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Compulsion   Listen
noun
Compulsion  n.  The act of compelling, or the state of being compelled; the act of driving or urging by force or by physical or moral constraint; subjection to force. "If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion." "With what compulsion and laborious flight We sunk thus low."
Synonyms: See Constraint.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Compulsion" Quotes from Famous Books



... assume that the negro will not labor, except on compulsion; and the whole struggle between the whites on the one hand and the blacks on the other hand is a struggle for and against compulsion. The negro insists, very blindly perhaps, that he shall be free to come and go ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... and to an equal share in trade did not follow necessarily from these first greetings. They could be gained only by proof of fitness and even compulsion. The applicant must make a place for himself. Sentiment plays no part in the rivalry of nations. ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... all Egyptians, and it would be hard to find a poorer lot; they never worked, save under compulsion, and they stole whatever they could. I examined their packs during the homeward cruise, and found that many of them ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... These four rules are all that are necessary for general criticism; and observe that these are only semi-imperative,—rules of permission, not of compulsion. Thus Law 1 asserts that the slender shaft may have greater excess of capital than the thick shaft; but it need not, unless the architect chooses; his thick shafts must have small excess, but his slender ones need not have large. So Law 2 says, that as the building is smaller, the excess ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... immediately answer and the hand upon his shoulder took hold. Under its compulsion, "I'll promise anything you ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... Socialism and the threatened subversion of the powers hitherto exercised by private proprietors of the national land and capital ventures plainly to warn all such proprietors that the establishment of Socialism in England means nothing less than the compulsion of all members of the upper class, without regard to sex or condition, to work for their own living." The tract, which is a very brief one, goes on to recommend the proprietary classes to "support all undertakings having ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... the last two years shows that no feature of Canadian administration was more harassing and injurious than the compulsion upon our fishing vessels to make formal entry and clearance on every occasion of temporarily seeking shelter ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... Fatalism of the Multitude." It is often confounded with the tyranny of the majority, but is at the bottom different though, of course, its existence makes tyranny by the majority easier and more complete. . . . In the fatalism of the multitude there is neither legal nor moral compulsion; there is merely a loss of resisting power, a diminished sense of personal responsibility of the duty to battle for one's own opinion, such as has been bred in some people, by the belief of an over ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... Sylvia returned contentedly to the helpmate whom she had accepted under compulsion, and who had made her a fair husband, as husbands go. It is duly recorded, indeed, on their shared tomb, that their forty years of married life were of continuous felicity, and set a pattern to all Norfolk. The more prosaic ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... is articulated, and how little of logical compulsion there Is in the catastrophe, is shown with fatal clearness by Schiller's procedure in revising his work for the Mannheim stage. By a few strokes of the pen at the end he changed its entire character. In the original draft his vacillating mind ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... specialised, and never takes place in the presence of policemen, who are well known to be the sworn enemies of gaiety. For example, theology is an art but religion is a pastime: we learn the collects only under compulsion, but we sing anthems because it is pleasant to do so. Thus, eating oysters is an art by dint of the elaborate ceremonial including shell-openers, lemons, waiters and pepper, which must be grouped around your oyster before ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... the jungle of vines and followed Antonio down the long, rustling aisle. There was a compulsion in the day's routine to which she felt the necessity of yielding. She had traversed half the length of the greenhouse before it came to her that it was precisely to the day's routine that she couldn't return. Anything was better ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... the excitement over the massacre of the foreigners in Manila came the news that Spain had sold Florida to the United States. The circumstances of the sale were hardly creditable to the vendor, for it was under compulsion. Her lax government had permitted its territory to become the refuge of criminals and lawless savages who terrorized the border until in self-defense American soldiers under General Jackson had to do the work that Spain could ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... considerations must at this crisis be kept in mind. The one is that, until oppression is actually committed, the maintenance of order is the duty of every citizen, and, like most political duties, is also a matter of the most obvious expediency; the other is that the compulsion of loyal citizens to forgo the direct protection of the government whose sovereignty they admit, and to accept the rule of a government whose moral claim to their allegiance they deny, is a proceeding of the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... three great perils: the people, Caesar, and his own family. The descendant of old John Hyrcanus of Idumaea—a Jew only by compulsion—had no understanding of the children of Moses. He tripped every day on the barriers of ancient law, and often his generosity was taken for defiance. Caesar was not so hard to please. He had vanity and laws not wholly inflexible. Herod's family, with its ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... pumped smoothly. They had accomplished their purpose. They had let her know they were there through compulsion, but on her side. In that instant only pity was in Elnora's breast for the flashing dark beauty, standing with smiling face while her heart must have been filled with exceeding bitterness. Elnora stepped back ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... the Yankee; 'just as you please; there's no compulsion; only if you're so confounded honest,' says he, 'you'll have to leave this here ship,' says he, 'for we can't afford the room to stow away sich a bulky article as honesty. That's your road, and a pleasant passage to ye,' says he, pointin' ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... under no compulsion to choose his words. He met the detective's searching gaze unflinchingly. Fate, after terrifying him, had been kind. If Furneaux had expressed himself differently— if, for instance, he had said: "Had you ever before seen the man?" or "Have you now any reason for believing that you ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... a life that needs conscience; it is a transition help for the long period of man's maladjustment. Spencer looks forward, a little too hopefully, perhaps, to a time in the measurable future when we shall have outgrown the need of it, when we shall wish to do right and need no compulsion, outer or inner. And Emerson, in a well known passage, writes: "We love characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous. When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... undiscriminating warfare. "In a few weeks no Spaniard was in New Mexico north of El Paso. Christianity and civilization were swept away at one blow." The successful rebels bettered the instruction that they had received from their rejected pastors. The measures of compulsion that had been used to stamp out every vestige of the old religion were put into use against ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... the size of the school, and the availability of means. The rigid inflexibility of the inherited course of study has contributed perhaps more than its full share to the waste product of the educational machinery. The importance of this change from compulsion and rigidity toward greater flexibility has already received attention and commendation. One authority[57] states that "one main cause of (H.S.) elimination is incapacity for and lack of interest in the sort of intellectual work ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... some willingly, from love of adventure, or the hope of opportunities for plunder, and for that unbridled indulgence of appetite and passion which soldiers so often look forward to as a part of their reward; others from hard compulsion, being required to leave friends and home, and all that they held dear, under the terror of a stern and despotic edict which they dared not disobey. It was even dangerous to ask ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... they were viewed with a jealous eye and I believe some individuals were harshly treated; but what most vexed and displeased them was the enforcement of the conscription among them, for the Genevois do not like compulsion; they are besides more pacific than war-like and tho' like the Dutch they have displayed great valour where their interest is at stake, yet Mercury is a deity far more in veneration among them than Bellona. The natural talent of this people ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... the upper end of the rapids we quickly crossed over and joined the rest of the men, who in the meantime had worked their way along the south bank of the river parallel with us. I felt very grateful to the old squaws for the assistance they rendered. They worked well under compulsion, and manifested no disposition to strike for higher wages. Indeed, I was so much relieved when we had crossed over from the island and joined the rest of the party, that I mentally thanked the squaws one ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... compulsion on himself to restrain his rage, for every involuntary expression or gesture of anger would have meant nothing less ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... commentator proceeds to cut the knot, and show they are not one, but are considered as two persons, one superior, the one inferior, and not only so, but the inferior in the eye of the law as acting from compulsion. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... from the brain where long meditation had fixed it. In no other work is the physical symbol so absorbingly present, so reduplicated, so much alive in itself. It is the brand of sin on life. Its concrete vividness leads the author also by a natural compulsion as well as an artistic instinct to display his story in that succession of high-wrought scenes, tableaux, in fact, which was his characteristic method of narrative, picturesque, pictorial, almost to be described as theatrical ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... her instruments of government had darkened the whole understanding. The most hateful heights of perfidy, effeminacy, and hypocrisy were not reached till poor Charles IX., who only committed crimes on compulsion, was in his grave, and Henry III. on the throne; but Narcisse de Ribaumont was one of the choice companions of the latter, and after the night and day of murder now stood before his sister with scented hair and handkerchief—the ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... labelled the teeming creatures of the mind, becomes anon a strutting actor upon a multitudinous stage, and an audience in a crowded playhouse. Scenes are enacted the febrile fancy of a Poe or a de Maupassant never could have conjured. The complex, the neurosis, the compulsion, the obsession, the slip of speech, the trick of manner, the devotion of a life-time, the culture of a nation all furnish bits for the Freudian mosaic. Attractions and inhibitions, repulsions and suppressions are held up as the ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... pudding, vegetables, and bread, for dinner. Cake on special fete-days as an extra. The boys do credit to their rations, and show by their bright faces and energy their good health and spirits. They are under strict military discipline, and both by training and heredity have a military bias. There is no compulsion exercised, but fully 90 per cent. of those who are eligible finally enter the army; and the school record shows a long list of commissioned and non-commissioned officers, and even two Major-Generals, who owed ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... this kind of gentle compulsion all her life, and as she yielded to it now she began to feel more like herself. "I knew I should be better with you, mother," she said sighing; and then she reached up her arm, and drew her mother's face down to hers. "Kiss ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... therefore, stand apart in monastic seclusion and safely watch the swirl of forces which they silently disapprove. If in war-time they do not fight, they do something else. They accept and face the dangers incident to their way of life. They feel a compulsion to take up and in some measure to bear the burden of the world's suffering. They endeavour to exhibit, humbly and modestly, the power of sacrificial love, freely, joyously given, and they venture all that the brave can venture to carry their faith into life and ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle

... that the object of her voyage was to collect materials for literary works. We have no doubt that such was among her projects; for she was a very distinguished writer, and would by no means eat the bread of idleness or dependence; but there is reason to believe that it was a more stringent compulsion which obliged her, at an advanced period of the year, and in a peculiarly delicate situation, when even peasants remain on shore, to encounter the tedium and perils of a voyage in a sailing vessel. We have heard, in fact, from a quarter which ought to be correctly ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... but to refuse the general desire of a whole company had something in it so astonishing, that, for my part, I own I should hardly believe it if my own ears had not been witnesses to it."—"Yes, and so handsome a young fellow," cries Slipslop; "the woman must have no compulsion in her: I believe she is more of a Turk than a Christian; I am certain, if she had any Christian woman's blood in her veins, the sight of such a young fellow must have warmed it. Indeed, there are some wretched, miserable ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... governed by a single master, whose edicts all its subjects must obey? But for 'a thing that is wholly a sham' men do not lay down their lives, in thousands and in hundreds of thousands, not under the pressure of compulsion, but by a willing self-devotion; for the defence of 'a thing that is wholly a sham' men will not stream in from all the ends of the earth, abandoning their families and their careers, and offering without murmur or hesitation themselves and all they ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... a voice like thunder; "say her husband!—her misguided, blinded, most unworthy husband! She is as surely Countess of Leicester as I am belted Earl. Nor can you, sir, point out that manner of justice which I will not render her at my own free will. I need scarce say I fear not your compulsion." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... had been absolute unanimity when the final vote was taken on the widely-discussed question of infallibility. Such a coincidence would have afforded them a pretext, although, indeed, a groundless one, for asserting that there was either collusion or compulsion, whilst in reality there was complete liberty. The two Fathers who voted, nay, constituting a minority of two, acted according to their right, and it was not questioned. These Fathers were Monsignor Louis Riccio, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... violation of a flag of truce," till death ended their sufferings. These men were roadside robbers caught red-handed. Their punishment would be swift and certain. Found guilty on their own confession, either tendered voluntarily to escape torture, or under the compulsion of torture, "self-accusation wrested from their agony," they would be sentenced to death, carried in baskets without delay—if they had not previously "died in prison"—died, that is, from the torture having been pushed too far—to the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... at him hard again, disappointed at his want of consistency; but it appeared to determine in her something better than a mere complaint. "Then I can! Leave it to me." With which she came to him under the compulsion, again, that had united them shortly before, and took hold of him in her urgency to the same tender purpose. It was her form of entreaty renewed and repeated, which made after all, as he met it, their great fact clear. And it somehow clarified all things so to possess each other. The effect ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... very frank discussion between the leaders of the Trade Unions and myself, and I was bound to point out that if there were an inadequate supply of labor for the purpose of turning out munitions of war which are necessary for the safety of the country compulsion would be inevitable. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... wrong; it is always so. It is essentially unjust and narrow. You have given up your power to be just; you cannot do what you know to be just. You act under compulsion, having yielded your freedom. A losing general is sacrificed, regardless ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... too well to marry her and make of our devotion a stale, prosy thing of duty and compulsion. When a man does not marry a woman, he must keep her better than he would a wife. It costs. All that you gave me went to ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... already met and faced the direst event of the evening—my presence at your hospitable board. Even this hardship is due to your courtesy, not to my compulsion." ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... period of life when the difference of a year or two in age far outweighs the minor advantage of sex. Then the gathers of Selina's frock came away with a sound like the rattle of distant musketry; and this calamity it was, rather than mere brute compulsion, that quelled her ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... austerity. Suspicious precautions, bolts and bars, make neither wives nor maids virtuous. It is honour which must hold them to their duty, not the severity which we display towards them. To tell you candidly, a woman who is discreet by compulsion only is not often to be met with. We pretend in vain to govern all her actions; I find that it is the heart we must win. For my part, whatever care might be taken, I would scarcely trust my honour in the hands ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... the development is all true to principle. What principle? Voluntary co-operation, as opposed to central compulsion. In war, as in peace, each of the Britannic nations is free to do or not to do. But we have invoked naval and military co-ordination, with results which the Australian Navy has already exemplified (on ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... with an aspect still cloudier, bade Ashtaroth lay down that look, and made signs as if he would resort to angrier compulsion; and the devil, alarmed, loosened his tongue, and said, "You have not told me what you desire ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... compulsion directed that gaze! If raiment apart from its wearer be unseemly, how ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... rough-and-tumble from his haste, was vivid passionate, rousing. He told how Doctor West was the victim of a plot, a plot whose great victim was the city and people of Westville, and this plot he outlined in all its details. He told of Doctor Sherman's part, at Blake's compulsion. He told of the secret league between Blake and Peck. He declared the truth of the charges for which Bruce was then lying in the county jail. And finally—though this he did at the beginning of his story—he drove home in his most nerve-twanging words the ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... cannot be maintained under the American flag. Yet we think each race should be allowed to retain its own religion and racial codes as far as is compatible with the public good, and should enter the body politic of its own free will, and not under compulsion. This has not been the case with the native American. Everything he stood for was labelled "heathen," "savage," and the devil's own; and he was forced to accept modern civilization in toto against his original views and wishes. The material in him and the method of his reconstruction have ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... desire you. And although I firmly believe that you are now fully resolved, nevertheless, when I think of your age and inclinations and the warmth of your desires, it does not seem possible to me that you should not, out of pure necessity and compulsion, enjoy the company of a man during my absence. It is my will and pleasure therefore to permit you to grant those favours which nature compels you to grant. I would beg of you though to respect our marriage vow unbroken as long as you possibly can. I neither intend nor wish ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... with the shop? Was she to continue the business or to sell it? With the fortunes of her father and her aunt, and the economies of twenty years, she had more than sufficient means. She was indeed rich, according to the standards of the Square; nay, wealthy! Therefore she was under no material compulsion to keep the shop. Moreover, to keep it would mean personal superintendence and the burden of responsibility, from which her calm lethargy shrank. On the other hand, to dispose of the business would mean the breaking of ties and leaving the premises: and from this also she ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... upon Sir DONALD MACLEAN'S attempt to delay the adoption of compulsion in the new Military Service Bill. When rather more than half of Europe was seething with unrest, which might require military intervention, it would be fatal to let our army disappear; yet the right hon. gentleman seemed to think that everyone ought to be disarmed except LENIN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... in the strongest groups. We shall see, in the cases to be presented, that incest has a wider definition and a stricter compulsion in great tribes, and in prosperity or wealth, than in small groups and poverty. The definiteness of this taboo, and the strictness with which it is enforced, seem to be correlative with the energy of the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... King is bound to enforce payment. Nevertheless, if so disposed, they can procrastinate, and finally cheat their creditor out of his debt; especially as the vessel cannot remain long upon the coast, awaiting the King's tardy methods of compulsion. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... is very feelingly expressed," was the reply, "but it regards me not. These points of consistency are beyond my province, and I care not in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away, so as you are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer; and remember, it is as if the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that he had done it, nor had he offered any betterment in the future—he nevertheless insisted that it must be done. And as here there is no [opportunity for any] will, save that of a governor, since he is absolute, we all had to acquiesce, under compulsion and pressure, in the restitution of the archbishop—and not only that, but also in accepting the bishop of Troya as governor ad interim until his illustrious Lordship came back. As soon as the latter arrived, he began to unsheathe the sword, against all the human race; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... the people of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas or of the United States, by consent or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... retreat! He called it a change of base; but if a change of base from the York to the James river was good strategy, why did he not do it before he was attacked? It looks very much as if he gave "a reason upon compulsion." It must be conceded that he managed the retreat with admirable ability, although, while inflicting severe punishment upon Lee's army, it involved the loss of 10,000 prisoners, 52 pieces of artillery and 35,000 stand of small arms, besides immense stores of ammunition and provisions. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... importance to the clerk, his explanation sounded as extravagant as it was vague. His father's name would have helped him, but Stuart did not feel justified in using it. For all he knew, his father might have reasons for not wishing to be known as conducting any such investigations. This compulsion of reserve confused the lad, and it was not surprising that the clerk went into the vice-consul's ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... Friar Roman, a St. Jeromite, and Joan Borognon, a Franciscan. The cacique listened attentively to their instructions, but the natives, already alienated by the excesses of the Spaniards, would neither attend mass nor be catechized, except upon compulsion. It was the policy of Guarionex to offer no resistance to the addresses of the priests. But an outrage committed upon his wife hindered the progress of religion in his province. He dashed the cross to the ground in fury, and scattered the utensils. The affrighted priests fled, leaving behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... fortitude; and we think we have heard it upon sufficient authority, that it was on these persons that Ministers felt the greatest reluctance in imposing the tax—at least to its present extent, only under an absolute compulsion of state policy. The total, or even partial exemption of this class of persons from the operation of the income-tax, would have been attended with consequences that were not to be contemplated for a moment, and into which it is impracticable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... which was assembling at Trent, and from which a purified Catholicism was to come. But he no longer hoped that the Lutherans would yield to the mere voice of the Council. They would yield only to force, and the first step in such a process of compulsion must be the breaking up of their League of Schmalkald. Only France could save them; and it was to isolate them from France that Charles availed himself of the terror his march on Paris had caused, and concluded a treaty with that power in September 1544. The progress of Protestantism ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... chiefly fear: thus endeavoring to restrain the masses, as far as may be, like a horse with a curb; whence it follows that the word law is chiefly applied to the modes of life enjoined on men by the sway of others; hence those who obey the law are said to live under it and to be under compulsion. In truth, a man who renders every one their due because he fears the gallows, acts under the sway and compulsion of others, and cannot be called just. But a man who does the same from a knowledge of the true reason ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... under the slightest restraint, and had not the remotest idea of doing anything that was not in all respects agreeable to his own inclinations. The idea of compulsion was so new to him, that he was overwhelmed with amazement one day, when his tutor (after trying various means to induce him to learn a particular lesson) finally told him that that lesson must be ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... very grave and solemn business! We must nor be precipitate. Does she Without compulsion, of her own free will, Consent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... compulsion, the French Government had in 1837 established a blockade of the Atlantic ports of Mexico. In two months the Mexican treasury lost two million dollars in duties, which would have been collected if the ships turned away had been permitted to enter; but the Government ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... the poet to make known his vision. There is a compulsion whereby a poet as it were has to send abroad the fair thought and knowledge wherewith he has been graced. To this poet is the task assigned to tell of the Crucifixion, of the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and of the Second Coming to ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... resemble those of their Spanish ancestors, their habits and customs being imitated by the Indians, who have, however, to perform the harder part of the work. While Mexico and Peru were under the mother country, the Mita or law of compulsion existed, the Indians being forced to toil against their will in the mines, but since the emancipation of the colonies and the abolition of that nefarious law, they have returned to their agricultural pursuits, and are ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... forth Their Iron indignation 'gainst your walles: All preparation for a bloody siedge And merciles proceeding, by these French. Comfort your Citties eies, your winking gates: And but for our approch, those sleeping stones, That as a waste doth girdle you about By the compulsion of their Ordinance, By this time from their fixed beds of lime Had bin dishabited, and wide hauocke made For bloody power to rush vppon your peace. But on the sight of vs your lawfull King, Who painefully with much expedient march Haue brought a counter-checke ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... be punished! To scorn the voice of the Divinity is a sin, and he who lends his ear to a lie is far from the truth. Sacred and thrice sacred is the heart, blind fool, that I purpose to-morrow to show to the people, and before which you yourself—if not with good will, then by compulsion—shall fall, prostrate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the inventor of the restrictions considered to be right; if the doing of the right resulted not from their own impulse but from the application of exterior force over which they had no control, no virtue, no moral force. "There is no compulsion, only you must" meant to him, as it must to every man who knows what truth and justice are, the utmost derogation ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... and the carbo-torch, and went down the ladder. He dropped at once to his knees, not because of the gravity, which was not bad, but because of a compulsion to get his face as near to the surface of Avis Solis as possible. It was even lovelier than when seen from space. He trod upon a sea of diamonds. A million tiny winkings and scintillations emanated from each crystal. A million crystals lay beneath the sole of his boot. He would rather not have ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns

... messengers, showed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impression. It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; when he could complain that his letters were surreptitiously printed, he might decently ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... course, was bound to cultivate the land. The duties which fell to his share were "to plough, harrow, weed, irrigate, drive off birds,"(507) but these duties are but rarely stipulated. The Code protects the tenant, however,(508) from any unfair compulsion in the matter, so long as the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... she went on, "you have held the advantage over a poor woman cooped up in her own house. While I have had to stick here, attending to my housekeeping, you have been careering about everywhere,—you with a lot of partners and clerks in your office, and no compulsion to look in more than two or three times a week. Of course you can run to theatres and clubs. I wonder they ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... matter of course than of compulsion," replied Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would be thought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should need compulsion ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... thou hast sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them in revenge of the injuries offered thee; besides, thou hast not hitherto showed thy poor mother any courtesy. And, therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, that without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade ye to it, to what purpose do I defer my last hope?" And with these words, herself, his wife, and children, fell down upon ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... industry of sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the revolution, a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion, to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors, was grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief. But the first republican legislature, which met in '76, was crowded with petitions to abolish, this spiritual tyranny. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... on cold mornings, I looked behind him to see if he also were under compulsion, but there was no other mouse in sight. He would scoop up a double handful of water in his paws, rub it rapidly up over nose and eyes, and then behind his ears, on the spots that wake you up quickest when you are sleepy. Then another scoop ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... man's nervous, hurried and harried scrawl, written with sputtering pen that at several places tore clean through the paper, and written under the compulsion of his soul and his good sense, received from the best of women an answer in her calmest hand, deliberately calculated to give him pain, at the same time as to convey to him unambiguously that, as far as she was concerned, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... class," mournfully replied my master. "I tell you what, Jim, it isn't fair to bind me down to a promise I made almost under compulsion, and for fear ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... despised him, was now becoming his servant, in the sense in which Christ was the "servant" of his brethren. Not with any conscious Christian intention—far from it; but still under a kind of mysterious compulsion. The humblest duties, the most trivial anxieties, where Radowitz was concerned, fell, week by week, increasingly to Falloden's portion. A bad or a good night—appetite or no appetite—a book that Otto liked—a visit ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... were the commands of tyrants; they were done under compulsion, and caused a feeling of dislike to the person honoured, and of absolute hatred against those who enforced them, but showed no gratitude or desire to honour the dead. They were mere displays of barbaric pride and boastful extravagance, which wastes its superfluity ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... seen together, and information of it given to my brother: the consequences of which, I could readily think, would be, if not further mischief, an imputed assignation, a stricter confinement, a forfeited correspondence with you, my beloved friend, and a pretence for the most violent compulsion: and neither the one set of reflections, nor the other, acquitted him to me for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... of them, and these of the most practical importance to the mens' livelihood, were yielded by the masters by direct compulsion on the part of the men; the new conditions of labour so gained were indeed only customary, enforced by no law: but, once established, the masters durst not attempt to withdraw them in face of the growing power of the combined workers. Some again were steps on the path of 'State Socialism'; the most ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... as will constrain them to treat slavery in the United States as a moral evil, and to patronize only such societies as assume toward it a similar position. It is asked: What have we to do with slavery? I reply: We, as Christians, should have nothing to do with it. But we in Kansas are placed under compulsion to have something to do with it. We have slaveholders in our churches; and if the time should come when there will be no slaves in Kansas, still we have something to do with it, for within one day's ride of us in Platte ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... it," he answered a thought bitterly. "I own it. Yet what hope had I but in compulsion?" She returned him no answer. "You see," he said, with increasing bitterness, "you see, that had I not seized the chance that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... School stage,[11] but that, with certain definite and well-considered exceptions, all should continue for several years thereafter to fit themselves for industrial and social service. If this result can be effected by moral means, good and well; if not, legal compulsion must, sooner or later, be resorted to. For it is, as it has always been, a fundamental maxim of political action that the State should and must compel her members to utilise the means by which they may ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... as he had the woman with him. Thus the governor came to the session, and, with his usual heat, caused the case to be remitted to him without greater justification, as he was the captain-general. Licentiate Legaspi and Licentiate Alcazar did it through compulsion, but I, Sire, for the reason above stated, did not agree to it, and so voted in the meeting. Being then, Sire, the leader in the cause against Mohedano and that wretched woman, he proceeded therein, as well as in another that he began against one Don Fernando Becerra for the same thing. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief occupation and amusement, I acquired ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... excellent lodgings for them, returned and sat down in their company to tell them some droll stories, and impart to them in confidence some very disagreeable news; then hastily arose, went out, and came back again with a sheep and other provisions, which he had obtained by compulsion from the chief, and finally remained with them till long after the moon had risen, when he left them ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... would; for though he took the horse almost upon compulsion, he whimpered as he did ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... patients, and two separate rooms, each containing a bed or two for the reception of cases that needed constant care. In the waiting rooms Mary Whately might be found almost any morning reading the Bible and talking to the patients waiting their turn to see the doctor. No compulsion was used, but an attentive hearing was usually obtained, while a psalm or some story from the New Testament was read and explained. As the same people would often come every day or two for several weeks, something like continuous teaching could be given. In this work Mary ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... the fact that in doing wrong he has offended a god whom, by means of sacrifice, he seeks to propitiate. The Christian proclaims that he sins by compulsion in consequence of the original fall of Adam, and, as he is not a free agent in the matter of right or wrong, he can expect grace only through the mediation of his Saviour. The Jew recognizes the fact that he is entirely free to sin or to remain pure, and that, having erred, he can only ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... is over, and in the evening you review it, you will wonder how you did it. You will not be conscious that you strove for anything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything. You will be conscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without compulsion you were yet compelled; that without force, or noise, or proclamation, the revolution was accomplished. You do not congratulate yourself as one who has done a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored up a fund of "Christian experience" to ensure the ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... in low tones, in mutterings not much louder than whispers. In pursuit of their savage foe, the well-trained Rangers habitually proceed thus, and have cautioned the settlers to the same. Though these need no compulsion to keep silent; their hearts are too sore for speech; their anguish, in its terrible intensity, seeks for no expression, till they stand face to face with the red ruffians who have caused, and are still causing, it. The night darkens down, becoming ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... freedom. Soon everybody will be schooled, mentally and physically, from the cradle to the end of the term of adult compulsory military service, and finally of compulsory civil service lasting until the age of superannuation. Always more schooling, more compulsion. We are to be cured by an excess of the dose that has poisoned us. Satan is to cast ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... all the senseless hocus-pocus of its triads, utterly fails to prove his position. The only evident compulsion which representations exert upon one another is compulsion to submit to the conditions of entrance into the same universe with them—the conditions of continuity, of selfhood, space, and time—under penalty of being excluded. But what this universe ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... this difference: you no longer empty your pockets to the Monegasques under compulsion, and the battlements of old Monaco play no part in your losses. The proverb dearest to American hearts says that a sucker is born every minute. It is incomplete, that proverb. It should be rounded out with the axiom that at some minute every ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... was only under compulsion of a Division that he consented to accept the endowment. In meanwhile, the Woman's Suffrage Debate on Wednesday week snuffed out, and final opportunity of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various

... condition of stable equilibrium by the establishment of compulsory labour legally enforcible upon those who do not own the means of production for the advantage of those who do. With this principle of compulsion applied against the non-owners there must also come a difference in their status; and in the eyes of society and of its positive law men will be divided into two sets; the first economically free and politically free, possessed of the means of production, and ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... there were "fools and evil-minded persons," as our chronicler describes them—who favoured resisting force by force; but the "most discreet men" of the city, and those who had joined the Earl under compulsion, would have none of it, preferring to solicit the king's favour through the mediation of men of the religious orders. Henry still remained unmoved, and the fear of the citizens increased to such an extent that it was ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... I to pardon?" said Rudolph, extending both hands with the most touching cordiality. "Now you know our secrets, I am delighted. I can preach to you at my leisure. I am your confidant by compulsion, and, what is still better, you are the confidant of Madeline d'Harville; that is to say, you now know all you have to expect from ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... letter came to me after several wanderings. It has caused me to think and to wonder if, after all, I may be mistaken—if, after all, I have misjudged you, darling. I gave you my heart, it is true. But you spurned it—under compulsion, you say! Why under compulsion? Who is it who compels you to act against your will and against your better nature? I know that you love me as well and as truly as I love you yourself. I long to see you with just as great ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... walls: All preparation for a bloody siege And merciless proceeding by these French Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates; And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones That as a waist doth girdle you about, By the compulsion of their ordinance By this time from their fixed beds of lime Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made For bloody power to rush upon your peace. But, on the sight of us, your lawful king,— Who, painfully, with much expedient march, Have brought a countercheck before your gates, To save unscratch'd ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... arise in which it would not be my first interest to be honest?" said Andrew. "Would not my judgment be quickened by the compulsion and the danger? In no danger myself, might I not judge too leniently of things from which I should myself recoil? Selfishly smoother with regard to others, because less anxious about their honesty than ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... conviction of their own abilities. Every one should therefore endeavour to invigorate himself by reason and reflection, and determine to exert the latent force that nature may have reposed in him, before the hour of exigence comes upon him, and compulsion shall torture him to diligence. It is below the dignity of a reasonable being to owe that strength to necessity which ought always to act at the call of choice, or to need any other motive to industry than the desire of performing ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... began to collect vast sums from both individuals and nations, sometimes using compulsion, with the conflagration for his excuse, and sometimes obtaining it by "voluntary" offers; and the mass of the Romans had the food supply ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... "Under compulsion, Harry. 'Tis tuptu, my lad, or else 'tis tuptomai, as thy breech well knew when we followed school. But I am of a quiet turn, and would never lift my hand to pull a trigger, no, nor a nose, nor anything but a rose," and here he took and handled ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tracks of the whole party. From these we could see that they had walked abreast, and, furthermore, that each was about equidistant from the other. Clearly, then, no physical force had been used in taking the general and his companion along. The compulsion had been psychical and ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the persuasive—or insolent—compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to make our ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... hunger strike was further used under the Brehon Law as compulsion to obtain a request. For example, the Leinstermen on one occasion fasted on St. Columkille till they obtained from him the promise that an extern King should never prevail ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... she did not say whether he did call or not afterwards. He denied ever having made any overture at all. To Palmerston he proposed the choice of four places, and she thinks he would have taken in Huskisson if the latter had lived. He would have done nothing but on compulsion; that is clear. It is very true (what they say Peel said of him) that no man ever had any influence with him, only women, and those always the silliest. But who are Peel's confidants, friends, and parasites? Bonham, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... occupations. In the city it is otherwise. People live in close proximity to each other, and one enterprising person can start a neighborhood movement for the improvement of lawns and houses. There is more conference, more criticism and comparison, more imitation. In the city there is a kind of compulsion to ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... representative," said she; "and we in our village are likewise known and beloved. I should be ashamed, I confess, to wed you here; for our people would wonder at the sudden marriage, and imply that it was only by compulsion that I gave you my hand. Let us, then, perform this ceremony at Strasburg, before the public authorities of the city, with the state and solemnity which befits the marriage of one of the chief men ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... madder project devised! Do you imagine that the result of the failure of one State to comply would be confined to that State alone? Are you so willing to hazard a civil war? Consider the refusal of Massachusetts, the attempt at compulsion by Congress. What a series of pictures does this conjure up? A powerful State procuring immediate assistance from other States, particularly from some delinquent! A complying State at war with a non-complying State! Congress marching ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... church, but the reverse is true; the church is an offspring of religion, and the church therefore, ought to be subordinate to religion, and never try to place itself above it. Henceforth there shall be no more compulsion in matters of faith, and all fanatical persecutions shall cease. I honor religion myself; I devoutly follow its blessed precepts, and under no circumstances would I be the ruler of a people devoid of religion. But I know that religion always must ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... impossible to act, physically, mentally or spiritually, without making it easier to repeat the action, and soon ease passes to tendency, then tendency to compulsion, and life is in the grip of a habit. This is the inevitable outcome of activity, until "nine-tenths of life is lived in ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... his horse a second time under compulsion, but there was no choice. Old Jack galloped away as if he knew what he ought to do, and then Ned, running into the church with the others, helped ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... feeling cannot, in the very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. Now, can Mr. Froude show us by what process he would be able to infuse in the soul of an entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural and beyond compulsion? ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... that what you did was due to the compulsion that was put upon you to denounce David Rossi, he must come forward, whatever the consequences, to defend you and plead for you. He must say to the world and to your judges: 'It is true that this poor lady has committed a crime—an awful ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... question of STRONG and WEAK wills.—It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every "causal-connection" and "psychological necessity," manifests something of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom; it is suspicious to have such feelings—the person betrays himself. And in general, if I have observed correctly, the "non-freedom of the will" is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... eteignoirs of the day, on account of the liberal ideas professed by the teachers and scholars. In the University of Leipzig every thing may be learned by those who chuse to apply, but those who prefer remaining idle may do so, as there is less compulsion than at the English Universities. There is however such a national enthusiasm for learning, in all parts of Germany, that the most careless and ill-disposed youth would never be about to support the ridicule ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... the hemlock, and from that to the river. Then she took up her basket, rose, and prepared to go, as if under compulsion. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... if murder be The law by which not only conscience-blind Creatures, but man too prospers with his kind; Who leaving all his guilty fellows free, Under your fatal auspice and divine Compulsion, leagued in some mysterious ban Against one innocent and helpless man, Abuse their liberty to murder mine: And sworn to silence, like their masters mute In heaven, and like them twirling through the ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... him to be with them than with her. David said to himself that when Francie wanted to leave them he should go; but he had sought refuge with them, and he should have it: nothing should make him give him up except legal compulsion. ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... conviction that special talents had been given him, and that the time might be short, rested upon Lanier, until it was impossible to resist it longer. He felt himself called to something other than a country attorney's practice. It was the compulsion of waiting utterance, not yet enfranchised. From Texas ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... of Isobel Gowdie, made voluntarily, it would seem, and without compulsion of any kind, judicially authenticated by the subscription of the notary, clergymen, and gentlemen present; adhered to after their separate diets, as they are called, of examination, and containing no variety or contradiction in its details. Whatever might be her ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... and meal, called Sinkatoo, and beer made from their corn, was distributed with great liberality; and the women were admitted into the society, a circumstance I had never before observed in Africa. There was no compulsion, every one was at liberty to drink as he pleased; they nodded to each other when about to drink, and on setting down the calabash, commonly said berka, (thank you). Both men and women appeared to be somewhat intoxicated, but they were far ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... up before Xerxes's throne, and there expiated their fault or their misfortune, whichever it might have been, by being beheaded on the spot, without mercy. Some of the officers thus executed were Greeks, brutally slaughtered for not being successful in fighting, by compulsion, against ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... form of a ceremony with this man?" mused Mollie. "It wouldn't mean anything, you know, because I did it upon compulsion; and, immediately I got out, I should go straight and marry Sir Roger. But I won't do it—of course, I won't! I'll be imprisoned forever ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... regions with what is enduringly true in the Gospels, and it runs parallel also with not a little of that endeavour after theological reconstruction which is loosely known as the New Theology. We are generally under a compulsion to reconstruct our creeds and adapt our religious thinking to whatever is true about us in our understanding of our world and its history and its mechanism and the laws of our own lives. Theology must take account of a creative evolution and a humanity which has struggled ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... Gorki seems to us almost to surpass Dostoevsky. Raskolnikov is a murderer on theory, a penitent out of weakness. Gorki's murderer, however, kills from inward compulsion. His act, his acknowledgment of it, all is sheer naive necessity. Here is a man who feels no compunction for having ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... that larger evening rounding our day with larger hope. But many Christians are such awful pagans that they will hardly believe it possible a young loving pair should think of that evening, except with misery and by rare compulsion! ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... wild nature, when he had a right to lie down among his kind. He had slept in the open hundreds of times; but it had been from choice. There had been pleasure then, in waking to the smell of balsam and opening his eyes upon the stars. But to do the same thing from compulsion, because men had closed up their ranks and ejected him from their midst, was an outrage he would not accept. In the darkness his head went up, while his eyes burned with a fire more intense than that of any of the mild beacons ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... or overthrow a dynasty. 'My forks,' he boasted, 'are equally long, and they never fail me.' That is at once the reason and the justification of his triumph. Born with a consummate artistry tingling at his finger-tips, how should he escape the compulsion of a glorious destiny? Without fumbling or failure he discovered the single craft for which fortune had framed him, and he pursued it with a courage and an industry which gave him not a kingdom, but fame and booty, exceeding even ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... every State with the Union is recognized as depending on the continuing assent of its people, and compulsion shall in no case, nor under any form, be attempted by the Government of the Union against a State acting in its collective or organic capacity. Any State, by the action of a convention of its people, assembled pursuant to a law of its legislature, is held entitled to dissolve its relation ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... Street I extend my custom on a different system; and when I make my start for continental life I have with him a matter of unsettled business to a considerable extent. The American laborer is in the condition of the Regent Street bootmaker, excepting in this respect, that he gives his credit under compulsion. "But does not the law set him right? Is there no law against debtors?" The laws against debtors are plain enough as they are written down, but seem to be anything but plain when called into action. They are perfectly understood, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... up, sir. I'm sick of it. Very likely you won't believe me, sir, but I joined under compulsion to save my life. I didn't dare leave them so long ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... all. But what was most difficult to detect was the nature of the deep impulses which these men obeyed. What spirit was it that inspired the unfailing manifestations of their simple fidelity? No outward cohesive force of compulsion or discipline was holding them together or had ever shaped their unexpressed standards. It was very mysterious. At last I came to the conclusion that it must be something in the nature of the life itself; the sea-life chosen blindly, embraced for the most part accidentally ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... sophomore some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president, instead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore to measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to decline—everybody says so—there is no compulsion. This is all true—but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline and still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous, and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main business, as a member, would be to fight. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... need have no relenting towards YOU. If my husband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for making YOU a victim, I should certainly not cross him again.' In those very same moments, Bella was thinking, 'Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... acquired those simple, Spartan-like habits which accompanied her through life. Her colleagues attributed her desire for isolation and native ways to natural inclination, not dreaming that they were a matter of compulsion, for she was too loyal to her home and too proud of spirit to reveal ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... promise you there shall be no compulsion," cried the old Lord. Then to O'Sullivan in a stern whisper, "Let be, you blundering Irish man! ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... more hardy than that, you know—a great fellow like you—than to mind a bit of hunger. Boys like you ought to enlist; that'd make a man of you in no time. But no.... I know you; you won't.... You'd sooner loaf about and pick up what you can—sooner than serve His Majesty. Well, well, there's no compulsion—not yet; but you should think over it. Come and see me, if you like, when you've done your time, and we'll see what can be done. That'd be better than loafing about and picking up tins ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... five or six years older than I, and the recollection of childish tyranny and compulsion still made me a little afraid of them. They excelled in all kinds of sports in which we younger ones had not had nearly so much practice, and did not much concern themselves whether the sport were masculine or feminine, to the distress ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... although with many contradictions, while the English writers, with the most marked and careful unanimity, say nothing at all. It seems most likely that Harold did make some kind of oath to William, most probably under compulsion, when he had fallen into his hands after being shipwrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, and imprisoned by its Count Guy. Mr. Freeman thinks the most probable date to be 1064. It is at least certain ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... House about noon to learn that nothing of moment had happened in their absence. Possibly Caw did not consider it worthy of mention that, under agreeable compulsion, he had been giving Miss Handyside ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... the East. These peoples did not wish to be united. They ardently desired to direct their own affairs, would be satisfied only by undisputed independence. They could be kept quiet only by the presence or the constant threat of armed men. They would live under a common power only by sheer compulsion and await the day of revolution. But the German military statesmen had reckoned with all that and were ready to deal with it in their ...
— 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

... on the earlier occasion, he shrank from the thing that she asked him. He had felt, from the very moment this afternoon that he had entered the house, that that thing would be asked of him. Mrs. Craven wanted him. He could feel the compulsion of her wish drawing him through walls and floors and all the ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... to evil, and not to good. For them, the law never is dead, and never will be. Here, of course, in this first life, as I have called it, punishment indeed goes but a little way: it is very easy for a hardened nature to defy all that could be laid upon it here in the way of actual compulsion. Our only course is to cut short the time of trial, when we find a nature in whom that trial cannot end in good. Still there may be those in whom this life here, like their greater life which shall last for ever, will have far more to do with punishment than with ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... a man who did not spare himself, yet of a temperament that kicked at useless labour, and of a size that forbade the idea of compulsion, but George Dally could have led him with a packthread ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... such a case, I thought he would have waited until we had sailed; when he might have left the island also, and nobody been the wiser. To this Talcott answered that Marble probably feared our importunities; possibly, compulsion. It seemed singular to me, that a man who regretted his hasty decision, should adopt such a course; and yet I was at a loss to explain the matter much more to my own satisfaction. Nevertheless, there was no remedy. We were as much in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... The melody and harmony by Dr. George F. Root have all the eager trip and tread of so many of the gospel hymns, and of so much of his music, and the lines respond at every step. Any other composer could not have escaped the compulsion of the final spondees, and much less the author of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," and all the best martial song-tunes of the great war. In this case neither words nor notes can say to the other, "We have piped unto you and ye have not danced," but a little caution ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... safe, a perpendicular steep, slippery as glass, opposed their landing, and many were again thrown back upon the ice, either bruised by it, or breaking it in their fall. It would seem, indeed, as though this Russian river and its banks had contributed with regret, by surprise, and by compulsion, as it ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... constancy, because they hoped to find in the Romans abundant succour and support. If there was no further prospect of this, if it was refused them by the consul, they called gods and men to witness, that reluctantly and under compulsion they must change sides, to avoid such sufferings as the Saguntines had undergone; and that they would perish together with the other states of Spain, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... moral philosophers who make it their province to discover and expound the glaringly obvious; and especially have they been concerned to enlarge upon that form of perverseness which engenders dislike of things offered under compulsion, and arouses desire of them as soon as their attainment becomes difficult or impossible. They assure us that a man who has had a given thing within his reach and put it by, will, as soon as it is beyond his reach, find it the one thing necessary and desirable; ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman



Words linked to "Compulsion" :   constructive eviction, coercion, irrational motive, compulsive, irresistible impulse, obsession, irrational impulse, causation, compel, onomatomania, causing, eviction



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