"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was an inferior chief, endowed with the gift of eloquence, which often exists in a high degree among the red men. His eulogies of the colonists on his return were so glowing, and his representations were so well confirmed by his companions, that the exertions of the Frenchmen were no longer able to stifle their curiosity to know more of their neighbors, especially as the report of their returned tribes-men effectually contradicted the monstrous fictions which had been invented to deter them. Such was the origin of an embassy ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... SIDO. But to embrace this delicate waist. Thou art mine: I've sighed and thou hast spurned. What is not yielded In war we capture. Ere a flying hour, Thy hated Burgos vanishes. That voice; What, must I stifle it, who fain would listen For ever to its song? In vain thy cry, For none ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pelleas. "Is it the light that trembles so?" He straightens up, turns, and looks at Golaud. "Yes, it is the lantern," answers Melisande's husband, his voice shaking. "See—I moved it to throw light on the walls." "I stifle here.... Let us go!" exclaims Pelleas. They ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... out his boat to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us the view of a single house. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... evening when they have no place to go except to a lonely, ugly room; or the girl in the shop where they buy their clothing smiles as she wraps for them their packages. Such attentions would be passed by without a thought at ordinary times, but now notice means much to a heart that is trying hard to stifle its loneliness and sorrow, struggling to learn in an unknown tongue the knowledge of the West; in lieu of mother, sister, or sweetheart of his own land, the boy is insensibly drawn into a net that tightens about ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... himself and her son, rather than enter into a lawsuit with a powerful man; and she had gradually brought herself to believe that she had been her lover's wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... principle which I disclose to you, you can recognise the cause of those contradictions which have astonished all men, and have divided them into parties holding so different views. Observe, now, all the feelings of greatness and glory which the experience of so many woes cannot stifle, and see if the cause of them must not ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... yet with a little malleable heart in it compounded of the most primeval of affections." She turned over the pages; everywhere she came upon the same thing. Now the phrases were spun out fine, they were subtle, they seemed to cling round her and stifle her; now they were short and keen, and they cut like knives. "Women may be divided into three classes—the virtuous, the flirtuous, and the non-virtuous. The middle class is by far the largest. It shades ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... it in, and rushed into the stifle of Warrington's suite. The whole thing was in flames and it was impossible for us to remain there longer than to ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... Mr. Woodburn; and—why should I attempt to conceal it?—and I have wished—for I could not help it, though against the feelings, and, perhaps, the best interests of a generally kind parent—I have long secretly wished, and even prayed, for your success; because I could not stifle the conviction of the truth of what you assert respecting the wrongs of the American people, and the justice of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... met this brutal outrage with a sudden blow at the officer's face, levelled with so true an aim, that it stretched him at his length upon the ground. No terrors of impending vengeance, had they been a thousand times stronger than they were, could at this moment have availed to stifle the cry of triumphant pleasure—long, loud, and unfaltering— which indignant sympathy with the oppressed extorted from the crowd. The pain and humiliation of the blow, exalted into a maddening intensity by this popular shout of exultation, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength, his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... forward—with perfect peacefulness and most careful observance of the peace to express their real sentiments—that the ministry proclaimed down the procession, and now prosecute us in order to stifle public opinion? Gentlemen of the jury, I have said enough to convince any twelve reasonable men that there was nothing in my conduct in the matter of that procession which you can declare on your oaths to be "malicious, seditious, ill-disposed, ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... 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, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he retains within himself the germ of all his earlier traits, though these are increasingly suppressed and held in check by higher habitudes. Civilisation represents an elaborate system of auxiliary disciplines, designed to stifle as far as may be the brute in man and to strengthen the acquired qualities of justice, mercy ...
— No. 4, Intersession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, - B.A. • B. N. Michelson
... little good ourselves while yet we 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 ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... have been a serious accident to her especial charge. It had further made a very unpleasant confession needful, and Lionel's vexation and irritation seemed to have overcome all his late improvement. The thought of what poor Caroline was going through was enough to stifle everything else, and Marian wondered at herself, as for a sort of unkindness, in having been so fully occupied as to have had ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... with him in heaping up old papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin by Mount Genevre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately interrupted, and especially the drainage of the marshes ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... terror saw that man from whom she had escaped walking along the bank looking for her. Happy was it for Suzanne that the rock under which she was crouched hid her, for the man stood for thirty seconds or more within two paces, so that she was obliged to plunge the body of the boy under water to stifle its crying. ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... then let me die of despair? If I were capable of making a bad use of your secrets, I could have done so long ago, for I know them. In Heaven's name, do not dissimulate any longer, and tell me how it is possible to stifle the pangs of labour. Do you want more gold? Here it is." And he threw more Louis on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... take down the alarm clock and stifle its prolonged whirring under the pillows and blankets. But when this had been done, he continued to sit stupidly on the edge of the bed, curling his toes away from the cold of the floor; his half-shut ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... anxious wish to develop our internal resources and our domestic industry. This idea was not at all new. Sporadic attempts to start and carry on various industries had been made during the colonial period. They had all failed, either because the watchful mother-country took pains to stifle them, or because lack of capital and experience, in addition to foreign competition, killed them almost at their birth. The idea of developing American industries was generally diffused for the first time when the colonists ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries, dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or to take a step without stumbling ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... armourer's welding fire was made. He was fairly expiring with laughter, and when his brother angrily kicked him in the ribs, he only waggled an ineffectual hand and feebly crowed in his throat like a cock, in his efforts to stifle the sounds of mirth. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... might be, she could not stifle a certain sympathy for this young man. She imagined that his rebellion, whatever shape it had assumed, had been provoked by that weal upon his face; and it seemed to her then that he had been less than a man had he not attempted to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... which rendered the secrecy of thy purposes unfathomable? But I will not anticipate. Let me recover if possible, a sober strain. Let me keep down the flood of passion that would render me precipitate or powerless. Let me stifle the agonies that are awakened by thy name. Let me, for a time, regard thee as a being of no terrible attributes. Let me tear myself from contemplation of the evils of which it is but too certain that thou wast the author, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... lip, and Johnston heard him stifle an exclamation of impatience. As for the American, he was at once thrilled and fascinated by the awful sight below; he could now see beneath the overhanging mouth of the pit, and look far down into a boundless lake of ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... any 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 ready to ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... shrines of thought are trained to believe that there are no Rights, but only Privileges, Expediencies, Immunities? Can those who cower before the public ridicule which greets the enunciation of the Rights of Women; who are habituated to stifle generous impulses for their own larger freedom at the authoritative dictation of the men they see in power,—can such women be relied upon to nerve the Nation's heart for generous deeds?" Who were trained by women at the fountain sources and ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... Phyllis I see, my heart bounds in my breast, And the love I would stifle is shown; But asleep, or awake, I am never at rest, When from my eyes Phyllis is gone. Sometimes a sad dream does delude my sad mind; But, alas! when I wake, and no Phyllis I find, How I sigh to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... was entirely another affair. He could neither stifle nor deaden that. It was always jabbing him with white-hot barbs, waking or sleeping. But it never said: "Tell someone! Tell someone!" Was he something of a moral pervert, then? Was it what he had lost—the familiar world—rather ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... she rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... at the moment, that the danger in which he was placed was almost compensated by the intelligence which permitted those feelings towards her to revive, which justice to his friend had induced him to stifle in the birth. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the same steadfast, earnest look, which began to grow embarrassing, for it emphasized the consciousness which she could not stifle, that ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... tongue ne'er had, nor has, the skill, Does voice or lettered page the thought impart, Though each, with all its power, increase the ill, Diminishing the good with all its art, So female fame to stifle, but that still The honour of the sex survives in part: Yet reacheth not its pitch, nor such its flight, But that 'tis far ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and friend, are you taking care that the Divine Life in you shall grow after this Christ-like fashion? When I hear Christian people say: "Oh, I have so little love, so little faith, so little joy," I generally find that it is so because they stifle and quench the blessed yearnings of the Divine Spirit to seek the souls of others; because they leave unanswered the urgings and promptings of duty which God in their conscience is demanding; because they neglect prayer, and self-denial, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... never loved another, Robert, and you don't know how happy it makes me to think that, and to know that I can come to you and find you the same true and constant lover that you were when, forty-five years ago, you went down on your knees to me by the branch. We can't stifle those feelings of by-gone days which well up in our bosoms, Robert. After all these years I have learned what a prize your true love is, and I return ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... friendship and affection can palliate,—know, then, that the charms I first read on your visage brought a passion into my bosom for which I could not account. If it was from the thing called LOVE, I was before mostly ignorant of it, and strove to stifle the fugutive; though I confess the indulgence was agreeable. But repeated interviews with you kindled it into a flame I do not now blush to own: and should it meet a generous return, I shall not reproach myself for its ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families, dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand design of his czar; God alone ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... pardon who killed them, but also that they have some reward for their own and others' encouragement.—ESSEX, Letters, 10, Jan. 10, 1675. The author of this happened to be present. There was a meeting of some honest people in the city, upon the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence of the witnesses.—Bedloe said he had letters from Ireland, that there were some Tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to murder Dr. Oates and the said Bedloe. The doctor, whose zeal was very hot, could never after ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... it almost made her frantic, and she would sometimes break out into the most piteous wailings, nearly bordering upon desperation. I was myself most wretched, not so much from the loss of our child, as from the sorrow and anguish of my wife, whom I most dearly loved; but I found it necessary to stifle my own feelings, and exert all my soothing aid and persuasive powers, to calm her agonized mind. At first I was but a poor comforter. I had never thought at all of these weighty matters, and therefore ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... forth. Already doubts and misgivings had given way, and the North was now practically unanimous in its determination to stifle rebellion. There was a common belief that secession was the work of a minority, skillfully led by designing politicians, and that the loyal majority would rally with the North to defend the flag. Young men who responded ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... It is only at the system itself that I wish to direct the attention of the reader. If it is proved that, as a system, this is not calculated to elevate and enlarge the sphere of the arts, but on the contrary, that its tendency is to degrade and stifle all that is lovely and desirable in their pursuit, then there will be no need of troubling ourselves with the lower and baser subject of management; for there is no bad system, which, by any method, can be ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the first shock of these events had subsided. Madeline had been removed; Frank had been absent; and Nicholas and Kate had begun to try in good earnest to stifle their own regrets, and to live for each other and for their mother—who, poor lady, could in nowise be reconciled to this dull and altered state of affairs—when there came one evening, per favour of Mr Linkinwater, an invitation from the brothers to dinner on the next day but one: comprehending, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and Dante Alighieri were the masters. It is mainly inspired by love, and takes a popular courtly or scholastic form. The style of Gianni had many of the faults of his predecessors. That of Cavalcanti, the friend and precursor of Dante, showed a tendency to stifle poetic imagery under the dead weight of philosophy. But the love poems of Cino are so mellow, so sweet, so musical, that they are only surpassed by those of Dante, who, as the author of the "Vita Nuova," belongs to this lyric school. In this book he tells the story of his ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... been plotting murder. And but for a mere accident the plot would have been successful. You have worked out the whole thing in your mind; you came here on purpose. You came here to stifle the light at the very moment when we were operating on Van Sneck. You thought that all the lights on the floor would be on the same circuit; you ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... sob followed, while the little fellow rose with his teeth closely set and lips compressed, as he tried to stifle the cries that were struggling to escape, and then stood leaning against his nearest companion without ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Lord James. "I fought till the stench of their hot breaths seemed to stifle me. I felt my head run round like a dog in a fit, and down I went. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... astrology, and used their skill in mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel was the case ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... satisfaction. Others begin to feel that, whatever economists may say about wealth being the reward of capacity, their own reward is exaggerated. The conscience of human solidarity begins to tell; and, although society life is so arranged as to stifle that feeling by thousands of artful means, it often gets the upper hand; and then they try to find an outcome for that deeply human need by giving their fortune, or their forces, to something which, in their ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... judge ourselves unworthy of the happiness we should enjoy in doing the kind action. He comes in some deep conviction, calling us to a new life. We feel that we ought to leave our frivolity, and live for God and eternity—live for what is real and permanent. But we stifle these convictions, and go back to our old lives, and so judge that we are not worthy to become the friends and fellow-workers of Jesus, and companions of the pure and good. The great feast is ready, and the invitation is sent to us, and we, with one consent, begin ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... after him, her face still hidden. She was trying heroically to stifle the sobs that were shaking ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... exhausted and passing through those leaden-footed dreams that fitfully entrance the vicious,—those dreams that are colourless and sombre, that press upon all the faculties, and yet have no real meaning, that stifle all intentions, and put an end, for the moment, to all active desires. People talk of the vicious as "living," but half their time they are curiously dead, for their sins blunt their energies and lull them into a condition that ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... about horses was a language full of strange, hard, words, the meaning of which was hidden from the childish worshiper of wisdom. Such words as "ringbone" and "spavin" and "heaves" and "stringhalt" and "pastern" and "stifle" and "wethers" and "girth" and "hock," to the boy, seemed to establish, beyond all question, the intellectual greatness of the one who used them just as words of many syllables sometimes fix for older children the position on the intellectual heights of those who use them. "Chiaroscuro," ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... and stood for a moment, undecided. He looked at Molly, and suddenly there came over him an overwhelming desire to tell her everything. He had tried to stifle his conscience, to assure himself that the old days were over, and that there was no need to refer to them. And for a while he had imposed upon himself. But lately the falseness of his position had come home to him. He could not allow her to marry him, in ignorance of what he had been. It would ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... and the evidence it forced upon him of his own waning influence and the waxing power of Bute. He even went so far as to wish that some notice should be taken of the "royal words" both in the motion and the address; but in the end he and those who thought with him felt that they must submit and stifle their anger for the time, and so the King, unchallenged, proclaimed himself ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and large tears rolled down her face, uniting with the tears of all the other mourners and purging her soul of all sorrows and memory of what had passed. But after a while those tears began to stream so freely and stifle her so that Janina quietly arose and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... a Christian privilege to weep over the death of our departed kindred, yea, who can stifle the anguish of the heart when the tender flowers of home sink into the waxen form of death? when the flickering flame of infant life burns lower and weaker; when the death-glazed eye is closed, and the little bosom heaves no more, and that lovely form becomes cold as the grave, what parental ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... 5th. To stifle a baby's cry, by pushing the comforter into its mouth, is as bad as giving it chloroform to mask a serious and dangerous pain. If may have a just reason for crying, as is explained elsewhere, and if that reason ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... force to the argument thus far will admit that the testimony of the witnesses to the resurrection is conclusive, unless he suspects that by some cause they were either incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud; and no one has ever been able to support the position even with moderate plausibility. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... decided not to go to the manoeuvres, where he might be subjected to still greater humiliation and disappointment. He had certainly come to Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, but Wurzburg had been richly repaying in itself; and why should he stifle half an hour in an overcrowded train, and struggle for three miles on foot against that harsh wind, to see a multitude of men give proofs of their fitness to do manifold murder? He was, in fact, not the least curious for the sight, and the only thing that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... many cruelties were committed and many quiet and friendly Chinese killed. Don Pedro de Acuna, who could not prevent or stifle this terrible insurrection in its beginnings, also contributed to the horrible butcheries that ensued. "Accordingly many Spaniards and natives went to hunt the disbanded Sangleys, at Don Pedro's order." Hernando de Avalos, ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... upon the miscreants in reply to their witticisms were so threatening, that they ran back to the library to stifle their laughter; but five minutes had not elapsed before they were ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nothing of it: she 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 the pillows ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... schooling her in private; and when it came to the performance, though there was perhaps no one in the audience more critical, none was more moved than Fleeming. The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were always five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the inarticulate) recipients of Carter's dog whip in the TAMING OF THE SHREW, or having earned our spurs, to lose one more illusion in a leading part, we were always sure at least of a long and an ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... risen from his position to his hands and knees; and, though his leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he moved—for I could hear him stifle a groan—yet it was at a good, rattling rate that he trailed himself across the deck. In half a minute he had reached the port scuppers, and picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a short dirk, discoloured to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it for a moment, thrusting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they were tucked in among 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 white shoulders of the headlands, or in the ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at this very instant Mistress Anne heard the footsteps once more, and saw full well a figure in dark cloak and hat which stepped quickly into the shade of a great tree. But more she saw—and clapped her hand upon her mouth to stifle the cry that would have otherwise risen in spite of her—that notwithstanding his fair locks were thrust out of sight beneath his hat, and he looked strange and almost uncomely, it was the face of Sir John Oxon, the moon, bursting through the jagged ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... my mind, in the marrow of my bones! I am already rich, as a star is rich in golden rays. And I will bear all, I will suffer all, because there is within me a joy which no one, which nothing can ever stifle! In this joy there is ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the oak to snore the fist to stifle the shop to wake up the walls were whitewashed this is just what I want for the ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to the one end of the room for things that were not wanted, and excursions to the other end of the room for things that were wanted; when the chairs were drawn up; when the grateful old man and his little daughter, with those tender hands over their mouths to stifle the gratitude they struggled to utter, were duly seated at the table, and when the kettle was singing its approval in the corner, then, only,—when all these preliminaries were gone through with,—did the possessors ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... the manor-house were brightly lighted up, but as the curtains had been let down, nothing could be seen of the room inside; only snatches of song and laughter floated out into the open air. The house door stood open. He stopped for a moment in the dark hall to stifle the beating of his heart; ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... contribute to the happiness of mankind. History informs us that great military talent and victory often give the power, which, in its tern, procures the means of gratifying ambition. Napoleon was always persuaded that that power was essential to him, in order to bend men to his will, and to stifle all discussions on his conduct. It was his established principle never to sign a disadvantageous peace. To him a tarnished crown was no longer a crown. He said one day to M. de Caulaincourt, who was pressing him to consent to sacrifices, "Courage may defend a crown, but infamy never." In all ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the clergy attempted to stifle the new movement by their old weapon of persecution. The jealousy entertained by the baronage and gentry of every pretension of the Church to secular power foiled its efforts to make persecution effective. At the moment of the Peasant Revolt Courtenay procured the ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... cheapness, and tends only to impart force to all other nations. Let us banish, then, from political economy all terms borrowed from the military vocabulary: to fight with equal weapons, to conquer, to crush, to stifle, to be beaten, invasion, tribute, etc. What do such phrases mean? Squeeze them, and you obtain nothing. Yes, you do obtain something; for from such words proceed absurd errors, and fatal and pestilent prejudices. Such phrases tend to arrest the fusion of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... own character and conduct; measure the deficiencies and imperfections, the transgressions and faults; ay! perhaps with some of you, the crimes against men and society and human laws; but see beneath all these a deeper thought; and stifle not the words that would come to your lips as a relief, like a surgeon's lancet struck into some foul gathering, 'I have sinned against ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to find it come so easy. I do not mean that I experience little difficulty in foregoing my hundred petty elegancies and luxuries,—for to these, thank Heaven, I was not so indissolubly wedded that one wholesome shock could not loosen my bonds,—but that I manage more cleverly than I expected to stifle those innumerable tacit allusions which might serve effectually ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... he saw a lady walking down the street at whom the youngest of the Troyas, taking a skilful aim, threw a large piece of orange-peel, which struck her straight on the back of the head. Then they hastily closed the blinds, and the three girls tried to stifle their laughter so that it might not be heard in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... said to us, 'Give up such and such a habit,' or 'such and such a pursuit is becoming too engrossing': do we not all know what it is not only to feel obedience an effort, but even to cherish reluctance, and to let it stifle the voice? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... out of bed, wrapped a blanket about her to stifle her cries, in case she should make any, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... thunderous cheers) pro patria mori! Everyone should be ready to defend his hearth and home, be it humble cot or family mansion, Provided always that he discouraged a tendency to Militarism and Imperial Expansion: That was the habit of mind which a Briton's primary duty to stifle was, Seeing that the country's salvation lay rather with the intelligent, spontaneous, disinterested volunteer who didn't care how obsolete the pattern of his rifle was: Too much skill in shooting or drill was a perilous thing, ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... court. Sobs were heard. The most prejudiced of those who had bandied her name about for the past few weeks felt a dim sense of shame. Only a few out of all those present were unmoved: the judge, schooled to conceal all trace of emotion, nay, schooled to stifle it as it rose; the jury, too overcome by the duty thrust upon them to be just then alive to what was happening; the counsel on both sides, who, for different reasons, forbore as long as they could ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... left her, as she rushed up-stairs to throw herself on her bed, and hide her face in the pillows to stifle the hysteric sobs that would force their way at last, after the rigid self-control of the whole day. How long she lay thus she could not tell. She heard no noise, though the housemaid came in to arrange the room. The affrighted girl stole ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a faint, trembling voice from within. But Sulpice had a ready answer to stifle it: Adrienne could not be compared with any creature in the world. Adrienne was the charm, the daily comfort of the domestic hearth. She was the wife, not the "woman." She was the darling, not the love. Vaudrey would have severed one of his ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... friends, relations, adherents, and retainers. Great banquets were held, which lasted whole days—irresistible temptations for a sensual, luxurious people, in whom the deepest wretchedness could not stifle the propensity for voluptuous living. Whoever repaired to these banquets—and every one was welcome—was plied with officious assurances of friendship, and, when heated with wine, carried away by the example of numbers, and overcome by ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... those who neither yield to the mechanical philosophy nor desire to stifle it. While it is honest and industrious, as it is now, it can do nought but good, because it can do nought but discover facts. It will only help to divide the light from the darkness, truth from dreams, health from disease. Let it claim for itself all that it can prove to be of the flesh, fleshly. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Kuanto, (Eastern Japan), as he was passing the tea-house, he caught sight of Kiyohime, (the "lady" or "princess" Kiyo), and from that moment his pain of heart began. He returned to his bed of mats, but not to sleep. For days he tried to stifle his passion, but his heart only smouldered away like ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... 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 Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... it was; but not exactly in the way people thought. The spell of silence upon her life had been broken, and though she knew all sensible persons would esteem her in this, as in that other matter, a great "fool," still she could not stifle a vague hope that some time or other her blank life might change. Every little wave that swept in from the mysterious ocean, the ocean that lay between them two, seemed to carry a whispering message and lay it at her feet, "Wait and be patient, wait ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... 1965, we begin a new quest for union. We seek the unity of man with the world that he has built—with the knowledge that can save or destroy him—with the cities which can stimulate or stifle him—with the wealth and the machines which can enrich ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... The jacket buttoned across his broad chest seemed to stifle him. A mad longing possessed him to reach out and break something. The pleasant warmth of the room had suddenly become unbearable. He could no longer breathe in the atmosphere. He raised his eyes to the mother's ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... in silence for a few moments. Then Miss Patience, who had bravely tried to stifle her sobs, said with chattering teeth, "Perez, I'm ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... disturb you at all," he said. "You pass in as my convert. All you have to do is to do nothing and keep your mouth shut. If you cannot speak you cannot answer; that is good logic, I hope. We will discuss our several affairs presently in the reasonable air of Tuscany. I stifle in the Pope's dominions. You might say that there was not room enough for two such men." He blew out his shining cheeks till his eyes disappeared; he looked like a swollen tree-bole with a mossy growth dependent; then he deflated ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... in the law again overshadowed interest in politics, the populace for their part could never forgive Herod for overthrowing the old dynasty. That he himself, at least in religious profession, was a Jew did not improve his position, but rather made it worse. It was not easy for him to stifle the national feeling after it had once been revived among the Jews; they could not forget the recent past, and objected to being thrust back into the time when foreign domination was endured by them as a matter of course. The Romans were regarded in quite a different light from that in which the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... 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 ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Highness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear God! Everybody says, you have the sentiments of an honest man; excellent, that, for a beginning; but without the fear of God, your Highness, the passions stifle the finest sentiments. Must lead a life clear of reproach; and more particularly on the chapter of women! Need not imagine you can do the least thing without the King's knowing it: if your Highness take the bad road, he will wish to correct it; the end will be, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Gerald sprang at her, and seizing her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling girl by main strength down on to the floor. No one near to help! No water at hand! Not so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover, heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service. Gerald tore it off,—books, boxes, china cups, and glass vases crashing to the ground together,—and flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of it, pressing it ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... which rose from her heart parted her death-white lips, but remained unuttered. Wider and wider grew her eyes as she gazed with horror across the room. The power of action seemed to be denied to her. Her knees shook; a sort of paralysis seemed to stifle every sense of movement. She swayed and nearly fell, but her hand met the corner of the mantelpiece and she held herself erect. Gradually, second by second, the arrested life commenced to flow once more through her veins. She had but one impulse—to ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... little shriek of fear. Then they closed upon her with a rush. Lifting her bodily in his long, gorilla-like arms, one of the creatures turned and bore her into the jungle. A filthy paw covered her mouth to stifle her screams. Added to the weeks of torture she had already undergone, the shock was more than she could withstand. Shattered nerves collapsed, and she lost consciousness. When she regained her senses she found herself in the thick of the primeval forest. It was night. A ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... object in view for three years, no rank to obtain, no examination to undergo, no competition for which to make preparations, no outward pressure, no collateral preoccupation, no positive, urgent and personal interest to interfere with, turn aside or stifle pure curiosity. He pays something out of his own pocket for each course of lectures he attends; for this reason, he makes the best choice he can, follows it up to the end, takes notes, and comes there, not to seek phrases and distraction, but ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... flirtation with this ambitious and far from ignorant girl, there would have been little to disturb his healthy slumbers. Vassie was not one to waste time over the regrets that eat at the heart, and, though she could not altogether stifle pain at the outset, her strong-set will made the inevitable period of recurrent pangs shorter for her than for most. Killigrew had played the game quite fairly according to his code; it was Vassie's ignorance ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... enjoyment she may be extracting from her circumstances and her position in the world are really what make happiness, but if she have real brains, a clear vision and quick sympathies, she will inevitably stifle in her atmosphere of mere pleasure. She will not continue to set store on her material advantages, on the stage accessories by which she may be surrounded. She will long for something else—and most often not get it. If I had only been penniless and had loved and married ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... without invading the general rights of that country, be made subjects for prosecution. On this ground I will meet Mr. Burke whenever he please. It is better that the whole argument should come out than to seek to stifle it. It was himself that opened the controversy, and he ought not to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... stifle my laughter. Of all our earthly goods, our neighbor has chosen for salvation a dented bandbox containing a moth-eaten bonnet from my mother's happier days! And I laugh not only from amusement but also from lightness ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... aspirations, and all manly struggle; and where, in their more tragic portraitures, they depict the dread images of guilt and woe, they so clear our judgment by profound analysis, while they move our hearts by terror or compassion, that we learn to detect and stifle in ourselves the evil thought which we see gradually unfolding itself into the guilty deed."—Extract from ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... Industrious; by which means many Families were preserved from Destruction." In No. 2, the Patriot reiterates his "sincere Intention to calm and heal, not to blow up and inflame, any Party-Divisions"; but even the task of defending the British Constitution could not stifle Fielding's wit, and he escapes, for breathing space as it were, into a column devoted to the news items of the week, gathered from various papers, and adorned by comments of his own, printed in italics. And in this running commentary ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... her comprehension that each and every conquest was to be solely a glorification of her, any more than she understood now why his black discouragement awakened in her a sudden warmth as different from her old perversity as the pulse in her throat was painful. And yet she couldn't stifle that impulse. She giggled aloud. And when he turned—when he wheeled and encountered her shining eyes, still wet and brimming above the screen of his own handkerchief, she sensed immediately that he was flushing as little, too-sensitive ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired skill as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a well-covered stifle, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor yet by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Nobody likes to be afraid to look up at the holy stars, lest their bright eyes should see into their dark souls; nobody likes to drink till they are senseless as a beast, to stifle the sweet voice of conscience; nobody likes to be hungry, or thirsty, or sick and diseased, or so miserable that death would be ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... George Powler's attentions had made her still more weary, and the sight of the two women seated bolt upright and evidently boiling over with anger, was full of a grotesque humour which affected her hysterically. She managed to stifle the laugh, and looked at them patiently and calmly as she stood by the mantel-piece with one arm resting on the shelf. The unconscious ease and grace of her attitude increased Mrs. Heron's irritation; her thin lips trembled ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... injuries, from many a darksome den, Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men: See from his cavern grim Oppression rise, And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes; Keen on the helpless victim see him fly, And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry: Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times, View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way: While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: Hark, injur'd ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Scaramouche. And, although he had suffered the gradual process of usurpation of authority because its every step had been attended by his own greater profit, deep down in him the resentment abode to stifle every spark of that gratitude due from him to his partner. To-night his nerves had been on the rack, and he had suffered agonies of apprehension, for all of which he blamed Scaramouche so bitterly that not even the ultimate success—almost ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... attempts and rash endeavors made, threatened to bring contempt on the noblest teachings of philosophy, and to make them repulsive to man; and, on the other hand, a blind respect for the institutions consecrated by history threatened to stifle all examination and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... cruel syllogism, whose premises are obscure but whose conclusion is remorseless. Every one of us, in his time, has been subjected to its sway. No one has better reason to know than myself how terrible a struggle is required to free the spirit from this second nature which tends to stifle the first. The history of these struggles is the history of our contradictions. God be thanked, this war—nay, it is more than a war, this convulsion of mankind—will clear away our doubts, put an end to our hesitations, compel ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... eyes swimming in tears, told the servants, in the faltering voice of a woman trying to stifle her sobs, to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... brigand!" roared the Prince, and I could hardly stifle a laugh, for Joseph is no higher than my ear. His shoulders slope; his legs are clothespins bound with leather; his eyes swim in tears, as our car's crankhead floats in an oil bath; and his hair is hung round his head like many separate rows of ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thin young man with sandy hair and he wore spectacles. He insisted that Madge and Phyllis should not forget to introduce him as the friend of Mrs. Curtis, who expected him to be her guest later on. Indeed, Philip Holt talked so constantly and so intimately of Mrs. Curtis that Madge had to stifle a little pang of jealousy. She had supposed, when she was in New York City, that Mrs. Curtis, who was very generous, only took a friendly interest in Philip Holt and his work among the New York poor, but to-day Philip Holt gave her to understand ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... evening, that was to have been 'her treat,' was the most miserable she had ever spent. God knows she tried to stifle her pride, her suspicion, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... principles and the establishment of free governments and the sympathy with which we witness every struggle against oppression forbid that we should be indifferent to a case in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoked to stifle public sentiment and repress the spirit of freedom ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... her knees, her face buried in the counterpane, a corner of it stuffed into her mouth that it might help to stifle her agony, knelt Lady Isabel. The moment's excitement was well nigh beyond her strength of endurance. Her own child—his child—they alone around its death-bed, and she might not ask or receive a word of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... past; In this green laurel-spray that he treasures, It was plucked where your parting was last; In this specimen,—but a small trifle,— It will do for a pin for your shawl (Which the truth not to wickedly stifle Was his last week's "clean up,"—and ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... driftwood and into holes, laboring forward, hardly able to distinguish more than the rising, falling line of white that marked the surf. Voices of water and of wind conclamantly shouted, as if all the devils of the Moslem Hell had been turned loose to snatch and rave at them. Heat, stifle, sand caught them by the throat; the breath wheezed in their lungs; and on their faces sweat and sand pasted itself into a kind ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... me (though I may pay for it afterwards), while alcohol renders all mental work impossible. I have been accustomed to make the effects of tea and wine a mode of separating two types of constitution. I have an artist friend whose brain is livelier after a bottle of Carlowitz, which would stifle my mind, and to him my strong cup of tea would be poison. We are both, I think, of nervous organization, but how differentiated I cannot tell. My pulse goes always rather too quickly; a little emotional disturbance sets it going at an absurdly rapid rate for hours, and extreme physical fatigue ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... advisers are to blame for all the misfortunes of Prussia; they inveigled us into the alliance with France; they caused us to adhere to it, and would even now like to force us back into it. They would stifle the fire of patriotism because they are afraid lest it annihilate them and destroy their unworthy efforts. For this reason Blucher, with his heroic soul, is as much an eyesore to them as Stein, with his plans of liberation and his energetic action for constitutional reform. ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to the tabbies that no talent or facility can ever stifle a woman's nature. The simple need of her heart is never taken into account in the criticism of these marriages which are deemed "unequal." If a woman holds an assistant professorship of mathematics in a university, it is a foregone conclusion ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... being thus disfigured. However, I reaped this benefit from it, that I was resolved to guard myself against a passion which makes such havoc in the brain, and produces so much disorder in the imagination. For this reason I have endeavored to keep down the secret swellings of resentment, and stifle the very first suggestions of self-esteem; to establish my mind in tranquillity, and over-value nothing in my own ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Oates had laid his information, was found in a field near London with his sword run through his heart. His death was assumed to be murder, and the murder to be an attempt of the Jesuits to "stifle the plot." A solemn funeral added to the public agitation; and the two Houses named committees to investigate the charges made ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... that she had caused the box to be opened in such good company; for being before such witnesses, she rightly judged it was impossible to stifle this adventure; and, at the same time, there being no possibility of retaining any longer such a maid of honour, Miss Price had her valuables restored to her, with orders to go and finish her lamentations, or to console herself for the loss of her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the early thinkers found some rest: but not for long. The perplexity of the presence of this immediate order of things seemed solved; but another kept obtruding itself: what was going on before that "beginning?" Vain to stifle the inquiry by replying, "nothing."[168-1] For time, which knows no beginning, was there, still building, still destroying; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. What then is left but the conclusion of the Preacher: "That which hath been, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... created and cultivated, which finally spread through all classes of society, gradually conquered the new power in the state—public opinion which, at the end of the century, ruled supreme in all its strength and vehemence, defying every effort of the government to stifle it. The highest form of agreeable and intellectual society which the world has ever seen attained to its most complete development in ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... sacred places, and the misery of the Christians. He had seen the very ministers of God insulted, beaten, even put to, death: he had seen sacrilege, profanation, cruelty; and as he described them, his voice became stifle, and his eyes ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
