"Stifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consecration seemed poor and thin. He craved symbolism and richly suggestive rites. He had been more than once in these latter days to the services of the Catholics, and his imagination came more and more to demand the embodiment in form of the aspirations of his soul. He tried to stifle the disappointment which assailed him as the function proceeded, but it was impossible for him not to realize that the ceremonial of his own faith left him cold and unsatisfied. He missed the warm emotional excitement of the music, the incense, the sonorous Latin, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Boyd rose suddenly in my breast; and so savage and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... endeavour to deprive me of the Nawab's favour (tho' I thank God they have proved in vain, since his Excellency's friendship towards me is daily increasing) has long made me look on them as enemies to the English, but I could no longer stifle my resentment when I found that ... they dared to oppose the freedom of the English trade on the Ganges by seizing a boat with an English dustuck,[36] and under English colours that was passing by their town. I am therefore come to a resolution to attack them. I ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... measures for preventing the undue exploitation of both child and adult labour—measures which are already being denounced by the native Press as "restrictive" legislation devised by the "English cotton kings" in order to "stifle the indigenous industries of India in ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... actually proposed that the Jacobins should instantly march against the two committees, which Robespierre charged with being the focus of the anti-revolutionary machinations, surprise their handful of guards, and stifle the evil with which the state was menaced, even in the very cradle. This plan was deemed too hazardous to be adopted, although it was one of those sudden and master strokes of policy which Machiavel would have recommended. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... was a direct answer to prayer. Mrs. Gresley had been enabled to stifle her irritation against this delicate, whimsical, fine lady of a sister-in-law—laced in, too, we must not forget that—who, in Mrs. Gresley's ideas, knew none of the real difficulties of life, its butcher's bills, its monthly nurses, its constant watchfulness ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... gracious image. I sigh and fret and fume like any callow lad of twenty. I suffer the tortures of the damned. And yet... and yet, I swear to you, Sully, that I will curb this passion though it kill me. I will stifle these fires, though they consume my soul to ashes. No harm shall come to her from me. No harm has come yet. I swear it. These stories that are put about are the inventions of Concini to set my wife against me. Do you know how ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Lady CONSTANCE LYTTON is careful to punctiliousness in her recognition of the kindness and natural sympathy of many of the officials, even while she condemns the rules and regulations which tend to cramp and stifle the gentler side of human nature. Still, our prison system has had to stand a good deal of attack before this. We should most of us be thankful to change it if we knew how, and I need never despise hints in this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim From its silence and darkness is ever the same; The hope of that world whose existence is bliss May not stifle the tears of the mourners ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... it be that Berenger was only two miles—only half an hour's walk form Eustacie? The bound his heart gave as he touched the shore seemed to stifle him. He could not believe it. Yet he knew how fully he had believed it, the next moment, when he listened to what the fishermen ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... our guardians of the peace to go around assassinating dogs. Men, who as citizens, would cut their hands off before they would injure a neighbor's property, or speak harsh to his dog, when they hire out to the city must stifle all feelings of humanity, and descend to the level of Paris scavengers. We compel them to do this. If they would get on their ears and say to the city of Milwaukee, "We will guard your city, and protect you from insult, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... my eye I saw Jerome moving slowly in his chair, so that he could face directly towards the Rhamda. His hands were ready for the swift, upward jerk which, I knew, would stifle our caller. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute, lancinating pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat and strove in vain to stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hitherto seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by my side to support me; taking one of my hands in both his own, he approached his lips to my forehead, breathing on it softly. In ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Province first congealed the none too fiery blood of the habitants, small farmers, very poor, thinking in terms of narrowest economy, of one pig and ten children, of painstaking thrift and a bare margin to subsistence. Such conditions stifle world interests. The earthquake which threatened civilization disturbed the habitant merely because it hazarded his critical balance on the edge of want. The cataclysm over the ocean was none of his affair. And his affairs pressed. What about the pig if one went to war? And could ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... stifle the anguish of her heart; her tears fell fast upon her father's hand, which she yet held. He made an effort to speak, and at length said in a low voice, 'I hope we shall be permitted to look down on those we have left on the earth, but ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... other colonies were not greatly affected by the reaction upon the other side of the Atlantic. Here the power of the people grew apace, encountering no serious check, until it came into conflict with the sullen Toryism of George III. Then it was that England sought to stifle the liberalism of the colonies, and revolution and ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... minute, Cardo, you will not pity me when you have heard all my story. With the earliest dawn I rushed out of the house, which seemed to stifle me. I longed for the cool morning breezes, and God forgive me, if I thought too with longing of the cool sandy reaches that lay under the rippling waters of the bay! On the brow of the hill I met Essec ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... favorite than harum-scarum Jeff, but the mother might as well have asked her boy to be like Socrates. It was not that he could not learn or that he did not want to study. He simply did not fit into the school groove. Its routine of work and discipline, its tendency to stifle individuality, to run all children through the same hopper like grist through a mill, put a clamp upon his spirits and his imagination. Even thus ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... young man, raising himself on his elbow, and gazing sadly into Francisco's face. "Your conversation to-night for a moment aroused memories which I have long sought to stifle.—Lad," he said, laying a hand impressively on Mariano's arm, "take the advice that Bacri gave you. I was once as you are. I came here—years ago—with a father like thine; but he was an older and a feebler man. Like ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... for your sympathy—and for your confidence; and to show my appreciation of your kindness, I wish I could eat that dainty luncheon; but I think it would strangle me—I have such a ceaseless aching here, in my throat. I feel as if I should stifle." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... her knees, her face buried in the counterpane, a corner of it stuffed into her mouth that it might help to stifle her agony, knelt Lady Isabel. The moment's excitement was well nigh beyond her strength of endurance. Her own child—his child—they alone around its death-bed, and she might not ask or receive a word ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his lip, and Johnston heard him stifle an exclamation of impatience. As for the American, he was at once thrilled and fascinated by the awful sight below; he could now see beneath the overhanging mouth of the pit, and look far down into a boundless lake of molten ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... But under an appreciating standard the recompense of labor becomes smaller and smaller, and the share of the products of labor absorbed by the creditor larger, which tends to discourage industry and stifle enterprise. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... memory, sharper than imagination, stung her. She saw her husband carrying the sleeping child, and his face bending over her with that look of love. She closed her eyes, and let the tears rain down her hot cheeks and fall upon her breast and in her hair. She tried to stifle the sobs that strangled her, and she choked. That instant the child's lips were on ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... in deed but "impartial in thought." Mr. Wilson has been severely criticised for this appeal. The more violent pro-Germans and the more violent pro-French and pro-British regarded it as a personal insult and an attempt on the part of the President to stifle what they were pleased ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... and to speak, when, one fine day while she was at her toilet, at which she had allowed him to be present, he seized a moment when the maid had left her alone, to cast himself at her feet and tell her that he had vainly tried to stifle his love, and that, even although he were to die under the weight of her anger, he must tell her that this love was immense, eternal, stronger than his life. The marquise upon this wished to send him away, as on the former occasion, but instead of obeying her, the page, better instructed, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... perish without having aroused either sympathy or opposition, to 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
... are all dying for me; there are many handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot resist it. I am a very good girl to women, but naturally artful (if you will allow the expression) to the other sex; I can blush, look down, stifle a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused—you have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. If you had not got the start of me, I would have had your little white-haired baronet in a week, and yet I don't take him to be made of very combustible materials; ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... been some shuffling noises in the next room in the half-hour just past, which the Doctor had heard uneasily, raising his voice each time to stifle the sound. A servant came to the door now, beckoning him out. As he went, Starke watched him from under his bushy brows, smiling, when he turned and apologized ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... you would make,' said Mr Prothero, trying to stifle a very hearty fit of laughter, that burst out at last in spite of himself. 'I'm glad you took in brother Jonathan, or he'd have had ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... suddenly springs up with a thousand fragrant buds. Now it was impossible to stem it or to conceal it. She had wanted to suppress every germ, with her father's coldness and the day's dispassionately proud haughtiness she had been willing to stifle every impulse toward love, every longing for self avowal. Now she found her pride was dead and buried and her being within and without was permeated ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... mother, though he had decided objections to 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 ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... a country that's over-built Wi' streets that stifle, and walls that hem, And the gorse on a common's worth all the gilt And the gold of ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... great company followed the dead autocrat to the cemetery, regardless of the damaging skies. Miss Williams, as chief mourner, rode in a hack, alone, directly behind the hearse. During the dreary ride she labored conscientiously to stifle an unseemly hope. In the other carriages conversation flowed freely, and no attempt ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... camp? when Tony Dalziel came hurrying up, to take me back to his mother and the motor. His arrival seemed to bring relief from strain. It was like a brisk breeze blowing away the brooding clouds that stifle the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. I dreaded to go and leave those two men together; but when Major Vandyke suggested walking with us to the car, and asking Mrs. Dalziel about Milly, my heart felt lighter. We stopped only long ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... at the woman and she at him. How beautiful, how bewitchingly beautiful she was in her dumb misery as slowly, unconsciously, she folded her hands together and pressed them against her bosom, to stifle by force the tempest of ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... unite in our Endeavours to deliver our distressed Neighbours, from the horrible Annoyances and Molestations with which a dreadful Witchcraft is now persecuting of them. To have an hand in any thing, that may stifle or obstruct a Regular Detection of that Witchcraft, is what we may well with an holy fear avoid. Their Majesties good Subjects must not every day be torn to pieces by horrid Witches, and those bloody Felons, be left wholly ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... thee? My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the State, Will so your accusation overweigh That you will stifle in your own report ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.' It is all so true, in spite of what Ned says. We were very clever at observing the wind and regarding the clouds; and what are we the better for it? How much irreparable mischief, I wonder, did we do ourselves by letting our little wisdoms stifle all our big instincts! Look at those very other people whom we despised; how happy they are, in spite of their having always done exactly ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... about frantically. Mrs. Wilson called to the servants to wrap our children in blankets, and escape with them. I ran from the nursery to the kitchen, where was a door that led out to the back; there I found Cryer and Frost vainly endeavouring to stifle the flames by throwing on buckets of water. It was raining in torrents. Not a soul was at hand to help us. I sent Cryer and Frost to the river for more water. It was pitch dark, and the river a considerable distance off, so that by the time ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... censuerunt, vos iubete. Huius vobis sententiae non consul modo auctor est, sed etiam di immortales; qui mihi sacrificanti ... laeta omnia prosperaque portendere." Thus adjured, the people yielded; and as a reward, and to stifle any religio that might be troubling them, they are treated to a supplicatio of three days, including an "obsecratio circa omnia pulvinaria" for the happy result of the war; and once more, after the levy was over,—a ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... to stifle a yawn, "why can't we all be out in this keen air and sunshine? If there were but ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Villagran, who foresaw all the fatal consequences which might result from this new war, having already had long experience of the daring and invincible spirit of the Araucanians. In order if possible to stifle the threatening flame at its commencement, he immediately dispatched his son Pedro into the south, with as many troops as could be collected in haste, and soon after took the same direction himself with a more considerable force. The first skirmishes between ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... you with emotion; I must stifle my desire to cry out for your sympathy. I shall write without even the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Amid the thrush's song. Away! Avaunt! O 'twas a cruel thing."—"Now thou dost taunt So softly, Arethusa, that I think If thou wast playing on my shady brink, 980 Thou wouldst bathe once again. Innocent maid! Stifle thine heart no more:—nor be afraid Of angry powers: there are deities Will shade us with their wings. Those fitful sighs 'Tis almost death to hear: O let me pour A dewy balm upon them!—fear no more, Sweet Arethusa! ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... desire for labor, on the part of many people of leisure, has its counterpart in the increasing desire for general knowledge on the part of many laborers. They point to the fact that the same duality of conscience which seems to stifle the noblest effort in the individual because his intellectual conception and his achievement are so difficult to bring together, is found on a large scale in society itself, when we have the separation of the people who think from those who work. And yet, since Ruskin ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... hard, in a fit of shyness, when they came upon the hamlet, and saw the children watching for them; and when they reached the house, she would fain have shrank into nothing; there was a swelling of heart that seemed to overwhelm and stifle her, and the effect of which was to keep her standing unhelpful, when the others were busy bringing in the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... silence of the darkness was broken by an unmistakable sneeze. True, the sneezer, if I may use such a term, tried to stifle the explosion, but he was not altogether successful. It was a sneeze, and nothing could ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... sincerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seductive pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true. Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could part from ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... not," she answered, with a little sob. "It only seems sometimes as though I could not bear the life any longer; it is all so drear, so dull, so dead! one day like another—always the same. Sometimes I think the narrow house will stifle me! O father, chide me not; I have struggled against the feeling, but the life is killing me! I know ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... husband closed the door. Whether the memory of his father's words was exact or not, Stefan knew their effect by heart. The door shut, his mother would begin to cry, quietly at first, then with deep, catching sobs that seemed to stifle her, so that she rose and paced the room breathlessly. Then she would hold the boy to her breast, and slowly the storm would change again to gentle tears. That day there ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... of young people with good stuff in them than this caution called wisdom, which so often creeps over us as we advance in years. Then it is so frequently the case that the precepts that most naturally flow from our lips are the negatives that stifle hope. "I can no longer afford convictions," said a man to me once, "I have come to limit myself to opinions; they can be held at less risk, and changed at less cost." And the disposition to regard both faith and hope in great things as subject to ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... gratitude; and I am therefore asked to do this service, as if to show that no difference of opinion upon subjects, however important—no long course of opposition, however contracted upon public principles—not even long inveterate habits of public opposition—are able so far to stifle the natural feelings of our hearts, so far to obscure our reason, as to prevent us from feeling as we ought—boundless gratitude for boundless merit. Neither can it pluck from our minds that admiration proportioned to the transcendant ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... among the red men. His eulogies of the colonists on his return were so glowing, and his representations were so well confirmed by his companions, that the exertions of the Frenchmen were no longer able to stifle their curiosity to know more of their neighbors, especially as the report of their returned tribes-men effectually contradicted the monstrous fictions which had been invented to deter them. Such was the origin of an embassy which was a source of fear to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... which was at that time the most numerous, although it was that of the wisest men, dreaded the ebullience of the other two, wanted compromises, reforms, and not revolution." By their conflicts the two extreme parties were to stifle for a while the party of the wise men, the true exponent of the national aspirations and hopes, which was destined, through a course of cruel vicissitudes and long trials, to yet save and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... when they saw Beauty dressed like a princess, and more beautiful than the dawn. Her caresses were ignored, and the jealousy which they could not stifle only grew worse when she told them how happy she was. Out into the garden went the envious pair, there to vent ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... colonel—the pity is that it wasn't found out fourteen years ago. It is so much easier to pinch a baby's nose until it falls asleep than to stifle a young girl's shrieks and cries—then the baby would not have been missed—but the young girl will be sure ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... faint. There came a man, the father, no doubt, and other relatives; there was a clamoring, frantic throng, swarming about the car and about the victims. I went to Carpenter, and asked, "Is it dead?" He answered, "It will live, I think." Then, seeing that the crowd was likely to stifle the little one, he rose. "Where does this child live?" he asked, and some one pointed out the house, and he carried his burden into it. I followed him, and it was fortunate that I did so, because of the part I ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... their prior marriage. Clermont is thrown into prison, where he dies not without suspicion of poison. Henrietta retires to convent, but the Duke, her father, in order to gain the Marquis's estate for her unborn infant, manages to stifle the evidence of her first marriage. Enraged that he cannot obtain a divorce, the Marquis resolves to be revenged upon his perjured wife. He intercepts her coach in a wood outside of Paris and brutally murders her. The Duke orders ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... I grant her fair, she pleases not my fancy, nor would give warmth to my hearth. Because, as thou knowest well, Algar and I have ever been opposed, both in camp and in council; and I am not the man who can sell my love, though I may stifle my anger. Earl Harold needs no bride to bring spearmen to his back at his need; and his lordships he will guard with the shield of a man, not the spindle ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... can stifle any violent Inclination, and oppose a Torrent of Anger, or the Sollicitations of Revenge, with Success. But Indolence is a Stream which flows slowly on, but yet undermines the Foundation of every Virtue. A Vice of a more lively Nature were a more desirable Tyrant than this Rust of the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves—refuse to become liars—we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... if you can say to every man whom you ask to join you, 'You have women-folk around you. They have tender consciences, perhaps; but we will ask of you nothing that your sister or your wife or your daughter would not approve.' Then good men will not be afraid of you; then brave men will not have to stifle their conscience in serving you; and whether you succeed or do not succeed, you will have walked in ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... all the powers of grace, you shall not go alone! Off with these lies and make-believes! Off with these prisoner's shackles! They cramp, they stifle me! Freedom! Freedom! This is no priest's work—it calls for a man! . ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again, for she could not bear to part with the treasure. She felt as if without it she would be ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... pressed forward, grinned, chuckled, made a diabolical sound in attempting to whistle, and finally, unable to stifle his emotions, ran away to empty the feelings of his ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... irresponsibility is demoralising to any administration, however democratic be the principles upon which its officials are selected. A bureaucracy, ruling without proper external control, becomes a prey to the demons of red tape, routine, officialdom and place-hunting; it tends to stifle individual initiative and the sense of moral responsibility, since it forgets the real object of its existence—the good government of the country—in its passion for self-preservation and its desire to secure the smooth-working of the machine; it becomes ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... for a long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took the baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand, and ran up to the bush where ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... there was a limit to 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. ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... sight the rifle, And smite with spear and knife, Let no base cunning stifle Each lesson of your life: How won your gallant sires The country which ye keep? By soul, which still inspires The soil on which ye weep! Leap up! their spirit fires, And ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... are ravish'd, it is their own choice: Why are they so wilful to struggle with men? If they would but lie quiet, and stifle their voice, No devil nor dean could ravish them then. Nor would there be need of a strong hempen cape Tied round the dean's neck for committing ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... to her desk; but Felix was restless, fever once more his thrilling, passionate cry, "Oh, my darling' my darling! come to me!" And pressing her face to the lining of the carriage to stifle a groan, she seemed to feel again the close clasp of his arms, the throbbing of his heart against her cheek, the warm, tender, lingering pressure of his ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... her order, I sent a note to the mate, telling him to bring both yachts down. Then we'll have to split the crew, and in the mix-up I'll see that you and she get on the Whim, while Monsieur sails on——But I see you get me! If you can't stifle her conscience before we reach Miami, you're ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... in his room, reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries, dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or to take a step without stumbling ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... replied Maurice, "to return to my life of indolence and supposed gayety. A snake might more easily crawl back into his cast-off skin. I have breathed this free, exhilarating, vitalizing atmosphere, and the convention-laden air of Paris would stifle me. I have written to my father and announced that I propose remaining in Charleston. That is not all: he forbade my studying law in Paris, because his sapient Breton neighbors would have been scandalized by a viscount's taking so sensible a step; ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... his own favourite notions as the standard of reason and honesty, because he has changed from one extreme to another! He treats his opponents with contempt, because he is himself afraid of meeting with disrespect! He says that "a Reformer is a worse character than a house-breaker," in order to stifle the recollection that ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... to the sparrow. But whatever may be said, let us drop the past. Let us consider the present. I beg of you, leave this boy—let him develop without your attempting to stifle the life in him or impressing upon it the stamp of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... measures; but, while combining his plans of campaign with the insinuating charm of Italian diplomacy, he also set the Machiavelian springs of the police in movement, Fouche then being at its head. And none of these means were superfluous to stifle the fire of war ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... altogether by this time. He buried his face in the pillows, and contrived to stifle the sobs that would come; and then, after a sharp struggle, he lifted his face, and bent over the chair once more to kiss the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself "more." But this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious spirit does not like to stay: for here truth has to stifle her yawns so much when she is obliged to answer. And after all, truth is a woman; one must not use force ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... duties did not consist with him 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 ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... not forget either their merit or their sufferings. There are men (and many, I trust, there are) who, out of love to their country and their kind, would torture their invention to find excuses for the mistakes of their brethren; and who, to stifle dissension, would construe even doubtful appearances with the utmost favour: such men will never persuade themselves to be ingenious and refined in discovering disaffection and treason in the manifest, palpable signs of suffering loyalty. Persecution is so unnatural to them, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... don't know. I hate it all; but if I were in the midst of everything again, it might stifle the ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... much more violent and personal than the first—at least, previous to the Speaker's leaving the chair. I left the House after that, and know not what was done. The evident disposition of the House is to stifle all further proceedings regarding the Queen, but it is equally the intention of the Opposition to pursue it; but the latter must ultimately give way, for the House will not hear them. The saints—Butterworth, Wilberforce, &c. &c.—are favourable for her restoration to the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Had it not already made a coward of him? Was it not degrading him in his own eyes? Was it not trying to stifle the voice of conscience in his breast? Would it not make of him a living, walking lie? a thing to be shunned and scorned? Had he a right to place a burden so appalling on himself? Would it not be better to face the toil, the pain, the ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... look you, sir, my roads, canals and harbors, My schools, finance, my code, the manufactures Arts, sciences I builded, democratic Triumphs which I won will live for ages— These are my witnesses, will testify Forever what I was and meant to do. The ideas which I brought to power will stifle All royalty, all feudalism—look They live in England, they illuminate America, they will be faith, religion For every people—these I kindled, carried Their flaming torch through Europe as the ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... sufferer, biting the sheet and striving to stifle the cry which agony drew from him; 'no ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... you think so?" asked Blanch, endeavoring to stifle the emotion Chiquita's passionate words ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... happened!" After which, he went on to tell Ni Erh the whole affair with Pu Shih-jen. As soon as Ni Erh heard him, he got into a frightful rage; "Were he not," he shouted, a "relative of yours, master Secundus, I would readily give him a bit of my mind! Really resentment will stifle my breath! but never mind! you needn't however distress yourself. I've got here a few taels ready at hand, which, if you require, don't scruple to take; and from such good neighbours as you are, I won't ask any ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... advice was that she should stifle the first fierce and indiscriminate cravings of the young man's hunger by a liberal allowance of stirabout, which was a cheap, wholesome and very satisfying food, and in that way his destruction of more ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... seen; in a few minutes we heard a loud shriek from Emma, and old Monette's voice most vociferously crying "Murder!" and "Thieves!" On entering the rooms, we perceived that the poor girl was lying on the ground, while one of the men was endeavoring to stifle her cries by either gagging or suffocating her, though in the way he was doing it, the latter would have soon been ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the roof was made of that shape to stifle the victim's cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile, in silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame out again.... A cold air, with an ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... gold controul, Tho' the Heart urge a wiser choice, By force of habit lord it o'er the Soul, And stifle e'en Conviction's powerful voice. See, with sighs the Miser yield The promis'd joys of wood, and field; Against experienc'd disappointment, try With Gold to purchase that, which ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... thinkers found some rest: but not for long. The perplexity of the presence of this immediate order of things seemed solved; but another kept obtruding itself: what was going on before that "beginning?" Vain to stifle the inquiry by replying, "nothing."[168-1] For time, which knows no beginning, was there, still building, still destroying; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. What then is left but the conclusion of the Preacher: "That which hath been, is now; and that which is to ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... 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 horror ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... who had little chance of escaping the penalty of death, bore themselves with firmness, and manifestly believed that they were sufferers in a holy cause. Not even the sight of the destruction they had wrought in Paris could wholly stifle one's feelings of sympathy with them in their ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... be employed against France than in its favour. The illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the accomplice of Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Principalities, Alexander was willing to hold central Europe in check while Napoleon crushed the Spaniards, and to stifle every bolder impulse in the simple King of Prussia. Napoleon himself dreaded the general explosion of Europe before Spain was conquered, and drew closer to his Russian ally. Difficulties that had been placed in the way of the Russian annexation of Roumania vanished. The Czar and ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... with her eyes fastened to the floor; then she flashed them up at her interlocutor. "It's a part of our life to go anywhere—to carry our work where it seems most needed. We have taught ourselves to stifle repulsion, distaste." ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... that he drew himself farther away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to his lips in sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And yet, with his own grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more each day a compensating joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... impartiality was now and then disturbed by little gusts of passion and prejudice; but the faculty was there to be strengthened by every opportunity of exercising it. This faculty had been stirred within her when Lady Alice first told her of her father's existence; but she had tried to stifle it as an accursed thing. She held it wicked to be anything but a partizan. And now it had revived within her, and was urging her to form no rash conclusions, to be careful in her thoughts about her new acquaintances, to weigh ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself, Put but a little water in a spoon And it shall be as all the ocean, Enough to stifle such a villain up. I do suspect ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... are any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... has been invented, is now traditional, of closing the eyes easily and thoughtlessly to the whole; and we are content to catch that contagion from our predecessors: we eat and drink, we work and play, and stifle the restless questioning that springs up so resolutely in our spaces of solitude here; and what will it do ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... looked, standing there with those flowing, shimmering curls and the tender, throbbing voice pleading to be taught the fullness of human love, that she might find the largeness of the Infinite. Turning swiftly to the window, he pressed his lips together to stifle his emotion. He could no longer bear the stab at his heart, nor risk the mist rising in his eyes. Tessibel, wholly unconscious of the stir she was making, sang on and on, her gaze on the sheet in her hand. Suddenly she raised ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... delivered his sceptre into the princess's hand, he obliged her to ascend the throne; and to set the example, was the first to kiss her hand, and vow eternal obedience to her. The senators were ready to stifle the new queen with panegyrics and addresses; the people, though they adored the old king, were transported with having a new sovereign, and the university, according to custom immemorial, presented her majesty, three months after every body had forgotten ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... 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 had passed; and it appeared to me that a very long ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for the priesthood later on, but that did not stifle the love in my heart for the young girl. It was in my novitiate years. I never dared ask myself what the outcome of it all would be; I wanted to finish my novitiate first. I knew she loved me with a charming, open, young girl's love that in the freedom of our household life—her grandfather ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... subjects of investigation, are always before a country as a matter of right, and cannot, without invading the general rights of that country, be made subjects for prosecution. On this ground I will meet Mr. Burke whenever he please. It is better that the whole argument should come out than to seek to stifle it. It was himself that opened the controversy, and he ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... were always sunlight to stand in and the living air to drink, she might find the life before her in truth as little of a burden as it seemed this morning But the days would again be wrapped in nether fumes, the foul air would stifle her, her blood would go stagnant, her eyes would weep with the desolate rain. Why should Gilbert remain in England? Were there no countries where the sun shone that would give a man and a woman toil whereby to support themselves? Luke Ackroyd had spoken of going to ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... The boy's faith was genuine, she knew, but, remembering what Ralph Dacre had told her on their last night together, she could not stifle the wonder as to whether Tommy had ever grasped the actual quality of his friend's character. It seemed to her that Tommy's worship was of too humble a species to afford him a very comprehensive view of the object thereof. She was sure that unlike herself—he would never presume to criticize, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... any woman whom you had ever loved, could remain blind to your inconstancy, or feel secure indifference? Happy woman! in you to love is not a crime; you may glory in your passion, whilst I must hide mine from every human eye, drop in shameful secrecy the burning tear, stifle the struggling sigh, blush at the conflicts of virtue and sensibility, and carry shame and remorse with me to the grave. Happy Leonora! happy even when most injured, you have a right to complain to him you love;—he is yours—you are his wife—his ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... forgotten to take it out. She became quite scared and darted behind the screen, with her handkerchief over her mouth to stifle the sound ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the desperate passion seemed to stifle his breathing, and while thus silent, the expression of his eyes puzzled me. It was of frantic joy, and ill became that face where I had never observed a smile. But the strange look was soon explained—it was not of friendship, but the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... 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
... discomfort with which it begins, and the trouble it causes in the soul while it lasts; from the obscurity and distress, the aridity and indisposition for prayer and for every good work, which it produces. It seems to stifle the soul and trammel the body, so as to make them good ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... was less versed in human nature than art, and did not recognize in the forced and obtrusive gayety the effort to stifle the voice of an aroused conscience. Even to her blunted sense of right it seemed a hateful and disgraceful truth that a stranger had helped her father towards manhood, an that she had destroyed the transient and salutary influence. Her complacency had been disturbed ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... as he held the cup which her skinny fingers were extended to grasp, while her parched lips clanked against each other impatient of moisture—"Mother, take but little for you have need of prayer; that will stifle the cry ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Navy, whatever it may be in the Army, is a simple affair. You are first sent for by the Master-at-Arms, who glares, thrusts papers into your trembling hand and ejects you violently in the direction of the Demobilising Office. Here they regard you curiously, stifle a yawn, languidly inspect your papers and send you to the Paymaster, who, after wandering disconsolately round the Pay Office, exclaiming pathetically, "I say, hasn't anyone seen that Mixed Muster book? It must be somewhere, you know," returns you without thanks to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... of science, of religion, of art, and of government are progressive in proportion as they are successfully used for individual and social betterment. For if government is used to enslave people, or science to destroy them, or religion to stifle them, there can be ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar |
