"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... own; and having arrived at Whitehall, they knelt down in the matted gallery, when his majesty "was pleased to walk along," says MERCURIUS PUBLICUS, "and give everyone of them the honour to kiss his hand, which favour was so highly received by them, that they could no longer stifle their joy, but as his majesty was walking out (a thing thought unusual at court) they brake out ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... case with great ideas. You may stifle them; or you may refuse them elbow-room; or you may torment them with your continual meddling; or you may let them have free course and range, and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to expose and restrain those excesses ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... always as to-day, if there were always sunlight to stand in and the living air to drink, she might find the life before her in truth as little of a burden as it seemed this morning But the days would again be wrapped in nether fumes, the foul air would stifle her, her blood would go stagnant, her eyes would weep with the desolate rain. Why should Gilbert remain in England? Were there no countries where the sun shone that would give a man and a woman toil whereby to support themselves? Luke Ackroyd had spoken of going to Canada. He said it cost ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... admiration? I have heard that the two musicians quarreled as to the interpretation of a passage by Gluck, and that a correspondence much resembling a literary warfare, followed. Could this justify defection? Perhaps a desire to stifle this glory, thereby to lend more lustre to some meteor or star, had some share ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... "impartial in thought." Mr. Wilson has been severely criticised for this appeal. The more violent pro-Germans and the more violent pro-French and pro-British regarded it as a personal insult and an attempt on the part of the President to stifle what they were pleased ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... fraudulent disposition of the priesthood had, in the decay of its power, rendered itself venerable to the most enlightened minds; and the night was devoted to the consideration of the causes which contribute to the developement of genius, or of the events which tend to stifle and overwhelm its powers. Every recreation of the stranger in Rome was an effort of the memory, of abstraction, and of fancy.—Society, in this elevated state of enjoyment, surrounded by the greatest works of human creation, and placed amidst the monuments of the most ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... "You must stifle this longing for vulgar sensation, Tuppence. Remember that if Mr. Brown is all he is reported to be, it's a wonder that he has not ere now done us to death. That's a good sentence, quite a literary ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heart,— Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path; But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Robespierres, Napoleon incurred serious danger, but was saved by powerful influence enlisted in his favor. He was, however, ordered to take command of an infantry brigade in the Army of the West. This he considered would stifle his military career, and neglecting to obey the order, he was in consequence removed from the list of employed general officers. Disgusted with his apparent lack of prospects, he was now anxious to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... passed by 153 to 23. On Tuesday it was treated very differently by the Lords. The new Chief Justice(768) and the late Chancellor(769) pleaded against Byng like little attorneys, and did all they could to stifle truth. That all was a good deal. They prevailed to have the whole courtmartial at their bar. Lord Hardwicke urged for the intervention of a day, on the pretence of a trifling cause of an Irish bankruptcy then depending before the Lords, though Lord Temple showed them that some of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... quiet Vane smiled to see the uniform of a modern Prussian, with his white belt and lifted bayonet, by the spot which had once echoed to the clang of the Roman arms. The soldier was paying a momentary court to a country damsel, whose straw hat and rustic dress did not stifle the vanity of the sex; and this rude and humble gallantry, in that spot, was another moral in the history of human passions. Above, the ramparts of a modern rule frowned down upon the solitary tower, as if in the vain insolence with which present power looks ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... I often strove, And tried my trouble to remove: I sung, and utter'd sighs between— Assay'd to stifle guilt with sin. ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... laid down the bases of a democratic government; the third, which was at that time the most numerous, although it was that of the wisest men, dreaded the ebullience of the other two, wanted compromises, reforms, and not revolution." By their conflicts the two extreme parties were to stifle for a while the party of the wise men, the true exponent of the national aspirations and hopes, which was destined, through a course of cruel vicissitudes and long trials, to yet save and govern ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... own room in this state Jacqueline never knew. She was aware at last of being on her knees beside her bed, with her face hidden in the bed-clothes. She was biting them to stifle her desire to scream. Her hands were ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... rolled into the furnaces an explosion would follow which would send them all to eternity. That this absurdity was immediately denied by the purser, who asserted with some vehemence that there was not a gallon of turpentine aboard, did not wholly allay the excitement, nor did it stifle the nervous anxiety which had now taken possession ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by telling me that he had found himself obliged to recognize his children to prevent slander attributing them to others, which would have injured the reputation of the three honest girls who bore them; and besides he could not stifle the voice of nature, which spoke so well on behalf of these little ones. His last words were, "There is no danger of the superior falling into the same fault, as he confines his attention to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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 ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the attention ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Claude, burning some straw and then digging, spoils the combs, as Wat does it; now I have got some puff-balls and sulphur to put into the hole, and set fire to them with a lucifer match, so as to stifle the wasps, and then dig them ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prevent our being seen; in a few minutes we heard a loud shriek from Emma, and old Monette's voice most vociferously crying "Murder!" and "Thieves!" On entering the rooms, we perceived that the poor girl was lying on the ground, while one of the men was endeavoring to stifle her cries by either gagging or suffocating her, though in the way he was doing it, the latter would have soon ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... moment, the rubber-rimmed wheels to turn more sluggishly with each revolution. He called to the driver to hurry, then found himself of a sudden gripped by an overpowering hesitation, and grew frightened at his own haste. The close atmosphere of the cab seemed to stifle him: he jerked the window open, flung back the lapels of his great coat, and inhaled the sharp Lake air in deep breaths. Why did that driver lash a willing steed? They were nearly there, and he was not ready yet. He leaned out to check ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... hunger for blue skies, blue water, blue shores; a longing to get away from cares and muddles and badly-done jobs and being misunderstood. Was it not horribly selfish, horribly cowardly? Was it not the longing to stifle the sounds of pain, to shut her eyes to the gloom of the misery about her, to shut her mind to the effort to understand what was of practical good, and what was merely quack in the remedies offered? ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... deals with the dramatic critic. Here, of course, our withers are wrung and we write with a bias. He is indignant because the Syndicate is accused of an attempt to "stifle and muzzle" dramatic criticism. He thinks that it is "to his best interests to have it [dramatic criticism] absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and always on the most dignified plane." Then he explains that it is because certain ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... have been wholly "without the academic circle." Analysing with the same view the lives of the British poets of real note from Barbour to Tennyson, we find the proportion of University men increases. "Poeta nascitur et fit;" and if the demands of technical routine have sometimes tended to stifle, the comparative repose of a seclusion "unravaged" by the fierce activities around it, the habit of dwelling on the old wisdom and harping on the ancient strings, is calculated to foster the poetic temper and enrich its resources. The discouraging effect ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... O that I could stifle the upbraidings of this cruel monitor.) You keep me in constant torment. This everlasting cant about rank poison, and liquid fire, and blood, and murder, is too much for even a Christian to put ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... I stifle with your perfume! Cease Your crazy salutations! peace, I say Begone, or let me go, ere I go mad With all this babble, mummery, and glare, For I am growing dangerous—Air! room! air!— (He rushes in. Music ceases.) Oh ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... once more. I have lost my dear husband, but I have escaped from that prison-house; and with his memory to keep me merciless, I am eager to wage war against those influences which are conspiring to fetter the free-born soul and stifle spontaneity. Luella Bailey must be elected, and these people be taught that foreign ideas may flourish in New York, but ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... sweet in person and carriage. It is of such that the thirsty soldier dreams. The vision came. A slovenly hack from the kitchen obeyed the summons. With dirty hands she thrust a still dirtier beaker of milk upon us, and spat ostentatiously to emphasise the spirit of her hospitality. It takes much to stifle the honest thirst of war, but this was more than human nature could support, and the uninviting bowl passed round the staff untouched until it reached the less fastidious signallers. Five minutes at the crystal brook was worth all ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... 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 ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the door and overpower that guard! If only he could get up to where the officers were enjoying themselves! Oh, to bring them down here and bind them in this loathsome atmosphere, feed them with this food, stifle them in the dark with closed port holes! His brain was fertile with thoughts of revenge. Then suddenly across his memory would flash the words: "If with all your heart ye seek Him," and he would reach out in longing: Oh, if he could find God, surely God ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... stifle the smell of the charnel house. Here, too, men must hold their handkerchiefs to their mouths as they do before the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Danvers. "I was beginning to despair of myself till I came across you and your father. The atmosphere here—I don't mean the material atmosphere of Crane Court—is so invigorating: its simplicity, its sincerity. I used to have ideals. I tried to stifle them. There is a set that sneers at all that sort of thing. Now I see that they are ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... little soon yet! But I speak of the future. Your 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 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... her in a hired carriage. Although there appeared something mysterious in such a proceeding, I endeavoured to check my rising suspicions. I allowed some hours to pass, during which I amused myself with reading. At length, being unable any longer to stifle my uneasiness, I paced up and down the apartments. A sealed letter upon Manon's table at last caught my eye. It was addressed to me, and in her handwriting. I felt my blood freeze as I opened it; it was ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... same steadfast, earnest look, which began to grow embarrassing, for it emphasized the consciousness which she could not stifle, that she alone was ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... hour later the jolly old moon nearly fell out of the sky for laughing. There were Elias and Romeo Augustus straining and tugging, coaxing and scolding, trying with might and main to stifle the expostulations of Mephibosheth, as they bore him ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hard, cold tone, as if she would stifle all warm feelings, but now Will took his sweetheart in his arms and came ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... shirt belonging to the engineer; his eyes pleaded his question. Neville nodded, and Dan tore the shirt in strips. When he finished the task, strange to his clumsy hands, Larry had regained consciousness and lay trying pitifully to stifle his moans. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of pride overspread his countenance, and he seemed endeavouring to stifle the feelings that swelled his heart. 'I had been prepared, madam,' said he, 'to expect a very different reception, and had certainly no reason to believe that the Duke de Luovo was likely to sue in vain. Since, however, madam, you acknowledge that ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... return to my life of indolence and supposed gayety. A snake might more easily crawl back into his cast-off skin. I have breathed this free, exhilarating, vitalizing atmosphere, and the convention-laden air of Paris would stifle me. I have written to my father and announced that I propose remaining in Charleston. That is not all: he forbade my studying law in Paris, because his sapient Breton neighbors would have been scandalized by a viscount's taking so sensible a ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... energetic, uncompromising calumny The evils resulting from a confederate system of government This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State This wonderful sovereign's littleness oppresses the imagination To milk, the cow as long as she would give milk To stifle for ever the right of free enquiry William Brewster Wise and honest a man, although he be somewhat longsome Yes, there are wicked men about Yesterday is the preceptor ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to consider the progress which the opinion of the injustice of this trade was making in the nation at large, as manifested by the petitions; which had almost obstructed the proceedings of the House by their perpetual introduction. It was impossible for them to stifle this great question. As for himself, he would renew his profession of last year, that he would never cease, but with life, to ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... and showing by example instead of words that she must tread as softly as possible, as she perceived that he was in his slippers, Hans carrying his boots as well as the lantern she had used. Yet to her ears the roar of the advancing tide seemed to stifle all other sounds. Past the other huts they went in silence, then came a precipitous path up the cliff, steps cut in the hard sandy grit, but very crumbling, and in places supplemented by a rude ladder of sticks and rope. ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... That is, dearly shall they pay hereafter for taking bribes to stifle the truth. "Whoever concealeth the knowledge which God has given him," says Mohammed, "God shall put on him a bridle of fire on the day ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... to be contenting himself with the symbol without the reality, the body without the soul. If she understands him, she may go with him. If she does not, no yielding on her part—no physical passion that he may arouse—will quite stifle the protest which tells her that she suffers spiritual violation. Do you remember the cry of Julie in "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont"? "It is a nightly warfare in which I am always defeated." That her physical ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... three hundred windows of the palace Placentia seemed to peer at him like eyes, curious, hostile, lugubrious or amazed. He tore violently at his collar and muttered: 'I stifle.' His great hand was swollen by its glove, sewn with pearls, to an ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... in suffragium, bene iuvantibus dis, et quae Patres censuerunt, vos iubete. Huius vobis sententiae non consul modo auctor est, sed etiam di immortales; qui mihi sacrificanti ... laeta omnia prosperaque portendere." Thus adjured, the people yielded; and as a reward, and to stifle any religio that might be troubling them, they are treated to a supplicatio of three days, including an "obsecratio circa omnia pulvinaria" for the happy result of the war; and once more, after the levy was over,—a heavy tax on the patience of ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... Found old blankets apparently used to stifle smoke. Saw large car stationary; made towards Lewes on approach; number known; ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... in collision with Farrar, of the scrubs, and they went to the ground together. Farrar was up in a moment, but Ellis, after one or two trials, desisted. His comrades ran to him and lifted him to his feet. But his foot gave way under him, and his lips whitened as he sought to stifle a groan. ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... reproduction of the reactions of the object of his interest. In an exactly opposite way the artificial conditions of the spectator at a play, which reinforce the vivid reproduction of ideas, and check action, stifle those emotions directed toward the players, the objective emotions of which we have spoken. The spectator is completely cut off from all possibilities of influence on events. Between his world and that across ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... that we were less complaisant with tyranny and more disposed to struggle and suffer for our rights, Spain would be the first to grant us liberty, because when the fruit of the womb reaches maturity woe unto the mother who would stifle it! So, while the Filipino people has not sufficient energy to proclaim, with head erect and bosom bared, its rights to social life, and to guarantee it with its sacrifices, with its own blood; while ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... When Clifford cannot spare his Friends an oath: I know by that he's dead, and by my Soule, If this right hand would buy two houres life, That I (in all despight) might rayle at him, This hand should chop it off: & with the issuing Blood Stifle the Villaine, whose vnstanched thirst Yorke, and yong Rutland could not satisfie War. I, but he's dead. Of with the Traitors head, And reare it in the place your Fathers stands. And now to London with Triumphant march, There to be crowned Englands Royall King: From whence, shall Warwicke ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... patient, he assured her, and asked her to forgive him if he had been brusque, his refined voice full of adoring contrition. He caught at any gossamer thread to stifle the obvious thought that if she loved him even ever so little he would not have to accustom her to caresses; she would long ago have been willing to learn all of their meanings in his arms!—and this was only the ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... barren in external benefits to Spain, with her King held in "honorable captivity" in France, and the obscure Joseph abjectly striving to please not his subjects, but his august brother Napoleon. But in this time of chaos, when there was no Bourbon King, no long-established despotism to stifle popular sentiment, the unsuspected fact developed that Spain had ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... Arthur Cumberland was not over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message, and could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment. The lout was human; and I could not stifle my ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... I shall make him true!—Yes, the lowest, the most senseless superstitions, I venerate them, I exalt—I glory in them! The ugliest, the most deformed, the most unreal of our gods, I adore them, and I bow down before their impossibility. [She kneels] Oh, I stifle in their petty narrow world, sad as a forest without birds! Air! Air! Singing! The sound ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... small piece of dirty rag that I had used some time before to clean a gun with. 'Put this in your mouth,' I whispered again, giving him the rag; 'and if I hear another sound you are a dead man.' I knew that that would stifle the clatter of his teeth. I must have looked as if I meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and continued his ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Roger, ere I stifle—come, i' the devil's name!' So they went and I, lying hid secure, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the time, the importunate intellect kept insisting that feeling was deceptive, that health and youth and the freshness of the morning spoke in her, and not reason or experience. Feeling was left untouched nevertheless. It was impossible to stifle the voices that prophesied golden things. Life was all before her; she was full of vigour and longing and good will; the world stretched forth as a fair territory, with magical pathways leading up to dizzy mountain tops. With visions such as these, the members of the Preposterous Society had fired ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... a turn to the steel with his vice-like fingers that in another moment the Jesuit was released from the wall. Slowly and painfully, clinging fast to my hand for aid, the man arose and stood before us, swaying wearily, his thin lips pressed tightly together as if he would stifle ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... threshold, and kissed the hand that had held it. She stood a moment quivering like a colt, then she bounded away; there was the clash of a door somewhere beyond, and Kate was in her own room, kneeling before the bed with her face buried in the counterpane to stifle the sobs that might ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... and started toward her, uttering an exclamation which I was unable to stifle, though ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... rage against Boyd rose suddenly in my breast; and so savage and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again, for she could not bear to part with the treasure. She felt as ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... sincerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seductive pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true. Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could part from ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... son. "You think this an extreme case," he said, "but you are quite mistaken. It is a typical case certainly, but it gives you only an inadequate idea of the scope given to this infernal machinery. The 'boycott' is now used in Ireland as the Inquisition was used in Spain,—to stifle freedom of thought and action. It is to-day the chief reliance of the National League for keeping up its membership, and squeezing subscriptions out of the people. If you want proof of this," he added, "ask any Nationalist you know whether ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... I am turning over the pages of Sarah Bernhardt's autobiographical revelations. "I adore the sea and the plain," she writes, "but I neither care for mountains nor for forests. Mountains seem to crush me, and forests to stifle me." Strange that the high priestess of expression, the interpreter of every phase of human passion and sorrow, she who dies terribly twice a day, and mercilessly conducts us to the attenuated air and dizzy heights of intense emotion, should ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... quarters, exceptionally short of cannon bone and long from hock to stifle as a greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best points of a thoroughbred hunter that make for ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... dead sure I'm not going to sprinkle the sugar to catch our boss with. All that Transportation Committee business was just as straight as the way home; but"—Miss Farrell tapped her mouth daintily with her fingers to stifle an imaginary yawn—"but little Rose brought down her shorthand notebooks marked 'M.B. personal,' and the boss and I burned them yesterday morning early, right there in that grate in his room. That's what I think of Mr. Ed Thatcher. A pearl necklace for my birthday ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... and were prepared to stifle in the birth any efforts that their women employes might make towards maintaining permanent organizations, is evident by the allusions in the press of the day to the "ironclad oath" by which the employe had to agree, on entering the ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... arrows, quarrels, javelins, fell upon the head of the column as it tried to face about and retreat, confusing it more and more. One arrow, shot by no common aim, went clean through William's shield, and pinned it to the mailed flesh. He could not stifle a cry of pain. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... instant the light dazzled my eyes, but, determined now to see this adventure through, I stepped within. Then, indeed, I found it difficult to stifle the exclamation of surprise which came to my lips. Believe it or not, as you like, we were ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... will play them—I, I, must go! Stay, sir, it cannot be [and striking his right hand on his breast, he went on:] I feel here something that rises and tells me: Never, Rameau, never. There must be a certain dignity attached to human nature that nothing can stifle; it awakes a propos des bottes; you cannot explain it; for there are other days when it would cost me not a pang to be as vile as you like, and for a halfpenny there is nothing too ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... passive obedience and implicit submission of will and intellect is by far too easy, if well considered, to be the course prescribed by God to Man in this life of probation—for they evade probation altogether, though foolish people think otherwise. Chop off your legs, you will never go astray; stifle your reason altogether and you will find it is difficult to reason ill. 'It is hard to make these sacrifices!'—not so hard as to lose the reward or incur the penalty of an Eternity to come; 'hard to effect them, then, and go through with ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... influence. He had admired Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But when Prudence and Honour counselled him to stifle and crush his growing affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget's ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Beyond all doubt, she loved; beyond all question, she was prepared to obey the faintest call that her heart prompted. Janet, tender to her that night, fondling her and caressing her, answering to her with the very heart that she had tried to stifle within herself, was Janet herself again the next morning. But ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... highest respect for the talents and virtues of Reynolds, but I do not like that his reputation should overshadow and stifle the merits of such a man as Hogarth, nor that to mere names and classifications we should be content to sacrifice one of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... if to himself, yet speaking aloud) The truth is hideous, but how stifle it? [Turning to MARMADUKE.] Give me your sword—nay, here are stones and fragments, The least of which would beat out a man's brains; Or you might drive your head against that wall. No! this is not the place to hear the tale: It should be told you pinioned in your bed, Or on some vast and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... if the mildness with which I pleaded my cause had more effect upon him than anything I had yet said. We was moved to the point of being almost out of countenance; and took snuff repeatedly, as if to gain time to stifle some degree ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... prepared. Ah! the boots fall off. I shall ascend. The boots fall off. What are there none to raise me? See, they grin. Am I not come unto the resurrection of the life? What! that horrid lid again. O, no, no. They stifle me again. They fasten me to sleep—to sleep—to sleep. THIS, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... said Ashe, looking round him—"even this spoiled country! Why did we go and stifle in ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of us could sleep a wink all night; Dora cried frightfully, I heard her though she tried to stifle it, and I cried too, for I was thinking all the time what I could do to prevent Viktor from thinking unkindly of me. That would be awful. Then I thought of something, and chance or I ought to say luck helped me. Viktor does not walk to school with us any longer, because ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... forever considering only yourself and never me! That could not help but stifle all my feelings in time. I fought against it as long as I could, Hella, but it had to come to an end ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... to overestimate, and I believe that its introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management, is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination, but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am convinced that in the future of the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... will first get wealthy." He said he went on and did not go into a church for a few months, but the first place of worship he went into he heard a third minister preaching a sermon from the same text. He tried to drown—to stifle his feelings; tried to get the sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he would keep away from church altogether, and for a few years did keep out of God's house. "My mother died," he said, "and ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... us admit that it is possible to stifle liberty of men and to impose on them a yoke, to the point that they dare not even murmur, however feebly, without the consent of the sovereign: never, it is certain, can any one hinder them from thinking according to their own free ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Hear the daddly thing! It has driven me to the verge of insanity! I tried to stop it, but I couldn't find how it works. And now I am trying to stifle it! Hear it! Oh, bring me a club! Bring me something deadly! Bring me a gun, and I will ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... maxim of Plato's but we can only carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into Christ's keeping day ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... elf, looking terribly frightened and shrinking further into his corner. "Me losa monk'. He come here but gona way. W'en Petri fin', he keel me." The thin face worked pathetically as the little fellow bravely tried to stifle the sobs which shook his feeble body; and Peace, with childish instinct, understood what the waif's queer, broken ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... but still offending by the very means designed to oblige. Being kept with such persons, in a most severe confinement, from morning till night, without ever daring to quit them is most difficult. I have found that great crosses overwhelm, and stifle all anger. Such a continual contrariety irritates and stirs up sourness in the heart. It has such strange effect, that it requires the utmost efforts of self-restraint, not to break out into vexation ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... whether a man 'bluff' well or ill. If he brag vulgarly before his strangers, away with him! by all means. He does not know how to play the game. He is a failure. But, if he convey subtly (and, therefore, successfully) the fine impression he wishes to convey, then you should stifle your wrath, and try to pick up a few hints. When I saw my fellow-passengers eyeing my hat-box, I did not, of course, say aloud to them, 'Yes, mine is a delightful life! Any amount of money, any amount of leisure! And, what's more, I know ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... natural propensity of such bodies to party divisions, there will be no less reason to fear that the pestilential breath of faction may poison the fountains of justice. The habit of being continually marshalled on opposite sides will be too apt to stifle the voice both of law and of equity. These considerations teach us to applaud the wisdom of those States who have committed the judicial power, in the last resort, not to a part of the legislature, but to distinct and independent ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Seventh Avenue toward Bellstrand Hospital. There he sought the executive offices and told his story. "Five minutes later he was looking at the books of the institution, searching, searching,—at last to stifle a cry of excitement and bend closer to a ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... subject of investigation; but few will be at the trouble of undertaking its analysis. With the multitude there is neither leisure nor inclination, and the doctrines that have been dictated concerning our intellectual faculties and their operations, have tended rather to stifle than to promote inquiry. It is therefore unnecessary to enumerate the catalogue of illustrious names whose contradictory systems have created suspicion and distaste in the student. The science that has been improperly termed Metaphysics, ought to be ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... nothing. We are wedded to opinion, to fancy, to prejudice; which destroys the soundness of our judgments, and the serenity and buoyancy of our feelings. The chain of habit coils itself round the heart, like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it. It grows rigid and callous; and for the softness and elasticity of childhood, full of proud flesh and obstinate tumours. The violence and perversity of our passions come in more and more to overlay our natural ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... profit by his. He must have no other 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 actualities ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pathetic that they should count it joy to come where we should think it misery to stay. Still, everything is comparative, and I suppose they are as reasonably happy in New York as I am in my London lodgings in the London season, where I sometimes stifle in a heat not so pure and clear as ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... when time has passed away. But to lift up myself is what I cannot do. Who will help me? Who will quicken me? as our old English tongue has it. Who will give me life? The true, pure, lofty human life which I did not inherit from the primaeval ape, which the ape-nature in me is for ever trying to stifle, and make me that which I know too well I could so easily become—a cunninger and more dainty-featured brute? Death itself, which seems at times so fair, is fair because even it may raise me up and deliver me from the burden of this animal ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... last and crowning mischief that could befall him came in the love of Cleopatra, to awaken and kindle to fury passions that as yet lay still and dormant in his nature, and to stifle and finally corrupt any elements that yet made resistance in him, of goodness and a sound judgment. He fell into the snare thus. When making preparation for the Parthian war, he sent to command her to make her personal appearance in Cilicia, to answer ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a sound of weeping; Defago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his mouth to stifle it. ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... scorching wind seemed to stifle the countryside with its breath, Josephina capitulated. They were in their room, with the windows closed, trying to escape the terrible sirocco by shutting it out and putting on thin clothes. She did not want to see her husband ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... says the Tzar to his servant, when he heard that they had eaten all the food and drunk all the wine. "Tell the fellow to get ready for the wedding, and let him go and bathe himself in the bath-house. But let the bath-house be made so hot that the man will stifle and frizzle as soon as he sets foot inside. It is an iron bath-house. Let ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... very often do not find in it the expected 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 opinion, will ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... became angry and humiliated at suffering his impatience to become manifest, and forbade Ireneus or La Vendee to be mentioned. He could not, however, stifle thought in his own ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... of Gran opened its gates to Kara Mustapha. The Grand Vizier barbarously put to death the officers who had signed the capitulation; he threw upon his generals the responsibility of his reverses, and thought to stifle in blood the murmurs of his accusers. The army marched in disorder as though struck with a panic terror. Kara Mustapha wished that a Jew whom he despatched to Belgrad should be escorted by a troop of horsemen. "I have no need of an escort," replied the Jew: ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... to say that the more deep you are in the art, the less will it stifle nature. On the contrary, it will, in the noble assurance which a competent skill is sure to bring with it, give to the natural graces a greater freedom and ease of display. Imperfection of theory and practice cramps the faculties; and gives ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... her closer. Through her thin blouse he could feel her blood burning against his breast. He felt his senses going, a painful weakness seemed to stifle him, as if only a violent movement could give him breath. Feverishly he clenched his left hand, that was round her waist; with his right beneath her chin ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... heavy breathing. Both were panting for air. The temperature was now deathly. A candle would scarcely have burnt in the vitiated air; and above that odour of ancient rottenness which all explorers of the monuments of Egypt know, rose that other indescribable odour which seemed to stifle one's very soul. ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... 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 fly. She thought ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which the 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 ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... over the water for a time, but, at length, turned toward me, just a finger up as to stifle a yawn. "Really," said she, "while I am hardly so situated that I can well escape it or resent it, it does seem to me that you might well be just a trifle less ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... took the reeking steeds to the stable, and Merwyn disappeared. He did not enter the house, for he felt that he would stifle there, and the thought of meeting his mother was intolerable. Therefore, he stole away to a secluded avenue, and strode back and forth under the dripping trees, oblivious, in his ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... it in here!" Alix said, suddenly. The walls, the peaceful room, seemed to smother and stifle her. She crossed to the door, and opened it, and slipped noiselessly out into the night, catching a coat from the rack as ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... the sparrow. But whatever may be said, let us drop the past. Let us consider the present. I beg of you, leave this boy—let him develop without your attempting to stifle the life in him or impressing upon it the stamp ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... go! Let me go! I am suffocating! I stifle in this house!" burst forth the countess, as though she were really choking. "I cannot remain. Bertha, I want you. Maurice, give me your arm,—let me ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... my books—yes, I care for my books more than you have ever discovered—my plans for travel, made up a life which satisfied me—a part of the time. Deep down somewhere was a sense of unrest, a knowledge that I was neither getting nor giving all that I was meant to. But this I was accustomed to stifle—except at unhappy hours when stifling would not work, and then I was frankly miserable. Mostly, however, my time was so filled with diversion of one sort or another that I managed to keep such hours from over-whelming me; I worried through them somehow and ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... 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 ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... 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 ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... that the growing desire for labor, on the part of many people of leisure, has its counterpart in the increasing desire for general knowledge on the part of many laborers. They point to the fact that the same duality of conscience which seems to stifle the noblest effort in the individual because his intellectual conception and his achievement are so difficult to bring together, is found on a large scale in society itself, when we have the separation of the people who think from those who work. ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... Good heavens, mother, I am young, after all! I feel as if the close air of this room must stifle me in the end. ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... stung with remorse for what he said. Then he'll make a general confession to his wife. She'll flay him with her tongue for having dared to say a disrespectful word to God's minister. Then he'll go on a desperate spree for a week to stifle conscience, during which orgies he'll beat his wife black and blue; finally, he'll come to you, sick, humbled, and repentant, to apologize and take the pledge for life again. That's ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... is sharp competition, the possibility of overcharging the public to make returns on watered stock is cut out, and the loss falls upon the investor. But in the case of monopolies, such as railways, or of combinations which practically stifle competition, the public may be charged enough to "pay a fair dividend to investors," although the money upon which dividends are being made went not into improving the service, but into fattening the promoters' purses. [Footnote: On stock watering, see ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... grinned, chuckled, made a diabolical sound in attempting to whistle, and finally, unable to stifle his emotions, ran away to empty the feelings of his heart ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better of me and stifle me, Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... during their brief betrothal—and music would peal out upon them till Lady Landale's stormy heart could bear it no longer, and she would rise in her turn, fly to the shelter of her room and roll her head in the pillows to stifle the sound of sobs, crying from the depths of her soul against heaven's injustice; anon railing in a frenzy of impotent anger against the musician, who had such passion in him and gave it to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... by strong ties, the bridegroom and the bride, Each by some friends attended, near they drew, And spleen beheld them with prophetic view. "Married! nay mad!" Orlando cried in scorn; "Another wretch on this unlucky morn: What are this foolish mirth, these idle joys? Attempts to stifle doubt and fear by noise: To me these robes, expressive of delight, Foreshow distress, and only grief excite; And for these cheerful friends, will they behold Their wailing brood in sickness, want, and ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... for her that would have been contempt had not her beauty and charm mastered him. He was going to clutch her once and for all, but he was willing to let her see that he only meant, since he must have her, to clutch close enough to bind her to him. He was not going to strangle her: he meant only to stifle her. Jude was cool now, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... vineyard by other hands than God's; and there they abide lifeless, graceless, careless, and without any good conscience to God at all. Perhaps they came in for the loaves, for a trade, for credit, for a blind; or it may be, to stifle and choke the checks and grinding pangs of an awakened and disquieted conscience. Now, having obtained their purpose, like the sinners of Zion, they are at ease and secure, saying, like Agag, Surely the bitterness of death is past: I am well; I shall be saved and go to heaven. Thus ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... has kept her emissaries here, individuals contemptible in intellect, it is true, but cat-like and gliding, who, at her bidding, have endeavoured, as much as in their power has lain, to damp and stifle every genial, honest, loyal, and independent thought, and to reduce minds to such a state of dotage as would enable their old Popish mother to do what ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Now I heard Jago stifle a cry behind me, and as for myself I stood silent, biting my lip that I might know that I was not dreaming also, and I saw that Howel was looking at me in a wondering way, while Gerent glowered at me. All the time that she had been speaking, Nona had looked on the ground, in some fear ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler |
