"Constrained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intelligent, without that haughty and graceless reserve which is so painful to a finished man of the world. The host was himself ever animated and cheerful, but calm and clear—and often addressed himself to the artist, who was silent, and, like students in general, constrained. Walstein himself, indeed, was not very talkative, but his manner indicated that he was interested, and when he made an observation it was uttered with facility, and arrested attention by its justness or its novelty. It ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... shake of the hand, but taking no notice whatever either of the widow, little Sam, or Mopsey. His wife, on the contrary, spoke to all, but quietly and submissively, which was in truth, her whole manner. She was spare and withered, with a pinched, colorless face, constrained in a scared and apprehensive look as though in constant dread of an impending violence or injury. Over one eye she wore a green patch, which greatly heightened the pallor and ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... which should wind down in 2008. Tourism continues to dominate the economy, accounting for more than half of GDP. The dual-island nation's agricultural production is focused on the domestic market and constrained by a limited water supply and a labor shortage stemming from the lure of higher wages in tourism and construction. Manufacturing comprises enclave-type assembly for export with major products being ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a well-organized force constrained by the country's prolonged economic hardship; the country has recently experienced a strong recovery, and the military is implementing a modernization plan aimed at making the ground forces lighter ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... her interest, and her bright mind and ready wit drove away the fancy that had first assailed me. Then some caller claimed the attention of Mrs. Knapp, and I was content to monopolize Luella's conversation for the evening. At last I was constrained to go. Mrs. Knapp was still busied in conversation with her visitor, and Luella followed me once ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... myself knows." They bowed and emptied their glasses to this toast, at which several of those present were not a little amused. The mayor, who was, with his many other traits of character, sufficiently versed in strategy to extricate himself from any snare, said he felt constrained to say a few words in return for the compliment, and was about making a speech on the spot. Happily a waiter entered at the moment, bearing in his hand a plate of cold chicken, which so excited Don Fernando's ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... flesh and blood, if the soul eat thereof by faith, giveth deliverance therefrom. Upon this the filth of sin appears most odious, for that it hath not only at present defiled the soul, but because it keeps it from doing those duties of love, which by the love of Christ it is constrained to endeavour the perfecting of. For filth, appears filth; that is irksome, and odious to a contrary principle now implanted in the soul; which principle had its conveyance thither by faith in the sacrifice and death of Christ going before. 'The love of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... must deal with Raymond's attitude toward me on my wedding-day and on the days preceding it. He was stiff, constrained, dissatisfied—merely courteous toward my Elsie, and not at all cordial to me. I wondered whether he blamed me for thus bringing him back home; but the real reason, as I came to understand later, was quite different. He regarded the marriage ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... to you, Captain Jan Dunck, I sincerely hope that the breeze will continue fair," said the Count, making a polite bow, as he had no wish to offend the skipper, but felt constrained to speak the truth. "It is not of you or your galiot that I'm tired, but of this fidgetty sea which rolls and tumbles her about so thoughtlessly, to say ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... them; she stopped and had a few words with her husband that I didn't hear and that ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning with him to the house. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my visit I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have at all fully measured his situation from the first or made out the signs of things mastered ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... it was in those high courtesies and nobler acts which bespeak the accomplished cavalier. Warriors of opposite creeds became ambitious of transcending each other in magnanimity as well as valor. Indeed, the chivalric virtues were refined upon to a degree sometimes fastidious and constrained; but at other times, inexpressibly noble and affecting. The annals of the times teem with illustrious instances of high-wrought courtesy, romantic generosity, lofty disinterestedness, and punctilious ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... versification to her other excellent acquirements. That she can write pure English, and that she frequently does so, is undeniable. In some of the extracts which we shall give, we believe that the language could scarcely be improved. But we are constrained to say, that her compositions are very often disfigured by strained or slovenly modes of phraseology, which greatly detract from their impressiveness, and which must materially injure the reputation of their authoress, by turning away many ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... face, and brushed away her tears, as Radclyffe approached; and then seeming to busy herself amongst some papers that lay scattered on her escritoire, and gave her an excuse for concealing in part her countenance, she said, with a constrained cheerfulness, "I am happy you are come to relieve my ennui; I have been looking over letters, written so many years ago, that I have been forced to remember how soon I shall cease to be young; no pleasant reflection for any one, much less ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hemingr, and William of Cloudeslee, whose surname proclaims him an inhabitant of the Phaiakian land. William Tell, whether of Cloudland or of Altdorf, is the last reflection of the beneficent divinity of daytime and summer, constrained for a while to obey the caprice of the powers of cold and darkness, as Apollo served Laomedon, and Herakles did the bidding of Eurystheus. His solar character is well preserved, even in the sequel ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... generally estimate at a glance the distance at which he is shooting, and he has been taught economy in the use of ammunition. The burgher knows perfectly well how valuable to him is his horse, and he is thus constrained to use his knowledge in carefully tending it; moreover, considerable affection exists, in many instances, between the master ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... know, I have always had a longing to know just what engaged people said to each other and how they acted—whether they grew more affectionate, or, after the grand climax of an engagement had been entered into, if—if somehow they did not act a little constrained toward each other." ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... an honest flush passing over his cheek, as if ashamed of what he had next to say, "I am constrained to lay before you the last instructions of the Prince of Wales ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... in the German exhibits one was constrained to note that the female members of an artist's family were frequently represented by work of their own. One encountered Bruno and Fra Wille, joint designers of rooms, carpets, wall coverings; Professor Behrens's ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... of tenths, it seems to me that the interval always sounds constrained, and hardly ever euphonious enough to justify its difficulty, especially in rapid passages. Yet Paganini used this awkward interval very freely in his compositions, and one of his 'Caprices' is a variation ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... has been driven under all the burdens of oppression, both material and spiritual, to the brink of desperation, but he has always been saved by his philosophy of life. He has advanced against all opposition by a certain elevation of his spirit. He has been made strong in tribulation. He has constrained oppression to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... towards the village. In his quiet unobtrusive fashion he had watched her closely when they encountered the man whom she introduced as her cousin; and he had fancied that her manner underwent a curious change when Marston Greyle came on the scene—she had seemed to become constrained, chilled, distant, aloof—not with the stranger, himself, but with her kinsman. This fancy had become assurance during the conversation which had abruptly ended when Greyle took offence at Stafford's brusque remark. Copplestone ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... all the rest of that day, and could not help feeling troubled to see what an effort both his uncle and aunt made to be cordial to their guest, while being such simple, straightforward people, the more they tried, the more artificial and constrained they grew. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... came Elsalill went again to the church, being constrained to know whether her foster ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... George in my wanderings," he said, when he went to bid a very friendly adieu to the Fairburns. "Won't it be jolly if we do meet!" And the parents were constrained to smile in spite of ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... texts in Paul's epistles it is not strange that some persons have deduced the doctrine of unconditional, universal salvation. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the genuine explanation of this sentence, we are constrained to believe, is as follows: "As, following after the example of Adam, all souls descend below, so, following after Christ, all shall be raised up," that is, at the judgment, after which event some may be taken ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... such notoriety in Utah a short time ago was one not altogether uncommon, in which a young girl engaged to a Mormon Elder in London accompanied him to this country to have the marriage ceremony performed by the fathers of the church. On their way thither the elder felt constrained to tell this young convert that he had already made promises of marriage to two Danish sisters who were awaiting him in Zion; but he assured her that though he felt obliged to fulfil all his vows yet she should be his first and only legal wife. She reluctantly ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... constantly impelled to act so as to show himself off. He "performs" before people, shows less modesty than may be thought desirable in one of his tender years, impresses the forms of his own activity upon the other children, who come to stand about him with minds constrained to follow him. He is an object lesson in both the advantages and the risks of an aggressive life policy. He has a suggestion to make in every emergency, a line of conduct for each of his company, all marked out or supplied on the spur of the moment by his own quick sense of appropriate ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... bride's handsome luggage had also been brought thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite. Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... at school she was so timid and wistful that I felt constrained to notice and encourage her more than those whom I had already with me. But I found this no easy part to play; for very soon one of the court ladies in the confidence of the king took me quietly aside and warned me to be less demonstrative ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... coquetry, which made her receive me kindly in order to make me expiate my success afterward, my love for her was soon an understood thing between us; she listened to me in a mocking way, but did not dispute my right to speak. She ended by receiving my letters, after being constrained to do so through a course of strategies in which, truly, I showed incredible invention. I was listened to and she read my letters; ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... asked if the beauteous form of Fayaway was altogether free from the hideous blemish of tattooing, I should be constrained to answer that it was not. But the practitioners of the barbarous art, so remorseless in their inflictions upon the brawny limbs of the warriors of the tribe, seem to be conscious that it needs not the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... so still? What of the sick in the hospitals, constrained to watch and bear the world's burdens through the long hours of darkness. Oh, if she could only pierce those great walls and stand by the bed-side of the poor girl of whom her thoughts were ...
— Daybreak - A Story for Girls • Florence A. Sitwell
... politics, I liked Seward, though not blind to his faults. His natural instincts were humane and progressive. He hated slavery and all its belongings, though a seeming necessity constrained him to write, in 1838, to this intensely pro-slavery city, a pro-slavery letter, which was at war with his real, or at least with his subsequent convictions. Though of Democratic parentage, he had been an Adams man, an anti-Mason, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a person easily disconcerted, yet he flushed at the sound of these impulsive words, and the confident smile deserted his lips. For a moment they sat thus, the dead body lying between, and looked at each other. When the man finally broke the constrained silence a deeper intonation ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... and interprets between us, with a fixed and confident didn't-I-tell-you-so smile, that forms a side study of no mean quality. "There will be no trouble about getting permission to go through Turkestan?" I feel constrained to inquire; for such excessive display of affection and bonhommie on the Russian diplomat's part could scarce fail to arouse suspicions. "Oh dear, no!" he replies. "Oh dear, no! I will telegraph to General ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... conclusions of another without independent observation, this is not the place to consider. It is our impression that species of animals are more definitely marked than those of plants; this may arise from our somewhat extended acquaintance with the latter, and our ignorance of the former. But we are constrained by our experience to admit the strong likelihood, in botany, that varieties on the one hand, and what are called closely-related species on the other, do not differ except in degree. Whenever this wider difference separating the latter can be spanned by intermediate forms, as it ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... were by the pride, luxury, and caprice of the world from expanding my sensations, and wedding my soul to society, I was constrained to bestow the strong affections that glowed consciously within me upon a few. My mother and sister had a large share of them. To skreen them from the indigence, obscurity, and neglect, to which without my aid they must be doomed, was a hope that encouraged ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to steady Lize, and she got through the meal very well. She was unwontedly silent, and a little sad as well as constrained. She could see that Lee fitted in with these surroundings, that she was at home with shining silver and dainty dishes, and she said to herself: "I could have been something like her if I'd had any sort o' raisin', ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... his knowledge both of the Church which he quitted and of the Church which he entered was of the most superficial kind. Nor was his subsequent conduct that of a man whom a strong sense of duty had constrained to take a step of awful importance. Had he been such a man, the same conviction which had led him to join the Church of Rome would surely have prevented him from violating grossly and habitually rules which that Church, in common with every ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Cromwell, f. 239).] What did it all mean? We have little difficulty now in seeing what it meant. Cromwell, even while urging on the re-application to the King in a Parliamentary way, had not given up hope that the King might be constrained into an extra-Parliamentary pact on some basis like that of the Army Proposals. Might not Charles be wise now in the extremity to which he saw himself reduced, and accept the prospect, which the Army scheme held out, of a restoration of his Royalty, under inevitable constitutional ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... space at the top, the interior of the wigwam was so hot, I could scarcely breathe, and was constrained to throw off all my wrappings during the time we staid. Before we went away the hunter insisted on showing us a game, which was something after the manner of our cup and ball, only more complicated, and requires more sleight of hand: the Indians seemed evidently well pleased ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... let me see them," cried Fanny, whose passion for relics was quickly aroused. Charlie, too, was constrained to abandon his lazy attitude for a moment to examine such a curiosity as these quaint ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... himself, falling into a less constrained and careful posture. Leaned his elbow on the chair-arm, his chin in the hollow of his hand, crossed the right ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Chancellor to accept her present. As much cannot be said in behalf of Mrs. Croker, who, being opposed in a suit to Lord Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favor by presenting him with a pair of gloves containing forty angels. With a courteous smile he accepted the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The gentleness of this rebuff is charming; but the story does not tell more in favor of Sir Thomas than to the disgrace of the lady and the moral tone of the society ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of the barometer had crept far past "Change"; by noon it had swung violently to "Stormy, with much rain"; by lunchtime a constrained and awkward dialogue was broken by the rude voice of the thunder. The Colonel took out his watch, timed the thunder and lightning, and calculated the approaches of the storm. "Seven miles away from us ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... way," replied Perrote, in a tone of constrained bitterness. "He could not have all his will for her. He desired to make bargains, and issue mandates, and reign at his pleasure, and she told him the bargains were unprofitable, and the mandates unjust, and it was not agreeable. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... arthropoda, of which the crawfish is a member. Then, perhaps, the professor calls the students about him and gives a demonstration of the curious phenomena of hypnotism as applied to the crawfish, through which a living specimen, when held for a few moments in a constrained attitude, will pass into a rigid "trance," and remain standing on its head or in any other grotesque position for an indefinite period, until aroused by a blow on the table or other shock. Such are some of the little asides, so to speak, with ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... licensed me to preach the blessed Gospel, Mr. Welsh, you encouraged me to independent thought. Under the guidance, I believe, of the Holy Spirit, I have been led to see the sinfulness of the Indulgence, and I am constrained to preach against it. Truly my chief concern is for the salvation of souls—the bringing of men and women and children to the Saviour; but after that, or rather along with that, to my mind, comes the condemnation of sin, whether public or private. Consider what the Indulgence and persecution ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... of your own free choice. Such an attitude may not flatter the sovereign's pride, and is in fact merely a higher form of expediency; but it is one which the proudest monarchs of Europe are finding themselves constrained to take if they would preserve their ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hold you to your word. You are not to have pity upon me!" cried Nettie, not well aware what she was saying. The doctor drew her arm into his; found out, sorely against her will, that she was trembling, and held her fast, not without a sympathetic tremor in the arm on which she was constrained to lean. ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... fell that murmurs again from the flock broke the pastor's peace. Some member had seen me at Havenpool, comrading close a sea-captain. (Yes; I was thereto constrained, lacking means for the fare to and fro.) Yet God knows, if aught He knows ever, I loved the Old-Hundredth, Saint Stephen's, Mount Zion, New Sabbath, Miles-Lane, Holy Rest, and Arabia, and Eaton, Above all embraces of body by wooers who sought me and won! . . . Next week 'twas ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... now. Then our Treasury receipts were inadequate to meet the current obligations of the Government. Now they are sufficient for all public needs, and we have a surplus instead of a deficit. Then I felt constrained to convene the Congress in extraordinary session to devise revenues to pay the ordinary expenses of the Government. Now I have the satisfaction to announce that the Congress just closed has reduced taxation in the sum of $41,000,000. ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... commissariat, had, after some reflection and the exercise of considerable patience, taken care of themselves as best they might. Sheep had been slain, and chickens and geese had lent savoury aid to the banquet of the warriors, who also, in the absence of other fuel, were constrained to make short work of Lord Erne's trees. But they had done their work cheerfully in the cold and wet, and had pitched tents for the Ulster men. When the belligerent "agriculturists" came to be told off into these tents an amusing ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... those who embarked in them were rudely and villainously used by the passengers, who, besides other indignities, kept them cruising upon the sea, one while forwards and another backwards, till they had spent all their provisions, and were constrained to buy of them at so dear a rate and so long withal, that they set them not on shore till they were all stripped to the very shirts. The news of this inhuman usage being brought to those who remained behind, the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... calamity.[1542] Prometheus and certain Homeric heroes are victorious over gods. In some savage tribes divine kings are put to death if they fail to do what is expected of them. A god was sometimes chained or confined in his temple to prevent his voluntary or constrained departure. A recusant deity was sometimes taunted or insulted by his disappointed worshipers.[1543] There is, however, a difference between the two sets of coercive acts. The force used by developed religion is physical, that employed in magic is psychological and logical. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... of Wittekind's unaffected urbanity it convinced Doria. I listened to her account of it with a new moon of a smile across my soul—or across whatever part of oneself one smiles with when one's face is constrained ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... feeling of disquietude had given a sallow look to Maxime's worn face; and during the short drive he questioned Pascal concerning Charles with an air of paternal interest, which concealed a growing anxiety. The doctor constrained by his mother's imperious glances, softened the truth. Well, the boy's health was certainly not very robust; it was on that account, indeed, that they were glad to leave him for weeks together in the country with his uncle: but he had no definite disease. Pascal did not add that he had ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... same places of worship, repeated the same prayers, and listened to the same discourses, most of which being perfectly unintelligible to those of tender years, the evils and inconveniences resulting from the practice were very great. The children, finding the routine irksome, the constrained decorum required of them during a time which seemed to them never ending (for the services were then very long) was painful in the extreme, though they were sometimes relieved by turning their thoughts in other directions, perhaps to subjects irrelevant if not opposed to the ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... to decide for God—for that is the plain meaning of the establishment principle. Once admit that principle, and no curb can be set upon its operation. Who shall restrict what God has appointed? And thus the extent to which the conscience of men may be constrained, or persecution for truth's sake may be carried, depends entirely on the ignorance or enlightenment of the civil magistrate. There is no safety out of the principle that religion is a matter entirely between man and his God, and that the whole duty of the magistrate is to secure every ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... absorbed, twisting its silk cord round his finger. 'Don't let's go yet,' he said, and the constrained silence fell between them again. 'I want to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... from public affairs, Capodistrias, still high in credit and reputation, quitted St. Petersburg under the form leave of absence, and withdrew to Geneva, there to await events, and to enjoy the distinction of a patriot whom love for Greece had constrained to abandon one of the most splendid positions in Europe. Grave, melancholy, and austere, as one who suffered with his country, Capodistrias remained in private life till the vanquished cause had become the victorious one, and the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... meanness instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were in the same act expressly excused; and they had even taken bonds of these deputies to observe such instructions. The Assemblies for three years held out against this injustice, tho' constrained to bend at last. At length Captain Denny, who was Governor Morris's successor, ventured to disobey those instructions; how that was brought about I ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... pitiable spectacle, as you may suppose, to see reasonable beings constrained against their inclinations to sit quietly while they ate their hearty morning meal, which really, perhaps, they might have enjoyed, had they been allowed to amuse themselves in their own ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... trite aphorisms on the sitter, meanwhile cautiously noting the effect. For of course so long as a sitter is coldly self-conscious, and fully mindful that he is "being took," his countenance is as stiff, awkward, and constrained as that of a farmer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... too?" I answered that there could be no doubt of it. He got up from his chair, with a quick little shudder, like a man who feels a chill—and changed the subject. On the next occasion when he and Lucilla met—so far from being more familiar with her, he was more constrained than ever. As it had begun between these two, so it seemed likely to continue to the end. In my society, he was always at his ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... evening Lord Castlewell did call upon her at "The Embankment." Her father was not with her, and she was constrained by the circumstances of the moment ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... breach of truce, the same Vikillus, or Wilfeketell, with such power as he could raise, assaulted the host of Danes as they returned to their ships, and slue a great number of them, but was not able to mainteine the fight, for his enimies ouermatched him in number of men. And so he was constrained in the end to giue backe: and [Sidenote: Hen. Hunt.] the enimies kept on ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Aqueduct, and the Central Park. Otherwise, it would have been a monument to the eternal infamy of the trustees and of the engineers under whose supervision it has been erected, and this brings me to the final consideration which I feel constrained to offer ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... I am constrained, therefore, by a proper sense of my own self-respect and of the rights secured by the Constitution to the executive branch of the Government to decline a compliance with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... Harrison Miller was constrained and uncomfortable. He had meant to see Lucy first. She was a sensible woman, and she would know just what David could stand, or could not. But David did not notice his constraint; took him to his room, made him admire the ocean view, gave him a cigar, and then sat ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this burial was sad and repulsive, yet Jack and his man felt constrained, out of mere sympathy, to witness ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... water broth Tartarin of Tarascon joined other wise practices. To break himself into the habit of long marches, he constrained himself to go round the town seven or eight times consecutively every morning, either at the fast walk or run, his elbows well set against his body, and a couple of white pebbles in the mouth, according to ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... those whom it is the fashion to ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; and this I can do by quoting a passage from one of their best apologists, Mr. Milner, who thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 'Justified by faith, renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the love of Christ, their believer moves in the sphere of love and gratitude, and all his duties flow more or less from this principle. And though they are accumulating for him in heaven a treasure of bliss proportioned ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... they will compel me: if they will give me no time: if nobody will be moved: if it be resolved that the ceremony should be read over my constrained hand—why then—Alas! What then!—I can but—But what? O my dear! this Solmes shall never have my vows I am resolved! and I will say nothing but no, as long as I shall be able to speak. And who will presume to look upon such an act of violence as a marriage?—It ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... The child may be unconscious of the matter, but the teacher is acutely conscious. When she stands before her class she sees the child growing into her image, and this reflection gives cause and occasion for a careful and critical introspection. She feels constrained to take an inventory of herself to determine whether she can stand a test that is so ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... accidentally, while riding, come upon her when she had strayed from her own riding party, and had behaved with such unexpected circumspection and propriety, not to mention a certain thoughtful abstraction,—it was the day he had received Sophy's letter,—that she was constrained to make the first advances. This led to a later innocent rendezvous, in which Mrs. Camperly was impelled to confide to Mr. Hamlin the fact that her husband had really never understood her. Jack listened ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Brahmanas, goest thither (unto the Rakshasa), leaving me here, then I shall be very much pained. Therefore, O father, be kind to me. O thou best of men, for our sake, for that of virtue and also thy race, save thyself, abandoning me, whom at one time thou shall be constrained to part from. There need be no delay, O father, in doing that which is inevitable. What can be more painful than that, when thou hast ascended to heaven, we shall have to go about begging our food, like dogs, from strangers. But if thou art with thy relations from these difficulties, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... 1: As the children of Israel had been delivered by the Lord from slavery, and for this reason were bound to the service of God, He did not wish them to be slaves in perpetuity. Hence it is written (Lev. 25:39, seqq.): "If thy brother, constrained by poverty, sell himself to thee, thou shalt not oppress him with the service of bondservants: but he shall be as a hireling and a sojourner . . . for they are My servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen": ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... should be prepared to incur, he had refrained from pressing this advice upon me, but in my present debilitated state exposure even for a single night might very probably cost me my life. To this opinion I felt constrained to yield, and Mr. Walker, having at my desire repeated it in a letter this afternoon, I ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... to cope with this problem of retaining our economic position? We can only hope to do it if the present financial difficulties and obstructions working through the exchanges, by which international commerce is restricted and constrained, are removed. We can only do it if and so long as the conception of international division of labour is maintained. And we can only do it if—granted that we can induce the world to accept this principle of international division of labour—we can prove ourselves, by our economic and ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... peculiarity of language, no indolent neglect, or wanton breach, of the ordinary forms or fashions of society. His reputation is a possession capable of uses too important to be thus sported away; if sacrificed at all, it shall be sacrificed at the call of duty. The world shall be constrained to allow him to be amiable, as well as respectable in other parts of his character; though in what regards Religion, they may account him unreasonably precise and strict. In this no less than in other particulars, he will endeavour to reduce the enemies of Religion to adopt the confession of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... he may be, he will yet feel England expecting him to behave as an Englishman. And though he may not be so vividly aware of it when he is at home, he is still a representative of England when he is in England itself. In everyday life he is being expected and constrained by England to ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... readily accept the situation; he sought to reduce the revolt by force of arms, with what degree of success is shown by the fact that his rival found himself constrained to take up his residence at Peniel (near Mahanaim) on the other side of Jordan. The invasion of Shishak, however, who took Jerusalem and burnt it, gave Jeroboam at last a breathing space. The feud continued indeed, but Rehoboam could ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... attention that he could give to the great War in which she always encouraged him as no other ever could. Remaining to her latest hour a woman of the tenderest and most modest character, she shrank from public duty, and merely submitted so far as she felt "constrained," for Christ's sake, to association with anything that she was convinced ought to be done to gain the ears of men for the Gospel, however contrary it might be to her own tastes and wishes. Perhaps her most valuable contribution to the construction of The General's life was ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... written much thereon. For men like these never came near to discover one-hundredth part of the things discovered by me. But with regard to this matter—as with divers others—I leave judgment to be given by those who shall come after me. Nevertheless I am constrained to call this work of mine a perfect one, seeing that it well-nigh transcends the bounds ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... he then said, turning to Sybil, "I do not like to differ with a lady in a matter of her 'own experience'; but as we are in search of the truth, and the truth happens to be of the most vital importance to our safety, I feel constrained to assure you that this door, from its very appearance, assures us that it can not have been opened within half a century, and that consequently your 'own experience' of the last night cannot have been a reality, but must ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... wuz respected. On his return wat did he see? The power in the hands uv Radikals, Ablishnism in the majority everywhere, a ex-tailor President,—a state uv affairs disgustin in the extreme to the highly sensitive Southern mind. He had accepted a pardon only becoz he felt hisself constrained to put hisself in2 position to go to Congress, that the country might be reskood from its impendin peril. He shood go to Congress, and then he should ask the despots who now hev ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... still heavier, and even more binding? Can you suppose I would so far forfeit my honour and truth as that I would swear to love, honour, and obey, where I could feel neither love nor respect, and where cold constrained obedience would be all of my duty ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the psalm, When Israel went out of Egypt, and on the 16th of September, 1568, Conde entered La Rochelle. "I fled as far as I could," he wrote the next day, "but when I got here I found the sea; and, inasmuch as I don't know how to swim, I was constrained to turn my head round and gain the land, not with feet, but with hands." He assembled the burgesses of La Rochelle, and laid before them the pitiable condition of the kingdom, the wicked designs of people who were their enemies as well as his own: he called upon them to come and help; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... mother, that of late, my letters have been more constrained and less cheerful than usual, and you conjure me not to conceal from you any thing which may concern my happiness. I have ever found you my best and most indulgent friend, and there is not a thought or feeling of my mind, however weak or foolish, that I desire to conceal ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... chastity, and poverty, and obedience; he fulfilled them, as he did the other duties of his position, with that simplicity and cheerful good-humor which are the sure indications of an honest heart, constrained to do right by natural impulses as much as by the power and consistency of ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... seated by the river; then began to walk through certain ancient grazing grounds where the monks used to run their cattle. Their conversation, fluent enough at first, grew somewhat constrained and artificial, since both of them were thinking of matters different from those that they were trying to dress out in words; intimate, pressing, burning matters that seemed to devour their intelligences of everyday with a kind ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... gentleness. God's eye doth see, and loveth from afar, The merciful conqueror. For no slave of war Is slave by his own will. She is the prize And chosen flower of Ilion's treasuries, Set by the soldiers' gift to follow me. Now therefore, seeing I am constrained by thee And do thy will, I walk in conqueror's guise Beneath ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... under his roof, and Margaret did not seem to wish it. It must be confessed that there had been an outburst heard only by him—confided only to him—when Mrs. Cranston received, a few weeks after the letter which sadly told of Davies's mother's death, the brief and possibly constrained note from her late patient announcing his approaching marriage to Miss Quimby, who he said had been utterly devoted to poor mother during her declining days and those of her brief but painful illness. Margaret could not bear to speak of it to Miss Loomis. It ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... sympathy, and yet with what the reader must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness. I said that a race which had come to this effect in any member of it had attained civilization in him, and I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative; and I held ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... subject of morality I am constrained to express myself with apparent diffidence, lest I be misinterpreted and charged with vilifying the class to which I once belonged. And yet behind my diffidence of expression I must confess to a very honest and uncompromising belief, founded upon my own knowledge and observation, that ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Elster is not present to hear that speech; else should I feel constrained to send a bullet through your bearskin, just by way of giving you the lie, and of satisfying her that I am the truest of husbands, as she is the best of wives, although I am perfectly aware that it would be a waste of powder and lead, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... found in the necessity, even at this day, of preventing the repetition of mistakes concerning Nelson's qualities and disposition. His recent biographers, Captain Mahan and Professor Laughton, feel constrained to tell us over and over again that Nelson's predominant characteristic was not mere 'headlong valour and instinct for fighting'; that he was not the man 'to run needless and useless risks' in battle. 'The breadth and acuteness of Nelson's intellect,' says Mahan, 'have ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... constrained to make use of terms that have become technical in modern science—though they do not always fully express the idea to be conveyed—for want of better words. It is useless to hope that the occult doctrine may be ever thoroughly understood, even the few tenets that ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Some ingenious persons of a philosophick turn have assured us that our pulpits were set too high, and that the soporifick tendency increased with the ratio of the angle in which the hearer's eye was constrained to seek the preacher. This were a curious topick for investigation. There can be no doubt that some sermons are pitched too high, and I remember many struggles with the drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy Saint Anthony of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... love. I told you it was time we went home. Don't say any thing more about it. I'll promise you to forget it all," and Hetty laughed again, a merry little laugh. A sharp suspicion crossed the doctor's mind that she was coquetting with him. In a constrained tone ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... seen. What's more, he's got the homicide habit, and the habit has got its eye on me." Glass was in deadly earnest, and his alarm contrasted so strongly with his former contemptuous attitude toward the cowboys that Speed was constrained ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... to-night." Her voice, her manner were constrained, subdued. She accepted his injured look without comment, without further defence. She saw the perplexed look on his thin face; then she reached forward—up—and her two soft hands brought his face down to the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... writer of English prose, Johnson has always enjoyed a great, albeit a somewhat awful reputation. In childish memories he is constrained to be associated with dust and dictionaries, and those provoking obstacles to a boy's reading—'long words.' It would be easy to select from Johnson's writings numerous passages written in that essentially vicious style to which the name Johnsonese has been cruelly given; but the ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the decoration of the table were all very good; but it was all like what Darya Alexandrovna had seen at formal dinners and balls which of late years had become quite unfamiliar to her; it all had the same impersonal and constrained character, and so on an ordinary day and in a little circle of friends it made a disagreeable impression ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... constrained silence she said to him, "You must have no projects, Mr. Thorpe, in which I am concerned. This talk is all very wide of the mark. You are not entitled to speak as if I were mixed up with your affairs. There is nothing whatever ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to steer to the villa of my friend Pomponianus, which, you know, was situated in the inmost recess of the bay. The wind was very favourable to carry me thither, but would not allow him to put off from the shore, as he was desirous to have done. We were, therefore, constrained to pass the night in his house. The family watched, and I slept till the heaps of pumice stones, which incessantly fell from the clouds that had by this time been impelled to that side of the bay, rose so high in the ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... than the pulpit, she listened with deep interest to his teaching of a lofty, but somewhat stern morality. Yet, despite his strong, clear arguments, and his evident earnestness, there was about him a repellent atmosphere, which prevented her inclining towards the man, even while she was constrained to respect ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to this had been easy and careless, changed suddenly, becoming constrained and a trifle self-conscious. But ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... route be, as I suppose, by Nishapur and Meshid, or, as Khanikoff supposes, by Herat and Badghis, it is strange that no one of those famous cities is mentioned. And we feel constrained to assume that something has been misunderstood in the dictation, or has dropt out of it. As a probable conjecture I should apply the six days to the extent of pleasing country described in the first lines of the chapter, and identify it with the tract between Sabzawur and the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... steps of Macbeth are dogged ever by an unseen devil—namely, his own evil yet coward nature. He is wicked and he is afraid. The whole physique of Rossi in the scene in the first act where the king heaps favors and commendations on his valiant warrior was eloquent of conscious guilt: the constrained attitude, the shifting, uneasy glance, told, louder than words, of a wicked purpose and a stinging conscience. From the moment of the murder the wretched thane lives in a perpetual atmosphere of fear. He is afraid of everything—first of his own unwashed hands, and next ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... an explosion of astonishment, an expansion of love, a confidence full of gestures and tears. But, instead of this, her mother, without appearing stupefied or grieved, had only seemed bored; and from the constrained, discontented, and worried tone in which she had replied, the young girl, in whom there suddenly awaked all the astuteness, keenness, and sharpness of a woman, understanding that she must not insist, that the mystery was of another ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... I am constrained to recapitulate the principal facts which may be regarded as fundamental in war. War in its ensemble is not a science, but an art. Strategy, particularly, may indeed be regulated by fixed laws resembling those ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... seemed a little constrained, but looked ever so much better. He is quite sunburned, likes California and says we ought to have a winter bungalow there (and Dinky-Dunk just warning me to save on the pantry pennies!) He's brought a fastidious little old English woman back with him as a housekeeper, a Mrs. Watson, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... a youth, singing in the dawn Of a new freedom, glowing o'er his lyre, Refining, as with great Apollo's fire, His people's gift of song. And thereupon, This Negro singer, come to Helicon Constrained the masters, listening to admire, And roused a race to wonder and aspire, Gazing which way their honest voice was gone, With ebon face uplit of glory's crest. Men marveled at the singer, strong and sweet, Who brought the cabin's mirth, the tuneful night, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... having mounted another himself, he conveyed her beyond the reach of immediate pursuit; when, after having supplied her with food, and admonishing her to make the best of her way to her own nation, which was at the distance of at least four hundred miles, he was constrained to return to his village. The emancipated Ietan had, however, the good fortune, on her journey of the subsequent day, to meet with a war-party of her own people, by whom she was conveyed to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... to this, except that he noticed her face now wore a slight constrained smile as she looked at him. She was shy. Still she continued ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... the first of a series of measures which are considered by his supporters as fraught with danger to the country's very best interests.' A still more sinister rumour was next bruited abroad: that Mr. Round attended a dissenting place of worship, and he was constrained to admit that, once in 1845 and thrice in 1846, he had been guilty of this blacksliding. The lost ground, however, was handsomely recovered by a public declaration that the very rare occasions on which he had been present at other modes of Christian worship had only confirmed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Capitalist" as far as a prudent care for his family would permit; that he need not say that a new daily journal was a very vast experiment; that the expense of such a paper as "The Capitalist" was immeasurably greater than that of a mere literary periodical, as originally suggested; and that now, being constrained to come upon the shareholders for the sums he had advanced, amounting to several thousands, he requested my father to settle with him immediately,—delicately implying that Mr. Caxton himself might settle as he could with the other shareholders, most of whom, he grieved to add, he ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... condemned by some spiritual tormentor to take an interest in their endless games, and to observe their visages until he knew every line with a hateful intimacy. One of the men had a moustache of unusual form; the ends curved upward with peculiar suddenness, and Reardon was constrained to speculate as to the mode of training by which this singularity had been produced. He could have shed tears of nervous distraction in his inability to turn his thoughts ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... sure access be given to it. In fine, let places be conceded to the advocates of the new doctrines for the worship of Almighty God in the open day, and in the presence of royal officers; for the voluntary service of the heart, which cannot be constrained, is alone acceptable to heaven. From such toleration, not sedition, but public tranquillity, must necessarily result. And lest the ordinary allegation of the necessary truth of the Papal Church, on account of its antiquity, should be employed to corroborate the existing system of persecution, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... the King, smiling, "that you were so intimately acquainted with the Comte du L——." "You ought to embrace him," said she, "he is very handsome." "I will begin, then, with the young lady," said the King, and embraced them in a cold, constrained manner. I was present, having joined Mademoiselle's governess. I remarked to Madame, in the evening, that the King had not appeared very cordial in his caresses. "That is his way," said she; "but do not those children appear made for each other? If it was Louis XIV., he ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... proceeded with stones, and ended by an appeal to arms; and, after a stout resistance on the part of the Roman people against the German army, the former were obliged to fly, and were almost totally massacred. The remainder, although humbled, and in a wretched condition, were constrained the next day to pass barefooted before the emperor,—the freemen with their swords unsheathed, the slaves with a knot round their necks,—declaring themselves ready to obey him, and asking pardon. What a beautiful contrast between the guardians and defenders of the Roman ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... tell you the buggy was smashed, the girls were thrown out and nearly killed"—He stopped suddenly. The sound of youthful laughter had come from the bottom of the lane, where Susy Peyton and Mary Rogers, just alighted from the coach, in the reaction of their previous constrained attitude, were flying hilariously into view. A slight embarrassment crossed Peyton's face; a still deeper flush of ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... from temptation he was constantly keeping his eyes fixed upon the forbidden fruit, longing for it more and move, and feeling how worthless life would be to him without it. Still, by a mighty effort, he restrained himself from doing or saying aught which could be constrained into expressions of love, and their interviews were much like those which had preceded his last visit to Worcester. People were beginning to talk about him and his beautiful pupil, but leading the isolated life he did, it came not to his ears. Grace indeed, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... for others better qualified than himself to speak. He had waited in vain. Fear, corruption, lack of determination, stifled all attempts at revolt. The soul of Germany was dumb.—Even he, Nicolai, would perhaps have held his peace to the end, constrained to silence by the sentiment of chivalrous loyalty which influences everyone in time of war, had he not been driven to extremities, had he not been brought to bay, by the unknown power. After everything had been taken from him, after he had been despoiled of his honours, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... he had not slept, and now that he was once more housed, an overpowering fatigue constrained him to lie down and close his eyes. Almost immediately lie fell into oblivion, and lay sleeping on the cranky sofa, until the entrance of a ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... But when we find him in private unmasking the artifices of the despots by the most relentless use of frigid criticism, and advocating a mixed government upon the type of the Venetian Constitution, we are constrained to admit with Varchi and Pitti that his support of Alessandro was prompted less by loyalty than by a desire to gratify his own ambition and avarice under the protective shadow of the Medicean tyranny.[6] He belonged in fact to those selfish citizens whom Pitti denounces, diplomatists and men ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... resigning. Davis met this determination with firmness, not to say infatuation, and in spite of the congressional crisis, exhausted every argument to persuade Seddon to remain in office. He denied the right of Congress to control his Cabinet, but he was finally constrained to allow Seddon to retire. The bitterness inspired by these attempts to coerce the President may be gauged by a remark attributed to Mrs. Davis. Speaking of the action of Congress in forcing upon him the new plan for a single ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... meet hers. "I understand," he said in a constrained voice, "that you regard me with sentiments of something ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a celebrated French poet, was constrained to write with rapidity, and to live in the cottage of an obscure village. His bookseller bought his heroic verses for one hundred sols the hundred lines, and the smaller ones for fifty sols. What an interesting picture has a contemporary given ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... assert that we or our soul have such freedom that we can constrain ourselves, or our soul, or even our soul's freedom. (7) For, after it has formed a fictitious idea, and has given its assent thereto, it cannot think or feign it in any other manner, but is constrained by the first fictitious idea to keep all its other thoughts in harmony therewith. (8) Our opponents are thus driven to admit, in support of their fiction, the absurdities which I have just enumerated; and which are not ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... hath she taken possession! but how little satisfaction hath she found in it! What pains to work out her amusement from it! Its dress must be varied; the tinsel ornaments which first caught her eyes produce no longer pleasure; she endeavours to make it stand and walk in vain, and is constrained herself to supply it with conversation. In a day's time it is thrown by and neglected, and some less costly toy preferred to it. How like the situation of this child is that of every man! What difficulties in the pursuit ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... practical student, who desires to learn to read and write Chinese for purely business purposes, will find himself constrained to follow out this analysis, if he wishes to commit to memory a serviceable number of characters. With no other hold upon them beyond their mere outlines, he will find the characters so bewildering, so elusive, as to ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... my intention to accept any remuneration, but the great length of time during which I found it necessary to remain in the Indian Country caused me such losses and so interfered with my business that I am constrained unwillingly to present this account. I leave it to the President or to Congress to fix the sum that shall be paid me...."—Pike to Benjamin, November 25, 1861, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... for darker days were coming, and the shadow of them was "cast before," as the manner is. With every visit of Mr. Copley to the cottage, Dolly grew more uneasy. He was not looking well, nor happy, nor easy; his manner was constrained, his spirits were forced; and for all that appeared, he might suppose that Dolly and her mother could live on air. He gave them nothing else to live on. What did he live on himself, Dolly queried, besides wine? and she made ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... the Danish ships across into Holderness; there he left two Norman leaders, one of them his brother Robert of Mortain and Cornwall; he then went westward and subdued Staffordshire, and marched towards York by way of Nottingham. A constrained delay by the Aire gave him an opportunity for negotiation with the Danish leaders. Osbeorn took bribes to forsake the English cause, and William reached and entered York without resistance. He restored the castles and kept his Christmas in the half-burned ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... be able to live without the costs of making an appearance, to which husbands are constrained, his house, in which since the death of his father nothing had been changed, resembled those of masters who are travelling; he lived there little, never dined, and seldom slept there. Here follows the reason ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in nursing, she was more often alone than she had been the year before. The Keystone people visited the temple rarely. Miss M'Gann seemed always a little constrained, when Alves met her, and Dresser was living on the North Side. One December morning, when Alves was alone, she noticed a carriage coming slowly down the unfinished avenue. It stopped a little distance from the temple, and a woman got out. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the enemy with stones and javelins as they approached, and to make the work of sapping almost impossible. Should the first gate of the fortress yield to the assault, the attacking party would be crowded together in the courtyard as in a pit, few being able to enter together; they would at once be constrained to attack the second gate under a shower of missiles, and did they succeed in carrying that also, it was at the cost of enormous sacrifice. The peoples of the Nile Valley knew nothing of the swing battering-ram, and no representation of the hand-worked battering-ram has ever been found in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... with fits of cowed apathy as we slink into a corner of our cell. Some of us, thank God! feel that we are enclosed on every side by that mighty Hand which none can resist, and from which we would not stray if we could, and we joyfully hide beneath its shelter, and gladly obey when it points. Constrained obedience is no obedience. Unless there be the glad surrender of the will and heart, there is no surrender at all. God does not want compulsory submission. He does not care to rule over people who are only crushed down by greater power. He does not count that those serve who sullenly acquiesce because ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... constrained by the bonds of birth, Held fast by the flesh, compelled by his veins that beat And kindle to rapture or wrath, to desire or to mirth, May hear not surely the fall of immortal feet, May feel not surely if heaven upon earth be sweet; And here is my sense ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... stick had been transformed into a snake by a miracle, naturally I should not believe it; but if I should be asked whether there was not something miraculous in the very existence of a stick or of a snake, I should be constrained to acknowledge ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... yet to learn the uselessness of mere force to compass his ends. "I shall be glad to serve the king of England, with my honour," said the Lord of Buccleugh to an English envoy, "but I will not be constrained thereto if all Teviotdale be burned to ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... the religion of our ancestors, and our necessities are conditions of our life so different from those of that race, so opposite to those of that people, that we are frightened in thinking that we should be constrained to accept a manner of being that is repugnant to our origin, our heart and our feelings. We are a people entirely Spanish, and we were born to a civilized life under a flag that was, and we hope ever will be, that of our wives and children. For four hundred ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... thanked you in an autograph, but there has been a sudden change in the atmosphere, which is dark, heavy and wet, and when there is a defect of light I am almost constrained to dictate ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... stood in their midst, and said peace be unto you." Here we understand this to be the same day of the resurrection. On that same day he travelled with the two disciples to Emans, sixty furlongs (7-1/2 miles), and they constrained him to abide with them, for it was toward evening and the day was far spent. Luke xxiv: 29. After this the disciples travelled the 7-1/2 miles back to Jerusalem and soon after they found the disciples, the Saviour, ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... fascinations. Learning and intellect, riches, popularity, and power, have frequently been made to quail before it; and even virtue itself has for a time been deprived of its influence, when assailed by eloquence. Nay, even in more artificial communities, where Nature has been constrained and moulded anew to suit the tastes and caprices of selfish men, eloquence has still maintained its reputation, and has generally guided the possessor to honour and to power. Amongst the lower and unsophisticated classes of society its influence is almost universal; and in most polished communities, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... not condemning what we have, for I believe that if as many years are spent by as many people in finding or developing a shagbark, we will have one that will surpass the pecan. But as the matter stands I am constrained to say that I do not know of a really good nut today that will stand the test of building an industry that will compete with the pecan. We must find or develop a couple of really good nuts that will compete, nuts that are large, smooth, shell thin enough to crack with ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... thank thee! and, if yet dissent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I cannot censure what was nobly meant. But, while constrained to hold even Union less Than Liberty and Truth and Righteousness, I thank thee in the sweet and holy name Of peace, for wise calm words that put to shame Passion and party. Courage may be shown Not in defiance of the wrong alone; He may ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... hesitate to say that he was the first who carried the art from infancy in which he found it to a condition not far from flourishing adolescence. But, while recognizing his great place in the history of engraving, it is impossible not to see that he is often hard and constrained, if not unfinished. His portrait of ERASMUS is justly famous, and is conspicuous among the prints exhibited in the British Museum. It is dated 1526, two years before the death of Duerer, and has helped to extend the fame of ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... table.... On one occasion, when no one else was in the room, ... I asked my young friend the medium to put her hands against the wall, and see how far she could stretch her feet back from the wall without tumbling down. This she did, and whilst in this constrained position—with the muscles of arms and legs all in tension—I asked for the knocks to come. Immediately a brisk pattering of raps followed my request. All the while the child remained quite motionless. My reason in making this experiment, was to test the late Dr. Carpenter's ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... reaching Europe. You do not seem to be aware that something has happened here during the last four years, something that has made a very painful and lasting impression on the memory of the American people, whose voice on this occasion I have the honor to be. They feel constrained to demand that you shall enter into bonds to keep the peace. They do not, I regret to say, agree with you in looking upon what has happened here of late as only a more emphatic way of settling a Presidential election, the result of which leaves both parties ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... within, she started back with a scream which at once brought Jupp upstairs. Joe the gardener still stopped, however, on the mat below in the passage, as nothing short of a peremptory command from the vicar would have constrained him to put his heavy clod-hopping boots on the soft stair-carpet. Indeed, it had needed all Mary's persuasion to make him come into the hall, which he did as gingerly as a cat treading on ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... poor women if we may not speak. Oho! He is of that sort which may not look at or reply to a woman.' For the lama, constrained by his Rule, took not the faintest notice of her. 'And his ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Sister: I feel constrained in all the tenderness of a sister's love to address thee, though I hardly know what to say, seeing that I stand utterly condemned by the standard which thou hast set up to judge me by—the opinion of my friends. This thou seemest to feel an infallible criterion. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that, "Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in support of that "accusation against our Lord" which he has now been constrained to admit ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Constrained by what appeared to me the Voice of God, I sailed for London in the Kosciusko, an Aberdeen clipper, on the 17th May, 1863. Captain Stuart made the voyage most enjoyable to all. The Rev. Mr. Stafford, friend of the good Bishop Selwyn and tutor to his son, conducted along with ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... there often enough, and yet more together we drew. Then came a change in the man; for a month he kept away, Then came again and was with us for a fortnight every day, But often he sat there silent, which was little his wont with us. And at first I had no inkling of what constrained him thus; I might have thought that he faltered, but now and again there came, When we spoke of the Cause and its doings, a flash of his eager flame, And he seemed himself for a while; then the brightness would fade ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... she said good-bye, he walked to the gate where her car was waiting. They had said but little, for Johnny seemed shy and constrained in her presence. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... reached Moscow, but was constrained to turn southward to the Ukraine, where he hoped to gain the aid of the Cossacks, under their chief, Mazeppa, a bitter enemy of the czar. In this march his men suffered terribly, more than half of them dying from ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris |
