"Oppressively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... division and distribution of governmental powers among different depositaries will not alone prevent encroachments by the governing power upon the liberty of the subject. The executive department in performing only executive functions can, in the absence of other checks, act oppressively. The legislative department, especially, without exceeding the legislative function, can in many ways and in excessive degrees oppress the individual by unnecessary restrictions of personal liberty, by unnecessary exactions, by arbitrary discriminations. The theory of representative government ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... the middle of July. After a most oppressively hot and a very busy day in the city I returned home with a feeling of weariness that was unusual, my head ached badly. At dinner I ate but little and then retired early. My wife petted and nursed me until I had fallen asleep. After a restless night I was too ill ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... met him alone was on a bright, but not oppressively hot day, in the beginning of July: I had taken little Arthur into the wood that skirts the park, and there seated him on the moss-cushioned roots of an old oak; and, having gathered a handful of bluebells and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... could not lose an undefined impression of what had so recently passed. It formed the subject of her dreams, and haunted her; now in one shape, now in another; but always oppressively; and with a sense of fear. She dreamed of seeking her father in wildernesses, of following his track up fearful heights, and down into deep mines and caverns; of being charged with something that would release him from extraordinary suffering—she knew not what, or why—yet never ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... much as you like," said Cashel, struggling with the old school-boy sullenness as it returned oppressively upon him. "I suppose you're well. You ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... supper, finishing it at 4.30 in the afternoon. They must be heroes in a sense. I had thus my supper, but the sun being still high, could not go to bed yet. I felt like going to the hot-springs. I did not know the wrong or right of night watch going out, but it was oppressively trying to stand a life akin to heavy imprisonment. When I called at the school the first time and inquired about night watch, I was told by the janitor that he had just gone out and I thought it strange. But now by taking the turn of night watch myself, I could ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... as though he had caught a lark, and found it droop instead of singing. He was very kind, almost oppressively so; he rode or drove with her to every ruin or view esteemed worth seeing, ordered books for her, and consulted her on improvements that pained her by the very fact of change. She gave her attention sweetly and gratefully, was always ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sun has grown oppressively hot, I find myself set down at a sort of rural town, once flourishing, and of some importance—Bethune. A mile's walk on a parched road led up the hill to this languishing, decayed little place. It had its forlorn omnibus, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window opened. The train had stopped again and the car was oppressively hot. People around were looking at their watches and grumbling over the delay. The doctor bustled in with a remark about its being his busy day. The amateur detective and the porter together mounted guard over lower ten. Outside the heat rose ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... lingered there till Hesperus appeared in the rosy heavens; and then returning homeward in the twilight, they were more silent than they had been; for in the shadow and beneath the stars they felt more oppressively their ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... by Rose one day at dinner on what Rose called "problems of life and being," or "springs of action," or even "higher ground." Lestrange was oppressively earnest, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was warmly debated and revised in congress on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of July, 1776. The weather was oppressively hot, and on the last day an exasperating but providential invasion of the hall by a swarm of flies hurried the signing of the document. Some days afterward, the committee of which Jefferson was a member provided as a motto of the new seal, ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... the Collingwoods, and at the same time of the singularity of a good woman's being ready to accept favours from a person as to whose behaviour she had the lights that must have come to the lady in question in regard to Selina. She accepted favours herself and she only wanted to be good: that was oppressively true; but if she had not been Selina's sister she would never drive in her carriage. That conviction was strong in the girl as this vehicle conveyed her to Grosvenor Place; but it was not in its nature ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... the census of our population were oppressively satisfactory, and so was the condition of our youth. We could row and ride and fish and shoot, and breed largely: we were athletes with a fine history and a full purse: we had first-rate sporting guns, unrivalled park-hacks and hunters, promising babies to carry on the renown ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... place in the palace at Potsdam. The militarism which Colonel House had felt so oppressively in Berlin society was especially manifest on this occasion. There were two luncheon parties—that of the Kaiser and his officers and guests in the state dining room, and that of the selected private soldiers outside. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... gold and silk thread, and for licensing inns and ale-houses—which were in the hands of Buckingham's brothers and their agents. The monopolies were very unpopular; there was always doubt as to their legality; they were enforced oppressively and vexatiously by men like Michell and Mompesson, who acted for the Villiers; and the profits of them went, for the most part, not into the Exchequer, but into the pockets of the hangers-on of Buckingham. Bacon defended them both in law ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... one could say. No bullet had struck him. There were no wounds, no knife thrust, no sword slash. Tony held the lantern with its swaying yellow glow close to the murdered man's body. The August night was warm; the garden, banked by trees and shrubbery, was breathless and oppressively hot; yet the body of Atwood seemed frozen! He had been dead but a short while, and already the body was stiff. More than that, it was ice cold. The face, the brows were wet as though frost had been there ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... oppressively hot, and tempers had been sorely tried. Mother had gone to lie down with a headache; Aunt Emily was visiting the poor with a basket; Daddy was inaccessible in his study; all Authorities were doing the dull things Authorities have to do. It was September, and the world stood lost in this ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... expanding space of water to the right with jutting promontories of no particular character, had the uninspiring, glittering quality of a very fresh oleograph. Razumov turned his back on it with contempt. He thought it odious—oppressively odious—in its unsuggestive finish: the very perfection of mediocrity attained at last after centuries of toil and culture. And turning his back on it, he faced the entrance to the grounds ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... to bed, and sleep off the unpleasant recollections of the day, but he said it was so oppressively hot, he wanted to sit at the window, which was wide open. Witness having secured the deed, which was on the table in the room, bade his client good-night, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... in an oppressively popular style with emphasis on Baxter and Le Blond. Jackson is mentioned often but sketchily as the distant ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... not a sin. All the vigorous enterprise that differentiates the American from the Englishman in business flows quite naturally from that; all the patriotic force and loyalty of the common American, which glows beside the English equivalent as the sun beside the moon, glows even oppressively. But apart from these inestimable advantages I do not see that the American has much that an Englishman need envy. There are certainly points of inferiority in the American atmosphere, influences in development ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... house sat on the porch to talk. Some humorous reference to the somber reputation of the place was made and forgotten as soon as uttered, and they talked of their business affairs until it grew almost dark. The evening was oppressively warm, the air stagnant. ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... ascendant power. Lysander established in most of the cities an oligarchy of ten citizens, as well as a Spartan harmost, or governor. Everywhere the Lysandrian dekarchy superseded the previous governments, and ruled oppressively, like the Thirty at Athens, with Critias at their head. And no justice could be obtained at Sparta against the bad conduct of the harmosts who now domineered in every city. Sparta had embroiled Greece in war to put down the ascendency of Athens, but exercised a more tyrannical usurpation than ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... season in traveling, and it was not until the 15th of September that they set out on their return South. They reached Baltimore late in September, yet found the weather in that latitude still oppressively warm, and roomed ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... was, I had discovered, parsimonious about small expenditures—a trait absolutely inconsistent with his general character. Sometimes when he came he was silent and moody, and after a few sarcastic remarks went away again, to tramp the streets of Lincoln, which were almost as quiet and oppressively domestic as those of Black Hawk. Again, he would sit until nearly midnight, talking about Latin and English poetry, or telling me about his long ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... fresh from the wide spaces of the plains, the town appeared smothered in leaves, and the air was oppressively stagnant. He came into the railway station early one July morning, tired and dusty, with a ride of two days and a night in an ordinary coach. As he walked slowly up the street toward the center of the sleeping village, the odor of ripe grain and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... wall she screamed, "It's horrible! Yes, yes, it's in that wall that the awful secret is concealed!" But as I went on to describe with what spiritual power and superiority of will my old uncle had banished the ghost, she sighed deeply, as though she had shaken off a heavy burden that had weighed oppressively upon her. She leaned back in the sofa and held her hands before her face. Now I first noticed that Adelheid had left us. A considerable pause ensued, and as Seraphina still continued silent, I softly rose, and going to the pianoforte, endeavoured in swelling chords to invoke the bright spirits ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... medically to relieve the tension it was too horrible to be thought of, but they willingly carried the helpless. Then we mounted up at once into the high, cold region Urungu, south of Tanganyika, and into the middle of the rainy season, with well-grown grass and everything oppressively green; rain so often that no observations could be made, except at wide intervals. I could form no opinion as to our longitude, and but little of our latitudes. Three of the Baurungu chiefs, one a great friend of mine, Nasonso, had died, and the population all turned topsy-turvy, so I could ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... should have to say: 'Please, Nurse, may I get down?' What a cheeky little thing you are becoming! And you used to be quite oppressively polite. I suppose you would answer: 'If you say your grace nicely, Master Garth, you may.' Do you know the story of 'Tommy, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... were oppressively hot, as the men in blue tramped through the forest aisles of the vast Virginia jungle—a maze of trees, underbrush and dense foliage. A pall of ominous silence hung over this labyrinth of desolation, ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... operate most oppressively upon free people of color. [4] Shall I ask you now my friends, to draw the parallel between Jewish servitude and American slavery? No! For there is no likeness in the two systems; I ask you rather to mark the contrast. The laws of Moses ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... battle is understood, all may be imagined. Above the tumult the figure of the Khalifa rises stern and solitary, the only object which may attract the interest of a happier world. Yet even the Khalifa's methods were oppressively monotonous. For although the nature or courage of the revolts might differ with the occasion, the results were invariable; and the heads of all his chief enemies, of many of his generals, of most of his councillors, met in the capacious pit ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... marched from Chippawa by the River Road for Black Creek on his way to Stevensville, a rather round-about route, which added some miles to his journey and caused considerable loss of time. The day was an oppressively close one, with not a breath of air stirring, and as the sun rose higher in the heavens it cast forth a brassy heat that was almost unbearable, and had a telling effect on the men, who were soon drenched with perspiration and covered with dust. By 11 o'clock ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... peeping in at one of the windows, we discovered a clergyman most gorgeously apparelled in green and gold, preparing to discourse to a congregation of two persons! Evidently the residents found the climate too oppressively hot for church ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Canada continues her present policy of not taxing incomes, or if she imposes only a moderate tax while rates of income taxation in America are fixed at oppressively and unnecessarily high rates, there can be little question that the ultimate result will be an outflow of capital to Canada, and that men of enterprise ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... sun had set when they reached the top of the slope, and a breeze was blowing, the outer air felt oppressively warm after that of the mine, and the ladies became suddenly aware of a weariness they had not ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... room mysterious forms flitted to and fro. Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was in a more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively ecclesiastical. He sat down and looked about him. The presiding priest went on with ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... followed it for two days. It led them over rough hills, and through broken gullies, during which time they suffered great fatigue from the ruggedness of the country. The weather, too, which had recently been frosty, was now oppressively warm, and there was a great scarcity of water, insomuch that a valuable dog belonging to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... obscured the starless sky, not a breath of wind was stirring, the air felt oppressively close and sultry even at the hour of midnight. A single torch was all the light which the grave-diggers dared to employ while engaged on their dangerous work. In almost perfect darkness were the remains of Hadassah and her unhappy son lowered into ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to have a lively shaking up at that time." One important change I am not at liberty to specify, but you will approve it. By the way, Stone spoke very highly of you and your work. It would be safe for you to strike him on the salary question as soon as you please. The weather is oppressively warm. Things run along about so so in the office. Hawkins told me he woke up the other night, and could not go to sleep again till he had sung a song. The Dutch girls at Henrici's inquire tenderly for ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... to call him Richard, and Charles became oppressively genial: a development which led the embarrassed recipient of these honours to console himself by reflecting that, after all, he was not going to marry ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... almost oppressively mild, for the bracing east wind was gone, and a tender wooing zephyr was fluttering among the crumbled leaves, and helping them to their expansion. Before she knew what instinct had taken her there, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... country now seems to be thickly inhabited. Towards the east and the north-east the country is in a blaze; there is so much grass the fire must be dreadful. I hope it will not come near us. The day has been most oppressively hot, with scarcely a breath of wind. Latitude, 14 ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... It is oppressively warm, and Captain Ball begs us all to come into a restaurant and get some cooling drink. Mrs. Steele and I have limes and Apollinaris, while Senor Noma, true to his red-hot appetite, tosses off a glass ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... oppressively still. Caroline listened with mouth and ears for some sound of approaching footsteps until her heart beat like the swift stroke of a hammer, as it sent the blood throbbing through her temples with a rush ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... prepossessing. They generally kept together, these poor fellows, said Mr. Superintendent, because they were at a disadvantage singly, and liable to slights in the neighbouring streets. But, if I were Light Jack, I should be very slow to interfere oppressively with Dark Jack, for, whenever I have had to do with him I have found him a simple and a gentle fellow. Bearing this in mind, I asked his friendly permission to leave him restoration of beer, in wishing him good night, and thus it fell out that the last words I heard him say as I blundered ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... latter part of 1882 has assumed a monotonously gloomy, oppressively dull aspect True, the streets are no longer full of whirling feathers from torn bedding; the window-panes no longer crash through the streets. The thunder and lightning which were recently filling the air and gladdening the hearts of the Greek-Orthodox people ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... now early in October, and the weather became very cool. So great is the elevation of those regions that, although the days might be oppressively warm, the nights were cold and white frosts were frequent. Crossing the Rocky Mountains at the South Pass, far south of Lewis and Clark's route, emigrants who suffered from intense heat during the middle of day found ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... My room was clean—oppressively clean. I quite longed to see a little dust somewhere. My library was limited to the Bible and the Prayer-book. My view from the window showed me a dead flat in a partial state of cultivation, fading ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... now very warm—oppressively so. We can scarcely endure the heat of the cooking-stove in the kitchen. As to a fire in the parlour there is not much need of it, as I am glad to sit at the open door and enjoy the lake-breeze. The insects are already beginning to be troublesome, particularly ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Divinity, or, like the Pope, its vicegerent, but he was Divinity itself. The violation of his ordinance was sacrilege. Never was there a scheme of government enforced by such terrible sanctions, or which bore so oppressively on the subjects of it. For it reached not only to the visible acts, but to the private conduct, the words, the very thoughts, of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... to anticipate and hope for a thunderstorm, which would at least afford us sufficient light to inspect our surroundings, and so put an end to a state of suspense that was growing wearisome. And not only was the night intensely dark; it was also oppressively silent; for, the water being perfectly smooth, there was no life or motion in the ship to give rise to those sounds—such as the flapping of canvas, the creaking of timbers and bulkheads, etcetera, etcetera—that usually make a calm ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... pride in showing the rewards that belong to female virtue. Flowers adorned her Leghorn bonnet, and her green silk gown boasted four flounces,—such, then, was, I am told, the fashion. She wore, also, a very handsome black shawl, extremely heavy, though the day was oppressively hot, and with a deep border; a smart sevigni brooch of yellow topazes glittered in her breast; a huge gilt serpent glared from her waistband; her hair, or more properly speaking her front, was tortured into ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... health in overflowing bumpers, and had I not remembered my uncle's advice, and prevented my own glass from being filled, I should not have been in a fit state to present myself at Mr Ringer's hospitable mansion. I remember thinking the night oppressively hot, and was thankful that Mr Ringer was good enough to drive me from the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... the maidens whom it would be possible for him to marry. His mother had never pressed her upon him, but she would certainly acquiesce. It would have been mere mock modesty on his part not to guess that Mary would probably not refuse him. And she was handsome, well provided, well connected—oppressively so, indeed; a man might quail a little before her relations. Moreover, she and he had always been good friends, even when as a boy he could not refrain from teasing her for a slow-coach. During his electoral weeks in the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were suddenly oppressively hot, and the molecular cooler was struggling to lower it. "We made it," Morey said triumphantly, "but the eddy currents sure ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... Outlet" ought not to be, and, indeed, can not long be, held for grazing and for the advantage of a few against the public interests and the best advantage of the Indians themselves. The United States has now under the treaties certain rights in these lands. These will not be used oppressively, but it can not be allowed that those who by sufferance occupy these lands shall interpose to defeat the wise and beneficent purposes of the Government. I can not but believe that the advantageous character of the offer made by the United States ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... into my mind. There are women, heaps of them, no doubt, to whom the management of a big house, the season in London, the ordinary round of visits, are sufficient. I, worse luck, was not one of them. Dull! You, with your hundred thousand things to do, cannot conceive how oppressively dull my life was. And that was not all!" She hesitated, but she could not stop midway, and it was far too late for her to recover her ground. She ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... fronds or leafy branches of the wawasa palm, stuck upright in the ground and the blades plaited together. Some of us went ashore. Some stayed on the boats. There were no mosquitoes, the weather was not oppressively hot, and we slept well. By five o'clock next morning we had each drunk a cup of delicious Brazilian coffee, and the boats were ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... evil pleasure from telling her so. It silenced her and made her the more oppressively submissive. But through this announcement he won temporary release. There came a longing to leave her, to go back to Bridport and see other faces, hear other voices and speak of other things. They had walked homeward ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... midnight, we lay on the ground and wriggled along until we were within fifty yards of Holland. There we lay for what seemed to be an interminable time. We saw patrols passing. An officer came along and inspected the sentries. Everything was oppressively quiet. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... the kelp districts the evils which a ruined commerce always leaves behind it. Old Highland families disappeared from amid the aristocracy and landowners of Scotland; and the population of extensive islands and sea-boards of the country, from being no more than adequate, suddenly became oppressively redundant. It required, however, another drop to make the full cup run over. The potatoes had become, as I have shown, the staple food of the Highlander; and when, in 1846, the potato-blight came on, the people, most of them previously stripped of their little capitals, and divested ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... his room, Dennis, influenced by his accelerated circulation, was convinced that the apartment was oppressively warm, and divested himself ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... neighbors. The Hollanders were Protestants; the Belgians were adherents of the Papacy. The former were seafarers; the latter, farmers. The sympathies or affiliations of the Dutch were with the English and the Germans; those of the Belgians were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid, narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a request made of him was reason sufficient ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... oppressively aromatic and looking conspicuously glossy as to hair, hat, and boots, also became effusively voluble. For he had instantly recognised Shotwell as the young man with whom that disturbingly pretty girl had been in consultation in Sharrow's offices; and his mind was now occupied with a ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... walls of the room,—take a room furnished in this way or a great deal more so, and compare it with another of the same actual dimensions furnished in the old-fashioned way and see which is the larger. The modern furnishing may be 'cozy,' oppressively cozy when there are half a dozen people trying to move gracefully around and between it without upsetting or destroying anything, but what sort of hospitality can we offer our guests if they must be always afraid of breaking ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South-Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... book will often give you much amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends. Remember, also, that it is of less importance to you in your earlier years, that the books you read should be clever than that they should be right. I do not mean oppressively or repulsively instructive; but that the thoughts they express should be just, and the feelings they excite generous. It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or the most suggestive books: it is better, in general, to hear what is already known, and may be simply said. Much of the literature ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... that it was impossible to observe the barometer, which I returned to its case on ascertaining that any indications of a rise or fall in the column must have been quite trifling. The night had been oppressively hot, with many insects flying about; amongst which I noticed earwigs, a genus erroneously supposed rarely to take ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... one road, but the blacksmith's shop, which stood midway between the two woodlands, and between the two parts of the road, seemed to cut it into two separate parts. The two colors, white and black, of which this landscape was composed, struck the eye powerfully, almost oppressively. All day long no other tone was to be seen but these two, but they filled so wide a space and were so very strongly marked, that they seemed to weigh down the picture and changed the loveliness, which it perhaps might have in summer, to mournful gloom. There stood the two ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... continues oppressively hot. The names of candidates for admission to the corps d'Afrique continue to pour in. The number has swelled to eight hundred. We begin our labors at nine, adjourn a few minutes for lunch, and then continue our ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... mildly happy and oppressively good all day. The tea-party had helped to lighten the hushed atmosphere of the house; and her last waking thought was of George Rivers' deep-toned voice and frankly admiring eyes. She decided that he might "do" in place of Harry Denvil, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... well be due to natural causes, beside the reverence for the divine person of the king. The Egyptian court must have seemed oppressively splendid, with the brilliant and costly workmanship of Usertesen, to one who had lived a half-wild life for so many years; and, more than that, the recalling of all his early days and habits and friendships would overwhelm his mind and make it ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... the first; but we were already confident in the sure-footedness of our horses, and even able to admire the view as we ascended single file. After much rain, this path must of course be completely impassable. The day had now become oppressively warm, though it was not later than eleven o'clock; and having passed the hills, we came to a dusty high-road, which, about twelve, brought us to the hacienda of Meacatlan, belonging to the family of Perez Palacio. We were overtaken on the road by the eldest son of the proprietor, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... supposes so many conditions precedent, increase of live stock, buildings etc., that it can be attained only after a series of years. Hence it happens that wheat, much more than manufactured products, is subject to oppressively high prices and oppressively low ones, during a long period of time. No matter what the influence of the forces operating in the opposite direction may be, the price of wheat depends most largely on the result of the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Italian lyrics, I feel that the adoption of Courtly mediaeval poetry by the Italian peasantry of the Renaissance can be compared more significantly than at first seemed with the adoption of a once fashionable garb by country folk. The peasant pulled about this Courtly lyrism, oppressively tight in its conventional fit and starched with elaborate rhetorical embroideries; turned it inside out, twisted a bit here, a bit there, ripped open seam after seam, patched and repatched with stuffs and stitches of its own; and then wore the whole thing as it had never been ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... axles. And in addition to this, the wind having risen, a fine, reddish, greasy dust, which enveloped everything, penetrated the wagon, made its way under the covers, filled his eyes and mouth, robbed him of sight and breath, constantly, oppressively, insupportably. Worn out with toil and lack of sleep, reduced to rags and dirt, reproached and ill treated from morning till night, the poor boy grew every day more dejected, and would have lost ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... himself upon the prudence and success of his measures, and looked for his reward in the brilliant future which he had created for himself and earned. His soul was calmed; and so are the elements, fearfully and oppressively, sometimes an hour before the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... enervating and demoralizing luxury; it is pernicious to the community at large, and especially to the middle and upper middle classes, whose inevitable expenditure in procuring fit domestic service—already burdensomely great—is thereby oppressively enhanced, till it has become difficult not only to find good household servants at moderate wages, but to find servants who will work diligently and faithfully for any ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the universe; not to speak of the historic dignity of London City. Colney had to be overcome afresh, and he fled, but managed, with two or three of his bitter phrases, to make a cuttle-fish fight of it, that oppressively ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the community-power that already exists in this country, where persecution often follows from a man's thinking and acting differently from his neighbours, though the law professes to protect him. The reason why this power becomes so very formidable, and is often so oppressively tyrannical in its exhibition, is very obvious. In countries where the power is in the hands of the few, public sympathy often sustains the man who resists its injustice; but no public sympathy can sustain him who is oppressed by the public ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... summer had now arrived. The air was soft and mild, almost oppressively warm; the sun looked red as though seen through the smoke-clouds of a populous city. A soft blue haze hung on the bosom of the glassy lake, which reflected on its waveless surface every passing shadow, and the gorgeous tints of its changing woods on shore ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... I—was I brusque and surly? Or oppressively bland and fond? Was I partial to rising early? Or why did we twain abscond, All breakfastless too, from the public view To prowl by a ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... interesting entertainment; and there were, in fact, some of the most celebrated members of the University present. They were all in morning dress, and their womenfolk wore what we should call Sunday frocks. The dinner was beautifully cooked and served, and was not oppressively long. Soup began it of course, roast veal with various vegetables followed, fish came next, lovely little grey-blue fish better to look at than to eat, then chicken, ice pudding, and dessert. There were flowers on the table, but not as many as we should have with ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Tocqueville, 'that our working classes are in a much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions—the doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that one man should have more of the means of happiness than another—are extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and it was desirable to give something which needed no supervision, when inexperienced students were to take charge of classes, when the kindergartner was weary and wanted a quiet moment to rest, when everybody was in a hurry, when the weather was very cold, or oppressively warm, when there was a torrent of rain, or had been a long drought, the sticks were hastily brought forth from the closet and as hastily thrust upon the children. These small sufferers, being thus ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... our great astonishment, all was silent again, oppressively silent; and, but for the swell upon the seas, all still. The tornado had rushed by: that troop of Tartar horse, having sacked the village, are departed, now in full retreat: the blackness and the fury are beheld on ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... perpetual peace and friendship between the President of the United States and the King of Chosen and the citizens and subjects of their respective Governments. If other powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... both moon and stars, and the air was oppressively hot. The soldiers marched along the dusty road, guided by Baby and St Martin, who had volunteered for the work. Not a sound save their own dull tramp broke the silence. On their right gleamed the calm river, and keeping pace with them were two large bateaux armed with ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... Sturt Street, and as the afternoon was so warm, thought he would go up to Lake Wendouree, which is at the top of the town, and see if it was any cooler by the water. The day was oppressively hot, but not with the bright, cheery warmth of a summer's day, for the sun was hidden behind great masses of angry- looking clouds, and it seemed as if a thunderstorm would soon break over the city. Even Vandeloup, full of life and animation as he was, felt ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Gunga Govind Sing to him were. His services to Gunga Govind Sing were pretty conspicuous: for, after he was turned out for peculation, Mr. Hastings restored him to his office; and when he had imprisoned fifteen persons illegally and oppressively, and when the Council were about to set them at liberty, they were set at liberty themselves, they were dismissed their offices. Your Lordships see, then, what his public services were. His private services are unknown: ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not angry, but she was unaffectedly frightened at finding herself in such close proximity with this very oppressively handsome young man; and without pausing to reflect on the silliness and childishness of the act, she flew away as rapidly as a startled bird. It seemed as if all the reminiscences of her childhood ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... single State could oppose its veto to a law of Congress), from, the looseness of its cohesion and its want of power to compel obedience. The principle of coercive authority, which was represented as so oppressively unconstitutional by the friends of Secession in the North as well as the South four years ago, was precisely that which, as its absence had brought the old plan to a dead-lock, was deemed essential to the new. The formal ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... forward. And yet that evening, as I hesitated in the hall, I somehow was unable to grasp that it was real and permanent, the very solidity of the walls and doors paradoxically suggested transientness, the butler a flitting ghost. How still the place was! Almost oppressively still. I recalled oddly a story of a peasant who, yearning for the great life, had stumbled upon an empty palace, its tables set with food in golden dishes. Before two days had passed he had fled from it in horror back to his crowded cottage and his drudgery in the fields. Never ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... It was oppressively hot, and had it not been for Jack's anxiety he would have enjoyed the swift cooling passage through the thundery air. But he was strangely troubled. Did that letter mean that his father was ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... Fairfield house, though handsomely appointed, was not so formally grand as the Farringtons', and there was always an atmosphere of cordiality and hospitality at Patty's, while at Elise's it was oppressively ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... as to be painful to the touch, and the direct rays of the sun possess almost tropical power; but the night brings reinvigorating coolness, and the breezes of the morning are fresh and tempered as in our own favored land. September is usually a delightful month, although at times oppressively sultry. The autumn or fall rivals the spring in healthy and moderate warmth, and is the most agreeable of the seasons. The night-frosts destroy the innumerable venomous flies that have infested the air through the hot season, and, by their ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... every object wore that aspect of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to such scenes. Outside her window helpless immobility seemed to be combined with intense consciousness; a meditative inertness possessed all things, oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions. Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and orchards; over these roofs and over the apple-trees behind, high up the slope, and backed by the plantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future husband, the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... was oppressively warm and sunless. A dim instinctive recollection of her excuse for coming to town forced Katherine to visit some of the shops where she was in the habit of dealing, and then she sat for more than a weary hour in the Ladies' ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... end of the month, after an oppressively warm day, the moon rose on one of those clear, mild nights which seem to move, stir and affect one, apparently awakening all the secret poetry of one's soul. The gentle breath of the fields was wafted into the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... down the river one after another. Each had its attendant swarm of flies, and vultures soared in flocks in the air. The river was yellow with mud, and the air oppressively hot and heavy. Now and then a whiff of putrid air was blown across the deck. The three men watched the bodies drifting past, brainless skulls, eyeless sockets, floating along many of them as if they were swimming on their backs. "It is really a fine example ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... oppressively silent affair. The man's white Northern anger still smouldered beneath his surface immobility; while Quita, who could not bring herself to believe in the spontaneity of Richardson's engagement at mess, was instinctively measuring and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... thirst, for the stony, country was devoid of springs. The days were oppressively hot ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... with anxiety upon the preparations, for he knew the signs of the weather, and feared the appearance of the sky. All was calm, oppressively calm, and fearful to one who knew how suddenly storms arise under such circumstances. He would have warned them, but he did not dare to, for fear of discovering himself. So he was compelled to sit in a state of inaction and watch with feverish ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... round her with distaste. Everything was not only cheap, but common and tawdry. Still, the dining-room, like all the other rooms in the chalet, was singularly clean, and almost oppressively neat. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... man to create many acts into felonies, and to punish them as the heaviest offences, which his better sense teaches him secretly to regard as perhaps among the lightest. Those poor deserters, for instance, were they necessarily without excuse? They might have been oppressively used; but in critical times of war, no matter for the individual palliations, the deserter from his colors must be shot: there is no help for it: as in extremities of general famine, we shoot the man (alas! we are obliged to shoot him) that is found robbing the common stores in order ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... On an oppressively hot June morning, when I finally got away, the alcalde rode along with me for a couple of miles. We soon began to ascend the slope of the mountains that form the western barrier of the Huichol country, which, among the Mexicans, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... and the air, usually so fresh at those altitudes, was oppressively heavy. Rowland lounged on the grass a while, near Singleton, who was at work under his white umbrella, within view of the house; and then in quest of coolness he wandered away to the rocky ridge whence you looked across at the Jungfrau. To-day, however, the white summits ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... decayed gentleman in New York City who achieved fame by compiling a list of the Four Hundred persons whom he condescended to regard as belonging to New York Society. Vice-President Fairbanks was an Indiana politician, tall and thin and oppressively taciturn, who seemed to be stricken dumb by the weight of an immemorial ancestry or by the sense of his own importance; and who was not less cold than dumb, so that irreverent jokers reported that persons might ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... the four greatest goddesses for their governesses. Athena teaches them domestic accomplishments, how to weave, and sew, and the like; Artemis teaches them to hold themselves up straight; Hera, how to behave proudly and oppressively to company; and Aphrodite, delightful governess, feeds them with cakes and honey all day long. All goes well, until just the time when they are going to be brought out; then there is a great dispute whom they are to marry, and in the midst of it they are carried off by the Harpies, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... brightly round the building—in spite of the perfect repair in which it was kept from top to bottom—there was something repellent to me in the aspect of the whole place: a deathly stillness hung over it, which fell oppressively on my spirits. When my companion rang the loud, deep-toned bell, the sound startled me as if we had been committing a crime in disturbing the silence. And when the door was opened by an old female servant (while ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... different men of new and crude conditions is as various as the individuals themselves. To the dreamer, the theorist, the man who looks too far forward into the future or too far back into the past, the message of the environment may fall oppressively; whereas to the practical man, content to live in the present and to devise immediate remedies for immediate ills, it may come sweet as a challenge upon reserves of energy. The American frontier subsequent to the civil war was so vast, yet so rapid, in its motive ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... neighbouring shore of St Vincent Gulf, ranks as the third in the Commonwealth. Adelaide is the terminus of an extensive railway system, the main line of which runs through Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to Rockhampton. In summer the climate is often oppressively hot under the influence of winds blowing from the interior, but the proximity of the sea on the one side and of the mountains on the other allows the inhabitants to avoid the excessive heat; at other seasons, however, the climate ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... very early, not having been above one mile behind. I remained encamped there, in the expectation of some decided change of weather. The night had been oppressively hot. The season during which we had been beyond the Balonne, viz., that between the 23rd April and 5th November, was the most proper for visiting the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... worship; looking only to the pernicious examples of the intruders, they will spurn with contempt the precepts of the gospel. Their confidence will be abused—their lands craftily trafficked for nought—their ignorance cheated—their inferiority treated oppressively; and then what must naturally follow? Why—WAR—a war of retaliation. All the vices, and few of the virtues, of the instructers, will be faithfully copied; and thus barriers will be erected against ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no longer ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... plague?) and this was precisely the question I put. A deep sigh, and the words, “Sette cento per giorno, signor” (seven hundred a day), pronounced in a tone of the deepest sadness and dejection, were the answer I received. The day was not oppressively hot, yet I saw that the doctor was perspiring profusely, and even the outside surface of the thick shawl dressing-gown, in which he had wrapped himself, appeared to be moist. He was a handsome, pleasant-looking young fellow, but the deep melancholy of his tone did not tempt ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... indication of the approach of Nicholas until that individual passed directly before him. Nicholas stopped at the inner fringe of the beach and, from a point where he could not be seen from the ketch, stood gazing out at the Gar pounding on her long anchor chains. The man remained for an oppressively extended period; Woolfolk could see his heavy, drooping shoulders and sunken head; and then the other moved to the left, crossing the rough open behind the oleanders. Woolfolk had a momentary glimpse of a huge nose and rapidly moving lips ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the club room for a minute or so, and the ticking of the clock was oppressively loud. Then Jepson ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... comparison with the river from which we had come, this stream appeared unnaturally narrow. Darkness hid all detail, and we were only aware of vast cliffs, sometimes dense with trees, sometimes bare faces of sullen rock. They shut us in, oppressively, but without heat. There are no banks to this river, for the most part; only these walls, rising sheer from the water to the height of two thousand feet, going down sheer beneath it, or rather by the side of it, to many times that depth. The water was of some colour ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... nearly five o'clock, and as yet oppressively warm. The evening is coming with a determination to rival in dull heat the early part of the day. The sheep in great white snowy patches lie panting in the distant corners of the adjoining fields; the cows, tired of whisking their foolish tails in an unsuccessful war with the insatiable flies, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... latest wonders in practical science, is a plan for cooling the air in dwellings in hot climates; by which persons residing in India, and other oppressively warm countries, may live habitually in an atmosphere cooled down to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, or the ordinary heat of a pleasant day in England. The very ingenious yet simple means by which this is to be effected, will form the subject of notice in our next number. Meanwhile, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... segment of county society, and in London there were other titles and incomes to compete with. People were willing to worship the Golden Calf, but allowed themselves a choice of altars. No one could justly say that the Shalems were either oppressively vulgar or insufferably bumptious; probably the chief reason for their lack of popularity was their intense and obvious desire to be popular. They kept open house in such an insistently open manner that they created a social draught. The people who accepted their invitations ...
— When William Came • Saki
... oppressively hot parching wind from the deserts of Africa, which in the southern part of Italy and Sicily comes from the south-east; it sometimes commences ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... themselves, are generally better balanced, and go with steadier motion than these. Of course, however, neither extreme is right. There is such a thing, I say once more, as Home Education, involving all necessary training and true constraint; and yet not oppressively felt as such, because it is free, informal, and respects the spontaneity of the childish nature. But, whether our Home Education be formal or informal, direct or indirect, there is one kind of education which ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... luxury to be cut off, though, as a home during Harry's absence was what she chiefly required, she would willingly have remained for nothing. It was unspeakable grief to part with Mrs. Markham, who alone understood how oppressively her secret weighed on her, and her incessant anxiety for news from the seat ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the house had been oppressively lively, thanks to a visit from the Dugdale children; which little elves were sent out of the way while their mother performed the not unnecessary duty of putting her establishment in order. For Harrie ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... agitation, then she sat down suddenly on a great couch covered with soft deerskins and buffalo robes. There was deep in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. She had been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet revolted. Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying snow, her brain too much on fire for thought, passion beating like a pulse in all her lithe and graceful young body, which had known ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sweetheart, as all rustics have, and adored her as rustics and other men should do. On one of his visits he stayed uncommonly late. It was nearly ten o'clock when he set off for home. The town had been abed an hour or more; the night was murky and oppressively still, and corpse-candles were dancing in the graveyard. Witch times had not been so far agone that he felt comfortable, and, lest some sprite, bogie, troll, or goblin should waylay him, he tore an elm branch from a tree that grew ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... remained till noon, when we were again roused to continue the retreat. Though the sun was oppressively powerful, we moved on without resting till dark, when having arrived at our old position near Marlborough, we halted for the night. During this day's march we were joined by numbers of negro slaves, who implored us to take them along with us, offering ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Empire, and between their people respectively. They shall not insult or oppress each other for any trifling cause, so as to produce an estrangement between them; and if any other nation should act unjustly or oppressively, the United States will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement of the question, thus showing ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... across the hills towards the north-west, the stars shone dull, and it was very lonely and oppressively silent, nowhere was there a trace of life, human or animal. Lying on deck, I listened to the sound of the surf breaking in the different little bays near and far, in a monotonous measure, soft and yet irresistible. It is the voice of the sea in its cleansing process, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... that side of the town up under the hill already lay in shadow, and in the oppressively warm evening, labourers were walking with their coats over their shoulders, while sounds of life and noise rose here and there from the shops in the ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... inspected the torpedo to see if it was in good working order, the men had descended into the cramped narrow little hull of the boat and had made ready to start the propeller. None of them wore any superfluous clothing, for it was oppressively hot in the confined area of the little iron shell, and they might have to swim for their lives anyway—perhaps they would be lucky if they got the chance. In short, everybody was ready and every one was there except the commander of ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... after the Nabob, and the first in knowledge, gravity, weight, and character among the Mussulmen of that province. And in order to try every method and to take every chance for his destruction, the said Warren Hastings did maliciously and oppressively keep him under confinement, for a part of the time without any inquiry, and afterwards with a slow and dilatory ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... there was anything to eat—oppressively so. With a little encouragement they would come in and light on the table and help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was in the other room and they found themselves alone, they carried off everything they could lift; and they were particular to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... get some flowers so much,' said Vea, after I had arrived. 'Patrick is so fond of flowers; but he likes the wild ones best. He says the hot-house ones smell oppressively, but the ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... crowded with fashionable apartment houses. That is, they are called fashionable by their builders and owners and accepted as such by their would-be fashionable occupants. Diana knew at least two good families resident in Willing Square, and though she smiled grimly at the rows of "oppressively new and vulgar" buildings, she still was not ashamed to have her ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... what I have here suggested, I say, and when the author chooses formally to deny, I shall formally prove it, that her subjects pay more than England, on a computation of the wealth of both countries; that her taxes are more injudiciously and more oppressively imposed; more vexatiously collected; come in a smaller proportion to the royal coffers, and are less applied by far to the public service. I am not one of those who choose to take the author's word for this happy and flourishing condition of the French finances, rather ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the first years of his reign, Tiberius used his practically unrestrained authority with moderation and justice, but soon yielding to the promptings of a naturally cruel, suspicious, and jealous nature, he entered upon a course of the most high- handed tyranny. He enforced oppressively an old law, known as the law of majestas, which made it a capital offence for any one to speak a careless word, or even to entertain an unfriendly thought, respecting the emperor. "It was dangerous to speak, and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the two men in a large, bare-walled room on the second floor of the station house. The night was oppressively warm, and the tall, narrow windows were thrown open. Like Braceway, Bristow took off his coat, the absence of it showing plainly the outline of his heavy belt and ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... inclusive, the weather is oppressively hot, with a closeness in the atmosphere that renders respiration difficult, and existence, without a punkah, almost insupportable. I have sat for days suffering from the heat, and longing for sun-set in hope of relief which never came; for, even through the long night, ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... sent out the next day just after sunrise. All pursued a more or less southerly course through the channels, and by noon all three crews had lost themselves in the maze. The waterways were all alike, muddy, tree-bordered, steamy, oppressively malodorous, and swarming with reptiles. Moreover, they laced and interlaced so frequently, crossing like the threads in a woven fabric, that any idea of direction was impossible. The giant trees shut in the channels from one another, and no boat's crew could see many ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... completely around to the west during the night, there were occasional squalls of light snow, and the thermometer had risen to only 9 deg. below zero. This temperature, after that of the minus fifties, in which we had been traveling, seemed almost oppressively warm. The leads were even more numerous than the day before, and their presence was clearly outlined by the heavy black clouds. A mile or two east of us there was a lead stretching far to the north and directly parallel with our course, which did not ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... doctor with whom Toole had been closeted, reading the secret in the countenance and by-play of their crony. When it had been with tall, cold, stately Dr. Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite. On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage, energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably ill-bred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he gradually acquiesced ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... night. It was oppressively hot; and the rooms of the palace were crowded with gentlemen, adherents of the court, who had come to devote themselves finally for their king and his family. The Swiss guards,—picked Swiss soldiers, strong and brave, hired to guard ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... happened? The law restricted pawnbrokers from charging more than seven per cent on amounts more than $25, but on amounts below that they were allowed to charge twenty-five per cent. which, as the wage value of money then went, was oppressively high. Of course, the poor with their cheap possessions seldom owned anything on which they could get more than $25; consequently they were the victims of the most grinding legalized usury. Occasionally ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... then told us that when he stopped this second time he first became consciously aware of the odor and the heat. Both became much more noticeable as he stepped into the clearing. In fact, the heat became almost unbearable or, as he put it, "oppressively moist, making ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... turns out good, dear," she said, wiping her forehead with her apron. She looked out the open back door. The landscape was beginning to gray as heavier clouds moved down from the mountains and pressed the afternoon heat closer, more oppressively to the ground. "My, it's getting hot. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we didn't get a little rain this afternoon, Marilou." She turned back to the little girl. "Tell me some more about your daddy, dear. We Martians certainly owe a lot to men ...
— One Martian Afternoon • Tom Leahy
... deprecated "panic legislation." They contended that the adoption of notification would deter patients from seeking treatment for fear of publicity. They were opposed to compulsory treatment of recalcitrant patients, arguing that any law of the kind would be used most oppressively against women. They contended that reliance should be placed on greater facilities for free treatment at the clinics, the work of women patrols, suppression of liquor, and above all education and propaganda ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... shadows came stealing out from the sheaves; woodpigeons rose one by one, and flapped off to roost; the western sky was streaked with red, and all the downs and combe bathed in the last sunlight. Perfect harvest weather; but oppressively still, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... serious drawback except a very prominent and unpleasant moral tendency, which is, indeed, made so conspicuous that one rather resents it, and feels a slight reaction in favor of vice. One is disposed to apply to so oppressively didactic an author the cautious criticism of Talleyrand on his female friend,—"She is insufferable, but that is her only fault." For this demonstrativeness of ethics renders it necessary for her to paint her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various |
