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Constraint   /kənstrˈeɪnt/   Listen
Constraint

noun
1.
The state of being physically constrained.  Synonym: restraint.
2.
A device that retards something's motion.  Synonym: restraint.
3.
The act of constraining; the threat or use of force to control the thoughts or behavior of others.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Constraint" Quotes from Famous Books



... point he never wavered. All attempts to make him formally consent to the treaty of November, 1905, were in vain. "I would sooner die first!" he cried. "I would sooner take poison and end all!" In July, 1906, the Marquis Ito began to exercise stronger constraint on the personal life of the Emperor. One evening a number of Japanese police were brought into the palace. The old palace guards were withdrawn, and the Emperor was made virtually a prisoner. Police officers were posted at each gate, and no one was allowed in or out without a permit from ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... kind questions about the delinquent tooth, but the answers were short; and, to put an end to the general constraint, she asked Lucy to show ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... especially those in power, to take steps for its continuance. Rewards might then be held out, like the jus trium liberorum instituted at Rome by Augustus; and if necessary, penalties inflicted on celibacy. In this one extreme case the matrimonial union might be made matter of legal constraint. But when will such ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... his breath, but again checked himself just in time to prevent the words "and wives," that rose to his lips. "And friends," he substituted, with evident constraint and as awkwardly as before. It was not often that a woman had been able to disconcert Edgar Harrowby so strangely as did this ignorant and innocent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... to the king her father, "you have an inclination to see me married, and think to oblige me by it; but where shall I find such stately palaces and delicious gardens as I have with your majesty? Through your good pleasure I am under no constraint, and have the same honours shown to me as are paid to yourself. These are advantages I cannot expect to find anywhere else, to whatsoever husband I should give my hand; men love ever to be masters, and I do not care ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... the ringings of the bells, the running to and fro, the shouting. Every time she thought it was shipwreck, death, judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her sins! She would drop her crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the constraint over her lips, which would go to rattling off prayers with the velocity of a relaxed windlass. That was at first, before the captain took to fetching her out in front to see the boat make a landing. Then she got to liking it so much that she would ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... into the study in the half-sheepish, half-defiant manner peculiar to small brothers in the presence of their elders, and stared in silence at the photographs on the walls. Bob was changing into his cricket things. The atmosphere was one of constraint and awkwardness. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... constraint in her manner which was all too obvious, and when presently, laden with the spoil of the rose garden, she gave me a parting smile and hurried into the house, I sat there very still for a while, and something of the brightness ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... it, without any constraint or needful cause, to incur so horrible a danger, to rush upon a curse; to defy that vengeance, the least touch of breath whereof can dash us to nothing, or thrust us down into ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... have lost more than that," said Priscilla in a low voice, and with that hard constraint of manner common to those who seldom speak ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... another, and not much delighted with ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for our repast; and all began at once to recompense themselves for the constraint of silence, by innumerable questions and orders to the people that attended us. At last, what every one had called for was got, or declared impossible to be got at that time, and we were persuaded to sit ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... which Hewett had looked forward—the day when Sidney could no longer take Clara upon his knee and stroke her brown hair and joke with her about her fits of good and ill humour. Sidney knew well enough what was in his friend's mind, and, though with no sense of constraint, he felt that this handsome, keen-eyed, capricious girl was destined to be his wife. He liked Clara; she always attracted him and interested him; but her faults were too obvious to escape any eye, and the older she grew, the more was he impressed and troubled ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... low, and left the room by a small masked door in a corner. The King waited till he saw it close before he spoke again. His tone changed a little then and his words came quickly, as if he felt here constraint. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... a century or more, I'm sure." Constraint fell upon them suddenly. The hour had come for a definite understanding and both were conquered by its importance. For the first time in his life he knew the meaning of diffidence. It came over him as he looked helplessly ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... a grown-up philosopher. Perhaps Andersen's secret lay in the fact that some fairy godmother invested him at birth with a power to see things so completely as a child sees them that he never questioned the dignity of the method. In few of his stories is there any evidence of a constraint due to a conscious attempt to write down ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... tongues of land, to which assistance might easily be conveyed by water, and from which retreat, to an attacking enemy, was difficult, rendered them comparatively safe, for the present, against the Americans. But the situation of Leslie was one of uncomfortable constraint, and it was natural that he should avail himself of any prospect which might promise him relief. It was readily believed, therefore, in the American camp, that, with the acquisition of new strength, by the arrival of reinforcements from abroad, Leslie would seek to break ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... The constraint that suddenly fell upon them was relieved when Bulan motioned her to follow him back down the trail into the gorge in search of food. There they sat together upon a fallen tree beside a tiny rivulet, eating the fruit that the man gathered. Often their eyes met as ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... that I should feel a constraint in a private conversation with him; but still I was anxious to learn from him several things, and, above all, why it was, when his father had been so rich, that he was in poverty, as was evident by his dress ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... which we enter by the new birth has this one character—that it gives us for a motive, not fear, but hope; not law, but love; not constraint, but joy. Prayer is not a duty, but the spontaneous impulse of the child, to seek and find its father. Work is not drudgery but satisfaction, when the motive is to serve the great cause of Christ. The only real evidence, therefore, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... said Mr Webster, putting strong constraint on himself, and pretending to be quite composed, "a letter from Covelly informs me that it is feared the Water ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due: For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... another and to themselves, which have a daily and hourly practical interest. That children take kindly to elementary science and art no one can doubt who has tried the experiment properly. And if Bible-reading is not accompanied by constraint and solemnity, as if it were a sacramental operation, I do not believe there is anything in which children take more pleasure. At least I know that some of the pleasantest recollections of my childhood are connected with the voluntary study ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... Representatives, between the years 1764 and 1775. When the contest of words and of arms was over he was not only not an aid in the organization of the new Government, but he was an obstacle to its success. He accepted the Constitution with hesitation and under constraint. After the overthrow of slavery and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Sumner gave no wise aid to the work of reconstructing the government upon the basis of the new conditions that had been created by ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... tension? Clearly a stretching out, a stretching forward, of the mind. That is the characteristic mental attitude of the theatrical audience. If the mind is not stretching forward, the body will soon weary of its immobility and constraint. Attention may be called the momentary correlative of tension. When we are intent on what is to come, we are attentive to what is there and then happening. The term tension is sometimes applied, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... said Jeanne, "and to such as you liberty may seem a little thing. You are so rich that you need never feel constraint. But to us poor folk freedom is life itself. It sweetens the hind's pottage, and gives the meanest an assurance of manhood.... Likewise it is God's will. My Holy Ones have told me that sweet France shall be purged from bondage. They have bidden me see the King crowned and lead him to Paris.... ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... happiest time but for one circumstance, of which she told him later. Of her father she spoke little, save that he had often beaten her; of her mother more tenderly—it seemed they loved each other—but with an air of constraint. Her parents were undoubtedly in ill-savour throughout the tithing; her father, a rogue who would cut a throat as easily as a purse, her mother, a wise woman patently in league with the devil. But she said that, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... of the woman's life—Nature's reason for her—is the child, his bearing and rearing. There is no escape from the divine order that her life must be built around this constraint, duty, or privilege, as she may please to consider it. But from the beginning to the end of life she is never permitted to treat it naturally and frankly. As a child accepting all that opens to her as a matter of course, she is steered away from it as if it were something evil. Her ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... wherever he comes. He takes his cue as speaker, and the rest of the party theirs as listeners—a 'Circa herd'—without any previous arrangement having been gone through. I will just add that there can be no good society without perfect freedom from affectation and constraint. If the unreserved communication of feeling or opinion leads to offensive familiarity, it is not well; but it is no better where the absence of offensive remarks arises only from formality and an ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... but the chieftains stayed there by constraint, and every day the Thynians, doing pleasure to Phineus, sent them gifts beyond measure. And afterwards they raised an altar to the blessed twelve on the sea-beach opposite and laid offerings thereon and then entered ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... hesitancy in her answer to the abrupt question. Piers, preoccupied as he was, could not but remark Mrs. Hannaford's constraint, almost confusion. At once it struck him that Daniel had been borrowing money of her, and the thought aroused strong indignation. His own hundred and fifty pounds he had never recovered, for all Daniel's fine speeches, and notwithstanding the fact that he had taken ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... The constraint, the difficulty, seemed to be on his side now: she divined it by the renewed shifting of his attitude—he was capable, usually, of such fine intervals of immobility—and by a confusion in his utterance that set her own ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... then, the love between us three brothers, a love that never cooled throughout our lives, and which dear old Griff made much more apparent at this critical time than in the old Win and Slow days of school. That return of his enlivened us all, and removed the terrible constraint from our meals, bringing us back, as it were, to ordinary life and natural intercourse among ourselves ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hand; again he heard the same sound, like a firm, light tap. He rose and crossed the room quickly. When he threw open the door he recognized the figure that shrank back into the bare, dimly lit hallway. He stood for a moment in awkward constraint, ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes

... say how it is that beyond this sea, near the land of Ausonia and the Ligystian isles, which are called Stoechades, the mighty tracks of the ship Argo are clearly sung of? What great constraint and need brought the heroes so far? What ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... the weaker and more feminine a woman is, the greater the subjection she likes. I don't think it has anything at all to do with the general character, but depends entirely on whether the feeling of constraint and helplessness affects her sexually. In men I have several times noticed that those who were most desirous of subjection to the women they loved had, in ordinary life, very strong and determined characters. I know of others, too, who with very weak ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... other Feejee chiefs, Tararo was a despot, and might have commanded obedience to his wishes; but he entered so readily into the spirit of the new faith, that he perceived at once the impropriety of using constraint in the propagation of it. He set the example, therefore; and that example was followed by almost every man ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... conclude all this, there are but two things which remain to say. In the first place, brethren, if we would be conquerors, we must realize God's love in Christ. Take care not to be under the law. Constraint never yet made a conqueror: the utmost it can do is to make either a rebel or a slave. Believe that God loves you. He gave a triumphant demonstration of it in the Cross. Never shall we conquer self till we have learned to love. My Christian brethren, let us remember ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... nothing. When she had died he had felt nothing, and that was the tragedy. No tears, no relief, nothing. She had carried him in her womb, born him, suckled him; and he had always felt he had been unwelcome. There had been no hospitality in her body; just constraint. She had had no welcome for the little guest of God; her heart had been hard to him and he at her breasts. Nothing common to them in life, and now joined through the horrible significant gulf of death. She could be with him always now, being dead. ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... force him, more despotically than a whole regiment of police, to keep to the road indicated by the sign-post? What good do the Englishmen get out of their free laws, since they have nothing but parks inclosed by chains, since they have scarcely any free forest left? The constraint of customs and manners in England and North America is insupportable to a German. As the English no longer even know how to appreciate the free forest, it is no wonder that they require a man to bring along ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Alexander Fish, compared notes and fishing tackle. The ladies and gentlemen, with one or two elder girls, Frederica Fish and Theresa Stanfield and Eloise Gary, congregated into a moving mass of muslins and parasols. While Daisy and Nora were joined by Ella Stanfield; and a great constraint fell upon all three. Ella was a comparative stranger; a nice looking child, thoughtful and old beyond her years. She looked like gravity; Nora liked gayety; while Daisy was most like the thing that bears her name. They stood like little ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... welcomed his old friend fairly enough, but a certain amount of constraint would show, and Deering evidently saw it, but he made no sign, and they went into the house, where Aunt Hannah met them in the drawing-room, looking a little flustered, consequent upon an encounter with Martha in the kitchen, that ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... after the constraint of their first meeting on board had passed away, he had shown her a direct and open friendliness which now and then even gave rise to a vague and uneasy suspicion in her own mind. This friendliness had brought with it an easier exchange of confidences, then a seeming intimacy and good-fellowship ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... glanced at the paper and put it on one side. There was a little constraint. One or two who had not known of his identity were glancing curiously in his direction. Mr. Foley smiled at ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... placed on them. It is made clear to us that they are sadly depraved, nor can I describe many of the scenes which take place. Suffice it to say that, like other heathens who know not God, they give themselves up to work all manner of abominations without constraint or shame. We place a guard during the night; but when we awake there is great shouting among our party for missing articles, and it is found that we all have been robbed of articles of dress, knives, pistols, handkerchiefs, and pocket-books. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... and John Maria, who had made artillery for the infidel princes, declaring that they were desirous to return to the Christians, and would do them good service, for that all they had hitherto done at Calicut was by constraint, and that all they asked was a safe conduct and money to defray their charges. The viceroy listened to my petition, and three days afterwards he sent me back to Cananore with letters to his son, commanding ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... have themselves writ with Applause in this Language, entertain the same Sentiments, and have ingenuously confess'd to me, that they could never read ten Pages together of Mr. de la Bruyere, without feeling such an Uneasiness and Pain, as arises from a continued Affectation and a perpetual Constraint. But the Reader is still left free. To form a right Judgment on Correctness is an easy Matter by the ordinary Rules of Grammar, but to do the same concerning the Turn and Air, and peculiar Beauties of Style, depends on a particular Taste: They are not capable of being prov'd to those who have ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally

... matter, so strange. The flush, the darkness of her eyes, the added something in her face, tender, thoughtful, strong—these were new. Bostil pondered while she welcomed his guests. Slone, who had hung back, was last in turn. Lucy greeted him as she had the others. Slone met her with awkward constraint. The gray had not left his face. Lucy looked up at him ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... gave them a higher position, did not enjoy so much freedom. They were scarcely affected by the cares of daily life, and if they did any work within their houses, it was more from a natural instinct, a sense of duty, or to relieve the tedium of their existence, than from constraint or necessity; but the exigencies of their rank reduced them to the state of prisoners. All the luxuries and comforts which money could procure were lavished on them, or they obtained them for themselves, but all the while they were obliged to remain shut ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... after Kirk's visit to the bank that Garavel, during one of these conferences, took occasion to bring up the young man's name. Cortlandt had been called to the telephone, and Edith was left free to answer without constraint. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... should utter it, and a small group of convicts are found to be sovereign.—The three municipal officers are seized in their turn under the eyes of their own soldiers who remain motionless, and "with bayonets at their breasts they sign, under constraint, the order to give up M. Pascalis to the people." M. de la Roquette is likewise surrendered. "The only portion of the National Guard of Aix which was visible," that is to say, the Jacobin minority, form a circle around the gate of the prison and organize themselves ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of these sentences, as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... became aware that the conversation had ceased. She looked up to see the tall, lithe form of Jonathan Zane as he strode across the porch. She could see that a certain constraint had momentarily fallen upon the company. It was an involuntary acknowledgment of the borderman's presence, of a presence that worked on all alike with a subtle, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... Arbitrator of it, had imbibed a strong Prepossession for what in the Kingdom of the Kofirans is called Bigotry, or misplaced Devotion. The Customs and religious Notions of this Nation, which were more free and rational than in the Country of this Princess, had been a Constraint upon her Inclination, without lessening her mistaken Austerity. It was on this Side, that Jeflur spread his Snares. He placed near the Queen a Dervise, one of those sly finished Villains, who, being Masters of the execrable ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... constraint be put upon its poor maids. Wherefore, do you marry this man of your own free will ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... my pleasure in the study, for I feel little interest in the actions of a bird under the constraint of an unwelcome presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and dread. What I care to see is the natural life, the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor have I any pleasure in going about the country staring into every tree, and poking into ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... who were present, such as knew the prince listened to his outburst in a state of alarm, some with a feeling of mortification. It was so unlike his usual timid self-constraint; so inconsistent with his usual taste and tact, and with his instinctive feeling for the higher proprieties. They could not understand the origin of the outburst; it could not be simply the news of Pavlicheff's perversion. By the ladies the prince was regarded as little ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of humour. My own opinion is that, after getting over the first annoyance, he himself would have seen the joke. I can even picture him looking in now and again on Mr. and Mrs. Faust. The children would be hurried off to bed. There would be, for a while, an atmosphere of constraint. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... is a still worse inconvenience; that is, the necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is silent. This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust me with variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection. I know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint; but if I am obliged to speak, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... if possible bring her to Holland. The burgomaster declared himself ready to advance from his own property, a portion of the legacy bequeathed Henrica's sister by Fraulein Van Hoogstraten, and accepted his guest's thanks without constraint. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... cordially, and in a moment every trace of constraint vanished from her manner; 'and, to tell you the truth, Mr. Blake, I have felt rather anxious about her lately. Even my mother has noticed how far from strong ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... are not in the position of the continental Churches. No constraint is upon you. You can get Episcopacy, if you desire it. Neither does the Church of England stand relatively towards you, as the Gallican Church towards the Huguenots. You admit the purity of our doctrine, and do not consider our discipline unscriptural. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... general assent succeeded to his stirring accents; and a quick fluttering sound ran through the whole assemblage, as every man, released from the constraint of deep and silent expectation, altered his posture somewhat, and drew a long breath at the close. But the conspirator paused not. He saw immediately the effect which had been made upon the minds of all, by what had passed. He perceived the absolute necessity ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... was heard. Without the slightest feeling of constraint, she, too, lay down and went ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... memory harked back continually to the last evening he and Barbara had spent together. In a way, he was grateful for North's presence. It measurably lessened his constraint, and the subtle antagonism that he had hitherto felt in the house seemed wholly to ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... of the departure. It was very different to my lord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old house putting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there was a sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr. Esmond with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. Lord Castlewood stood at the door watching his guest and his people as they went out under the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohun turned once more, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... versed in the art of fascination. Advisedly overlooking the monarch in the man, she conversed with a perfect self-possession, which enabled her to display all the resources of a cultivated mind and a lively temperament; while Henry was enchanted by a gaiety and absence of constraint which placed him at once on the most familiar footing with his young and brilliant hostess; and thus instead of departing on the morrow, as had been his original design, he remained during several days at Malesherbes, constantly attended by the Marquise and her daughter, who were even invited ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... trail, a week or so ago," Jack admitted with manifest reluctance. "He wasn't overly friendly, but there wasn't any real trouble, if that's what you're afraid of." He looked sidelong at the other, saw the hurt in Dade's eyes at this evidence of the constraint growing intangibly between them, and ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... character seized upon the weak part of his own,—its gentleness, its fear of inflicting pain, its reluctance to say "No,"—that simple cause of misery to the over-timid. A few sentences more, full of courage, confidence, and passion, on the part of the woman, of constraint and yet of soothed and grateful affection on that of the man, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... commissaires was agitated and faltered; the other broke out in invectives. The President said to him: "Sir, we are here the lawful authority and sole representatives of law and of right. We know that we cannot oppose to you material force, but we will leave this chamber only under constraint. We will not disperse. Seize us and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... burden, and one which, in the judgment of a majority of the women of the country, they ought not to be required to assume. If any citizen deem the exercise of this franchise a burden and not a privilege, such person is under no constraint to exercise it. But if it be a birthright, then it is obvious that no other power than that of the individual concerned can rightfully restrain its exercise. The committee concede that women ought to be clothed with the ballot in any State where any considerable part of the women desire it. This ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... indications, is the spiritual fact of the separate personality of each human being. This is seen most absolutely in the sphere of morals. The ultimate standard for a man is his own individual conscience, and neither the constraint of affection, nor the authority of numbers, can atone for falseness there. One of the most forceful illustrations of this final position of all religion is to be found, in the passage of terrific intensity from the Book of Deuteronomy, which we have transcribed as a preface to this chapter. ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... his friend's overstrained moods, and understanding the cure for them, turned toward him with a gentle respect which was free from all constraint or apology. His voice lost its frequent note of good-tempered mockery and became warm with feeling, as ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... was, outwardly lively and radiant, chatting with Lieutenant Preston, inwardly chafed at all this constraint, and wondering how it was Cousin Joe could ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... frequently drank to their health; but in spite of all this, his encouragement failed to overcome the timidity of some, and the servants removed the plates of each course without their having touched them, though this constraint did not prevent their being full of joy and enthusiasm as they left the table. "Au revoir, my brave men," the First Consul would say to them; "baptize for me quickly these new-born," touching with his fingers their sabers of honor. God knows ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... to serve. This book is somewhat open to like objections. Its title is too pretentious; its style is braggart, and tainted with the vulgarity of an English flash reporter; and yet this is tempered by a certain constraint, as if the writer could not but occasionally think how ill such a style was suited to his subject. The portrait is wretched, and a certain likeness to Mr. Morphy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... his hand on his heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street. But there was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge or other to the Evil Principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... and presently, behold, Jubayr and his beloved came out of the bath in the house, and I saw them both wringing their locks.[FN347] So I wished them good morning and gave them joy of their safety and reunion, saying to Jubayr, 'That which began with constraint and conditions hath ended in cordial-contentment.' He answered, 'Thou sayest well, and indeed thou deservest thy honorarium;' and he called his treasurer, and said, 'Bring hither three thousand dinars.' So he brought a purse containing the gold ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... by a second wife, and an involuntary but strong prejudice possessed him against his step-mother. He was most agreeably disappointed in both respects. His father "received him as a man, as a friend, all constraint was banished at our first interview, and we ever after continued on the same terms of easy and equal politeness." So far the prospect was pleasant. But the step-mother remained a possible obstacle to all comfort at home. He seems to have regarded ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... The constraint between his mother and himself had reached a greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became to ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... religious indifference, though it is remarkable of the Spartans, that of all Greek tribes they were the most facile and numerous delinquents under all varieties of foreign temptations to revolt from their hereditary allegiance—a fact which measures the degree of unnatural constraint and tension which the Spartan usages involved; but in this case we rather account for the public outrage to religion and universal usage, by a strong political jealousy lest the provisions of the treaty should transpire prematurely ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... on her searchingly and almost sadly. Vincenzo was right: the girl was beautiful, not with the forced hot-house beauty of the social world and its artificial constraint, but with the loveliness and fresh radiance which nature gives to those of her cherished ones who dwell with her in peace. I had seen many exquisite women—women of Juno-like form and face—women ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... slowly, however, on implementing needed structural reforms, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labor market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labor unions. But the leadership faces a severe economic constraint: the budget deficit has breached the 3% EU ceiling. The economy experienced low growth in 2006, and unemployment remained ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... "The Descent of Man" (1871), the hypothesis of Lamarck that man is the co-descendant with other species of some lower extinct form was admitted to have been raised to the rank of an established fact by most thinkers whose brains were not working under the constraint ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... seat there lowly, Yet come slowly, For the viands thou seest were baken By God most high. 75 Lo ye my pillars, doctor, saint, Ambrose, Thomas and Jerome And Augustine, In my service wax not faint, Nor show constraint, And to thee, soul, shall be welcome This fare of mine. 76 To the holy kitchen go: Let us this frail soul restore, That she find grace To reach her journey's end and know Her path, that so By God brought hither she no more Fail ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... her visit to her old neighbour, she came back puzzled, disappointed, and slightly indignant. There was an air of constraint about Mr. Leigh, especially when he spoke of Maurice, which was so entirely new as to appear a great deal more significant than it really was; and this, added to the fact that two letters had been received, ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... unwisely and prematurely I cannot unsay, and I shall always be true to my words. But I will wait patiently as long as you please; and if you find, in future years, that you cannot feel as I do, I will not complain or blame you, however sad the truth may be to me. In the meantime, let there be no constraint between us. Let me become once more your trusted brother Burt." This note he pushed under her door, and then slept too soundly for the blighted youth he had a few ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... and in a few weeks nearly all Bengal was in arms. In one or two instances the native chiefs stood by us, but the greater number joined the insurgents, some from the desire to throw off our yoke, but others, probably, from constraint and through fear. Whatever were their motives, before the end of June nearly all the principal cities and fortresses of Bengal, up to the very gates of Calcutta, were in the hands of the insurgents, the chief exception being at ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... be Free, contracted by the preference and choice of the parties. If it be done by constraint, or against the will of either, it comes short of an union, and is a mere bargain and sale. An offer may be accepted, simply to gratify a parent or a friend, when the taste of the lady would have prompted a rejection. The ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. We missed an issue the week—last week—we're getting out two in one this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... some from him and began to sip and munch steadily, but still in silence. Julian began to fear that the festival must be a dire failure, for her obvious and extreme constraint affected him, and he was also seized with an absurd sense of shyness in the presence of Valentine, and, instead of talking, found himself immersed in a boyish anxiety as to Valentine's attitude of mind towards the girl. He looked at Cuckoo in the firelight as she mutely ate and drank, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... brush, and good textural effects. In 1825 he travelled abroad, was gone some years, was impressed by Velasquez, Correggio, and Rembrandt, and completely changed his style. He then became a portrait and historical painter. He never outlived the nervous constraint that shows in all his pictures, and his brush, though facile within limits, was never free or bold as compared with a Dutchman like Steen. In technical methods Landseer (1802-1873), the painter of animals, was somewhat like him. That is to say, they both had a method of painting ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... related to the other. The Greeks first articulately conceived and deliberately pursued the ideal of Freedom. It was, I say, closely related to the other, for they meant by it not merely freedom from physical or political constraint but also inward freedom from prejudice and passion, and they held that knowledge and freedom rendered one another possible. We may amend our formula and re-state their contribution as the idea and fact ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... he saw Ramona often try to conceal from him that she had shed tears. At last he said to her: "Dearest Ramona, do not fear to weep before me. I would not be any constraint on you. It is better for you to let the tears come freely, my sister. They ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... there was remarkably little constraint in her feelings for this good woman, but somehow at that moment she wished to ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... soon as she entered the room, that the St. Leath women were absent. They overawed her and were so much older than the others there that they brought constraint with them ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... is the pitiless inflexibility of purpose with which she wings from her child's heart all the dangerous endearments of childhood,—its merry laughter, its sparkling tears, its trustfulness, its artlessness, its engaging waywardness; and in their place instils silence, submission, self-constraint, suspicion, cunning, carefulness, and an ever-vigilant fear. And the result is a spectacle of unnatural discipline simply appalling. The life of such a child is an egg-shell on an ocean; to its helpless speck of experience all horrors are possible. Its passing moment ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... smile down out of luminous eyes and out of miles of distance, when under us constraint and purpose and guilt ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... to a late dinner on Little Tupper's Lake. Indeed, there was a sort of necessity for our doing so. We had left our provisions there, calculating to return in the afternoon, not having taken with us even pepper or salt, wherewith to season the food which, upon constraint, we might cook during our absence. A few crackers, in the pockets of each, was all, in the provision line, that we had provided ourselves with, and though, when we saw the moose-tracks in the sand, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... Ah! dire constraint, ah! cruel wrong, To fetter thus its chord, But well they knew that Ireland's song Was ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... voluntary application has been denied. Thus practically the door has been for a full year open to all except such as were not in condition to make free choice; that is, such as were in custody or under constraint. It is still so open to all. But the time may come, probably will come, when public duty shall demand that it be closed and that in lieu more rigorous measures than heretofore shall be adopted. In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the national authority on the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... no matter how practised he or she may be, never moves or stands or sits, in these degenerate days, with exactly the same freedom as when draped; action or pose is always different—not so much from a sense of mental constraint as from the unusual liberty experienced by the limbs, to which the muscular action invariably responds when the body is released from the ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... as the result of exhibitions of clumsiness in which they cover themselves with ridicule. The terror of renewing their moments of torture drives them into a reserve, from which they only emerge with a constraint so evident that it is reflected in their gestures, the evidences of ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... false, for they were constrained to sue the same appeale, in like manner as the said lord Fitzwater was compelled to giue iudgement against the duke of Glocester, and the earle of Arundell; so that the suing of the appeale was doone by constraint, and if he said contrarie he lied: and therewith he threw downe his hood. The lord Fitzwater answered herevnto, that he was not present in the parlement house, when iudgement was giuen against them, and all the lords bare witnesse thereof. Moreouer, where ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... said Miss Mohun, and therewith the conversation was safely conducted away to musical subjects, in which some of the sisters' pride and affection for their brothers peeped out; but Gillian was conscious all the time that Kalliope was speaking with some constraint when she mentioned Alexis, and that she was glad rather to dwell on little Theodore, who had good hopes of the drawing prize, and she seriously consulted Miss Mohun on the pupil-teachership for him, as after he had passed the seventh standard he could ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... old atmosphere which had hovered over the camp came back, electrically charged with distrust, constraint, aloofness. Sothern's heavy brows were drawn low, the firelight showing deep, black shadows in the furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feet and went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words of greeting upon his lips ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... of hands set to work carefully at their daily task. But they did not speak or ask Grandmamma any questions, and somehow the old lady felt a little uneasy, for, even though they were on the whole quiet children, this morning there was a sort of constraint about them which she did not understand. And they, on their side, felt glad when the "washing-up" was over and Grandmamma sent them upstairs to their nursery, where they had lessons every morning for two hours with a young girl whose mother had a sort of dame ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... there was constraint in the smile with which Maria answered the children. Little as she knew, it struck her that in his fun with the children, Mr Enderby was relying quite sufficiently on the philosophy he had professed ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... considerably at first, but presently began to laugh good-naturedly and quite freely commented on the funny remark she had heard earlier in the morning, and on peculiarities of some patients. She spoke quite freely and without constraint. But it was striking how little account of the condition she had gone through could be obtained from her. She either turned the questions off by flippant remarks, or said she did not know. The only information obtained was that ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... and further government cooperation to develop. External factors such as the international war on terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the war between the US-led coalition and Iraq probably will drive real annual GDP growth levels back below their 3.5% spike in 2002. A long-run economic constraint is the pressure on water supplies caused by rapid population growth, industrial expansion, and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... reference only to two days. After two days, Adrian was to return to Basle, and to be seen no more at Granpere till he came to claim his bride. In regard to the choice of the day, Michel declared roundly that no constraint should be put upon Marie. She should have her full privileges, and no one should be allowed to interfere with her. On this point Marie had brought herself to be almost indifferent. A long engagement was a state of things which would have been quite incompatible with such a ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... the first time, because every one wished to see the house; and to see the house took hours. But the dancing-girl, appearing slightly embarrassed as she expressed her regrets, said that she must go; she had to keep an engagement. She did not explain what the engagement was, and as she betrayed constraint in speaking of it, both Stephen and Nevill guessed that she did not wish to explain. They took it for granted that it was something to do with her sister's affairs, something which she considered of importance; otherwise, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... eyes, and Burke noticed that his hand trembled as he suddenly reached for a big orange and held it up. The man spoke with a surprising constraint, still holding ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... aspirations, the same emotions and intellect and accountability.... The Chinamen for centuries have taken peculiar means for restricting women's activities by binding the feet of girl babies and yet there remains the significant fact that, after centuries of constraint, God continues to send the female child into the world with feet well formed, with a foundation as substantial to stand upon as that of the male child. As in this instance, so in all cases of restriction put upon women—they do not come ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... why she was born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other possible shape. Why they stared at her so helplessly, as if waiting for the touch of some wand that should release them from terrestrial constraint; what that chaos called consciousness, which spun in her at this moment like a top, tended to, and began in. Her eyes fell together; she was awake, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into murmurs and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and echoed more loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon became oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and exercised under such cruel constraint. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... It was a cry of astonishment—passing on into constraint. "I thought Mr. Marsham's ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... passed them he returned their arrogant stare. More than once he was very near causing a scene. He seemed to be looking for trouble. However, he was the first to understand the futility of such bravado; but he had moments of aberration, the perpetual constraint which he imposed on himself and the accumulation of force in him that had no outlet made him furious. Then he was ready to go any length, and he had a feeling that if he stayed a year longer in the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... travelled in Switzerland and Italy, often stopping at Paris, and gladly returning to his castle of Montaigne, where he wrote down what he had seen; "hungering for self-knowledge," inquiring, indolent, without ardor for work, an enemy of all constraint, he was at the same time frank and subtle, gentle, humane, and moderate. As an inquiring spectator, without personal ambition, he had taken for his life's motto, "Who knows? (Que sais-je?)" Amidst ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... so real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it, addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely there is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so expose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that gives it a unique ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... meditated, for he recognised Attick through his war-paint. He did not move, however, for he felt that if he sprang up too soon the savage could easily leap back through the doorway and escape into the dark woods. He therefore laid strong constraint on ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... she had been conscious that Hughie had changed in some way to her. The old, full, frank confidence was gone. There was a constraint in his manner she could not explain. "He is no longer a child," she would say to herself, seeking to allay the pain in her heart. "A boy must have his secrets. It is foolish in me to think anything else. Besides, he is not well. He is growing ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... the twins' charm of manner and easy and polished bearing made speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All constraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest feeling succeeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names almost from the beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about them, and showed it; they responded by talking about themselves, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... really. At first she seemed a trifle distant, and I thought her haughty; but, afterward, when her strangeness and constraint had worn away, she was simple and unaffected and delightful. And she is ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... but very shy, joined the ladies from the Goyle in their walk to Clipstone, expecting perhaps a good deal of stiffness and constraint, since every one at St. Kenelm's told him what a severe and formidable person Sir Jasper Merrifield was, and that all Lady Merrifield's surroundings were "so very clever." "They did want SUCH books ordered ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... manner of the Secretary was cordial; but with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost fancied our positions reversed,—that, instead of our being ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... betrothed less than when you met by that happy lake?"—and her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The letters of her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and more subdued. But then there was constraint in the correspondence—it was submitted to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont's manner to Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did not make his attentions glaring enough ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to be deprived of earthly elevation and power—what cared she that she henceforth would no more have the pleasure of commanding others? She was free, free from the task of ruling slaves and humanizing barbarians; free from the constraint of greatness, and, finally free to live in conformity with her own inclinations, and perhaps, ah, perhaps, to found a happiness, the bare dreaming of which already caused her heart ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... choice of change and variety and of experience far and wide, with all the world for stage—a stage set and appointed by this very art of choice—all future generations for witnesses and audience. When you talk with a man who has in his nature and acquirements that freedom from constraint which goes with the full franchise of humanity, he turns easily with topic to topic; does not fall silent or dull when you leave some single field of thought such as unwise men make a prison of. The men who will not be broken from a little set of subjects, who talk earnestly, hotly, ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson

... and his hearers. He might argue with the disputants, but it must be "in a way most mild and gracious;" for "in religion" (such was his teaching before he reached Medina) "there should be neither violence nor constraint."[37] At Medina the precepts of toleration were quickly cast aside and his whole policy reversed. No sooner did Mohammed begin to be recognized and obeyed as the chief of Medina than he proceeded to attack the Jewish tribes settled in the neighborhood because ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... they looked at one another in constraint. Mrs. Archdale also had altered, altered far less than John Coxeter, but she was aware, as he was not aware, of the changes which long nearness to death had brought her; and for almost the first time in her life she was more absorbed in her own sensations than in ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes



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