"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inside," said she. "It's a gang. And I was feeling so peaceful and exalted. It will make a terrible atmosphere in the house. My Guru will be profoundly affected. An atmosphere where thieves have been will stifle him. He has often told me how he cannot stop in a house where there have been wicked emotions at play. I must keep it from him. I ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and plead for liberty—at least in thirteen States of the Union. If we venture, as avowed and unflinching abolitionists, to travel South of Mason and Dixon's line, we do so at the peril of our lives. If we would escape torture and death, on visiting any of the slave States, we must stifle our conscientious convictions, hear no testimony against cruelty and tyranny, suppress the struggling emotions of humanity, divest ourselves of all letters and papers of an antislavery character, and do homage to the slaveholding ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the little parachute from her car, she took the light for the fireworks in her other hand, she crossed this train with the light and set it on fire. Then the brave woman, throwing away the parachute and the match, strove to close the mouth of the balloon, and to stifle the fire. These efforts being unavailing, Madame Blanchard was distinctly seen to sit down in her car ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... disappear into oblivion before disappearing in the tomb ... ah! all the furies, all the bloody reprisals, the dungeons, the gibbets, the massacres, all the martyrdoms by which human wickedness strove to stifle the voice of the just, are less horrible than ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... experienced at my hands, and for the ambition that occasioned it. Cursed ambition! Did the coronet I gained by my neglect of you, beloved object of my first and only affection, console my heart under the cries of conscience, or stifle the grief which returned for you, when that ambition was gratified? Ah, that false and precipitate step! How much misery has it not occasioned me since I awoke from my dream! Your gentle spirit seemed to haunt me through life, but ever ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... pride of your practical judgment, or in your learned fancies, you may sneer at any dream of love, and reckon it all a poet's fiction: there are times when such dreams come over you like a summer-cloud, and almost stifle you ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... air. I feel the air. Now, now, let me rise. I feel myself prepared. Ah! the boots fall off. I shall ascend. The boots fall off. What are there none to raise me? See, they grin. Am I not come unto the resurrection of the life? What! that horrid lid again. O, no, no. They stifle me again. They fasten me to sleep—to sleep—to sleep. THIS, THIS ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... Hear it! Hear the daddly thing! It has driven me to the verge of insanity! I tried to stop it, but I couldn't find how it works. And now I am trying to stifle it! Hear it! Oh, bring me a club! Bring me something deadly! Bring me a gun, and I will ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... from Motion, then the Obstruction of that Motion or a counter Motion must obstruct and check the Passion: And therefore an Historian and a Writer of Historical Plays, passing from Events of one nature to Events of another nature without a due Preparation, must of necessity stifle and confound one Passion by another. The second Reason why the Fiction of a Fable pleases us more than an Historical Relation can do, is, because in an Historical Relation we seldom are acquainted ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... vir esse potest ac in bello, as much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains, and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus they many times wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and speculations occupied me, during which my gaze dwelt insatiably upon that one spot of light, in the otherwise pitlike darkness. Hope grew up within me, banishing the oppression of despair, that had seemed to stifle me. Wherever the earth was traveling, it was, at least, going once more toward the realms of light. Light! One must spend an eternity wrapped in soundless night, to understand the full ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... improvement exist besides the voice of the living teacher, is a very different thing from going into all the world, and preaching the Gospel to every creature—an egregious disproportion to the wants of the world—must we stifle all emotion and all inquiry, in taking it for granted that it is now too late for change? And yet there seems to be a tacit understanding, that any other distribution than that now existing, of the present generation of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... Huldbrand was trying to stifle a fear that had begun to creep into his heart, a fear that the maiden he had wedded was a fairy or a mocking ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... you, you who have plundered Tanith! Hatred, vengeance, massacre, and grief! May Gurzil, god of battles, rend you! may Mastiman, god of the dead, stifle you! and may the Other—he who may ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... but a union of the parties—a coalition, such as the British Government had already adopted. The change implied a distribution of responsibility among the leading men of all parties, a useful measure to stifle criticism and insure unanimity of purpose. M. Viviani reentered the new Cabinet as Minister of Justice. For the first time in the history of the French Republic a coalition ministry of all the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... her countenance that I could hardly believe what yet I saw. Up and down she walked, vainly endeavouring to lay hold of the mist and wrap it around her. The eyes in the beautiful face were dead, and on her left side was a dark spot, against which she would now and then press her hand, as if to stifle pain or sickness. Her hair hung nearly to her feet, and sometimes the wind would so mix it with the mist that I could not distinguish the one from the other; but when it fell gathering together again, it shone a pale gold ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of Congress, the business of firing the people and stirring popular opinion and sympathy. He was set to do that portion of the work of abolition which was to be done in Congress, to encounter the mighty efforts which were made to stifle the great humanitarian cry in the halls of the national legislature. This was quite as much as one man was equal to; in fact, it is certain that no one then in public life except Mr. Adams could have done it effectually. So obvious is this that one cannot help wondering what would have ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... sensibilities. This was the circus, and the whole machinery, form and substance, of the Circensian shows. Why had tragedy no existence as a part of the Roman literature? Because—and that was a reason which would have sufficed to stifle all the dramatic genius of Greece and England— there was too much tragedy in the shape of gross reality, almost daily before their eyes. The amphitheatre extinguished the theatre. How was it possible that the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and various articles of furniture were of the most costly materials, but at the thought of living here she shuddered. Fine and fashionable in all its appointments, but chilly, empty, surface gilded, she felt that she would stifle ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of a child's hand will rob the canary bird of its life—stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, tissues, muscles, bones, and even the wonderful ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... endangered, made no provision for its security. But in the very first Congress that assembled under the new Government, the omission was repaired. It was thought some case might possibly occur, in which this right might prove troublesome to a dominant faction, who would endeavor to stifle it. An amendment was therefore proposed and adopted, by which Congress is restrained from making any law abridging "the right of the People, peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Had it not been for this prudent jealousy of our ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... in heaping up old papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin by Mount Genevre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately interrupted, and especially the drainage of the marshes ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... before the meal was ended, and went up to the great empty deck. She felt as if she would stifle below. But, up above, the wash of the sea and the immensity of the night soothed her somewhat. She found a secluded corner, and leaned upon the rail, gazing out over the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... it perchance serve to make you think yourself better than others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others' consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples, follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of escaping future punishment?—oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the follower of Buddha, Moses, Mahomet, or even Christ, your religion is worthless—it separates you ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... wonder. The women sat at the table with the men over in the Gap—why not here? Then her father went silently to his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten at the kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with never a word. Something began to stifle her, but she choked it down. There were the dishes to be cleared away and washed, and the pans and kettles to be cleaned. Her back ached, her arms were tired to the shoulders and her burned hand quivered with pain when all was done. The old woman had left her to do the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... last message suspending the project on which we had acted before, and which I kept as an instruction constantly before my eyes. It seemed to me uncertain whether you intended to go on, or whether your design was to stifle, as much as possible, all past transactions; to lie perfectly still; to throw upon the Court the odium of having given a false alarm; and to wait till new accidents at home, and a more favourable conjuncture abroad, might tempt you to resume the enterprise. Perhaps ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... had of late been shamefully low, we had a spare hundred pounds or two in our pockets, and could afford to pay for a little insight into fashionable life. I told them that there was nothing I so much hated as fashionable life, but that, as I was anything but a selfish person, I would endeavour to stifle my abhorrence of it for a time, and attend them either to Leamington or Harrowgate. By this speech I obtained my wish, even as I knew I should, for my wife and daughter instantly observed, that, after all, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... so occupied in the endeavor to stifle their laughter that the lieutenant again took up the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... on anything short of murder to stifle the threatening exposure. Sterner methods were necessary. All at once his eye spied a coil of rope in the corner and he sprang ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... threatened to bring contempt on the noblest teachings of philosophy, and to make them repulsive to man; and, on the other hand, a blind respect for the institutions consecrated by history threatened to stifle all examination ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... face as she knelt on a stool at the bedside. His father was turned away from him, and lay with his hand inside his wife's, and Emmeline was sitting on the foot of the bed, with her face between her hands, striving to stifle her sobs. "Here is Herbert now, dearest," said Lady Fitzgerald, with a low, soft voice, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to cause no effort in the hearing. "I knew that he would not be long." And Herbert, obeying the signal ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... I believe that its introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management, is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination, but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am convinced that in the future of the movement good ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... Waller. I have just come to see how you are getting on," continued the girl, as she advanced towards the table, scanning everything that it held, "and whether I can—oh, my!" she burst out, snatching up her apron and holding it to her mouth to try and stifle back ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... retired hastily from her presence, went to his lodgings, and sat down with his elbows on the table, and his face buried in his large hands, the fingers of which appeared to be crushing in his forehead, as if to stifle the thoughts that burned there. After sitting thus for half an hour he suddenly rose, with his face somewhat paler, and his lips a little more firmly ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... said not a word. It was but a five minutes' run at the pace to which Marigold, time-worn master of crises of life and death, put the car. Betty held herself rigid, staring straight in front of her, and striving in vain to stifle horrible little sounds that would break ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... as if ham-strung, crouched in the clover, pressed his hands to his mouth to stifle the groan that rose to his lips. It was Morgan's voice. He had come sneaking back while the watch-dog was off guard, secure in the belief that he had gone away. As Joe crouched there hidden in the clover, trembling and cold with anger, Morgan's voice ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... let me die of despair? If I were capable of making a bad use of your secrets, I could have done so long ago, for I know them. In Heaven's name, do not dissimulate any longer, and tell me how it is possible to stifle the pangs of labour. Do you want more gold? Here it is." And he threw more ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... been very hot under the tall trees which everywhere embower and stifle Saratoga, for they shut out the air as well as the sun; and after tea (they still have an early dinner at all the hotels in Saratoga, and tea is the last meal of the day) I strolled over to the pretty Congress Park, in the hope of getting a breath of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the graceful lines of her full figure and on the almost classic beauty of her marmoreal features, he could not stifle a pang of anxiety at thought of losing her. The fact that he had discarded her in all but name, for the dubious pleasures of a life of dissipation, did not occur to him. He believed in the established moral code ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... should not forget to introduce him as the friend of Mrs. Curtis, who expected him to be her guest later on. Indeed, Philip Holt talked so constantly and so intimately of Mrs. Curtis that Madge had to stifle a little pang of jealousy. She had supposed, when she was in New York City, that Mrs. Curtis, who was very generous, only took a friendly interest in Philip Holt and his work among the New York poor, but ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... support to his parents. But the scribes held that if a man vowed to give money to the temple, this obligation, being toward God, superseded the obligation to his parents, which was merely human. To Jesus this seemed a perversion of religion. Ecclesiastical claims were made to stifle fundamental social duty. To Jesus the latter had incomparably higher value. Religion had become a ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... sad. She is constituted to expect and need a happiness that cannot exist on earth. She must stifle such aspirations within her secret heart, and fit herself, as well as she can, for a ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... joy," cried the girl squeezing her hands tightly together to stifle her emotions. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... "What a time you have had with me, Tommy! I told David all about it, and what he has to look forward to, but he says he is not afraid. And when you find someone you can love," she continued sweetly, though she had a sigh to stifle, "I hope she will be someone quite unlike me, for oh, my dear, good brother, I know ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... that the Spaniards have constantly refused the Reformed religion admission into their states—an antipathy which cannot be attributed to anything but the republican principles the Protestants are accused of having imbibed. The King being fully convinced that, to stifle the seeds of schism in his kingdom, it was necessary to give none of the different factions occasion to boast that his power was at their disposal, and that to reduce all parties he must be partial to none, he therefore ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... a moment, but her eyes at once passed beyond. "No, no, Stumpy! You never understand," she said restlessly. "I must reach the mountain-tops or die. I am tired—I am tired of my prison. And I stifle in the valley—I who have watched the sun rise and set from the very edge of the world. Why did they take me away? If I had only waited a little longer—a little longer—as he told me to wait!" Her voice suddenly vibrated with a craving that was passionate. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... town to the railway-station. He was full of distressed concern for her, but hardly dared to show it, for, to all his questions, she only shook her head. Walking at his side, she dug her nails into her palms till she felt the blood come, in her effort to conceal and stifle the waves of almost physical repugnance that passed through her, making it impossible for her to bear even the touch of his hand. In the train, she leaned back in the corner, and, shutting her eyes, pretended to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... opinion of the injustice of this trade was making in the nation at large, as manifested by the petitions; which had almost obstructed the proceedings of the House by their perpetual introduction. It was impossible for them to stifle this great question. As for himself, he would renew his profession of last year, that he would never cease, but with life, to ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... ago a leading Socialist, who is also an Atheist, remarked to us how the clericals were creeping into the Socialist movement. "Yes," we observed, "and they will appropriate and stifle it. They will talk about the Socialism of Jesus Christ, bamboozle your followers, and get them out of your control. Then the Socialism will gradually disappear, and Jesus Christ will be left in sole possession of the field. The clericals, in fact, will trump ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... shall I do, dear friend? I want force to be either a genius or a character. One should be either private or public. I love best to be a woman; but womanhood is at present too straitly-bounded to give me scope. At hours, I live truly as a woman; at others, I should stifle; as, on the other hand, I should palsy, when ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... which had now become inevitable! As between such competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion, although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have gathered about the name of Caesar. But enough transpired to show which way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Caesar. And Pompey, who was much ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... poor Louise, though, brave girl as she was, she strove to stifle her feelings, lest she should give pain to those she loved. A little later she sought Van Zwanenburg, and begged that he would restore Saturnin to favour, and consent to his marriage with Therese. She was successful ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... so. She owned herself very dull that morning. Well, said Urquhart, he could promise her that she should not be that. She might cry for mercy, he told her, or stifle screams; but she wouldn't stifle yawns. "Macartney," he said, "would sooner see himself led out by a firing-party than in such an engine as I have out there." She smiled at her memory. "James is not of the adventurous," she said—but wasn't he? ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into Christ's ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... genus, have them a pueris [5858] illico nasci senes, they must not marry, nec earum affines esse rerum quas secum fert adolescentia: ex sua libidine moderatur quae est nunc, non quae olim fuit: as he said in the comedy: they will stifle nature, their young bloods must not participate of youthful pleasures, but be as they are themselves old on a sudden. And 'tis a general fault amongst most parents in bestowing of their children, the father wholly ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... under the earth, pinned down eternally in pain. It was awfully impressive,—so impressive that I reflected neither upon it nor on myself. With this immitigable, adamantine wildness about me, and that abysmal, booming stifle of plaint, to which all the air trembled, sounding from below, I became another being, and the very universe was no longer itself; past and future were not, and I was a dumb atomy creeping over the bare peaks of existence, while out of the blind heart of the world ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... son, rather than enter into a lawsuit with a powerful man; and she had gradually brought herself to believe that she had been her lover's wife, because in one of his ardent letters he had called her so to stifle the voice of remorse in her bosom. The conviction had grown upon her, till now, after a lapse of more than twenty years, she had forgotten all her former doubts and scruples, believed herself and her son to be injured and deprived of their just rights, and was ready to assert ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... says is this:—Regard yourselves for the moment as being brute beasts and discuss the question upon that level. Murder the social instinct; murder the compassionate spirit; disregard the Divine Law and stifle all faith in the Providence of God; let the mission of life be the enjoyment of pleasure; shrink from the marriage that might be a burden, and dissolve the happy marriage should indications of future burdens present themselves. He would have us compelled to take our betrothed ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... between the husband and wife, which would not, perhaps, please many readers to see drawn at too full a length. It is sufficient to say that this excellent woman not only used her utmost endeavours to stifle and conceal her own concern, but said and did everything in her power to allay that of ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... scandalous liver, but he would fain stifle all the voices that call for better things. Ay, you look back at yon ballad- monger! Great folk despise the like of him, never guessing at the power there may be in such ribald stuff; while they would fain silence that which might turn men from ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the men said more. Soon, however, the last speaker calmed his agitation with the facility of a man accustomed to stifle the emotions that he cannot crush, and advancing to the landholder, took ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of pride overspread his countenance, and he seemed endeavouring to stifle the feelings that swelled his heart. 'I had been prepared, madam,' said he, 'to expect a very different reception, and had certainly no reason to believe that the Duke de Luovo was likely to sue in vain. Since, however, madam, you acknowledge that you ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... little soon yet! But I speak of the future. Your Highness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear God! Everybody says, you have the sentiments of an honest man; excellent, that, for a beginning; but without the fear of God, your Highness, the passions stifle the finest sentiments. Must lead a life clear of reproach; and more particularly on the chapter of women! Need not imagine you can do the least thing without the King's knowing it: if your Highness take the bad road, he will wish ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... apprehension was less the accomplishment of the sentence of the court than the prevention of the exposure which I was prepared to make of the injustice of that sentence? That recourse should have been had to violence to stifle the accusations which I was prepared to bring forward, that terror of the truth should have so superseded a wonted reverence for parliamentary privileges as to have admitted the intrusion of tipstaves ...
— 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
... contenting himself with the symbol without the reality, the body without the soul. If she understands him, she may go with him. If she does not, no yielding on her part—no physical passion that he may arouse—will quite stifle the protest which tells her that she suffers spiritual violation. Do you remember the cry of Julie in "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont"? "It is a nightly warfare in which I am always defeated." That her physical nature is suborned to aid in the ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... Through her thin blouse he could feel her blood burning against his breast. He felt his senses going, a painful weakness seemed to stifle him, as if only a violent movement could give him breath. Feverishly he clenched his left hand, that was round her waist; with his right beneath her chin he ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... plaintiff looking at the performance with mingled horror and disgust; Sir Edwin, as if he were choking; whilst the juryman, with the air of a connoisseur, was examining him and the coat with profound gravity. At last the judge, when able to stifle his laughter, addressing the little Hebrew, said, 'Well, Mr. Moses, what do you say?'—'Oh,' cried he, holding up a pair of hands not over clean, and very different from those encased in lavender gloves which graced the plaintiff, 'it ish poshitively shocking, my lord; I should have been ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... giving up the Industry; that must be his first act. And after that? Well, after that he would look about him, and if he could pick up a tidy little vessel cheap; he would invest his savings in the purchase of her, sail in his own employ, and try to stifle all vain regrets by plunging into a more ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... captain, was one. She made what haste she could to fill her oil pot, and returned to her kitchen, lighted her lamp, and taking a great kettle went back to the oil jar and filled it. Then she set the kettle on a large wood fire, and as soon as it boiled went and poured enough into every jar to stifle and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... slavishly the wording of the Morning Prayer. If this is an unjust criticism we ought not to let ourselves be troubled by it. On the other hand, if it is a just criticism it will be much wiser of us to heed than to stifle the voice that tells us the truth. It might seem to be straining a point were one to venture to explain the present very noticeable disinclination of Churchmen to attend a second service on Sunday, by connecting it with the particular ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... I am not sure that the life is yet quite out of the kindly ridicule that was cast for a whole generation upon the people who left their comfortable houses in town to starve upon farm-board or stifle in the narrow rooms of mountain and seaside hotels. Yet such people were in the right, and their mockers were in the wrong, and their patient persistence in going out of town for the summer in the face of severe ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his apparent ingratitude and stubbornness, in leaving the home of his uncle. Under the influence of his mother's teaching and prayers, his religious impressions were deepened, but the jests of his companions at school made him stifle his convictions, and continue his career of youthful ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... purpose; for not only did it remove a sure victim from the band of savages that held possession of the school through every weekly holiday, but it gave one miserable boy just enough respite from his wretchedness to stifle the revelations which time and suffering would otherwise have surely brought. Even so, at first, Becker trembled lest the terrible Chief should be made aware of his son's treatment at that noted school. But weeks passed and no complaint ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... shall Monmouth in his glories Unto his English friends appear, And will stifle all such stories As are vended everywhere. "They'll see I was not so degraded, To be taken gathering pease, Or in a cock of hay up braided. What strange stories now ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... contest in which the British empire is engaged, and the vast sacrifice which Great Britain nobly offers to secure the independence of other nations, might be expected to stifle every feeling of envy and jealousy, and at the same time to excite the interest and command the admiration of a free people; but, regardless of such generous impressions, the American government evinces a disposition calculated to impede and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... sufficiently initiated into the intrigues of a court life to accept this strange charge without manifest dislike and hesitation. Nevertheless, whilst so many were contending for the honour of that which I condemned, I was compelled to stifle my feelings and resign myself to the bad as well as the good afforded by my present situation; at a future period I shall have occasion again to revert to the during the period of my reign, but for the present I wish to change the subject by relating to you ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the governments of Europe, led by England, as we know by our telegrams, seeking to minimise their importance—in fact, trying to stifle the movement by ignoring it or lavishing on it their supreme contempt—have already moved from their particular habitat, which is Shantung, into the metropolitan province of Chihli. Already they are in some force at Chochou, only seventy miles to the southeast of Peking—always ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... my sister, "I shall get under the bed." But as the bed was of wood and very low, she only succeeded in getting her own head and the kodak beneath its wooden planks, while I carefully built her in with blankets and eider-downs, and left her to stifle on a dreadfully hot night with a nasty-smelling little ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... take down the alarm clock and stifle its prolonged whirring under the pillows and blankets. But when this had been done, he continued to sit stupidly on the edge of the bed, curling his toes away from the cold of the floor; his half-shut eyes, heavy with sleep, fixed and vacant, closing and opening by turns. For upwards ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of the monochord, however, eventually did more to stifle music for a full thousand years than can easily be imagined. This division of the string made what we call harmony impossible; for by it the major third became a larger interval than our modern one, and the minor ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... to your credit; And I have met you, sir, most opportunely, To tell you in a word my frank opinion. Not to sift out this scandal to the bottom, Suppose the worst for us—suppose Damis Acted the traitor, and accused you falsely; Should not a Christian pardon this offence, And stifle in his heart all wish for vengeance? Should you permit that, for your petty quarrel, A son be driven from his father's house? I tell you yet again, and tell you frankly, Everyone, high or low, is scandalised; If you'll take my advice, you'll make it up, And not push matters to extremities. Make ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... patient, he assured her, and asked her to forgive him if he had been brusque, his refined voice full of adoring contrition. He caught at any gossamer thread to stifle the obvious thought that if she loved him even ever so little he would not have to accustom her to caresses; she would long ago have been willing to learn all of their meanings in his arms!—and this was only the second time during their acquaintance that she had even ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... his successor, Tennyson, it is impossible to speak save in terms of affectionate gratitude. God looked kindly on Britain when he sent two such men to minister to us. Tennyson did more than all the bishops of the Church of England to stifle crude infidelity and equally crude religious bigotry. There is not a single line he ever wrote of which in his last days he had need, from the point of view of truth and morality, to be ashamed. He increased the world's stock of happiness by poems which have been ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... and whiter, Contracts tighter and tighter, Until I stifle with the will Long forged, now used (Though utterly strained)— O pounding heart, Baffled, confused, Heart panged, head singing, dizzily pained— To ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... the right ought to be resumed; that resistance to power usurped is not merely a duty which man owes to himself and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes to his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which He gave him in the creation. This principle neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle nor the enervation of refinement extinguish. It makes it base for a man to suffer when he ought to act; and, tending to preserve to him the original destinations of Providence, spurns at the arrogant assumptions of Tyrants and vindicates ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... it like two bulls in a pastur'. Mob-law and Lynch-law are working like yeast in a barrel, and frothing at the bung hole. Nullification and Tariff are like a charcoal pit, all covered up, but burning inside, and sending out smoke at every crack, enough to stifle a horse. General Government and State Government every now and then square off and sparr, and the first blow given will bring a genuine set-to. Surplus Revenue is another bone of contention; like a shin of beef thrown ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... rage against Boyd rose suddenly in my breast; and so savage and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle and subdue it. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... night fell, however, the shadows of the room began to trouble him as of old, and he found himself growing hotter and hotter until he burned and gasped and the room seemed about to stifle him. He arose from the bed, wondering that his feet should be so heavy and clumsy, and his knees so weak, when he felt otherwise so strong. His head, too, felt large, and there rang in his ears a singing of incessant quick beats. He made his way to the door, where he heard ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the time, 'when we get back to England. I agree with you, Mrs. Markland—I think Lady Glyde is sure to like him.' He laid an emphasis on the last words which made my cheeks burn, and set my heart beating as if it would stifle me. Nothing more was said. We came away early. He was silent in the carriage driving back to the hotel. He helped me out, and followed me upstairs as usual. But the moment we were in the drawing-room, he locked the door, pushed me down into a chair, and stood ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... besides Colenso and Stanley wished to understand the real meaning of the new movement. Although the wider effect of the scientific revival in modifying theological doctrine was not yet fully apparent, the irreconcilables grew fewer and less noisy, while the injustice of their attempts to stifle the new doctrine and to ostracise ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... "I stifle! take off the cloak at once, I will not make any outcry," murmured Croustillac, believing that the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her mingled coughing ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... most leaderlike in the nation, or whether they are to be left to a few leaders, apparently leading, but really profoundly swayed by the obscure crowd of politicians and jobbers behind them. Are the politicians to hamper and stifle us in this supreme crisis of our national destinies or are we British peoples to have a real control of our own affairs in this momentous time? Are men of light and purpose to have a voice in public affairs or not? Proportional Representation is supremely ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... after the shaft was filled with smoke, but not that of an ordinary wood fire. Even this would have been sufficient to stifle them where they were; but the fumes now entering their nostrils were of a kind ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... just as one holds in check with a strong curb a horse that pulls. Nevertheless, he gladly gazes at her, and sighs the while; but he does not sigh so openly that his action is detected; rather does he stifle his sighs, though with difficulty. And he is seized with pity at hearing, seeing, and perceiving the grief of the poor ladies, who cried: "Ah, God, how hast Thou forgotten us! How desolate we shall now remain when we lose so kind a friend, who gave us such counsel and such aid, and interceded ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... himself, as Marsh went out, he finished his breakfast. The two at the window, after exploding once or twice in an attempt to stifle their laughter, drew in their heads, and, still red in the face, marched solemnly past the Colonel, and out of the room. His seat, now the window was clear, commanded a view of the street, and presently ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... over again they rang through her brain and her heart, while she fought against them, while she lay trying to deaden her senses, to stifle her reason, doing deadly battle with the fears that assailed her. She would not give in; she would not doubt him; there would come to her in time some knowledge; she should ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... had prepared Proserpine for the worst, and had endeavoured to persuade her that his love would ever compensate for all annoyances. She was in excellent spirits and in very good humour; therefore, though she could with difficulty stifle a scream when she recognised the Furies, she received the congratulations of ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... not baffled. He knew that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she was alone, her faith in the far-off Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason,—to stifle by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman's heart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she passed through the dark passage to her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... her father—as she always called him. Honor looked on, thankful for the management that was subduing and consoling the poor little maid, and yet unable to participate in it, for though the kind old lady spoke in all sincerity, it was impossible to Honora to stifle a lurking fear that the hopes built on the prospect of his return had but ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... away, Roger, ere I stifle—come, i' the devil's name!' So they went and I, lying hid secure, watched ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... brought his rage to a climax, he bounded from his seat, and, with haggard eyes, strode about the room for some seconds in all directions, as if he sought for some weapon, and uttered from time to time a hoarse cry, which he endeavored to stifle by thrusting his clinched fist against his mouth, whilst his jaws moved convulsively. It was the impotent rage of a wild beast, thirsting for blood. Yet, in all this, the young Indian preserved a great and savage beauty; it was evident that these instincts ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the size of the stones which they were able to place flat like beams, they had recourse to this profusion of columns to support their stupendous ceilings. And thus it is that there seems to be a want of air, that one seems to stifle in the middle of their temples, dominated and obstructed as they are by the rigid presence of so many stones. And yet to-day you can see quite clearly in these temples, for, since the suspended rocks which served for roof have fallen, floods of light descend from all parts. But formerly, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... sped, until a dim shape emerged from the opposite blackness. It came unheard, growing from nothing into something with ghostly subtlety. Iris, a prey to many emotions, managed to stifle the exclamation of alarm that rose unbidden. But Hozier read her distress in a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... his position. He only glanced at her now and then when he spoke to her, and for the rest he sat as she did, with his calm deep eyes fixed on the fire, and an expression of patient sadness upon his face that wrung her heart. Perhaps it was to stifle the pain of it that she began to talk garrulously. "Oh, I am sorry for the trick I have played you!" she exclaimed with real feeling. "I have been sorry all along since I knew your worth, and I came to-night to tell you, to confess and to apologize. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... do so. The plague strikes blindly but the present regime chooses its victims from the flower of the nation, taking all upon whom depend the fortune and glory of Russia. It is not a political party that they crush, it is a nation of a hundred millions that they stifle. That is what the Czar has done.'[14] Down with such despotism! Down ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... ill, came down the steps. He caught sight of Bob and was passing with a feeble grin, when something told him that this was one of those occasions on which one has to show a Red Indian fortitude and stifle one's private feelings. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... and sounds of the ship had been a renewal of the saddest time in his life; he could not at night divest himself of the impression that he was under arrest, and the sins of his life gathered themselves in fearful and oppressive array, as if to stifle him, and the phantom of poor Margaret with her lamp—which had haunted him from the beginning of his illness—seemed to taunt him with having been too fainthearted and tardy to be worthy to espouse her ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her especial charge. It had further made a very unpleasant confession needful, and Lionel's vexation and irritation seemed to have overcome all his late improvement. The thought of what poor Caroline was going through was enough to stifle everything else, and Marian wondered at herself, as for a sort of unkindness, in having been so fully occupied as to have had no ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not sleep; for though one of the bears was killed, the second of the almost invariable couple was probably near, and the idea of such vicinity was anything but agreeable. These huge quadrupeds have been often known to enter a hut and stifle all its inhabitants. The night was therefore far from refreshing, and at an earlier hour than usual all were on foot. Every morning the same routine was followed: hot tea, without sugar or milk, was swallowed to warm the body; then a meal, which took the place of dinner, was cooked and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... as Link swung glumly along through the springtide dusk, his ears were assailed by a sound that was something between a sigh and a sob—a sound as of one who tries valiantly to stifle a ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... her only relative, and have a right to know. Come out into the grounds, the air of the house would stifle me." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... meeting the test she had given him? Was he not a gallant gentleman, of her own race and caste, bound to her by ties of many sorts, in every way worthy to be the father of her children? If she had to stifle some faint, indefinable regret, was it not right that she should? Her bridges were burned behind her. He was the man of her choice. She listened, eyes a little wistful, while he poured out ardently ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... estimating the value of the expression which they have given to it. Elements of beauty were certainly, and perhaps are still, within it; but in proportion as we clear away the rubbish which encumbers it, the mass of glossaries necessary to interpret it fall in and bury it so as to stifle it afresh. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... you do that for?" demanded the fallen one, scrambling to his knees. I heard a sound from the dingy's stern as if the young lady was trying to stifle her merriment. Victor, doubtless, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the individual addressed, shaking his head with a serio-comical expression; "but stifle me with the night-mar, if ever I'm cotched riding a race with death ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... eyes! How was I shock'd to think the hero's trade Of such materials, fame and triumph made! How guilty these! Yet not less guilty they, Who reach false glory by a smoother way: Who wrap destruction up in gentle words, And bows, and smiles, more fatal than their swords; Who stifle nature, and subsist on art; Who coin the face, and petrify the heart; All real kindness for the show discard, As marble polish'd, and as marble hard; Who do for gold what Christians do thro' grace, "With open arms their enemies embrace:" Who give a nod when broken hearts repine; "The thinnest ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... out over the water for a time, but, at length, turned toward me, just a finger up as to stifle a yawn. "Really," said she, "while I am hardly so situated that I can well escape it or resent it, it does seem to me that you might well be just a trifle less familiar. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... transaction. On this latter point he felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of character, and the extreme simplicity of her intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts. On a previous occasion when he had declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as he had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say that many times more before it happened, in the resigned tones of a fatalist.... "Yet she knows I am not in my senses ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, don't cry. It'll be all right. I'll see you're all ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... death, casualty. V. kill, put to death, slay, shed blood; murder, assassinate, butcher, slaughter, victimize, immolate; massacre; take away life, deprive of life; make away with, put an end to; despatch, dispatch; burke, settle, do for. strangle, garrote, hang, throttle, choke, stifle, suffocate, stop the breath, smother, asphyxiate, drown. saber; cut down, cut to pieces, cut the throat; jugulate[obs3]; stab, run through the body, bayonet, eviscerate; put to the sword, put to the edge of the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... spiteful in disposition; but on coming to the Hotel de Chalusse she had provided herself with any amount of sweetness and sensibility, and when she entered the room, she held her handkerchief to her lips as if to stifle her sobs. The General led her toward Mademoiselle Marguerite, and, in a semi-solemn, semi-sentimental tone, he exclaimed: "Dear Athenais, this is the daughter of my best and oldest friend. I know your heart—I know that she will find in ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as after a fearful illness during which on several occasions she was at the very doors of death, Lysbeth van Goorl had been declared out of danger, Elsa, her nurse, ventured to leave her for a few hours. That evening the town seemed to stifle her and, feeling that she needed the air of the country, she passed the Morsch poort and walked a little way along the banks of the canal, never noticing, poor girl, that her footsteps were dogged. When it began to grow dusk, she halted and stood a while gazing towards the Haarlemer Meer, letting ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... help for it, however. Bertha was learning once more that the way of the transgressors is hard. She had to stifle all her feelings of anxiety, help Mrs. Aylmer into her pretty pony carriage, and take ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... by forever considering only yourself and never me! That could not help but stifle all my feelings in time. I fought against it as long as I could, Hella, but it had to come ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various |
