"Smother" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has a slight headache," Mary answered, giving me a warning look. "I am delegated to be lady of the manor this evening." She looked so adorable as she curtsied to us that I felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to grab her in my arms and smother her with kisses, but remembering what she had done to me once when I ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... look at. And so furiously did the over-pressed catamaran charge into the formidable seas that came rushing at her weather bow that she took green water in on deck at every plunge, that swept aft as far as her mast ere it poured off into the dizzy smother to leeward, while her foresail and mainsail were streaming with spray to half the height of their weather leeches. Leslie knew that he was not treating his craft fairly in driving her thus recklessly in a strong breeze against a heavy sea; but he had perfect faith in her; he had ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the dark to leeward, She struck—not a reef or a rock But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her Dead to the Kentish Knock; And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel: The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock; And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel Idle for ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Forese pointed out to his friend, among the expiators of intemperance, Buonaggiunta of Lucca, the poet; and Pope Martin the Fourth, with a face made sharper than the rest for the eels which he used to smother in wine; and Ubaldino of Pila, grinding his teeth on air; and Archbishop Boniface of Ravenna, who fed jovially on his flock; and Rigogliosi of Forli, who had had time enough to drink in the other world, and yet never was satisfied. Buonaggiunta and Dante eyed one another ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... instance, quite clearly," she said. She seemed a little miffed, but the irritation was overpowered by her worry. "I think, Sir Kenneth, that you just don't know your own power, that's all. I don't know how, but you've managed somehow to smother telepathic communication almost completely." ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... guess ye wha I met yestreen On Kenly banks sae grassy, O! Wha cam' to bless my waitin' een?— The widow's ae bit lassie, O! She brak' my gloamin' dream sae sweet, Just whaur the wimplin' burnies meet; The smother'd laugh—I flew to greet The widow's ae bit ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Eliza, tell, Nor seek from me the truth to smother."— "O I remember very well, I ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I have as much respect for our mother's memory as you have, but if she had not died now, I don't know how far my sacrifices might have gone. Have you noticed in the springtime, brother, how the fallen leaves of yesteryear cover the ground as if to smother all the young; things that are coming out? What do these do? They push aside the withered leaves, or pass right through them, ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... she had grown almost back into a child again, since the children came. "And yet all a woman," he said; "all a sweet, wholesome, gentle woman. See her now with her arms around the child; the little creature clings to her as if she were the mother it never knew. Ah! she is telling them. No need to smother her, children. I never really meant to separate you; no, indeed. I only wanted you to find out for yourselves, as I have found out for myself. No more solitude at Fernley, please God; from now on, young faces and hearts, ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... gently. When it begins to sizzle add the yolk of an egg and season with parsley. Imitation parsley can be made from green wall paper with the scissors. If there is no green wall paper in the house speak to the landlord about it. Let it sizzle. Should you wish to smother it with onions now is your chance, because after cooking so long it is almost helpless. Serve hot with a hatchet on the side. If there are more than four people in ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... in a manner wonderful to behold, thru the smother of foam and spray, thru the crash and yell of timbers, protesting the flood's hurrying, thru the leap of destruction, the drivers zigzagged calmly and surely ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... left in anger; and as he entered the great dining-room he saw once more his coveted picture, the image of the morning, the tall young girl with the brown ruff of hair rolling back from the smooth brow, above the clear-seeing dark eyes. Here again, by miracle, had come his friend, to meet him in the smother of the grimy way of life! Yet he thought the girl looked at him but coldly as he stood wearily apart. He felt himself unaccredited, a man of no station. Again there swept over him the feeling of his own insufficiency, his own failure of all life's things worth having. It seemed to him that in this ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... impossible. An angel drew near, and laid her soft, fine hand upon my coffin, my wounds were healed, my youth revived, and I dared hope in happiness and a future. At first, I would not confess this to myself. At first, I thought to smother this new birth of my heart in the mourning veil of my past experience; but my heart was like a giant in his first manhood, and cast off all restraint; like Hercules in his cradle, he strangled the serpents which were hissing around him. It was indeed a painful ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the pan, choking in the smother of smoke. She came right-about face swiftly enough. The man had not moved; ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... to say his prayers. Everything here but congregation. House, it is well known, thrilled with excitement over Parnell Commission Report. Throbbing with anxiety to debate it. Manages somehow to dissemble its feelings, smother its aspirations. Presently two Members drop ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... wood-lot hid from her sight both dock and mooring—and all but the gables of the hotel, as well—but she soon espied the motor-boat standing away on a straight course for the mainland: driven at a speed that seemed to her nearly incredible, a smother of foam at its stern, long purple ripples widening away from the jet of white water at the stem, a smooth, high swell of dark water pursuing as if it meant to catch up and overwhelm the boat and its occupants. These ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... his hands in his pockets, 'I'd give something—if I had it—to know how they use that child, and where they keep her. My mother must have been a very inquisitive woman; I have no doubt I'm marked with a note of interrogation somewhere. My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my—upon my word,' said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and falling thoughtfully into the client's chair, 'I should like to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Finally out of the smother of snow Sucatash came driving, head bent and hat brim pulled down to avoid the snow. The road was easy enough and he thought of nothing but getting along with all the speed possible. He did not notice that his horse, when emerging onto the bench, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... scarcely out of school like St. Just, Monet of Strasbourg, Rousseline of St. Albin, and Julien of the Drome—in short, the poorly sown and badly cultivated minds, and on which the theory had only to fall to smother the good grain and thrive like a nettle. Add to these charlatans and others who live by their wits, the visionary and morbid of all sorts, from Fanchet and Klootz to Chalier or Marat, the whole of that needy, chattering, irresponsible ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... who die without contrition, Must go to—beg your pardon, sir—perdition, The sons of light, you tell me, can't be gay, But count it sin of the sort called omission The groan to smother or the tear to stay Or fail to—what is that they live by?—pray. So down they flop, and the whole serious race is Put by divine compassion on a ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the window, and see the flags flying, And drearily list to the roll of the drum, And smother the pain in my heart that is lying, And bid all the fears in ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... tears; it seemed to her that the song was relating her own suffering, that she was the lost child, abandoned by its mother, and whom God was going to take under his protection. Clemence was now very drunk and she burst into loud sobbing and placed her head down onto the table in an effort to smother her gasps. There was a ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... different; it was a part of the petty round of business to have the leading lady burst into tears when things didn't suit her. What fools women are in general! But the girl surprised him by holding up determinedly, and sinking her white teeth into her lips to smother the sob which rose in ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... she cried, starting quickly. Up he scrambled, cursing, and wrenching at his revolver. I sprang to smother him, but there was a flurry, a chorus of shouts, men leaped between us, the brakeman and conductor both had arrived, in a jiffy he was being hustled forward, swearing and blubbering. And I sank back, breathless, a degree ashamed, a ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... meaning. Want of space prevents these being all included; the most important or most commonly used word has therefore been chosen; for instance, "mercury", "tranquil", "diaphanous", "suffocate", "salve", "renown", "fiddle", are not to be found, but "quicksilver", "calm", "translucent", "smother", "ointment", ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... I came to at last was, that I could not do better than smother my impatience for a whole week; taking, the while, excursions in every other direction so as, if possible, to blind any one who made a study of my movements. Then my journey to the cavern must be made by night, armed with spades, and taking with ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... thousand people. Upon inquiring what they do in case of a fire, I learn that they don't even think of fighting the devouring element with its natural enemy, but, collecting on the adjoining roofs, they smother the flames by pelting the burning building with the soft, crumbly bricks of which Angora is chiefly built; a house on fire, with a swarm of half- naked natives on the neighboring housetops bombarding the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... I'm helpin' her into the car, while Martin tries to smother a grin. "There you are!" says I, chuckin' her suitcase in after her. "I—I guess I'll ride ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... anxious as you are to see them," came from Mrs. Tom Rover, as both of her sons gave her a warm hug. "There, there! don't smother me!" she ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... Jocrisse had closed the boudoir door behind M. Cambray, the suffering countess sprang lightly from her couch, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother her laughter; the little Amelie, overwhelmed by merriment, buried her face in her mother's skirts; the maid giggled discreetly; while Jocrisse, clasping his rotund stomach with both hands, bent his ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... death would deprive him of the means of making restitution, for he had a presentiment he would fall on this very day. First, that sin he committed in Liverpool, when, in an evil hour, yielding to the advice and example of wicked companions, he took to drink in order to smother the thought of it; and drink caused him to rob the widow, and to shun further the thought of these crimes he enlisted in the army; but yet, here, in the very ranks, with drums beating, and music playing, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... the part of Eveley, and equally deep assurances of pleasure and good will on the part of the others. After they had gone, as Eveley inspected her stairway alone, she was comforted by the thought that she could fairly smother it with vines and all sorts of creeping and climbing things, and the casual comer would not notice how funny and wabbly it was. But as she went gingerly down, clinging desperately to the rail on both sides, she determined to take out an accident policy immediately, ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... Honesty is nothing to the purpose. Men bow before the power of genius; they hate it, and try to slander it, because genius does not divide the spoil; but if genius persists, they bow before it. To sum it all up in a phrase, if they fail to smother genius in the mud, they fall on their knees and worship it. Corruption is a great power in the world, and talent is scarce. So corruption is the weapon of superfluous mediocrity; you will be made to feel the point of it ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... had come that night in the very nick of time. Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma for robbing ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... groan was heard, apparently coming from the cogonales to his left. He parted the grass. There, lying in a pool of his own blood, was a Filipino soldier, frantically endeavoring to conceal himself and smother further groans. The expression on his face was a mixture of fear and pain. Seeing that he had been discovered, he put out his hand as if ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... definite plan in releasing Colonel Hare. It would confuse the public, who had been given to understand that the hunter was dead; but they would claim that it was an affair of state, in nowise concerning the populace. So Colonel Hare was brought up. Ramabai instantly signaled him to smother his joy. But it was not necessary for the colonel to pretend dejection. He was so pitiably weak that he could scarcely stand and only vaguely understood that he was to follow this man Ramabai, ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... smile she could scarcely smother, Yet a glance, in its daring, half-awed and shy, She added,—"While they were about it, mother, I wish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Southern political leaders and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feeling among themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed to smother discussion and blind conscience on this question. The question is not allowed to be discussed, and he who sells a book or publishes a tract makes himself liable to ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... him? Had her moment come when she could force him to smother his scorn and wait at her door for bounty? She would make ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of all ages and countries hath shown, that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecutions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias, when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... sparkling pictures; he is now, I understand, in retirement trying to unlearn it. Rouault is a very interesting artist of whom we see little; from what I have seen I should be inclined to fear that a taste for romance and drama is too often suffered to smother his remarkable gift for painting. Marquet, with gifts equal to almost anything, is content, it seems, to remain a brilliant but superficial impressionist. Puy is a thoroughly sound artist, and so in a smaller way is Manguin. ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... Little old-faced, peaking sister-turned-mother Of the sickly babe she tried to smother Somehow up, with its spotted face, From the cold, on her breast, the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... instant. Then he walked up on him and planted his two feet on his breast while he lowered his head, licking the boy's face all over with his tongue. This made the boy furious but he could do nothing as the goat was heavy, and with his weight on his chest he thought he would smother. ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... his hand, and the soft smother of her loose hair fell over it. He could feel the quick rise and fall ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... certain scathing remarks on the girl-habit which, in the day of his single blessedness, he had made to each one of them separately. It was more than useful to him when he rolled into the "Knockery," the second evening after his sad condition had become patent, and the assembled company rose to smother him with sofa cushions and lecture him, with decided seriousness, on the evil effect of girling. There were times, indeed, when he didn't have to assume any chap at all, when it came of itself; for example, when the crowd ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... to Drake bruskly to smother the sob of sheer happiness I felt rising in my throat; and at his wink and warning grimace abruptly forebore to press ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... who brought all this." And he rapped immediately on the door. The jailer came to open it with Baisemeaux, who, devoured by fear and uneasiness, was beginning, in spite of himself, to listen at the door. Happily, neither of the speakers had forgotten to smother his voice, even ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... boiling pitch, but he dared not betray his feelings; for the Indian was ready to take offence at the slightest word, so rich and independent did he feel. Angering him now would simply mean adding to the harvest of the opposition trader. He chewed his lower lip in the effort to smother his disgust, and growled ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... my soul, like thine, was pure, And all its rising fires could smother; But, now, thy vows no more endure, Bestow'd by thee upon ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the chief item in a system of poultry keeping that has been widely advertised. The principle of the Philo box is that of holding the air warmed by the chick down close to them by a sagging piece of cloth. The cloth checks most of the radiating heat, but is not so tight as to smother the chick. This limits the space of air to be warmed by the chicks to such a degree that the body warmth is used to the greatest advantage. That chickens can be raised in these fire-less brooders, is not in question, for that has been abundantly proven, but most poultrymen believe ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... address'd His answer thus:—"With like desire I glow Your lineage, name, and character, to know, Since you have learnt my name." With soft reply I said, "A name like mine can nought supply The notice of renown like yours to claim. No smother'd spark like mine emits a flame To catch the public eye, as you can boast— A leading name in Cupid's numerous host! Alike his future victims and the past Shall own the common tie, while time itself shall last. But tell me (if your guide allow a space The semblance ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... was a mask of quiet dignity. The tragedy in the woman's heart made the more pathetic the comedy of the half-drunken husband. Besides, he was philosopher enough to know that more than half the drunkenness of the world was the pitiful effort to smother a heartache. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... and improvements in the chairs and tables should be completed. "I shall merely observe at present therefore, that my little study is upstairs, and looks out, from two French windows opening into a balcony, on the lake and mountains; and that there are roses enough to smother the whole establishment of the Daily News in. Likewise, there is a pavilion in the garden, which has but two rooms in it; in one of which, I think you shall do your work when you come. As to bowers for reading and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... interest to every man born into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of mere scepticism, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... had done a cruel thing, for which they were amenable to an avenging guardian of the everlasting element of good in nature's dualism. Yet, strange enough, each of the two kept his and her own secret. Their hearts burned, even as the fire which consumes the wicked, under the smother of a forced silence—itself a torment and an agony; yea, neither of the two would mention the name of Jenny Dodds for the entire world. And there was more than a mutual fear that one should know what the other thought. Each was under a process of exculpation and inculpation—a mutual ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I might,—but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... What is't that ails young Harry Gill? That evermore his teeth they chatter, Chatter, chatter, chatter still. Of waistcoats Harry has no lack, Good duffle grey, and flannel fine; He has a blanket on his back, And coats enough to smother nine. ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... knew, after a brief silence between them, was that he heard a sob, and no attempt to smother it either. In less than a second he was beside her and had both her hands in his. He ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... him like a rat, the men above us yelling, "Look out! look out!" Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the ship—just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that they found us, jammed together behind the forebits. It's clear that I meant business, because I was holding him by the throat still when they picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them. It seems ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... that doth dwell For ever with the thirsty fiends of hell — Dark brood of that dread mother, The seven-necked snake, whose poisoned breath doth smother The fourth celestial sphere; In fine, its horror and its misery drear Within me reach so far, That I myself upon myself make war, When in the arms of sleep A living corse am I, for it doth keep Such mastery o'er my life, that, as I dream, ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... ambition, "audax juventa," is the constancy of resolve. He not only nourished through manhood the dream of youth, keeping under the importunate instincts which carry off most ambitions in middle life into the pursuit of place, profit, honour—the thorns which spring up and smother the wheat—but carried out his dream in its integrity in old age. He formed himself for this achievement, and for no other. Study at home, travel abroad, the arena of political controversy, the public service, the practice of the domestic virtues, were ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work-work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... had he could not have left the castle! What might not a man in the mental and moral condition of the earl, unrestrained by law or conscience, risk to secure the property for his son? Might he not poison her, smother her, kill her somehow, anyhow that was safest? Then rushed into his mind what the housekeeper had told him of his cruelty to his wife: a man like that, no longer feeling, however knowing the difference between right and wrong, hardly knowing ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... colored people of the entire country. The word "Afro-American" grew out of a freak at Chicago, and is only generally used by the "Age" and a few others; and as far as its application is concerned, it can never be acceptable, and will die a natural death, without even a struggle to smother. I am sure that this will elicit a storm of ridicule; but be this as it may, the word "Afro" and the word "Negro" can never be forced upon an American, regardless of his color, without his consent, and I stand ready to maintain my position in the premises based upon sound ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... to say that I have a cat-like tread; I know not how that may be; at any rate the carpet I was walking upon was thick enough to smother a heavier footfall: not until I was quite close to her did my hostess become aware of my presence. Then she started violently and looked over her shoulder at me with dilating eyes. Evidently a nervous creature, I saw the pulse in her throat, strained ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Swede is all solid maple from the neck up? Nelse's buttermilk blue eyes flickers with almost human intelligence. Some of the men smother a snicker. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... transformed, and, as we might say, degraded, is still poetical. There is so much poetry in the thought that the flattening of the phraseology cannot smother it, the lines still remaining poetically alive, their poetry shining through the plainer and less figurative words. And the thought is poetical because it is the result of a flight of intellect made by aid of imagination's wings, these being moved by the soaring demands of the beautiful, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... arose a great doubt, For Bruin and Johnson had both just found out What neither had thought of until 'twas too late, That each was exposed to a merciless fate At the hands, or the teeth, or the claws of the other, At which neither could his astonishment smother, And neither knew what it was safest to do; 'Twas hard to hold on, but 'twas worse ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. To the dead all places are alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. Let us therefore forget the past,—let us keep open the door of reconciliation,—smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler. We have our lives; we have been spared; the merciless blood-hounds have not yet reached us. Let us therefore be humble and thankful, and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... smother one's self in satin and velvet for balls and dinners,' said Lady Kirkbank, when she discussed the great question of gowns; 'but I know I always look my best in my cotton frock ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... rapid reading and equally rapid written estimate of new publications—would have been deadly, save for a love of books, so deep and enduring that it has turned drudgery into pastime and an enthusiasm for discovering good things in every new book which no amount of literary trash was ever able to smother. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... period of three weeks only. Never, perhaps, in history has a monopoly been so rigidly and relentlessly enforced—a monopoly which not only rested upon the nation at home, but which made bold incursions into the sovereignty of foreign states in order to smother their independent trade, or, as in Norway, utterly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... smother me, you know. Really, you know you almost hurt me with your mouth. Aren't you going to be nice ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... behind this Hanging—there's a Chimney which may shelter ye till the Storm be over,—if you be not smother'd before. [Puts him behind ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... out, "You just stop, this minute, Kathie!" and then, when she kept right on, he threw the old sofa pillow at her, and told her to go smother herself; Nora said, "Horrid child!" in her most disgusted tone, and Nannie and Betty coaxed and coaxed, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... congratulating himself that after all he would reach home before it became too dark to see. Then suddenly a big sea broke over his stern, and left the skiff half filled with water. This was serious. He could not relinquish the oars to bail out the water. Another such deluge would smother him. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... first story, that he suspected the two boys to be engaged in some nefarious trick, and he had watched them from the time they borrowed the wheelwright's punt. He went on to describe how he had offended them by keeping his eye upon their movements, and told how they had tried to smother him by leading him into a dangerous morass, while just at dusk, as he was watching their boat, he saw them start towards him, and evidently believing that they were unseen from where they had tied their punt, they had deliberately taken aim at ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... "You came to us in war, once, long ago. Now you want peace. What would you do, clasp us to your bosom, smother us in your idiotic music? Or have you ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... she wheeled with flaming face toward the chair. "I have been willing," she said, "to smother my life in an effort to meet your ideas, though I knew them to be little ideas. Now I see that in yielding everything one can no more please you than in yielding nothing. If he goes, I go, too. You may ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... is told, it is, to the one to whom it is told, another given fact, not an idea. The communication may stimulate the other person to realize the question for himself and to think out a like idea, or it may smother his intellectual interest and suppress his dawning effort at thought. But what he directly gets cannot be an idea. Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does he think. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... wonder what they're doin' home ternight?" Says Jim— An' some of us felt, well—as if we'd like Ter smother him! An' some of us tried hard-like not ter choke, Th' smoke Was pretty thick an' black! A-thinkin' back, Across th' ocean I could sort of see A little house that means just all ter me And, though nobody said a word I knew Their thoughts was goin' on th' ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... time, utterly refused to raise another, and devoured all the eggs which were given to them for that purpose! This colony was afterwards supplied with an unimpregnated queen, but they refused to accept of her, and attempted at once to smother her to death. I then gave them a fertile queen, but she met with no better treatment. Facts of a similar kind have been noticed, by other observers: thus it seems that bees may not only become reconciled, as it were, to living without a ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... Enoch, and Sam-three well-dressed mulattoes-their hair frizzed and their white aprons looking so bright, meet us at the veranda, and bow us back into the parlour, as we bear our willing testimony of the prospects of the crop. With scraping of feet, grins, and bows, they welcome us back, smother us with compliments, and seem overwilling to lavish their kindness. From the parlour they bow us into a long room in the right wing, its walls being plain boarded, and well ventilated with open seams. A table is spread with substantial edibles,-such as ham, bacon, mutton, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and dreamy stood the city, Wide and dazzling shone the sea, When the gods set hand to smother Ys, the ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... "Smother him!" laughed D'Arcy; "we shall have the rabble here in a minute. Be quiet, my dear fellow; I warrant D'Artagnan is ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... fieri, when that means dying by your own hand. There the unnaturalness comes in and the irrationality. A mother, watching the death agony of her son, may piously wish it over: but it were an unmotherly act to lay her own hand on his mouth and smother him. To lay violent hands on oneself is abidingly cruel and unnatural, more so than if the suicide's own ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... was literally "without a single real," was forced at last to smother his pride in the matter of the tenth penny. On the 24th June, he summoned the estates of Holland to assemble on the 15th of the ensuing month. In the missive issued for this purpose, he formally agreed to abolish the whole tax, on condition that the estates-general ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be the prince!" Mrs. Orton Beg responded, raising her slender white hand to smother a yawn. "And it must be good-night, too—or rather, good-morning! Just look at the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... there is any exceptional condition of moisture in the air, the picture may suffer. Or if from any cause unusual gases are in the atmosphere, or if the picture be too long in a dark, close place, the picture may smother for lack of fresh air, just as any other thing, plant or animal, which depends on normal conditions ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... difficult in the long run. You must have some hard and durable rock on which to found understanding and security. The soft, crumbling people may be lovable; but they are useless as sand at a crisis. They are always slipping away and threatening to smother their best ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... In the midst of this, while the lady's mind was racked by love, pity, and disappointment, the young physician pressed for a further contemplation of his suit, and met with a repulse; which, though kind, and expressive of gratitude, was such as to smother any hope that he might have entertained of the possession of her devotion. To her father, this decision was the annihilation of a long cherished expectancy; but respecting his child's feelings, and being convinced she must have been actuated by some strong motives in her refusal, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... you know whose cap it is, it ought to be easy for you to find the owner," she said, unable to smother the sneer ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... appeal again to my honorable friend, the Chairman of the Committee. He has made the land ring with his cry of universal suffrage and universal amnesty. Suffrage and amnesty to whom? To those who sought to smother the government in the blood of its noblest citizens, to those who ruined the happy homes and broke the faithful hearts of which I spoke. Sir, I am not condemning his cry. I am not opposing his policy. I have no more thirst ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... joy so soon should waste! Or so sweet a bliss As a kiss Might not for ever last! So sugar'd, so melting, so soft, so delicious, The dew that lies on roses, When the morn herself discloses, Is not so precious. O rather than I would it smother, Were I to taste such another; It should be my wishing That I ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... ball, this time striking him in the face, and passing out, just missing the jugular vein. Falling, he lay unconscious with his face in his cap, into which poured the blood from his wound until it threatened to smother him. It might have done so but for still another ball, which pierced the cap ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... up the fight ended. It had been bitter but short. Frank was astride Higginbotham and pressing his opponent's face into the sand to smother his outcries. Bob had wrapped his arms and legs about the city ruffian and the latter, whose curses had split the air, lay face uppermost, his features showing contorted in the moonlight. Bob knelt upon him. As Jack ran up, he ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... without a break, sweeping the dying note of the last word into the rising pitch of the first one. In the midst of their singing, they thought a fiercer gust than ever was beating on the door, and, to smother the fear of it, they sang yet louder. The gust came a second ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... piety! what mournful grace, For a lost parent, sits on Chudleigh's face Fair virgin, weep no more, your anguish smother! You in this town ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... defeated without an open outbreak since the second term of President Diaz commenced. The success of the church party would simply throw Mexico back half a century in her march of improvement towards a higher state of civilization. It would check all educational progress, all commercial advance, and smother ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... my sons as brides took unto them the tameless Hesperides. Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed, With red flame shod, Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursed The name of God. Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentance Hell's fume yet smother, Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence; ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... trees thinned a bit and for a good space ahead there was a clearing where the night was not so dark and the road not so lumpy. She hurried to get out of the smother of trees. When once she crossed that open space all would be well, she told herself, for then the village lights would wink at her and the sidewalks begin. As soon as she could see her own lighted windows and set foot on a cement walk she ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... who gave him an imploring look, and, drawing a deep breath, he felt ready to diplomatise, give up self, and smother his indignation for the ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... of grey in it, the teeth which held the pipe glinted white and strong. His face was young; so much younger than hers. Why did she love it—the face of a man who couldn't love her? For a second she felt as if she could seize the cushion which had slipped down off the couch, and smother him as he lay there, refusing, so it seemed to her, to come to consciousness. Love despised! Humiliation! She nearly turned and stole away. Then through the door, left open, behind her, the sound of that chorus: "Vive-la, vive-la, vive-la ve!" came in and jolted her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... over here, and when that damned Scarlet Pimpernel League has been at work, when a score or so of valuable prizes have been snatched from under the very knife of the guillotine, then, there is much gnashing of teeth and useless cursings, but nothing serious or definite is done to smother those accursed English flies which come buzzing ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Tells you it is a shame for such wild youth To smother any impiety, With shew to chastise loose adultery, Say Rosamond was Henry's concubine. Had never king a concubine but he? Did Rosamond begin the fires in France? Made she the northern borders reek with flames? Unpeopled she the towns of Picardy? Left she the wives of England husbandless? O, no. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... you off, Dan Hicks, will you leave that steamer alone? You've had your chance and failed to smother it. Now let me ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... of looking back, but go on steadily, holding in mind the teaching that has been given thee. Be sure to enter every day anew into the garden of thy soul with the light of faith to pull up every thorn that might smother the seed of the teaching given thee, and to turn over the earth; that is, every day do thou divest thy heart. It is necessary to divest it over and over; for many a time I have seen people who seemed to ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... despair, and moaning out that he didn't love Verena, he never had loved her, it was only his hatred of their cause that made him pretend it; he wanted to do that an injury, to do it the worst he could think of. He didn't love her, he hated her, he only wanted to smother her, to crush her, to kill her—as she would infallibly see that he would if she listened to him. It was because he knew that her voice had magic in it, and from the moment he caught its first note he had determined to destroy it. It was not tenderness that moved him—it was devilish malignity; ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... many marigolds and cornflowers and poppies. But I've seen only one white lilac—you. White lilac is the fresh young Spring. And yet it is a woman grown. White lilac is sweet and tender and gracious. White lilac is so faint in perfume that any other scented flower would smother it, and yet its fragrance lives in my memory beyond any other. White lilac ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... grace, the grace we receive, to shine. We love to see things that bear a good gloss; yea, we choose to buy such kind of matter to work upon, as will, if wrought up to what we intend, cast that lustre that we desire. Candles that burn not bright, we like not; wood that is green will rather smother, and sputter, and smoke, and crack, and flounce, than cast a brave light and a pleasant heat; wherefore great folks care not much, not so much, for such kind of things, as for them that will better answer ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said the Doctor was not on the market for nothing. He is not the man for a portionless beauty. Hath he wrote of this? for all the tongues are wagging, and the lady in such a blaze with the tender passion that she can't by any means smother it." ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to the man who such doings would smother!— On, Luther of Bavan! On, Saint of Kilgroggy! With whip in one hand and with Bible in t'other, Like Mungo's tormentor, both ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... noa tears are runnin, Shoo's been shov'd aside befoor; Used to scoffs, an sneers, an shunnin— Shoo expects it, 'coss shoo's poor; Schooil'd for years her grief to smother, Still shoo's ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... to the other, And doth the ban-dogge with the Martins skinne; And then the wombe of Phillip did vncouer, Eight hundred Souldiers, which the fight beginne: These board Sir Richard, and with thronging smother The daye, the ayre, the time, and neuer linne, But by their entrance did instruct eight more, To doe the like, on each ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... Cow. But those that smother griefe too secretly, May wast themselves in silent anguishment, And bring their bodies to so low an ebb, That all the world can never make it flowe, Unto the happy hight of former health. Then be not [so] iniurious to thy selfe, To wast thy strength in lamentation, But tell thy ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... but far short of the reality. Cowardly and cruel men, why did you stop in your frenzy of murder? It would have been better to drink that last drop of royal blood, than to mingle it with gall and venom and poison; it would have been better to smother the child, as was done by the emissaries of Richard III. in the Tower of London, than to degrade and sully his intellect by that slow method of assassination which killed the mind before it slew the body. He should have ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... remark that the manifold excellencies and diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no "old masters" to copy from—no "schools" which supplied their imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius—had they not been bound to ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... distance, Rolling out his mimic thunder in the sultry noons; Hear beyond the silver reach in ringing wild persistence Reel remote the ululating laughter of the loons; See the shy moose fawn nestling by its mother, In a cool marsh pool where the sedges meet; Rest by a moss-mound where the twin-flowers smother With a drowse of orient perfume drenched ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... doubtful right to be in reality—studied. Have you ever seen a speaker use such grotesque gesticulations that you were fascinated by their frenzy of oddity, but could not follow his thought? Do not smother ideas with gymnastics. Savonarola would rush down from the high pulpit among the congregation in the duomo at Florence and carry the fire of conviction to his hearers; Billy Sunday slides to base on the platform carpet in dramatizing one of his baseball illustrations. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... any facts upon which to base his opinion as to the Attorney-General's having neglected his duty. That that official had much to answer for; that his practice had been one-sided and inconsistent; that much of his life had been spent in endeavouring to smother public opinion and to maintain the supremacy of a selfish and corrupt caste—this must be conceded at the bar of history. But no such allegations were before Judge Willis in an official form, and he had no right to assume anything ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... with his crew and his prisoner, that during the whole voyage he had been in dread of two things: either that the general would prefer death to this sort of imprisonment, and would smother himself by endeavoring to speak, or that his guards would allow themselves to be tempted by the offers of the prisoner, and put him, D'Artagnan, into ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... awhile, only to break it with gayer laughter, elate with life while half the world was stretched in white repose. At length they paused to rest in the lee of a cottage that seemed more like a hulk drawn up on shore than any house, but matted from ground to chimney in a smother of woodbine. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... never without white gloves and morning, noon and night paraded about in the duckiest little skull-cap cocked very much to one side like a Grenadier's!" And Dinky-Dunk told me to go to sleep or he'd smother me with a horse-blanket. So I squirmed back into my blanket and got "nested" and watched the fire die away while far, far off somewhere a coyote howled. That made me lonesome, so I got Dinky-Dunk's hand, and fell asleep holding it ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... hearts.... I ought to be satisfied. But I've been dogged, this last day or two, by a longing to be scudding in a single-sticker off Orienta Point again or to motor-cruise once more along the Sound in a smother of spray. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... things—I have scorned all restraint, all laws except those of my desires, and so, perhaps, I am a vandal. Make sure of this, however—I shall not injure you. Christ is no more sacred to me than you, my heart's treasure. You accuse me of indelicacy because I lack the strength to smother my admiration. I adore you; my being dissolves, my veins are afire with longing for you; I am mad with the knowledge that you are mine. Mad? Caramba! I am insane; my mind totters; I grope my way ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Douglas, use a sort of bastard logic, or noisy assumption it might better be termed, like the above, in order to prepare the mind for the gradual, but none the less certain, encroachments of the Moloch of slavery upon the fair domain of freedom. But however much you may argue upon it, or smother it in soft phrase, slavery can only be maintained by force—by violence. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was by violence. It was a violation of both law and the sacred obligations of honor, to overthrow and trample under foot a solemn compromise, obtained ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the hill. He could not see the bottom, for it was filled with mist, but the height of the rock wall hinted at its depth. A transverse ravine ran into the chasm, and he could hear the roar of a waterfall. Then the mist rolled up in a white smother and ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... who the next moment passed from the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature to the grotesque; for he covered his lips with one hand to smother a laugh, and pointed with the other to a huge square patch of drugget laboriously stitched upon the back of the solid-looking trousers to strengthen them for sitting upon the thwart of a boat, a rock, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... and endeavor to raise water until both injectors would put enough water into the boiler to make it entirely safe to close the throttle. If unable to raise the water level to the lower gauge cock would smother the fire or put it out entirely, if necessary, keeping both ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... Mary managed to smother her emotions on the subject of the brandy, and the old woman chattered on, throwing out the news of the village in a series of humorous fragments, tinged in general with the lowest ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... constructed a sea anchor, by means of which he hoped to prolong their struggle for at least a few hours. It was hardly got overboard, however, before a giant surge snapped its cable and hurled the little craft helplessly towards the crash and smother with which the furious seas warred ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... heart before you to-day. I speak but seldom, because as often as I want to speak the remembrance of my younger years seems to rise before me and smother my voice; therefore it is the voice least heard of all the voices in the family. I left off speaking or advising, and looked only after my business and my family. But I must speak now. Why trouble so much about Meir? Give him his ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... expression never changing. Mary Louise wondered if he could read her suspicion and dislike of him, despite her efforts to smother those feelings in the cause of Liberty. Then Herring looked at Professor Dyer, who stood meekly, with downcast eyes. Next the grocer gazed at the supervisor, who smiled in a shrewd way and gave ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... came a shower of blazing stones, which fell uninterruptedly, setting fire to all parts of the city and blocking up the streets with burning masses. And then a fresh storm of ashes sweeping down would partly smother the flames, but, blocking up the doorways, would stifle those within the houses. And to add to the horror, the volumes of smoke that poured from the mountain caused a darkness deeper than night to settle on the doomed city, through which the people groped their ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... heart—the thing that is fighting for air—the thing you won't own—the thing that drove you to Grange for protection—will never die. That is why you are miserable. You may do what you will to it, hide it, smother it, trample it. But it will survive for all that. All your life it will be there. You will never forget it though you will try to persuade yourself that it belongs to a dead past. All your life,"—his voice vibrated suddenly, and the ever-shifting eyes blazed into leaping ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... spring, but many another spring must pass before the ambitious ivy climbs to smother the gray granite walls, before the stripling trees grow stately, before the lawn is sturdy enough to withstand the crab grass and the students. Anecdote and apocrypha have yet to evolve into hallowed ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith |
