"Suffocate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Whatever is done, it can only be done quickly; for the moss is rising rapidly in the shaft, and even though some of the men are safe in the upper workings, it is only a question of a very short time till the moss will rise and suffocate them, or until the black damp does so. If you have any idea that can help, out with it and let us make a trial, for the ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... universe must not be finished or inclosed. After a rational system had been formulated and declared to be the Whole, his first instinct was to get away from it. He was sure that there must be more outside than there was inside. "The 'through-and-through' universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible, impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity with no possibilities, its relations with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... apologetically, "you acknowledge yourself that you Macleods were a very dreadful lot of people at one time. What a shame it was to track the poor fellow over the snow, and then deliberately to put brushwood in front of the cave, and then suffocate whole two ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... as if his anger must suffocate him. "It is too disgusting, an infernal country like this! one can make neither top nor tail of it. There was Belgium, right under our nose; we were all afraid we should put our foot in it without knowing it; and now that one wants to go there it is somewhere else. No, no! it is too ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... extraordinary uproar, and saw a spectre, which appeared sometimes in the shape of a dog, sometimes in the form of a man, not to one person only, but to several, and caused them great pain, grasping their throats, and compressing their stomachs, so as to suffocate them. It bruised almost the whole body, and reduced them to extreme weakness, so that they ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... air!" exclaimed the prince; "give me air or I suffocate! Where is the child of Annunziata?—I will at least atone to him for the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him; For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must 'a be,— A damned death! Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free, And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate. But Exeter hath given the doom of death For pax of little price. Therefore, go speak; the Duke will hear thy voice; And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut With edge of penny cord and ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... her in his arms and whisper passionate love words in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting, seeming almost to suffocate him. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... said hoarsely, "you would never respect me any more if I took advantage of your tenderness now. As soon—as soon as I really may, I will teach you every shade of love and its meanings. I will kiss those lips and unloosen that hair; I will suffocate you with caresses and make you thrill as I shall thrill until we both forget everything in the intoxication of bliss," and he half-closed his eyes, and his face grew pale again ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... in my first childhood, said one harsh word to me—who have sunk all a father's authority in a father's love,—how can I say all that I feel for you?—the grateful overflowing, (paining, yet—oh, how sweet!) remembrances which crowd around and suffocate me now?—The time will come when Ellinor and Ellinor's children must be all in all to you—when of your poor Madeline nothing will be left but a memory; but they, they will watch on you and tend you, and protect your grey hairs from sorrow, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "and so we are. I've had a sea biscuit and a spoonful of salmon in the last two days. We're on whack. You see, when we discovered the fire, we battened down immediately to suffocate the fire. And then we found how little food there was in the pantry. But it was too late. We didn't dare break out the lazarette. Hungry? I'm just as hungry ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... as if the palpitations of his heart would suffocate him. He swallowed two glasses of water ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... were in vain. For hours he lay there, gasping for breath. Suddenly, when he was about to suffocate, the door was broken open, and he found himself fainting in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... those of a farmhouse in the country. I fancy Antony fled thither for a few moments, from the visitors who weary him; breathing the freshness of that dewy garden in the very midst of Paris. As for me, I suffocate this summer afternoon in this pretty Watteau chamber of ours, where Jean-Baptiste is at work ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... property rights. We see that even to-day men are very tenacious of "property rights," and the law describes them as sacred—however immoral or repugnant to common sense and common humanity they may be. So the effort to abolish the "right" of a slaver to starve, suffocate, mutilate, torture, or murder a black man in whom he had acquired a property right by the simple process of kidnapping required more than half a ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... will make us ridiculous. They'll think Americans don't know anything. There must be some way of dampening the stove; and if there isn't, I'd rather suffocate than give myself away." Mrs. March ran and opened the window, while her husband carefully examined the stove at every point, and explored the pipe for the damper in vain. "Can't you find it?" The night wind came in raw and damp, and threatened to blow their lamp out, and she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "You said nobody can't hear what goes on in this room. These curtains would suffocate a trumpet. Here, you," he cried to the third man, "don't stand shivering like that. Take that carving-knife out of his hand. Pull the ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... me, I wonder? I began this letter with a firm, and, as I thought, inflexible, soul. Despair had made me serene; yet now thy image rises before me with all those bewitching graces which adorned thee when thou wast innocent and a child. All the mother seizes my heart, and my tears suffocate me. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... to bear it. Therefore, the envious enemy, considering that the new prelate {219} and the new man was flourishing with so manifold a grace of virtues, devised to send a burning blight of temptation, which might suffocate the germ of his merits already put forth. Nor was there any delay. He who severs a man from his God, and one friend from his neighbour, sowed irreconcileable quarrels between the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... executioners heaped the fagots around us, placing them at a sufficient distance to insure the prolongation of our sufferings, so that we might die slowly, and afford them ample time to fully enjoy our agonies. The fires were lighted, and the smoke rolled up in volumes, and threatened to suffocate us and put a speedy end to our torments. In a few seconds however, as the wood got fairly blazing, the smoke lifted, and as we began to writhe in agony, a yell of delight went up from more than ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked up shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... an intimidated, defiant, proud smile, when the door had shut on Mr. Gilman, "I am still frightfully angry with you. If we stay here I shall suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other people ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... suffocate!" cried he. "I feel as if this town lay on my chest like a hundred-pound weight, and that I have to conceal myself like a criminal from the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... have flown over my table."—It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, and shocks everybody—and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at himself—whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with his memories?—To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul, and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be great—nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... unpleasant sensation of brawny savages kneeling on us and trussing us up with palm-fibre ropes. Also they thrust handfuls of dry grass into our mouths to prevent us from calling out, although as air came through the interstices of the grass, we did not suffocate. The thing was so well done that we never struck a blow in self-defence, and although we had our pistols at hand, much less could we fire a shot. Of course, we struggled as well as we were able, but it was ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... dazzling, you press my senses even to pain—away—let me take air—let me recover breath: oh let me lay me down beneath some cooling shade, near some refreshing crystal murmuring spring, and fan the gentle air about me. I suffocate, I faint with this close loving, I must allay my joy or be undone—I will read thy cruel letters, or I will think of some sad melancholy hour wherein thou hast dismissed me despairing from thy presence: or while you press me now to be gone with so much earnestness, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... and feet." In other cases poultices of rye bread, oatmeal, curds, etc. are placed over the infants' mouths by the miserable mothers who are obliged to leave them to work in the fields. These poultices frequently choke or suffocate the child. Domestic animals invade the hut, and deprive the infant of even this wretched food. The cries of the child for sustenance produce internal distensions which result in hernia and other disorders of a like nature, which are very common in Russia. We shall see presently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... her stake was set so high, that there might be no chance of a merciful blow, or of strangulation to spare the victim the atrocities of the fire; perhaps, let us hope, it was rather that the ascending smoke might suffocate her before the flame could reach her: the fifteenth century would naturally accept the most cruel explanation. There was a writing set over the little platform which gave footing to the attendants below the stake, upon which were written ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... It looks dingy and dark, doors are small and massive, windows are few and generally closed. This is partly because they are intended to keep out the tropical glare, and partly because the people seem averse to occupying an airy room. A westerner would suffocate in a room in which Hindus would delight to spend a night. It has always been a wonder to the writer that they thrive on so little fresh ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... the skeleton in the sewers." His prediction was quite accurate, for I had to tell him, after not many days, of the potboy who shot at the queen. "It's a great pity," he replied, very sensibly, "they couldn't suffocate that boy, Master Oxford, and say no more about it. To have put him quietly between two feather beds would have stopped his heroic speeches, and dulled the sound of his glory very much. As it is, she will have to run the gauntlet of many a fool and madman, some of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the intoxicating perfume of the flowers. And it seemed to her as if this perfume was none other than the old love-fragrance which had always warmed the room, now increased a hundredfold, till it had become so strong and penetrating that it would surely suffocate her. Perchance it was the breath of the lady who had died there a century ago. In perfect stillness, with her hands clasped over her heart, she continued smiling, while she listened to the whispers of the perfumes in her buzzing head. They were singing to her ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... near and clear that for a moment Stella's heart seemed to stop beating altogether, and she felt as if she would suffocate, and buried her face in her hands, expecting every moment to feel the claws of the terrible animal sink into the flesh ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... the bones of the unfortunate person whom he thus entrapped. He managed to have a small chamber filled with some combustible in the side of the pit, which was to be set on fire, and, on the return of the platform to its place, suffocate his detenu with smoke. Whether he had performed any previous atrocities in this way, or whether the present instance was the commencement of his profession of homicide, is not told. By some means or other, having inveigled a stout countrywoman, coming with her eggs and apples ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... this, strangles its entertainer. Let. xv. A contest for air and light obtains throughout the whole vegetable world; shrubs rise above herbs; and, by precluding the air and light from them, injure or destroy them; trees suffocate or incommode shrubs; the parasite climbing plants, as Ivy, Clematis, incommode the taller trees; and other parasites, which exist without having roots on the ground, as Misletoe, Tillandsia, Epidendrum, and the mosses ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... said, trembling at the idea that he would suffocate again and be unable to speak; and he resolved to begin his confession at the other end, first going over the minor sins, keeping the great ones for the end so as to finish with the avowal of his carnal ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... comin', the storm struck, hurled me to the ground, an' rolled me over an' over in the snow. I wasn't hurt, of course, but it took me so long to get my breath that I thought it was never goin' to come, an' that I should suffocate. But after that first burst, the blizzard settled down to the regular variety, an' we all felt more at home. But even at that, it was the worst one I ever saw in the North, an' I've been ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... haue generally seene to beare the best Hoppes, and whose natures doe the longest continue with such fruit, are those mixt earthes which are clayes with clayes, as blacke with white, or clayes and sands of any sorts, wherein the soyle is so corrected as neither too much fatnesse doth suffocate, nor too much leannesse doth pine: for I had euer rather haue my Hoppe-garden desire increase, then continually labour in abatement. And although some doe exceedingly condemne the chauke-ground for this vse, yet I haue not at any time seene better ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... and scientific men, can be so barbarous as to invent such grotesque names as these is surprizing, or why Apicius should be remembered for having been the first to teach mankind how to suffocate fish in Carthaginian pickle; or Quin, for having discovered a sauce for John Dories; or Mrs. Glasse, for an eel pie; or M. Soyer, celebrated for depriving barbel of their sight, in order to make ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... mine does," he said with a sigh, laying her little hand on his heart. He could do so in all confidence, for its spasmodic throbbing threatened to suffocate him. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... up to her room, and alone there, it seemed for a few moments as if she must suffocate. She put the letter on her desk, where its folded sheets instantly looked hideously familiar. She went into the bathroom, and found herself holding her fingers under the hot-water tap, vaguely waiting for hot water. Like a hunted creature she went through the luxurious ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... white walls, and the grim grating of the massive door. He was too sensible to feel any sense of disgrace in being thus wrongfully imprisoned; but the horror of the situation remained, and it seemed as though he should suffocate behind those bars if not ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... down upon my knees helping to extricate him from the position in which he lay, with one arm still bound to his side, and the dark cloth garment from which Tom had shaken the gold bound round and round his head and face, effectually gagging him; and if the intention of his captors had been to suffocate him, they ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... exceed the rage of Don Silvio at the protracted resistance of the party, and the security of their retreat. To get at them was impossible, so he determined to set fire to the room, and suffocate them, if he could do no otherwise. He gave his directions to his men, who rushed down for straw, but in so doing he carelessly passed under the trap-door, and Mesty, who had carried up with him two or ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in New York and it should begin to suffocate me I would run and run across the continent and never stop once until I landed on the ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... warning, and ere they realized their danger a dozen of them were struggling up to their arm-pits in the sea of fine ever-shifting sand that seemed kept in constant motion by some unknown natural cause. With each movement they sank deeper, until, fearing that the sandy quagmire would envelop and suffocate them, they cried aloud for assistance. Help was ready at hand, for the remainder of our followers ran forward, and stretching forth ropes of monkey-creeper were enabled to drag out their intrepid ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... 'it would fill in a moment and suffocate you. I see nothing for it, Peterkin, if you really can't keep your breath so long, but to let me knock you down, and carry you out while in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... vain were more men thrust in to take the place of those slain; the advantages of position were too great, and they were obliged at length to desist. But Genghis was not to be balked of his victims, and his devilish cunning suggested the expedient of lighting straw at the mouth of the cave to suffocate those inside, but the size of the place prevented his plan from taking effect; so he at last commanded a large fragment of rock to be rolled to the mouth of the cavern, adding another as a support, and having thus effectually barred their exit, he cruelly abandoned them to their ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... She lacked the strength to rise. Her hands were pressed upon her heart. She thought its beating would suffocate her. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... and Time wears even that. To write on skins or papyrus was to give, as it were, but one tardy edition, and the rich only could procure it. The Chinese stereotyped not only the unchanging wisdom of old sages, but also the passing events. The process tended to suffocate thought, and to hinder progress; for there is continual wandering in the wisest minds, and Truth writes her last words, not on clean tablets, but on the scrawl that Error has made ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Hence ambition, love of honour, avarice. These were necessary to raise mankind from the savage to the civilised state. But for these antisocial propensities men would be gentle as sheep, and "an Arcadian life would arise, of perfect harmony and mutual love, such as must suffocate and stifle all talents in their very germs." Nature, knowing better than man what is good for the species, ordains discord. She is to be thanked for competition and enmity, and for the thirst of power and wealth. For without ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... placed on board of each, and it being so cold we were forced to go below in the "hold," leaving only a little trap door of four feet square as our only means of ventilation. Down in the hold, where these two hundred men were packed like sardines in a box, caused us to almost suffocate, while to remain on deck five minutes would be to court death by freezing. Thus one would go up the little ladder, stick his head through the door a moment for a breath of fresh air, then drop back and allow another the pleasure of a fresh breathing ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... about so slowly that the organ-man growled at him and struck the organ again. Then the dancer moved faster; but the ears did not fly and every motion was a jerk. Nevertheless, the princess's heart had now begun to suffocate her. She recalled Gabriel's story of washing off the brown color from the dingy fur in the brook, and her eyes swam with tears at the mere possibility that this might be the object of her search. She had just sense enough to keep still and leave everything to Gabriel. Here, ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... "This subject's too much for me. Let's go out—somewhere, anywhere—to a concert. Music hath its charms to soothe a savage breast, and my breast is simply the very essence of wildness to-night. Put on your things, Bess, and hurry, or I'll suffocate." ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... young and took those trips to Cowichan. It is pretty hard to go!" I fully agreed with him then, but when later he got so bad and suffered so much, he prayed to go, and I again agreed with him, poor fellow. This latter time was when to speak made him cough and suffocate. "Old man, I cannot talk to you," and he would lie back in an exhausted state, and I would go, sorry that I was unable to do anything to relieve him, to slightly repay all his kindness to me in ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... until we emerged into daylight by a large iron trap-door, pierced with innumerable small holes, the object of which, as well as of a groove in the rock communicating with the subterranean passage, was to enable the garrison, by filling the passage with smoke and flame, to suffocate and blind the besiegers should they ever succeed by any accident in penetrating thus far—in itself, as it seemed to me, a very improbable contingency. We clambered up the face of the rock to its summit, whence we had an extensive view of the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed, Or stand lamenting that the self lies there Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames, Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined On the smooth oblong of an icy slab, Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... useless in a work of precision. And yet the disk to be cut out must have a fixed diameter: if it were too large, it would not go in; if too small, it would close badly, it would slip down on the honey and suffocate the egg. How shall it be given its correct dimensions without a pattern? The Bee does not hesitate for a moment. She cuts out her disk with the same celerity which she would display in detaching any shapeless lobe that might do for a stopper; and that ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... the night passed without anything unusual happening. Once the wind veered around a little, threatening to suffocate them with smoke from the camp-fire, but by the time they prepared to vacate the shelter the wind veered back to where it had first come from and gave them ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... come to our ears that numbers of both sexes do not avoid to have intercourse with demons, Incubi and Succubi; and that by their sorceries, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurations, they suffocate, extinguish, and cause to perish the births of women, the increase of animals, the corn of the ground, the grapes of the vineyard and the fruit of the trees, as well as men, women, flocks, herds, and other various kinds of animals, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... knew better than to make a false move from too great haste, and swam round cautiously, seeking for a place to board. The heat from that floating mass of belching flame was terrific, and more than once, as a gust brought down a cloud of fumes over him, the boy thought he would suffocate. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the seaman put in a hint that determined it. "First," says he, "the weather is very hot; and therefore I am for traveling north, that we may not have the sun upon our faces, and beating upon our breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I have been told," says he, "that it is not good to overheat our blood at a time when, for aught we know, the infection may be in the very air. In the next place," says he, "I am for going the way that may be contrary to the wind as it may blow when we set out, that we may not have ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... sea-shell magnified. Breathing through the handkerchief Hare avoided inhaling the sand which beat against his face, but the finer dust particles filtered through and stifled him. At first he felt that he would suffocate, and he coughed and gasped; but presently, when the thicker sand-clouds had passed, he managed to get air enough to breathe. Then he waited patiently while the steady seeping rustle swept by, and the band of his hat sagged heavier, and the load on his shoulders had to be continually ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... crossing the bed of coals before the rocks became so heated that they would burn his feet. So he leaped to the first rock and from there began jumping from one to the other in quick succession. A withering wave of heat at once enveloped him, and for a time he feared he would suffocate before he could cross the cavern; but he held his breath, to keep the hot air from his lungs, and maintained ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... way up the beach. The respirator about my mouth, charged with some chemical substance I did not know the use of, permitted me to breathe at first with some ease. And what was more extraordinary was this, that while in the woods the fog had seemed to suffocate me, here it was exhilarating; bracing a man's steps so that he seemed to walk on air; exalting him so that his mind was on fire and his head full of the wildest notions. No coward that ever lived would have known a moment's ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... sensation of suffocation; my boots hurt my feet, and the blister I had made upon my heel smarted, and all at once the pony, as it stood at the half-way house door, kicked out at me, just as I was beginning to suffocate; and this broke the rope, and I shot up to ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... alone till he gets better. But if the sorcerers foretell that the sick man is to die, the friends send for certain judges of theirs to put to death him who has thus been condemned by the sorcerers to die. These men come, and lay so many clothes upon the sick man's mouth that they suffocate him. And when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man's kin, and eat him. And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... because recipient subjects turn all things that inflow into such things as are in agreement with their own forms, just as the white light of the sun is turned into ugly colors or into black in those objects whose substances are interiorly of such a form as to suffocate and extinguish the light, and as stagnant ponds, dung-hills, and dead bodies turn the heat of the sun into stenches. From all this it can be seen that even evil uses are from the spiritual sun, but that good uses ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... annoying Shes with our cheroots, And being badged as "brutes"? If a poor fellow may not snatch a whiff (Without the feminine sniff) Upon the "Bus-roof," where in thunder's name Shall he draw that same! The ladies, climb, sit, suffocate, and scoff, Declare they are "smoked off," Is there no room inside? If smoke means Hades, We, "to oblige the ladies," Have taken outside seats this many a year, Cold, but with weeds to cheer Our macintosh-enswathed umbrella'd bodies; Now we are called ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... one. Von Bloom cast his eyes up to the roof—a sloping structure with long eaves. It consisted of heavy beams of dry wood with rafters and laths, and all covered over with a thatch of rushes, a foot in thickness. It would make a tremendous blaze, and the smoke would be likely enough to suffocate the lion even before the blaze ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... like a stab; for the ball pierced the left lung, broke a rib, and did no end of damage here and there; so the poor lad can find neither forgetfulness nor ease, because he must lie on his wounded back or suffocate. It will be a hard struggle, and a long one, for he possesses great vitality; but even his temperate life can't save him; I ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... responsive script became ludicrously unsteady. A scientific superstition existed regarding carbonic acid as being good for a plant. But Professor Bose's experiments showed distinctly that the gas would suffocate the plant as readily as it did the animal. Only in the presence of sunlight could the effect be ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... sometimes it can't get any further, and you have gently to crack the hole bigger. Unless you're very careful you may kill it, but on the other hand, if it can't burst its shell when it's ready to hatch, it may suffocate, so it's a choice of evils. We put them in the drying pen first, and then in the 'foster mother.' They're like babies, and have to be fed every two hours. It's a tremendous business when you have hundreds of them, at different stages and on different ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... cried the doctor, when he saw what I had done. "Do you wish to suffocate us? That will let the air out perfectly, but how are you going to close it ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... universe," Tiberius is reported to have muttered, as he gazed at his nephew Caius, nicknamed Caligula, who was to suffocate him with a mattress and ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... knew nothing about? A large order. Rachel's tongue began to wag in her mind. Stand up and make a speech. Fling her arms about. High-sailing words. Absurd! A laugh would answer. Laughs always answered. Rachel laughed. She would suffocate among such people, exasperating strangers with inquisitive faces ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... the town towards the evening of the next day. She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We were not hungry, but we sat ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bitterness of gall was not so choaking as the recollection of him. The sight or sound of his name excited disgust too intense to be dwelt upon! To suffocate him as a monster, or a sooterkin, seemed the only punishment of which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... be very much frightened, but mamma was calm now, and Willie was brave and hopeful. They all dressed, and Willie started the fire. The smoke refused to rise, but puffed out into the room, and Mrs. Barnes knew that if the chimney were closed they would probably suffocate, if they did not ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... because it was somewhere within those walls that Mr. Hampton was held prisoner. Soon, if all went well, Jack would be making his way within in search of his father. At the thought, his heart which heretofore had been calm enough, began to beat rapidly and for a moment he felt as if he were about to suffocate. His breath almost failed him. It was a not unnatural feeling, and soon passed, but Bob noting the labored breathing climbed from the airplane and put an arm over ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... should be in heavenly joy. For it does not matter whether their joy is that of the angels of the highest heaven or of the lowest heaven, for everyone entering heaven comes into the highest joy of his own heart; joy higher still he does not endure; he would suffocate in it. ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the desert "made straight the way of the Lord" and purged men of the grossest errors. And thus a method which gives internal equilibrium and disperses the grossest errors which suffocate the spiritual energies, makes ready for the reception of truth and the recognition of the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... and the next were passed in further welcome, but when Henry sought the blankets the third night he became conscious that the first flush of the return was over. The weather had turned very hot—it was now July—and the walls and ceiling of the room seemed to press upon him and suffocate him. He drew deep and long breaths, but there was not air enough to fill a chest that had long been used to the illimitable outside. It was very still in the room. He longed to hear the boughs of trees waving ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... round the table felt it grow very warm, and they thought this was because of their good fare; but when the heat became still greater and they wanted to go out, but found the doors and windows fastened, then they knew that the King meant them harm and was trying to suffocate them. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the house early in the afternoon. Unable to go to the Hill of the Muses, or up the river-road, she had taken a long, roundabout path around the outskirts of the village and so reached the hills back of the vineyard. The air of the valley seemed to suffocate her; she longed to climb to the silent places, where the four winds of ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... "Right after supper last night. I thought I was going to suffocate. Got up and walked the streets all night. My ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... smell of paraffin in hell, enough to suffocate one. And suddenly it all vanished. Fyodor opened his eyes and saw his table, the boots, and the tin lamp. The lamp-glass was black, and from the faint light on the wick came clouds of stinking smoke as from a chimney. Near ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... common chimney-sweeper got in! I assure you it's enough to frighten one to death, for every time he moves the soot smells so you can't think; quite real soot, I assure you! only conceive how nasty! I declare I wish with all my heart it would suffocate him!" ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... after I had been a few hours on the road, the wind began to blow directly in my face, and soon enveloped me in a cloud of sand from which there seemed no escape, and which threatened actually to suffocate me. To avoid this I left the highway, but keeping what I supposed to be in the general direction of the road, I struck out into the adjacent fields. There was nothing for a considerable distance to repay ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the bed—all the curtains being pulled back; I allowed him to remain there but a few moments, and hurried him into the cabinet, which was deserted just then. The windows were open, he leaned upon the iron balustrade, and his tears increased so much that I feared lest they should suffocate him. When this attack had a little subsided, he began to talk of the misfortunes of this world, and of the short duration of its most agreeable pleasures. I urged the occasion to say to him everything God gave me the power to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... wild leap which seemed almost to suffocate her; she looked up into his face with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Similar causes contributed to the final wreck of Charles. The thought of a Restoration was his Chancery suit. A letter of November 1753, written by the Prince in French, is a mere hysterical outcry of impatience. 'I suffocate!' he exclaims, as if in a fever of unrest. He had indulged in hopes from France, from Spain, from Prussia, from a Highland rising, from a London conspiracy. Every hope had deceived him, every Prince ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... question, indeed, after trying to suffocate me, but it was never answered. The air was on a sudden filled with the weirdest row I had ever heard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their shrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, and this ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the oars, his long boating practice now standing him in good stead. The fumes from the burning oil were almost unbearable, threatening to suffocate the occupants of the yawl. Thirty yards away was the shore. The muscles in Shawn's arms were straining to their utmost. The heavily laden ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... for us that assistance arrived, for human endurance could go no farther. We felt as though about to suffocate, and should have fallen upon the bodies of those whom we were attempting to save had not the inspector and one of his men carried us forcibly from the room to the open air, where we quickly received aid by the influence of a bottle containing a quantity ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... gap would avail them nothing: it was an impossible task now. The construction of the great shell had been a different matter; there was some natural atmosphere remaining in those days. And, finally, they would suffocate, every last one of them. They'd die miserably, purple of face and with ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... he only kissed her, his smiling deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be his slave, she knew. And he seemed to throw her down and suffocate her like a wave. And she could have fought, if only the sense of his dark, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she was suffocated in ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... are the largest and most numerous we have ever met, are bred in the intermediate swamps, which exist only through the negligence of the neighboring villagers. At night smoldering fires, which half suffocate the human inmates, are built before the doors and windows to keep out the intruding insects. All travelers wear gloves, and a huge hood covering the head and face up to the eyes, and in their hands carry a horse-tail switch to lash back and forth over their shoulders. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... cross to mark their resting place. It was a place well calculated to bring up thoughts of death, but Wunpost faced the coming day calmly. At the first flush of dawn the sand was still hot from the sun of the evening before; the low air seemed to suffocate him with its below-sea-level pressure, and the salt marshes to give off stinking gases; it was a hell-hole, even then, and the day was yet to come, when the Valley would make life ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... favour. The Valiant man of war, on its return from the Havannah, was so shockingly infested with them, that they destroyed a hundred weight of biscuit daily. The ship was smoked between decks in order to suffocate them, which had the desired effect. In proof of this, he says, that six hampers were for some time filled every ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... stand in the column. A long correspondence on Commercial Policy, Taxation, Finance, and Currency—we leave to the capitalist, the "parliament man," and other disciples of Adam Smith; whilst our eye descends to the right-hand corner, where is recorded the horrible fact of a mother attempting to suffocate her infant at her breast! Humanity sickens at such a pitch of savage crime in the centre of the most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... it? My friend, so short a time thou'rt missing, And hast unlearned thy kissing? Why is my heart so anxious, on thy breast? Where once a heaven thy glances did create me, A heaven thy loving words expressed, And thou didst kiss, as thou wouldst suffocate me— Kiss ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... inevitable end. And it was this fear which, at rare intervals, broke the taciturn dejection in which he was sunk, by giving rise to appalling fits of violence. But after a scene of this kind, he would half suffocate her with remorse. And this, perhaps, worked destruction most surely of all: the knowledge that, despite the ungovernable aversion she felt for him, she could still tolerate his endearments. Not once, as long as they had been together, had she ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... young oak tree, where the path wound round to the rosery and summer-house. Something shot down and clawed Mr. Bosengate's neck. His little daughter began to hop and suffocate with laughter. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... up to the surface and inhaled it through curious little tubes developed for this purpose, oddly enough from their tail-ends. If some kind of film could be spread over the surface of the water, through which the larvae could not obtain air, they would suffocate. The well-known property of oil in "scumming over" water was recalled, two or three stagnant pools were treated with it, and to the delight of the experimenters, not a single larva was able to develop under the circumstances. ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Adele, who occupied the same curtained recess with her, to slip out from the awning. Wrapped in a thick shawl, she made her way through the encompassing trees and bushes of the garden that had seemed to imprison and suffocate her, to the edge of the grain-field, where she could breathe the fresh air beneath an open, starlit sky. There was no moon and the darkness favored her; she had no fears that weighed against the horror ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itself more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres of willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eye could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously somehow ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... times that our position here was neither of the safest nor of the most comfortable, and that it was therefore high time to abandon it. I had ceased to think of the insecurity of the ground we trod, and scarcely noticed the mighty clouds of hot vapour which frequently surrounded and threatened to suffocate us, obliging us to step suddenly back with wetted faces. It was fortunate that these waters contain but a very small quantity of brimstone, otherwise we could scarcely have long ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... heats an' prickly pains, Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree Along o' me like most folks,—Mister Me. Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,— I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks together, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... to just think about our getting out," Tom said, in his usual dull manner. "We won't suffocate near so soon if we don't think about it, and don't get rattled. We got to get out and so we will get out. Let's ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... pistols, and several loaded guns, with a chest of fire-arms at the side of his bed. He formed a conspiracy to murder his father. He was arrested and imprisoned. Choking with rage, he called for a fire, and threw himself into the flames, hoping to suffocate himself. Being rescued, he attempted to starve himself. Failing in this, he tried to choke himself by swallowing a diamond. He threw off his clothes, and went naked and barefoot on the stone floor, hoping to engender some fatal disease. For eleven days he took no food but ice. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... building, as if indeed the judges feared some sudden invasion of bomb-laden Anarchists. Each door and barrier, too, was guarded by soldiers, with whom the brothers had to parley. When they at last entered the Assize Court they found it already crowded with people, who were apparently quite willing to suffocate there for an hour before the arrival of the judges, and to remain motionless for some seven or eight hours afterwards, since it was reported that the authorities wished to get the case over in a single sitting. In the small space allotted to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... by the bonds of moral life from doing them, and from thus manifesting the tendencies of his depraved will. Who cannot see that the Lord cannot flow in out of heaven into man and teach him and lead him until these evils have been removed? For they obstruct, repel, pervert, and suffocate the truths and goods of heaven, which present themselves from above, press down, and strive to flow in. For evils are infernal and goods are heavenly, and everything infernal burns with hatred ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... quivering tracks of a myriad running insects over his hot, wet, highly-sensitized body. His nerves were trembling, one and all, with outrage and vivid suspense. It became unbearable. He felt that, if he endured it another moment, he would cry out, or suffocate and burst. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... in each other's arms; then Ludowika stepped back with her cloak sliding from her shoulders. She rested against precarious steps leading aloft through a square opening in the ceiling. "For storage," he said again. He thought his throat had closed, and that he must suffocate. A mechanical impulse to show her what was above set his foot upon the lower step, and he caught her waist. "You see," he muttered; "things for the store ... the men, wool stockings, handkerchiefs ... against their pay." The drumming rain ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... negation that she found herself panting as she sat among her women; or when from her throned seat at table she saw his pale profile burn like a silver coin in the dusk, the pain of her heart's beating well-nigh made her suffocate. Her troubles came to be day-long; he haunted her by night. When she began to ask the Virgin Mary how long she could endure, it was the signal to herself that she could endure no more. She sent for him then, and implored ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... when I git a chance, to walk Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree Along o' me like most folks,—Mister Me. Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,— I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the arm-chair, and smoking one of those infamous cigars that nearly suffocate me, just for company, and I was composing in my mind a letter to the authorities of the University, requesting that I might begin to lecture again. I did not find out until later that I need not have written to them at all when I went away, as ten days are always allowed at Easter, in ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... the advantage of the man on board a warship. He, at least, could go down with a last look at the world about him. Below, nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard. If the submarine went down, all would suffocate in the ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... motion, the air becomes resistive; and were it possible for a man to move with the swiftness of a swallow, as he is not provided with an internal construction similar to that of birds, the resistance of the air would soon suffocate him. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... rods and ropes had all undergone a 'preparation' and in a very short space of time the patients felt the magnetic influence. The women, being the most easily affected, were almost at once seized with fits of yawning and stretching; their eyes closed, their legs gave way and they seemed to suffocate. In vain did musical glasses and harmonicas resound, the piano and voices re-echo; these supposed aids only seemed to increase the patients' convulsive movements. Sardonic laughter, piteous moans and torrents ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... carried off their caps and gloves, and made their way under the covering. They nosed the noses of the sleepers to find out whether they were dead or living, and attempted to nibble at any who held their breath. As the female sea-lions and sea-bears often suffocate their young during sleep, the foxes every morning made an inspection of the place where these animals lie down in immense herds, and if they found a dead young one they immediately helped each other, like good ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... his griefe, he was contented a long time to shew a counterfaict ioy, which raised vnto him a liuely spring of sorowes and displeasures, which ordinarily did frette and boyle his minde so muche: as the force of his weping for vaine hope, was able to suffocate the remnant of life, that rested in his tormented hart, which caused certaine litle brokes of teares to streame downe, assailing the minde of this foolishe Louer. This faire and chaste Ladie was so resolued ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... separately and with interest of all the rest of the family; but her surprise to see me now, by this most un expected journey, when she had concluded me inevitably shut up from her sight for the remainder of her life, joined to the natural warmth of her disposition, seemed almost to suffocate her. I was very sorry to leave her, but my time was unavoidably short and hurried. I inquired after Chesington, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... found guilty and hanged at Edinburgh on the 28th of January 1829. Hare found it impossible, in view of the strong popular feeling, to remain in Scotland. He is believed to have died in England under an assumed name. From Burke's method of killing his victims has come the verb "to burke," meaning to suffocate, strangle or suppress secretly, or to kill with the object of selling the body ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... he walked unheeding. If he spent the whole night on the ramparts, there was no one to know or care. It was better than tossing sleepless under a roof. He felt as if a roof would suffocate him. But sheer physical weariness began to oppress even his elastic frame at last. He awoke to the fact that he ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... cards, for a while, at the same table as Penton, and saw him smirk down upon his guests as no one, surely, but W. W. Penton ever smirked. Evan felt that he would suffocate unless he got away from that table. He wished he could stand on a chair and reveal the character of the manager as he knew it—but a smile from Mrs. Penton reached him, and he filled with pity for her. He knew that a revelation of Penton's ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... against her father for the prohibition that raised a barrier between herself and Bryant Clinton. One moment she resolved to rush down stairs and give utterance to the vehement anger that threatened to suffocate her by repression; the next, the image of a stern, rebuking father, inflexible in his will, checked her rash design. Had she been in his presence and heard the interdiction repeated, her resentful feelings would have burst forth; but, daring ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz |
