"Stifled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drawn with wasting misery, his eyes one mute appeal, his hands bound over the large cross on his breast. He died proclaiming aloud the innocence of his order, and listened to with pity and indignation by the people. His last cry, ere the flames stifled his voice, was an awful summons to Pope Clement to meet him before the tribunal of Heaven within forty days; to King Philippe to appear there in a ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... calculation he tossed the book into the open bag on the further side of the room, rose, and stretched himself. Deering stifled an impulse to scoff at his silk pajamas as hardly an appropriate sleeping garb for one who professed to have taken vows of poverty. ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... did on ground that was none of the best, has, on the whole, done as much harm as good to the human race. It has stifled everything by its dry and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... not be strengthened to pause, to turn, to steady themselves, but will rather be lured on by his words. It is no purpose of his to make the crusts of Materialism harden still more hopelessly above the stifled soul. He designs to ridicule only that which is ridiculous. There are evidences of a purpose to relieve the darkness of his coloring in each instance by lines of light, but it is not made palpable enough for running readers. He has seen the weakness that generally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... dimly lighted corridor, and again her uplifted hand seemed to invite him to follow. Then—the impetuous throbbing of his heart almost stifled him—she set her little white foot on the first step of the stairs and led the way up to the first landing, where she paused, lifting her face to the open window, through which the moonbeams streamed into the hall, flooding her head, her figure, and every surrounding ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the muttered curse of dying men, On me the stain of conquered women, and Consuming me the fearful fires of lust, Lit long ago, by other hands than mine. In me the down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers Of wretches now long dead,—their dire bequests.— In me the echo of the stifled cry Of children for their bartered mothers' breasts. I claim no race, no race claims me; I am No more than human dregs; degenerate; The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; I am—just what I am.... The race that fed Your ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... needle could stitch him out of any difficulty. She it was who made the sails to his boats, and marvelous skate bags. She embroidered the most intricate of straps for his school- books, and once she horrified him completely by working in red cotton, large "J's" on two handkerchiefs. He stifled the horror when he saw her delight in presenting the gift, and afterwards was careful to remember to carry a handkerchief occasionally when on ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... bird's nest. The young mocking-bird was procured for him, but at the expense of a violated conscience; for a voice within me spoke loudly against the act of cruelty about to be practised upon the mother-bird and her young. But I stifled that inward monitor, and stilled the voice that urged me to depart not from the path of innocence. I saw that the act was a cruel one, and felt that it was a cruel one—but to be asked to do even a wrong act by a man to whom I looked ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... of life. In their huge hotels all the bell ropes of each house ring on one bell only; but a patent indicator discloses a number, and the whereabouts of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and cupboard, and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers; though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that, when once ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... deceit, and other arts of which she was mistress, attained through less boisterous methods the same general end. Measures were thrust upon the chambers accompanied by peremptory demand for their enactment; objectionable projects originated by private members were stifled; and the fundamental parliamentary privileges of free speech, freedom from arrest, and access to the sovereign were arbitrarily suspended ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... waiter himself—a small, undersized person with black, startled eyes set at that moment in a fixed and unnatural stare—made one desperate effort to save himself and then fell backwards. Every one turned around, attracted by the noise of the falling cups and the sharp, half-stifled groan which broke from the man's lips. Captain ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and again she entreated me to go and leave her. At last I persuaded her to try and bear the agony of being carried in my arms the rest of the way. I raised her as gently as I could, wrung to the heart by her gallantly stifled groan, and slowly and painfully I made my way, thus burdened, to the edge of the wood. There were no sentries in sight, and with a new spasm of hope I crossed the open land and neared the little wicket gate ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... after him, and sauntered down the marketplace. Here he met some of his friends, who rallied him on his melancholy appearance, and offered to treat him to a glass in the nearest public-house. And there Augustus Joyce banished all thoughts of his wife, and stifled the loud, accusing voice of his conscience. When he returned to the theatre for dinner, he appeared as hard and selfish as ever, and never even asked how his wife was before he sat down to eat. Perhaps he dreaded to hear ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... a ride to-morrow morning, Lady Cranston?" he asked, with a wistfulness which seemed somehow stifled in his rather unpleasant ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... passionate movement, clutched the glass tightly, shook as with the passing of a spasm, and then dropped her head. Presently she raised it to greet Lassiter with something like a smile. "My righteous brethren are at work again," she said, in scorn. She had stifled the leap of her wrath, but for perhaps the first time in her life a bitter derision curled her lips. Lassiter's cool gray eyes seemed to pierce her. "I said I was prepared for anything; but that was hardly true. But why would they—anybody ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... pointed to him an open piano. He should have remembered that in counting without the host, it is necessary to count twice. Chopin at first refused, but wearied at last by continued persecution, assuming, to sharpen the sting of his words, a stifled and languid tone of voice, he exclaimed: "Ah, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... voice still spoke in her ears; and so rapt was the ecstasy in which she moved that it was with a positive shock that she found herself presently before the little area which led into the brick kitchen in the basement of the Hall. Here from the darkness her name was spoken in a stifled voice, while a hand reached out and clutched ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... warhorse—who seemed to scent battle in the air, and stood perfectly still, quivering with excitement—unslung his handgun from his shoulder, and levelled it at the leader of the band. The next instant a sharp report rang through the silent forest. The robber chief flung up his hands with a stifled cry and sank down upon the ground; whilst the other men, astonished beyond measure at this sudden attack from they knew not what quarter, ceased to heed their prisoner, and turned round with loud execrations, laying ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... grapes. He saw, perhaps, the Spanish soldiers, poisoned alike by the sour fruit and by the blazing sun, falling in hundreds along the white roads which led back into Savoy, murdered by the peasantry whose homesteads had been destroyed, stifled by the weight of their own armour, or desperately putting themselves, with their own hands, out of a world which had become intolerable. Half the army perished. Two thousand corpses lay festering ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... lower berth but the fat man before mentioned! He lay on his back with his knees up, his face very red, his eyes tightly closed. Again there issued from his lips the stifled ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... Gone who so swift as he? Add but a year, 'tis half a century Since the slave's stifled moaning broke my sleep, Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion deep, Haply heard louder for the silence there, And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. After that moan had sharpened to a cry, And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky 150 With its stored vengeance, and such thunders ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to suffer in every way. Meanwhile, the more we force the soul on these occasions, the greater the mischief, and the longer it lasts. Some discretion must be used, in order to ascertain whether ill-health be the occasion or not. The poor soul must not be stifled. Let those who thus suffer understand that they are ill; a change should be made in the hour of prayer, and oftentimes that change should be continued for some days. Let souls pass out of this desert as they can, for it is very often the misery of one that loves ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... You know Edith is Hugh's cousin, an only child, and her father is immensely rich! Oh, no; if I ever have a romance of my own, it must spring right up spontaneously, and grow in spite of all opposition. Not one of the sort that has been fostered in a hot-house until its life is nearly stifled out ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... but a torn local journal of five days ago. So I buried myself, betimes, in a huge heap of ancient feathers (there is no other kind of bed in these old inns), let my head sink into an unsubstantial pillow, and slept a stifled sleep, compounded of the night-troubles of all my predecessors in that same unrestful couch. And when I awoke, the odour of a bygone century was in my nostrils—a faint, elusive smell, of which I never had any conception before ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... accepted the obligations of Article VIII under the International Monetary Fund (IMF), providing for full currency convertibility. However, strict currency controls and tightening of borders have lessened the effects of convertibility and have also led to some shortages that have further stifled economic activity. ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... sweating face appeared behind the bars and a half-stifled voice demanded why there was any delay about fetching quick-lime. And, still clinging to the bars with bloody fingers, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the Thames once," she said, by and by. "It was so lovely. Some day, when all these persecutions are over, we are going to have a beautiful tour, and see all sorts of places. But I don't know when they will be over. As soon as one bigot—" she broke off suddenly, with a stifled exclamation ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... than that which is conveyed in a military order with the requisite force behind it, the Southern communities would never have accepted or submitted to the conditions thus imposed. But the sympathy which their condition under other circumstances might have evoked in the North, was stifled by the pertinent consideration that they had refused other forms of Reconstruction, and had wilfully drawn upon themselves all that was unwelcome in the one now about to be enforced. It was to be noted moreover that the feature which was most unwelcome —impartial suffrage—was the one especially ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that he had seen. For to his shallow, conventional nature Susan's expression could only mean delight in wealth, in the opportunity that now offered to idle and to luxuriate in the dead man's money, to realize the crude dreamings of those lesser minds whose initial impulses toward growth have been stifled by the routine our social system imposes upon all but the few with ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... expedition, as I advanced towards the Bridge of St. Esprit (which was equally the road to Saint-Andiol and to Chambery) I began to reflect on Madam de Warrens, the remembrance of whose letters, though less frequent than those from Madam de Larnage, awakened in my heart a remorse that passion had stifled in the first part of my journey, but which became so lively on my return, that, setting just estimate on the love of pleasure, I found myself in such a situation of mind that I could listen wholly ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... out at last the troubled dream of life. Sighs of unavailing grief ascend to Heaven. Panegyric, fluent in long-stifled praise, performs its office. The army and the navy pay conventional honors, with the pomp of national woe, and then the hearse moves onward. It rests appropriately, on its way, in the hall where independence was proclaimed, and again under the dome where freedom was born. At length the ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... seemed to pervade the church, the noise of a crowd in a state of frenzy, a tempest of sobs and stifled cries. It passed through them like gusts of wind which bow the trees in a forest, and the priest, paralyzed by emotion, stammered out incoherent prayers, without finding words, prayers of the soul, when ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... require a larger food allowance than when they were civilians. To meet the demand for meat and to save their grains, our Allies have been compelled to kill upward of thirty-three million head of their stock animals, and they have thus stifled their animal production. This was burning the candle at both ends, and they now face increased demand handicapped ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... their hands, they drank each a draught from the lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an earthly lip. Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic, who uttered not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own most wretched heart, they began to descend the mountain. Yet, as they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the spirit's lake, they threw a farewell glance towards the cliff, and beheld the vapors gathering ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tired your lordship. I shall only add one circumstance, that on his death-bed he declared himself a Nonconformist, and had a fanatic preacher to be his spiritual guide. After half an hour's conversation I took my leave, being half stifled by the closeness of the room. I imagined he could not hold out long, and therefore withdrew to a little coffee-house hard by, leaving a servant at the house with orders to come immediately and tell me, as nearly as he could, the minute when Partridge ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... constable of Scotland, gave her some advantage for winning a favorable audience; and throwing her aegis over me, she extended that benefit to myself. Road was now made perforce for me also; my replies were no longer stifled in noise and laughter. Personalities were banished; literature was extensively discussed; and that is a subject which, offering little room to argument, offers the widest to eloquent display. I had immense reading; vast command of words, which somewhat ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... stifled a yawn. "I have never seen so much at one breath, my friend. And having seen, you feel now ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sweet sister and Phormio!" The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night. Groups of young men wandered past, bound homeward ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... right of her buoyant figure and buoyant youth, she crossed the room with swift, silent footsteps, and gathered into her hands the roll of papers upon the table. As softly as she had come she went. The deep sobbing breaths of the two men, the half-stifled cries with which Vine was seeking for outside help, effectually deadened the faint swish of her skirts and the tremor of her footsteps upon ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into the faces of the assailants led by Sayed Ayoub. Instantly, however, his arms were pinioned from behind by the reenforcements, and as he frantically struggled to turn his face, in an effort to see the girl, some thick fabric fell over his head, covering mouth and eyes, and he went down stifled and garroted ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... deck was still going on, the yells of the savages rising above the stifled groans and cries of our unfortunate shipmates. They soon ceased, and then arose a shout of triumph from our enemies, and we knew that we were the only survivors. But we too were in a desperate plight. Tom was severely wounded, and the boatswain ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... to her heart and stifled her sobs in it, while Abner exclaimed: "I swan to man, if that hain't a flag! Well, in that case you're good n' welcome to it! Land! I seen that bundle lyin' in the middle o' the road and I says to myself, that's somebody's washin' and I'd better pick it up and ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gone the woman said in a stifled voice: "No, I will not dance. Take me somewhere—there is a ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... husband—and he was dead! That was why you found me laughing. But not in mirth. I am not so bad as that; but because I could breathe again without feeling a clutch about my throat. I did not know till then how nearly I had been stifled. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... fairy, sure of her power, or a simple and unconscious woman, playing without knowing it, with a great, devouring fire?—It was all finished; the parting had been accomplished; the farewell accepted; the struggle stifled under white wadding,—and now the two who adored each other are walking side by side, outside, in the tepid night of spring!—in the amorous, enveloping night, under the cover of the new leaves and on the tall grass, among all the saps that ascend in the midst of the sovereign growth ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... erected to his memory, close by the old senate, now used as the Bank of Ireland, and near the poet's Alma Mater, Trinity College. The statue is a failure, private partiality and clique interest having stifled public competition and robbed the great sculptors, and the poet, of the reward of genius, the city of Dublin of an ornament of which it might have been proud, and his country of the opportunity of paying a suitable tribute of respect to one of the most gifted of her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... personal liberty in accord with the awakening consciousness of this new era. This is the clear leading of God, the moving principle of the present age, the whole human race's just claim. It is something that cannot be stamped out, or stifled, or gagged, or suppressed ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... older and I got on extraordinarily well. When the gentlemen descended at their station he waxed almost familiar. I was in excellent spirits; rather drunk; extremely tired. Now that the two guardians and myself were alone in the compartment, the curiosity which had hitherto been stifled by etiquette and pride of capture came rapidly to light. Why was I here, anyway? I seemed well enough to them.—Because my friend had written some letters, I told them.—But I had done nothing myself?—I explained that we used to be together all the time, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... enable himself to live according to his rank and old aristocratic name. Baron Weingarten would have made any sacrifice, submitted to any service, to obtain wealth. Poverty had demoralized him, pride had laid a mildew on his heart and stifled all noble aspirations. As he read a letter, just received from his mother, complaining of wants and privations, telling of the attachment of a young officer to his sister, and that poverty alone prevented their ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with aliment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth. For example, a woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and accomplished will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the heads and ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... Simon uttered a stifled exclamation. And then for a moment there was silence in the room, while the lad breathed hard and irregularly, and I stood rooted to the spot, looking so long and so strangely at the priest that Father Antoine laid his hand ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... therein confined. It was as if I inhaled the coarse friction, the low aspiration, the feverishness, the selfishness, the dishonour, that the getting of gain, when it became the purpose of life, involved. I experienced a sense of being stifled, and breathed with difficulty; much as those live men would have done, if the gas-pipes ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... in the next moment, the bell having been found, a furious peal of ringing. Oh coward heart! not for a lease of immortality could I have gone forwards myself. My breath failed me; an interval came in which respiration seemed to be stifled—the blood to halt in its current; and then and there I recognised in myself the force and living truth of that Scriptural description of a heart consciously beset by evil without escape: 'Susannah sighed.' Yes, a long long sigh—a deep deep sigh—that is the natural ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... wall from under the window. The two Lugarenos had stolen in unnoticed by me. There was a stifled metallic ringing, as of a guitar carried ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... over safely, but I, following a yard or two to his right, of a sudden felt the hard crust yield beneath me. An ill-judged but quite natural flounder and wriggle, such as a newly-landed flat-fish gives upon the sand, completed the mischief, and with one piercing but swiftly stifled yell, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... grandest professions assumed as an excuse for the most vulgar villainy, ambition glozed over by degrading humility, and sensuality all the more disgusting from the saintly robes in which it was paraded and but half concealed. My faith, already enfeebled, died of rapid decline, stifled by these monstrous fooleries. Disenchanted, revolted, disgusted, I resigned my position, and abandoned the Pope and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... throughout the ranks of his company, with the single exception always of Climene. She had ceased to sneer at Scaramouche, having realized at last that her sneers left him untouched and recoiled upon herself. Thus her almost indefinable resentment of him was increased by being stifled, until, at all costs, an outlet for ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and trickled down her cheeks. She held Shenton's curly head against her face so that he could not see. She stifled ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... complications intervene, in the other world they assume their frank importance. I saw that much of what is called the serious business of life is simply and solely necessitated by bodily needs, and is really entirely temporary and trivial, while the real life of the soul, which underlies it all, stifled and subdued, pent-up uneasily and cramped unkindly like a bright spring of water under the superincumbent earth, finds its way at last to the light. On earth we awkwardly divide this impulse; we speak of the relation of the soul to others ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... another!" he exclaimed presently, in answer to her inquiry. "Nothing is more possible than that I may be poor and unheard of all my days; and in that case no one but myself will know the visions of greatness I have stifled and buried." ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... masterpieces of Europe, but insensitive to that which makes them masterpieces, will be utterly non-plussed by a novel manifestation of the mysterious "that." It is well that old masters should be respected; it were better that vital art should be welcome. Vital art is a necessity, and vital art is stifled by culture, which insists that artists shall respect the standards, or, to put it ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... impossible. He rose and paced the floor. Never till this moment had the full picture of his new life come close. He felt stifled. He put on a cap, and, descending the stairs, went out into the court-yard and walked about, the cool air refreshing him. Gradually there settled upon him a stoic acceptance of the conditions. But would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to run no further risk of losing the mysterious liquid the skeptical Don Juan replaced it in the drawer of the little Gothic table. At this solemn moment he heard a tumult in the corridor. There were confused voices, stifled laughter, light footsteps, the rustle of silk, in short, the noise of a merry troop trying to collect itself in some sort of order. The door opened and the prince, the seven women, the friends of Don Juan and the singers, appeared, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the day's fruitless exertion, they were contemplating a supper upon it, and not without some degree of pleasant anticipation: for nature under all circumstances will assert her rights, and the cravings of appetite are not to be stifled even by the most anguished suffering of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... this home rule he also offered self-government and freedom of law and religion, and the reconstitution of the old Polish territory by means of the annexation of Posen and Galicia. This move divided the Polish leaders and stifled the incipient revolution. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... except by signs; and as the whole arrangement of the society is regulated by mechanical pressure, you may happen to be pushed against those to whom you do not wish to speak, whether bores, slight acquaintances, or determined enemies. Confined by the crowd, stifled by the heat, dazzled by the light, all powers of intellect are obscured; wit loses its point, and sagacity its observation; indeed, the limbs are so crushed, and the tongue so parched, that, except particularly undressed ladies, all are in the case of the traveller, Mr. Clarke, when ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... lurch, a ham leaped to the floor, some plates crashed, and then the row of ports alongside us were darkened by the run of a wave. The Boy made an exclamation partly stifled, and looked at me quickly. I did not look at him, but went on with the food. He stopped eating, and remained with his gaze fixed on the ports, gripping his chair whenever they went dark. He said nothing about it, but he must have been thinking pretty hard. "I suppose ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... with joy. "Rightho, my good Highnesses," he exclaimed; and the three who understood why he was funny stifled laughter till he was out of earshot. "His English is a constant delight to us," said Marie, instantly picking up again her sleigh-bell gayety of manner, like a dropped, forgotten garment. "It's as wonderful as my English maid's ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to tell thee, when my heart Was ready with a sigh to cleave in two, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, with mighty anguish of my soul, Just at the birth, stifled this still-born sigh, And forced my face into ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... as he is, incomplete and doomed to never-ending childhood, he is nobler even so than he in whom knowledge has stifled sentiment. Do not place yourselves above him, you who consider yourselves endowed with the lawful and inalienable right to command him, for that terrible error proves that in you the mind has killed the heart and that you are the most incomplete and the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... government, are all religion. So are waking and sleeping. They are all divine ordinances; they are all divine service. All good work is worship. Singing foolish hymns, reading foolish lessons, preaching foolish sermons, offering foolish prayers, in unhealthy churches, half stifled with foul air, are not religion. Religion is the free and natural utterance of great, true thoughts, of good and generous feelings, of nature's own rich sentiments and inspirations. The flowery fields, the shadowy woods, the lofty mountains are nobler ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... unable to bear the repetition, and locked her hands more closely on her knee. Pixie glanced furtively through the window. Stanor had turned back to the tennis-ground and the three-handed game had been resumed. She stifled a pang of disappointment and sat quietly waiting for further confidences, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the brunt of the early questioning in the House of Commons. He sustained with equal imperturbability the assaults of the Tariff Reformers, who asserted that British toy-making—an "infant industry" if ever there was one—was being stifled by foreign imports: and those of the Free Traders, who objected to the Government's efforts to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... dusky and stifled chamber in which I spent wearily a considerable portion of more than four good years of my existence. At first, to be quite frank with the reader, I looked upon it as not altogether fit to be tenanted by the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stifled lie, Sobbing till life is gone; Some fathers bitter die In their remorse ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... regretful voice: "You durn tenderfoot! Here I've been waitin' for years to get a crack at that big four-flusher, an' here you come, a-fannin' along from your little old East an' get ahead of me!" He stifled a cackle of mirth. "An' so you're lookin' for action? Lordy! If you don't call what you done to Dunlavey an' Yuma action this country's goin' to set up an' take notice when you get to ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her life—a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was ere long well-nigh stifled. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... like his paintings,' returned Dick, in stifled tones; 'I never did; I never said I did,' he added, fiercely defending himself ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... without one failure, in making Monsieur de l'Estorade perfectly happy. With the same instinct, she had exaggerated the maternal sentiment to an almost inconceivable degree, until in that way she had fairly stifled all the other cravings of her nature. It must be said, however, that the success she had had in accomplishing this hard task was due in a great measure to the circumstance of Louise de Chaulieu. To her that dear mistaken one was like the drunken slave whom the Spartans made ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... colony had known. The dearth of news was most trying, and the fear of the English descent upon them racked the brave heart of the Commandant, who saw his dream of a great city vanishing. Jealousy had done some cruel work, and the misgovernment of the mother country stifled the best efforts. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... chance of the gale breaking, and none of the other ships of the fleet are in sight. That's about all I have to tell you, except that I told the captain that if he didn't get the hatches lifted a little we should be all stifled down here. He says if there's a bit of a lull he will ask them to give us a little fresh air, and in the mean time he says that any who are good sailors may go up on deck, but it will be at their own risk, for some of the seas go pretty ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... her that she heard some giant body threshing around near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The thing was so close, the thumping and threshing so real, that she started and sat up in bed, ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... nonsense—for a violent exercise like bicycling! Where one gets so hot! So unbecomingly hot! You'd be simply stifled, darling." I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words and which made Ettie recoil into the recesses ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... He shall die by my hand!" burst from Arvina's lips with a stifled cry, and drawing his sword as he ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... rush to the cradle; the cry from the window, and the knock at the door, and the spring of those on high towards the stair that leads to safety below, and the smoke rushing up like the surge of a hell! And they run back stifled and blinded, and the floor heaves beneath them like a bark on the sea. Hark! the grating wheels thundering low; near and nearer comes the engine. Fix the ladders,—there! there! at the window, where the mother stands with the babe! Splash and hiss comes the water; pales, then flares out, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and to live happily for the future, you must solemnly agree, that if one speaks an angry Word, the other will not answer, 'till he or she has distinctly called over all the Letters in the Alphabet, and the other not reply, 'till he has told twenty; by this Means your Passions will be stifled, and Reason will have Time to ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... for me, and I have come," said she. "But I prefer not to sit down in your presence; and what you have to say, you will be good enough to say as quickly as possible, that I may go again before I am—stifled!" ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... a minute since he was gazing at the star before he felt a hand pressed across his mouth, and with a horrible dread of being smothered, he uttered a hoarse, stifled cry, and struggled to get free; but another hand was pressed upon his chest, and it seemed as if ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... floors, tolling bells, skeletons, corpses, howling spectres—all are there; but the possessor, overwhelmed by the very profusion which surrounds him, is at a loss how to make use of them. He does not realise the true significance of a half-stifled groan or an unearthly yell heard in the darkness. Each new horror indeed seems but to put new life into the heart of the redoubtable Sir Egbert, who, like Spenser's gallant knights, advances from triumph to triumph vanquishing evil at every step. It is impossible to become absorbed ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... do what is right," she cried, her voice half stifled by the pillows. "You know, surely you know, how I love you, Commissioner Sahib, from morning till night and round till morning again, always and above all, ever since I can first remember. But this is different to anything that has ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... so thick with falling snow that he was well-nigh stifled. His eyes were blinded as though they were padded with cottonwool. The flakes brushed against his cheeks like live things. At his sixth step from the entrance he had lost his direction. His feet commenced to slide; against his will he went avalanching ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... alone. He felt stifled, and he opened the window. What glorious air breathed fragrance on his face and neck! It would be good to breathe such air lolling on the cushions of a carriage . . . . Out there, far beyond the town, among the villages and the summer villas, the air was sweeter still. . . . Bugrov actually ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... into the car after the man. Inside it was full of dust, and the thick tobacco smoke nearly stifled ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... that year, "I have hit upon nothing for a story. Again and again I have tried. But this odious little house" (he had at this time for a few weeks exchanged Gadshill for a friend's house near Kensington) "seems to have stifled and darkened my invention." It was not until the autumn of the following year he saw his way to a beginning. "The Christmas number has come round again" (30th of August 1863)—"it seems only yesterday that I did the last—but I am full of notions besides for the new ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... this mist of numbers (as appears) Belongs to one of these opacous sphears. Suppose this Earth; what then will all those Rounds Produce? No Atlas such a load upbears. In this huge endlesse heap o'rewhelmed, drownd, Choak'd, stifled, lo! I lie, ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... beautiful and restful to the young man, wearied and worn by the rush and whirl of the city, and stifled with the dust and smoke from factory and furnace. The low hills, clothed with foliage, richly stained by October's brush; the little valley lying warm in the sunlight, was a welcome change to the dead monotony ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... stand on the mantel-piece, with nothing in it. To Gyp, in this room of red and green, with the smell of mutton creeping in, that bowl was like the crystallized whiff of another world. Daphne Wing—not Daisy Wagge—had surely put it there! And, somehow, it touched her—emblem of stifled beauty, emblem of all that the girl had tried to pour out to her that August afternoon in her garden nearly a year ago. Thin Eastern china, good and really beautiful! A wonder they allowed it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that blooming face, Which she had fondly loved so long: And stifled was that tuneful breath, Which in her ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... any man to death," was the complaint of the Jewish priests to the Roman governor. Had Europe and Asia been covered with independent nations, each with a local religion represented in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle. If St. Paul had escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he would have been torn to pieces by the silversmiths at Ephesus. The appeal to Caesar's judgment-seat was the shield of his mission, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... word for word in the same sentence, rather than risk ambiguity by abbreviation. His genius showed itself in turning this method of a laborious lucidity into a peculiarly exasperating form of satire and controversy. Newman's strength was in a sort of stifled passion, a dangerous patience of polite logic and then: "Cowards! if I advanced a step you would run away: it is not you I fear. Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." If Newman seemed suddenly to fly into a temper, Carlyle seemed never to fly out of one. But Arnold kept a smile of heart-broken ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... and clutched at the table, while, though Hetty was very still, she fancied she heard a stifled gasp. The silence was even more disconcerting than the pounding of the axes or the crash of the firing. Flora Schuyler could see the shadowy figures about the window, and just distinguish some of them. The one standing close in front of it, as though disdainful of the risk he ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... to a thousand thoughts, stifled in the robe of the evening. From a closed window on the ground floor floated a strain of music. I caught the beauty of a sonata as I would catch distinct human words, and for a moment I listened to what the piano was ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... for all that, a danger, great as it was imminent,—the danger, not only of their being "smoored," but stifled, suffocated, buried fathoms deep under the sands of the Saaera, for fathoms deep will often be the drift ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... him also from real affection and gratitude. Indolence and timidity were the true root of what had for a time seemed like a positively bad disposition; beneath, there was a warm heart, and sense of right, which had been almost stifled for the time, in the desire, from moment to moment, to avoid present trouble or fear. Under Norman's care his better self had freer scope, he was guarded from immediate terror, and kept from the suggestions of the worse sort of boys, as ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... providentially married him, she had been secure from the insults of poverty; but her duty to her parent was more prevalent than considerations of convenience. After the death of her lover, she was barbarously used: His brother, stifled the will, which compelled her to have recourse to law; he smothered the old gentleman's conveyance deed, by which he was enabled to make a bequest, and offered a large sum of money to any person, who would undertake to blacken Corinna's ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the door, unbarred it, and looked out into the night, for the air within the room stifled me. It was not much better outside. The clouds had gathered again, and were now hanging thick and low. From the distance came a rumble of thunder, and the whole night was dull, heavy, and breathless. Hot anger possessed me: anger against Rolfe ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... existence has been to wither up and annihilate all whereon Majesty and Worship for the present rests: and is it so that the world recognises him? With Apotheosis; as its Prophet and Speaker, who has spoken wisely the thing it longed to say? Add only, that the body of this same rose-stifled, beatified-Patriarch cannot get buried except by stealth. It is wholly a notable business; and France, without doubt, is big (what the Germans call 'Of good Hope'): we shall wish her a happy ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Stifled enthusiasm swelled the veins in the coachman's forehead. Triumphant paeans of praise for the bull-terrier trembled upon his lips; but he stood rigid, correct, a martyr ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... announcement threw me. I flung myself upon him in so violent a rage that half my strength was exhausted by the effort. I had, however, more than enough left to drag him to the ground, and grasp him by the throat. I should infallibly have strangled him, if his fall, and the half-stifled cries which he had still the power to utter, had not attracted the governor and several of the priests to my room. They ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood, scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... proceeded to dress in my now thoroughly dry clothes. The swim had greatly refreshed me and I felt in excellent form for a good hearty breakfast. But alas! I remembered our slender stock of provisions, and stifled my longings as ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... justly be called a well-bred man, he had stifled all that curiosity which the extraordinary manner in which he had found Mrs Waters must be supposed to have occasioned. He had, indeed, at first thrown out some few hints to the lady; but, when he perceived her industriously avoiding any explanation, he was contented to remain in ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... provinces, the reigning President could trust only in the navy, and the conservatism of commerce and society, as represented by the great landowners of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Minas Geraes, alone stifled the upgrowth of an overwhelming national ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... of semi-fictional prose which can be gathered from this period serve only to illustrate how the short-story instinct, though stifled, was still present. Isaak Walton as a diarist had it; Thomas Fuller as an historian had it; John Bunyan as an ethical writer had it. Each one was possessed of the short-story faculty, but only manifested it, as it were, by accident. Not until Daniel Defoe and the rise of the newspaper do we note ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... contribution to the table. The Shelldrakes, I should explain, had not yet advanced to the antediluvian point, in diet: nor, indeed, had either Eunice or myself. We acknowledged the fascination of tea, we saw a very mitigated evil in milk and butter, and we were conscious of stifled longings after the abomination of meat. Only Mallory, Rollins, and Miss Ringtop had reached that loftiest round on the ladder of progress where the material nature loosens the last fetter of the spiritual. They looked down upon us, and we meekly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... not to be supposed that a movement like this, which the lower class of citizens in the towns had joined, just as in the German peasant war, and which was mainly directed against the landed gentry, could be stifled by one defeat: it continued to ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... where the fault was! What right had I ever to marry the child, not loving her? I bound her! I crushed her! I stifled her! If she lives, it is my sin; if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... V. whisper, breathe, murmur, purl, hum, gurgle, ripple, babble, flow; tinkle; mutter &c. (speak imperfectly) 583; susurrate[obs3]. steal on the ear; melt in the air, float on the air. Adj. inaudible; scarcely audible, just audible; low, dull; stifled, muffled; hoarse, husky; gentle, soft, faint; floating; purling, flowing &c. v.; whispered &c. v.; liquid; soothing; dulcet &c. (melodious) 413; susurrant[obs3], susurrous[obs3]. Adv. in a whisper, with bated breath, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... landaulette, my husband got in after me, the car began to move, there were cries from within the house ("Good-bye!" "Good luck") which sounded like stifled shrieks as they were carried off by the wind without, and then ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... but liberal secularism which Newman always denounced as the arch-enemy of the catholic faith. For, as Wesley's sympathies were originally with high Church doctrines, so Newman's sympathies were originally with evangelical doctrines, nor were they ever entirely stifled by his ultimate secession to ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... silence which followed was broken by a stifled cry, and the knight's daughter, pale as the covering on the festive board, sank unconscious to the floor. With burning cheek and flashing eye the young lord of Falkenstein rose, and with a firm voice exclaimed, "Mechtildis belongs to me; she has ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... reputation of an author, unaffectedly I say it—no words of mine can do justice to the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal suffering—an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of holding. For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all honesty, earnestness, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... at this juncture that Benito sneezed. He had felt the approach of that betraying reflex for some minutes, but had stifled it. Those who have tried this under similar circumstances know the futility of such attempts; know the accumulated fury of sound with which at length bursts forth the startling, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... season met no counterbalancing power there; no cheering appearances of food, or fire, or any comforts were there. But the complaining spirit which cried and sighed perpetually was for once silent within Mrs. Carson's mind; something—perhaps the death-like aspect of her son, or a voice from her long stifled conscience—was telling her how ill she had fulfilled the duties of a mother. She felt remorse for the reproaches she had heaped on him before he had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... guilty!" she said, and she stifled a sob. "Yet, still, you will help me! God bless you! Listen, then, for I must stop this talking, it is too desperately dangerous. I will leave the key of the mail box—no, I will send it to you by mail, that will be the safest. Then will you get the letters and ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Lomenie lays hands even on this. (Besenval, iii. 360.) To make provision for the passing day, on any terms, will soon be impossible.—On the 16th of August, poor Weber heard, at Paris and Versailles, hawkers, 'with a hoarse stifled tone of voice (voix etouffee, sourde)' drawling and snuffling, through the streets, an Edict concerning Payments (such was the soft title Rivarol had contrived for it): all payments at the Royal Treasury shall ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the body does not have as its consequence the destruction of thought. After the dissolution of the body the Ego continues its existence, but it then perceives thought directly, is much more free, and can express itself much more clearly than when it was stifled by matter. The soul and thought are one; thought is the inseparable attribute of the Ego or individual soul. On its arrival in this world the soul is ready to register innumerable new thoughts; it is a tabula rasa upon which nothing has ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... few inches from the floor, and let it fall again, with a pretty loud thump. A moment afterward, she almost fancied that she heard something stir inside of the box. She applied her ear as closely as possible, and listened. Positively, there did seem to be a kind of stifled murmur within! Or was it merely the singing in Pandora's ears? Or could it be the beating of her heart? The child could not quite satisfy herself whether she had heard anything or no. But, at all events, her curiosity ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... record is, that underneath a stone floor, in a building that was partly powder-magazine-surrounded at every end and side by mutineers who searched for them, and very nearly stifled by the dust of decaying ages—there lay three women and a child, with a jar of water close beside them and a sack of hastily collected things to eat. They lay there in all but furnace-heat, close-huddled in the ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... saw there remained focussed on his mind ever afterwards; and always when he turned to that picture in the album of his memory, his gorge rose and a murderlust that could hardly be stifled ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... a visible effort, Philip murmured half inarticulately, in a stifled undertone, "My sister, Mrs. Monteith—Mr. Bertram ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... misery. But that is of all things the surest to pass; for God changing not, his life must destroy every false show of him. Cosmo was now one of those holy children who are bound hand and foot in the furnace, until the fire shall have consumed their bonds that they may pace their prison. Stifled with the smoke and the glow, he must yet for a time lie helpless; not yet could he lift up his voice and call upon the ice and the cold, the frost and the snow to bless the Lord, to praise and exalt him forever. But God was not far from him. Feelings are not scientific instruments for that ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... he said in his low, gentle voice; "a little girl! I had a little girl once," and he stifled the sob that came into his throat. The girl heard this sob and squeezed ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... few great minds of the past, such as Aristotle. All questions were argued and decided on the basis of their assertions, which had often become wholly inadequate and were often warped into grotesquely impossible interpretations and applications. Scientific investigation was almost entirely stifled, and progress was impossible. The whole field of religion and knowledge had become largely stagnant under an ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... interference is to be left to the police. Hence you would see a man lying in a fit, and the bystanders giving no aid, but waiting for the authorities. Some years ago, as all the world remembers, a theatre took fire in St. Petersburg, and crowds of people were burned or stifled. The whole story is not so well known. The theatre was but a great temporary wooden shed—such as is run up every year at the holidays, in the public squares. When the fire burst forth, crowds of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... rose in Grace's throat, but she quickly stifled it. After all she was about to begin the work she herself had chosen. She had known when she announced her determination to take charge of Harlowe House that things could never be quite the same. It would be selfish, indeed, in her to break down and cry when Mrs. Gray had come to Overton ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... suffocation, of smothering for lack of space in which to breathe, had driven him like a hunted creature out into the streets. It was not long before he discovered that certain persons brought this feeling of oppression more quickly than others, that the presence of Margaret or of his parents stifled him, while Corinna made him feel as if a window had been suddenly flung open. The doctors, of course, had talked in scientific terms of diseased nerves and a specialist whom his mother had called in on one occasion had tried first to probe ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... O'Neil in his own province, and that it was so felt, even by its authors, is plain from their giving him simultaneously the command in Connaught. O'Neil, never greater than in acts of self-denial and self-sacrifice, stifled his profound chagrin, and cheerfully offered to serve under the English Earl, placed over his head. But the northern movements were, for many months, languid and uneventful; both parties seemed uncertain of their true ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... heard from behind her ever so faint a sound, a sound that sent a thrill through all her nerves. A sound like a stifled groan. For a minute or more she did not move. But when Doctor West and Miss Sherman had gone back to their places and Doctor West had begun the final fight for Elsie's life, she slowly turned about. Before her was a door. Her heart gave a leap. When she had entered she had searched the ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott |
