"Smothered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Braxton Wyatt and Blackstaffe were on either side of him, Henry felt sure it was true, so ready is eager hope to turn its belief into a fact, and he rejoiced anew at their vexation, laughing silently and long. Then he abruptly kicked the coals apart, smothered the smoke, and taking up his pack fled again, much amused and much heartened, for further efforts. He could not remember when he had spent ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... disgrace to the national record on which it is found. This letter of "George W. M'Crackin" passed into the hands of Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. Most gentlemen, I think, would have destroyed it on the spot, as it was not fit for the waste-basket. Some, more cautious, might have smothered it among the piles of their private communications. If any notice was taken of it, one would say that a private note to each of the gentlemen attacked might have warned him that there were malicious eavesdroppers about, ready to catch up any careless expression he might let fall and make ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... folds of awe-inspiring black; I wrapped myself in his immaterial cloak, his dignity and goodness. I faced Rufus Blight and he quailed before a presence so imposing, and when I spoke in a voice vibrating truth my eloquence smothered his feeble, shifty protests. Always I asserted my right to Penelope and led her from her prison. And always, it seemed, with that victory I cast off my Pound-like sanctity and became as other men. With it the great task of my ministry was accomplished, though there was a certain charm ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... great basilica of St. Francis of Asisi had that very morning been cracked into pieces by my fore finger! What visions of horrified crowds of Asisinati, of black storms of newspaper items, of censuring gossip the world over, would have come between me and that purple pigeon smothered in rice which Maria had promised me! The pope himself would have known me individually out of the cloud of his subjects, and have frowned upon my image. And how it would have been whispered behind me to the end of my days, "That ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... angel, my impulse was to throw my arms around her, and rush away with her, gray bonnet, shawl and all, to some distant clime where there were no Houses of Martha, Mother Anastasias, or anything which could separate my dear love and me; but I crushed down this mad fancy, smothered, as well as I could, my wild emotions, and said, ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... Lydia went to stir it. She had done so and was turning to the bed again, when Thyrza half rose, crying in a smothered voice: ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... most ominous of these proletarian uprisings. Its resolutions read like a proletarian Declaration of Independence, and would unquestionably have resulted in the most momentous agitation, had it not been that it was smothered by its leaders, and also because the slavery issue long obscured purely economic questions. "Resolved," ran its resolutions adopted at Military ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... like, because—maybe you've forgotten—I picked it up in the hotel hall when you dropped it. I can see it as plain as if it was here. 'Twas a kind of knitted gold, like chain armour for a doll. And there was a rim all smothered ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... you, cousin—there! and I won't worship you, and you'll never be happy except with a woman who will. Why, after I belonged to you, and after one of my tantrums, you would have put the pillow over my head some night, and smothered me, as the black man does the woman in the play that you're so fond of. What's the creature's name?—Desdemona. You would, you little ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the plunge of a musquash. Once, when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,— "Tree fall." There is something singularly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... expected Searles and his play to be introduced into the table-talk, I was doomed to disappointment. A dozen times I smothered an impulse to tell Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth I had watched them in the woodland and of Searles's long search for the ideal of his "Lady Larkspur," but I was afraid to risk their displeasure. They enjoyed walking in the wood, they said, and when I charged them with selfishness in ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... almost shouted; and I heard Tommy indulge in a half-smothered exclamation which was not at all suited ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... aloof from his subjects, surrounded by special advisers and court favorites, that even the language of remonstrance, which sometimes reached his ears, was so softened in its progress that its harshness was that of subservient admonition; and he was as little shaken by the smothered discontent of the people as they were roused by an open sacrifice of their interests. But not alone was this reverence for the autocracy so great as to protect the autocrat from violent reprisals on the part of his subjects; but the national veneration for the descendant of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... or remembrance or reproach he did not know and never asked, for, looking at her ungloved hand as she passed it over her eyes wearily, he saw the ring he had given her twelve years before. He stepped forward quickly with a half smothered cry and caught her fingers. "You wear my ring!" he said. "Marion, you wear my ring! You do care ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... thou that cloud that rides in state, Part ruby-like, part candidate? It is no other than the bed Where Venus sleeps half-smothered. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... crossed with the regiment, and Ninth New Jersey, and found lying on the bridge three or four men who had been shot down, smothered by the smoke, and burned by the flames; also an abundance of arms. Soon after we found that we had captured eleven pieces of artillery, taken 400 prisoners, (all of whom were paroled by the provost-marshal), 1,000 rounds of heavy ammunition, 500 stands ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... the son had been just the harsh, unfeeling offspring that might be looked for from such a union. Thirty years of slavery had been her ladyship's, and in those thirty years her nature had been soured and warped, and what inherent sweetness it may once have known had long since been smothered and destroyed. She had no cause to love that man who had never loved her, never loved aught of hers beyond her jointure. And yet, there was the habit of thirty years. For thirty years they had been ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... from Mont Blanc to see it," said Flemming, lowering the glass. "When I had my nose against it at Chamouni I didn't see it at all. It overhung me and smothered me. Old boy"—reaching up his hand to Lynde who was leaning on the back of the chair—"who would ever have thought that we two"—Flemming stopped short and looked earnestly into his comrade's face. "Why, Ned, I didn't notice how thin and pale you ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in torment, listening to music in heaven. I stood, stiff and numb in horror, staring into the gulf. The roar of the cataract was smothered to a babble. The rainbow vibrated tremulously to the dropping harmonies. I saw the familiar shadow as it gided to my feet. A soft hand thrilled me with its touch, and the ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... presence of the Shah. Here were displayed all the refinements of cookery. Rice, in various shapes, smoked upon the board; first the chilau, as white as snow; then the pilau, with a piece of boiled lamb smothered in the rice; then another pilau, with a baked fowl in it; a fourth coloured with saffron, mixed up with dried peas; and at length, the king of Persian dishes, the narinj pilau, made with slips of orange-peel, spices ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... suddenly sprang up and rushed out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... the bursts of smothered laughter as the lights were turned on and Laura and Bess, almost exhausted by their efforts to keep up that steady breathing, tumbled from the bed and the others rose from their hiding places and shook and stretched themselves to get the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... being without all hope of life, they fought valiantly, and after the Christians came among them to handy blowes, seeing themselues in great distresse without any succour, many of them fled into the burning houses, where one vpon another they were smothered and burnt in the fire. (M636) The whole number of the Indians that died in this towne, were two thousand Indians and fiue hundred, little more or lesse. Of the Christians there died eighteene; of which one was Don Carlos, brother in law to the Gouernour, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... articular muscles fail to support sufficiently the vocal muscles, with the result that the vibration of the vocal cords is weakened. One fault begets another. The faulty use of the respiratory muscles directs the vibrating air-column to the soft palate, where the tone is so smothered that the singer has to over-exert himself to be heard, instead of directing it against the hard palate, where it would gain vibrance and ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... of the cannon shook the world, and blood tinged the waves around the land, and war and tumult shrieked like a tempest over the fair face of Nature; the din of battle smothered all sounds of peace, and years passed on and thicker grew the gloom. It was then the innate might of the old Briton roused itself to action and strained those giant nerves which brought us victory. The struggle ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Whyn did not know. With a half-smothered cry of delight, she leaned as far as she could toward the window in order to catch the first glimpse of the wonderful woman. Tears came suddenly into her eyes as the meaning of what the scouts had done flashed into ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... "Telegram," came in smothered tones from Tom. "Here it is. Lawrence handed it to me in the gym after the game. Said it came at noon, but Robey wouldn't let him give it to me. Bet you it's ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... crept into Ware's cheeks. He hated her for that "I!" So she was going to come that on him, was she? And he'd worked himself like a horse to bring in more land. Why, he'd doubled the acreage in cotton and corn in the last four years! He smothered his sense ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... hating him so much. Men don't, you know. They never realize how far hatred will drive a woman until it pushes her over the edge. I think he would hardly believe his own eyes even then, unless he saw her laughing!" A burst of wild laughter broke from Violet's lips, but she smothered it ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... had come to see them off. The bell rang; no one moved. It rang again, when each said to the other Hyvsti (good-bye), and with a jaunty shake of the hand all round, the emigrants marched on board, and our ship steamed away, without a wet eye or a smothered sob. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... was again awakened. And running into the gallery, I heard quick footsteps in the garden. Then there was a lantern's flash, a smothered oath, and all was dark again. But in the flash I had seen distinctly three figures. One was Breed, and he held the lantern; another was the master; and the third, a stout one muffled in a cloak, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and she had kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw and noted everything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign that night, and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way. Then the bed shook with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way with women. After the way of men, Chad proudly marched the old Wilderness Road that led to a big, bright, beautiful world where one had but to do and dare to reach the stars. The men who had trod that road had made that big world beyond, and their life Chad himself had ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... passed pleasantly and quietly enough at the Hall. After dinner the merry little ones were introduced, and their prattle and romps occupied an hour right joyously. As soon as, smothered with kisses, they had been dismissed to bed, old Mrs. Aubrey composed herself, in her great chair, to her usual after-dinner's nap; while her son, his wife, and sister, sitting fronting the fire—a decanter or two, and a few wine-glasses and dessert, remaining on the table behind ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... wonderful than all, a wide highway roofed by a continuous aisle of ansena-trees, the golden canopy of blossom overhead rivalled by the thick carpet of yellow petals, which deadens every sound, for the prodigal bounty of tropical Nature quickly replaces the loss of falling flowers. Exquisite lanes, smothered in glorious vegetation, surround the picturesque Racecourse, that sine-qua-non of English occupation. Stately emperor palms, kitools with crimped green tresses, fan and oil palms, with the slender areca in countless thousands, vary the shadowy vistas branching out in ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... left his lips a little figure scrambled up the ladder, a blanket in her arms. Polly had seen all and had not waited for orders. Gym work back in Annapolis stood in good stead at that moment. Shelby flung the blanket about Tzaritza's sizzling fur, smothered out the flame, then by some herculean mustering of strength, caught the huge dog in his arms and crawled step by step down the ladder from which Polly had quickly scrambled. A dozen hands lent aid and poor burned Tzaritza was carried to the stables, Peggy and Polly close beside ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... I've found a cave, and I'm goin' up there to live some day," announced Joel in a smothered whisper, his mouth close to ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... and gazed at him with a look of bewilderment. Sometimes, for the most part suddenly, this bewilderment passed into chill horror; her face took a wild, death-like expression; she locked herself up in her bedroom, and her maid, putting her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs. More than once, as he went home after a tender interview, Kirsanov felt within him that heartrending, bitter vexation which follows ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... was deserted. Save for a few still warm spots indicative of artfully smothered fires, there were few signs to indicate recent occupation. An hour's search revealed definite tracks ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... starve, lives with another woman, and, having committed forgery, plots with the Mephistopheles of the story to buy his own safety at the price of his wife's honour. This might seem bad enough, but worse remains. It is told in a smothered whisper, by the faithful domestic, to the horrified family, that he has reason to suspect his master of having indulged, once at least, if not oftener, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... creature, of circumstances. The faithful pioneers who carried the torch of knowledge into darkened regions and cheered the lives of thousands with rays of hope and promise, opened the way for the liberation of great forces that had long lain dormant and smothered. Knowledge has been the torch in the civilizer's hand, and carrying this still we can find treasures still ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... like that. Men and women there are—the pity of it—who, eating plentifully, have never themselves taken a mouthful from the earth. They have never known a moment's real life of their own. Lying up to the sun in warmth and comfort—but leafless—they do not think of the hosts under them, smothered, strangled, starved. They take nothing at first hand. They experience described emotion, and think prepared thoughts. They live not in life, but in printed reports of life. They gather the odour of odours, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... breathless pause marked the deep interest of the listeners. A few moments of suspense, in which Lyon and his companion grew deadly pale, and then the noisy footsteps were silenced at their very door. A smothered sound of voices was followed by a trial of the lock, and then by a decided rapping. But no answer was made ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... the child was among them. There was a window where we dared not show ourselves, though the day was fair without, and by it was an old bureau, open, with its pad of blotting-paper, and some letters, all smothered with fragments of glass and new dust. A few drawers of the desk were open, and the contents had been spilled. Round the walls of the room were bookcases with leaded diamond panes. Whoever was last in ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... Dame Barbara sit beside me, and, feigning headache, leaned my head upon her shoulder and closed my eyes. The dame rocked herself gently to and fro, and from time to time gave vent to smothered prayers and doleful ejaculations that set my thoughts working upon my ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... between Catania and Messina, but beyond the black and forbidding lava land. Its patron saint, Protettore di San Felice, is Sant' Onofrio, and this was his festival. In the large, old church in the square, which was the centre of the life of the fiera, his image, smothered in paint, sumptuously decorated with red and gold and bunches of artificial flowers, was exposed under a canopy with pillars; and thin squares of paper reproducing its formal charms—the oval face with large eyes and small, straight nose, the ample forehead, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... tried to say and smothered the word in her handkerchief pressed quickly to her lips in an effort ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... little, old, depopulated town of Dumfries. Here, to the joy of all, we saw men filing into the fields for a halt. There was no cheer, no expression of gladness; for the tired men, with feet blistered and raw, worn out by seventeen hours' constant march, almost melted and smothered, cared little for demonstrations. Throwing themselves upon the ground, they rested for half an hour, and then, rousing long enough to cook their coffee, they refreshed themselves with their hard tack, pork and coffee, and were ready to sleep. Here ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... from the step. There was a long piercing wail of the whistle that was smothered as the engine entered the snow-shed. The girl on the platform stood motionless a moment. Then one of her hands dropped from her breast, and with it came a faded spray of purple lilac. She stepped quickly to the rail and tossed it back into the twilight. Wade sprang forward, ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... passed into a smothered sound of pounding and slushing. The horse had left the high road and must be ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... will have achieved their objects, and ourselves shall be defeated. All of you, therefore, uniting together, quickly agitate this ocean-like army (of the foe) like impetuous winds agitating the deep." The warriors, O king, thus urged by Bhimasena and the prince of the Panchalas, smothered the Kauravas, becoming reckless of their very lives. Endued with great energy, all of them, desiring death in battle, at the point or the edge of weapons in expectation of heaven, showed not the least regard for their lives in fighting for their friends. Similarly, thy warriors, O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their long explanations and reasons Buck listened in silence. When there seemed nothing more to be said, Buck smothered the still glowing end of a cigarette between his dark weather-beaten fingers and ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... face flushed. Then, for an instant, a sulky impulse seized him to reply that he did not feel up to form to-day. But the midshipman smothered that desire ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... liberty. The youthful Florentine, Penini, was delighted at the thought of the change, and his devotion to his mother was instanced one night when Browning playfully refused to give his wife a letter, and Pen, taking the byplay seriously, fairly smothered her in his clinging embrace, exclaiming, "Never mind, mine darling Ba!" He had caught up his mother's pet name, "Ba," and often used it. It was this name to which she refers ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... to conceal not only Mont Blanc, but the other "aiguilles," as they call them here, attached and subordinate to it. We were traveling along the valley, when suddenly we heard a sound as the burst of smothered thunder rolling above; yet there was something in the sound that told us it could not be thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part of the mountain opposite, from whence the sound came. It was an avalanche. We saw the smoke of its path among the rocks, and continued to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... that she waited for it, now coldly put it out, distantly [courtseying], and seeking to preserve her steadiness by avoiding to speak. Mrs Delvile took it, and as she repeated her adieu, affectionately pressed it to her lips; Cecilia, starting, and breathing short, from encreasing yet smothered agitation, called out "Why, why ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... his head first one way and then another. Then, as if seeing the girls for the first time, he crouched down, and, crawling, sneaking along, like a cat after a mouse, he moved toward them. The girls stopped and looked at each other. Then Dot began to cry, and said, in a half-smothered whisper, "O Nina, let's run!" But Nina thought of the long, dark, lonely road behind, and knew that running was useless. Then, thinking of what she had heard her father say about showing fear, she seized her little sister's ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... progresses at this rate toward English refinement he will be unbearable at O'Shanaghgan when he returns; quite, quite unbearable. Oh, for a sniff of the sea! oh, for the wild, wild wind on my cheeks! and oh, for my dear, darling, bare bedroom! I shall be smothered in that heavily furnished room upstairs. Oh, it is all lovely, I know—very lovely; but I'm not made to enjoy it. I belong to the free, and I don't feel free here. The silken chains and the feather-bed life won't suit me; of that I am quite sure. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... written! he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust through that railing! While she was forgetful of him, he had found her again! But had she forgotten him? No, never! She was foolish to have thought so for a single moment. She had always loved him, always adored him. The fire had been smothered, and had smouldered for a time, but she saw all plainly now; it had but made headway, and now it had burst forth afresh, and had inflamed her whole being. This note-book was like a spark which had fallen from that other soul into hers. She felt the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... same uniting bond came in which binds the Christian converts of these Eastern lands of ours to England by a far firmer bond than any other. There was springing up amidst all the alienation and hatred and smothered rebellion a still incipient, but increasing, and even then strong bond that held together Roman Christians and Cappadocian believers. They were both 'one in Christ Jesus.' The separating walls were high, but, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... who had three consecutive absences to explain, and no written excuse from his father to help him out, were already inside the school-room, and even Bert stood where he could look through the open door while he cudgelled his wits and smothered his conscience in the endeavor to frame an explanation that might seem plausible. The boys already inside lounged near any desks but their own, and conversed in low tones about almost everything except the subject upper-most in their minds, this subject being a handsome ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Jennings,' said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of Ned's being smothered in his antique costume—'Dear me, Mr. Jennings, can ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... not the Mr. McNally who had played for Katherine two nights before. That had been a well-groomed, self-possessed man of the world; this was a muddy, unshaven, angry man, who spoke in a loud voice and smothered an oath just too late to keep it ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... to have mislaid the Spring altogether. Summer has come at one stride. Yesterday the staff-cars smothered one with mud as they whirled past; to-day they choke one with dust. Yesterday the authorities were issuing precautions against frostbite; to-day they are issuing precautions against sunstroke. Nevertheless we are not complaining. It will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... As the One comes down from emanation to emanation and from plane to plane He is always more deeply entangled in the veil of things, until on our last and lowest plane He is seven times enwrapped and smothered. We must not, however, confuse this last and lowest plane with our little world, or even our universe; these are but sensible aspects of it and they are really the manifestation of the deeply enwrapped Divine ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... smothered, sir,' returned Mr Tappertit, after glancing at her with a smile of ineffable disdain, 'excepting Mrs V. I have come here, sir, for her sake, this night. Mrs Varden, take this piece of paper. It's a protection, ma'am. You may ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... was carried on in whispers, to Bill's further mystification. The young gentlemen recovered their spirits, and kept exploding in smothered ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... agin, flingin' me to the ground at full length. Another thing hindered me. Afore goin' to sleep, I had put my blanket on Mexikin-fashion—that is, wi' my head through a slit in the centre— an' as the drag begun, the blanket flopped about my face, an' half-smothered me. Prehaps, however, an' I thort so arterwurd, that blanket saved me many a scratch, although it bamfoozled me a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... bowed frame, the tottering step, the unsteady hand, the failing eye, the heavy ear, the tremulous voice, they will all be yours. The grasshopper will become a burden, and desire shall fail. The fire shall be smothered in your heart, and for passion you shall have only peace. This is not pleasant. It is never pleasant to feel the inevitable passing away of priceless possessions. If this were to be the culmination ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and, when he found that his rider refused to let him stop at the stable-door, shook his head in mute displeasure, and went quietly on. As he neared the silent house, the faint creak of saddle-leather and the rattle of spur-chains against his iron stirrups were smothered in the whispering of the treetops in the grove, so that only the quick hushing of night noises alone betrayed him to ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... was the trim little white cottage where Tom McMertrie and his mother Christie lived, smothered in vines and ablaze with geraniums all down the front walk. And below that, almost facing the graveyard was a little green shingled bungalow. Mary Rafferty kept her yard aglow with phlox, verbenas and pansies, and revelled ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... open the bedroom door, half expecting to be greeted by a smothered laugh from Gunton, and a whispered account of the last trick he'd played the ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... In putting him down to sleep, you should ascertain that his face be not covered with the bedclothes; if it be, he will he poisoned with his own breath—the breath constantly giving off carbonic acid gas; which gas must, if his face be smothered in the clothes; be breathed—carbonic acid ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... word!" he said. "Do you think I need you to instruct me in my duty to my niece?" Then, with sudden, cruel insight, he added, "David Richie's mother has done that." As he spoke he bent over and kissed Elizabeth. Instantly, with a smothered cry, she clung to him. There was just a moment when, her head on his breast, he felt her soft hair against his cheek— and a minute later, she felt something wet on her cheek. They had both forgotten Blair. He slunk away ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Did you take me out on purpose—on purpose to make me change my mind? Well, well! how eagerly I ran into the trap that was set to catch me," and a smothered laugh rang ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... De Wardes, if the latter, while preserving silence, had shown a glance less full of malice, and a smile less false. Instinctive dislikes, however, are relentless; nothing appeases them; a few ashes may sometimes, apparently, extinguish them; but beneath those ashes the smothered embers rage more furiously. Having exhausted every means of amusement the route offered, they arrived, as we have said, at Calais towards the end of the sixth day. The duke's attendants, since the previous evening, had traveled in advance, and now chartered a boat, for the purpose of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... marvellousness of the most incredible illusion. She touched the velvet couches almost with fear, and passed from object to object in a sort of maze. When she arrived at the alcove, she thought she heard a slight rustling within, and then a smothered laugh. Her heart beat quick as she stopped to listen. There was a tittering sound, and a movement as if some one were shaking the curtain, and at last Giulietta stood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... be the last and most terrible improvement in the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming, and gush of smoke, and belch of smothered thunder out of the yeasty waves, there shall be a deadly fight going on below,—and, by-and-by, a sucking whirlpool, as one of the ships ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... party. They stopped at their porte-cochere, which was opened by their servant, and closed tight behind them as they drove in. Two men, however, had fastened on to the carriage behind. They overpowered the portero as he barred the door, while the noise of the carriage rolling on the flags of the patio smothered the sound of the scuffle. They opened the door to their accomplices, and easily overcame family and servants, all of whom were bound hand and foot. Then the robbers ransacked the premises, and having packed all the valuables into the carriage, one of them took the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... my body warm by an enormous overstructure of blankets and coats; but I could not keep my head warm. Throughout the night I had to go down like a fish beneath the water for protection, and come up for air at intervals, half smothered. I had a stove in my tent; but the heat of that, when lighted, was more terrible than the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... vertical position. Twelve palms lower was another skeleton, with a hatchet near it. This man appears to have pierced the wall of one of the small chambers of the prothyrum, and was about to enter it, when he was smothered, either by the falling in of the earth or by the mephitic exhalations. It has been thought that these persons perished while engaged in searching for valuables after ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... his lasting esteem and gratitude. Upon being asked if he would sit for his bust, the old hero hesitated, and, looking at the artist nervously, asked: "Do you daub any thing over the face? Because," he added, "I recollect poor Mr. Jefferson got nearly smothered when they tried to take his bust. The plaster hardened before they got ready to release him, and they pounded it with mallets till they nearly stunned him, and then almost tore off a piece of his ear in their haste to pull off a sticking fragment of the mold. I should not like that." Powers ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... permitted to finish his ignominiously low proposal, and a low growl of disapprobation smothered his words. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... upon, but the danger of their reaching the face, with the possibility of choking and of ultimate deformity is greatly diminished. (2) The person should then be quickly wrapped up in a coat, shawl, rug, blanket or any similar article, preferably woolen, and never cotton, and the fire completely smothered by pressing and patting upon the burning points from the outside ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... necessary for them to enquire as to the cause. The blanket that had been thrown upon the flames, and which brought instant night, did its work well, but it was beginning to suffer therefrom. The fire was almost smothered, but enough air reached it around the edges of the thick cloth to cause it to burn with considerable vigor, and give out a slight illumination, but, worst of all, it filled the room with dense, overpowering smoke. Breathing was difficult and ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... his pardon. It was plain he had loved and mourned her; and that circumstances had smothered down his quick boyish feelings into a man's tenacity of betraying where he had loved and mourned. I, only a few minutes after, said something about wishing we ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... rose garden was an arbour smothered in riotous bloom, and in the arbour was a divan, wide and low and voluptuously soft, meet for the repose of an invalid on a languorous afternoon, or indeed any other time. But just now the invalid reposed not at all but sat, elbow on knee and square ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Stonie in a smothered voice from her shoulder, "this is 'Our Father' week! Don't tire out the Lord with the 'Now I ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... warned, at her side the same instant. "Your hat is burning!" He smothered the incipient flame between ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... age of seven to fifteen that she early acquired the habit of never opening her mouth without first getting the consent of father's eyebrow, or mother's. A child thus treated in youth grows up to be timid and halting in speech; his individuality and spontaneity are smothered. Either let the children talk, meanwhile teaching them how to converse, or send them off to themselves where they may at least express their thoughts to citizens of their own age. The very best conversational lesson that a child ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... January. 1870.—Weakness and illness goes on because we get wet so often; the whole party suffers, and they say that they will never come here again. The Manyango Rivulet has fine sweet water, but the whole country is smothered with luxuriant vegetation. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the lower galleries of this cloisonne factory, and came to a little bridge that spanned a vault. Looking over the parapet, Graham saw that beneath was a wharf under yet more tremendous archings than any he had seen. Three barges, smothered in floury dust, were being unloaded of their cargoes of powdered felspar by a multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truck; the dust filled the place with a choking mist, and turned the electric glare yellow. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... 32 to 37 two year olds and started. The poor cattle would lay down, then of course as many as could stand on them would do so. The ones that got down would stay there till they were completely trod under and smothered unless you made them get up. So I would go in and shove and crowd and get them off of the down ones, then I would seize a tail and the man with me would punch from outside with a pole with a brad in it. This would invigorate the annimal as he used ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... renewed!" said the King. "What mean you by these expressions, brother? Surely, when David promised to me that, if that unhappy matter of Curfew Street were but smothered up and concealed, he would part with Ramorny, as he was a counsellor thought capable of involving him in similar fooleries, and would acquiesce in our inflicting on him either exile or such punishment as it should please us to impose—surely you cannot doubt ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Blinded and smothered by the dozens of furry bodies that swarmed over him, he had hardly a chance to even try to fight back. His cartridge-belt and guns, his Silver Belts and his wrist-watch were stripped from him by the dozens of claw-like ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... the hard lines of the old man's mouth and brow into a resemblance she now more than ever understood. She had stood thus only a few years before, looking at the same face in a gorgeously inlaid mahogany casket, smothered amidst costly flowers, and surrounded by friends attired in all the luxurious trappings of woe; yet it was the same face that was now rigidly upturned to the bare thatch and rafters of that crumbling cottage, herself its only companion. ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... herded together like cattle; driven at the point of the bayonet, amid the gibes, jeers, and scoffs of soldiers, up to this dreary place, and thrust promiscuously into a dark vault in this castle; almost smothered in filth and mire; a prey to pestilent disease, and to every malignity which brutality could inflict, they died here unpitied. A few escaping down the rocks were recaptured, and subjected ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... witchcraft in his eyes and tongue; when I did not see him I could have bribed a villain to his assassination; but his appearance rakes the embers which have so long lain smothered in ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes. She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his cold hands, ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... carried a splendid horn. B. wanted a well developed specimen very much, so we took this chance. The approach was easy enough, and at seventy yards or so B. knocked her flat with a bullet from his.465 Holland. The beast was immediately afoot, but was as promptly smothered by shots from us all. So far the affair was very simple, but now came complication. The second rhinoceros refused to leave. We did not want to kill it, so we spent a lot of time and pains shooing it away. We ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... of course, rather quieter, but in the dark doorways strange figures were huddled, and sometimes the feeble wail of a child, or a smothered oath, reminded one that more was hidden behind the scenes. Gladys was now in a state of extreme mental excitement. She had never been in a town larger than Boston, and there only on bright days with her father. It seemed to her that this resembled the place of which the Bible ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... rice, boiled with the veal, will be found good; or the rice and macaroni may be omitted, and the veal sent to table smothered ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... tantalizing results as often obtained by experiments on lower animals, the uncertainty of the inferences that could be deduced from them to form a theory of the human organism, had often excited in me a lively desire for a direct experiment upon man. This desire had hitherto been smothered beneath the mass of conventional ideas, which so frequently overwhelm our timidity and enslave our feebleness in endless routine. But the daring word of genius had now struck the chains from my intellect, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... his ear to the key-hole and his eyes watchfully wandering up and down the staircase, a dull and smothered clang was heard as if in the distance, like the closing of some heavy iron door. Then there was a louder sound, with a quick, short report, as if a powerful spring had been set in motion and shot home. Then a door seemed to be closed and locked, and the man glided quickly ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... depths where we now are? Then, groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping passage. The hurried patter of his sandals and the flapping of his burnous grow faint in the distance, and the cries that he continues to utter sound so smothered to us soon that we might ourselves be buried. And meanwhile we do not move. But how comes it that it is so hot amongst these mummies? It seems as if there were fires burning in some oven close by. And above all there is a want ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... they were all awakened by a dull thud and a smothered shout. Erik and Father Mikko jumped up and lit a lantern, and then hurried to the door, which stood open. They had dug a passage-way out through the snow the day before, and they saw that the walls of snow had just caved in, and sticking out of the middle of the heap was a pair of small legs waving ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... then I've had a fancy to wonder whether the rose-bush killed the grape-vine or the ivy smothered 'em both in the end. I used to have a vague idea of riding that way some day to see. You do get strange fancies ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... came down with a heavenly smile on his face, so I knew the goat hadn't smothered yet; an' then we went into the house an' handled the lights in just the regular way; but when the time came, instead of goin' to bed, we went out an' cooned up a big tree, about on a level with the mow-window. Ches had nailed up a kind of platform, which ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... heard violent, but smothered outcries; they seemed to come from a neighboring apartment and to be echoed ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... and the poor woman and children. They meant to burn the roof off to scare them out, and one man threw burning clods on it. But those inside tore off the flaming roof and it fell all around the cabin and set the walls afire. They dared not run out through that wall of flame and smothered to death they were—God pity them!" and he began to weep ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... heroes were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing trench, grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed wrapped in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had become a very rack to poor Gavin, the blankets smothered him. He tossed from side ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... its features was the number of old ruined farmhouses we came on, standing side by side with the new, more ambitious homesteads. We seldom came on a prosperous-looking house but a few yards away was to be seen its aged and abandoned parent, smothered up with bushes, roof fallen in, timbers ready to collapse, the deserted hearth choked with debris and overgrown with weeds—the very picture of a haunted house. Here had been the original home, always small, seldom more than four rooms, and when things ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... poet, worthy of the lofty task, has such large sympathies, together with such consciousness of power, that he takes on him to interpret and incarnate the celestial cooperation. There are people, and some of them even poets, whose consciousness is so smothered behind the senses, that they come short of belief in spiritual potency. They are what, with felicity of ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... in the form of a nursery dialogue: 'Mamma, I am not well.' 'What is the matter, my pet?' 'I want a little Pill.' Title in the form of a Historical Anecdote: 'New Discovery in the Mine of English History. When the Princes were smothered in the Tower, their faithful attendant collected all their little possessions left behind them. Among the touching trifles dear to the poor boys, he found a tiny Box. It contained the Pill of the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... story had not done, the ravings of the man accomplished; for, with a show of matchless cunning, he continually clutched at his breast, laughed, and babbled his secret openly. Even then they would have smothered it in silence, for the honour of one of their best families; but too many ears had heard, and then came the yellow journal bearing all the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... live insect or fly enters the ear a number of safe methods may be developed. If the ear is immediately turned to a bright light the insect may come out of its own accord. It may be floated out with salt water, or it may be smothered with sweet oil or castor oil after which it may be floated or syringed out. If it is necessary to employ a syringe this should be used gently. A foreign body may remain in the ear for days or weeks without doing any harm. This suggests that any unnecessary ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... glad for me, Kathleen? What is it? Why do you—" And all at once she divined, and the hot colour stained her from brow to throat. Kathleen bent forward swiftly and caught her in her arms with a smothered cry; but the girl freed herself ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... which might have been heard a long distance off, the captain brought the Roaring Bess almost up to the teeth of the wind, and headed her for the wreck. How her sharp prow did tear through the waves, and at times she was almost smothered by the leaping water. But this course would not bring them to the overturned boat. It was necessary for them to tack once more, and as they drew near they could see people clinging frantically to the half-submerged yacht. The captain gave a loud shout of encouragement ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... little the room filled with a brilliant crowd. Within the large circle of armchairs were Madame de Wesson, about whom people told frightful stories, and who kept, after twenty years of half-smothered scandal, the eyes of a child and cheeks of virginal smoothness; old Madame de Morlaine, who shouted her witty phrases in piercing cries; Madame Raymond, the wife of the Academician; Madame Garain, the wife of the exminister; three other ladies; and, standing easily against the ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... gun still angry-hot, And my lids tingled with the tears held back; This scorn methought was crueller than shot; The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack, Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far Than such fear-smothered war. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... you said in the hallway. If a son of mine thinks it his duty to go, I shall never say one word to dissuade him—if he thinks it is his duty," she added, so solemnly that silence fell upon the three, and with a smothered, "Good Lawd," at the door, Ben hurried again into ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... sitting in the big cushioned wooden rocker, with her face hidden against the back. Anna was standing in front of her, trying to think of something to say that would make Luretta forgive her. Then she heard Luretta's half-smothered voice say: "Do you s'pose our rabbits did ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... daylight. Presently he stopped, and, with a pressure of the hand, bade her listen again. The rustling of paper sounded very clear now; there was another rustle, too, the rustle of silk. Suddenly, light flashed upon them; Margaret felt herself drawn swiftly forward; there was a smothered exclamation in her uncle's voice, followed by a scream ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... listened with marks of approval to Philibert's vindication of his father. But no one challenged his words, although dark, ominous looks glanced from one to another among the friends of the Intendant. Bigot smothered his anger for the present, however; and to prevent further reply from his followers he rose, and bowing to the Governor, begged His ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... minds of such men as Warham and Fisher, some visions of a future must at times have floated, which hung so plainly before the eyes of Wolsey and of Sir Thomas More.[231] They could not have been wholly deaf to the storm in Germany; and they must have heard something of the growls of smothered anger which for years had been audible at home, to all who had ears to hear.[232] Yet if any such thoughts at times did cross their imagination, they were thrust aside as an uneasy dream, to be shaken off like a nightmare, or with ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... half-smothered cry Prince Sovrani sprang forward to see for himself if this blessed news was true. He and the Cardinal both, seized with a passionate anxiety, gazed and gazed at the fair beloved face in hope, in fear and longing,—and still Manuel stood beside ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... hear a little smothered cry break from her lips, and then the sound of a bar being hastily removed. An instant, and the door opened silently, just wide enough to permit her slender figure to slip through. She grasped him with ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish |
