"Constrained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that we cannot altogether pass over them; though a hint or two with regard to the mode of learning their declension is all that we can here afford to give. We are constrained now and then to leave out a good deal of valuable matter, for the reason that induced the Dublin manager to omit the part of Hamlet in the play of that name— the ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... something will escape, something will defy their most careful examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and excites ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... And when he and Dorothy met, he bowed low before her, and she courtesied and he bade her good-day quite clearly, and she murmured a response with pretty, prim lips; and they would have passed on had not both, as if constrained by hands of force upon their necks, raised their faces and looked of a sudden into each other eyes with that same old look which they had exchanged in the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said in her cold constrained way. "It is very princely of you, and yet it does not touch me in the least. You made the bargain with your eyes open; I told you at the time that I could never care for you; that I sold myself to save my father's good name. I know the situation is not a new one; I know that such marriages, strange ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... Duty and inclination constrained me to find out what were the states and moods of all the bays and coves of all the isles; the location and form of rocks and reefs; the character of shrubs and trees; the nature of the jungle-covered hilltops; the features ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... through prayers, where it was her principal business to conceal the pink stockings from the eyes of the indifferent Mrs. Hob—and all through supper, as she made a feint of eating and sat at the table radiant and constrained—and again when she had left them and come into her chamber, and was alone with her sleeping niece, and could at last lay aside the armour of society—the same words sounded within her, the same ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... competency or affluence by your Faradays, Liebigs, and Herschels, with the expected results of a life of successful commercial enterprise: then compare the amount of mind put forth, the work done for society in either case, and you will be constrained to allow that the former belong to a class of workers who, properly speaking, are not paid, and cannot be paid for their work, as indeed it is of a sort to which ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... that I am deceived by these professions—if you could have done better for yourself elsewhere, you would not have returned to Berlin; that not being the case, you creep back, and vow that love alone has constrained you. Look you, Pollnitz, I know you, I know you fully. You can never deceive me; and, most assuredly, I would not receive you again into my service, if I did not look upon you as an old inventory of my house, an inheritance from my grandfather Frederick. I receive you, therefore, out of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... should not want to eat a great deal. The result was that with happiness and stomach ache I could not sleep, and before morning was going out to vomit. Even at the danger of seeming not to appreciate Emuk's hospitality, I was constrained to ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... inflict penal imprisonment as we know it at all. Some criminals belong in hospitals, others in insane asylums, for others the thoughtless neglect and selfishness of society is responsible, and they should be succored, not punished; and the remainder should be constrained, under surveillance but not in confinement, to compensate for the harm they did by labor or self-denial aimed directly at that result. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... different ways of suddenly surrounding him without his suspecting it: they tormented him with deceptive or terrifying dreams; they harassed him with apparitions and mysterious voices; they gave him as a prey to sicknesses, to wandering spectres, who entered into him and slowly consumed him. They constrained, even at a distance, the wills of men; they caused women to be the victims of infatuations, to forsake those they had loved, and to love those they had previously detested. In order to compose an irresistible charm, they merely required a little blood ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... here, in the happy time of our childhood, an old schoolmaster, whose creed was that all faults could be whipped out of, and all virtues be whipped into, the children under his care. So he felt himself constrained to whip a great deal either for one thing or the other, and very often for both at once. Andrew's turn came one day, and the master applied his well-meant rule so heartily that poor, thin Andrew screamed with pain. At this moment my little ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... addressed the stranger in a manly, business-like way—a transition which, though it might seem a little abrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his recent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the frolic condescension ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... sickness except once when that little scoundrel Speug, or rather he should say Sir Peter McGuffie, consulting physician, brought his master through triumphantly with a trifle of assistance from himself as a general practitioner. Was it old age that ailed Bulldog? Then Bailie MacConachie was constrained to testify in public places, and was supported by all the other Bailies except MacFarlane, who got his education at Drumtochty that the mathematical master of Muirtown Academy had thrashed them all as boys, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... had told her to take her time in the matter of repayment, and she had taken it in generous measure. Not a fraction of the three hundred rupees had been repaid as yet; and, by way of atonement, Evelyn felt constrained to a more decisive friendliness with both brother and sister—a fact which Owen Kresney noted with satisfaction; and which did not improve matters between herself ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... were foreign to his disposition; their strict ceremonial cramped the play of his mind. Hemmed in, as by invisible fences, among the intricate barriers of etiquette, so feeble, so inviolable, he felt constrained and helpless; alternately chagrined and indignant. It was the giant among pigmies; Gulliver, in Lilliput, tied down by a thousand packthreads. But there were more congenial minds, with whom he could associate; more familiar scenes, in which he found the pleasures he was seeking. ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... been publickly acted, which (as wee thought) would well have fitted the day, by reason of the murder of Innocent Itis. But the carpenters being no way ready with the stage, or scaffolds (whereof notwithstanding some were made before Christmas), wee were constrained to deferre it till the nexte day, which was the 29th ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... know it's bad; but we've always had it so, and I won't have it abused. Let's go into the dining-room, anyway. We'll sit in there after this. We've always been stiff and constrained ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... mental attitude might have been expressed by a note of exclamation, set ironically, Mahony felt constrained to second Turnham's enthusiasm. And it was indeed a lovely picture: the gracious, golden-haired woman, whose figure had the amplitude, her gestures the almost sensual languor of the young nursing mother; the two children fawning at her knee, both ash-blond, with vivid scarlet lips.—"It helps one," ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... about myself. If I knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest, and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... at her quite blandly for a moment, then, to her amazement, he laughed—such a clear, untroubled, boyish laugh that her constrained expression softened ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... it was all that that had moved the Master of the feast to send for you and to compel you to come here. There was nothing in your mind and in your mouth more all this day than just that this is the Lord's Supper, and that He had sent for you and had invited you, and had constrained and compelled you to come and partake of it. It was the Lord's Table to-day, and it will be still and still more His table on that great Communion-Day when all our earthly communions shall be accomplished and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... this, Byron had been constrained by one of the commercial exigencies which constantly embarrassed the military action of British admirals. A large convoy of trading ships, bound to England, was collecting at St. Kitts, and he thought necessary to accompany it part of ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... being invaded and their liberty of action and of speech unwarrantably restrained continues likewise to grow. Much of the attack on the use of the process of injunction is wholly without warrant; but I am constrained to express the belief that for some of it there is warrant. This question is becoming more and more one of prime importance, and unless the courts will themselves deal with it in effective manner, it is certain ultimately to demand some form of legislative action. It would be most unfortunate for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... were struck, while others died from the effect of the concussion on their brains. At a still later period he was anxious to fortify some sort of garrison outpost in the pass of Celusa, (11) but upon offering sacrifice the victims proved lobeless, (12) and he was constrained to lead back and disband his army—not without serious injury inflicted on the Argives, as the result of an invasion which had taken ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... Wartburg, this stronghold of free inquiry and free opinion! As in this sacred spot 360 years ago Martin Luther, by his reform of the Church in its head and members, introduced a new era in the history of civilization, so in our days has Charles Darwin, by his reform of the doctrine of development, constrained the whole perception, thought, and volition of mankind into new and higher courses. It is true that personally, both in his character and influence, Darwin has more affinity to the meek and mild Melanchthon than to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... war-poetry of 1914-17 was, even in the most skilful hands, poetry on a small scale. The two greatest of the primal species of verse, the Epic and the Ode, were entirely neglected, except, as will later be observed, in one notable instance by Major Maurice Baring. As a rule, the poets constrained themselves to observe the discipline of a rather confined lyrical analysis in forms of the simplest character. Although particular examples showed a rare felicity of touch, and although the sincerity of the reflection in many cases hit upon very happy forms of expression, it is impossible ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... for peace in the midst of commotion: Hear only what you will to hear.' With this terse counsel he quietly bade the astonished listener adieu. After his visitor had departed, the nervous man felt unaccountably calm, and was constrained to meditate upon his friend's advice, and no sooner did he seek to put it into practical use than he learned for the first time that it was his rightful prerogative to use unseen ear protectors as well as to employ his ears. Six or seven weeks elapsed before he saw his mysterious visitor ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... up!" growled Brady, throwing him away with his foot; but as the cat's demands became more and more insistent the barkeeper was at last constrained ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... arose. Teacher Talmage earnestly exhorted to harmony. Even serious differences, which looked beyond healing, were removed, because men felt constrained to ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... stubborn offender out of meeting; and they had full authority soundly to thrash the "wretched boy" on the horse-block. Rev. Dr. Dakin tells the story that, hearing a terrible noise and disturbance while he was praying in a church in Quincy, he felt constrained to open his eyes to ascertain the cause thereof; and he beheld a red-haired boy firmly clutching the railing on the front edge of the gallery, while a venerable deacon as firmly clutched the boy. The young ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted at the time of independence from the UK in 1979. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. The economy has fluctuated widely in recent years. Economic development is constrained by a shortage of skilled workers, weak infrastructure, and remoteness from international markets. Tourism provides more than one-fifth of GDP. The financial sector is at an early stage of development as is the expansion of private sector initiatives. Foreign ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in what resembled indignant surprise, and her tones grew a little cold and constrained as she again ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... and turned to hurry away, with Joe close after him. They disappeared in the darkness. A constrained silence was maintained around the camp-fire for a while. Presently some of the men walked off and others began to converse. Everybody heard the sound of hoofs passing down the trail. The patter ceased, and in a few moments Lake returned. He ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories was my mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and, though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained to exclaim at ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... population has not a single trait in common. They were exceedingly respectful,—more so than a rustic New-Englander ever dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had they worn any hats, they would probably have been self-constrained to take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had the remotest comprehension ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Guy's invariable gentleness and kindness to himself, his devotion in sickness and in the trials of the desert, his obvious aversion to do harm to any one, and, above all, his heartfelt objection to shedding human blood, Granville was constrained to believe his newly found half-brother, if ever he committed the murder at all, must have committed it while in a state of unsound mind, deserving rather of pity than of moral reprehension. He comforted himself, indeed, with this ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the consultation was finished; the judges resumed their seats, and Maqueda held up her hand. Thereon an intense silence fell upon the place. Then she began to speak in a cold, constrained voice: ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... representing the less interesting and more mechanical passages by a condensed prose outline, in which it has been sought as far as possible to preserve the very words of the poet. While deprecating a too critical judgement on the bare and constrained precis standing in such trying juxtaposition, it is hoped that the labour bestowed in saving the reader the trouble of wading through much that is not essential for the enjoyment of Spencer's marvellous allegory, will ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... commencing with religious intolerance, would terminate in civil tyranny. It was evident to all that the Protestants could not be put down by force of arms, and even Ferdinand was so intensely humiliated that he was constrained to assent to the proposal which Matthias made to refer their difficulty to arbitration. Four princes were selected as the referees—the Electors of Mentz, Bavaria, Saxony and Palatine. They were to meet at Egra the 14th of ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... 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 of the positive sciences, but ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... already confided many things to him, though not my affection for Gretchen, I determined so much the more to be perfectly candid and straightforward with him; as it was intolerable to me to live in daily intercourse with any one, and at the same time to stand on an uncertain, constrained footing with him. It was not long, then, before I spoke to him about the matter, refreshed myself by the relation and repetition of the minutest circumstances of my past happiness, and thus gained so much, that he, like a sensible man, saw ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... from their stiff forms of conversation, and made them easy and pliant to each other in discourse. Thus, insensibly, our way of living became more free; and the fire of the English wit, which was before stifled under a constrained, melancholy way of breeding, began first to display its force by mixing the solidity of our nation with the air and gaiety of our neighbours. This being granted to be true, it would be a wonder if the poets, whose work is imitation, should be the only persons in three kingdoms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... that we are never easy till we are half drunk among our whores and companions; nor sleep sound, unless we drink longer than we can stand. If we go abroad in the day, a wise man would easily find us to be rogues by our faces; we have such a suspicious, fearful, and constrained countenance; often turning back, and slinking through narrow lanes and alleys. I have never failed of knowing a brother thief by his looks, though I never saw him before. Every man among us keeps his particular whore, who is however ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the very last that he confided to me that he, too, had felt something at our first meeting "different" to what one generally feels, that he had always wanted to turn our acquaintance into friendship and had been too shy. I also was shy—and so we missed one another, as I suppose in this funny, constrained, traditional country of ours thousands of people miss one another ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... you, sir." Her smile tantalized. The curt laconicism of her manner, in the masculine role, had changed to the softer ways of womankind. Despite himself, the Master was constrained to admire her ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... "The writer has been assured, by an authority in which he entirely trusts, that to a proposition made to Great Britain to enter into a combination to constrain the use of our [United States] power,—as Japan was five years ago constrained by the joint action of Russia, France, and Germany,—the reply [of Great Britain] was not only a positive refusal to enter into such a combination [against the United States], but an assurance of active resistance ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... to make the Approaches to the Walls difficult, ordering their Ways so, that they came not directly, but to the Left of the Gate. For by this means, the Besiegers were constrained to present to them that were upon the Walls the Right side, which was not covered ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... their boundaries. The tenants took violent measures to assert the claims of their respective landlords, and much litigation ensued. The bishop, by his haughty behaviour, offended both the courts and the king, to whom he appealed; and at last he was constrained to escape to Avignon, then the seat of the pope. Here he had been consecrated; and here, while negotiations were proceeding for settling the dispute, in 1361 he died; and here ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... and enjoined upon ministers of the gospel not to leave their places of residence, nor to open schools for the instruction of the young. But the most vexatious and unjust article of all was that which constrained all priests, monks, and nuns, who during or since the troubles had forsaken their vows and had married, either to resume their monastic profession and dismiss their consorts, or to leave the kingdom. As a penalty for the violation of this command, the men were to be sentenced to the galleys ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... with effusion, bowing low over her hand. When she introduced him to the English lady, he bowed again ceremoniously. But his blue eyes lost their smile. The gesture was formal, the look constrained. Eleanor, remembering Father ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... every side in search of Buddhist and Taoist priests. But Chia Cheng had witnessed how little relief these things could afford, and he felt constrained to dissuade Chia She from his endeavours. "The destiny," he argued, "of our son and daughter is entirely dependent upon the will of Heaven, and no human strength can prevail. The malady of these two persons would not be healed, even were every kind of treatment tried, and as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... war, neither the public nor the government seemed to have the remotest conception of the fundamental fact that Confederate armies, wherever they might go, instead of places and States, were the only real objectives. Even some of the best Union generals were constrained to act upon this popular heresy, contrary to their own sound military judgment and education. Yet while this erroneous "territorial" strategy was insisted on, no adequate conception was formed of the vastly ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... at his feet, in the long valley of the Seine, between the slopes of Vaugirard and Meudon and those of Belleville and Montmartre, the real Paris, wrapped in a misty blue veil produced by smoke, which the sunlight tendered at that moment diaphanous. He glanced with a constrained eye at those forty thousand houses, and said, pointing to the space comprised between the column of the Place Vendome and the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... she was to receive 'whenever the Sultan ceases to exercise authority over it,' and providing that the Anglo-French agreement would hold good even if Spain declined this arrangement. Article 1 stipulated that, if either Government found itself constrained, by the force of circumstances, to modify its policy in respect to Egypt or Morocco, nevertheless the fourth, sixth, and seventh Articles of the public declaration would remain intact; that is, each would under all circumstances maintain the principle ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... alone, to objurgate Rachel. It was indeed only too obvious from Mrs. Tams's constrained and fussy demeanour that the old woman had divined the existence of serious trouble in ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... patience, Sir, to be thus constrained. Must I never be at liberty to follow my own judgment? Be the consequence what it may, I will ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... rain and wind; its two eyes glare; and now in search of oxen or of sheep it moves, or tracking the wild deer; its belly bids it make trial of the flocks, even by entering the guarded folds; so was Odysseus about to meet those fair-haired maids, for need constrained him. To them he seemed a loathsome sight, befouled with brine. They hurried off, one here, one there, over the stretching sands. Only the daughter of Alcinoues stayed, for in her breast Athene had put courage and from her limbs took ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... way that he conveys to me the impression that I shall never be squire of Sandal-Side. He has doomed me to death in his own mind; and I believe if I had to live with him, I should feel constrained to ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... overheard; but so great is the curiosity of all hands that he has some trouble in getting the men to quarters again; indeed, they only go on condition of parting among themselves with them the newcomers, each to tell his sad and strange story. How after Captain Hawkins, constrained by famine, had put them ashore, they wandered in misery till the Spaniards took them; how, instead of hanging them (as they at first intended), the Dons fed and clothed them, and allotted them as servants to various gentlemen about Mexico, where they throve, turned ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... having been, at no time, unmindful of the circumstances attending the confinement of Lieutenant Governor Hamilton, Captain Lamothe, and Philip Dejean, which the personal cruelties of those men, as well as the general conduct of the enemy, had constrained them to advise: wishing, and willing to expect, that their sufferings may lead them to the practice of humanity, should any future turn of fortune, in their favor, submit to their discretion the fate of their ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... but a chess player of great skill. Being the King's particular favourite, the great player was permitted to kneel upon a brocaded cushion, whilst the courtiers grouped about the King were forced to remain standing in constrained ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... although at present apparently self devoted to destruction, we fondly hope may yet tread back the steps of infamy and ruin, and once more rise conspicuous among the free nations of the earth. In this advanced period of your life, when nature demands the sweets of tranquility, you have been constrained to encounter the tempestous deep, to risk disappointed prospects in a foreign land, to give up the satisfaction of domestic quiet, to tear yourself from the friends of your youth, from a numerous acquaintance ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... themselves the fact that while, on the one hand, the Esquimaux appeared to be perfectly sincere and cordial in their professions, on the other hand the Indians evinced a good deal of taciturnity at first, and even after their reserve was overcome, seemed to act as men do who are constrained to the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... SHE, then, who was in the room! I drew nearer my door, which was still fixed ajar. Presently a voice,—Mrs. Saltillo's voice,—with a constrained laugh in it, came from behind the door: "Not a bit. I'll come ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... beauty, the painting of a smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men and women—colossal trunks ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... so all day, has he? said the landlady. But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally .. constrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. Mrs. Hussey, said I, he's alive at all events; so leave us, if you please, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... repelled from the church of the father by the severity of its dogmas, and all except one attached themselves to the Episcopal Church. Washington, we are told by Mr. Warner, "in order to make sure of his escape and feel safe, while he was still constrained to attend his father's church, went stealthily to Trinity Church at an early age and received the rite of confirmation." He was of a joyous and genial temperament, full of life and vivacity, and ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... she sank rapidly. She was delirious, and never knew why her daughter was detained; because I withheld the note. Just before the end came, her mind cleared, and she wrote a few lines which I sent to the prisoner. From all that I know of Miss Brentano, I feel constrained to say, she impressed me as one of the purest, noblest and most admirable characters I have ever met. She supported her mother and herself by her pencil, and a more refined, sensitive woman, a more tenderly devoted daughter I have yet ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... possible approach of cholera, and the sanitary precautions that even the most neglectful of authorities are constrained to take, it is of some interest to us, says the Building News, to know how the poor are housed in the city of Paris, which contains, more than any city in the world, the opposite poles of luxurious magnificence and of sordid, bestial poverty. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... should burn itself out and leave nothing but ashes behind, what shall I do? But it won't, it sha'n't, I am determined; and surely I have power to keep it alive. So let me dismiss that thought at once. But Arthur is selfish; I am constrained to acknowledge that; and, indeed, the admission gives me less pain than might be expected, for, since I love him so much, I can easily forgive him for loving himself: he likes to be pleased, and it is my delight to please him; and when I regret this ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... letters and read them over. How passionately loving were the early ones—how cool and constrained the more recent! The contrast struck her far more now in the light of recent events. It really seemed as if he might be trying to ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... Santa Fe, notwithstanding the considerable preparations which the Mexicans had made to defend it. Gen. Armijo had assembled 5000 troops to defend the Canon Pass, but on account of the disaffection and insubordination of his officers and men, he was constrained to retreat on the approach of a few ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... Laura constrained herself to soften her tone, and to implore. "Only this one day," said she, in trembling tones. "I need ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... chairs, nor exposed to break their noses over wandering stools; but the arrangements seem to correspond to what ought to be the tone of the conversation, easy, without being confused, and regulated, without being constrained or stiffened. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the consciousness of his learning, and of the influence annexed to the profession for which he was intended, put itself forth with less discussion, but more energy. His manners and attitude became constrained; the expression of his face began to darken, and to mould itself into a stiff, gloomy formality, that was strongly calculated to conceal the natural traits of his character. His dress, too, had undergone a great improvement; for instead of wearing shop blue or brown, he wore ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... part of that soft voice. I felt bitter scorn for myself. I was guilty of blood; nay, I was guilty of the sin against light which knows no forgiveness. I was murdering innocent gentleness—and there would be no peace on earth for me. Yet I sat helpless. The power of a sterner will constrained me. And all the while the voice was growing fainter and dying away ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Harriett and Robin were silent and constrained. She tried not to see Prissie shaking and jerking and spilling soup down the front of her gown. Robin's face was smooth and blank; he pretended to be absorbed in his food, so as not to look at Prissie. It was as if Prissie's old restlessness ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... chronicle. But it may be that, in time to come, faith will wax cold, and the very saints be misdoubted of men. It therefore behoves me not to hold back the truth which I know, and which this tale makes plain and undeniable even by Hussites, Lollards, and other miscreants. For he who reads must be constrained to own that there is no strait so terrible but the saints can bring safely forth therefrom such men as call ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... perceived, soon discovered all the circumstances, and I could trace the conflict of passions in her bosom—the revulsion at Frank's infidelity, yet the spontaneous acknowledgment of her heart that he had acted wisely. She was also reflecting, I was confident, on the weakness that constrained him to abandon the worship of her image,—however vain and unsatisfactory it might be,—and to elevate on the altar of his affections such a goddess as supplied her place. For the young female in whose service Frank was enrolled was a plump, merry and matter-of-fact girl, destitute of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... could never have been surmounted. The ancient castes on which the monarchy rested, the nobility and the clergy, were then almost as powerful as the monarch himself. Every time it seemed as though he might yield to the injunctions of the Assembly it was because he was constrained to do so by force, and to attempt to gain time. His appeals to alien Powers represented the resolution of a desperate man who had seen all ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... thy faults, I love thee still— My country! and while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies And fields without a flower, for warmer France With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... childish for three people who knew one another very well, to sit and pretend to eat, and to speak no word; so Kent thought, and tried to break the silence with some remark which would not sound constrained. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... twentieth century the nation, which a hundred years before had land and natural resources apparently without limit, was compelled to enact law after law conserving its forests and minerals. Then it was that the great state of California, on the very border of the continent, felt constrained to enact a land settlement measure providing government assistance in an effort to break up large holdings into small lots and to make it easy for actual settlers to acquire small farms. America was passing ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... not be believed that the man of poverty himself is excluded from happiness: mediocrity and indigence frequently procure for him advantages that opulence and grandeur are obliged to acknowledge; which title and wealth are constrained to envy: the soul of the needy man, always in action, never ceases to form desires which his activity places within his reach; whilst the rich, the powerful, are frequently in the afflicting embarrassment, of either not knowing what to wish for, or else of desiring ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... were but obeying orders after all. As Miss Yonge well says of all heroic persons—"'I have but done that which it was my duty to do,' is the natural answer of those capable of such actions. They have been constrained to them by duty or pity; have never deemed it possible to act otherwise; and did not once think of themselves in the matter ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... 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 ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... a man constrained, the tale he told From end to end, nor spared himself one whit: And as he spoke, the wood did still behold, The trodden grass, and Atys dead on it; And many a change o'er the King's face did flit Of kingly rage, and ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... straining senses apprised him that a British patrol was taking advantage of the false truce to reconnoitre toward the enemy lines, its approach betrayed by a nearing squash of furtive feet in the boggy earth, the rasp of constrained respiration, a muttered curse when someone slipped and narrowly escaped a fall, the edged hiss of an officer's whisper reprimanding the offender. Incontinently he who crawled dropped flat to the greasy ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box," another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am constrained to say, was named after a not to be mentioned tropical locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and "Castle Mary," and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, "Blair's Grave," which was ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... constrained, and Harold felt the parting more keenly than he dared to show. Jack rode away crying—a brother could not have been more troubled. It seemed that the bitterness of ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... continued its commands to prevent any and all immigration. It was rather well justified by its experience in Texas, where settlement had ended by final absorption. The local Californian authorities were thus thrust between the devil and the deep blue sea. They were constrained by the very positive and repeated orders from their home government to keep out all immigration and to eject those already on the ground. On the other hand, the means for doing so were entirely lacking, and the present situation did ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... doubt the word that tells us: Ask, And ye shall have your prayer; We turn our thoughts as to a task, With will constrained and rare. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... he is coming faster!" gasped the girl, who had been constrained to look back over her shoulder ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... her niece irritated, but the trace of anger she felt was likely to enhance her interest. The meal, however, was a trial to him, for he had during eight long years lived for the most part apart from all his kind, a lonely toiler, and now was constrained to personate a man known to be almost dangerously skillful with his tongue. At first sight the task appeared almost insuperably difficult, but Winston was a clever man, and felt all the thrill of one playing a risky game just then. Perhaps it was due to excitement that a readiness he had ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... riding-master, when the Colonel encountered his pretty Ethel, she greeted him affectionately, it is true; there was still the sweet look of candour and love in her eyes; but when he rode up to her she looked so constrained, when he talked about Clive, so reserved, when he left her, so sad, that he could not but feel pain and commiseration. Back he went to London, having in a week only caught this ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
