explain distinctly the impression she makes on me while she is playing; she seems to me so curiously constrained, and she has such an odd way of stalking over the keys with her long bony fingers! To be sure, she has had no really good master, and if she remains in Munich she will never become what her father ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... magnetising recommended by Deleuze. That delicate, fanciful, and nervous women, when subjected to it, should have worked themselves into convulsions will be readily believed by the sturdiest opponent of animal magnetism. To sit in a constrained posture—be stared out of countenance by a fellow who enclosed her knees between his, while he made passes upon different parts of her body, was quite enough to throw any weak woman into a fit, especially if she were predisposed to hysteria, and believed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... judge of men, makes the following observation: 'Who can say why the votaries of science, though eminently kind in their social relations, are so angular of character? In my analysis of the scientific nature, I am constrained to associate with it (as compared with that of men who are more Christians than scientists) A CERTAIN HARDNESS, OR RATHER INDELICACY OF FEELING. They strike me as being ... coolly indifferent ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... with her upbraidings; and had she not been the daughter of a gentleman whose friendship he did not think it his interest to forfeit, he would have dropped this correspondence, without reluctance or hesitation. But, as he had measures to keep with a family of such consequence, he constrained his inclinations, so far as to counterfeit those raptures he no longer felt, and found means to appease those intervening ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... presented, I doubt not, an appearance at once dignified and becoming, but I defy any ordinary non-amphibious mortal to look, under similar circumstances, any thing but supremely ridiculous. The wrathful face framed in dripping hair and plastered whiskers—the movements of the limbs, awkward and constrained—the rivulets distilling from every salient angle, turning the victim into a walking Lauterbrunnen—when we saw all these absurdities exaggerated before us, no wonder that from the whole party, including the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... regimen of water broth Tartarin of Tarascon joined other wise practices. To break himself into the habit of long marches, he constrained himself to go round the town seven or eight times consecutively every morning, either at the fast walk or run, his elbows well set against his body, and a couple of white pebbles in the mouth, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... home, she complained of fatigue and sat down to rest on a bench that the heavy foliage had protected from the rain. I stood before her and watched the pale light of the moon playing on her face. After a moment's silence, she arose and in a constrained manner observed: ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... such little services as create intimacy, and when he was sure of not being repulsed with haughtiness, he questioned Serge. Did he love Mademoiselle de Cernay? This question, asked in a trembling voice and with a constrained smile, found the Prince quite calm. He answered lightly that Mademoiselle de Cernay was a very agreeable partner, but that he had never dreamed of offering her his homage. He had other projects in his head. Cayrol ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of this public work that I am constrained to write; but I may as well say here that I have had no other teachers, no other instructors, and have pursued no course of study or reading of human books; those whom I call my guides and guardians ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... troubled, debating anxiously as to the propriety of putting on his gloves. The Spanish-Mexican family, a father, mother and five children and sister-in-law, sat rigid on the edges of the hired chairs, silent, constrained, their eyes lowered, their elbows in at their sides, glancing furtively from under their eyebrows at the decorations or watching with intense absorption young Vacca, son of one of the division superintendents, who wore a checked coat and white thread gloves and who ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Ostrander again? The tears she had kept back all that day asserted themselves as she flung open the library door and ran across the garden into the myrtle walk. "In hospital!" The words had been ringing in her ears though Sir James's complacent speech, through the oddly constrained luncheon, through the half-tender, half-masculine reasoning of her companion. He HAD loved her—he had suffered and perhaps thought her false. Suddenly she stopped. At the further end of the walk the ominous stranger ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... leader from advancing out of the south. But the Spaniard's egregious pride took fire at the notion of being directed by an Englishman, and he suffered Soult to break up the siege of Cadiz, and retire with all his army undisturbed towards the Sierra Morena. Lord Wellington, incensed at this folly, was constrained to divide his army. Leaving half at Madrid under Sir R. Hill, to check Soult, he himself marched with the other for Burgos, by taking which great city he judged he should have it in his power to overawe effectually ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... and by force, and tormenting one's body either one way or the other, except that it is a folly in a man to be willing to suffer pain." "How," said Socrates, "you know not this difference between things voluntary and constrained, that he who suffers hunger because he is pleased to do so may likewise eat when he has a mind; and he who suffers thirst because he is willing may also drink when he pleases. But it is not in the power of him who suffers ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... invoke it conceal their faces within masks of terrifying design, and cover their hands and bodies with specially prepared garments, without which it would be fatal to encounter these very powerful spirits. While yet among the habitations of men, and in crowded places, they are constrained to use less powerful demons, which are lawful, but when they reach the unfrequented paths they throw aside all restraint, and, calling to their aid the forbidden spirit (which they do by secret movements of the hands), they are carried forward by its agency at a speed unattainable by merely ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... well said," she replied softly. "Mr. Herrick, I think your friend Mr. Templeton is rather like that: he is so young and fresh, it is delightful to listen to him. He is two-and-twenty, is he not? and he is such a boy." She laughed an odd, constrained little laugh as she said this, and added in a curious undertone, "And I am only nine-and-twenty, and I feel as though I were seventy. See what responsibilities and the pains and penalties of ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... exercised only in the woeful meekness of a broken heart; for, indeed, there is in the darkness of unmerited affliction, a spirit which elevates its object, and makes unsuffering nature humble in its presence. Who is there that has a heart, and few, alas, have, that does not feel himself constrained to bend his head with reverence before those who move in the ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Flemmings Pinasse which went upon discovery for Nova Ginny, was returned to Banda, having found the Iland: but in sending their men on shoare to intreate of Trade, there were nine of them killed by the Heathens, which are man-eaters; So they were constrained to returne, finding no ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... Yet I would not long delay," answered the prior. "I may not speak too openly, but there be reasons why I would have Brother Emmanuel beneath this roof once more. I will leave thee one week to consider and to get the course of study completed. At the week's end, methinks, I shall be constrained to bid Brother Emmanuel return home. But if all be well after a short time has sped by, he may ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was unreasonable and prejudiced and I did not argue the point. Lute and Dorinda discussed the caller at the supper table until I was constrained to leave the room. Mabel Colton might amuse herself with Mother and the two members of our household whom she had described as "characters," she might delude them into believing her thoughtful and sympathetic and without ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Doctor Portman read this portion of the letter, his voice faltered, and his eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. And when he had quite finished reading the same, and had taken his glasses off his nose, and had folded up the paper and given it back to the widow, I am constrained to say, that after holding Mrs. Pendennis's hand for a minute, the doctor drew that lady toward him and fairly kissed her: at which salute, of course, Helen burst out crying on the doctor's shoulder, for her heart was too full to give any other reply: and the doctor, blushing a ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Blanche a little indignantly, though in a constrained voice, "how you dare bring such ill charges against the Papistical Church. Do they not set great store by holiness, I pray you? Yea, have they not monks and nuns, and a celibate priesthood, consecrate to greater holiness ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... king and country, by bellicose warmth and army contracts, that instead of a guinea for a four-gallon anker, they would offer three crowns, or the exciseman. And not only conscience, but short cash, after three bad harvests, constrained them. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... who followed close upon Fichte, were dissatisfied with so hard and exclusive a conception of spiritual being. Life, they said, is not all duty. Indeed, the true spiritual life is quite other, not harsh and constrained, but free and spontaneous—a wealth of feeling playing about a constantly shifting centre. Spirit is not consecutive and law-abiding, but capricious and wanton, seeking the beautiful in no orderly progression, but in a refined and versatile sensibility. If ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... employ in her own defence the forces which had hitherto been utilised in promoting her colonial enterprises. But it was not due to the foolish caprice of ignorant or rash sovereigns that Tyre renounced her former neutral policy: she was constrained to do so, almost perforce, by the changes which had taken place in Europe. The progress of the Greeks, and their triumph in the waters of the AEgean and Ionian Seas, and the rapid expansion of the Etruscan navy after the end ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Cross, buying a paper on the way, and noting from time to time the attractively attired young ladies who were hurrying to their various employments. At the risk of evoking a certain conventional incredulity in the readers' bosom, the author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent, when the surface ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... by whom, freed from rules constrained and wrong, On truth and nature once again we're placed,— Who, in the cradle e'en a hero strong, Stiffest the serpents round our genius laced,— Thou whom the godlike science has so long With her unsullied sacred fillet graced,— Dost ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of the hundred or so deadly sins, according to my theological library—and was generally more or less drunk. Not that a stranger would have noticed this; the only difference being that when sober he appeared constrained—was less his natural, genial self. In a burst of confidence he once admitted to me that he was the biggest blackguard in the merchant service. Unacquainted with the merchant service, as at the time I was, I saw no ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... ball within remains intact, though sorely torn; in its center is still the force we call gravity; the fragments of the crust can not fly off into space; they are constrained to follow the master-power lodged in the ball, which now becomes the nucleus of a comet, still blazing and burning, and vomiting flames, and wearing itself away. The catastrophe has disarranged its course, but it still revolves in a prolonged orbit around the sun, carrying its broken dbris in ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... thereafter as Mark asserts, Jesus was constrained by the promptings of the Spirit to withdraw from men and the distractions of community life, by retiring into the wilderness where He would be free to commune with His God. So strong was the influence of the impelling force that He was led ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... was not a dream, or at least the delirium of a fever. He rose and took a few steps as if to rouse himself from his torpor and went as far as the window; he saw glittering below him the muskets of the guards. He was thereupon constrained to admit that he was indeed awake and that his bloody dream ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Arthur had perilled so much, and inflicted such acute pain on her, what were her merits? A complexion of lilies and roses, a head like a steel engraving in an annual, a face expressing nothing but childish bashfulness, a manner ladylike but constrained, and a dress of studied ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that is ended! The real treat has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it's a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural in their overdone caricature of farmers' dress—-more unnatural in their constrained attitudes and gestures—most unnatural in their attempts at ease and geniality in their talk. Go instead and take a seat in a third-class railway-carriage, and you'll get the same dialogue done to the life! Front-seats—no orchestra to block ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... to Him in all humility, and recite my carmen, saying, 'O Lamb of God, innocently slain upon the cross, give me Thy peace, O Jesu!'" These words softened my dear gossip, and he spoke, saying, "Ah, child, child, I thought to have reproached thee, but thou hast constrained me to weep with thee: art thou then indeed innocent?" "Verily," said she, "to you, my honoured god-father, I may now own that I am innocent, as truly as I trust that God will aid me in my last hour ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... colors, and so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears with both hands when they were even mentioned.[295-1] Such was the ideal man and supreme god of a people who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth century felt constrained to confess were "a good people, attached to virtue, urbane and simple in social intercourse, shunning lies, skilful in arts, pious toward their gods."[295-2] Is it likely, is it possible, that with such a model as ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... kind of Mr. Bolton," she answered in a constrained voice. "I only wish he had said something more; we had a terrible day. Uncle Peter was nearly crazy about you; he telegraphed and telegraphed, but we could get no answer. That's why it was such a relief to find ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... strangely unfamiliar after so short an absence, and there were new faces among the nurses who passed to and fro in the corridors. John asked for the matron, and was received with constrained and distant courtesy. Was he well? Quite well. They had a resident chaplain now, and being in priest's orders he had many opportunities where death was so frequent. Was he sure he had not been ill? John understood—it was almost as if he had come out of some supernatural ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... solitude of the great trees, thick-set and erect, and the bare desolateness of the ice only room for a few narrow fields, still for the most part uncouth with stumps, so narrow indeed that they seemed to be constrained in the grasp of an ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests, and not the principle of love, have given to it; or to repel as antagonists men who are still attached to its own spirit, however opposed they may be to the powers to which it is allied. The church cannot ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... ruined by civil wars. At this critical juncture, the protestants, heedless of our Lord's admonition, "They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword," took such an active part in favour of the king, that he was constrained to acknowledge himself indebted to their arms for his establishment on the throne. Instead of cherishing and rewarding that party who had fought for him, he reasoned, that the same power which had protected could overturn him, and, listening to the popish machinations, he began to issue out proscriptions ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to a confession. I have what seems to me very natural,—a strong desire to be liked by those whom I meet around me in society of my own age; but, unfortunately, when with them my manners have often been unnatural and constrained, and I have found myself thinking of myself, and what others were thinking of me, instead of entering into the enjoyment of the moment as others did. I seem to have naturally very little independence, and to be very much afraid of other ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... little advantage in providing a new complicated form, for the purpose of expressing in one proposition what naturally throws itself into two, and may easily be expressed in two. If a man is prepared to give us information on one Quaesitum, why should he be constrained to use a mode of speech which forces on his attention at the same time a second and distinct Quaesitum—so that he must either give us information about the two at once, or confess ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... desire. She thought of that man, Jacques Sennier, hidden somewhere, the cause of all that was happening in the house, of all that would happen almost immediately upon the stage. She envied him with intensity. Then she looked at Claude Heath's rather grim and constrained expression. Was it possible that Heath did not share ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... do but fancy that you were in love. I told you it was time we went home. Don't say any thing more about it. I'll promise you to forget it all," and Hetty laughed again, a merry little laugh. A sharp suspicion crossed the doctor's mind that she was coquetting with him. In a constrained tone ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... time and circumstances of the declaration of the present war, the condition of the country, and state of the public mind, we are constrained to consider, and feel it our duty to pronounce it a most rash, unwise, and inexpedient measure, the adoption of which ought forever to deprive its authors of the esteem and confidence of an enlightened people; because, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... after they had sat in a constrained silence for a little while, "why don't you like ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... in any other locality than the particular one they themselves represented as most eligible, and their rivals were always represented as unprincipled land-jobbers. Finding these accusations to be mutual, I naturally felt myself constrained to believe both ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... wanted, but he could not draw back. There followed months of wild wanderings round the regions of Niagara. The band of young braves passed dangerous places with great precipices and a waterfall, where the river was a mile wide and unfrozen. Radisson was constrained to witness many acts against the Eries, which must have one of two effects on white blood,—either turn the white man into a complete savage, or disgust him utterly with savage life. Leaving the Mohawk village amid a blare of guns and shouts, the young ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... Commodus Hercules, and upon it was inscribed the well known couplet, viz.: "Hercules I, Jove's son, Lord of Fair Fame, Not Lucius, howsoe'er constrained thereto." ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... immediately constrained himself to assume the easy deportment with which a superior receives a dependent, and which, in his own case, was usually mingled with a certain degree of hauteur. The mother had less command of herself. She, too, sprung up, as if with ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... letter,' said the squire, in a constrained kind of voice. Then he read it again, as if he had not previously mastered its contents, and as if there might be some sentence or ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... spoonful of soup was reassuring, and I looked to the end of the table to exchange a congratulatory glance with Leta. What was amiss? No response. Her pretty face was flushed, her smile constrained, she was talking with quite unnecessary empressement to her neighbor, Sir Harry Landor, though Leta is one of those few women who understand the importance of letting a man settle down tranquilly and with an undisturbed mind to the business of dining, allowing no topic of serious interest ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... me say that he wrote you a constrained half-dozen lines by Mr. Henry Greenough, who asked for a letter of introduction to you, while the asker was sitting in the room, and the form of 'dear Mrs. Jameson' couldn't well be escaped from. He loves you as well as ever, you are to understand, through every complication ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... see them," cried Fanny, whose passion for relics was quickly aroused. Charlie, too, was constrained to abandon his lazy attitude for a moment to examine such a curiosity as ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... too unsocialized, to subvert their underlying motives. Allis, with her fine intuition, would have unearthed Mortimer's disapprobation of racing—though he awkwardly strove to hide it—even if Alan had not enlarged upon this point. This knowledge constrained the girl, even drove her into rebellion. She took his misunderstanding as a fault, almost as a weakness, and shocked the young man with carefully prepared racing expressions; reveled with strange abandon ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Gerard to confess his sins and his plots that he had plotted, which out of very shame he was constrained to do, and then Oberon prayed the emperor to command Gerard and those who had helped him to work ill to be hanged on the gallows which had been reared for Huon, and this was done also; and the emperor Charles and Huon, duke of Bordeaux, made ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... was considered a religious duty, and the men from outside, and even the boys from behind the smoke-house, felt constrained to come in and pass in shuddering horror before the still face whose breath did not dim the glass above it. Most of them hurried by the box with only a swift side glance down at the strange ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... railing. Bessie was not inquisitive, but she could take a lively, unselfish interest in many matters that did not concern her. When they turned round again she was somehow not surprised to see that Mr. Cecil Burleigh had a constrained air, and that the shell-pink face of the young lady was pale and distorted with emotion. Their joy and gladness had been but evanescent. She came hastily to her mother and said they would now go home to luncheon. On the way she and Mr. Cecil Burleigh followed behind the rest, but they did not speak ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of the age that such a system should have been so long belauded, and it is a sign of returning intelligence that even he who has been more especially the alter ego of Mr. Darwin should have felt constrained to close the chapter of Charles-Darwinism as a living theory, and relegate it to the important but not very creditable place in history which it must henceforth occupy. It is astonishing, however, that Mr. Wallace ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Josephine did not finish her sentence. The words she uttered were, however, so full of poignant surprise and disappointment that I felt constrained to inquire with a guilty attempt ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... be his {9} property alone, they would not fail to discover they themselves were the proprietors; which would be sufficient to cause their confiscation, the commerce between the two nations not being open. M. de la Motte saw the solidity of these reasons; but the impossibility of acting otherwise constrained him to supersede them: and, as M. de St. Denis had foreseen, it ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... resolved that not only a door should be made, as well as shutters for the windows, but that the house should, in time, be picketed. When le Bourdon remonstrated with him on the folly of taking so much unnecessary pains, it led to a discussion, in which the missionary even felt constrained to join. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... it was childish for three people who knew one another very well, to sit and pretend to eat, and to speak no word; so Kent thought, and tried to break the silence with some remark which would not sound constrained. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... Constance with an arch smile. "He talked that evening, I assure you, and to good effect. He had but a few moments to stay, but he made every moment tell. For one thing, he assured me, with a most winning smile, that he should feel constrained to rise in church and forbid the banns unless I promised to adopt him ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... placed to look to the south: the entry can only admit a person to crawl in; on one side of it is placed the kitchen, and on the other the dog-kennel, but no partition separates the biped from the quadruped inhabitant. If constrained to travel in winter, or to remain at a distance from their usual homes, they build houses of snow, which afford them a tolerably comfortable temporary abode. These habitations are very ingeniously constructed; they first search out a heap of firmly ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... and neither dared to meet the other's eyes. It was a mournful pull ashore, and tragic in the retrospect. A silence lay between them as heavy as lead. The crew, conscious of the captain's humiliation, though they knew not the cause, felt also constrained to a deep solemnity. Yes, a funereal pull, and it was a relief to everyone when at last they grounded in ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... manifestation of any pronounced individuality or high artistic uplift, it none the less commands the respect due to the exhibition of a vigorous mentality combined with a notable mastery of orchestral resource and mellifluous modulation. At the conclusion of the performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained to make the transit from the artistes' room to the platform no fewer than three times before the applausive zeal of the audience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... imply that rotation is going on in an electric conductor? There are. An electric arc, which is a current in the air, and is, therefore, less constrained than it is in a conductor, rotates. Especially marked is this when in front of the pole of a magnet; but the rotation may be noticed in an ordinary arc by looking at it with a stroboscope disk, rotated ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... saying that he "made all things sure behind him." Mr. Chambers did indeed believe in occasional sports; so did Mr. Darwin, and we have seen that in the later editions of the "Origin of Species" he found himself constrained to lay greater stress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... 1795. Her gloomiest forebodings were confirmed. Imlay had provided a furnished house for her, and had considered her comforts. But his manner was changed. He was cold and constrained, and she felt the difference immediately. He was little with her, and business was, as of old, the excuse. According to Godwin, he had formed another connection with a young strolling actress. Life was thus even less bright in London than it had been in Paris. If hell is but the shadow ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... evil yet coward nature. He is wicked and he is afraid. The whole physique of Rossi in the scene in the first act where the king heaps favors and commendations on his valiant warrior was eloquent of conscious guilt: the constrained attitude, the shifting, uneasy glance, told, louder than words, of a wicked purpose and a stinging conscience. From the moment of the murder the wretched thane lives in a perpetual atmosphere of fear. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... tidings, which he wished to make sound more favourable than he could in conscience feel that they were; but when at last he had detailed all he knew from Averil's letters, and it had been drunk in with glistening eyes, and manner growing constantly less constrained, he led back to Leonard himself: 'Ethel will write at once to your sister when I get home; and I think I may tell her the work ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the currency which the banks have been constrained to make in order to continue specie payments, and the vitiated character of it where such reductions have not been attempted, instead of placing within the reach of these establishments the pecuniary ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... person appear upon the scene—be it even a mere servant—at once his entire manner would change. The magnetic current so pleasantly established between us would be cut through, his eyes would lose their kindly, friendly light, and become hard, his attitude self-conscious and constrained, the very tone of his speech sharp, abrupt, commanding, I would almost say arrogant. In fact he would give one the impression that he was playing a role—the role of emperor—that he was, in one word, posing, even if it were only for the benefit of the menial who had ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... the whole, I am constrained to yield to the authority and the arguments of Wr., Or., Doed., and Rit., and place the pause before durant, instead of after it as in the first edition. Durant precedes siquidem for the sake of emphasis, just as quin immo (chap. 14) and quin etiam (13) yield their usual place ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... them: then Edgar, not looking at her, said in a constrained voice, "I will keep your dreadful secret, Leam, sacredly for ever. You feel sure of that, I hope. But, as you say, we must part. I do not pretend to be better than other men, but I could not take as my wife one who had been guilty of such an awful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various |
