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More "Constraint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drinking. Sherwood was naturally reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a pleasant dinner—without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... us that they are sadly depraved, nor can I describe many of the scenes which take place. Suffice it to say that, like other heathens who know not God, they give themselves up to work all manner of abominations without constraint or shame. We place a guard during the night; but when we awake there is great shouting among our party for missing articles, and it is found that we all have been robbed of articles of dress, knives, pistols, handkerchiefs, and pocket-books. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Satrughna heard He calmed the rage his breast that stirred, Releasing from her dire constraint The trembling wretch with terror faint. Then to Kaikeyi's feet she crept, And prostrate in her misery wept. Kaikeyi on the hump-back gazed, And saw her weep and gasp. Still quivering, with her senses ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... men never think of doing! At this moment, I could swallow a pen, taste the ink in the ink-well, throw my papers from the window, hurl the porcelain jar on the chimney-piece at the cat next door, swing on the chandelier. I am conscious of no constraint in not doing these things. Why? I have become to some degree adjusted to the type which the social will ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... time, messengers from the council proceeded with all speed to Hatfield, to announce to Elizabeth the death of her sister, and her own accession to the sovereign power. The tidings, of course, filled Elizabeth's mind with the deepest emotions. The oppressive sense of constraint and danger which she had endured as her daily burden for so many years, was lifted suddenly from her soul. She could not but rejoice, though she was too much upon her guard to express her joy. She was overwhelmed with a profound agitation, and, kneeling down, she exclaimed in Latin, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... must utter himself. The sense of need is so real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it, addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely there is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so expose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that gives it a ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... it will have no constraint on you, nor do harm any way, for me to say I am a little afraid lest Lee sends reinforcements to Early, and thus enables him ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the Horror which had hung upon my spirit even during the days when I hardly knew in any intelligible sense the cause of it. But the drawing-room and dining-room both produced upon my mind a vague consciousness of constraint. I was dimly aware of being ill at ease and uncomfortable in them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave me a pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and security: while the servants'-hall and the kitchen seemed perfect ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... alone frequently threw off the constraint which fettered all, and one even turned with the gayest ease from one person to another. This was Baron Malfalconnet, one of the Emperor's major-domos. He was permitted to do what no one else ventured, for his cheerfulness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he obeys his own commanding. Though throned above all nations, a king of kings, yet the faithful humble vassal of his own heart; though he serve, yet regal, doing imperial service; he escapes outward constraint by inward anticipation; and all that could he rightly named as his duty to others, he has, ere demand, already discovered, and engaged in, as part of his duty to himself. Now it is the expression of royal freedom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... strange and unfamiliar. They were all a little afraid of each other, as people are apt to be when they are well dressed and met together for social purposes in the country. To be at a real party was a novel thing for most of them, and put a constraint upon them which they could not at once overcome. Perhaps it was because they were in the awful parlor,—that carpeted room of haircloth furniture, which was so seldom opened. Upon the wall hung two certificates framed in black, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... an iron constraint on himself). Nothing but this: that either you were right this morning, or Candida ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... to observe the family compact which he had signed at the time of his marriage with Countess Sophie Chotek. It was thought that he perhaps reserved the right to declare it null and void, in view of the constraint that had been put upon him. The successive honours that had drawn the Duchess of Hohenberg from the obscurity in which the morganatic wife of a German prince is usually wrapped, and had brought her near to the steps of the throne, showed ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... may rest assured that not one halfpenny has been deducted for working expenses. In fact, when the donations come to be realised the Operative may be the loser. But no matter. "Expend your money in pious uses, either voluntarily or by constraint." ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... mean time, Raymond had remained with Adrian and Idris. He was naturally frank; the continued absence of Perdita and myself became remarkable; and Raymond soon found relief from the constraint of months, by an unreserved confidence with his two friends. He related to them the situation in which he had found Evadne. At first, from delicacy to Adrian he concealed her name; but it was divulged in the course of his narrative, and her former lover heard ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... And again, Iamblichus, writing to Agathocles, says:—"There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you have been told concerning the sacred sleep, and seeing by means of dreams. I explain it thus:—The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. In sleep the soul is liberated from the constraint of the body, and enters, as an emancipated being, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds objects that truly are—the objects in the world of intelligence— stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can be astonished that ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... time away in other mining districts in which he had ventures. When thus absent, he would live as Jack Brien and his friends were living at Mrs. Henniker's, and was supposed to enjoy the ease of his inn more thoroughly than he did the constraint of his grand establishment. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... double-crested, Where the clouds do have their dwelling. And the rain forever raineth, Shedding his divine refulgence, And revealing to our vision Ev'ry landmark that in darkness And in shapeless gloom was shrouded;— Till for joy our belts we loosen'd, Casting off constraint, and sported. Danker now than in the dulcet Spring-time grew the summer grasses; Yet to-day our ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... pale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and with deliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainly unprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discern uneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept her invisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which none of ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... lipless mouth, resembling a single line, denotes coldness, industry, a love of order, precision, house-wifery, and, if it be drawn upwards at the two ends, affectation, pretension, vanity, malice. Very fleshy lips have always to contend with sensuality and indolence. Calm lips, well closed, without constraint, and well delineated, certainly betoken consideration, discretion, and firmness. Openness of mouth speaks ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... new presence she would have been bashful enough under any circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side. Observing that he ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... are disputable principles in grammar, as there are moot points in law; but this circumstance affects no settled usage in either; and every person of sense and taste will choose to express himself in the way least liable to censure. All are free indeed from positive constraint on their phraseology; for we do not speak or write by statutes. But the ground of instruction assumed in grammar, is similar to that upon which are established the maxims of common law, in jurisprudence. The ultimate principle, then, to which we appeal, as the only true standard ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... small fit of despair took the stocking to a little distance and sat down to work. The marble egg was heavy to hold. It took a long while to go up one side of the heel and down the other. She was tired of sitting under constraint and so still. And her Aunt Candy seemed like a jailer, and that perfumed room like a prison. The quicker her work could be done, the better for her. So Matilda reflected, ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... and the fact that he was planning to stay, was slow in coming to Peterson. After supper, when they had returned to the room, his manner showed constraint. Finally he said:— ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... more particularly echoes, however, two passages in the nineteenth essay: "There is no evil in life for him that hath well conceived, how the privation of life is no evil. To know how to die, doth free us from all subjection and constraint." "No man did ever prepare himself to quit the world more simply and fully ... than I am fully assured I shall do. The ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man of business who had lurked in her imagination—a man with clothes smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Spanish cavaliers were there, leading their native infantry; and there were the Burgundian lances. The army was commanded by Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, who had aspired to the hand of Elizabeth. Philip earnestly seconded his suit, but Mary, wisely and kindly, would not put a constraint upon her sister's inclinations. The wary Princess saw that the crown would probably be hers at no distant day; and she would not risk the loss of the people's affection by marrying a foreign Catholic. She had sensible advisers about her, who seconded her own prudence; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... That I should be so closely bound With neither terror nor constraint, Without a murmur of complaint, And lose myself ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, and disclosed the project. Then when they were alone the King's daughter said to her eleven girls, "Put some constraint on yourselves, and do not look round at the spinning-wheels." And next morning when the King had his twelve huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once looked at the spinning wheels. Then the King again said to the lion, "Thou hast deceived me, they are ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... moment's silence; then quietly and kindly she asked one or two questions about the boy who had died. The father answered in an awkward, confused way, as if speaking only by constraint. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... sanctuary; nor had the dependent and discipular attitude, the reverential attachment to venerable persons, been in the least congenial to him. He had always rather effaced himself in the presence of our ecclesiastical visitors, and had avoided the constraint of their dignity. Indeed, up to this time he had not much gone in search of personal relationships at all except with ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with them. (They returned it next day in postage stamps, with a charming note.) The assurance with which I tendered the slight service astonished me myself. At any other time I should have hesitated, argued with my fears, offered it with an appearance of sulky constraint, and been declined. For a moment they were doubtful, then, looking at me, accepted with a delightful smile. They consulted me as to the way to Paternoster Row. I instructed them, adding a literary ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... art of fascination. Advisedly overlooking the monarch in the man, she conversed with a perfect self-possession, which enabled her to display all the resources of a cultivated mind and a lively temperament; while Henry was enchanted by a gaiety and absence of constraint which placed him at once on the most familiar footing with his young and brilliant hostess; and thus instead of departing on the morrow, as had been his original design, he remained during several days at Malesherbes, constantly attended by the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... high birth, and I could, with the most perfect honesty, expatiate on Lord Errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of my praise. His agreeable manners and softness of address prevented that constraint which the idea of his being Lord High Constable of Scotland[317] might otherwise have occasioned. He talked very easily and sensibly with his learned guest. I observed that Dr. Johnson, though he shewed that respect to his lordship, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... man's!—such a jacket, with lapels to the pockets, which he said "the sailors wore on the sloops, and called 'em monkey-jackets"!—such a way as he had of putting a quid in his mouth! for Nat Boody chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the world and such large range of action. The most of us never get over a wonderment at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... to the other side of the room, and took up a book; thus relieving the little ladies from the constraint of his presence, while at the same time he could keep an eye upon Elsie, and see that she did not over-fatigue ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... been moved as you see from No. 13. I'm with the men now, and though I hated going at first—yet, now, I think I almost prefer it. With the officers there must always be a little constraint—at least, I have never been able to get rid of the feeling. Perhaps with more experience it would vanish je ne sais pas . . . but with the men it's never there. They're just children, Derek, just dear helpless kiddies; and so wonderfully grateful for ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Order was wont to come with her presence, and she hardly knew the aspect of tumultuous idleness or insubordination to unenforced authority; for her eye and voice in themselves brought cheerful discipline without constraint, and upheld by few punishments, for the strong influence took away ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... free From all constraint of verses, may Goodness and honour, grace and glee, Attend you ever on your way - Up to the measure of your will, Beyond all power of mine to say - As she and I desire you still, Miss Cornish, on ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were accompanied with prayers and tears; but they were to no purpose, and Xavier was stedfast to his resolution. His friends perceiving they could gain nothing upon him by intreaties, had recourse, in some measure, to constraint; so far as to obtain from the governor of Ternate a decree, forbidding, on severe penalties, any vessel to carry the Father to the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... ante-chambers almost empty, or occupied by the grey uniforms of the Switzer guards. Where I had looked, to see courtiers assembling to meet their sovereign and assure him of their fidelity, I found only gloomy faces, watchful eyes, and mouths ominously closed. An air of constraint and foreboding rested on all. A single footstep sounded hollowly. The long corridors, which had so lately rung with laughter and the rattle of dice, seemed already devoted to the silence, and desolation which awaited them when ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... constraint to her tearful speech, with an empty smile. He had knives in his bowels, he was so empty, and the beer was going to his head. He remembered all the details of Stone Farm, where he had first seen and heard the Sow, just as Father ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... with the same painful constraint. "I have heard about your revolutionary war, and I think on the whole that I would ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... depicting it with careful detail, a limpid brush, and good textural effects. In 1825 he travelled abroad, was gone some years, was impressed by Velasquez, Correggio, and Rembrandt, and completely changed his style. He then became a portrait and historical painter. He never outlived the nervous constraint that shows in all his pictures, and his brush, though facile within limits, was never free or bold as compared with a Dutchman like Steen. In technical methods Landseer (1802-1873), the painter of animals, was somewhat ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... as an event certain to occur, which any day may bring forth; and when the heavy news is brought to you, bear it as a Christian woman should bear the afflictions of this, world. I do not ask you not to weep for me, for that would be putting too violent a constraint upon your nature, but do not weep over much. Above all, Victorine, do not allow your sorrow to paralyse your actions. You will have to act then, not only for yourself, but for your child—for my daughter; and if you then give way to the violence ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compel me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... there. From the first moment of her arrival she had acted upon his lessons. Gentle, timid, but adroit, fearing to give the slightest pain to anybody, and though all lightness and vivacity, very capable of far-stretching views; constraint, even to annoyance, cost her nothing, though she felt all its weight. Complacency was natural to her, flowed from her, and was exhibited towards every ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to be seated, which he did with no small degree of embarrassment and constraint, and upon the extreme edge of the gilt and satin-covered chair, the negress who had been his conductor left him for the time being ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the rest of the party theirs as listeners—a 'Circa herd'—without any previous arrangement having been gone through. I will just add that there can be no good society without perfect freedom from affectation and constraint. If the unreserved communication of feeling or opinion leads to offensive familiarity, it is not well; but it is no better where the absence of offensive remarks arises only from formality and an assumed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... followed. There was a certain constraint in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and all ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... special plan, but believing that such guarantee might be adequately afforded by a partition of power in the Senate between the two sections, and by a recognition that ours is a Union of freedom and consent, not constraint and force, he respectfully submits, for consideration by members of the Convention, the plan hereto ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Mr. Webster adhered to the nomination; in the latter, he rejected it. In 1848 he might still hope to be President through a Whig nomination. In 1852 he knew that, even if he lived, there would never be another chance. He gave vent to his disappointment, put no constraint upon himself, prophesied the downfall of his party, and advised his friends to vote for Franklin Pierce. It was perfectly logical, after advocating the compromise measures, to advise giving the government ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... mind, when he demands an internal juristic necessity drawn from the nature of possession itself, and therefore rejects empirical reasons. /2/ He finds the necessity he seeks in the freedom of the human will, which the whole legal system does but recognize [208] and carry out. Constraint of it is a wrong, which must be righted without regard to conformity of the will to law, and so on in a Kantian vein. /1/ So Gans, a favorite disciple of Hegel, "The will is of itself a substantial thing to be protected, and this ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... development of power—that is to say, efficiency—means. The error is in implying that we must adopt measures of subordination rather than of utilization to secure efficiency. The doctrine is rendered adequate when we recognize that social efficiency is attained not by negative constraint but by positive use of native individual capacities in occupations having a social meaning. (1) Translated into specific aims, social efficiency indicates the importance of industrial competency. Persons ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... or three of the most distinguished men of the day, with the very toast in their mouths, afraid to bite. It was curious to see Lawrence in this predicament, to hear him bite by degrees, and then stop, for fear of making too much crackle, his eyes full of water from the constraint; and at the same time to hear Mrs. Siddons' 'eye of newt and toe of frog,' and to see Lawrence give a sly bite, and then look awed, and pretend to ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... aroused Plutina from the apathy into which she had fallen, during the last half-mile of difficult scrambling, made more toilsome by the constraint of her bound wrists. Now, puzzlement provoked interest in her surroundings. She had expected that the outlaw would bear her away to the most convenient or the most inaccessible of the various secret retreats with which rumor credited him. But here was neither cave nor shack—only the level ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... He was wishing strongly that Cornelia was away, and he could talk to her uncle with less constraint. He felt that he was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... and the open somehow brought relief and the delicate constraint between them relaxed as they sauntered slowly into the house where Shiela presently went away to dress for the Ascott function, and Hamil sat down on the veranda for a while, then retired to undertake the embellishment of his ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... liberal officers was still most trying. In the streets and among the people they were in a congenial atmosphere; behind the closed doors of the drawing-rooms, in the society of ladies, and among their fellows in the mess, there were constraint and suspicion. Out of doors all was exultation; in the houses of the hitherto privileged classes all was sadness and uncertainty. But everywhere, indoors or out, was spreading the fear of war, if not civil at least foreign war, with the French emigrants as the allies of the assailants. On ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and by the favours which he had bestowed. At first Bernadotte's correspondence with him was that of a grateful inferior, but the very moment he was fairly out of France, feeling himself as it were relieved from a state of long and painful constraint, it is said that his hatred to Napoleon vented itself in threatening expressions, which, whether true or false, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... mother," Macleod said, eager to account beforehand for any possible constraint in her manner. "Shall ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... arrangements had reference only to two days. After two days, Adrian was to return to Basle, and to be seen no more at Granpere till he came to claim his bride. In regard to the choice of the day, Michel declared roundly that no constraint should be put upon Marie. She should have her full privileges, and no one should be allowed to interfere with her. On this point Marie had brought herself to be almost indifferent. A long engagement was a state of things which would ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... guarded phrases, colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and bores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain, straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the water of the sun-baked puddles of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... meadow, and the fields rejoicing in the soft May weather; Martha busied herself in kitchen and cellar, filling up the pauses of her labor with cheerful talk; and when the four met at the table, so much of the constraint in their relation to each other had been conquered, that a stranger would never have dreamed of the gulf which had separated them a few hours before. Martha shrewdly judged that when Alfred Barton had eaten ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... magistrate, to enjoy more power than is consistent with the good of mankind; nor is it of any benefit to a man to be unjust: but these maxims are a feeble security against the passions and follies of men. Those who are intrusted with power in any degree, are disposed, from a mere dislike of constraint, to remove opposition. Not only the monarch who wears a hereditary crown, but the magistrate who holds his office for a limited time, grows fond of his dignity. The, very minister, who depends for his place on the momentary will of his prince, and whose personal interests are, in every ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... customs. What was it to Anna that she was to be deprived of earthly elevation and power—what cared she that she henceforth would no more have the pleasure of commanding others? She was free, free from the task of ruling slaves and humanizing barbarians; free from the constraint of greatness, and, finally free to live in conformity with her own inclinations, and perhaps, ah, perhaps, to found a happiness, the bare dreaming of which already caused her heart ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to speak again, she closed the door, leaving him once more in darkness. Sitting in the constraint she imposed upon him, he could hear her moving in the outer room, where, owing to the lightness of the wooden partition, it was not difficult to guess what she was doing at any given moment. He knew when she opened the outer door ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... believers walked in silence. Some hypocritically smiled, as if to say: "The affair is none of ours!" Others spoke with constraint, but their low voices were drowned in the rumbling of movement, and the loud ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... flattering and soothing to that same vanity in the idea of having been specially singled out as the object of the protection and solicitude of the divine powers; this idea at all events takes the galling sting from the constraint of obedience. Hence every nation has very jealously insisted on and devoutly believed in the divine origin of its rulers and the divine institution of its laws and customs. Once it was implicitly admitted that the world teemed with spirits and gods, who, not content with ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... aspirations, the same emotions and intellect and accountability.... The Chinamen for centuries have taken peculiar means for restricting women's activities by binding the feet of girl babies and yet there remains the significant fact that, after centuries of constraint, God continues to send the female child into the world with feet well formed, with a foundation as substantial to stand upon as that of the male child. As in this instance, so in all cases of restriction put upon women—they do not come from God but from ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... room the photographs of Mimi, of her grandfather, and of Adam Salton, whom by now she had grown to look on with reliance, as a brother whom she could trust. She kept the pictures near her heart, to which her hand naturally strayed when her feelings of constraint, distrust, or fear became so poignant as to interfere with the calm which she felt was necessary to help her ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... king, modifying his last observation, "if women are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little constraint—a natural blush to punctuate their talk—the meeting seemed conventional enough. 'Tis through your own romantic heart ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a family, who were early attended to in all these little particulars, were produced at table when they were four or five years old; they suffered no constraint, nor were they ever banished to the nursery lest company should detect their evil habits. Their eyes and ears were at liberty during the time of dinner; and instead of being absorbed in the contemplation of their plates, and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... repair to the point of elevation the next day, nor the day after; but she met him the third day near the Seventy-second Street entrance. More than that, she insinuated herself at his side; at first rather to his discomfort. Later he forgot the constraint her presence occasioned him, when something she said caused him to look upon her with new favor. Beauty had momentarily escaped his vigilance and enjoyed a mad romp after a squirrel ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... into what he pleases. O man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of nature? Behold the weed; grown among hindrances and constraint, how it scarcely yields an indication of inner law; behold it in nature, in field or garden, how perfectly it conforms to law—a beautiful sun, a radiant star, it has burst from the earth! Thus, O parents, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... so much in outward actions as in simplicity and truth of character, it stands outside the sphere of law and public authority. (190) Simplicity and truth of character are not produced by the constraint of laws, nor by the authority of the state, no one the whole world over can be forced or legislated into a state of blessedness; the means required for such a consummation are faithful and brotherly admonition, sound education, and, above all, free ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... away—wished almost that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at least, you knew what you were up against. The job might be hard enough, but it wasn't baffling and queer, with hidden undercurrents that you couldn't chart. It seemed to him that this baffling feeling of constraint had rushed to meet him on the very threshold of the drawing-room, when he made his ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... sovereign, the savage coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. [152] It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... that the years must inevitably make a change in Hagar. That glimpse he had had of her on the Flying W ranchhouse porch had made him think, but her appearance now caused him to think more deeply. It made constraint come into his manner. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—moonlight—I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... her act be voluntary[e]. She cannot by will devise lands to her husband, unless under special circumstances; for at the time of making it she is supposed to be under his coercion[f]. And in some felonies, and other inferior crimes, committed by her, through constraint of her husband, the law excuses her[g]: but this extends not ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... a room they seem to roll about, as it were, but when they walk to any distance, they proceed straight forward with a gait like other people. As they rise up or sit down, or stoop, their movements are playful, though strange, not ungraceful, and without the appearance of constraint. The average height of their countrymen is less than that of Europeans, and they seem rather short for their age, even judging them by their own standard. They are much shorter than the ordinary run of youths in this country at eighteen years of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... E. I can talk away freely, and without constraint. I am never very sure that he does not know the things he questions me on better than myself—a practice some of his order rather cultivate; but, on the whole, our intercourse is easy. I know he is not a little puzzled about me, and I intend ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... they may suffer a temporary disguise, are devils incarnate. The tide of passion at length broke loose, and with redoubled violence for having suffered constraint. To add to the misfortune, my thirst after knowledge was the cause, or at least the pretext, of this change. It happened that an old book of arithmetic fell in my way, and, as this was at that time the sole treasure of instruction within my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... not by the nails through His hands and feet that He was held, nor by the ropes with which His arms were bound, nor by the soldiers watching Him; no, but by invisible bands—by the cords of redeeming love and by the constraint of a Divine design. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... I was powerless to contend with a love which made my mother happy; because I was weary of keeping up the daily constraint of my relations with her and him, and also because I hoped that when once I was free I should be better fitted for my task as a doer of justice. I myself asked to be permitted to leave the house, so that at nineteen I possessed ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... that she was in his drawing-room, he could scarcely believe his joyful ears. He had to put a constraint on himself to walk to its door in a decorous fashion fit for Mawley's eyes, and not dash to it at full speed. He entered the room with his ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... began, the employers very soon detected that it was running below its possible output. There was a curious lack of briskness in the work—a curious constraint among the new workers. Yet the employers were certain that the women were keen, and their labour potentially efficient. They put their heads together, and posted up a notice in the factory to the effect that whatever might be the increase in the output ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, was not discouraged; she continued her solicitations unremittingly, day after day,[118] month after month, for a whole year, but always without the least success, for Joseph in his chastity did not permit himself even to look upon her, wherefore she resorted to constraint. She had an iron shackle placed upon his chin, and he was compelled to keep his head up and look ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the manner of the Secretary was cordial; but with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost fancied our positions reversed,—that, instead of our being in his power, the Secretary was in ours, and momently expecting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... pathos, but 'tis gone. They have declared the spirit's sore Sore load, and words can do no more. Beethoven takes them then—those two Poor, bounded words—and makes them new; Infinite makes them, makes them young; Transplants them to another tongue, Where they can now, without constraint, Pour all the soul of their complaint, And roll adown a channel large The wealth divine they have in charge. Page after page of music turn, And still they live and still they burn, Eternal, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... there wasn't another man that could hold a candle to Acton there. The committee doggedly, and with meaning, elected the only player there was to elect, and Acton signified that he was willing to play. Bourne, as usual, was there, and no one felt more than he the air of distrust and constraint which hung over the meeting. When Acton was unanimously elected for back Phil stolidly wrote out the list of the team and had it pinned up on the notice-board. He had carefully drawn the line in red ink above the last name—Acton's—which showed that the pride ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and left the room by a small masked door in a corner. The King waited till he saw it close before he spoke again. His tone changed a little then and his words came quickly, as if he felt here constraint. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... to be here," he said, with a sudden constraint not difficult to understand, "I shall be happy to ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... and soft sided indeed is she." Now when Julnar heard what Salih said, she replied, "Thou sayest sooth, O my brother! By Allah, I have seen her many and many a time and she was my companion, when we were little ones but now we have no knowledge of each other, for constraint of distance; nor have I set eyes on her for eighteen years. By Allah none is worthy of my son but she!" Now Badr heard all they said and mastered what had passed, first and last, of these praises bestowed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... "Nay, not so!" said she. "The Saviour went on foot, and bore His cross to the place of execution. I will tread His path. Show me the way, I follow you. But let no one dare touch me. I will show you that not by constraint, but gladly and freely, I tread the path of suffering, which I shall endure for the sake of my God. Rejoice, oh my soul!—sing, my lips! for the bridegroom is near, and the feast ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... of the desire expressed by it, (it matters little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of deciding by free vote-without the slightest constraint, after the complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general-the form of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes an annexation-that is to say, conquest ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... talked of other things, Jacinth exerting herself doubly, to prevent Lady Myrtle's noticing Frances's silence and constraint. But afterwards, when they were by themselves for a moment, she took ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... slowly, however, on implementing needed structural reforms, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labor market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labor unions. But the leadership faces a severe economic constraint: the budget has breached the 3% ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... I fear shame more than death. Tacitus said: Omnia serviliter pro dominatione. My tendency is just the contrary. Even when it is voluntary, dependence is a burden to me. I should blush to find myself determined by interest, submitting to constraint, or becoming the slave of any will whatever. To me vanity is slavery, self-love degrading, and utilitarianism meanness. I detest the ambition which makes you the liege man of something or some-one—I desire to be simply my ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in ideas which, tho' experienced in, were not less ravishing: she was not of a temper to put any constraint on her inclinations; and having entertained the most amorous ones for the count de Bellfleur, easily overcame all scruples that might have hindered the gratification of them:—her head ran on the appointment she had made him:—the means she would take to engage his constancy,—resolved to ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Enter to thy seat there lowly, Yet come slowly, For the viands thou seest were baken By God most high. 75 Lo ye my pillars, doctor, saint, Ambrose, Thomas and Jerome And Augustine, In my service wax not faint, Nor show constraint, And to thee, soul, shall be welcome This fare of mine. 76 To the holy kitchen go: Let us this frail soul restore, That she find grace To reach her journey's end and know Her path, that so By God brought hither she no more ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... become our property. Each individual is altogether devoted to his master, assumes his manners, knows and defends his goods, and remains attached to him until death; and all this proceeds neither from want nor constraint, but solely from true gratitude ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... come not without constraint; But uncompell'd comes Chester to this place, Telling thee, John, that thou art much to blame, To chase hence Ely, chancellor to the king; To set thy footsteps on the cloth of state, And seat thy body ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... considerations, he is assured that, though he became master of every thing else, nothing can be safe for him while you are under popular government: should any reverse ever befall him, (and many may happen to a man,) all who are now under constraint will come for refuge to you. For you are not inclined yourselves to encroach and usurp dominion; but famous rather for checking the usurper or depriving him of his conquests, ever ready to molest ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... had first found this home for Tessa, on his return from Rome, more than a year and a half ago, he had acted, he persuaded himself, simply under the constraint imposed on him by his own kindliness after the unlucky incident which had made foolish little Tessa imagine him to be her husband. It was true that the kindness was manifested towards a pretty trusting thing whom it was impossible to be near without ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she would have me. That was the question—"Would she have me, or would she not?" He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and added, that "I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to the suggestions of my friend, Mr. ——, who had desired me to take no notice whether she came near me or ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... a slow time!" An electric current quivered through the room, the two boys in the corner writhed in a spasm of giggles, and the minister said sternly, "Hush!" But the next instant the necessity for constraint was over. A tremendous uproar burst from the front doorway, and into the midst of the wedding guests there dashed an astounding pair—a small, turbulent creature, dressed exactly like the bride, in blue silk and a streaming white veil, followed ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... be at home, it was not with the air of a person with whom his bread and butter is the first thought. Gladness shone in every look and movement; but at the same time over all the gladness there was a slight veil; it might be gravity, but it might not be all gravity, for part of it was very like constraint; the eyes were more ready to fall than to rise; and the words, though free to come, had a great facility for running in short sentences. But Mrs. Derrick was too happy to notice such light streaks of mist in the sunshine, and talked away at a most ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... she awoke to see that the morning light was sifting through the darkness. Her bones and muscles ached from the constraint of the position in which the rope held them. She was shivering with the chill of an Arizona mountain night. Turning her body, the girl's eyes fell upon her captor. He was looking at her in the way that no decent man looks at a woman. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the captive Gelimer, who, with a purple robe on his shoulders, paced through the streets, shouting ever and anon in a melancholy voice, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity". When the procession reached the palace, Gelimer by constraint and Belisarius willingly prostrated themselves at the feet of "Justinianus Augustus". The promises on the faith of which the Vandal king had surrendered himself were well kept. He might have been raised to the dignity of Patrician, if he would have renounced his Arian creed. As it ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... stiff bow and 'Will you follow me, sir?' led the way along the hall towards the council chamber, with Mercier close behind him. As they turned into the corridor leading to the chamber, Mercier, feeling some constraint and wishing to make a little conversation, said, half jokingly, 'Sir John, I wish you would tell us whether you are going to disallow our Jesuits' Estates Act or not.' Suddenly the old man unbent, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind. Then they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with constraint, clambered through the ruins and recrossed the ditch upon the rafter. Matcham had picked up the windac and went first, Dick following stiffly, with his crossbow on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... itself in dreams of wonders and doctrines, and what were called higher and holier things than barns and byres and sheep-pens. Yet the truth had been staring me in the face all the time, if only I could have seen it; that the sense of constraint and unreality that fell upon one in religious matters, when some curious and intricate matter was confusedly expounded, was perfectly natural and wholesome; and that the real life of man lay in the things to which one returned, on work-a-day mornings, with such relief—the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bring charges against both women and men,—charges not serious enough for capital punishment but prolific in threats and terror.] Some of these persons he murdered, to others he sold preservation in return for their property [and got something from them by constraint under the pretence that it was a voluntary offering]. And finally on his birthday he ordered us, our wives, and our children each to contribute two aurei [a year as] a kind of first-fruits, and the senators in all the other cities five denarii per head. [Of this, too, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... like at all this new-made burgomaster! His insolence grows daily ever faster. No good from him the town will get! Will things grow better with him? Never! We're under more constraint than ever, And pay more tax ...
— Faust • Goethe
... he could do toward collecting his bill. His absence for a whole day was nothing new, and yet the house seemed to have assumed a novel appearance that morning. When, after breakfast, Lucy ran out into the street I felt as though Dora and I were alone for the first time, and from her constraint I could see that she was experiencing a similar feeling. I hung around the house awkwardly. She was trying to keep herself busy. Finally I said: "I think I'll be going. Maybe there is some news ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... place into sets and pairs. The best are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... that the cloud had lifted—that the spell of constraint was removed; and yet none of them precisely ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... the ritual and the sermon the two walked forth together in silence, their former brief intimacy a mere memory, neither realizing exactly how best to resume a conversation which had been interrupted by so solemn a service. It was Miss Norvell who first broke the constraint. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... similarly oiesis is nothing but the movement (oisis) of the soul towards essence. Ekousion is to eikon—the yielding—anagke is e an agke iousa, the passage through ravines which impede motion: aletheia is theia ale, divine motion. Pseudos is the opposite of this, implying the principle of constraint and forced repose, which is expressed under the figure of sleep, to eudon; the psi is an addition. Onoma, a name, affirms the real existence of that which is sought after—on ou masma estin. On and ousia are only ion with an iota broken off; and ouk on is ouk ion. ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... her hand in the American fashion, and Gheta smiled from—Lavinia saw—her best facial angle. The Spaniard regarded Gheta Sanviano so fixedly that after a moment she turned, in a species of constraint, to Anna. The latter spoke with her customary facility ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... so much valued by Miss Hacket, that Gillian thought how once she should have felt it a privation not to be allowed to tell her whence they came; but to her surprise on the Sunday, instead of the constraint with which of late she had been treated at tea-time, the eager inquiry was made whether this was really ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been there more than half-an-hour, when, moving with the crowd from one room to another, he suddenly came face to face with Lettice and the Grahams. All of them were taken by surprise, and there was a little constraint in their greeting. Perhaps Lettice was the least disturbed of the four—for the rest of them thought chiefly of her, whilst she thought of Alan's possible embarrassment, which she did her best to overcome, with the ready ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... himself, smiled, tried to move without constraint, but unconquerable suffering was evident on his features and in the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the "Giant's Castle"—charmed with one another, and at every step of the way seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The crimson sunset burned about them like the widening ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the two of them? Little enough—mere merry chat. But on his part so rigid a self-constraint underlying it that we are not sure some of the little waves didn't say—not Sally at all, but—Miss Nightingale! And a persistent sense of a thought that was only waiting to be thought as soon as he should be alone—that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are a constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close knowledge of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by something of that sort. I am on the lookout for nothing but bad qualities in Gnekker; I quickly find them, and am fretted at the thought that a man not ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of constraint through the house, which Flora de Barral coming down somewhat later than usual could not help noticing in her own way. Everybody seemed to stare so stupidly somehow; she feared ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... said Father d'Aigrigny, with an air of constraint: "but I will observe to your reverence, that it was, perhaps, rather dangerous thus to excite Marshal Simon ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... moments we sat in silence, but I fear my grace was as graceless as my morning worship had been. Miss Warren's manner was reverent. Were her thoughts also wandering? and whither? She certainly held mine, and by a constraint ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... we parted, we should leave in one another's power all the incriminatory moral secrets of which we had made mutual confession. At the same time, our rule of frankness had long ceased to be faithfully observed, but, on the contrary, proved a frequent cause of constraint, and brought ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... could, in the condition he was. The people about him said, he had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him, he had his understanding as well as ever I knew, and spake strong and hearty, without any seeming uneasiness or constraint. After I told him how sorry I was to see him in those melancholy circumstances, and said some other civilities, suitable to the occasion, I desired him to tell me freely and ingeniously, whether the predictions Mr. Bickerstaff had publish'd relating to his death, had not too much affected ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he regarded iniquity in his heart—he did not wish to be taken at his prayer—he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... enlightening, directing, and we get all these in the good news of One that has died for us, and that lives to be our Lord. The will needs authority which is not force. And where is there an authority so constraining in its sweetness and so sweet in its constraint as in those silken bonds which are stronger than iron fetters? Hope, imagination, and all other of our powers or weaknesses, our gifts or needs, are satisfied when they feed on Christ. If we feed upon anything else it turns to ashes that break our teeth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... concentric rows of spectators. Lastly she took in the Promenade, in which she stood. She surveyed the Promenade with a professional eye. It instantly shocked her, not as it might have shocked one ignorant of human nature and history, but by reason of its frigidity, its constraint, its solemnity, its pretence. In one glance she embraced all the figures, moving or stationary, against the hedge of shoulders in front and against the mirrors behind—all of them: the programme girls, the cigarette girls, the chocolate ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... across whose top peeped an elbow of ivy geranium. It was as though the unseen garden beyond, tired of constraint and drowsily stretching, had disclosed this hint of ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... that the queen sought in them, but because of the real importance that the weather should be cloudy, that darkness might aid them in their flight. While the two prisoners were watching the billowy, moving vapours, the hour of dinner arrived; but it was half an hour of constraint and dissimulation, the more painful that, no doubt in return for the sort of goodwill shown him by the queen in the morning, William Douglas thought himself obliged, in his turn, to accompany his duties with fitting compliments, which compelled the queen to take a more active part in the conversation ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... face settled in a smile; but a smile that betrayed solicitude, timidity, and constraint. He accosted his favourites with familiarity and softness; but they durst not speak without premeditation, lest they should be convicted of discontent or sorrow. He proposed diversions, to which no objection was made, because objection would have implied uneasiness; but they were ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... rather enhanced the pleasant freedom and life of their house. The rest of the family were seen once or twice, when passing through London, but only in calls, which, as Babie said, were as good as nothing, except, as she forgot to add, that they broke through the constraint on her correspondence ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together for some minutes on the past—the present; but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides—it was so difficult to avoid one subject; and after sixteen years of absence, there is little left in common, even between those who once played together round their parent's knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find an excuse in Catherine's fatigue to leave her. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an interval of silent constraint, "is very Southern. Any sort of kinship means a great deal to her. I, of course, am Northern, and regard such ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... but she made no mention of anything unusual. And when Mr. Stuart came in to breakfast he looked as embarrassed and uncomfortable as a boy. There was a constraint over the little party at breakfast that had not been there the ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself—I am not a slave, I am a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... not serve to restore confidence; the constraint remained, and increased with time. Jim noted its effect on Aurora with some misgiving. His appearance in the tent was the signal for a display of boisterous animation on her part. If she had been depressed before, she suddenly became gay; if she had been ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to mark the air of constraint and dispirited lassitude which had characterized the Marchese during the commencement of their conversation. And he, as others had done, attributed it to the supposition that the Marchese was very rapidly growing old—likely enough, was breaking up. Nor did he ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... quality of it which was so striking. It was not a reserve which was raised of aloofness; there was no particle of that, no self-esteem, no egoism—common builders of reserve—yet on the other hand it was not the retreat of shyness as many might have thought, though out of it a certain constraint was undoubtedly born. One might almost say it was a result rather than a reserve; the result of a something hard at work within; a preoccupying something; a gestating something, the offspring of which ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... boorish demeanour of his companion, whose extorted bows resembled the pawings of a mule, who hung his head in silence like a detected sheep-stealer, who sat in company under the most awkward expressions of constraint, and whose discourse never exceeded the simple ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... starting up, and laughing, with a slight degree of constraint, which caused Amy, who was helping her to dress, to exclaim, 'Has anything ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looking away with an effort, and turning over the papers he had brought with him; "there are several points in the case I should like to mention to you." He paused for a minute, apparently to collect his thoughts, and to Herbert's sensitive ears there was a sudden coldness and constraint in his voice and manner. "You will, of course, take instructions in the main from Grainge and Co.; but what I wished to point out to you was—ahem——" here his voice unaccountably faltered, and his eyes, as though drawn by a magnet, returned once more with ominous displeasure to ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... over. The guests left, the members of the Council, each with a wife on his arm, frowsy, overdressed women most of them. The Council was chosen for ability and not for birth. At last only the suite remained, and constraint vanished. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Bee were unusually grave and silent; Mr. Brudenell was always sad; Ishmael was no conventional talker, and therefore could not seem other than he was—very serious. It was quite in vain that Mr. Middleton and Walter tried to get up a little jesting and badinage. And when the constraint of the breakfast table was over ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... let myself out, it would look like unbecoming pressing of myself, considering what I am; but if you think I ought, I will say more. I have become so much used to writing letters under constraint, that I ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than reserved, she showed herself cold and taciturn. With people who inspired her with respect, she was amiable and charming; but her real disposition was gay, petulant, active, and, above all, opposed to constraint. Great dinners, long soirees, commonplace visits, balls themselves, were odious to her. She was the woman of the fireside or of the rapid and frolicking walk; but in her interior, as in her goings abroad, intimacy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... No constraint of hands hath bound her, Not a chain hath e'er been round her; Silver star hath sealed her brow, Holy as ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... of confectionary, of fruits then in season, peaches, plumbs, grapes, chesnuts, walnuts, and water-caltrops. We very soon found indeed that we were treated with more studied attention, with a more marked distinction, and with less constraint, than when we ascended the river. Our dignified conductor made no difficulty in allowing us to walk on shore as much as we pleased; but recommended us not to quit the banks of the river for fear of retarding the yachts or of being left ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... ridden on ahead with Benito and Dolores; Dave and Alaire followed leisurely. Now that the moment of their parting was at hand, they lingered by the way, delaying it as long as possible, feeling a natural constraint at what was in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... watch on Washington, and as soon as he was in a separate command he began to curry favor with Congress and scheme against his commander. This was not unknown to Washington, who afterwards wrote, "I discovered very early in the war symptoms of coldness & constraint in General Gates' behavior to me. These increased as ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often pejoratively referred to as 'tick-tick-tick' simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, independent chains of ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... derive from beggary or robbery, formed their chief subsistence; for many of them were positive mendicants, and were so denominated: and being possessed of a sanctuary within their own quarters, to which they could at convenience retire, they submitted to the constraint of no laws except those enforced within the jurisdiction of the university, and hesitated at no means of enriching themselves at the expense of their neighbors. Hence the frequent warfare waged between ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... should come to meet them on their landing. "We shall reach Southampton," wrote Mrs. Trevor, "tired, pale, and travel-stained, and had much rather see you first at dear Fairholm, where we shall be spared the painful constraint of a meeting in public. So please expect our arrival at about seven ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... time died Archbishop Lanfranc; by whose death the King, loosed from that awe and constraint he was under, soon began to discover those irregularities of his nature, which till then he had suppressed and disguised, falling into those acts of oppression and extortion that have made his name and memory infamous. He kept the see of Canterbury four years vacant, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... the same fate, his melancholy, his resignation before me, his looks full of that love and tenderness which once made my happiness, has touched my soul in the most nice and delicate part: I dare not discover myself, before I know their sentiments; and the constraint I have put on myself, has been such, as nature scarce can bear—-Preserve my secret, dear Sayda, and don't expose me again to tremble for lives on which my own depends." "Doubt not of my fidelity, madam," answered the other, "'tis inviolable, my religion, your goodness ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... brave chieftain. The danger having passed away the structure became dilapidated. For a pecuniary compensation the seigniors allowed the economical and tenacious peasant to pick off it a good many stones. Through constraint they suffered the king to appropriate to himself the public portion. The primitive foundation remains, property as organized in ancient times, the fettered or exhausted land supporting a social conformation that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... religious indifference, though it is remarkable of the Spartans, that of all Greek tribes they were the most facile and numerous delinquents under all varieties of foreign temptations to revolt from their hereditary allegiance—a fact which measures the degree of unnatural constraint and tension which the Spartan usages involved; but in this case we rather account for the public outrage to religion and universal usage, by a strong political jealousy lest the provisions of the treaty should transpire prematurely amongst ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... theory is theory in the worst sense of the word. You imagine procedures which are sanctioned by the experience of no living man, and then call to your aid constraint and prohibition. You cannot avoid having recourse to force; because, wishing to make men produce what they can more advantageously buy, you require them to give up an advantage, and to be led by a doctrine which implies contradiction ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... convalescence; he would sometimes come into the morning-room where Nelly and I spent most of our time, and bring me a book or paper to read, often sitting down and reading it himself to us. And I soon lost all sense of constraint with him, and could talk to him as unrestrainedly as ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... services from me, in the course of the frequent quarrels between him and his sister, and he had a great friendship for me. The King was in the constant habit of seeing me; and an accident, which I shall have occasion to relate, rendered him very familiar with me. He talked without any constraint when I was in the room. During Madame de Pompadour's illness I scarcely ever left her chamber, and passed the night there. Sometimes, though rarely, I accompanied her in her carriage with Doctor Quesnay, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... freely or not in this case can not certainly be known. At all events, Henry, and those who were acting with him at Paris, determined to regard the letter as written under constraint, and to go on with the maturing of their plans just as if ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... topic made them both self-conscious, and for the first time Colette acknowledged to herself that she had been in the wrong in the matter of the surplice. John, misinterpreting her constraint, and fearing that the reference to the garment had revived all her old resentment, arose ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... full of new and positive ideas that He did not feel any need for breaking old idols, so free that no constraint could depress Him, so unconquerable that even under the load of the greatest accumulations of rubbish He could still breathe. This ought ye to do, He said, and not to leave the other undone; He did not seek to take away one iota, but only to fulfil. He never thought of leaving the Jewish community. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... not the advantage of his rank to appear charming. I had the honour of a long conversation with him last night, before the king came in. His governor retired on purpose (as he told me afterwards) that I might make some judgment of his genius, by hearing him speak without constraint; and I was surprised at the quickness and politeness that appeared in every thing he said; joined to a person perfectly agreeable, and the fine fair hair ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... Great Leptis (Lebda to the west of Tripoli). In what way all these cities came to be subject to Carthage—whether voluntarily, for their protection perhaps from the attacks of the Cyrenaeans and Numidians, or by constraint—can no longer be ascertained; but it is certain that they are designated as subjects of the Carthaginians even in official documents, that they had to pull down their walls, and that they had to pay tribute and furnish contingents to Carthage. They were not liable however ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... his companion detected it embarrassed him. He found himself in the position of fencing with a man to whom all his feelings impelled him to be perfectly open. He paused, and was awkwardly conscious of constraint in the silence which ensued. "You are very kind to put it in that way," said Lord Plowden, at last. He seemed also to be finding words for his thoughts with a certain difficulty. He turned his cigar round in his white fingers meditatively. "I gather that your success has been complete—as complete ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... your pardon, sir," said Parkinson, with some constraint. "I understand that you had taken the rooms for a ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... and formal, yet courteous and lively, communicative and hospitable, well-bred and intelligent. They are not ambitious, but content to live and enjoy what nature spontaneously offers. The most a Brazilian wants is farina and coffee, a hammock and cigar. Brazilian ladies have led a dreary life of constraint and silence, without education or society, the husband making a nun of his wife after the old bigoted Portuguese notion; but during the last twenty years the doors have been opened. Brazil attained her independence in ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... taken his breezy departure a constraint fell upon us. Evelyn's eyes were shy, and mine not a great deal bolder. Yesterday we could have chatted away with the most delightful freedom; to-day we were confined to ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... sent her the list of books. But the weeks passed, and she did not come back. Once, when he met her at a dinner of Mrs. Preston's, both avoided the subject of her visit, both were conscious of a constraint. She did not know how often, unseen by her, his eyes had sought her out from the chancel. For she continued to come to church as frequently as before, and often brought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... dispelling a life-long sorrow—would lift a crushing burden from the heart. The time to prepare that assurance, so that it shall come with most effectual power, is now, in days of health, when the evidences of our piety shall not be attainted by a suspicion of constraint and insincerity, arising from late repentance and an apparently forced submission to God. Our recollections of a departed Christian friend, of whose salvation his pious life makes us perfectly assured, come over us like the soft pulsations of a west wind ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted. She was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with discomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula's nature, a certain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness, the enclosure ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... light occasion: the goodwill of kinsfolk is constantly cold, as much of custom as of devotion: but in this stately estate of matrimony there is nothing fearful, all things are done faithfully without doubting, truly without doubling, willingly without constraint, joyfully without complaint: yea there is such a general consent and mutual agreement between the man and wife, that they both wish and will covet and crave one thing. And as a scion grafted in a strange stalk, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... Penman;' but the stage was vast in comparison with any on which I had until then appeared, and my customary business brought me only within half a dozen paces of the door-way by which I should have vanished. A sudden sense of strangeness and constraint came down upon me like a cloud. The happy feeling of confidence vanished in a whiff of chill spiritual wind. The last line was spoken before that unhappy half-dozen of paces was achieved; and I left the stage in a dead silence, which was as eloquent of failure as it had been ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... Constraint deepened as the visit was prolonged. Mrs. Conyers begged Mrs. Meredith for a recipe that she knew to be bad; and when Mrs. Meredith had left the room for it, she rose and looked eagerly out of the windows for any sign of Rowan. When Mrs. Meredith ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... arrayed them. And the many vivid expressions of consternation, abhorrence and incredulity that have come out of this community of Intellectuals in the course of the past two years of trial and error, bear sufficient testimony to the rigorous constraint which these German preconceptions and their logic exercise over the Intellectuals, no less ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... to the general Assembly. This, I fear, is talking without much consideration of the nature of that Assembly or of these corporations. However, to be subject to the pleasure of that Assembly is not to be subject to law, either for protection or for constraint. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... character of my behaviour in that time I will leave to my acquaintance to declare; my character was sufficiently testified at my trial, by gentlemen of worth and honour. I pray God bless them for their Christian charity. I praise God my resolution to live uprightly was no constraint; as for the cause I suffer, and the horrid imputation I am charged with which is rendered murder (from my soul I abhor) I now declare as I expect salvation, I am unjustly accused, but I freely forgive my persecutors, as I hope to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... some details of his work and Lucy Upton, watching him closely, saw how he had been engrossed by it. Paul Cotter too noticed, and feeling constraint, at least, demanded that Henry doff his savage disguise, put on white men's clothes and get ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the gallant commander of the Orient was secretly amazed by the metamorphosis effected in Robert's appearance since he scrutinized him through his glasses. Iris, too, unaccustomed to the constraint of high-heeled shoes, clung to the nondescript's arm in a manner that shook the sailor's faith in Lord Ventnor's pretensions as her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... importunities as before. Zuleika, however, was not discouraged; she continued her solicitations unremittingly, day after day,[118] month after month, for a whole year, but always without the least success, for Joseph in his chastity did not permit himself even to look upon her, wherefore she resorted to constraint. She had an iron shackle placed upon his chin, and he was compelled to keep his head up and look her in ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... sufficing. Fakirs probably pass through the same phases that invalids do who are forced to keep perfectly quiet through a fracture or dislocation. During the first days the organism revolts against such inaction, the constraint is great, the muscles contract by starts, and then the patient gets used to it; the constraint becomes less and less, the revolt of the muscles becomes less frequent, and the patient becomes reconciled to his immobility. It is probable that after ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... the one to speak, and her tone was rather abrupt and high-pitched as if she, too, were conscious of a long silence and broke it deliberately, as one breaks, with an effort, constraint. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the most part to dislike me. I hate their little crawling ways, their conventionalities, their deceits, their narrow rights and wrongs. They take offence at my brusque outspokenness, my disregard for their social laws, my impatience of all constraint. Among my books and my drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let the great drove of the human race pass onwards with their politics and inventions and tittle-tattle, and I remained behind stagnant and happy. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of his own will,—Wotan becomes stern, lays down his command irrevocably, with threats of crushing retribution if this child of his shall dare to palter with his expressed will. "Keep a watch over yourself! Hold yourself in strong constraint! Put forth all your valour in the fight!... Have well in mind what I command: Siegmund is to fall! ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... petticoat, which in one solid square of broad-cloth was tightly wrapped around the loins, also carried a blanket loosely thrown around the person, but closely confined over the shoulders in front, and reaching below the knee. There was an air of constraint in their movements, which accorded ill with the occasion of festivity for which they were assembled; and it was remarkable, whether it arose from deference to those to whom they were slaves, as well as wives and daughters, or from whatever other ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... samples. Wasteful as is the mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, the wish to work. However outer necessity, "competition," "minimum of cost," "iron law of wages," call ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... was sensible must appear to you, who was ignorant of my motive, to be mean, vulgar, and selfish. And yet, what other course had I to take with a man whom no denial, no scorn could abash? But, if this was a cruel task, how much more wretched still was the constraint I was obliged to wear in his presence before you, to shew outward civility to the man whom my soul detested, for fear of any fatal consequence from your suspicion; and this too while I was afraid he ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... chief home of the Horror which had hung upon my spirit even during the days when I hardly knew in any intelligible sense the cause of it. But the drawing-room and dining-room both produced upon my mind a vague consciousness of constraint. I was dimly aware of being ill at ease and uncomfortable in them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave me a pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and security: while the servants'-hall and the kitchen seemed perfect ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compel me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... at last, but it was a movement of constraint. He laid his free hand on her shoulder. "Crying won't help," he said. "I think we had ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Olivia, at the Lyceum Theatre (it was May 27, 1885, when the present writer happened to be in London), Henry Irving's performance of Dr. Primrose was fettered by a curb of constraint. The actor's nerves had been strained to a high pitch of excitement and he was obviously anxious. His spirit, accordingly, was not fully liberated into the character. He advanced with cautious care and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... fit of despair took the stocking to a little distance and sat down to work. The marble egg was heavy to hold. It took a long while to go up one side of the heel and down the other. She was tired of sitting under constraint and so still. And her Aunt Candy seemed like a jailer, and that perfumed room like a prison. The quicker her work could be done, the better for her. So Matilda reflected, and her needle ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... says, "can hardly be pronounced a successful competition with Stothard, though traces of a higher feeling are visible in the graceful female forms,—benevolent heroine, or despairing, famishing peasant group. The artist evidently moves in constraint, and the accessories of these domestic scenes are simply generalized as if by a child: the result of an inobservant eye for such things." But of those published there are two at least which, as Mr. Kegan Paul has already pointed out, make a deep impression ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... for, like all the other Feejee chiefs, Tararo was a despot and might have commanded obedience to his wishes; but he entered so readily into the spirit of the new faith that he perceived at once the impropriety of using constraint in the propagation of it. He set the example, therefore; and that example was followed by almost every man ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... lengthy one, and the ladies went upstairs again, with a suppressed constraint, each anxious to know what the other was on her guard not to tell. They sat alone expectant for some time, making conversation, taking their coffee, listening, and watching each how the other listened, for the coming ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... satisfied, though very nearly, with the evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other circumstances, a powerful presumption in aid ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had been, on both sides, I dare say, a sense of awkward constraint. There were so many things which we must not speak of—things which threatened incessantly to force their way to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the identity of that fugitive in the night, he seemed to find it hard to say exactly. How could a man of no education define for them his own but half-denied misgivings about the Law, his sense of oppression, constraint and awe, of being on the defensive, even, in an abject way, his skepticism? About his wanting, come what might, to "keep clear of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... inches straight to the rear, left knee slightly bent; clasp the hands, without constraint, in front of the center of the body, fingers joined, right hand uppermost, left thumb clasped by the thumb and forefinger of the right hand; preserve silence and steadiness ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... standing at her elbow and talking to her in bodily presence. But while he spoke with all the ease and simplicity of old times, almost making Fleda think it was but last week they had been strolling through the Place de la Concorde together, there was a constraint upon her that she could not get rid of and that bound eye and tongue. It might have worn off, but his attention was presently claimed again by Mrs. Evelyn; and Fleda thought best while yet Constance's bouquet was unfinished, to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... much alarmed at the prospect. Order was wont to come with her presence, and she hardly knew the aspect of tumultuous idleness or insubordination to unenforced authority; for her eye and voice in themselves brought cheerful discipline without constraint, and upheld by few punishments, for the strong influence took away the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the shyness and awkwardness of inexperienced youth, a feeling of constraint; an impression of perplexity and wonder, as though some one had suddenly knocked at the door. Anna Sergueyevna, "the lady with the toy dog" took what had happened somehow seriously, with a particular gravity, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... my girl friends for leaving me out. I might have done the same to one of them. It isn't contrary to the rules. In fact the few times I did encounter the old associates it was far from pleasant. There was a feeling of constraint. There was nothing to talk about, either. Even my manicurist and hairdresser, usually so conversational about all the social events of the community, felt embarrassed and ill at ease, with the parties at Grassmere, the costumes for the masquerade, Miss Oliphant, and the Vars ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... The self-constraint which Nelson exerted in subduing this attachment made him naturally desire to be at sea; and when, upon visiting Lord Howe at the Admiralty, he was asked if he wished to be employed, he made answer that he did. Accordingly in ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... mountains clothed with light and night and change, The lakes alive with wind and cloud and sun, Made answer, by constraint sublime and strange, To the ardent hand that bade thy ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... better get up, child," said Diana, in a tone divided between constraint and pity. "It will do thee no good to lie there. We shall all have to put up with the same thing in our turn. I haven't got the man I should have chosen; but I suppose it won't ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... dwelleth. But in a very real sense law shall cease when fulfilled. There is no law to him who can say, 'Thy law is within my heart.' When law has become both 'law and impulse,' it has ceased to be law, in so far as it no longer stands over against the doer as an external constraint. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... on—"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... thought Virginia; but it was too late to retreat, without drawing attention to an act which she could not explain. They all went in, the others apparently suspecting nothing; but in a second Virginia instinctively guessed the reason of her hostess's sudden constraint, and the sympathetic thrill that ran through her own veins surprised her. In a panel of the darkly wainscotted and curiously gilded wall was placed a life-size portrait of a man. It was an oil-painting, defective ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... him without a trace of emotion or constraint in her large, quiet face, and their eyes met for a moment in that brief, fixed, baffling fashion that seems to prove that mankind is after all but a dumb masked creature saddled with the ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... whom his bread and butter is the first thought. Gladness shone in every look and movement; but at the same time over all the gladness there was a slight veil; it might be gravity, but it might not be all gravity, for part of it was very like constraint; the eyes were more ready to fall than to rise; and the words, though free to come, had a great facility for running in short sentences. But Mrs. Derrick was too happy to notice such light streaks of mist in the sunshine, and talked away at a most unusual rate,—telling ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... had elapsed since he had been haranguing the admiring company of his friends, and his words came easily. Moreover, it was a long time since he had broken through the constraint he felt in Don Paolo's presence, and the opportunity having presented itself was not to ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... alarmed, and advanced towards Surena, after first turning round and merely saying, "Octavius and Petronius, and you Roman officers who are here, you see that I go under compulsion, and you are witnesses that I am treated in a shameful way and am under constraint; but, if you get safe home, tell all the world, that Crassus lost his life through the treachery of the enemy, and was ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... you, if I could rip off that swathing of idealization you've wrapped around him," Fyfe observed patiently. "It's not a job I have much stomach for however, even if you were willing to let me try. But to come back. You've got to stick it out with me, Stella. You'll hate me for the constraint, I suppose. But until—until things shape up differently—you'll understand what I'm talking about by and by, I think—you've got to abide by the bargain you made with me. I couldn't force you to stay, I know. But there's one hold you can't break—not ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... more persistent than the stream of feminine discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to avert a Woman's sting are unequal to the task of stopping a Woman's mouth; and as the wife has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics have been found to aver that they prefer the danger of the death-dealing but inaudible sting to the safe sonorousness of a ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... friend?" The Knight pressed her soft hand, and stroked down her ringlets. Not a word could he say; his distress at the old man's harshness toward Undine had sealed his lips; and so each couple remained sitting opposite the other, in moody silence and constraint. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... old friend fairly enough, but a certain amount of constraint would show, and Deering evidently saw it, but he made no sign, and they went into the house, where Aunt Hannah met them in the drawing-room, looking a little flustered, consequent upon an encounter with Martha in the kitchen, that lady having declared ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... answered Vivien's questions, after plying her with innumerable enquiries, she admitted with a blush that Heinrich, the German sergeant, with whom she had first cohabited by constraint, had recently married her at the Mairie, though the Cure had refused to perform the religious service. Heinrich was now invariably kind and worked hard on the farm. He hoped by diligently supplying the officers' messes in Brussels with poultry and vegetables that he and his assistants—two ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... his modest and ingenuous virtue would surely have made but a very indifferent figure: and Tully's declamatory inclination would have been as useless in poetry. Nature, if left to herself, leads us on in the best course, but will do nothing by compulsion and constraint; and if we are not satisfied to go her way, we are always the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... injures him not, essentially; it ceases to particularly affect him, beyond his inward appraisement of the character before him. Toward him one acts simply in accordance with the instincts of one's nature. His status counsels no constraint, invites no display, has no property of stimulation. Thus the view of a famous man's character from the position of retail clerk is valuable. Mr. James's manner with Mr. Brownell would hardly be the same as toward us. But it was, exactly. There was present in his mind at the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... storm. The secular priests generally refused to say the Mass of the Holy Spirit; but the monks, especially the Capuchin friars, had the reputation of yielding with less scruple to the entreaties of the anxious and distressed. In the constraint thus supposed by Catholic peasantry to be laid by the priest upon the deity we seem to have an exact counterpart of the power which the ancient Egyptians ascribed to their magicians. Again, to take another example, in many villages of Provence the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... time they were silent, though it was not long before Winsome drew away her hand, which, however, continued to burn consciously for an hour afterwards. Silence settled around them. The constraint of speech fell first upon Ralph, being town-bred and accustomed to the convenances ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... she had let her know in some way how much she admired her, and longed to be like her, and how she was going to try all the rest of her life to be a real maid of honor, worthy in every way of her love and confidence. But some shy, unusual feeling of constraint crowded the unspoken words back into her throbbing little throat, and the ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of which these other are but indications, is the spiritual fact of the separate personality of each human being. This is seen most absolutely in the sphere of morals. The ultimate standard for a man is his own individual conscience, and neither the constraint of affection, nor the authority of numbers, can atone for falseness there. One of the most forceful illustrations of this final position of all religion is to be found, in the passage of terrific intensity from the Book of Deuteronomy, which we have transcribed as a preface to ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... extent your lordship possesses it, but I am equally certain I have never before enjoyed the honor of being presented to your lordship!" said John Steele. The words were punctiliously spoken, his accents as cold as the other's. An infinitesimal trace of constraint seemed to have crept into the box; Steele turned and holding out his hand, thanked Sir Charles and his wife for ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the least constraint; they chatted about everything, drank, and made plenty of noise. It was a splendid place, Milde's studio; as soon as one got inside the door one felt free to do or ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... return we found that Madera had again put in an appearance, and another evening of constraint and irritation was the result. This occurred also on the third evening, after which for a short time Senor Madera, apparently conscious of the fact that his company was not altogether desirable, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... extending reformed religion in Ireland. Congratulating his deputy, he expressed a hope that many, by such means, would be brought to conformity in religion, who would hereafter 'give thanks to God for being drawn by so gentle a constraint to their own good.' The 'gentle constraint' was imposed in all directions. The Privy Council decreed that none but a member of the Church of England could hold any office under the Crown. The old Catholic families of the Pale humbly remonstrated, and their chief men were ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... He encouraged them to eat, and frequently drank to their health; but in spite of all this, his encouragement failed to overcome the timidity of some, and the servants removed the plates of each course without their having touched them, though this constraint did not prevent their being full of joy and enthusiasm as they left the table. "Au revoir, my brave men," the First Consul would say to them; "baptize for me quickly these new-born," touching with his fingers their sabers of honor. God knows ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... dwelling. And the rain forever raineth, Shedding his divine refulgence, And revealing to our vision Ev'ry landmark that in darkness And in shapeless gloom was shrouded;— Till for joy our belts we loosen'd, Casting off constraint, and sported. Danker now than in the dulcet Spring-time grew the summer grasses; Yet to-day our bliss ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... questioningly. 'As you please,' she went on, 'but still something tells me that we have not come together for nothing; that we shall be great friends. I am sure this—what should I say, constraint, reticence in ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... was powerless to contend with a love which made my mother happy; because I was weary of keeping up the daily constraint of my relations with her and him, and also because I hoped that when once I was free I should be better fitted for my task as a doer of justice. I myself asked to be permitted to leave the house, so that at nineteen I possessed absolute independence, an apartment of ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... The constraint between his mother and himself had reached a greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became to him to go into the fields and woods without Helene! ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... deceive his companion. Sybil Linforth was certain, absolutely certain, that the cause of the constraint and embarrassment which had been audible in Sir John's voice, and noticeable in his very manner, was that double string of big pearls of perfect colour which adorned ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... who has paid attention to the subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the tongues had all been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form which the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry, the influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which Scholasticism exercised in prose, are ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... other mining districts in which he had ventures. When thus absent, he would live as Jack Brien and his friends were living at Mrs. Henniker's, and was supposed to enjoy the ease of his inn more thoroughly than he did the constraint of his ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... happened in my absence. But of the sweet whispers and little confidences which should set all riders on Riding Day above all the rest of the world, there were none between us, and at times we fell to silence and a touch of constraint. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... Nothing is more terrible than being constrained to do some one thing every day from morning until night against one's will. And the more a man the worker feels himself, the more hateful must his work be to him, because he feels the constraint, the aimlessness of it for himself. Why does he work? For love of work? From a natural impulse? Not at all! He works for money, for a thing which has nothing whatsoever to do with the work itself; and he works so long, moreover, and in such unbroken ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... of war; and Aeth submitted on the same conditions. The French troops were dispirited. The city of Paris was overwhelmed with consternation. Louis affected to bear his misfortunes with calmness and composure; but the constraint had such an effect upon his constitution, that his physicians thought it necessary to prescribe frequent bleeding, which he accordingly underwent. At his court no mention was made of military transactions: all was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... more than it did her.) These things, which it was her duty to tell him, she told simply and plainly. But she omitted to mention that two men in possession were sitting in the housekeeper's room, in attitudes of more or less constraint. She ended by assuring Horace of her gratitude, with a fervency which suggested that he had some cause to doubt it. And indeed, at the moment, she could hardly tell whether she were more grateful to him for offering to come to her or ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... sometimes the following up of the notice which he himself had given him to leave his service. Be this as it may, his temporary absences always involved a trial of strength between the parties, as to which of them should hold out, and put a constraint upon his inclinations the longest; for since the truth must be told of Jemmy, we are bound to say that he could as badly bear to live removed from the society of his master, as the latter could live without him. For many years of his life, he had been threatening to go to America, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... He has not yet married Miss Battersby, although Lalage has done her best to throw them together and the advantages of the match become every day more obvious. It is just possible that the publication of my reminiscences may create an awkwardness—a constraint of manner on the part of the bishop, a modest shrinking in Miss Battersby, which will tend to put off the final settlement of the affair. I ventured to hint to Lalage that it might be well to bring the business to a head, if possible, ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... matters little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of deciding by free vote-without the slightest constraint, after the complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general-the form of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes an annexation-that is to say, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... present occasion, white and worn, not with her long vigil, but because it was "borne in upon her," as poor Joanna used to say, that her son and she must part for his own good: so soon as the spring should come she would bid him go. London, where all was prudence and constraint, was no place to win the bride she sought for him. He should go forth into the country, where even heiresses were still girls, and win her, as troubadour of old, but with sketch-book in hand instead of harp. Not a promising scheme, one might say; but then, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... robes, groaning and moaning as if her last hour had come; and scarcely had the sub-prioress taken a seat near her, when my cat crept forth from under the bed, in his little red hose, mewing and rubbing himself up against the robe of the sub-prioress, as if praying her to remove this unwonted constraint from him, of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... sons' sons be the last resolute tyranny prepared by one age for the coercion, constraint, and defeat of the future? To impose that compulsion has been hitherto one of the strongest of human desires. It is one, doubtless, to be outgrown by the human race; but how slowly that growth creeps onwards, let this success in the stencilling of St Paul's teach us, to our confusion. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... regretted, during the last few weeks, the feeling of outraged pride which had incited her to consent to this marriage; her loyal, sincere nature had revolted at the constraint she had imposed upon herself; her nerves had been so severely taxed by having to receive her fiance with sufficient warmth to satisfy his expectations, and yet not afford any encouragement to his demonstrative tendencies, that the certainty of her newly acquired freedom created ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... outside of the platter, to conceal defects by gloss and glitter. Its theory of politeness and its maxims of behavior are drawn from a state of things so different from that which here prevails, that they produce in us little besides an exaggerated ungracefulness, a painful constraint, a complete artificiality of conduct and character. We are trying to shine in borrowed plumes. We would glisten with foreign varnish. To produce an effect is our endeavor. We prefer to act, rather than live. ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... Celina's room, I greeted her very cordially, but she replied with a certain constraint, and I am sure she would have received me with still greater coldness had she not feared to offend my aunt. But I was not hurt by this; her resentment is quite justifiable. Maybe, in her mind, she connects me with the loss of her estate, and thinks all this would ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... been speaking as if with a malicious glee, for his words seemed to strike, each one, into the face of the pallid figure, darkly standing before him. And he was aware that each word increased the stiff and watchful constraint of the figure that knelt beside the table to write. But suddenly his glee left him; he scowled at the Archbishop as if Cranmer had caused him to sin. He pulled at ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... had brought with him; "there are several points in the case I should like to mention to you." He paused for a minute, apparently to collect his thoughts, and to Herbert's sensitive ears there was a sudden coldness and constraint in his voice and manner. "You will, of course, take instructions in the main from Grainge and Co.; but what I wished to point out to you was—ahem——" here his voice unaccountably faltered, and his ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... that the watch were quietly chatting and smoking forward, whereas the Baron's stateroom was situated aft. The delay enabled von Kerber to collect his thoughts. When he resumed the promised disclosure, his voice was under control, and he spoke with less constraint. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... away; she had been standing in the next room, listening intently to every word of the conversation, and only kept from coming in by a certain constraint that made a brother whom she had not met for so many years seem almost as much a stranger as if he had not been connected ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... breath, but again checked himself just in time to prevent the words "and wives," that rose to his lips. "And friends," he substituted, with evident constraint and as awkwardly as before. It was not often that a woman had been able to disconcert Edgar Harrowby so strangely as did this ignorant and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... replied; but her voice was not the same which had addressed Richard first; there was a coldness, a constraint in it now, as if her good resolution had been thrown back upon her and frozen up the impulse prompting her ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. A woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a blanket, and the three Arabians—she had learned that much—had risen with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their anxiety, though, ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... rights of spirit, would accuse me of establishing the worship of matter, against which I protest with all the strength of my soul;—sensualists and materialists, to whom the divine dogma is the symbol of constraint and the principle of enslavement of the passions, outside of which, they say, there is for man neither pleasure, nor virtue, nor genius;—eclectics and sceptics, sellers and publishers of all the old philosophies, but not philosophers themselves, united ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... meet you, My sight was set elsewhere, I sheered about to shun you, And lent your life no care. I was unprimed to greet you At such a date and place, Constraint alone had won you Vision ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... uncertain what to say. Since her recovery was doubtful I shrank from encouraging her in a false hope, and I could not tell her that we all thought she must soon die. She soon noticed my constraint, and ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... receive this new Russian person very willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris did not appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... draw him into some corner of those immense rooms, and at length negotiate their loan. For this it was that they had been awaiting for two hours; this was the object of their visit and the fixed idea which gave them during the meal that absent, falsely attentive manner. But here no more constraint, no more pretence. In that peculiar social world of theirs it is of common knowledge that in the Nabob's busy life the hour of coffee remains the only time free for private audiences, and each desiring to profit by it, all having come there in ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... was now released from its terrible constraint. A slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left it rosy. But having committed herself to the policy of hesitation she had a certain delicacy in departing ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... cross any more, and let me see you value my good will and love, Ray, by doing what I'm going to ask you to do, now. So sure was I that, when the little details were cleared up, you would feel with me, and welcome your liberty from constraint, and return to Sabina with the good news, that I asked her to meet you to-night—this very night, my dear, so that you might go home with her and make her happy. She had tea with me—I made her come, and then she went to friends, ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... as FARNCOMBE and LILY enter at the right-hand door at the back. There is an air of constraint and uneasiness about the girl. She comes to the nearer settee in the centre and again picks up her bouquet. FARNCOMBE follows her. They talk in subdued voices and with ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... and distrait, not a single smile rippled her slumbering dimples, and she answered at random. She did not once address Maurice, to whom she usually prattled in a strain of merry badinage, and he evinced the same constraint toward her. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... had ridden on ahead with Benito and Dolores; Dave and Alaire followed leisurely. Now that the moment of their parting was at hand, they lingered by the way, delaying it as long as possible, feeling a natural constraint at ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
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