"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... account. Ah, he has a false insinuating tongue. Well, sir, I will stifle my just resentment at my nephew's request. I will endeavour what I can to forget, but on proviso that you resign the contract with my ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... the State is our strength, used and abused by men like ourselves, no better than ourselves, often worse. We are not duped by them, and in times of peace we judge them fairly enough, but let a war come on, they are given carte blanche, they can appeal to the lowest instincts, stifle all control, suppress liberty and truth, destroy all humanity; they are masters, we must stand shoulder to shoulder to defend the honour and the mistakes of these Masacarilles arrayed in borrowed plumes. We are all answerable, do you say? Terrible net-work of words! ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... burning oil, blazing wood, and Greek fire. They fortify the wall with mattresses of lighted straw until it seems one sheet of flame. The tower approaches this barricade of fire, but the smoke and flame stifle the Crusaders. ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... most opportunely, To tell you in a word my frank opinion. Not to sift out this scandal to the bottom, Suppose the worst for us—suppose Damis Acted the traitor, and accused you falsely; Should not a Christian pardon this offence, And stifle in his heart all wish for vengeance? Should you permit that, for your petty quarrel, A son be driven from his father's house? I tell you yet again, and tell you frankly, Everyone, high or low, is scandalised; ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... Motion, then the Obstruction of that Motion or a counter Motion must obstruct and check the Passion: And therefore an Historian and a Writer of Historical Plays, passing from Events of one nature to Events of another nature without a due Preparation, must of necessity stifle and confound one Passion by another. The second Reason why the Fiction of a Fable pleases us more than an Historical Relation can do, is, because in an Historical Relation we seldom are acquainted with the true Causes of Events, whereas ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... her throat, which threatened to close altogether and stifle her voice. She opened the letter, turned to the last page, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... M. de Vermondans became angry and humiliated at suffering his impatience to become manifest, and forbade Ireneus or La Vendee to be mentioned. He could not, however, stifle thought in his ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... life into harmony with their conscience, they try by every means to stifle its voice. But it is in darkness that the light begins to shine, and so the light is ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... figure contrasting with his brother's aspect of Bohemian carelessness and jollity, whilst Bridget, adorned in striking colours, would have passed for anything you like but a legitimate and devoted spouse. Once again did Piers stifle his conscience in face of the exhilarating bottle; indeed, he drank deliberately to drown his troubles, and before the second course had already to some ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... my love! Let only life be given, And choking griefs that stifle now, will flee As darkness from the mountain-cave is driven By ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... most dreadful wave of homesickness roll over her. Then the tears came, hot, scalding tears that rolled down her cheeks in ever increasing number. She made no noise, lest she waken the other girls but the effort to stifle her sobs made her cry harder, and she buried her face in the rough worsted of the sofa pillow and wiped her eyes with the ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... subsequent kindness, accompanied by an exhibition of sincere sorrow, you will cease to look upon him as your enemy; but where the hatred is such that, while feeling you cannot, on a sober examination of your heart, account for it, there is little hope that you will ever be able to stifle the enmity that you entertain against him. This, however, in politics and religion, is what is frequently designated as principle—a word on which men, possessing higher and greater advantages than the poor ignorant peasantry of Ireland, pride themselves. In sects and parties, we may mark its effects ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... with doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorsefully questioned with herself whether the misery, already accruing from her influence, should not warn ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be that Berenger was only two miles—only half an hour's walk form Eustacie? The bound his heart gave as he touched the shore seemed to stifle him. He could not believe it. Yet he knew how fully he had believed it, the next moment, when he listened to what the fishermen were saying to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... difficult to overestimate, and I believe that its introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management, is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination, but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am convinced that in the future of the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... faint upon the floor. One sister sat down on an ottoman, and covered her face, to try and realise it. That was Sophy. Helen threw herself on the sofa, and burying her head in the pillows, tried to stifle the screams and moans ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hours, to old and young, Deep lessons to the heart. Yet, should not life be all a sigh! Good Snell, do thou a burthen try Shall change our sadness into joy: Such as thou trollest in blythe mood, On days of sunshine in the wood. Tell out thy heart withouten fear— For none shall stifle free thoughts here! But, bear the mead-cup, Edith sweet! We crave our stranger guest will greet All hearts, again, with minstrelsy, When Snell hath ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... to the curb that they could no longer dispense with it. A guard on the outside of a theatre is unquestionably necessary, and proper for the preservation of order; but that the public should not be at liberty to approve or condemn such a passage, or such an actor, is at once to stifle the expression of that general opinion which alone can produce good performers. The interior police of the theatre being at present almost entirely in the hands of the public themselves, it is, on that account, more justly observed and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... a physical rage that held him now, a rage divided against itself—that longed to strike down, to crush, to stifle the thing it coveted. He had almost a fear ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... I am, and have always been! Why did I not stifle this wretched, overpowering attraction in the beginning?" Ay! but ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... grinned, chuckled, made a diabolical sound in attempting to whistle, and finally, unable to stifle his emotions, ran away to empty the feelings of his ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... there were no curtains to the bed, Herbert could see his mother's face as she knelt on a stool at the bedside. His father was turned away from him, and lay with his hand inside his wife's, and Emmeline was sitting on the foot of the bed, with her face between her hands, striving to stifle her sobs. "Here is Herbert now, dearest," said Lady Fitzgerald, with a low, soft voice, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to cause no effort in the hearing. "I knew that he would not be long." And Herbert, obeying the signal of his mother's eye, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... no time in presenting himself. He endeavoured to stifle all emotion—to conquer the impatience that possessed him; but he ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... bent. You cannot long fight successfully against your aspirations. Parents, friends, or misfortune may stifle and suppress the longings of the heart, by compelling you to perform unwelcome tasks; but, like a volcano, the inner fire will burst the crusts which confine it and pour forth its pent-up genius in eloquence, in song, in art, or in some favorite industry. Beware of "a talent which you ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... neatly as if it were a stocking—a finesse in providing the due amount of suffering for wrong-doers only brought to its height in Nero's living bonfires. But then, by making his suffering ridiculous, you enlist against the sufferer, some real, and all would-be manliness, and do much to stifle any false sentiment of compassion. The philosophic emperor, having no great taste for sport, and asserting here a personal scruple, had greatly changed all [240] that; had provided that nets should be spread ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... since the Barbara Freitchie days, and it's closer than I want to come. Besides, it's not just your laughter that I love. It's all of you: heart, mind, body: the whole lovely trinity of yourself. I mean to wage unabated war against all these forces that are trying to stifle your laughter into the pious smirk of the pharisee. There's more of what God wants the world to feel in one peal of your laughter than in all the psalms that this whole people ever whined through their noses. You're one of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the charts and nodded. "Very well," he said, "so must it be," and Chris felt that his heartbeat would stifle him, it pounded so fast and thickly in his throat. All at once, looking up at the thoughtful face of his master, Chris longed to be able to stay safe at home. The imminent journey, so far and perhaps so ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... and Marjorie were best friends. What had she meant when she said, "Well, Marjorie, you and Constance deserve fair sophomore weather after last year's storms." The flame of jealousy, which Mary had sought to stifle after her first meeting with Constance, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Gracchus, 'is in its nature melancholy, and how, my child, can you think to forget or stifle grief by waking the strings of your harp, whose tones, of all other instruments, are the most melancholy? And yet sometimes sadness seeks sadness, and finds in it its best relief. But now, Fausta? rather let sleep be your ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... to the Rehearsal." "Our most noble author, to manifest his just indignation and hatred of this fulsome new way of writing, used his utmost interest and endeavours to stifle it at its first appearance on the stage, by engaging all his friends to explode and run down these plays; especially the 'United Kingdoms,' which had like to have brought ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... property and family. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them by massacres. It would convert France into the country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, and deny God. It would bring into action these two fatal machines, one of which never works without the other—the assignat press and the guillotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in fever, and after the grand horrors ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... was too proud to do or say anything to let the frowsy maid guess that she wondered at this or cared aught for the ungrateful captain. She steeled her heart against him, but though as the days went by she succeeded in ceasing to care for one who was so unworthy of her regard, she could not stifle the poignant regret that ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... his hand, and pointed to a place, but his eyes were misty, his voice faltered, broke down, and he was obliged to press his face down on the pillows to stifle his sobs. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... iuvantibus dis, et quae Patres censuerunt, vos iubete. Huius vobis sententiae non consul modo auctor est, sed etiam di immortales; qui mihi sacrificanti ... laeta omnia prosperaque portendere." Thus adjured, the people yielded; and as a reward, and to stifle any religio that might be troubling them, they are treated to a supplicatio of three days, including an "obsecratio circa omnia pulvinaria" for the happy result of the war; and once more, after the levy was over,—a heavy tax on the patience of the people,—the consul made vows ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... and a fellow jumped in instantly, and seizing hold of Zabel by the hose, dragged him along with him; but they were soon both carried into deep water—Zabel, however, was the uppermost, and held the other down tight to stifle him. Another seeing this, plunged in to rescue his companion, and from the bank dived down underneath Zabel, intending to seize him round the body; but it so happened that the fishermen of Stramehl had laid their nets close ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... on his friend, "that this child will vanquish every obstacle by the force of her will, will stifle all jealousies by the grace of her purity, and she already belongs to the public, while the fame of your name has simply served for a stepping-stone. You, in your wisdom, have been able to impart true wisdom to your child. But before the public has ever ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... kisses and tears. For thy love, I stand here like a child, and look up to this inanimate figure as I did when I was an acolyte. My intellect, O my mother, I would drown in my tears, and thy faith I would stifle with my kisses. Only thus is ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... beautiful because it shall come slowly. The great thing is to know that we are all—the wops and dagoes and the hombres and the guinnies—all gods! to know that in all of us burns that divine spark which environment can fan or stifle—that divine spark which makes us one with the infinite!" He threw his face upward as one who saw a vision and cried: "And America—our America that they think is so sordid, so crass, so debauched with ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... sunlight to stand in and the living air to drink, she might find the life before her in truth as little of a burden as it seemed this morning But the days would again be wrapped in nether fumes, the foul air would stifle her, her blood would go stagnant, her eyes would weep with the desolate rain. Why should Gilbert remain in England? Were there no countries where the sun shone that would give a man and a woman toil whereby to support themselves? Luke Ackroyd had spoken of going ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... room just in time to stifle a laugh, as she saw Mrs. Nichols stoop down to examine the hearth-rug, wondering "how much ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... "I understand all you would say. You thank me in his name, and ask me to leave you: I obey-yes, madame, I am going; at the risk of my life I will prevent this meeting, I will stifle this fatal revelation. But grant me one last prayer-permit me to look forward to seeing you once more before I leave this city, to which I wish I had never come. But I shall quit it in a day or two, to-morrow ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was solid, and she knew that her future would be safe in his hands. The past was past, and every day took her farther from it. Yet very deep down in her soul there still lurked the memory of that past. In the daytime she could put it from her, stifle it, crowd it out with a multitude of tasks; but at night in her dreams that memory would not always be denied. In her dreams the old vision returned—tender, mocking, elusive—a sunburnt face with eyes of vivid blue that looked into hers, smiling and confident with that confidence that is ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... be here soon," she murmured amiably; "I am rather tired of waiting." She affected to stifle a yawn. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Let us stifle all vain speculations; we need not to be told what righteousness is; we were born with the whole Law in our hearts. Let us do: let us act: let us down on our knees. And if, after all, we should be no more forever;— far better to perish meriting immortality, than to enjoy ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the heat so much in my life. The doctor says it's because of my condition—and last night, after Oliver went to sleep, I got up and sat by the window until daybreak. At first I was dreadfully frightened, and thought I was going to stifle—but poor Oliver had come home so tired that I made up my mind I wasn't going to wake him if I could possibly help it. This morning I didn't tell him a word about it, and he hasn't the least idea that I didn't sleep soundly all night. I suppose that's why I feel so dragged and worn out ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and nobody knew it, it was all very well; but if they were found out—ah! then was the time to be sorry! Dotty's conscience had been much better educated than theirs: it gave her plenty of warning, which she would not heed, and tried to stifle by talking. ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... upon the handle. He was white to the lips, his whole frame was shaking with the effort of intense repression. He kept silence, till only a flutter of her cloak was to be seen in the doorway. And then the cry which he had tried so hard to stifle broke from ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to prevent the rolling of the ship turning this kind of cage into a rat-trap. The little grating, of which D'Artagnan had spoken to the king, like the visor of a helmet, was placed opposite to the man's face. It was so constructed that, at the least cry, a sudden pressure would stifle that cry, and, if necessary, him who had uttered ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... experienced in estimating the value of the expression which they have given to it. Elements of beauty were certainly, and perhaps are still, within it; but in proportion as we clear away the rubbish which encumbers it, the mass of glossaries necessary to interpret it fall in and bury it so as to stifle it afresh. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ease, he is witty; and I love his girlish timidity. My soul rests in his heart away from all corruptions, all ideas of knowledge, literature, the world, society, politics,—those useless accessories under which we stifle happiness. I am what I have never been,—a child! I am sure of him, but I like to play at jealousy; he likes it too. Besides, that is part of ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... committing myself to this mysterious chamber, and I hoped to pass the night in slumber as sound as my thoughts were innocent. But I was fearfully disappointed. I cannot judge how long I had slept, when my bosom was oppressed by an unusual weight, which seemed at once to stifle my voice, stop the beating of my heart, and prevent me from drawing my breath; and when I looked up to discover the cause of this horrible suffocation, the form of the murdered British matron stood over my couch taller than ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the people as many opportunities as possible to acquaint themselves with political affairs, and do not stifle the aspirations of the people or weaken their strength or damp their interest or crush their self-respect. Then within a few years we shall be rewarded with results. If, instead of doing all these things, we vainly blame the form of State, ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... abundant enough. While Mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the fulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the mathematical key of the universe which would supersede Newton, and regarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and keep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key, with just that hair's-breadth of difference from the old wards which would make it fit exactly. Scattered here and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... play of fate that the next passer was Marengo Todd, whipping his way to the fire behind a horse that had a bit of wire pinched over his nose to stifle his "whistling." ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... reproduction of the reactions of the object of his interest. In an exactly opposite way the artificial conditions of the spectator at a play, which reinforce the vivid reproduction of ideas, and check action, stifle those emotions directed toward the players, the objective emotions of which we have spoken. The spectator is completely cut off from all possibilities of influence on events. Between his world and that across the footlights an inexpressible gulf is fixed. He cannot take an "attitude," ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... unassisted by the sense or the recollection of oppression or treachery to hurry the people into excesses. Excesses are never the offspring of speculative reason, are never the offspring of misrepresentation only, but of power endeavouring to stifle reason, and to traverse ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... hearing, a bill to revoke the commissions was passed unanimously by the governor and council, and by a majority of eleven in the Lower House, the vote standing 67 yeas to 56 nays. This attempt to stifle public opinion won a general acknowledgment that the minority were oppressed. The feeling of sympathy thus roused was increased by the death of Major Judd, who had been taken ill after his arrival in New Haven. His partisans ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... persuasions at last. "It has been very kind of you to see me, but I don't want to sit and talk and use your time any longer. I want to do something. I want to hammer myself against all this that pens women in. I feel that I shall stifle unless I can do something—and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... applause, proposed driving it through without debate; but New York hesitated to order the previous question. Then it asked permission to withdraw for consultation, and when it finally voted in the negative, deeming it unwise to stifle debate, it revealed the fact that its action was ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... arrows, quarrels, javelins, fell upon the head of the column as it tried to face about and retreat, confusing it more and more. One arrow, shot by no common aim, went clean through William's shield, and pinned it to the mailed flesh. He could not stifle ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... for seamen in a situation, from which her navy in the East might at no very remote period be so easily supplied on all occasions of emergency. This prospect cannot fail to prove an additional motive with the government for the abolition of duties, which, if persevered in, will for ever stifle all commercial enterprize, and debar not only the colonists themselves, but the parent country also from the various important advantages, which I should presume it is now evident that an uncontrolled ability to prosecute ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Miss Arthur, pretending to stifle a yawn, "why can't we all be out in this keen air and sunshine? If there were but snow ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was disgusted. He was less versed in human nature than art, and did not recognize in the forced and obtrusive gayety the effort to stifle the voice of an aroused conscience. Even to her blunted sense of right it seemed a hateful and disgraceful truth that a stranger had helped her father towards manhood, an that she had destroyed the transient and salutary influence. Her complacency had been disturbed from the time ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... growing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of." . ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... Do we not know that there is not this difference between our sexual needs and those of men? Let us tear down the old pretence. Do not instincts arise in us, too, that demand expression, free from all coercion of convention? And if we stifle them are we really the better—the more moral sex? I doubt this, as I have come to doubt so many of the lies that have been accepted as the ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... change in him, and judging of his integrity by her own, 'I was impatient,' said she, 'to hear the event of your conversation with the abbess; tell me therefore in a few words, for the bell rings to chapel, whether you have succeeded so far as to stifle all jealousies of me?' 'Yes, madam,' replied he, recovering himself as well as he could from his confusion, 'we may be easy for the future, as to that particular.'—'I long for the particulars of your discourse' resumed she, 'but cannot now stay to be informed; meet me in the garden after the sisterhood ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... of a cool million so near his clutches, and suddenly lose it, was more than the villain could endure calmly. He was frenzied. His rage at the girl slipping so cleverly, so audaciously, through his fingers knew no bounds, and he made no attempt to stifle the fierce exclamations that sprang to his lips of what he should do when he once ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... have me. As in this action he had no way transgressed the rules of decency, he could ill brook the finding her so much alarmed at it; and would have testified his resentment, had not the excess of his love, which is ever accompanied with an adequate share of respect, obliged him to stifle it. Well, Louisa, said he, looking earnestly upon her, ungenerously do you requite what I have done for you; but I, perhaps, may bring myself to other sentiments.—None, interrupted she, emboldened by the too great freedom she thought he had taken with her, can be so dreadful to me as ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... of doing all one can to please, without succeeding, but still offending by the very means designed to oblige. Being kept with such persons, in a most severe confinement, from morning till night, without ever daring to quit them is most difficult. I have found that great crosses overwhelm, and stifle all anger. Such a continual contrariety irritates and stirs up sourness in the heart. It has such strange effect, that it requires the utmost efforts of self-restraint, not to break out ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... ravish'd, it is their own choice: Why are they so wilful to struggle with men? If they would but lie quiet, and stifle their voice, No devil nor dean could ravish them then. Nor would there be need of a strong hempen cape Tied round the dean's ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... that loose but effective system of tactics, in which much was left to the individual, adopted by the French army just previous to the wars of the Revolution.) of Washington, of Nelson, and of Wellington, and aware that their strength would thus be doubled, McClellan and Pope did their best to stifle it; and in the higher ranks they succeeded. In the one case the generals were taught to wait for orders, in the other to anticipate them. In the one case, whether troops were supported or not depended on the word of the commanding general; in the other, every officer was taught ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... fanatical prophet who appeared during the moral blight which characterized the age of the Borgias, and Lucretia must frequently have recalled this man in whom her father, by the executioner's hand, sought to stifle the protestations of the faithful and upright against the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... but that I grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts—and even then I doubt if your protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van Heerden and stifle the scheme ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... the coat I had on was a small piece of dirty rag that I had used some time before to clean a gun with. 'Put this in your mouth,' I whispered again, giving him the rag; 'and if I hear another sound you are a dead man.' I knew that that would stifle the clatter of his teeth. I must have looked as if I meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and continued his journey ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... the sky, the sky, the open sky, For the home of a song-bird's heart! And why, and why, and for ever why, Do they stifle here in the mart: Cages of agony, rows on rows, Torture that only a wild thing knows: Is it nothing to you to see That head thrust out through the hopeless wire, And the tiny life, and the mad desire To be free, to be free, to be free? Oh, the sky, the sky, the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... women, the monks were preferred, and the treatment they received was not without its touches of grim humor. Their cowls were snatched off, and bandied about, their hats crushed over their ears, their veils stuffed in their mouths to stifle their outcries, their rosaries converted into scourges; and the laughter when a string of them passed to the doors was long and loud. They had pulled their monasteries down upon themselves. If the Emperor, then lying in the bloody alley of St. Romain, dead through their bigotry, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... 381. enforces the confiscation of the landed estates of the Begums of Oude, viii. 403. orders the seizure of their treasures, viii. 409. severities practised upon their ministers in the execution of those orders, viii. 414. endeavors to stifle an inquiry into his proceedings, viii. 448. corruptly abandons the Nabob of Furruckabad and his country to the oppressions of the Nabob of Oude, viii. 472. causes the destruction of the Rajah of Sahlone, viii. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... overpowering emotion? Her thoughts were undefined, but so painful, that she was glad—how glad when morning came. She compared her present with her former self, and the contrast was misery; but even as her ill-fated aunt had done, she summoned pride to stifle every feeding ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... no longer a nuisance existing merely in by-corners, which any well-clad person could avoid; it was invading the very drawing-rooms, mingling itself with the comfortable fumes of port-wine and brandy, threatening to deaden with its murky breath all the splendour of the ostrich feathers, and to stifle Milby ingenuousness, not pretending to be better than its neighbours, with a cloud of cant and lugubrious hypocrisy. The alarm reached its climax when it was reported that Mr. Tryan was endeavouring to obtain authority from Mr. Prendergast, the non-resident rector, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... discussion of the "Evidences," we do indeed hold to be a beginning at the wrong end. At the same time, all of Professor Powell's opening remarks, in which he insinuates that the Church would bar, or would stifle discussion concerning the evidences of Religion, are obviously untrue. No scrutiny of Christian Miracles, however rigid, is stopped by the admonition that such narratives "ought to be held sacred, and exempt from the unhallowed criticism of human ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... with good stuff in them than this caution called wisdom, which so often creeps over us as we advance in years. Then it is so frequently the case that the precepts that most naturally flow from our lips are the negatives that stifle hope. "I can no longer afford convictions," said a man to me once, "I have come to limit myself to opinions; they can be held at less risk, and changed at less cost." And the disposition to regard both faith and hope in great things as subject to the same insecure and miserable tenure, is apt ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... beginning to regret the time in which he used to look and to speak, when, one fine day while she was at her toilet, at which she had allowed him to be present, he seized a moment when the maid had left her alone, to cast himself at her feet and tell her that he had vainly tried to stifle his love, and that, even although he were to die under the weight of her anger, he must tell her that this love was immense, eternal, stronger than his life. The marquise upon this wished to send him away, as on the former occasion, but instead of obeying her, the page, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... will in apathy, and stifle, they who can, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up, with interest or with ease, Consent to hear, with quiet pulse, of loathsome deeds like these. I first drew in New England's ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... mother—a great deal too grand for a quiet family dinner; and so are you,' she added, as she looked critically at her mother in the elaborately trimmed, plum-coloured silk dress, so rich that it seemed to prop up the delicate little woman and almost stifle her with its ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... were ashamed to tell me? Oh, never seek to conceal from your friend so important a secret. If your passion be unworthy, it is for the steady hand of friendship to pluck it forth; if honorable, none but an enemy would seek to stifle it. On nothing does the character and happiness so much depend as on the first affection of the heart. Were you caught by some fleeting and superficial charm—a bright eye, a blooming cheek, a soft voice, or a voluptuous form—I would warn you to beware; I would ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Council, and General Gallieni Minister for War. It was not a "political crisis," but a union of the parties—a coalition, such as the British Government had already adopted. The change implied a distribution of responsibility among the leading men of all parties, a useful measure to stifle criticism and insure unanimity of purpose. M. Viviani reentered the new Cabinet as Minister of Justice. For the first time in the history of the French Republic a coalition ministry of all ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... into a laugh she was unable to stifle, and ran out of the room. Lavretsky also rose ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... could not fail to notice that Tommy was no longer at his ease in Everard's presence. The old careless camaraderie between them was gone, and she missed it at first vaguely, later with an uneasiness that she could not stifle. There was something in Tommy's attitude towards his friend that hurt her. She knew by instinct that the boy was not happy. She wondered at first if there could be some quarrel between them, but decided in face of Everard's unvarying ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... labors, and May took heart from Thanksgiving. The next day I peeped under the paper and the bugs were a solid phalanx. I reported at head-quarters, and they asked me if I killed the bugs before I put the paper down. I said no, I supposed it would stifle them,—in fact, I didn't think anything about it, but if I thought anything, that was what I thought. I wasn't pleased to find I had been cultivating the bugs and furnishing them with free lodgings. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... some straw and then digging, spoils the combs, as Wat does it; now I have got some puff-balls and sulphur to put into the hole, and set fire to them with a lucifer match, so as to stifle the wasps, and then dig them out ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the old place—the Peyrou—the soldiers beating their drums to stifle his voice while he prayed. His corpse was laid beside that of Alexandre Roussel, under the rampart of the fortress of Montpellier. Durand was the last of the preachers in France who had attended the synod ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... exercise of this holy and delightful duty. His most successful effort has been to keep the soul in that fatal lethargy, or death unto holiness, and consequently unto prayer, into which it is plunged by Adam's transgression. Bunyan has some striking illustrations of Satan's devices to stifle prayer, in his history of the Holy War. When the troops of Emmanuel besiege Mansoul, their great effort was to gain "eargate" as a chief entrance to Mansoul, and at that important gate there were placed, by order of Diabolous, "the Lord Will-be-will, who made one old Mr. Prejudice, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the snow, and their shape was modelled through the pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An effusion of coppery light on the summit of Brown Carrick showed where the sun was trying to look through; but along the horizon clouds of cold fog had settled down, so that there was no distinction of sky and sea. Over the ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remembered only that a horrible creature appeared by the bedside, after which all was blank. On the floor they found a hideous death mask, doubtless the cause of the screams which Mrs Catanach had sought to stifle with ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Greece. Even the worst criminals seek to give some specious colour to their villainy; and the condemned felon, who will face death without a tremor, shudders at the cry of execration which greets his appearance at the scaffold. So hard it is, even for the most depraved, to stifle the last embers of the moral sense. We cannot suppose, then, that an educated Athenian of the fifth century would publicly have claimed for his state the right of rapine and murder. For this is the line of argument pursued by the representative ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... make common cause with them. In time of peace, the governor did his best to protect them against molestation on the part of the natives, and in return for this they rallied round him whenever the latter threatened to get out of hand, and helped him to stifle the revolt or hold it in check until the arrival of reinforcements. Thanks to their help, the empire was consolidated and maintained without too many violent outbreaks in regions far removed from the capital and beyond the immediate reach of the sovereign.* We possess very ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the words deliberately and incisively, as if hoping that the sound of their utterance would stifle the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... way, sweet Clodius. I have too much regard for you to suffer you to make love at such disadvantage. You smell too much of Falernian at present. Would you stifle your mistress? By Hercules, you are fit to kiss nobody now, except old Piso, when he is tumbling home in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... those selected by the half of the people—by men alone—evoke force to stifle liberty, and forge restrictive laws to establish order by compression, woman, guided by fraternity, foreseeing incessant struggles, and in the hope of putting an end to them, makes an appeal to the laborer to found liberty and equality on fraternal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... from the counter, from the railway coach, from the sick bed, an ever-steady stream of prayer is kept up. They may befoul our names, but they can not stop our praying. They may "cast us out as evil," and may deny us pulpit privileges, and take away our salaries, but prayer and praise they can not stifle nor hinder. ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on the other side. It was not till he had hastened past Paul that the power of movement returned to his limbs. To remain there longer was useless. He had heard enough—more than enough. But he was unable to think clearly in that tunnel. The air seemed to stifle him; he ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... word or action, we happen to raise the laughter of those about us, we cannot stifle it better than, by a brisk presence of mind, to join in the mirth of the company, and, if possible, anticipate the jests they are ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... and rebound; Life answering life across the vast profound, In full antiphony, by a common grace?— I think this sudden joyaunce, which illumes A child's mouth sleeping, unaware may run From some soul breaking new the bond of tombs: I think this passionate sigh, which, half begun, I stifle back, may reach and stir the plumes Of God's calm angel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream shops and generally ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... knew that the richness of the vein he had now opened in the land would be certain to secure his cooperation in working it. He had the magnanimity, therefore,—for there is something magnanimous in being able to stifle the suggestions of a petty rivalry in obedience to sound policy,—to send at once to his ancient comrade, and invite him, with many assurances of friendship, to Caxamalca. Almagro, who was of a frank and careless nature, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Walter's job. As a democratic young American who had always mingled in the best society Lovell's Harbor had to offer he had been free to give a hail to anybody he desired to greet. But at Surfside everything was different. He must stifle his natural impulses and curb his tongue, a role very hard for one who had had no previous experience with class distinctions. Difficult as it had been he had made up his mind to being excluded from the gayety that went on about ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... only relative, and have a right to know. Come out into the grounds, the air of the house would stifle me." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... fought free speech, free parliaments and a free press. His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian spies were everywhere, searching ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... in silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again, for she could not bear to part ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... to stifle the feelings of joy in his own bosom, offers his most cordial congratulations on the occasion to all the officers of every denomination, to all the troops of the United States in general, and in particular to those gallant and persevering ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... may. There is a joy in giving generously, just as there is in receiving generously. Yet, there are many moments in each man's life when no gift can numb the dull ache of the inevitable, when nothing, except getting away—somewhere, somehow, and immediately—can stifle the unspoken pain which comes to all of us and which in not every instance can we so easily cast off. Some men travel; some men go out into the world to lose their own trouble in administering to the trouble of other people; some find forgetfulness ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... the last but a dean. A dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus? A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus. The corruption of verse; for, when all is done, It is but a paraphrase made on a pun. But a genius like hers no subject can stifle, It shows and discovers itself through a trifle. By reading this trifle, I quickly began To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man. Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff, Which others for mantuas would think fine enough: So the wit that is lavishly ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift |
