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Stifled   /stˈaɪfəld/   Listen
Stifled

adjective
1.
Held in check with difficulty.  Synonyms: smothered, strangled, suppressed.  "A stifled yawn" , "A strangled scream" , "Suppressed laughter"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Stifled" Quotes from Famous Books



... not a real sign of uneasiness anywhere except in my boat; yet I felt something ominous in this silent, stifled noon. After all, I ought to have scotched the rusty, red-bellied water-snake leering at me now. The croak of the great blue heron sounded again; then far away, mysterious and spirit-like, floated a soft qua, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... came in a stifled voice, and the mate and his companions felt a chill run through them as they grasped the fact that Smith was either exhausted or being overcome by the foul gas set at liberty by ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... Willie being at work in his laboratory, and getting himself half-stifled with a sudden fume of chlorine, opened the door for some air just as Hector had passed it. He stood at the door and followed him down the walk with his eyes, watching him as he went—now disappearing behind the blossoms of an apple-tree, now climbing one of the little mounds, ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... seemed dropping from the skies, Stifled whispers, smothered sighs, And the breath of vernal gales, And the voice of nightingales: But the nightingales were mute, Envious, when an unseen lute Shaped the music of its chords Into passion's thrilling words: "Smile, Lady, smile!—I will not set Upon my brow the ...
— English Satires • Various

... been hopelessly cruel and ruthless, here started back with a gasp and a little cry, which she speedily stifled. "He's been so since yesterday," Fanny said, trembling very much, and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... souls, is roughly interrupted; moments when the spontaneous efforts of the young child are groping blindly in its surroundings after sustenance for its intelligence. Do we not all retain an impression of something having been forever stifled in our lives? ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... reserve, in a manner which would have astonished and delighted Mr. Falconer. Mr. Percy was astonished, but not delighted—he saw a noble mind corroded and debased by ambition—virtuous principle, generous feeling, stifled—a powerful, capacious understanding distorted—a soul, once expatiating and full of high thoughts, now confined to a span—bent down to low concerns—imprisoned in the precincts ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... considered it very probable that the unfortunate man had died through suffocation, as a handkerchief, which had been found in his mouth, had probably been placed there by himself when he found that he was in danger of being stifled by the gas from ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne

... expressions, and extremes of every kind, with a perfect horror for revolutions and attempts to revolutionise, exclaiming now and then, as a shriek escapes from whipped and bleeding Hungary, a groan from gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from downtrodden but scowling Italy, "Confound the revolutionary canaille, why can't it be quiet!" in a word, putting one in mind of the parvenu in the "Walpurgis Nacht." The writer is no admirer of Gothe, but the idea of that parvenu was certainly ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... Burned, singed, stifled, blinded, only able to stand on one foot at a time, jumping back across the fissure every two or three minutes to escape an unendurable whiff of heat and sulphurous stench, or when splitting sounds below threatened the disruption of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... around a bad cause were given it; the excited multitude seemed actually ready to leap up beneath the magic of his speech. It would be something, if one must die, to die by such a hand—a hand somewhat worthy and able to stifle anti-slavery, if it could be stifled. The orator was worthy of the gigantic task attempted; and thousands crowded before him, every one of their hearts melted by that eloquence, beneath which Massachusetts had bowed, not unworthily, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... last part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't." When Gulliver first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the filth which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of "Gulliver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language: a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... I saw the human lair, I heard the hucksters bawl, I stifled with the thickened air Of bickering ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... hasty order, at which all three men sprang to where Peveril was lying in deepest shadow. Hurriedly picking him up, they carried him a short distance, gave a mighty swing, and flung him from them. There was a crash of parted bushes and rending vines, a stifled ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... Wallmoden had left him. His breath came fast and thick, and he was almost stifled with the feelings of shame, and hate, and revolt, which surged within him. The ambassador's significant speeches had crushed him utterly, although he had hardly grasped their full meaning. They tore aside the veil ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... at first seemed rather alarmed, but presently exploded into a half-stifled laugh. "My hat!" he exclaimed. "Here's a go! Why, blessed if it ain't a bird with gloves on—and ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... was bordered with masses of brilliant chrysanthemums, Beryl walked rapidly, feeling almost stifled by the pressure of contending emotions. Recollecting that these spice censers of Autumn were her mother's favorite flowers, she stooped and broke several lovely clusters of orange and garnet color, hoping that a lingering breath ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... could not long survive the object of his jealousy. [25] His disease had now settled into a dropsy, accompanied with a distressing affection of the heart. He found difficulty in breathing, complained that he was stifled in the crowded cities, and passed most of his time, even after the weather became cold, in the fields and forests, occupied, as far as his strength permitted, with the fatiguing pleasures of the chase. As the winter advanced, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on board. He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:— hinting that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my mature judgment ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... had given her the most cordial invitation to visit her in her own rooms any time that she wished, particularly insisting on her bringing Mrs. Bruce Hayden in to call at any time she might be in the building. Somehow, the atmosphere of Miss Ardsley's luxuriant rooms had rather stifled Patricia on her one admission to them when she went with Elinor and Rosamond Merton to make the necessary arrangements for procuring the ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... to the sweet singing of the Eucharist. It breathed [190] more than ever the spirit of a wonderful hope—of hopes more daring than poor, labouring humanity had ever seriously entertained before, though it was plain that a great calamity was befallen. Amid stifled sobbing, even as the pathetic words of the psalter relieved the tension of their hearts, the people around him still wore upon their faces their habitual gleam of joy, of placid satisfaction. They were still under the influence of an immense gratitude in thinking, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... behind pale traces of achievement: Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out, Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls, Stifled uproar ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington

... low sob, instantly stifled. Naradia, with bloodshot eyes, was searching his face in distress. Her black hair had been arranged in a heavy braid, which ran down her back in a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... words low spoken, with stifled sobs, with sighs and tears, the pent-up yearnings of a people in joy and at the same time in sorrow sent shivering through the air a murmur like that which is heard in leafy forests what time the wind blows through the leaves, or like the dull sound made by the sea ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... criest out in vain," said my Lord; "longer thou shalt not have us than only while crossing the slough." As one who listens to some great deceit that has been practiced on him, and then chafes at it, such became Phlegyas in his stifled anger. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... see! grow up out of my breast! Spring away from the conceal'd heart there! Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves! Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast! Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have long enough stifled and choked; Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not, I will say what I have to say by itself, I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a call only their call, I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States, I will ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... knew this, and did not resent her aunt's feelings in the matter. The girl, as one of the elders among the children, had long been familiar with the story of the family straits and struggles, and could only acquiesce (though with a stifled sigh) in Madam Trevern's oft repeated axiom that "whenever Dick wedded, his bride must bring with her sufficient dowry to free the estate" from some of the mortgages which were crushing and crippling it. Mary ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... lay, not sufferin' so much in body, but stifled, choked with the putrid air, and each day the red in her cheeks deepened, and the little ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... hatreds equal those caused by the denial or obstruction of national aptitudes. Many of those who fought in the last Irish insurrection were fighters not merely for a political change but were rather desperate and despairing champions of a culture which they held was being stifled from infancy in Irish children in the schools of the nation. They believe that the national genius cannot manifest itself in a civilization and is not allowed to manifest itself while the Union persists. They wish Ireland to be as much itself as Japan, and as free ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... embarrassment as the witness of a strong reproof administered by one dignitary of the Church to another, yet felt deeply interested in the scene,—Angela shrank back trembling,—and for a few moments which, though so brief, seemed painfully long, there was a dead silence. Then Verginaud spoke in low stifled accents. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the old lady had already stopped useless bewailing and was praying heartily, like one who knew well where help was to be found. Rose went and knelt down at her knee, laying her face on the clasped hands in her lap, and for a few minutes neither wept nor spoke. Then a stifled sob broke from the girl, and Aunt Plenty gathered the young head in her arms, saying, with the slow tears of age trickling down her own withered cheeks: "Bear up, my lamb, bear up. The good Lord won't take him from us I am sure and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little golden chain, and the regular patter ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... and mosquitoes. I covered both my children's faces with veils and handkerchiefs, and repented not a little in my own breast of the rashness of my undertaking. The back of Israel's coat was covered so thick with mosquitoes that one could hardly see the cloth; and I felt as if we should be stifled, if our way lay much longer through this terrible wood. Presently we came to another impassable place, and again got out of the wagon, leaving Israel to manage it as best he could. I walked with the baby in my arms a quarter of a mile, and then was ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... the Nature Study movement swept over the schools, and "nature specimens" then became the material for sense training: as far as possible each child had a specimen, and by the minute examination of these, stimulated their senses and stifled their appreciation of ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... it was evident that his father had lent him his jacket for the occasion, for his sleeves hung down so that he was forced to turn them back on the stage, in order to receive his prize: and many laughed; but the laugh was speedily stifled by the applause. Next came an old man with a bald head and a white beard. Several artillery soldiers passed, from among those who attended evening school in our schoolhouse; then came custom-house guards and policemen, from among those who ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... sob of little Sebastijonas has been stifled, and the orchestra has once more been reminded of its duty. The ceremony begins again—but there are few now left to dance with, and so very soon the collection is over and promiscuous dances once more begin. It is now after ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... demurred; the orator grew urgent; wits began to smoke the case, as active verbs; the advocate to smoke, as a neuter verb; the "fun grew fast and furious;" until at length delinquent arose, burning tears in his eyes, and confessed to an audience, (now bursting with stifled laughter, but whom he supposed to be bursting with fiery indignation,) "Lo! I am he that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... wife had seen Barnby, there must have been some misunderstanding. He hurried home, to find the house silent and deserted. In the study, the light was fading and the fire had gone out. He was about to ring for the lamp to be lighted when a stifled sob revealed the presence of someone ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... yet forgot What chaplets languished round thy unburnt hair, In colour like some tall smooth beech's leaves Curled by autumnal suns?" How flattery Excites a pleasant, soothes a painful shame! "These," amid stifled blushes Tamar said, "Were of the flowering raspberry and vine: But, ah! the seasons will not wait for love; Seek out some other now." They parted here: And Gebir bending through the woodlands culled The creeping ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... my head closer to her breast. I submitted, knowing well that I could free myself by one more effort which it was in my power to make. But before I made it, in a sort of desperation, I pressed a long kiss into the hollow of her throat. And lo—there was no need for any effort. With a stifled cry of surprise her arms fell off me as if she had been shot. I must have been giddy, and perhaps we both were giddy, but the next thing I knew there was a good foot of space between us in the peaceful glow of the ground-glass globes, in the everlasting stillness ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... flash of intelligence lit up for a moment the swarthy features of the pirate. It passed quickly. Then he spoke in an undertone to one of his men, who, with the assistance of another, led the captain of the schooner to the forward part of the ship. A stifled groan, followed by a plunge, was heard by the horrified survivors. That was all they ever knew of the fate of their late captain. But for what some would term a mere accident, even that and their ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... with a sudden start by some sound, only the faintest echo of which remained in his consciousness. His nerves were tingling with a sense of excitement. He sat up in bed and listened. Suddenly it came again—a long, low moan of pain, stifled at the end as though repressed by some outside agency. He leaped from his bed, hurried on a few clothes, and stepped out on to the landing. The cry had seemed to him to come from the further end of the long corridor—in the direction, indeed, of the ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a flood of purely national song, full of the laughter and the tears of Italian character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian nature. Music, the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a gift from heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled. And ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... sir. Is the boy to wait?" she inquired, in a stifled voice. "She could hardly keep a straight face," as she reported downstairs subsequently, "that ridiculous Farge was so full of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark room; I at one end, she at the other; the curtains drawn away from me that I may breathe. Ah, I have been stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall,—look all from their frames at me, the last term of the race, the vanishing summit of their design. A fierce weapon thrust into the world for evil has that race been,—from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... these questions, nor to a dozen others which I put, both in English and Welsh, did my friend with the brush return any verbal answer, though I could occasionally hear a kind of stifled giggle proceeding from him. Having at length thoroughly brushed not only my clothes, but my boots and my hat, which last article he took from my head, and placed it on again very dexterously, after brushing it, he put the brush down on the dresser, and then advancing ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... preparation of those periods of life in which fall the ripening of the relatively late maturing instincts; a general realizing that wisdom can come only from experience, and not from the Book. It means psychologically calculated childhood opportunity, in which the now stifled instincts of leadership, workmanship, hero-worship, hunting, migration, meditation, sex, could grow and take their foundation place in the psychic equipment of a biologically promising human being. To illustrate in trivialities, no father, with ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... will know how Richard felt, with water under him, pitch-darkness about him, and the rock within an inch or two of his body all round. By and by the slope became steeper and the ascent more difficult. The air grew very close, and he began to fear he should be stifled. Then came a hot breath, and a pair of eyes gleamed a foot or two from his face. Had he then followed into the den of the animal by which poor Marquis had been so frightfully torn? But no: it was Marquis ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... had been forsaken, and had stifled the cries of her despairing heart by marriage with another. The fate of both sisters had been the same—a short dream of gratified ambition, followed by long years of humiliation. It seemed that the prosperity ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... so, the nervous system of a mammal is the regulating apparatus of its organism; it is, certainly, more complex than that of the organism of a fish or of a mollusc, but it has not, for that reason, tyrannically stifled the autonomy of the other organs and anatomical machinery, or of the cells ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... that world-wide theatre of nodding heads and buzzing whisperers, in which she now beheld herself unpitiably martyred, one door stood open. At any cost, through any stress of suffering, that greasy laughter should be stifled. She closed her eyes, breathed a wordless prayer, and pressed the weapon to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on your bitter disappointment, You only fan a fire that must be stifled. Would it not be more worthy of the blood Of Minos to find peace in nobler cares, And, in defiance of a wretch who flies From what he hates, reign, ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another, Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother; The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air; Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... of small apartments brilliantly decorated, basins of marble, and the cellar still intact, with amphorae, inside of which were still a few drops of wine not yet dried up, the place where lay the poor suffocated family—seventeen skeletons surprised there together by death. The fine ashes that stifled them having hardened with time, retain the print of a young girl's bosom. It was this strange mould, which is now kept at the museum, that inspired the Arria Marcella of Theophile Gautier—that author's masterpiece, perhaps, but at ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... them fifty footmen, clothed in scarlet and black, the colours of the Knight. Then a led horse. Two heralds on each side of a gentleman on horseback bearing a banner with the arms of Vicenza and Otranto quarterly—a circumstance that much offended Manfred—but he stifled his resentment. Two more pages. The Knight's confessor telling his beads. Fifty more footmen clad as before. Two Knights habited in complete armour, their beavers down, comrades to the principal Knight. The squires of the ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... lips that showed a set of pearly teeth. Villefort's first impression was favorable; but he had been so often warned to mistrust first impulses, that he applied the maxim to the impression, forgetting the difference between the two words. He stifled, therefore, the feelings of compassion that were rising, composed his features, and sat down, grim and sombre, at his desk. An instant after Dantes entered. He was pale, but calm and collected, and saluting his judge with easy politeness, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to rise, but his legs gave under him, and he sank back with a stifled oath, resigning himself to wait the return of normal conditions. As for his head, it was threatening to split at any moment, the tight wires twanging infernally between his temples; while the corners of his mouth were cracked and sore from the pressure of the gag. All of which totted ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... a friend in the world, without training or any practical knowledge of life, his feet were firmly planted upon the ladder. He had stifled all sorts of nameless ambitions. He had set his teeth and done what appeared to be his duty. Now it seemed to him that he had come to a pause. He drew up his sofa to the window of his sitting-room and looked downward. Somehow or other, the depression against which he had struggled all the ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... first thing? To the barn, the great cavernous barn, its huge doors now wide open, the stalls vacant, the mows empty, the sunlight sifting in through the high shadowy spaces. How much his life had been in that barn! How he had stifled and scrambled mowing hay in those lofts! On the floor he had hulled heaps of corn, thrashed oats with a flail—a noble occupation—and many a rainy day had played there with girls and boys who could not now ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... with some new inert foe, and swearing in his half-stifled way:—"Perdition! I'll make you stir, so I will." His gasps were nearly as audible as the words. Taking breath for a second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching with his great back. And yet again ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... these circumstances the country clamoured for justice, and demanded of the Peninsular Government the recognition and restitution of its secular rights, through reforms which should gradually assimilate it to Spain. But its voice was soon stifled, and its children were rewarded for their abnegation by punishment, martyrdom and death. The religious corporations, whose interests were always at variance with those of the Filipinos and identified with the Spanish ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... terrace, in the warm darkness of the garden, was heard low conversation and stifled laughter, coming from the place where the cigars were visible as a ring of red dots. Lavaux was amusing himself by getting the young Guardsman to tell Danjou and Paul Astier the story of the Cardinal's hat. 'And the lady, Count—the ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... his mind to press him ironically to stay, with a word of regret that his visit was so short; but he stifled the ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... breathed, and from behind her hands came stifled sobbing. My Lady Dunstanwolde bent ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... since transferred to the agency guard. Vaulting the low rail and lunging in among the devil-dreamers, came Sergeant Lutz and a squad of his fellow-troopers, and in a dozen seconds, breathless and dust-begrimed, half stifled, but practically unhurt, the agent was dragged from among the whirl of moccasined feet and propped up, panting and swearing, against the rail, while burly forms in trooper blue were hustling the half-raging, half-jeering crowd of warriors off the platform. Even in the moment of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... northeast wind that whistled about them froze Major Philip's lips, and the aide-de-camp kept moving for fear of being frost-bitten. Silence soon prevailed, scarcely broken by the groans of the wounded in the barn, or the stifled sounds made by M. de Sucy's horse crunching on the frozen bark with famished eagerness. Philip thrust his sabre into the sheath, caught at the bridle of the precious animal that he had managed to keep for so long, and drew her away ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... the old man refused to lie down, passing the whole night seated in a corner, silent and motionless. Juli on her part tried to sleep, but for a long time could not close her eyes. Somewhat relieved about her father's fate, she now thought of herself and fell to weeping, but stifled her sobs so that the old man might not hear them. The next day she would be a servant, and it was the very day Basilio was accustomed to come from Manila with presents for her. Henceforward she would have to give up that love; Basilio, who was going to be a doctor, couldn't marry a pauper. In ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... to wait that night in Grangerham, although the minister urged him and Julius, tramps as they were, to do so. He felt stifled in these narrow streets, and longed for the fresh heath, where at ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... weapon in the hands of slave insurgents is always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted. Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even after it had commenced operations; but it is the fatal weakness of a rural slaveholding community, that it can never furnish men promptly for such a purpose. "My first intention was," says one of the most intelligent newspaper narrators of the affair, ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... encouraging fact that I was not on an island, horses and carts not usually being transported by barge or aeroplane. I had not followed the tracks for more than fifty yards when they turned straight towards the water. The next minute I barely stifled a yell of delight, for there, staring me in the face, was a sort of pontoon bridge, stretching away into the darkness. On closer inspection, I found it to be composed of bundles of brushwood which were held together in some mysterious manner, and appeared to lie on the water. The surface ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... of reflective composition and less of spontaneous effusion about them. This, however, must not be taken too literally. There are exceptions, partial and total. The "native wood-notes wild" make themselves often heard, only they are almost as often stifled in the close air of the study. Strange to say, the last opus (63) of mazurkas published by Chopin has again something of the early freshness and poetry. Schumann spoke truly when he said that some poetical trait, something new, was to be found in every one of Chopin's mazurkas. They are indeed ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... earth, that the relief from the too strenuous pressure of affairs must be found. The human soul is so constituted that it cannot live unless it breathes its native air of inspiration and joy and divineness. It is stifled in the "strenuous" lower life, its energies are paralyzed unless it seek renewal at the divine springs. It is this strenuousness of latter-day life, unrelieved by love and by prayer; unrelieved by the spiritual luxury of loving service and outgoing thought; this strenuous ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... made no sound as he crossed the close-cut turf, and he paused a moment to gaze at her with ardent eyes. The loveliness of her seemed to take him by the throat, so that a half-stifled sound escaped him. Came an answering sound—a sharp-caught breath of fear as she realised an intruder's presence in her solitude. Then, her eyes meeting the eager, worshipping ones fixed on her, she uttered ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... tone; But as she heard, Lucasta smiles, Posses her round; she's slipt mean whiles Behind the blind of a thick bush, When, each word temp'ring with a blush, She gently thus bespake; Sad swaine, If mates in woe do ease our pain, Here's one full of that antick grief, Which stifled would for ever live, But told, expires; pray then, reveale (To show our wound is half to heale), What mortall nymph or deity Bewail you thus? Who ere you be, The shepheard sigh't, my woes I crave Smotherd in me, me in my grave; Yet be in show or truth a saint, Or fiend, breath ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... in the hall, and kept their eyes fixed upon the door. The two leaves of the folding door were thrown open, and Barbara, supported by two ladies, entered weeping. She trembled as she walked; she seemed almost stifled by her emotion, and could scarcely restrain her sobs. The starost regarded her tenderly, and, approaching her, took her hand to lead her to our parents. They then both knelt to receive the paternal benediction; all present were deeply moved. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... having got rid of an imaginary speck of rust that had troubled his soul, replaced the bolt, and was putting away the oil rag, when there was a sharp stifled gasp, followed by a slithering fall, and Captain Dashwood lay in a heap among the white wet mud at the bottom of the trench. His cap had spun round and dropped into a sump, and the blood was pouring down his face and neck as ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... cloth on it, and then brought a saucer of crimson strawberries and yellow cream; but the lady was no eater, she was sorry to see. She stood a moment timidly, but Miss Defourchet did not put her at her ease. It was the hungry poor she cared for, with stifled brains and souring feeling. This woman was at ease, stupidly at peace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... with wonderful readiness, "it is called a stifled sigh because it is checked in its progress, and only ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... of the spectators may be better imagined than described, though, assuredly, admiration of the generous anxiety of the young sailor to do justice to his friend was the prevailing sentiment of their minds. At length the stifled sound of voices, and the dimly seen forms of two or three men stealing towards them, within the shadow of the mountain, roused them from their reverie; and Rhimeson, who had not till now spoken, entreated Elliot to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... dairy, the old woman took my hand and dragged me along a perfectly dark passage, Miss T. following. This passage was paved with stones, and had stone walls on either side. Half stifled with peat smoke, we arrived, puffing and panting, in the kitchen. Here in a corner was the big peat fire which filled the whole dwelling with its exhalations. All around was perfect blackness, until our eyes got accustomed to the dim hazy light, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... barren of the Lacs Delesse, and he cracked his whip just as the off runner of the sledge struck a hidden snow-blister. There was a sudden lurch, and in a vicious up-shoot of the gee-bar the revolver was knocked from Dolores' hand—and was gone. A shriek rose to her lips, but she stifled it before it was given voice. Until this minute she had not felt the terror of utter hopelessness upon her. Now it made her faint. The revolver had not only given her hope, but also a steadfast ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... encored that, but there was no time to repeat it, so they listened to more stifled merriment behind the red table-cloths, and wondered whether the next scene would be the wolf popping his head out of the window as Red Riding Hood knocks, or the tragic ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... all the while a stifled instinct saith: "Spend your souls vigour to the utmost breath And let the hounds come baying ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... palace, as a place of the greatest safety, in the apartments of one Castulus, a Christian officer of the court. St. Zoe was first apprehended, praying at St. Peter's tomb on the feast of the apostles. She was stifled with smoke, being hung by the heels over a fire. Tranquillinus, ashamed to be less courageous than a woman, went to pray at the tomb of St. Paul, and was seized by the populace, and stoned to death. Nicostratus, Claudius, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the young girl. "But after all, it doesn't much matter what happens to you if you are in good company." The semi-gloom permitted her to gaze steadfastly into his eyes. He ignored the opportunity for a compliment, and Susan stifled a little ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... been anxiously watching for you. It's dreadful—David." Grace's voice trailed away into a stifled sob. Brave as she had tried to be, David's belated presence was almost too much for ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... leaving Baisemeaux almost more than stifled with joy and surprise at this regal present so liberally bestowed by the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... head, as though in greeting, and made a few thrusting motions in the air with two of his fingers, which stood out from his forehead like a pair of horns. From where the apothecary stood in a circle of fine ladies a stifled laugh was heard. All faces were turned to where the burgomaster's wife stood tall and stately on a block of stone. But she gazed down unflinchingly at the "Great Power" as though she had never ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... twilight had followed swiftly upon the misty sunset. There was something a little ghostly about the light in which they sat. "I am stifled," she declared ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... woman threw back her head, laughing, so that her glory of hair fell straight down, and she was out of reach of St. Pierre's lips. They turned. Her face fronted the window, and out in the night Carrigan stifled a cry that almost broke from his lips. For a flash he was looking straight into her eyes. Her parted lips seemed smiling at him; her white throat and bosom were bared to him. He dropped down, his heart choking him as he stumbled ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... the deserted lawn in front of the cottage. The moon was at the full, and shone brighter than day's twilight. The night was warm, but not oppressive,—for there was a gentle air blowing, filled with the invigorating briny odor of the ocean; yet I felt choked and stifled. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... I am very fond of them," Dieppe declared with the readiness of good breeding, but he glanced at his host with a curiosity that would not be stifled. The Count lived in solitude. Half his house—and that the other half—was brilliantly lighted, and he left his bedroom because of a cat. Here were circumstances that might set the least inquisitive ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... all hopes. She cast her eyes, as it were, upon the strangely devious way—like the tortuous rocky path before her—over which her love for Calyste had led her. Ah! Calyste was indeed a messenger from heaven, her divine conductor! She had stifled earthly love, and a divine love ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... it zest, still prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day without stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely even showing herself at the door or window; for she is always in a careless dishabille, unless she expects company. It is sad to see these stifled existences; without any contact with the world outside, without any charm of domestic life, without books or culture of any kind, the Brazilian senhora in this part of the country either sinks contentedly into a vapid, empty, aimless life, or frets against her chains, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... brought into requisition to make what, after all, appeared to me nothing but a wearisome, hot crowd. The apartments were overfilled: to converse with anybody for five minutes was impossible. If one stood up one was squeezed to death, and if one sat down one was stifled. I, too (who was the small lioness of the evening), was subjected to a most disagreeable ordeal, the whole night being stared at from head to foot by every one that could pass within staring distance of me. You probably will wonder at this circumstance distressing a young ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... steps and of voices becomes distinct and draws nearer. From the mass of the four men who tightly hung up the burrow, tentative hands are put out at a venture. All at once Pepin murmurs in a stifled voice, "What's this?" ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... instant there was the mingled sound of a heavy fall or succession of falls outside, and one quick, stifled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... rose up to my nose and stifled me. And I no longer moved, but kept staring fixedly at him, scared as if in the presence ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... of awe fell on the company. None of the others had as yet put the two events in juxtaposition, and they had an ugly sound. Even Mr. Siddle stifled a protest. Elkin had scored a hit, a palpable hit, and no one could gainsay him. He felt that, for once, the general opinion was with him, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... law of resume of the degrees of Verb, the Verdi Veron, Eugene Vertebrae, three sorts of Vice, hideousness of Vicious arrangements Violent emotion, in, the voice stifled Virtues, the Vision, three sorts of Vital breath Vocal cords, fatiguing the Vocal music Vocal organ, the Vocal shades, law of Vocal tube, the, must not vary for a loud tone Voice, the charms of organic apparatus of a mysterious hand the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... that river-fish are sometimes stifled, even in their own element, by muddy water during floods, it can not be doubted that the periodical discharge of large bodies of turbid fresh water in the sea may be still more fatal to marine tribes. In the "Principles of Geology" I have shown that large quantities ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... of later monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their religion; but the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined the woolen trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled Irish commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and instituted heavy taxation and high rentals for the land their fathers had made productive—these were blows dealt chiefly for the political and commercial ends of favored ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... draught is a current of air. Such currents are now passing up the chimney, and simply owing to that trifling circumstance, we are able to sit here now without being stifled ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... German feeding in general, in no way were meant to refer to the table d'hote at the Hotel Titlis, which, served in a lofty and well-ventilated salon, lighted by electricity, to four hundred people daily, a capitally well-appointed meal, is one of the notable features of the place. The smoke-stifled children of the Fatherland, who shut every window they come across when they get a chance, though they would dearly like to, cannot carry their tricks on here. Sometimes, but not very often, they rally in force, and render the "Grosser ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various

... describing his person and his demeanour were sent to every corner of the kingdom. Broadsides of prose and verse written in his praise were cried in every street. The Companies of London feasted him splendidly in their halls. The common people crowded to gaze on him wherever he moved, and almost stifled him with rough caresses. Both the Universities offered him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Some of his admirers advised him to present himself at the palace in that military garb in which he had repeatedly headed the sallies ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... There was a stifled oath from McKeever, as he jerked his hand back. Frederic Fernand was beginning to draw one breath of joy at the thought that McKeever would escape without having that pack, of all packs, examined, when the long dagger flashed in ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... nearly a year across many seas, I alone had no companions, friends, home, or sweetheart, to seduce me from my craft; and I confess that the sentiment of loneliness, which, under other circumstances, might have unmanned me at my American greeting, was stifled by the mingled vanity and pride with which I trod the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... feels other, let them declare it!" and Mrs. Fancy retired, holding both hands to her temples, and uttering very distinctly sundry stifled moans. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... Fleetwood stifled a groan, reached into a trousers pocket, and brought up a dollar. "Get me one at the store, will you, Kent? Fifteen and a half—and a tie, if they've got any that's decent. And hurry! Such a triple-three-star fool as I am ought to be taken out ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... she will," muttered Hanson, with concentrated bitterness, and stifled some maledictions under his breath. "I've tried every way, turned every trick known to sharp lawyers for the last six years, trying to get free; but she's got money, you see, and she can keep her eye on me, so, in one way or another, she's ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... No. 6, in E flat minor. Niecks praises it in company with the preceding one in E. It is beautiful, if music so sad may be called beautiful, and the melody is full of stifled sorrow. The study figure is ingenious, but subordinated to the theme. In the E major section the piece broadens to dramatic vigor. Chopin was not yet the slave of his mood. There must be a psychical programme ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... the time of the omnipotent Metternich! Let us recall to our memories this cool, clever, callous statesman, who founded and set the Holy Alliance against the Revolution, who calmly shot down the German Atta Troll, who skilfully strangled and stifled that promising poetical school, "Young Germany," to which Heine belonged. Let us recall this man, who likewise artificially revived the old religion and the old feudalism, who repolished and regilded ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... happiest scenes of earth, When swell'd the bridal-song on high, When every voice was tuned to mirth, And joy was shot from eye to eye, I 've heard a sadly-stifled sigh; And, 'mid the garlands rich and fair, I 've seen a cheek, which once could vie In beauty with the fairest there, Grown deadly pale, although a smile Was worn above to cloak despair. Poor maid! it was a hapless wile Of long-conceal'd and hopeless love To hide a heart, which broke the while With ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Struggled through clutching spines; the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on—and did not care Though he were taken—wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... he said, in a voice so hoarse and stifled that she could hardly recognize it as his own. "I must have a word with you—forgive me—I won't detain ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Nellie gave a stifled exclamation. Ned was too horror-struck to answer; above the clicking of the oars in the rowlocks he fancied he could hear the swish of the savage sharks rushing through the water at their living prey. He was not sorry when George again rested on ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... world, to play comedy wherever they may be, without cares and without tears!"—Watteau, with his twelve-year-old eyes, saw only the fair side of life. He did not guess, be it understood, that beneath every smile of Margot there was a stifled tear. Watteau seems to have always seen with the same eyes; his glance, diverted by the expression and the color, did not descend as far down as the soul. It was somewhat the fault of his times. What had he to do while painting queens of comedy, or dryads of the opera, with the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... this time filled a new Pipe and applying it to his Lips, when we expected the last Word of his Sentence, put us off with a Whiff of Tobacco; which he redoubled with so much Rage and Trepidation, that he almost stifled the whole Company. After a short Pause, I owned that I thought the SPECTATOR had gone too far in writing so many Letters of my Lady Q-p-t-s's Name; but however, says I, he has made a little ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... With groans stifled by his tears, and lamentations in accents suppressed, not from any fear for himself, for he cared not for life, but lest any one should be roused to interrupt their pious duty while yet incomplete, he proposed to his companion that they should together bear ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... combats of the jungle. The crowd, which had let the African proconsul pass by with but a careless glance of uninterested scrutiny—for dignitaries were too common to excite much curiosity—pressed tumultuously and with frantic eagerness around the heavy cage, exulting in each half-stifled roar from within as though it were a strain of sweet music—and thus followed the van until it arrived at the amphitheatre and passed out of sight through one of the deep, low arches leading to the tiers of grated stone cages, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to-day from an old friend of her mother's of whom Virginia was fond, and she had just begun to be interested in the third paragraph, all about an adorable Dandy Dinmont puppy, when an odd, half-stifled ejaculation from the Grand Duchess made the girl lift ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... goes out by the hall door. MRS. ALVING sighs, glances out of the window, puts one or two things tidy in the room and turns to go into the dining-room. She stops in the doorway with a stifled cry.) ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen

... the minister and the Church that is indifferent under the revelations that are made every day showing to what depths the vile creatures of the red light districts have sunken to gain a little more of cruel gold! God will not hold guiltless men and women who, hearing the stifled cries of the enslaved, heed them not! It behooves the sons and daughters of the brave men who freed the black slaves to rise in another and holier crusade to free the white slaves from a bondage blacker and more damning than any the world has yet known. Yes, it is high ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... One of the half-stifled cotton-spinners, a notorious one, a spouter of rank sedition and hater of aristocracy, a political poacher, managed to make himself heard. He was tossed to the Press for morsel, and tossed back to the people in strips. Everard had a sharp ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... voice of Conscience. Ujarak felt uneasy, and stifled it at once. Everybody can do that without much difficulty, as the reader knows, though nobody has ever yet succeeded in killing Conscience outright. He then set himself to devise some plan for escaping from this duel. His imagination was fertile. While the revellers continued to amuse ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... he has dreamed out at last the troubled dream of life. Sighs of unavailing grief ascend to Heaven. Panegyric, fluent in long-stifled praise, performs its office. The army and the navy pay conventional honors, with the pomp of national woe, and then the hearse moves onward. It rests appropriately, on its way, in the hall where independence was proclaimed, and again under the dome where freedom was born. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... Stifled within, the impetuous sorrow stays, Which would too quickly issue; so to abide Water is seen, imprisoned in the vase, Whose neck is narrow and whose swell is wide; What time, when one turns up the inverted base, Toward the mouth, so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... one telling her not to worry! She clenched her teeth that no one in the outer office might see how near she was to tears. Outside, in a stifled voice, she directed Williams to drive her back to the Manor, then sat very straight in the car as though those hateful eyes could pierce the thick walls ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... I became impatient for the test. Since through such strain, maidenly scruples had been stifled, I felt equal to any ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... stifled sounds of scuffle from the interior of the guard-house; then shrill, wrathful screams; then a woman's voice unlifted in wild upbraidings in an unknown tongue, at sound of which Trooper Kennedy ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... rapidity, that it was impossible to stem it. In the city of London a remarkable instance occurred. The livery had been long waiting for the common council to begin a petition. But the lord mayor and several of the aldermen stifled it. The former, indignant at this conduct, insisted upon a common hall. A day was appointed; and, though the notice given of it was short, the assemblage was greater than had ever been remembered on any former occasion. Scarcely a liveryman was absent, unless sick, or previously ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... he answered in a wondering voice. "To-morrow. . . ." She put her hand over his mouth with a little half-stifled groan. "Just take me in your arms and kiss ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... grew worse. My eyes too were affected in a strange manner. I continually fancied that I saw ships sailing about at a little distance from me, and I strove to attract their attention by calling to them. My voice was weak and I could create only a kind of half stifled cry. Then I thought I beheld land: fair forests and green pastures spread before me—bright flowers and refreshing fruits grew all around—and I called to my companion to make haste for we were running ashore and should presently be pulling the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... altogether bad. Excessive vanity and ambition had steeled her heart and stifled impulses that were naturally good, but otherwise she was not wholly devoid of feeling. She was really sorry for this poor little woman who was fighting so bravely to save her husband. No doubt she had inveigled Howard into marrying ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... wanted him! I felt as if I couldn't stand it when Peter stepped forward, looking like the most beautiful Keats the world had ever known, and the whole house gasped at his beauty and kept still to hear what a man that looked like that would have to say. I stifled a sob and looked around to see if I could flee somewhere, when suddenly my groping hand was taken in two big, warm, horny ones, and Sam's deep voice said in the ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of a protestant, named Peter Fine, were covered with snow, and stifled; an elderly widow, named Judith, was beheaded, and a beautiful young woman was stripped naked, and had a stake driven through her body, of which ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the first scene of the second act with the scenery complete, and the messengers of peace entered, there was a general outburst of emotion, and even Schroder-Devrient, who was bitterly prejudiced against her part, as it was not the role of the heroine, could only answer my questions in a voice stifled with tears. I believe the whole theatrical body, down to its humblest officials, loved me as though I were a real prodigy, and I am probably not far wrong in saying that much of this arose from sympathy and lively fellow-feeling for a young man, whose exceptional difficulties were ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... he had no steady ideas as to wherein the true secret of tragic terror lies: he here strives to reach it by overfilling the senses; whereas its proper method stands in the joint working of the moral and imaginative powers, which are rather stifled than kindled by causing the senses to "sup full of horrors." The piece, however, abounds in quick and caustic wit; in some parts there is a good share of dialogue as distinguished from speech-making; and the versification is far more varied and compact than in Tamburlaine. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for the Cause; a patriot, a lover of human freedom, and a fighter unafraid; and in the end, not gigantic enough to beat down the conditions which baffled and stifled him, a cynic and a pessimist, gasping his final agony on a pauper's couch in a charity ward,—"For a man to die who might have been wise and was not, this I ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... a strange, stifled voice, and suddenly turned her face from me. Was my father dead? No. My mother? No. Uncle George? My aunt trembled all over as she said No to that also, and bade me cease asking any more questions. She was not fit to bear them yet she said, and signed to the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... word in the same sentence, rather than risk ambiguity by abbreviation. His genius showed itself in turning this method of a laborious lucidity into a peculiarly exasperating form of satire and controversy. Newman's strength was in a sort of stifled passion, a dangerous patience of polite logic and then: "Cowards! if I advanced a step you would run away: it is not you I fear. Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." If Newman seemed suddenly to fly into a temper, Carlyle seemed never to fly out of one. But Arnold ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... grasped Hill by the hand, drew him aside, slipped his arm into his, and walking forward to the bow of the ship, said in a stifled voice: ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... long, you do forgive me—you say of me what our Saviour said of his murderers, 'God forgive her, she knew not what she did.' And now," she continued after a pause, during which there was no sound in that room but stifled sobs, "and now let me take a solemn leave of you all; let me ask for your prayers, for my ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... success of this project depended on the continuance of their sleep. It was proper to approach with wariness, and to heed the smallest token which might bespeak their condition. I crept along the path, bending my ear forward to catch any sound that might arise. I heard nothing but the half-stifled sobs of the girl. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... dangerous spiral, without guard-rail. A misstep being no trifle, Rudolph offered his hand for the mere safety; but she took it with a curious little laugh. They climbed cautiously. Once, at a halt, she stood very close, with eyes shining large in the dusk. Her slight body trembled, her head shook with stifled merriment, like a girl ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... the gate, followed the narrow foot-path leading to the front door, and found herself in a dark entry, with a few rays of light shimmering through the key-hole of a door immediately before her. As she put her hand to the latch, a stifled sob broke upon her ear, and noiselessly opening the door, she glided into the apartment. It was indeed the chamber of death. On a little table by the fire-place, amidst a number of glasses and vials, burned a solitary candle ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... very justly be called a well-bred man, he had stifled all that curiosity which the extraordinary manner in which he had found Mrs Waters must be supposed to have occasioned. He had, indeed, at first thrown out some few hints to the lady; but, when he perceived ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... hood, which was hanging from a nail, and hardly knowing what she did, was about to leave the house with no other protection, when she was arrested in her progress towards the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to say: "Before you go, Rachel, ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... having made her choice, she put away thought. All through the voyage she was a most delightful companion. A little stifled excitement, like forcing heat in a greenhouse, made all her social qualities blossom out in unwonted brilliancy. She was entertaining, bright, gay, witty, graceful; she was the admiration and delight of the whole company on board; and ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... determination not to scream. Maisie, at the dentist's, had been heroically still, but just when she felt most anguish had become aware of an audible shriek on the part of her companion, a spasm of stifled sympathy. This was reproduced by the only sound that broke their supreme embrace when, a month later, the "arrangement," as her periodical uprootings were called, played the part of the horrible forceps. Embedded in Mrs. Wix's nature as her tooth ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James



Words linked to "Stifled" :   suppressed, inhibited, smothered, strangled



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