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More "Oppressive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no special use for brothers and sisters. The parent seems likely to remain indispensable; but there is no reason why that natural tie should be made the excuse for unnatural aggravations of it, as crushing to the parent as they are oppressive to the child. The mother and father will not always have to shoulder the burthen of maintenance which should fall on the Atlas shoulders of the fatherland and motherland. Pending such reforms and emancipations, ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... had been asked into a library, or some more cosy room, for the stiff hangings, and massive furniture were oppressive. But she had no time for further thought, for Sir Otho entered ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... atrocity, we have a criminal judicature which often carries its lenity to the length of perjury. Our law of libel is the most absurdly severe that ever existed, so absurdly severe that, if it were carried into full effect, it would be much more oppressive than a censorship. And yet, with this severe law of libel, we have a press which practically is as free as the air. In 1819 the Ministers complained of the alarming increase of seditious and blasphemous publications. They proposed a bill of great ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... surely, he thought the values of Christianity and Judaic traditions had done their work in the minds of men. What were once but expedients devised for the discipline of a certain portion of humanity, had now passed into man's blood and had become instincts. This oppressive and paralysing sense of guilt and of sin is what Nietzsche refers to when he speaks of "the spirit of gravity." This creature half-dwarf, half-mole, whom he bears with him a certain distance on his climb and finally defies, and whom he calls ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said once—it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it—that it was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every moneyed man in the Empire—financiers, merchants, ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... not suffice, and that at least gigantic businesses like telegraph, railway, and mining, must sooner or later be bought and operated out and out by public authority. Nothing had done so much to promote this conviction as the rise, procedure, and wealth of these Trusts, for from the oppressive greed of many of them no legislative regulation seemed sufficient ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... constitutes the respiration itself. Suspension expresses reticence, disquietude. Inspiration is an element of dissimulation, concentration, pain. Hence, we have normal, oppressive, spasmodic, superior, sibilant, rattling, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... revolt, no matter what our wrongs might have been. I ought, as a Scotsman, to have stood by the government in America to the last; exerted any energy I possessed to make it better, more just, more perfect; left it for a time, if too oppressive, but never tried, as I did, to put it down."[63] Mackenzie's ideal, discovered {64} by him too late to be very useful, was actually that of the Reforming Loyalists who refused to indulge in treason in 1837, but who determined to secure their ends by peaceful ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... Principal Baillie says of the oppressive conduct of Sir James Turner at Glasgow, during the time of the Engagement, is this—"Some regiments of horse and foot were sent to our town, with orders to quarter on no other but the magistrates, council, session, and their lovers. These orders ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... German throne had not seemed probable. His coronation as Charles VI. was, therefore, one cause of the peace. Leopold, born in 1640, and educated by the Jesuits, became Emperor in 1658, and reigned 49 years. He was an adept in metaphysics and theology, as well as in wood-turning, but a feeble and oppressive ruler, whose empire was twice saved for him; by Sobiesld from the Turks, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "the inhabitants."(38) The trade, which was formerly communal, now became the privilege of the merchant and artisan "families," and the next step—that of becoming individual, or the privilege of oppressive trusts— was unavoidable. ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... sarcastic, but throughout the morning there had been small sting in their remarks. Breakfast—"at early dawn"—was good and plentiful. Three days' rations had been served and cooked, and stowed in haversacks. But, so lovely was the weather, so oppressive in the sunshine would be a heavy weight to carry, so obliging were the wagon drivers, so easy in many regiments the Confederate discipline, that overcoats, blankets, and, in very many instances haversacks, had been consigned ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... blowing forth a long breath as if trying to repulse the oppressive heat of the July afternoon. He came straight to the table, with a slightly preoccupied air, quickly, his arms motionless at his sides, and slanting a little outwards. Mr Clayhanger always walked ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... lively air; but it seemed like discord by association with their thoughts. He ceased abruptly, and, at Oriana's request, chose a more mournful theme. When the last notes of the plaintive melody had been lost in the stillness of the night, there was an oppressive pause, only broken by the rustle of the little sail and the faint rippling of ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... houses a strip of sky, heavy and dark and changeful, was all that showed. Ideala felt cold and faint. The long fast and fatigue were beginning to tell upon her. She was nervous, too; the silence was oppressive, but she could not break it. She felt some inexplicable change in her relations with Lorrimer which made it impossible to speak. Furtively she watched him, trying to discover if he felt it too. The look of age was on his face, and it was ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... peasants had to pay many oppressive taxes, and were wretched and half-starved, while the rich nobles rode in gilded coaches, and, if they ran over a little peasant child, threw a coin to its mother and drove on without a further thought. Among the hardest-hearted of all, ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... was not rebellious at the dusty, tiresome task, nor aware of the merciless heat of the early-summer sun. She was not indeed thinking at all of what she was doing, except that the physical effort of stooping and reaching and pulling was a relief to her, made slightly less oppressive the thunder-heavy moral atmosphere she breathed. She was trying to think, but the different impressions came rushing into her mind with such vehement haste that they dashed against each other brutally, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... going on above stairs that day that Helen was able to escape most of the oppressive attentions of her cousins. Great baskets of flowers were sent in by some of the young people who remembered and loved Mary Boyle, and Helen helped to arrange them in the ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... us; the fine wooded hill of Mota shows well over the house. The breeze always plays round it; and though it is very hot, it is only when the wind comes from the north and north-west, as in the midsummer, that the heat is of an oppressive ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... game, my friend; you scare me, and I'll scare you;" and with an actual sense of relief in breaking the oppressive silence, I suddenly flung up the curtain, and, leaning out, brandished my dagger with what I intended to be an awe-inspiring screech, but, owing to the flutter of my breath, the effort ended in a curious mixture of howl ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... a leader in William, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau. He is a national hero whose career bears a striking resemblance to that of Washington. Like the American patriot, he undertook the seemingly hopeless task of freeing his people from the oppressive rule of a distant king. To the Spaniards he appeared to be only an impoverished nobleman at the head of a handful of armed peasants and fishermen, contending against the sovereign of the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... his mansion and entering the street, the dense weight of the atmosphere became more and more apparent. The heat was so oppressive that the streets were actually deserted—even the artisans had closed their stores; darkness had fallen suddenly, shrouding the beautiful twilight peculiar to Spain as with a pall. Morales unconsciously glanced towards the west, where, scarcely half-an-hour before, the sun had sunk ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... to me reality—its dumb, Dead bulk, inert, oppressive, grim, and crude? How hope has paled, alas, with roseate hue! And memory, the heavenly blue, grown hoary! And even poesy! Its acrobatic Exertions, leaps—they pall upon my sense; Its bright mirage can satisfy no soul— Light skimmings from ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... expedient to protest against the unconstitutional and oppressive operation of the system of protective duties, and to have such protest entered on the journals of the Senate of the United States. Also, to make a public exposition of our wrongs, and of the remedies ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... and travellers suffer great annoyance from the vampire-bats. Some persons never go to sleep without covering themselves with blankets, although the heat be ever so oppressive. Any part left naked will be attacked by the "phyllostoma", but they seem to have a preference for the tip of the great toe—perhaps because they have found that part more habitually exposed. Sometimes one sleeper ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... not love her!" answered the proud girl, regarding the woman whom the world called her benefactress, with a glance of queenly scorn. "Her very kindness has always been oppressive; her presence almost hateful; now it ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... wife; "and how little true intellectuality is there in the high society here as soon as you cease to speak of English national subjects and interests; and the eternal hurricanes, whirling, urging, rushing, in this monster of a town! Even with you and the children life would become oppressive under the diplomatic burden. I can pray for our country life, but I cannot pray for a London life, although I dare not pray against it, if it ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... up in bright broad-spreading masses, and assume the appearance of gigantic mountains in the air. All at once the sky is completely overcast, excepting that a few spots of deep blue still appear through the clouds. The sun is hid, but the heat of the atmosphere is more oppressive. The noontide is past; a cheerless melancholy gloom hangs heavily over nature. Fast sink the spirits; for painful is the change to those who have witnessed the joyous animation of the morning. The more active animals roam wildly about, seeking to allay the cravings of hunger ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... A heavy atmosphere of oppressive quietude pervaded the ship. In the afternoon men went about washing clothes and hanging them out to dry in the unprosperous breeze with the meditative languor of disenchanted philosophers. Very little was said. The problem of life ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... France, the queen, Anne of Austria, willingly left the management of the government. The rebellion of the Fronde (1648-1653) was a rising of the nobles to throw off the yoke laid on them by Richelieu. They were helped by the discontent of parliament and people with the oppressive taxation. In Paris, there was a rising of the populace, who built barricades; but the revolt was quelled. Its leaders, Conti, the Cardinal de Retz, and the great Conde, a famous soldier, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... freedom from violence, or at least a great diminution of it, may be gained by the oppressed forcibly overturning the oppressive government and replacing it by a new one under which such violence and oppression will be unnecessary, but they deceive themselves and others, and their efforts do not better the position of the oppressed, but only make it worse. Their conduct ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... said Napoleon, as if relieved at once of an oppressive burden. "Write to my chancellor of the Legion of Honour, Lacepede, to send him a patent, and do you inform him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and bold, His spirit was buoyant and free; And, as I grew thoughtful and old, Was loud and oppressive to me. ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... slightly new elements into a method already established varies it beneficially; the new is soon fused with the old, and the monotony ceases to be oppressive. But if the new be too foreign, we cannot fuse the old and the new—nature seeming to hate equally too wide a deviation from ordinary practice and none at all. This fact reappears in heredity as the beneficial effects of occasional crossing on the one hand, and on the other, in the generally ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... a most distressing one; upward of three-and-twenty miles, with deep and cut-up roads, in hot, oppressive weather, in a country almost destitute of water. Still the troops pressed forward, and by noon came within hearing of the heavy cannonade in front, which indicated the situation of the battle. From this time aide-de-camp followed aide-de-camp in ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Pactum oppressive, then, in God's name, I resign you to His holy keeping! I have done my part, and on this score I do not dread appearing before the Highest of all Judges. Do not be afraid to come to me to-morrow; as yet I only suspect; God grant that those suspicions may not prove ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... like that of the English variety, but a sharp quick note repeated in endless succession—alone broke the hush. The silence, the apparently never ending forest, the monotony of rank vegetation, the absence of a breath of wind to rustle a leaf, were most oppressive, and the feeling was not lessened by the dampness and heaviness of the air, and the malarious exhalation and smell of decaying ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... surroundings. For it was the twigs of a tree which had seized me, and for a long limb such as this to have grown into a place intended for the abode of man, necessitated a lapse of time and a depth of solitude oppressive ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the very ground where he had suffered so intensely. He had put aside repeated invitations from the Spences, because of the doubt whether he could trust himself within sight of the Mediterranean. Liberty from oppressive thought he had long recovered; the old zeal for labour was so strong in him that he found it difficult to imagine the mood in which he had bidden good-bye to his life's purposes. But there was always the danger lest that witch of the south ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... What is required, it is believed by these sanguine persons, is that information be competently conveyed to the common people of these warlike nations, showing them that they have nothing to apprehend in the way of aggression or oppressive measures from the side of their more peaceable neighbours; whereupon their warlike animus will give place to a reasonable and enlightened frame of mind. This argument runs tacitly or explicitly, on the premise that these peoples ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the existence of violence and bloodshed in resistance to constituted authority? I sympathize with their prostrate condition, and would do all in my power to relieve them, acknowledging that in some instances they have had most trying governments to live under, and very oppressive ones in the way of taxation for nominal improvements, not giving benefits equal to the hardships imposed. But can they proclaim themselves entirely irresponsible for this condition? They can not. Violence has been rampant in some localities, and has either been justified or denied ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... freedom, was already beginning to give token of its great and blighting power. The Christian Spaniards had from an early period been essentially intolerant. The Moors and the Jews were regarded by them with an intense and bitter hatred; the first as their conquerors, and the last for the oppressive claims which their wealth gave them on numbers of the Christian inhabitants; and as enemies of the Cross, it was regarded as a merit to punish them. The establishment of the Inquisition, therefore, in 1481, which had ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... through whose hands a bill passed lost on that bill what it lost in value, during the time it was in his hands. This was a real tax on him; and in this way, the people of the United States actually contributed those sixty-six millions of dollars during the war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive of all, because the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... gone on continually increasing; scarce any article was exempt from these oppressive patents. When a list of them was read over in the House, a member exclaimed: "Is not bread among the number?" The House seemed amazed. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy is found for them, bread will be there before the next parliament." Every ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... in his hands and wept like a child, while Mrs. Montgomery sat motionless, her eyes fixed upon the quaintly carved case of the eight day clock, whose solemn tick made the stillness more oppressive. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... his odes and epistles, as salubrious and delightful. It is possible that he, and the rest of its eulogists, may have visited these islands at a season of the year different from that in which I visited them, but to me the heat was beyond measure oppressive. Lying, as they do, under the influence of a vertical sun, and abounding in all directions with cliffs of white chalk, it is obvious that the constant reflection of the sun's rays thereby occasioned must be quite overpowering. If these panegyrists mean to say, that as long ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... had gone to bed as usual about ten-thirty P.M., and must have slept for nearly four hours, when I awoke feeling the heat very oppressive. It was almost the end of June at the time. Getting out of bed to open my window still farther, I gazed down upon the courtyard which it overlooked, noting the absolute stillness of the house and the hot, oppressive ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... humid air, or that which is saturated with watery vapor. Thus, a shade temperature of 100 degrees F. in the dry air of a high plain may be quite tolerable, while a temperature of 80 degrees F. in the moisture-laden atmosphere of less elevated regions, is oppressive. The reason is that in dry air the sweat evaporates freely, and cools the skin. In saturated air at the bodily temperature there is little loss of heat by perspiration, or by evaporation from the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... touchy, arrogant, austere, awkward, boorish, brawling, brutal, bullying, churlish, clamorous, crabbed, cross, currish, dismal, dull, dry, drowsy, grumbling, horrid, huffish, insolent, intractable, irascible, ireful, morose, murmuring, opinionated, oppressive, outrageous, overbearing, petulant, plaguy, rough, rude, rugged, spiteful, splenetic, stern, stubborn, stupid, sulky, sullen, surly, suspicious, treacherous, troublesome, turbulent, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... also. The great nobles wished to exercise power by placing themselves above the law; the parliament to increase its own through the law; the citizens to establish theirs at the expense of the law: for in their eyes the law was full of abuses and the royal power cruelly oppressive. All three parties, in order to arrive at their several ends, had, therefore, recourse to violence, or derived aid ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... "giants" in this passage not as men of huge stature, as in Numbers 13, 33, but as violent and oppressive; as the poets depict the Cyclopeans, who fear neither God nor men, but follow only their desires, relying upon their strength and power. For the oppressors sit enthroned in majesty, sway empires and kingdoms, and arrogate to themselves ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... even with mothers towards their children, though with them the assumption of authority creates no sense of injury. Emily specially desired to point out to the erring one the paths of virtue, and yet to do so without being oppressive. ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... the sun was low and the heat less oppressive than it had been earlier in the day, I ordered Julius, our old colored coachman, to harness the mare to the rockaway and drive me to look at the clay-banks. When we were ready, my wife, who wished to go with me for the sake of the drive, came out and took her ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... period of which we are writing; for the shade of the forest, added to the refreshing breezes from the lake, so far reduced the influence of the sun as to render the nights always cool and the days seldom oppressive. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... our seaward march, having just time to regain the brig before the day became oppressive. We took with us, as prisoners, such of the buccaneers as had been caught; what became of the rest I never knew. Vetch marched with them, amid ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... rule Norway with the iron hand, and to stamp out the fires of rebellion against the alien rule that were always smouldering, when not leaping into flame. Bergen itself had been the scene of the latest revolt against oppressive and unjust taxes, and the insolent Valkendorf, who was now taking his morning stroll in the market-place, was fresh from suppressing it with a rough hand which had left many a smart and longing for ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... authorised to make the most tempting offers to the inhabitants of that region. In particular he had promised that, if proper respect were shown to the royal wishes, the trade in tin should be freed from the oppressive restrictions under which it lay. But this lure, which at another time would have proved irresistible, was now slighted. All the justices and Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single dissenting voice, declared that they ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Aristabulus, "and, now, by following up that blow, you can bring matters to an issue. I think the law very oppressive, and you can never have so good an opportunity to bring things to a crisis. Besides, it is very aristocratic to play ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... impending doom—for the bravest man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never made any pretensions to be brave—the silence itself was too great to allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the surface of the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though it may in itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... be possible that something had gone wrong? Surely his eyes were not deceiving him! The great pink dome of sky was certainly moving down toward the earth, and all the while it was becoming hotter and more oppressive. He already felt the terrible heat that seemed to come from the red-hot dome that was ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... for meeting these oppressive obligations without unduly taxing the voters; one of them, not especially wiser than the rest, was contributed by Mr. Lincoln. It provided for the issue of bonds for the payment of the interest due by the State, and for the appropriation of a special portion of State taxes to meet the obligations ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... something of feminine suggestion. The unwary visitor would as likely as not catch some part of his person against a silk hanging or a lurking portiere on crossing the threshold; and the impression which struck (as all rooms do strike) from the threshold was one of oppressive drapery. A man, by the way, should never know anything about drapery or draping. Such knowledge undermines his virility. This is an age of undermining knowledge. We all, from the lowest to the highest, learn many things of which we were better ignorant. The school-board infant acquires ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... proposition and viewed as an experiment its accomplishments are such that if it is to be uprooted at this late day its disadvantages should be plainly apparent and the substitute adopted should be just and adequate, free from uncertainties, and guarded against difficult or oppressive administration. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... intent to defame the same and bring it into contempt and disrepute, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years. The act was denounced as tyrannical, oppressive, unconstitutional, and destructive of the liberty of speech and of the press, and it was made one of the principal charges against the party in power of that day, and was the chief means of its overthrow. During the short period of the existence of ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... demeanor of the man who had wandered into camp. A cry clove through the silence of the night like a lightning flash through a black cloud, and as the gloom becomes deeper after the flash, so the silence seemed more intense and oppressive after that cry. It came from across the canyon, clear and far, a ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... this little history to set forth her struggle. What seemed paramount in this abrupt enlargement of Mr. Wentworth's sympathies and those of his daughters was an extension of the field of possible mistakes; and the doctrine, as it may almost be called, of the oppressive gravity of mistakes was one of the most cherished traditions ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Oppressive methods they pursue, And all their foes they slight; Because thy judgements, unobserved, Are far above ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... of singularly prepossessing appearance. Accustomed to all the comforts which wealth could procure, she was ill fitted, with a child at the breast, to sustain the rigours of confinement—more especially as she was thrown into a crowded dungeon during the oppressive heat of an African summer. But, with her infant in her arms, she cheerfully submitted to her privations; and the thought that she was persecuted for Christ's sake, converted her prison into a palace. Her aged father, who was a pagan, was ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the American War, in 1815, when I was twelve years of age, my three elder brothers, George, William, and John, became deeply religious, and I imbibed the same spirit. My consciousness of guilt and sinfulness was humbling, oppressive, and distressing; and my experience of relief, after lengthened fastings, watchings, and prayers, was clear, refreshing, and joyous. In the end I simply trusted in Christ, and looked to Him for a present salvation; and, as I looked up in my bed, the light appeared to my mind, and, as I thought, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... pain over, he threw himself into a chair and buried his face in his hands. He did not even look up as Millar, his cynical glance fixed on him, walked out, closing the door softly behind him. His departure seemed to clear the atmosphere of its oppressive burden of evil, however, and Karl jumped to his feet. He made a few turns up and down the studio and then changed his velvet studio jacket for a greatcoat and plunged out ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... incapacitated for all action, I could serve them essentially by placing myself at the head of their affairs, and relieving them of common cares and duties, that must otherwise have been neglected, or have proved irksome and oppressive. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I understand the source of the strong, oppressive smell which, mingling with the scent of the incense, filled the chamber, while the thought that the face which, but a few days ago, had been full of freshness and beauty—the face which I loved more than anything else in all the world—was now capable of inspiring ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... till at last the cold lights of the dawn came gleaming through the window and fell upon the white face of the man she loved. He was still sleeping soundly, and, as the night was exceedingly hot and oppressive, she had left nothing but a sheet over him. Before she went to rest a little herself she turned to look at him once more, and as she looked she saw the sheet grow suddenly red with blood. The artery had ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... to this mouth, the beast warred with the saints, and overcame them. Dissenters from the Papacy were subjected to unheard of cruelties and persecutions. And they whose names were not written in the book of life, sustained their rulers in these oppressive acts. In paying more deference to the edicts of government than to the requirements of Jehovah, they blasphemously bestowed on the beast an homage which was due ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... possibility of happiness before youth is past, most children are allowed to grow up in ignorance of all that would enlarge their thoughts or stimulate their imagination. The few who are more fortunate are rendered illiberal by their unjust privileges, and oppressive through fear of the awakening indignation of the masses. From the highest to the lowest, almost all men are absorbed in the economic struggle: the struggle to acquire what is their due or to retain what is not their due. Material possessions, in fact or in desire, dominate ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... Then go, in secret weep, and sin no more! The stars innumerous in their watches shone— Anselmo knelt before the cross alone. Ten thousand glowing orbs their pomp displayed, Whilst, looking up, thus silently he prayed:— Oh! how oppressive to the aching sense, How fearful were this vast magnificence, This prodigality of glory, spread Above a poor and dying emmet's head, That toiled his transient hour upon the shore 380 Of mortal life, and then was seen no more; If man beheld, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... gives forth discrete. And we have shown before that certain things Be unto certain creatures suited more For ends of life, by virtue of a nature, A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike For kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see How many things oppressive be and foul To man, and to sensation most malign: Many meander miserably through ears; Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too, Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath; Of not a few must one avoid the touch; Of not a few must one escape the sight; ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... fort, and laid out a town called Maria de la Antigua del Darien—the name being almost bigger than the town! Balboa was in high favor by this time, and when Encisco got into trouble by decreeing various oppressive regulations and vexatious restrictions, attending to things in general with a high hand, they calmly deposed him on the ground that he had no authority to act, since they were on the territory of Nicuesa. To this logic, which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... maid," whispered the baroness, drawing a deep breath, as though an oppressive burden were removed from her breast, and ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... privy council, and as no proposition could then be presented in Parliament if rejected by them, they gave him a negative before debate. This, indeed, was abolished upon the accession of King William III., with many other oppressive and despotical powers, which had rendered our nobles abject slaves to the Crown, while they were allowed to be tyrants over the people. But if King James or his son had been restored, the government he had exercised would have been re-established, and ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... fences, neatly enough made of wood, that declared its own origin, having in fact been part of the timbers and planks of a wreck. As the whole was whitewashed, it had a rustic, and in a climate where the sun is seldom oppressive, by no means ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that summer. Snowstorms swept over land and sea, and there was a difficulty in getting about. How variously things were distributed in the world! here biting cold and snowstorms, while in the Spanish land there was burning sunshine and oppressive heat. And yet, when here at home there came a clear frosty day, and Juergen saw the swans flying in numbers from the sea towards the land, and across to Vosborg, it appeared to him that people could breathe most freely here; ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... sailors, Spaniards, pleasant-looking fellows from a French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp. By day it is merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the lamps in the little huts, the street has a sinister beauty. The hideous lust that pervades the air is oppressive and horrible, and yet there is something mysterious in the sight which haunts and troubles you. You feel I know not what primitive force which repels and yet fascinates you. Here all the decencies of civilisation are ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... once more to Ireland, to his clerkship of the Council of Munster, which he soon resigned; to be worried with law-suits about "lands in Shanballymore and Ballingrath," by his time-serving and oppressive Irish neighbour, Maurice Roche, Lord Fermoy; to brood still over his lost ideal and hero, Sidney; to write the story of his visit in the pastoral supplement to the Shepherd's Calendar, Colin Clout's come home again; to pursue the story ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... 14,819 more women than men teaching in the State. Sixth—Under pretence of regulating public morals, women of the femme de pave class, many of whom have been driven to this mode of life as a livelihood, are subjected to more oppressive laws than their partners in vice. Seventh—The laws treat married women as criminals by taking from them all legal control of their children, while those born outside of marriage belong absolutely to the mothers. Eighth—They forbid the mother's inheritance of property from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... character and condition of the atmosphere on the memorable first of July last, when the storm-cloud which spread desolation over a narrow belt of not more than two hundred yards at most, swept across the western half of Chester county, Penn'a? The middle part of the day was hot and oppressive; the thermometer stood at about 92 and the barometer about 29.6. The atmosphere seemed very close, and the inhaling of air in the lungs was attended with rather more difficulty than usual. I remarked to a friend that ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... and children speedily betrayed painful evidences of the suffering they were experiencing, which became accentuated as we advanced. The close confinement rendered the atmosphere within the carriages extremely oppressive. The weaker men and the women commenced to faint but no assistance could be extended to them. One could move barely an arm or leg. The afflicted passengers simply went off where they were, sitting or standing, as the case might ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Less oppressive are the streets where commerce is more apparent. Here, unless you would be smirched, it is necessary to walk fast and hold your coat-tails in. Packing cases are going down slides. Bales are coming up in hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... the toast of Music was responded to in this room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. I fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the oppressive weight of over-popularity—at least not to any very alarming extent. [Cheers.] But I may permit myself to say that while the popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Crossing the long dreary peat-moss known as Mun-a-lun, we found the cold intense; but on approaching Lough Carra came into bright broad sunshine. At Ballinrobe the sun was still hotter, and as I approached Lough Mask the heat was almost oppressive. I was not, however, allowed to inspect Lough Mask House and the ruins of the adjacent castle in the first place. I had but just passed a magnificent field of mangolds, many of which weighed from a stone to a stone and a half, when I came upon a ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... on for a short time after this little scene; every one felt rather ill at ease, not so much on account of this scene, as from another, not quite definite, but oppressive feeling. No one spoke of it, but every one was conscious of it in himself and in his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... followed, glad to get out of the oppressive atmosphere, and joined him in the back of Vincenzo's drug store, where he was again at work. As there was no back window there, it was quite a job to lead the wires around the outside from the back yard and in at a side window. It was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... his way back late in the afternoon, the sunbeams, no longer genial, became oppressive, and he was glad to hail one of the hotel stages that was returning ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... d'Enjalran urged her to testify in accordance with the truth. In a strange, uniformly dull tone, yet speaking rather hurriedly, she repeated the statement that she had made before the examining magistrate. An oppressive silence pervaded the hall, and her voice, in consequence, grew steadily lower. She knew now a multitude of details, had seen the long knife lying on the table, had seen Bancal and Colard bring in a wooden tub, and the lawyer Fualdes sitting with bowed shoulders near the lamp, writing. She had also ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... strength, and dexterity in the use of his arms, as well as the remarkable circumstances of his descent, had recommended this man to the attention of his officers. But he partook in a great degree of the licentiousness and oppressive disposition, which the habit of acting as agents for government in levying fines, exacting free quarters, and otherwise oppressing the Presbyterian recusants, had rendered too general among these soldiers. They were so much accustomed ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... inhabitants of Peru are gradually beginning to experience the benefit which has been conferred upon them, by the repeal of ancient oppressive laws. In the districts that produce gold, their exertions will be redoubled, for they now work for themselves. They can obtain this precious metal by merely scratching the earth, and, although the collection of each individual ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... the pleasure. It is often too great, for it takes me away from solid pursuits merely to receive the impression, as water is still to reflect the trees. To me it is very painful when illness blots the definition of outdoor things, so wearisome not to see them rightly, and more oppressive than actual pain. I feel as if I was struggling to wake up with dim, half-opened lids and heavy mind. This one yellowhammer still sits on the ash branch in Stewart's Mash over the sward, singing in the sun, his feathers freshly wet with ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... going to the adjoining kitchen, there was a heap of shavings and paper by a packing-case in one corner, and on this I determined to make a bed. The rain still pelted, the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed, while the interior of the house seemed dismal and oppressive, I confess to a feeling of timidity which I had not experienced since I left Castlemore—such as, indeed, I had scarcely been conscious of in my life before. The evening was already dark, and the night promised to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... about by the panic of 1819, the popular antagonism to the banks in general, and especially to the Bank of the United States, as "engines of aristocracy," oppressive to the common people, and the general discontent with the established order, had, as we have seen, produced a movement comparable to the populist agitation of our ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... iron heels, with their shining plates, only caught the oak of his box-door; and the tete-a-tete in the sultry, oppressive night went on as the speakers moved to a prudent distance; one of them thoughtfully chewing a bit of straw, after the immemorial habit of grooms, who ever seem as if they had been born into this world with a cornstalk ready ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... persisted. As the girl was not only beautiful, but amiable—though, as will be seen, rather weak—and her family as respectable as any, though unfortunately but poor, Israel deemed his father's conduct unreasonable and oppressive; particularly as it turned out that he had taken secret means to thwart his son with the girl's connections, if not with the girl herself, so as to place almost insurmountable obstacles to an eventual marriage. For it had not been the purpose ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... He frequented their house, and his free and rattling talk was no unpleasing variety to Othello, who was himself of a more serious temper: for such tempers are observed often to delight in their contraries, as a relief from the oppressive excess of their own: and Desdemona and Cassio would talk and laugh together, as in the days when he went a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... for a year. She had read Milton, Shenstone, and Dodsworth, "The Search after Happiness," by Hannah More, the works of Madame de Genlis, the "Essay on Man," and Shakespeare's lighter plays. Her learning was not oppressive, merely sufficient to give distinction to her mind, and Hamilton was enchanted once more; but he found her most interesting when relating personal anecdotes of encounters with savage warriors in that dark northern land where ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... with a game of casino, but the hilarity of the early part of the evening was conspicuously absent, those assembled taking an early leave and departing homeward. The gentleman who had unwittingly worked on the feelings of the remainder of the guests felt that there was something oppressive in the atmosphere, and tried to elicit an explanation from a neighbor; but he could get no reply excepting a tongue thrust into that gentleman's cheek as much as to say— "You've put your foot in it, old fellow," and a significant squeeze of the ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... journey, like a dull, oppressive dream, Across the empty prairies till I caught the distant gleam Of a city in the beauty of its broad and shining stream On whose bosom, flocked together, float the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... course of the river is still to the north. One mile and a half from the junction found enough water that will do for me at night. As there seems to be so little water, and this day being exceedingly hot and oppressive, I have camped. The country travelled over to-day has been of the same description, completely covered with long grass; the soil rich, and a great many of the cabbage-tree growing about it. Wind variable. Latitude, 14 degrees 58 ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... hot ride of it," he observed. "The atmosphere is rather oppressive. Kamaiakan tells me there was a touch of earthquake ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... spasm passed. But for Paul the night was no longer beautiful. Only unutterable sadness seemed to pervade the place. The very air seemed heavy with oppressive grief. And rising, he tottered like an old man around to the foot of the steps and dragged himself ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... been intense, devouring with its scorching breath every vestige of verdure on the mountain sides and foothills, and leaving them dull and dun. On this particular morning the heat seemed more terrible than ever, and there was not a breath of air stirring to cool the oppressive atmosphere. The earth and sky were suffused with a bright, red light, which gradually died away into a dim, purplish haze, through which the sun ascended like a ball of fire; while every blade and leaf hung motionless, as if ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... dared betray his secret thoughts to another, or utter a word of disapproval. The king's spies were everywhere, and none could trust himself to converse with his neighbor, as he might prove to be one of them. There reigned an anxious, oppressive silence; the generals and staff-officers exchanged the ordinary greetings. All eyes were turned toward the door through which the king would enter, bowed down, like his generals, with the cares of life, and the burden of old age. The king slowly ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... and weary days. Our room was of greater size than that in Chattanooga, and had larger windows, yet the heat was fearfully oppressive. Our other boys were put in the room with us, which made fifteen in all. One of them, named Wood, was very sick. He had been prostrated with the fever for nearly a month, and at this time his life was despaired of. This ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... sat there together, in that oppressive big room, I made rather an awful discovery. I found that my husband and I had scarcely anything we could talk about together. So I sat there, like an alligator in a bayou, wondering why his rather flushed face should be turned toward me every ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... He turned irresolutely, and they walked together down the plank pathway, Kitty with an oppressive sense of having fallen into the clutch of one of the Primal Forces, who was about to settle her destiny for her; in which she stumbled almost on the truth. Miss Muller was quite aware of the fact of her brother's visits at the book-shop, and their motive. She glanced at her watch: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... from Madagascar was in Paris to protest against the oppressive policy pursued. An ultimatum was presented which left the envoys no option but to depart, and they came with their bitter complaint to London, where Sir Charles Dilke very warmly espoused ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... position gradually became precarious, inasmuch as many persons declared the war to be in reality a personal quarrel between Pope Sixtus and the Medici. Complaints began to be heard that the public treasury was exhausted and the commerce of the city ruined, while the citizens were burdened with oppressive taxes. Lorenzo had the mortification of being told that sufficient blood had been shed, and that it would be expedient for him rather to devise some means of effecting a peace than of making further preparations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... continued, "I must entreat you to allow me to tell Philip what I know. You cannot conceive how intensely oppressive it becomes to me to have any secret from him. I never concealed so much as a thought from my brother in all my life, and to evade even a mute question from his brave, frank eyes makes me ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... as I walked up the avenue that conducted to the house. The day was intensely hot, and at that early hour the fierce fire of the sun had rendered the atmosphere sweltry and oppressive. I knocked many times before I could obtain admittance, and, at last, the door was opened by a ragged urchin about twelve years of age, looking more like the son of a thief or a gypsy than a juvenile member of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... these orders, reasons, and declarations, they at length gave an indirect sanction, and permitted the use of a very direct and irresistible force, to measures which they had over and over again declared to be false policy, cruel, inhuman, and oppressive. Having, however, forgot all attention to the princes and the people, they remembered that they had some sort of interest in the trade of the country; and it is matter of curiosity to observe the protection which they afforded to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... do all morning. Yarloo again made a little sun-shelter, but this became unnecessary after about ten o'clock, because by that time the rising clouds had covered the face of the sun. With every succeeding hour the oppressive heat seemed to get more and more unbearable. There was not a breath of wind. It was as if a lot of thick blankets were slowly smothering every living creature on the earth. The clouds were no longer white, except at the front edges and in places where a few great puffs bulged out. The rest ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... gave rise to questions for solution by it of the greatest nicety, and thus attracted immediate attention to the whole science. To these there followed in quick succession our long-pending dispute with Great Britain upon her exercise of the oppressive claims of visitation and search, our position as a neutral nation during the long wars in Europe, our own war with England, and the wars between Spain and her revolted colonies. Such a succession of events, fruitful in international controversies, created a demand for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... oppressive to the Anglo-Saxon visitor. His looks, his manner, his accent betray him as one of the English-speaking pest, and the crowd, with its mind so full of English hatred, does not readily distinguish the American. So drop ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... become thoroughly equipped and somewhat disciplined, ought to advance into the revolted territory, scatter the defiant hosts of the enemy, and put a speedy end to the slaveholders' Rebellion. But the hesitation and indecision which prevailed in our military circles were becoming oppressive and unendurable, and hence the cry of "On to Richmond!" was heard from the Border States to the St. Lawrence, precipitating the first general engagement of the war. Our defeat at Bull Run was a totally unexpected disaster, which, for a time, it was feared, would chill the enthusiasm and greatly ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Chipewyan being situated on an opposite shore upon an arm of the lake, here about six miles wide. The stream is sluggish, and is thickly wooded to the water's edge, with here and there an exposure of red granite. It is a very beautiful stream, and it was a pleasure to get out of the great river and its oppressive vastness into the familiar-looking, homely water, its eastern rocks and exquisite curves and bends. Rounding a point, we came upon a camp of Chipewyans drying fish and making birch-bark canoes, all of them fat, dirty, like ourselves, and happy; and, passing on, at dusk ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... weary troopers continued the march, stopping for rest only when Bob and George climbed some sandhill to reconnoitre the ground before them. The deep silence that brooded over the Staked Plains was almost oppressive. The bare feet of the troopers gave out no sound as they sank into the yielding sand, and all that could be heard was their labored breathing as they walked behind their leader, trusting implicitly to his guidance. They never ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... of the black horse, and glancing sidelong at him, Rosalind saw his face whiten under the deep tan upon it. It carried, too, to the other side of the street, and the girl saw faces grow suddenly tense; noted the stiffening of bodies. The flat, ominous silence that followed was unreal and oppressive. Out of it came the rider's voice as he urged the black to a point within three or four paces of Corrigan and sat in the saddle, looking at him. And now for the first time Rosalind had a clear, full view of the rider's face and a quiver of trepidation ran over her. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... atmosphere of suspense the long afternoon dragged into evening. Every effort to free the vessel had been tried, but to no avail. Evening mess was served amid an oppressive silence varied only by the valiant efforts of bluff Bill Witt to stir a bit of confidence in his mates. Another and final effort to get away was to be tried at midnight with high tide. And then—-if nothing availed—-the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... importance where the railways are operated by corporations permitted to fix rates, as in all others the government is the ultimate rate-making power: these are Great Britain, Canada, and the United States; and while the British government exercises a more effective control than we do, there are many and oppressive discriminations, and complaints are loud and frequent, and English farmers find it necessary to unite for the purpose of securing protection from corporate oppression, as is shown by the following from the Liverpool Courier of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... when to start your garden, the most important matter is, what to put in it. It is difficult to decide what to order for dinner on a given day: how much more oppressive is it to order in a lump an endless vista of dinners, so to speak! For, unless your garden is a boundless prairie (and mine seems to me to be that when I hoe it on hot days), you must make a selection, from the great variety of vegetables, of those you will raise in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... king at this answer was too oppressive of the tender nature of Lady Wallace for Gloucester to venture repeating it to her husband; and, while she turned deathly pale at the recollection, Wallace, exulting in her conduct, pressed her hand silently but fervently ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... interplanetary vacuum. For five long weeks she had patrolled her allotted volume of space. In another week she would report back to the city whose name she bore, where her space-weary crew, worn by their long "trick" in the awesomely oppressive depths of the limitless void, would enjoy to the full their fortnight of ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... and oppressive silence. Charity, quivering with anger, started forward, and then stood silent, too humbled for speech. Harney's eyes had dropped under the old man's gaze; but he raised them presently, and looking steadily ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... at the window and lost herself in thought. Alice gave signs of an inclination to doze; she had had a sleepless night, in spite of soporifics. Though no sun entered the room, it was very hot, and the presence of a third person made the air oppressive. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... admitted that on some occasions he got into the debatable ground. To those who did not know him, and who were acquainted through common report only with his unmitigated abuse of Popery, he was looked upon as an oppressive and overbearing tyrant, who would enforce, to the furthest possible stretch of severity, the penal enactments then in existence against Roman Catholics. And this, indeed, was true, so far as any one was concerned from whom he imagined himself to have received an ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... stale. The leaves upon her trees were blown and dingy, odd pieces of paper crept here and there into her parks, the dust was paramount. What sultry air there was seemed to be second-hand. Out of the pounding traffic the pungent reek of oil and fiery metal rose up oppressive. Paint three months old was seamed and freckled. Look where you would, the silver sheen of Spring was dull and tarnished, the very stones were shabby, and in the summer sunshine even proud buildings of the smartest streets wore but a jaded look and ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... moment a deep unearthly voice was heard inside the hut. Every one trembled, and there ensued a silence so oppressive as to suggest the idea that all present were holding their breath, and afraid to ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... or inside the cavity of the "keel" of the flower, but the majority explore the petals and take possession of them. The time for laying the eggs has not yet arrived. The morning is mild; the sun is warm without being oppressive. It is the moment of nuptial flights; the time of rejoicing in the splendor of the sunshine. Everywhere are creatures rejoicing to be alive. Couples come together, part, and re-form. When towards noon the heat becomes too great, the weevils retire into the shadow, taking refuge ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... enough, instead of climbing farther up the side of the mountain. It was very pleasant to keep in the cool shade of the trees, with that trickling little stream so near, for, as the afternoon advanced, it seemed as though the air became very oppressive. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... king: The time[59] shall come when Glo'ster's heart shall bleed, In life's last hours, with horror of the deed; When dreary visions shall at last present Thy vengeful image in the midnight tent: 90 Thy hand unseen the secret death shall bear, Blunt the weak sword, and break the oppressive spear! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... appear in this country to affect strangers in a remarkable degree. The cold seemed to me more piercing, and the heat more oppressive in Iceland, than when the thermometer stood at the same points in my ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... near the line, they were much incommoded by the shifting of the wind; and by scarcity of water, many of the crew falling ill of the scurvy. When it sometimes fell entirely calm, the heat of the sun became more than ordinarily oppressive, owing to which some of the men became quite distracted, others fell into high fevers, and some had fits like the epilepsy. Their water, as it grew low, stunk abominably, and became full of worms. The salt provisions were in a manner quite spoiled, and served only to turn their stomachs and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and gloom were oppressive, and Lucy's cloak was saturated with moisture. She entered the house by the large hall, and here, too, was silence. But in the President's Court beyond, Lucy heard voices, low and subdued. She listened, with the foreshadowing ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... could have been conscious of the look that Eleanor bent upon her at that instant, she certainly would have been inclined to leave the room and never enter it again. But she knew nothing of it, and the work went on amid oppressive silence. Mrs. Prency had occasion to leave the room for an instant soon after, and Jane ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... sea-monster, crawled out of the neighbouring slime, and harbouring a breed of strange vermin, with a strong local scent of tar and bulge-water. Mr. Crabbe's Tales are more readable than his Poems; but in proportion as the interest increases, they become more oppressive. They turn, one and all, upon the same sort of teazing, helpless, mechanical, unimaginative distress;—and though it is not easy to lay them down, you never wish to take them up again. Still in this way, they are highly finished, striking, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... near the station, and entered the pillared aisles of the pines, the air was less oppressive, but a dun haze seemed on every side to curtain the horizon, and the stars looked bleared and tired in the breathless vault above her. A man driving two cows toward town, stared at her; then a wagon drawn by four horses rattled along, bearing homeward a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hear what I advise. Thou knowest well, how here with us in Schwytz All worthy men are groaning underneath This Gessler's grasping, grinding tyranny. Doubt not the men of Unterwald as well, And Uri, too, are chafing like ourselves, At this oppressive and heart-wearying yoke. For there, across the lake, the Landenberg Wields the same iron rule as Gessler here— No fishing-boat comes over to our side, But brings the tidings of some new encroachment, Some fresh outrage, more ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... miles of Wm. Gatewood, who then held Malinda as his property. I was permitted to visit her only on Saturday nights, after my work was done, and I had to be at home before sunrise on Monday mornings or take a flogging. He proved to be so oppressive, and so unreasonable in punishing his victims, that I soon found that I should have to run away in self-defence. But he soon began to take the hint, and sold me to Wm. Gatewood the owner of Malinda. With my new residence I confess that I was much dissatisfied. Not that ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... citizens. The more lamentable part is, that forming a large portion of that species of beings known as bar-room politicians, they actually control the elections in the city; and thus we may account for the character of the incumbents of office, and for the tenacity with which those oppressive laws are adhered to. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... you have been looking forward during the cold raw foggy days of November, when the ploughs were hard at work,—during the hot fierce winds of March, and the still, sultry, breathless early days of June, when the air was so still and oppressive that you could scarcely breathe. These sultry days are the lull before the storm—the pause before the moisture-laden clouds of the monsoon roll over the land 'rugged and brown,' and the wild rattle of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... but there was, in the whole routine, a uniformity, a want of interest, a helpless and hopeless languor, which rendered life insipid. No doubt, my worthy host and hostess felt none of this void, this want of excitation, which was becoming oppressive to their guest. They had their little round of occupations, charities, and pleasures; Rachel had her poultry-yard and conservatory, and Joshua his garden. Besides this, they enjoyed, doubtless, their devotional meditations; and, on the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth, with its coating of stunted karoo bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the milk-bushes with their long finger-like leaves, all were touched by a weird and an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... face and distressed him; the dull grinding of the huge stones and the whirr of the shaftings and drums somehow did not sound in his ears so agreeably as he had once fancied they would. There was something oppressive about the place—or something in the air that caused him an unexplainable uneasiness—and he stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... to lunch in the big, oppressive dining-room alone, as their chaperon, Aunt Emily, was laid up with a headache, and Mr. Henry Pym, Meryl's father, was usually in the City at midday. And after lunch, for the sake of something to do, they ordered the motor and drove out to Ranelagh ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... upon the unattuned ear; the glaring lights dazzle the pained vision until utter darkness would seem grateful; the merry voices and careless laughter catch a tone of bitter mockery; the gayly apparelled forms, the faces decked with soulless smiles, are more oppressive than all the apparitions with which a fevered imagination can people the gloomiest seclusion. Maurice soon found the festive scene at the Chateau de Tremazan intolerable, and took refuge in the illuminated conservatory, the doors of which were thrown invitingly open. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... before sought both gain and power, restrained by as few scruples as the worst men of a bad age, he rose a pursuer of both, but within bounds; so that, though he was still hard and grasping and oppressive, it was possible to say of him that he was no worse than his class. Close-fisted, at Father O'Hara's instance he could open his hand. Hard, at the Father's prayer he would at times remit a rent or extend a bond. Ambitious, he gave up, for his soul's sake and the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... tardy Nicias might have won all through, and still Athens would have fallen. Her political foundations were on the sand. Under Persia you stood a much better chance of enjoying good government and freedom: Persian rule was far less oppressive and cruel. The states and islands subject to Athens had no self-government, no representation; they were at the mercy of the Athenian mob, to be taxed, bullied, and pommeled about as that fickle irresponsible tyranny might elect or be swayed to pommel, tax, and bully them. Thucydides was a ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... specific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of human feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. They are often saner and shrewder than the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often saner and shrewder than Don Quixote. They clear away vast masses of oppressive gravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which is at bottom a combination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor. But they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of the doors and found them to yield, letting him into a kind of smothered, troubled quietness even more oppressive than that outside. He passed an empty ropewalk, the hemp strewn untidily about, as if the workers had left hurriedly. He peered curiously at idle looms and deserted spinning-wheels—deserted apparently but ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... alone any more,—this little creature was a companion,—a something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank, and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... sunder this self from the special mass of consciousness in which it is immersed and to gaze upon it pure and simple. At times that mass of consciousness is so engrossing that hardly a trace of the self remains. At times the sense of being shut up to one's self is positively oppressive. Between the two extremes there is endless variation. When we call self-consciousness the prerogative of man we do not mean that he fully possesses it, but only that he may possess it, may possess it more and more; and that in it, ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... about something. They have a singular, and I hope an unreasonable, fear of the Japanese Government. Mr. Von Siebold thinks that the officials threaten and knock them about; and this is possible; but I really think that the Kaitaikushi Department means well by them, and, besides removing the oppressive restrictions by which, as a conquered race, they were fettered, treats them far more humanely and equitably than the U.S. Government, for instance, treats the North American Indians. However, they are ignorant; and one of the men, who had been most ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or oppressive ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Traces of the camp remained in abundance, but the army itself had vanished. There were no lurking camp followers to make him trouble. He descended to the ground, and stood a while, drawing in deep draughts of the fresh daylight air. It had not been oppressive in the pyramid, but there is nothing like the open sky above. He went down to the Teotihuacan, and, choosing a safe place, bathed in its waters. Then he resumed the flight across the hills which had been delayed so long. He knew by the sun that it was morning not far advanced, ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... since the sceptre of the Dane was broken upon her historic shores. This fact is sustained by evidences teeming upon us from every point of the compass. A great and mysterious embodiment of her influence, and a vague and oppressive sense of her unseen presence, hang ominously over all the councils of her task-masters, and build up strange dynasties in the disturbed slumbers of even royalty itself. Nor bolt nor bar can shut out the low mutterings of her approaching thunder, or exclude her ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... the noisy little play was just beginning, and those who cared for seats in the room were pushing forward; the crowd in the passage was therefore less oppressive. Alison moved forward a step or two, and stood in such a position that she was partly sheltered by a curtain. She had scarcely done so before, to her great astonishment, Hardy and Louisa came out. They stood together for a moment or two in the comparatively ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... had hitherto been too busy to talk, except about the immediate concerns of the table, and one or two of the greatest breaks to the usual monotony of his days; a monotony in which he delighted, but which sometimes became oppressive to his wife. Now, however, peeling his ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... slightly shrugging his shoulder, as a hint to his wife that the weight of her hand was oppressive. "Can't be," continued he, as he set himself industriously—for in this Moggs was industrious—to the consumption of the best part of the breakfast that was before him—a breakfast that had been, as usual, provided by his wife, and prepared by her, while Montezuma Moggs was fast asleep—an ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... greater part of our stay of a week, the sky was cloudless, and if the trade-wind failed for an hour, the heat became very oppressive. On two days, the thermometer within the tent stood for some hours at 93 degs.; but in the open air, in the wind and sun, at only 85 degs. The sand was extremely hot; the thermometer placed in some of a brown colour immediately rose to 137 ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... property as Tretton required, he thought, his presence, and, till it had been adjusted, he clung to life with a pertinacity which had seemed to be oppressive. Now Mountjoy's debts had been paid, and Mountjoy could be left a bit happier. Having achieved so much, he was delighted to think that he might. But there had come latterly a claim upon him equally strong,—that he should wreak his vengeance upon Augustus. Had Augustus abused him for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... of such phenomena was always known as "earthquake weather." The wild cattle moved uneasily in the distance without feeding; herds of unbroken mustangs approached the confines of the hacienda in vague timorous squads. The silence and stagnation of the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really gone out of it at last; and Aunt Viney, after waiting impatiently for the young people to come in to chocolate, rose grimly, set her lips together, and went out into the lane. The gate of the rose garden opposite ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... fellows from a French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp. By day it is merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the lamps in the little huts, the street has a sinister beauty. The hideous lust that pervades the air is oppressive and horrible, and yet there is something mysterious in the sight which haunts and troubles you. You feel I know not what primitive force which repels and yet fascinates you. Here all the decencies of civilisation are swept away, and you ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... in a pine thicket, surrounded by a little clearing that served to show how aimlessly and how hopelessly the lack of thrift and energy could assert itself. The surroundings were mean enough and squalid enough at their best, but the oppressive shadows of night made them meaner and more squalid than they really were. The sun, which shines so lavishly in that region, appeared to glorify the squalor, showing wild passion-flowers clambering along the broken-down fence of pine poles, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... competition we have referred to, but the check works imperfectly. At some points it restrains the corporations quite closely and gives an approach to the ideal results, in which the consolidation is very productive but not at all oppressive; while elsewhere the check has very little power, oppression prevails, and if anything holds the exactions of the corporation within bounds, it is a respect for the ultimate power of the government and an inkling of what the people may do if they ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... certainly real, and rather uncomfortable," I replied, hoping he would expand and explain. "There was a distinct feeling of warmth—internal warmth somewhere—oppressive ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... perceptible coolness in the air now noticeable that was most refreshing after the suffocating heat, which I had found so oppressive an hour agone; and, this tempered tone of the atmosphere brought out more vividly the fragrant scent of the frangipanni and languid perfume of the jessamine, the whole atmosphere without being redolent of their mingled odours, harmoniously blended ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... scorn or neglect, wherein from beginning to end the author discourses concerning himself individually. Had this been done in any other way than the consummately simple, delicate, and unobtrusive one which he has adopted, the whole would have been insufferable egotism, disgusting coxcombry, or oppressive dulness. Whereas, this personal identity is the charm, the strength, the soul of the book; he lives, he breathes, he moves through it; his pulse beats or stands still, his eye kindles or fades, his cheek grows pale with horror, colours with shame, or burns with indignation; ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... frogs have a croaking chorus that Aristophanes might have envied. On the approach of strange footsteps they hurry off the flat rocks by the pool, and one hears a musical plash as they reach water. Very soon the silence is resumed, and presently becomes so oppressive that it is a relief to turn again and see our modest lights twinkling as ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... that," said the late passenger somewhat sharply, "but if people choose to make unjust and oppressive rules I don't mean to submit to them. Just think of a parrot, a horrid shrieking creature that every one acknowledges to be a nuisance, being allowed to travel free, or a baby, which is enough to drive ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... northern hostility to slavery took a new form, more bold and uncompromising than the old Abolition Societies. It demanded the immediate and unconditional emancipation of every slave, in a voice which has not yet been silenced, and never will be, while the oppressive system continues to disgrace our country. Of course, Friend Hopper could not otherwise than sympathize with any movement for the abolition of slavery, based on pacific principles. Pictures and pamphlets, published by the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... where money was all-powerful the power of money was used without stint and without scruple. Judges were bribed to do their duty, juries to convict, newspapers to support and legislators to betray their constituents and pass the most oppressive laws. By these corrupt means, and with the natural advantage of greater skill in affairs and larger experience in concerted action, the capitalists soon restored their ancient reign and the state of the laborer was worse than it had ever been before. Straman says that in his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the air was thick and hot. Anticipating that the day would be very oppressive, Vivian and Essper were on their horses' backs at an early hour. Already, however, many of the rustic revellers were about, and preparations were commencing for the fete champetre, which this day was to close the wedding festivities. Many and sad were the looks which Essper ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... mankind, that they seem to have always hidden their Indian policy under the most jealous reserve. They adopted this reserve from the first hour of their Indian navigation. But then Holland was a republic, and a republic is always tyrannical in proportion to its clamour for liberty, always oppressive in proportion to its promise of equal rights, and always rapacious in proportion to its professed respect for the principle of letting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... entered the village. It was a bright, hot day, and oppressive, though only ten o'clock. At intervals the sun was hidden by the gathering clouds. An unpleasant, sharp smell of manure filled the air in the street. It came from carts going up the hillside, but chiefly from the disturbed manure heaps in the yards of the huts, by ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... wide to leap, too deep to cross readily, had deflected the boy in his ride until he found himself to the lee of the fire, and the heat of it, oppressive ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... been intensely hot during the three preceding days, although the sun was entirely obscured by a blueish haze, which seemed to render the unusual heat of the atmosphere more oppressive. Not a breath of air stirred the vast forest, and the waters of the lake assumed a leaden hue. After passing a sleepless night, I arose, a little after day-break, to superintend my domestic affairs. E—- took his breakfast, and went off to the mill, hoping that the rain would ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... conversations of this description. A vast depression came over my spirits, though I was amused, and I don't suppose I uttered a dozen words. It is certainly true that the atmosphere of Holland House is often oppressive, but that was not it; it was a painful consciousness of my own deficiencies and of my incapacity to take a fair share in conversation of this description. I felt as if a language was spoken before ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... paler, glistening light of the moon spreading its fairy whiteness everywhere. It was inspiringly beautiful; and the music was divine—Charley Kelley's orchestra was playing; and Mr. Briggs was a wonderful dancer. But Missy couldn't forget the oppressive heat, or the stabbing weights in her head, or, worse yet, that ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness was opened secretly somewhere in the sky; higher and higher swelled the clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but they were ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... dregs the poisoned chalice which their ancestors had mingled. Perhaps this world presents no more affecting illustration of that mysterious principle of the divine government, by which the transgressions of the parents are visited upon the children. Louis XIV., as haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod an enslaved people into the dust, died peacefully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, Louis XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign as ever sat upon an earthly throne, received upon his unresisting brow the doom from which his unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... evening, as he was lying on his bed, staring at the shadowy ceiling and puzzling his brain with most oppressive uncertainties, the rattle of keys in the lock announced the approach of visitors. The door swung open and through the grate he saw Dangloss and Quinnox. The latter wore a long military rain coat and had just come in from a drenching downpour. Lorry's reverie had been ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... individual liberty within what to the Anglo-Saxon seem narrow limits, still, by directing the individual to common ends, it works great public advantage. It is in truth a very intelligent and practical form of Socialism, infinitely less oppressive to the people than would be the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be compelled to resume the name of Fairfeld, which was a tacit disavowal of his birth. It had ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with saying that it lacked only water to be a very fine one. It is strange what a difference the gleam of water makes, and how a scene awakens and comes to life wherever it is visible. The landscape, moreover, gives the beholder (at least, this beholder) a sense of oppressive sunshine and scanty shade, and does not incite a longing to wander through it on foot, as a really delightful landscape should. The vine, too, being cultivated in so trim a manner, does not suggest that idea of luxuriant fertility, which is the poetical notion of a vineyard. The olive-orchards ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the army, however, were filled during the whole reign of Napoleon by compulsion. The conscription law of 1798 acquired under him the character of a settled and regular part of the national system; and its oppressive influence was such as never before exhausted, through a long term of years, the best energies of a great and civilised people. Every male in France, under the age of twenty-five, was liable to be called on to serve in the ranks; and the regulations as to the procuring of substitutes were ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... treasury out of millions of dollars, it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, because under the private property system, competition, whether between small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those who are in the contest ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bondage to any man," and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well, I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may try this question in another form—Am I willing to reduce my little child to slavery? You know that if it is brought up a slave it will never know any contrast, between freedom ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... makes its appearance from time to time in connection with the oppressive uncertainty of divination, a passion for believing and feeling sure at all costs: for example, when dealing with Aristotle, or in the discovery of magic numbers, which, in Lachmann's case, is almost ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an officer who was to furnish every sort of provision for the royal house, and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and compelling the countrymen to bring their articles to market, would enter into the history of the arts of grinding the labouring class of society; a remnant of feudal tyranny! The very title ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... behind it. If there really was a man in there, thought Neale, he must surely feel himself to be in a living tomb. And after a time, taking the risk of being heard from outside the laboratory, he beat heavily upon the door with his fist. No response came: the silence all around him was more oppressive, ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... by his father of the treasure stolen from the rebel princes in profitable Western enterprises ensured him an income greater than that enjoyed by many far more important maharajahs. But his revenue was never sufficient for his needs, and he ground down his wretched subjects with oppressive taxes to furnish him with still more money to waste in his vices. All men marvelled that the Government of India allowed such a debauchee and wastrel to remain on the gadi. But it is a long-suffering Government and loth ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... about this time overtook the slave-holders of St. Domingo, when their slaves threw off their oppressive yoke, added considerably to his rising fortunes. He happened to have two vessels in that port when the tocsin of insurrection rang out its fearful notes. Frantic with apprehension, many planters rushed with their costliest treasure to ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... at four o'clock the next morning and set off for Mexico. The morning, as usual after these storms, was peculiarly fresh and beautiful; but the sun soon grew oppressive on the great plains. About two o'clock we entered Mexico by the Guadalupe gate. We found our house in statu quo, —agreeable letters from Europe,—great preparations making for the English ball, to assist at which we have returned sooner than we otherwise should, and for which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... moment staring vacantly at the bedroom door, as if striving to read there the secrets of life, birth, and death. Then he remembered how tired he was, and with a large movement of fatigue he sat down on the sofa. A gloomy yellow sky filled the room with an oppressive and mournful twilight, and to relieve his aching feet Dick had kicked off his shoes, and with his folded arms pressed against his stomach he sat hour after hour, too hungry to sleep, listening to the low moaning that came through ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... certain districts and trades of East London. In spite of Commissions, in spite of recent laws, "sweating," so it was urged, was as bad as ever—nay, in certain localities and industries was more frightful and more oppressive than ever. The waste of life and health involved in the great clothing industries of East London, for instance, which had provoked law after law, inquiry after inquiry, still went—so ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... These are our halcyon hours, when we forget the needs of the morrow, and that men still buy, sell, cheat, and strive for gold, and that we are in the Rocky Mountains, and that it is near midnight. But morning comes hot and tiresome, and the never-ending work is oppressive, and Dr. H. comes in from the field two or three times in the day, dizzy and faint, and they condole with each other, and I feel that the Colorado settler needs to be made of sterner stuff and ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was a miracle. He listened with the muscles of his face drawn tight in an effort at self-control unusual in such a child, his square, brown hands digging convulsively into the dry earth under the grass beside him. And as the shadows of the trees crept over the road, and the oppressive heat began to relent a little, the plaintive music went on and on, and scant, painful tears stood on ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... smiled. "It will be Von Ritz or a foreigner," he explained. "We must convince him that his beloved Kingdom can henceforth be only a province in any event—that it may prosper under his guidance or suffer under a more oppressive hand. That done, his patriotism will prove our ally. We have only to convince him that no member of Karyl's house can reign and live—and that it must be himself ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... proceeding would produce a breeze, or that he had any notion of the origin of the custom; but he had always done so when there was a calm; and he wanted a wind, and the wind, if he whistled long enough, always came. The heat was oppressive, as it always is under such circumstances in those latitudes; the spirits of all fell, except those of Jos Green, who was ever merry, blow high or blow low, in sunshine or cold. The grumblers grumbled, of course, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... theorist; he was skillful to persuade men, and to organize and lead a party. His general tendency was "along the line of least resistance,"—the summoning of men to free themselves from oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... steamer and railroad this silence was oppressive. Minute sounds came to Markham across the distances, the bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, a shutter closing, human voices near and far, each one distinct, but each mellowed and softened as though strained through a silver mesh. He missed the shudder ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... banishment. These he sold for slaves, and with the money, as if to insult over them, built a colonnade at Megalopolis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the Lacedaemonians in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a most oppressive and arbitrary action, he abolished the laws of Lycurgus, and forced them to educate their children, and live after the manner of the Achaeans; as though, while they kept to the discipline of Lycurgus, there was no humbling ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unwarrantably moist; and all about me on the ground little pools remained from the last rainfall. But here there was no soil, not so much even as a grain of sand seemed to exist. The air was warm, as warm as a midsummer's day in my own land, a peculiarly oppressive, moist heat. ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... applicable, regarded themselves, with the robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the chosen people of the new ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... find the Pactum oppressive, then, in God's name, I resign you to His holy keeping! I have done my part, and on this score I do not dread appearing before the Highest of all Judges. Do not be afraid to come to me to-morrow; as yet I only suspect; God grant that those suspicions may not ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... of agents Is a heavenly maid called Sleep, Who stands in unbroken silence, And ever her watch will keep O'er mortals whose labors and trials Seem heavy, oppressive, and deep. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... but I dare say the American Congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... a good education gave him employment as secretary. During three years this now bloodthirsty savage acted as missionary interpreter, and it was said he did very much for the religious instruction of his tribe. When the colonists revolted against the oppressive rule of the king, Brant took the same side as did his patron, and having received a commission—some have said it was a captaincy, and others that it was a colonelcy—he became one of the most vengeful enemies we, who were ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... to the library door, and there stopped in amazement, unwilling to credit his eyes. He was looking into the brightest, gayest room he had ever seen. An incredible transformation had taken place. The vast, stately, sober room had become dainty, exquisite, enchanting. Here, instead of oppressive elegance, was the most delicate beauty; here was exemplified at a glance the sweet, soft touch of woman in contrast to the heavy, uncompromising hand of man. Here was sweetness and freshness, and the sparkle of youth, and gone ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became intolerably oppressive. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... courage, which is the secret of soldierly success, comes only from companionship. The night-wood is a world by itself, filled with its own atmosphere, as oppressive to valor as the electric reefs that drew the nails from the ships of Sindbad. Among familiar scenes and well-known shapes, it is all the delight the poets sing—so tranquillizing, inspiring, fecund, that in comparison ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... concise as possible and to divide them into brief chapters in case I should have as little opportunity for extended explanations as the President had been giving me. I saw that the whole matter was gloomy and oppressive to him—that his responsibility was as dark on his mind as our sufferings—and I took the hint of his amused interest, in order to work out ways of brightening the ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... divided into two great classes; those which were called the military tenures, or knight's service, and soccage. The first tenure was that which became oppressive in the progress of society. Soccage was of two kinds; free and villian. The first has an affinity to our own system, as connected with these leases; the last never existed among us at all. When the knight's service, or military tenures of England were converted into free soccage, in the reign ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... He seemed to be regarding me quite steadily. I wondered uneasily if I were not looking well. The rooms seemed rather over-warm. The presence of so many people in such a small space is apt to make the air oppressive. Also I remembered that the effect of pale-gray is not ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... day was dark and gloomy and Paul felt an unaccountable falling of spirits. The atmosphere was oppressive and he could not overcome a premonition of evil that effected him all day. About the middle of the afternoon, he was startled by a peculiar noise above him. Black, heavy clouds hung low on the prairie lands. An ominous roar caused him to look up stream and he beheld a funnel shaped cloud ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Wm. T. Catto was called to the chair, and Wm. Still was appointed secretary. The chairman briefly stated the object of the meeting. Having lived in the South, he claimed to know something of the workings of the oppressive system of slavery generally, and declared that, notwithstanding the many exposures of the evil which came under his own observation, the most vivid descriptions fell far short of the realities his own eyes had witnessed. He then introduced ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... treachery. It is also possible, having acquired power, to use it for one's own ends instead of for the people. This is what I believe to be likely to happen in Russia: the establishment of a bureaucratic aristocracy, concentrating authority in its own hands, and creating a regime just as oppressive and cruel as that of capitalism. Marxians never sufficiently recognize that love of power is quite as strong a motive, and quite as great a source of injustice, as love of money; yet this must be obvious to any unbiased student ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... into the hotel. There was a gentleman standing in the hall whose acquaintance Master Harry had condescended to make. He was a person of much money, uncertain grammar and oppressive generosity: he wore a frilled shirt and diamond studs, and he had such a vast admiration for this handsome, careless and somewhat rude young man that he would have been very glad had Mr. Trelyon dined with him every ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... simple manipulation of a keyboard, there is unrolled a panorama of velvety hillsides and flowery meads, of grazing sheep, and of piping rustics; so natural is the spectacle that one can almost hear the music of the reeds, and fancy himself in Arcadia. If in midsummer the heat is oppressive and life seems burthensome, forthwith another canvas is outspread, and the glories of the Alps appear, or a stretch of blue sea, or a corner ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... often cold,—so cold that comfortables and blankets seemed all too few, and Clover roused with a shiver to think that presently it would be her duty to get up and start the fires so that Phil might find a warm house when he came downstairs. Then, before she knew it, fires would seem oppressive; first one window and then another would be thrown up, and Phil would be sitting on the piazza in the balmy sunshine as comfortable as on a June morning at home. It was a wonderful climate; and as Clover wrote her father, the winter ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... be light, a statement which is wholly in harmony with what I have said on their lighting, though it may not at first sight appear to be so. The tone of the ceilings and walls and floors should be light, the darkest portions being a dado. A generally dark and heavy tone of colouring is very oppressive in a sudatory chamber. Keep them light: light ceilings of plaster for cheap baths, and of lightly decorated, large, thin tiles, or lightly-tinted enamelled iron, for more expensive establishments; light walls of white, ivory, ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... great advantage, it seems to me, that America possesses over the Old World is its material and moral plasticity. Even among the giant structures of this city, one feels that there is nothing rigid, nothing oppressive, nothing inaccessible to the influence of changing conditions. If the buildings are Cyclopean, so is the race that reared them. The material world seems as clay on the potter's wheel, visibly taking on the impress of the human spirit; and the human ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... A hush prevails! Oppressive and profound; A silence, broken only by the breeze; A dormant quiet-essence and repose; Pervading calm and sweet oblivion,— As nature ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... thought. Perhaps most important of all, it provided an ethical standard which successive generations of Christians have never succeeded in practising. They have indeed frequently tried to explain away the contrast between their scriptures and their deeds when it became too oppressive, but they have never quite succeeded, or been able entirely to satisfy themselves by these methods: the letter of scripture has constantly remained a salutary protest against the interpretation put upon it. All this has been of enormous advantage for the ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... new ring gave her a momentary pleasure, but she was in a mood that nothing could please her long. When she strolled into the drawing-room, everything was in spotless order, and so quiet that the stillness was oppressive. Even the fire burned with a steady, noiseless glow, without the usual crackle, and the ashes fell on ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the last month. The garden, when she reached it, wore a new air of desolation, and when she caught sight of one of Debby's dolls lying forgotten on the grass, she picked it up and hugged it sympathetically, out of pity for its loneliness. The silence in the house and out was just as oppressive. Audrey, still holding Debby's old doll, hurried through the silent hall and up the stairs to her room, and dropping on the seat by the window, she leaned her head over the ledge. Now, at last, she might give way ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... after a long intolerably oppressive silence that she found her voice. "The misunderstanding isn't what you think," she said. "Nor what Graham thinks. It's his misunderstanding, not mine. He thinks that I am—a sort of innocent angel that he's not good enough for. And the fact is that I'm ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... merry child at once, hungry with unwonted appetite, and so relishing her share of the magnificent standing-pie, that Mrs. Underwood reproved herself for thinking what the poor child would be if she had such fare and such air daily, instead of ill- dressed mutton in the oppressive smoke-laden atmosphere. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they are in epitaphs and works of art, they contain hundreds of names of celebrated humanists, archaeologists, and artists who explored these depths in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and made record of their visits. When one walks between two lines of graves, in the almost oppressive stillness of the cemetery, with no other company than one's thoughts, the names of Pomponius Letus and his academicians, of Bosio, Panvinio, Avanzini, Severano, Marangoni, Marchi, and d'Agincourt, written in bold letters, give the lonely wanderer ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... well as to J——- the hot streets were terribly oppressive; so we went into the Roebuck Hotel, where we found a cool and pleasant coffee-room. The entrance to this hotel is through an arch, opening from High Street, and giving admission into a paved court, the buildings ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cruel Duke of Austria, there lived in England a highborn Saxon, named Cedric. He was one of the few native princes who still continued to occupy the home of his fathers; but, like many more of the conquered English people, he had felt the tyranny and oppressive insolence of the haughty Norman barons. He was a man of great personal strength, possessed of a hasty and choleric temper, but he had shrewdly refrained from showing any open hostility to the successors of the Conqueror; ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... muffled up and disguised, and the light of the lamp shining upwards so completely distorted the features, that I had no fear of recognition, unless the King's voice betrayed him. But when he spoke, breaking the oppressive silence of the room, his tone was as strange and hollow as ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... assembled at the meeting-place in the brilliant sunshine. Summer seemed to have returned that day for a short while, so hot were the rays that poured down upon the earth from the deep-blue vault of heaven. The heat, however, was not oppressive, modified as it was by the cool ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... reflection he did not so much mind the distance, nor the heat, which he found much more oppressive here in the city than it was in Marley. He reached Syd's place at last only to find that his brother was out and that the boy was not just sure ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... otherwise, abuses his eminent advantages; abuses the grandeur and prosperity which he has drawn from the bosom of his country. Should tempests arise, and he be laid prostrate by the storm, who would mourn over his fall? Should he be borne down by the oppressive hand of power, who would murmur at his fate?—"Why cumbereth he ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... as a desperate remedy for a desperate ill, but it has seen it continued long after the ill had passed away, used as a weapon by one Nationalist section against another, and revived when anything like a really oppressive or arbitrary eviction had become impossible. There seems to have been in Nationalist circles, since the time of O'Connell, but little appreciation of the deadly character of this social curse; and the prospect of a Government ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... that it is a necessity, no Athenian records of gambling made splendid by the talents of its professors, no contention that instead of violating morals it only violates a legal institution which is in many respects oppressive and unnatural, no possible plea that the instinct on which it is founded is a vital one. Prostitution can confuse the issue with all these excuses: gambling has none of them. Consequently, if Mrs Warren must needs be a demon, a bookmaker must be a cacodemon. Well, does anybody who knows ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... farewell cry of one who is going away for good had sent something like an electric shock through all around; work ceased and they scrambled down and stood in a great circle around that body ... looking. And a great silence followed, that silence which is so heavy and oppressive after the sudden stop of so much activity. People came rushing up, pushing to get closer ... and to see. They tore the poor devil's clothes open to find out where he was hurt, others ran for help, while fresh swarms of folk came crowding up and the silence died in an uproar of questions and tramping ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... truths therein. The maxims he suggests as of permanent value, "that a hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a people voting by their representatives form the best monarchy, autocracy and democracy"; that "free governments ... are the most ruinous and oppressive to their provinces"; that republics are more favorable to science, monarchies to art; that the death of a political body is inevitable; would none of them, probably, be accepted by most thinkers at the present time. And when he constructs ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... after this treaty had been signed, numerous complaints reached the supreme government of Calcutta of the oppressive tyranny of the governor of Rangoon, which, it appeared, was directed chiefly against traders ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... pitiable plight I have been haled out of the place of meeting, at the conclusion of the exercises, and catechised respecting Boanerges Boiler, his fifthly, his sixthly, and his seventhly, until I have regarded that reverend person in the light of a most dismal and oppressive Charade. Time was, when I was carried off to platform assemblages at which no human child, whether of wrath or grace, could possibly keep its eyes open, and when I felt the fatal sleep stealing, stealing over me, and when I gradually heard the orator in possession, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... steps, where the fair sex chiefly prevailed. Nothing but minuets were danced in this saloon, but I could only remain for a quarter of an hour, first, because the heat of so many people assembled in such a narrow space was so oppressive, and, secondly, on account of the bad music for dancing, the whole orchestra consisting of two violins and a violoncello; the minuets were more in the Polish style than in our own, or that of the Italians. I proceeded into another room, which really was more ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... carry on their studies in the noble old garden, in the summer-houses and pleasure domes which the extinct Mauleverers had made for themselves in their day of power. Grinding at history, grammar, and geography did not seem so oppressive a burden when it could be done under the shade of spreading cedars, amid the scent of roses, in an atmosphere of colour and light. Even Ida's labours seemed a little easier when she and her pupils sat in a fast-decaying old summer-house ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... rooms they escaped alone and unobserved into the conservatory. Here they beheld the greatest possible contrast to the desolate wintry waste without. The air was heavy and languorous with the odour of tropic flowers. The music, almost oppressive in the crowded parlours, melted deliciously upon the ear as they wandered away. Helene, when she noticed that they were quite alone, suffered a vague alarm. She told herself in one moment that it was not possible that ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... palpitating haze floated always in the air, and the grass and the broom had the dusty and tired look of autumn. It was also the month of the fast of Ramadhan, and Israel's men were Muslims. So, to save himself the double vexation of oppressive days and the constant bickerings of his famished people, Israel found it necessary at length to travel in the night. In this way his journey was the shorter for the absence of some obstacles, but his time ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... grown vague and dim, looking as it must look to the dead. Its oppressive solidity, its obtrusive HERENESS, dissolved in the dark, it left the soul to live its own life. She could still trace the meeting of earth and sky, each the evidence of the other, but the earth was content to be and not assert, and the sky lived only in the points of light that dotted its vaulted ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... found that the popular joke is not true to the letter, but is true to the spirit. The vulgar joke is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact. For instance, it is not in the least true that mothers-in-law are as a class oppressive and intolerable; most of them are both devoted and useful. All the mothers-in-law I have ever had were admirable. Yet the legend of the comic papers is profoundly true. It draws attention to the fact that it is much harder to be a nice mother-in-law than to ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
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