"Paralyse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not only shells but huge boulders, dropped among the advancing troops, crushing and mutilating, and leaving behind a streak of mangled bodies. But though the ordeal was terrible, and the sound and sight of wounded and bleeding were enough to paralyse the stoutest heart, the ever "gay" Gordons plodded on, passing higher and higher, while their officers leading, cheered and roared them up the precipitous ascent. Thus they clambered and plodded, with men dropping dead at their elbows, with torn and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of their protector could alone encourage them to a bold resistance, and disappoint the Emperor's designs. Gustavus Adolphus hoped, by his presence, to unite the discontented princes, or by the terror of his arms to detach them from the Emperor's party. Here, in the centre of Germany, he could paralyse the nerves of the imperial power, which, without the aid of the League, must soon fall—here, in the neighbourhood of France, he could watch the movements of a suspicious ally; and however important to his secret views it was ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... satisfied, by God only; He communicates Himself to this part of the soul. Sins of heart and mind do not injure it, but retard it: it cannot be corrupted by material living, because it does not connect itself directly with earth-living, it "responds" to God alone; but earthly sins delay it, paralyse its powers, postpone indefinitely its return to God. Is it this part of the soul which we ordinarily speak of as the Will? It cannot be, since it is with our Will that we consent to earth-sins. Have we, then, two Wills? It is reasonable and it conforms ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... beauty.... I am myself growing better, and shall by and by be a worthy object of love, one that will not anywhere disappoint or need forbearance.... I have no child, and the woman in me has so craved this experience that it has seemed the want of it must paralyse me...." ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... "created" the leading characters in "Robert," "Les Huguenots," "La Juive," "Gustave," and "Masaniello." He resigned his position precipitately upon the advent of Duprez. The younger singer afflicted the elder with a kind of panic. The news that Duprez was among his audience was sufficient to paralyse his powers, to extinguish his voice. He left France for Italy. His success was unquestionable, but he had lost confidence in himself; a deep dejection settled upon him, his apprehension of failure approached delirium. At last he persuaded himself that the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... of the universe is solved for Eucken through life and action. While continual contemplation and thought is apt to paralyse us, "action is the best defensive weapon against the dangers and trials of human existence." "Doubt is not cured by meditation, but by action." He believes that we can attain certainty through action of much that cannot be justified ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... present, who have raised the banner of the 'self-understood,' are therefore straining every nerve to crush down these feelings of youth, to cripple them, to mislead them, or to stop their growth altogether; and the favourite means employed is to paralyse that natural philosophic impulse by the so-called "historical culture." A still recent system,[10] which has won for itself a world-wide scandalous reputation, has discovered the formula for this self-destruction of philosophy; and now, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the course of this operation General De Lisle, of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, thought he saw a good opportunity to paralyse the further advance of the enemy's infantry by making a mounted attack on his flank. He formed up and advanced for this purpose, but was held up by wire about 500 yards from his objective, and the 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... looked along it, and along the man's extended arm, and into his face, and a half-smothered cry broke from his lips. He had been caught unawares. Physically he was no coward, but the sight of the brown mask seemed to paralyse him. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... in her lap. Moreover, she can't sew with anything smaller than a crochet needle. Look at me! I am growing a beard so that people can't see my Adam's apple. That's how poor and thin I'm getting to be. Now just listen a minute; I'll give you a few figures that will paralyse you." ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... We find allusions in Justin where the various incidents in the history of the incarnate Logos are conceived as a series of arrangements meant to form part of the history of salvation, to paralyse mankind's sinful history, and to regenerate humanity. He is thus a forerunner of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... crushed any lesser man into utter passivity or resignation. An Afrikander Cabinet, with a nationalist element reporting its confidential councils with the Governor to Mr. Hofmeyr, the Bond Master, and President Steyn, the secret ally of President Krueger, would have been sufficient in itself to paralyse the faculties of any ordinary administrator at such a crisis. But this was not the only adverse influence with which circumstances brought Lord Milner into collision. Incredible as it may seem, it is none the less the fact that ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... though the whole land was filled with the sunlight of a new spring. Mighty voices summoned me to come forth;—yet I dared not. I stood doubting— far from the strife—in my lonely castle. At times it seemed as though the Lord God himself were calling me; but then would come the killing dread again to paralyse my will. "Who will win?" that was the question that was ever ringing in my ears. 'Twas but a short spring that had come to Norway. Herlof Hyttefad, and many more with him, were broken on the wheel during the months that followed. None could call me to account; yet there lacked not covert threats ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... some on their knees, others in full flight, and the rest unable to do even so much for themselves. They are beaten already, and they will see their conquerors fall on them before they dream of an approach, before their ranks are formed or their preparations made, and the sight will paralyse them. [22] If we wish to sleep and eat and live in peace and happiness from this time forth, let us not give them leisure to take counsel or arrange defence, or so much as see that we are men, and not a storm of shields and battle-axes and flashing swords, sweeping ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... precisely the same. It is rather that of an active life, spent in continual consciousness of being 'naked and opened before the eyes of Him to whom we have to give account.' That thrilling consciousness will not paralyse nor terrify, if we feel that we are not only 'ever in the great Task-Master's eye,' but that God's omniscience is all-knowing love, and is brought closer to our hearts and clothed in gracious tenderness in Christ whose 'eyes were as a flame of fire,' but whose love is more ardent still, who knows ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... demonstration and for a moment or two stood in amazed silence. The audacity of the youngster appeared to paralyse his ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... critical, just, impartial, with a mind always open to conviction, but refusing to move until convinced. Such men are an invaluable element in the deliberative stages of every question; but their very critical powers paralyse action, and when movement becomes necessary their hesitations are a drawback. I fancy that Cornewall Lewis was just such another, but I did not know so ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... experienced is indescribable. I can compare it to nothing but the rushing in upon my brain of a whole churchyard of spectres. The very possibility of hearing a sound, in such a mood, and at such a time, was almost enough to paralyse me. So I could scare myself in broad daylight, on the open hillside, by imagining unintelligible sounds; and my imagination was both original and fertile in the invention of such. But my mind was ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... play in New York City wearing our new silk suits to give New York a treat on a hot August day. Not that we or any one else ever wears silk suits in any Wichita or Emporia; silk suits are bought by Wichita people and Emporians all over the earth to paralyse the natives of the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... than in other countries, werwolves are credited with demoniacal power, and old women who possess the property of metamorphosing into wolves are said to be able to paralyse cattle and children with their eyes, and to have poison in their nails, one wound from which ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... which seemed to paralyse her, lasted in reality but a few minutes; she was roused by her mother's voice and touch. She looked up for a moment, but with hard tearless eyes and set lips, and only to put away from her the hand that ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... don't pay as a canvasser I'll take him to town and back him to fight Les Darcy. Look out for yourself; don't you handle him!" he continued as the other approached the figure. "Leave him to me. As like as not, if you get fooling about him, he'll give you a clout that'll paralyse you." ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... should be richer and more powerful than the sects? It is not the fault of the Church that it is the largest and the most ancient body in England. There is but one real and adequate reason: it is the wish to disable and paralyse a great religious corporation, the largest and most powerful representative of Christianity in our English society, to exhibit it to the nation after centuries of existence at length defeated and humbled by the new masters' ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... dear sir, you're talking through your hat. Think I'm going to refuse an invitation like this? Not if I know it. I'm going to toddle off to Jephson, get an exeat, and catch that one-forty. And if I don't paralyse the Pudford ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... endeavour to dissuade him. You, My reverend doctors, help in this, and you, My faithful ministers and counsellors, If, haply, grief should paralyse my tongue. ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... with joy. He was going to cable from Southampton to the New York World, mail his account to America on the same day, paralyse London with his three columns of loosely knitted headlines, and generally efface the earth. 'You'll see how I work a big scoop when I ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... And the worst of it was, he had no clear notion of what was the matter. He was changing. The world was changing too. It had suddenly expanded. He felt that he, also, ought to expand. There was so much to learn, to see, to know—so much, that it seemed to paralyse his initiative. Could he absorb all this? Would he ever get things in order once more, and recapture his self-possession? Would he ever again be satisfied with himself? It was an invasion of his tranquillity, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... details of these abuses it will be well to specify some of the general causes which tended to paralyse the energies and lower ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... submarine war, we could sink 600,000 tons of shipping monthly, destroy the entire merchant fleets of the leading powers, paralyse England and win the war. Then we would start all over, build merchantmen faster than any nation, and regain our position as ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... is still more appalling to remember that the external hell which one sees, does not represent one tithe of the dreariness which lies hidden behind the eyes of the inhabitants. To imagine amid such scenes is to paralyse compassion with agony. The craving, never far from one's thoughts, is the age-old desire, "O that one might plead with God, as a man pleadeth for ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... circumstances, equally withdrawn from the sphere of volition. The antagonism of the abdominal muscles to the diaphragm being necessary, in order that the pelvic viscera may be acted upon, if the cord be injured in the lower dorsal region, so as to paralyse the abdominal walls and the perinaeal muscles, the downward pressure of the diaphragm alone could not evacuate the pelvic organs voluntarily, for the abdominal muscles are now incapable of deflecting the line of force backwards and downwards ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... imagine how its far slighter difficulties could ever be smoothed over. They are not the least staggered by the appalling reality of the Duke of Westminster or the Duke of Sutherland; not the least staggered by the sinister power of a conspiracy of coal-owners to paralyse a great nation with the horrors of a fuel famine. But they are staggered by their bogey that State ownership of land might give rise to a certain amount of jobbery and corruption on the part of officials. They think it better that the dukes and the ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... boat is keeping his distance. He'll never see you. Don't splash when you take the water. Swim like an otter, under, until you're well out. ... You're young and sturdy, slim as you are. You'll get through if the chill of Isla doesn't paralyse you. But you've got to do it, Yellow-hair; you've ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... hurled athwart the deck and against the lee rail of the poop, the impact of his body upon the hard wood was so severe that the breath was completely knocked out of him, while the pain must have been so great as practically to paralyse him for the moment and render him quite unable to do anything to help himself. Hence the probability was that, once in the water, he would have sunk for good and all, and that but for my promptitude in diving after him he would never again have been seen. And when at length he was got aboard, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... of interchange, of give-and-take, diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he spontaneously and ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... induce them to abandon their habitual industry and economy, and prevent them from providing for the wants of age and supervening infirmity. Any such plan was calculated to diminish self-reliance, to paralyse industry, to decrease economy, and, above all, to damp and extinguish the kindly and generous feelings of nature. He further objected to the bill, because it taxed the occupiers of lands, and involved many difficulties ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... him with something in his face that was almost strong. When this man had entered the room, Arthur felt his heart give one great bound which almost choked him. There was a strange physical feeling of vacuity in his breast which seemed to paralyse his breathing powers, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Samuel Butler was the pupil of a hopelessly conventional and erroneous country parson. But then Voltaire was Voltaire, and Butler was Butler: that is, their minds were so abnormally strong that they could throw off the doses of poison that paralyse ordinary minds. When the doctors inoculate you and the homeopathists dose you, they give you an infinitesimally attenuated dose. If they gave you the virus at full strength it would overcome your resistance and produce its direct effect. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... task; and it is, in fact, the very cruelty of his fate that the crisis of his life comes on him at the one moment when he cannot meet it, and when his highest gifts, instead of helping him, conspire to paralyse him. This aspect of the tragedy the theory quite misses; and it does so because it misconceives the cause of that irresolution which, on the whole, it truly describes. For the cause was not directly or mainly an habitual excess of reflectiveness. The direct cause was a state of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... have dealt with the land-sharks, of whom there had been an ugly rush from Sydney on the news of the coming annexation, and most of whom as promptly retreated on finding the proclamation to be a reality. But at the same time his treaty and his proclamation were bound to paralyse settlement, to exasperate the entire white population, and to plunge the infant colony into a sea of troubles. Outside the missionaries and the officials every one was uneasy and alarmed. All the settlers were either ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... sun over yonder hills; it matters little whether we win by stratagem or force. But I need not say to your highness, that we should carefully beware lest we be amused by inventions of the enemy, and trust to conspiracies which may be but lying tales to blunt our sabres, and paralyse our action." ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Pouncer, who had engaged to muster, at the signal of tea, on the 14th—prepared, as it were, for the worst. There was of course always the chance that Lady Wantridge might take the field, in such force as to paralyse them, though that danger, at the same time, seemed inconsistent with her being squared. It didn't perhaps all quite ideally hang together; but what it sufficiently came to was that if she was the one who could do most FOR a person in Mrs. Medwin's position she was also the one who could do most ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... forms itself into great clouds filled with hail; the air becomes thick with shadows, and resonant with the muttering of thunder. Those who have come through curiosity to behold the prodigy wish that they had never done so, so filled are their hearts with terror, and so does fear paralyse their limbs. Incredible as the marvel may seem, yet the proofs of its reality are too ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... the Irish Republic had fallen into such careless or incompetent hands, and that some man was not at its head who could have managed to have thrown upon Canadian soil, at Fort Erie and one or two other points, a force to act separately or in conjunction with sufficient effect to completely paralyse all opposition in Western Canada, among an already excited and incongruous host, who could have been easily swept before a compact handful of troops fired by a spirit so lofty and a resolve so unconquerable as that which actuated the brave little band of patriots who have made the 2d day ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Himself should pay the penalty, and effect a full redemption. How? By becoming a creature, and so lifting up the race to Himself through so generous a condescension. I show that it was antecedently probable that the Divinity should come in humble form, not to paralyse our reason by outward glories,—that He might even die as a seeming malefactor; this was the guess of Socrates: and that for the trial of our faith there are likely to be permitted all manner of difficulties and mysteries for us to gain personal strength ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... effect of the blow was to paralyse the second-hand department. As far as new books went Isaac was fairly safe. If the Public was tricky he was generally up to its tricks. But with second-hand books you never knew where you were, not unless you had made a special study of the subject. Owing to his ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... comfortable in his relations with the Power manifesting itself in the universe, owing to the complete mastery of the ius divinum by the State and its officials, there will assuredly be a tendency to paralyse the elemental religious impulse, and with it, if I am not mistaken, the elemental sense of right and wrong. For in the life of a state with such a legalised religious system as this, so long at least as it thrives and escapes serious disaster, there ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... bringing them out in distorted shapes and unnatural forms; to surprise a tender and unfortified mind by one of awful import, without exhibiting the corresponding relief which Christianity has provided; to frighten, shock, and paralyse the mind with alternations and scenes of horror, carefully concealing the ground of encouragement and hope, till reason is shaken and hurled from its throne, for the sake of gaining a convert, and in making a convert to make a maniac (as doubtless ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to-day than was last year's activity. Non-co-operation in itself is more harmless than civil disobedience, but in its effect it is far more dangerous for the Government than civil disobedience. Non-co-operation is intended so far to paralyse the Government, as to compel justice from it. If it is carried to the extreme point, it can bring the Government to ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... a judicious arrangement of our partisan, were prepared to enter their country at the same moment. These were so placed, that, though operating separately, they might yet be made to cooperate if desired. The effect was such as to paralyse the incipient resolution of the loyalists. They showed no disposition for fight; and feeling their temper, conscious of his difficulties, and now no longer hopeful of help from the British, Gainey dispatched a flag ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... really haunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite though incalculable influence that was actively alive, and dangerous. At the least smell of smoke the entire household quivered. An odour of burning, I was convinced, would paralyse all the inmates. For the servants, though professedly ignorant by the master's unspoken orders, yet shared the common dread; and the hideous uncertainty, joined with this display of so spiteful and calculated a spirit of malignity, provided a ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... august assembly. But then, when the time did come for taking the plunge, he took it boldly and unshrinkingly. It was a delight to watch him during this Session, and especially when it became necessary to use the guillotine against the revolutionary and iniquitous attempt to paralyse the House of Commons by sheer shameless obstruction. The "guillotine" was a most serious, a most momentous, and even portentous departure from all precedent, except, of course, the Tory precedent of 1887; but the Old Man, when the proper time came, proposed the experiment ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... their bishops. If ministers regard the mitre as merely a sort of donative for their own private tutors, or the chaplains of their noble friends, or as provision for a relative, dependent, or the brother of a Treasury clerk, they not merely degrade the office, but they paralyse the church. Of the living prelacy we do not speak: but it is impossible to look upon the list of archbishops and bishops (a few excepted) during the last century, without surprise that the inferior clergy have done so much, rather than that they have done so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... cannonade upon our advancing troops, which was vigorously replied to by the battery of horse artillery under Brigadier Brooke, which was soon joined by the two light field-batteries. The rapid and well-directed fire of our artillery appeared soon to paralyse that of the enemy; and as it was necessary to complete our infantry dispositions without advancing the artillery too near to the jungle, I directed the cavalry under Brigadiers White and Gough to make a flank movement on the enemy's left, with a view of threatening and turning that flank, if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... de sa tete chaneelante et se soutenant a peine de ses jambes, pour lesquelles son corps appauvri etait un poids si lourd de ses bras; et de ses mains plus d'a moitie paralyse; mais quels puissants motifs out pu amener cette belle et aimable princesse a se faire elle-meme un sort si triste? Quelle philosophie a pu lui donner assez de force pour le supporter, et ne pas s'en plaindre? quelle energie tous ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... conception of moral evolution. Knowledge of the conditions on which good can be attained—a knowledge that amounts to conviction—is the spring of all moral effort; whereas an attitude of permanent doubt as to the distinction between good and evil would paralyse it. Such a doubt must be solved before man can act at all, or choose one end rather than another. All action implies belief, and the ardour and vigour of moral action can only come from a ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... that positivism, if accepted fully, must either destroy or paralyse; it is this, therefore, that in imagination we must now try to eliminate. To do this—to see what will be left in life to us, without this faculty, we must first see in general, how much is at present ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... emotions, produce weakness and disturbance not only in the mind but in the body as well. It has been proved that they actually generate poisons in the body, they depress the circulation; they change the quality of the blood, making it less vital; they affect the great nerve centres and thus partially paralyse the very seat of the bodily activities. On the other hand, faith, hope, love, forgiveness, joy, and peace, all such emotions are positive and uplifting, and so act on the body as to restore and maintain harmony and actually to stimulate ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... sea-shore—which shore is a good sandy stretch for miles and miles on either side. I don't think we were ever quite so thoroughly washed by the sea-air from all quarters as here—the weather is fine, and we do well enough. The sadness of the war and its consequences go far to paralyse all our pleasure, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... accomplished by destroying their signal stations, telegraphs, and shore batteries along nearly the whole coast, navigating his frigate with perfect safety throughout this proverbially perilous part of the Mediterranean. In order further to paralyse the enemy's movements, Lord Cochrane made a practice of burning paper near the demolished stations, so as to deceive the French into the belief that he had burned their signal books; he rightly judging that from this circumstance they might not deem it necessary to alter their code of signals. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... did not paralyse his pen. In 1839 he published a vehement attack upon the Ballot, from which he foresaw no better results than the enfranchisement of every one, including women, universal corruption, systematic lying, and a victory for the "lower order of voters" over their "betters." ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... was Gotwar, who used to paralyse the most eloquent and fluent men by her glib and extraordinary insolence; for she was potent in wrangling, and full of resource in all kinds of disputation. Words were her weapons; and she not only trusted in questions, but was armed with stubborn answers. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... began in the shape of a strike by the metal-workers, led by radicals of a pronounced type, who used the strike idea to further their revolutionary aims, and who devoted themselves to bringing about a general sympathetic strike in order to paralyse the business of the city and thus help their enterprise. The radicals succeeded in securing a general strike even to the post office staff and mail clerks, and this led to similar sympathetic movements in Brandon, Saskatoon, Edmonton, ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... military gargoyle, half lout and half fop, offends the roving eye. No doubt a handsome man, by German standards—even, perhaps a celebrated seducer, a soldier with a future—but the mere sight of him suffices to paralyse an American esophagus. Besides, there is the smell of chocolate, sweet, sickly, effeminate, and at two in the afternoon! Again, there is the music of Grieg, clammy, clinging, creepy. Away to the Mathaeserbraeu, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... presence of the sage suffices to paralyse destiny; and of this we find proof in the fact that there exists scarce a drama wherein a true sage appears; when such is the case, the event needs must halt before reaching bloodshed and tears. Not only is there no drama ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... had seized him yielded to the most ardent yearning. Pressing his hand upon his throbbing heart, he watched her every movement. He longed to go forward to meet her, yet a supernatural spell seemed to paralyse his energy. He would sooner have dared clasp in his arms the image of a beautiful Madonna than this embodiment of pure, helpless, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... suppose not—according to our way of thinking, at all events; but we must not let that thought paralyse our energies. The vacant pulpit has its lesson for each one of ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... who was therefore a little desperate; but it was also the performance of a creature who knew his subject, who understood its difficulties, and who was not hindered by any of those scruples of ignorance and purity which temper ardour and paralyse daring. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... what trouble does to a man when it is rightly borne. Of course the Apostle is speaking here of its ideal operation, and not of the reality which alas! often is seen when our tribulations lash us into impatience, or paralyse our efforts. Tribulation worketh patience, 'and patience experience.' That is a difficult word to put into English. There underlies it the frequent thought which is familiar in Scripture, of trouble of all kinds as testing a man, whether as the refiner's fire or the winnower's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... answer them. She was a good and even a brilliant letter writer, but often and often she would tear up what she had written and begin again. There was not much news in Bryngelly; it was difficult to make her letters amusing. Also the farcical nature of the whole proceeding seemed to paralyse her. It was ridiculous, having so much to say, to be able to say nothing. Not that Beatrice wished to indite love-letters—such an idea had never crossed her mind, but rather to write as they had talked. Yet when she tried to do so the results were not satisfactory to her, the ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... dowry to her husband, he does not care to inquire, or is not sensitive, about the mode in which it was acquired. The consequence of this indiscriminate sexual intercourse, especially if much prolonged, is to diminish, in some cases to paralyse, the fertility of the female. And as among people of mixed race it is almost universal, the population of these must fall off both in numbers ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... called the Pope his Medusa, he might well have been thinking of Leo, though the poem ought probably to be referred to the earlier pontificate of Julius. Certainly the Medici did more than the Delia Rovere to paralyse his power and turn the life within him into stone. Writing to Sebastiano del Piombo in 1521, Michelangelo shows how fully he was aware of this. He speaks of "the three years ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... fight on two sides, and the still more dangerous position of having no line of retreat left open, paralyse the movements and the power of resistance; further, in case of defeat, they increase the loss, often raising it to its extreme point, that is, to destruction. Therefore, the rear being endangered makes defeat more probable, and, at the same ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... for a moment before Jimmie Dale's eyes, seemed to paralyse all action of mind and body. There was a low cry that was more a moan, the clang of the iron bar clattering on the floor, and Mike Hagan had pitched forward on his face, an inert and huddled heap. A half laugh, half snarl purled from Connie Myers' lips, as he snatched a stout piece of cord from his ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... donkeys, and sent them back the next day to fetch the balance of the baggage. In this way, and by strengthening the poor beasts with a judicious use of corn, I managed to pull through and overcome this most serious of all difficulties, which, at one time, threatened to paralyse the ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of both Jem and Paddy seemed to paralyse the little man with fear, and he lay on the boards glaring up at them with terror ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... "War of the three Henries"—Henry III., Henry of Navarre, and Henry of Guise—was in full progress. The King, professing to support the League, was in fact doing his best to play into the hands of his nominal opponent, Navarre, and to paralyse his nominal adherent, Guise, who had Philip of Spain behind him. Philip, aware of this ambiguous position—as also was Elizabeth—found himself unable to trust to France for support, or absolutely ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... experience teaches us that we have not fulfilled, and cannot fulfil, what remains our plain duty, notwithstanding our inability to discharge it—viz., 'To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.' To think of God's requirements, and of my own failure, is the sure way to paralyse all activity; just as that man in the parable who said, 'Thou art an austere man,' went away and hid his talent in the earth. To think of God's requirements and my own failures, if heaven has nothing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... confines itself to the things of this world. Their religion, if they have one, is what I believe they call 'healthy-mindedness.' It consists in ignoring everything that might suggest a doubt as to the worth of existence, and so conceivably paralyse activity. 'Let us eat and drink,' they say, with a hearty and robust good faith; omitting as irrelevant and morbid the discouraging appendix, 'for to-morrow we die.' Indeed! What has death to do with buildings twenty-four ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... beside her, and her consciousness of him, as he seemed to-night, human, sympathetic, kind. A blissful sense of a mission filled the young silly soul. Like David, she was pitting herself and her gift against those dark powers which may invade and paralyse a life. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suffering from what is commonly called confluent smallpox. But I did not. From the beginning there has been something about this terrible disease which physically and morally has exercised so great an influence over my destiny, that seemed to paralyse my mental powers. In my day I was a doctor fearless of any other contagion; typhus, scarletina, diphtheria, yellow fever, none of them had terrors for me. And yet I was afraid to attend a case of smallpox. From the same cause, in my public speeches I made light of it, talking of it with contempt ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... lately been summoned to Madrid to become chief adviser to the king. Granvelle spared no pains to impress upon Philip the necessity of getting rid of Orange as the chief obstacle to the pacification of the Netherlands, and advised that a price should be placed upon his life. "The very fear of it will paralyse or kill him" was the opinion of the cardinal, who ought to have had a better understanding of the temper and character of his old adversary. Accordingly at Maestricht, March 15, 1581, "a ban and edict in form of proscription" was published ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... cried the unseen lady. The servitor made a motion to obey, but the swoop of the sword seemed to paralyse him where he stood. He cast a beseeching look at his mistress, which said as plainly as words: "You are ordering me to my death." The Count, his weapon high in mid-air, suddenly swerved it from its course, for there appeared across the opening a woman's hand and arm, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... fight at Wallingford, men noted fearfully that he fell three times from his horse. Terror spread among the barons, whose interests lay altogether in anarchy, as they saw the rapid increase of Henry's strength; and they sought by a mock compromise to paralyse the power of both Stephen and his rival. "Then arose the barons, or rather the betrayers of England, treating of concord, although they loved nothing better than discord; but they would not join battle, for they ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... for him, he lifted his hunting-crop to strike, but it didn't take long to get that from his hand or to paralyse the arm with which he was lunging out ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... him at Khartoum, that Zobeir's presence would paralyse the Mahdi, that Zobeir must succeed him in the government of the country after the evacuation. Did not Sir Evelyn Baring, too, have the mystic feeling? Sir Evelyn Baring confessed that he had not. He ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... immediately threatened. He has to keep the Boers from penetrating that long and flexible line, for if once they forced a passage in large numbers they would sweep like a torrent southwards, envelop his rear, cut the railway and telegraph to pieces, stop all convoys, paralyse the movements of all troops up beyond Kroonstad, and once more raise the whole of the Free State, and very possibly a great portion of the ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... oppressed breathing. Its activity depends on the volatile oil, contained in the proportion of six per cent. in the nut. This when given at all largely is essentially narcotic. Four Nutmegs have been known to completely paralyse all nervous sensibility, and have produced a sort of wakeful unconsciousness for three entire days, with loss of memory afterwards, and with more or less ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Duke of Alva, at the time of the Ridolfi plot, had pointed out as a desirable preliminary, if the invasion was to succeed, the assassination of the Queen of England. The succession being undecided, he had calculated that the confusion would paralyse resistance, and the notorious favour with which Mary Stuart's pretensions were regarded by a powerful English party would ensure her an easy victory were Elizabeth once removed. But this was an indispensable ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... exerted on minds of almost every calibre by the central figure—a high-born youth of chivalric instincts and finely developed intellect, who, when stirred to avenge in action a desperate private wrong, is foiled by introspective workings of the brain that paralyse the will. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... acquired the habit of using these liquors, and who view as a reproach to themselves the practice of any other lady who may not keep them in countenance, as the perfection of all moral and physical propriety. Unfortunately the pressure of such lady friends is often so persistent as to paralyse the influence of a conscientious and thoughtful medical adviser, while the appetites and beliefs of such friends often throw them into active antagonism to any medical adviser, who may not endorse the habits in which, as they believe, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... meet which there is not one legion on this side of Cisalpine Gaul! What, then, even if all were peace in Rome, what then could stand against us? But there shall be that done here, here in the very seat and heart, as I may say, of Empire, that shall dismay and paralyse all who would else oppose us. Cethegus, when the centuries are all assembled in the field of Mars, with fifteen hundred gladiators well armed and exercised even now, sets on the guard in the Janiculum, and beats their standard down. Then, while all is ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... for Elizabeth a vast auriferous colony, the proceeds of which might rival the revenues of Mexico and Peru. But we must not make the mistake of supposing him to have been so wise before his time as to perceive that the real wealth which might paralyse a selfish power like that of Spain would consist in the cereals and other products which such a colony ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... indispensable. God's work goes on uninterrupted. The instruments are changed, but the Master-hand is the same, and lays one tool aside and takes another out of the tool-chest as He will. Moses is dead,—what then? Does his death paralyse the march of the tribes? No; it is but the ground for the ringing command, 'Therefore arise, go over this Jordan.' The immediate installation of his successor, and the uninterrupted continuance of the advance, do not mean that Moses is not honoured or is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... common is a laugh; a harsh, senseless laugh. The effect is to terrorise, to paralyse its prey. It is wicked. It climbs up into piercing, high, falsetto tones; all maniacal. . . . So insane that though one knows perfectly well what it is, it chills one's blood. This keeps on a long time, with variations. Every change seems worse than the last. But sooner ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... branch of the civil administration to carry out all the menial work of government? If the Indians, untrained, and indeed forbidden, to bear arms, were unable at once to overthrow British rule, could they not at least paralyse its machinery, as Bepin Chandra Pal was preaching, by refusing to take any kind ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... at an important crisis in England's history all depended upon the attitude of the city of London. "The key of the situation was in the hands of the city, which had it in its power to paralyse the army by simply maintaining an attitude of passive resistance."(865) But great as was the detestation in which the army was held by the majority of citizens, their distrust of the royalists, should they regain ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... x's and y's, with which he works his problems, for real entities—and with this further disadvantage, as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may paralyse the energies and destroy the beauty ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that no policy whatever initiated, after 1766 could have prevented or even materially delayed the declaration of American independence; but to the politicians of that time the coming event had not yet cast so dark a shadow before as to paralyse all action, and if any man could have allayed the growing discontent of the colonists and prevented the ultimate dismemberment of the empire, it would have been Lord Chatham. The fact that he not only did nothing to remove ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... warp the natural progress of life. They paralyse all of it that is not devoted to their tyranny and caprice. This makes the difference between the laughing innocence of childhood, the pleasantness of youth, and the crabbedness of age. A load of cares lies like a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Zeppa's face. We have already said that his smile had fascination in it. The effect on the savage was to paralyse him for the moment. Zeppa advanced, took Ongoloo's face between both hands, and, placing his nose against that of the chief, ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... entrance into the palace, except when he had flared out at the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment. The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple and sturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during the process. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, in spite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruous with the situation. But ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... involved. But what I have evidence of is that they brought in the Russian delegate to their councils—Kratzky, who is a byword even among Russians for sticking at nothing. If Kratzky could stave off discussion of European politics and paralyse the Assembly until Russia should be ready and able to pounce on and hold by force the new Russian republics—well, naturally monarchist Russia would be pleased. I have evidence that Wilbraham and Levis have been continually meeting and conferring ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... had been requested to present himself with his letters of credence in the camp. Henry was unwilling that he should enter Paris, being convinced that he came to do his best, by declamation, persuasion, and intrigue, to paralyse the enterprise. Sully's promises to Ubaldini, the former nuncius, that his Holiness should be made king, however flattering to Paul V., had not prevented his representatives from vigorously denouncing Henry's monstrous scheme to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unknown to the simple pilgrim, is one of the rocks on which my plans have been shipwrecked, and the other is the certain censure of relatives, who, not fond of walking themselves, and having no taste for noonday naps under hedges, would be sure to paralyse my plans before they had grown to maturity by the honest horror of their cry, "How very unpleasant if you were to meet any one you know!" The relative of five hundred years back would simply have said, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the other troops on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of Demosthenes had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or less, and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without any tangible adversary, exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied by those in his rear if he attacked in front, and by those on one flank if he moved ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... is freely granted to duly accredited visitors who may be desirous of consulting manuscripts, the labour of searching among the huge bewildering piles would be overwhelming, and the thought of it would at once paralyse effort. There is no proper catalogue of the printed books; and the list of manuscripts is so deficient as to be altogether worthless. During six months, from November till June, the library is open for study every day, except Thursday ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... policy was this: that the situation need not have existed. As far as can be judged from the evidence hitherto published (if we except some wild talk on the part of Muscovite Chauvinists), Russia would not have interfered in Afghanistan except in order to paralyse England's action in Turkish affairs. As has been pointed out above, the Afghan trouble was a natural sequel to the opposition offered by Disraeli to Russia from the time of the re-opening of the Balkan problem in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the most remarkable and most menacing adjuncts of the crisis, is the singular sense of inadequacy to resist its career, which seems to paralyse the habitual defenders of the right cause. The consecrated guardians of the church seem only to wait the final blow. The great landholders in the peerage are contented with making protests. The agricultural interest, the boast of England, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... "the hidden hand," which is supposed to paralyse our military efforts, are divided in opinion as to whether this cryptic member is most actively employed by Lord HALDANE, Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON or Sir EYRE CROWE, Assistant-Secretary to the Foreign Office. They will probably regard Lord ROBERT CECIL'S statement that some seven years ago Sir ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... the tunnel, and I believe that had it not been for that hand I should have sunk to the rocky floor, for the sight before me seemed to paralyse my brain. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I doubt whether the world can show ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... were almost too horrified to move at the sight. "Look! Look!" cried Sylvia, gasping, "the mouth!" Deborah looked and gave a moan. Aaron's mouth was rigidly closed under a glittering jewel. Deborah bent down, still moaning, so great did the horror of the thing paralyse her speech, and saw the lights flash back from many diamonds: she saw bluish gleams and then a red sparkle like the ray of the setting sun. It was the opal serpent brooch, and Aaron's lips were fastened ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... from Galatz to Focshani formed, together with the lower reaches of the Danube, a strong barrier against attack from the north. Rumania's geographical position is such that a successful offensive from Hungary could soon penetrate to the capital, and by cutting the country in two could completely paralyse its organization. Such arguments acquired a magnified importance in the light of the failure of the negotiations with Bulgaria, and found many a willing ear in a country governed by a heavily involved landed class, and depending ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... words, did this strong-minded female paralyse the Pecksniffian energies; and so she swept out of the room, and out of the house, attended by her daughters, who, as with one accord, elevated their three noses in the air, and joined in a contemptuous titter. As they ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Yes, gentlemen; but since that time it has been known in our happy country. Since that time false telegrams about the entry of the Russian army into Constantinople have been sent home to disturb, and paralyse, and reverse the deliberations of Parliament, and have actually stopped these deliberations, and led experienced statesmen to withhold their action because of this intelligence, which was afterwards, and shortly ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... striking power. There is never, in fact, a clean choice between attack and defence. In aggressive operations the question always is, how far must defence enter into the methods we employ in order to enable us to do the utmost within our resources to break or paralyse the strength of the enemy. So also with defence. Even in its most legitimate use, it must always be supplemented by attack. Even behind the walls of a fortress men know that sooner or later the place must fall unless by counter-attack on the enemy's siege works or communications ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... millions of men, well accoutred and armed and provisioned, to come over to help us. If America placed all her mighty weight on the side of England at this moment, it would paralyse the German Army. If America said, as we are saying, that this war should never cease until Germany was powerless ever to make war again, you would do more for peace than if all the talkers in America were to go round preaching peace. That is why, Quaker as I am, I am a soldier, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... fighting with himself, and with that inbred antipathy of temperament which seemed to paralyse both will and judgment. Was the secret of it that in their profound unlikeness they ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... concubines exercised a pernicious influence. Magic was practised by some of the chief men in the State, and the belief was widely spread that it was possible by charms, incantations, and the use of waxen images, to bewitch men, or paralyse their limbs, or even to cause their deaths. Hags were to be found about the court as wicked as Canidia, who were willing to sell their skill in the black art to the highest bidder. The actual person of the monarch was not sacred from the plottings of this nefarious crew, who ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... nature, really very like; and the blue mountains, the solemn sunsets, and purple shadows among the woods, or falling on the tawny sands, girdling the sea, whose blue-gray melts into the horizon, throw us into quick ecstasies of delight that almost paralyse the adventurous hand as it seeks, often vainly, to transfer the quick-changing loveliness to the enduring canvass. And then we fling away our pencils in despair, and worship, with all the devotion of which ignorance is the mother, (for we never handled the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Henneford declared grimly. "How are you going to get it back, eh? Show us. We are powerful up here. We could paralyse trade from the Clyde to the Thames, if we thought it would do any good. What's ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gentle creature who would have cheered my solitude and sympathized with all my feelings, I should have experienced far less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain; and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... will not be met with the remonstrance, undeniably just by your own concessions, that you are encroaching on the sacred rights of property,—the slaveholders see all this, and they can employ it to paralyse and defeat all your efforts to get at emancipation, and to prepare for it. It is on this account, that I wish it settled in your minds, as a fixed and immutable principle, that there is and can be no property of man in ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... in literature two conspicuous examples of the blind-alley theme—two famous plays, wherein two heroines are placed in somewhat similar dilemmas, which merely paralyse our sympathies and inhibit our moral judgment. The first of these is Measure for Measure. If ever there was an insoluble problem in casuistry, it is that which Shakespeare has here chosen to present ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... going to and fro frequently pass between high walls of frozen snow. In these wild places, which can scarcely be said to be populated at all, a snow-storm, however, does not block the King's highways and paralyse traffic as London permits itself to be paralysed under similar circumstances. Men are set to work and cut a way through in a very short time, and no one makes the least difficulty about it. But with the tracks that lead ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies |
