"Soporific" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleasure; my Angelina's eyes have withstood, yes, without a blink, the dazzling enchantment.—And will she—no, I cannot, I will not think so for an instant—will she now submit her understanding, spell-bound, to the soporific charm of nonsensical words, uttered in an awful tone by that potent enchantress, Prejudice?—The declamation, the remonstrances of self-elected judges of right and wrong, should be treated with deserved contempt by superior minds, who claim the privilege of thinking ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... me that she finds it impossible to sleep when she has no infant in hearing distance, and for that reason she never asks for a vacation. Her normal sleep has evidently come to depend upon continuous soporific suggestions from a child. In another point, also, her experience confirms my observations, viz., the child's movements, preliminary to waking, awake her, when no other movements of the child do so—the consequence being that she is ready for the infant ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... mouth he draws in the smoke in long, deep breaths, until he has filled his lungs completely, when he begins slowly to emit the smoke from his nose, little by little, until it is all gone. The object of this with the Indian is to steep his senses more deeply with the narcotizing soporific. The tobacco they smoke is ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... interest was now of that vague kind she had sometimes experienced when the manager appeared on a darkened stage, with a fresh crackling manuscript. Then she had lolled back and listened to the first reading. She would have lolled back now—for the air was soporific—but, instead, she started suddenly. The old wound on Mr. Heatherbloom's head, heretofore concealed by the cap Francois had procured for him, had reopened as he exerted himself; he raised his hand quickly and seemed a little at a loss. She stepped ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... same condition, was soon after seen his wife, who, of weaker conformation, had more quickly yielded to the soporific effect of the upas poison, from which, when it has once pervaded the blood, there ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... even tenor of her way, the Colonel's fidgets had a soporific effect on her nerves and created no corresponding alarms; her idol, Freddy, was satisfied with the new administration, and ceased to wage internecine warfare with his nurse; and certainly the unwonted tranquillity consequent was a decided ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Nothing is more soporific to any (save a philosopher or moneyed man) than the operation of figures; and when in bed, the effect is irresistible. Sir Geoffrey fell asleep in the act of calculating King Ryence's height, from the supposed length of his mantle. Indeed, had he not stumbled on this abstruse subject of calculation, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... stagnant air, and the church swung with sleepy influences. The very pews and desks, the pillars of the loft and the star-crowned canopy of the pulpit, seemed in their dry and mouldy antiquity to give forth soporific dry accessions to that somnolent atmosphere, and the sun-rays, slanted over the heads of the worshippers, showed full of dust. Outside, through the tall windows, could be seen the beech-trees of the Avenue, and the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... was getting drowsy and the weird dancers, some of the younger braves, tired of the sport when there were neither admiring squaws or approving old chiefs to look on. The chiefs in this case, of course, had consumed the greater portion of the whiskey and were now sleeping off its soporific effects, and the youngsters could only remain where they were, keep watch and ward against surprise, and make no move in any direction until their elders should be themselves again, unless the sudden coming of enemies should compel them to rouse their leaders from their drunken slumbers ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... infinite multitude of her wrinkles, as well as the yellowness of her dangling gold earrings and the texture of her parchment-like arms, which were the color of glossy brown leaves. Sometimes she would awaken me from soporific melancholy by allowing herself to be found upon her knees in her bedroom, a bare and colorless abode, her great black crucifix hanging in majestic solitude upon the wall above her handsome old head. I thought her temporarily ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... repressed and the mind congested in perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.' Is there not some danger, we ask, that the mind will be benumbed into perpetual torpidity by the influence of this soporific sapience? It is still true, however, that this Johnsonese, so often burlesqued and ridiculed, was, as far as we can judge, a genuine product. Macaulay says that it is more offensive than the mannerism of Milton or Burke, because it is a mannerism adopted ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... need! ... Not the old religion of abnegation, the impossible myths that come to us out of the pessimistic East, created for a relief, a soporific, a means of evasion,—I do not mean that as religion. But another faith, which abides in each one of us, if we look for it. We rise with it in the morning. It is a faith in life apart from our own personal fate.... Because we live on the surface, we despair, we get sick. Look below into the sustaining ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... sharp quick beat of the paddles on the water, and the roll of their shafts against the gunwale, with the continuous hiss and ripple of the stream cleft by the curving prow, combine to make a most soothing soporific. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... in the person of Jesus Christ the Alpha and Omega of his theology. It is possible that Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Chalmers, and Arnold, may never have perused the treatise in question; and it is equally possible that under the soporific influence of a heavy style, they may never have noticed passages for which their own minds possessed such a powerful affinity. But by the legitimate expedient of appropriate language—perhaps by means of some "ornament or elegance"—Jeremy Taylor or Barrow would have arrested attention ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... both with a soporific humidity; and equally immersed in one unconscious thought, we remained there ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Louis is hopelessly monotonous. It is a big place. A great business is carried on there, but it seems to be done by people somnambulistically. The soporific atmosphere that the readers feel when perusing the "Globe-Democrat" or "Republic" is characteristic of the town. The great majority of the people seem unable to arouse themselves to any action, even of viciousness. The crowd just lives as if it were soaked and sodden in the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the great walnut bed which had been his mother's, and read his prayer book by the light of his evening lamp. He read the Evening Prayer and the Litany, and then at last he resorted to the thirty-nine articles, which usually had a soporific effect on him. But ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... works hard, out of doors, all day. When evening comes he gets his newspaper, sits down by the fire and pretends to read. But I have noticed that he rarely reads ten minutes before he drops asleep. When he comes to church the same phenomenon occurs. He cannot resist the soporific tendencies of the furnaces. By the time Mr. Work gets fairly into secondly, Farmer Faragon is sound asleep. So he does not even listen to the preaching. Is he then a drone? Suppose you make a calculation ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... now, and go to bed, leaving the keys of our cash-box with him. It contained, after our loss to the cuirassiers, in bills and money, near upon L8000 sterling. Pippi insisted that our reconciliation should be ratified over a bowl of hot wine, and I have no doubt put some soporific drug into the liquor; for my uncle and I both slept till very late the next morning, and woke with violent headaches and fever: we did not quit our beds till noon. He had been gone twelve hours, leaving our treasury empty; and behind him a sort of calculation, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quietude: not a sound even was heard throughout the whole vast palace. Outside, however, the guards of honor on duty, and the patrol of musketeers, paced up and down; and the sound of their feet could be heard on the gravel walks. It seemed to act as an additional soporific for the sleepers, while the murmuring of the wind through the trees, and the unceasing music of the fountains whose waters tumbled in the basin, still went on uninterruptedly, without being disturbed at the slight noises and items of little moment that constitute ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ingenious work lately published by Dr. Beddoes. Who, after lamenting that opium frequently occasions restlessness, thinks, "that in most cases it would be better to induce sleep by the abstraction of stimuli, than by exhausting the excitability;" and adds, "upon this principle we could not have a better soporific than an atmosphere with a diminished proportion of oxygene air, and that common air might be admitted after the patient was asleep." (Observ. on Calculus, &c. by Dr. Beddoes, Murray.) If it should be found to be true, that the excitability of the system depends on the quantity ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... are intertwined in both our Lord's use of the metaphor of the watching servant, and in the echoes of it which we find abundantly in the Apostolic letters. The first thing is to keep ourselves awake all through the soporific night, when everything tempts to slumber. Even the wise virgins, with trimmed lamps and girt loins, do in some degree succumb to the drowsy influences around them, and like the foolish ones, slumber, though the slumbers of the two classes be unlike. Christian ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... soft and warm; scents, pomades, and soaps adorned the marble washstand, and the pale light fell from the ceiling with a soft glow, like the gleams of a lamp suspended in an alcove. Macquart, amidst this perfumed soporific atmosphere fell asleep, thinking that those scoundrels, the rich, "were very fortunate, all the same." He had covered himself with a blanket which had been given to him, and with his head and back and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... given to the cheerfulness and happiness of those on whom it acts. Instruction in reading, arithmetic, geometry, and various other things is made exceedingly amusing; smiling countenances and sparkling eyes are observable all around when it is communicated; and what was dull and soporific, according to the old plan, is now insinuated so agreeably, that the child, while literally at play, is acquiring a large amount of valuable knowledge. At play he sees Nature's book, that world of beauties: he loves to look into it, there is no flogging ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... settle affairs with all speed. This was also desirable in view of the probability of a general election in the United Kingdom in the early part of the year 1880, the Ministry wishing to have ready an Afghan settlement to act as a soporific drug on the ravening Cerberus of democracy at home. Unhappily, the outbreak of the Zulu War on January 11, 1880, speedily followed by the disaster of Isandlana, redoubled the complaints in the United Kingdom, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... sir, but I don't know who you are; and if you mean Miss Wilkins, by 'her,' she is very ill, but we hope not dying. She was very ill, indeed, yesterday; very dangerously ill, I may say, but she is having a good sleep, in consequence of a soporific medicine, and we are really beginning ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... breath collecting inside the newly flayed skin must have had a soporific effect, for I was soon fast asleep. One hand I had kept warm against the curled up dog, but the other, being gloveless, had frozen, and I suddenly awoke, shivering enough, I thought, to break my ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... dramatic. Performances of Pippa Passes and The Sunken Bell exert a very unpropitious influence upon the mood of the average theatre-goer. These poems are not plays; and the innocent spectator, being told that they are, is made to believe that poetic drama must be necessarily a soporific thing. And when this belief is once lodged in his uncritical mind, it is difficult to dispel it, even with a long course of Othello and Hamlet. Paolo and Francesca was a good poem, but a bad play; and its weakness as a play was not excusable by its beauty as ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... and, getting out of bullet range, put my back against a tree and tried to read. Mercury was ever a blithe and sportive god, and his gambols on Mount Olympus were noted in days of yore; but the modern namesake—or else my present position—had soporific tendencies; and fear of the target shooters growing dimmer and dimmer, I lost myself ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... better fitted for his work. He came, a Scotsman, to a colony one-third Scottish, and the name of Bruce was itself soporific to the opposition of a perfervid section of the reformers. His wife was the daughter of Lord Durham, whom Canadians regarded as the beginner of a new age of Canadian constitutionalism. He had been appointed by a Whig Government, and Earl Grey, the new Colonial Secretary, was already ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... misery. Mr. Wyvern called, but even him she begged through a servant to excuse her; her mother likewise came, and her she talked with for a few minutes, then pleaded headache. At nine o'clock in the evening she went to her bedroom. She had a soporific at hand, remaining from the time of her illness, and in dread of a sleepless night she had recourse ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... health rendered it impossible for her to quit the hotel, and he could not very well separate himself from her. She continued for some time in shrieking hysterics, varied by fainting fits; and when she became quieter, under the influence of a soporific administered by the doctor, she declared herself quite too ill and exhausted to rise from her bed. Her husband remained with her night and day, until the second morning, when he escaped from her sight and ken for a couple of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific agency of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions of Mrs Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt interest in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge an inch from the position she had taken up. Fortifying ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... at the corner: comfortably warm, but not hot, although the day is broiling. His white apron flaps languidly in the air, his head gradually droops upon his breast, he takes very long winks with both eyes at once; even he is unable to withstand the soporific influence of the place, and is gradually falling asleep. But now, he starts into full wakefulness, recoils a step or two, and gazes out before him with eager wildness in his eye. Is it a job, or a boy at marbles? Does he see a ghost, or hear an organ? ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you a prey to nightmare. Then, to say nothing of poorness of blood producing paucity of ideas, it is fearful to think of the doctor's bill you ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... never see a spark. Mr. Mackay's comic stories, too, of which there are not a few, are most lamentable specimens of wit, suggesting forcibly the poppy-seeds spoken of by Mr. Pillicoddy, which are soporific in tendency, and which, if taken incessantly for a period of three weeks, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially with that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the afternoon sunshine, to the soft, rather soporific cooing of some caged doves, that live in the back-ground out of sight behind a screen of lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we note the carefully tended vines, precious plants, for their grapes produce the delicate Episcopio ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... not get to St. James' Hall to hear your friend's symphony at the Henschel concert. I have been reading Mme. Blavatsky's latest book, and getting quite interested in occult philosophy. Unfortunately I have to do all my reading in bed, and I don't find the book as soothing a soporific as most new books. For keeping one awake I find Theosophy as bad ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... a beverage eminently agreeable, inspiring and wholesome. It is at once a stimulant, a cephalic, a febrifuge, a digestive, and an anti-soporific; it chases away sleep, which is the enemy of labor; it invokes the imagination, without which there can be no happy inspiration. It expels the gout, that enemy of pleasure, although to pleasure gout owes its birth; it facilitates digestion, without which there can be ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Hall, whose injudicious space, Like Death, confounds a various mismatched race, Where kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean, Compose th' inactive soporific scene, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Monsieur Bucket that a foreign miscreant can be given up, under all reserves, to the justice! A small vial of a harmless soporific, a closed carriage, a private cabin on board a Channel steamer—with these and a little of the adroitness so remarked in the celebrated Bucket, the affair is in the bag! (dans le sac). All these things are in the cords (dans les cordes) of my esteemed ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... deference to his prayers as Hercules did, of yore, to the waggoner who got the wheel of his cart in the rut. The cutter wearied not in her waltz; but, whether she felt the want of a partner, or the power of the wind, I know not; for when the pilot had lighted his pipe, and given his soul to its soporific ward, she darted unexpectedly out of the circling haven, and ceased not in her flight until the first wave of the Ocean leaped up against her bow with so much rude impetuosity that her hull staggered under its force, and her gaff-topsail shook ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... I set out for New-Tarbat to-morrow. Could you come? Let nothing but wedlock detain you. Oh, Boswell! the soporific effluvia of a hearty dinner cloud all my faculties. I'm as dull as the tolling in of the eighth-hour bell, or a neighbour in the country, that pays you an annual visit. At this present moment, I'm astonished how anybody can be clever; and your letter in heroic verse seems more amazing ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... some of the more ancient peers by his skittish references to the coming Conference on the Second Chamber. When he expressed the hope that Lord CURZON would make an explicit statement, on the ground that their Lordships' House was in no need of a soporific, I fully expected one of the occupants of the mausoleum to rise and reprove him in the words of Dr. JOHNSON, "Sir, in order to be facetious it is not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... exalted the status quo; and where, as with Wesley, there was revolt, its impetus directed the mind to the source of salvation in the individual act. It may, indeed, be generally argued that the religious teachers acted as a social soporific. Where riches accumulated, they could be regarded as the blessing of God; where they were absent their unimportance for eternal happiness could be emphasized. Burke's early attack on a system which condemned "two hundred thousand innocent persons ... ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... by fatigue than by excitement and anxious thought, I fell into a profound sleep, natural this time and not provoked by any soporific drug. When I awoke, after a length of time which I could not reckon, the "Terror" had not yet returned to the surface of ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... one of the soporific drugs of which they know the secret in my drink, for I did not wake up till very late the next day. I was rather feverish, and had a violent headache. It was some time before the memory of the terrible scene in which I had taken part on the previous night came ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... occurred but once, for Nero could be magnanimous when he chose. But it always occurred. To Nero's tremolo invariably came the accompaniment of Vespasian's snore. He was dreaming of that tooth, no doubt. "I am not a soporific, am I?" Nero gnashed at him, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... petted by Jack Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away from Daisy. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... The only noise was what our horses made cropping the grass in a hollow behind us, for the Armenians were well content to ruminate. Most likely they would have fallen asleep if we had not been there to keep an eye on them, for prolonged subjection to too much fear is soporific, so that tortured poor wretches sleep ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... obstinate little dog of his chapel. "If you won't work, I'm [participle] if you shall pray." The boy missed the recreation of hearing Mr. Jones hum the Liturgy; missed it in a way you cannot conceive. Your soporific was his excitement; ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Anthony Dexter's old housekeeper rang the rising bell. Drowsy with the soporific he had taken, the doctor did not at once respond to the summons. In fact, the breakfast bell had rung before ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... from not having yet domiciled within the walls of a college. Although I had little to expect from the apprehension of any of these troubles, as my person was, from my short residence, most likely unknown to any of the authorities—yet did Morpheus refuse his soporific balsam to the mind—I could not help thinking of my young and giddy companions, of the kind-hearted Eglantine, immured within the walls of a dungeon; of the noble-spirited Echo, maltreated and disfigured ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... ready, and all hurried from the spot, and were once more climbing up the mountain-path. Even the animals seemed to move slowly and lazily, as though they, too, had been under the influence of some soporific. But the pure cold air of the mountain soon produced its effect. All gradually recovered, and after cooking some charqui and ocas in the ravine, and making their breakfast upon these, they again felt light and fresh, and pursued ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... perhaps not be unfair to add the corollary that only those readers who appreciated the one could swallow the other. Mercifully, Mr. BURROUGHS writes so continually at the top of his voice that after a time the clatter comes to have an effect merely soporific. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... because she knew he enjoyed them. She had a delightful touch. He sometimes felt as if they walked the English lanes together. His intimacy with her neighbours, and her neighbourhood, was one of his relaxations. He found himself thinking of old Doby and Mrs. Welden, as a sort of soporific measure, when he lay awake at night. She had sent photographs of Stornham, of Dunholm Castle, and of Dole, and had even found an old engraving of Lady Alanby in her youth. Her evident liking for the Dunholms had pleased him. They ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Clancy; "'tis no use. The strongest soporific in the world wouldn't give me sleep this night. I tell you, Sime, I ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... porter employed during the week at the railway station, does duty on Sunday by blowing the bellows of the organ. The other Sunday, wearied by the long hours of railway attendance, combined, it may be, with the soporific effects of a dull sermon, he fell sound asleep during the service, and so remained when the pealing of the organ was required. He was suddenly and rather rudely awakened by another official when apparently dreaming of an approaching ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... see where, and not turn two at once, or it don't follow on." Aunt M'riar and Uncle Mo confirmed this view from their own experience. It was agreed further that small type—Parliamentary debates and the like—was more soporific than large, besides spinning out the length and deferring the relaxation of turning over, when in book-form. Short accidents, and not too prolix criminal proceedings were on the whole the most palatable ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... over life. This, however, is a consummation which will remain devoutly to be wished, for there is a limit to human complaisance. One will never know the exact measure of one's infecting power; or whether, indeed, one is not just a long soporific. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in front of a black Republican office, thirsting for black Republican whisky. Bottle after bottle, was passed down the line, and as it gurgled down the throats of these enthusiastic marchers they smacked their lips with as much gusto as did Rip Van Winkle when partaking of the soporific potation that produced his twenty years' sleep. One of the cardinal principles of the Democracy, at that time was to "love rum and hate niggers." As the entire stock was disposed of before the club resumed its line of march, the host of the occasion ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... to bring his soporific, and having given it to the black slave, and shown him how much it was necessary to take for a dose, he went to Thiuli, and, telling him he must procure some medicinal herbs from the sea, hastened through the gate. On the shore, which was not far ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... from the path, and, followed by L'Isle, was soon ascending the hill. Moodie, somewhat under the influence of his soporific draughts, was in a reverie, wondering whether Lord Strathern would get his letter in time to send a troop of horse after the fugitives, and whether it might not come within the provisions of the military code to ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, "So you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his eye again, and let his head ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had felt so painfully the night before could be molded so that they fell roundly from the tongue in shapely phrases, hurting nobody. He was sufficiently sure of his command of language at length to look at Katharine and again at Denham. All this talk about Shakespeare had acted as a soporific, or rather as an incantation upon Katharine. She leaned back in her chair at the head of the tea-table, perfectly silent, looking vaguely past them all, receiving the most generalized ideas of human ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... and the like of that, if I wanted to sleep better. You, too, are a typical American! Just imagine me drinking milk to make me sleep or grow fat! The thought of such a thing makes me shudder. Your remark about amorous sport being a soporific if performed regularly and without excitement made me double up with laughter. But I am quite sure that the performance of such a 'duty' would not induce sleep. I am only moved to such things by new lovers, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... things casually or constitutionally associated with a man's piety, an influence operating to disable his understanding; as if there had been mixed with the incense of a devout service in the temple, a soporific ingredient which had the effect of closing the worshipper's eyes ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... bleeding and blistering, and easy bravado, (Not to speak of hot water,) he passes Sangrado. He stickles at nothing, from simple phlebotomy, As our friend Sidney said, to a case of lithotomy: And I'll venture to say, that this latest specific, When taken, will prove to be no soporific. Might I just hint how happy 'twould make me to be Sole Agent down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Remedies soon lost their soporific effect on me, or I acquired tolerance to the usual dosage, and the folks had to hunt up new things to give. I took soothing syrups and "baby's friends" galore. The night and the day were not rightly divided for me; when I slept, it ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... and suffocation having yielded for the time being to McCabe's treatment—Carteret persuaded her to go upstairs and let the said Mary put her to bed. Once there she slept the sleep of exhaustion, fatigue and sorrow mercifully acting as a soporific, her capacity for further thought ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... husband would no doubt have protested, demanded explanations, insisted upon being put down at once, had they been able; but, whether it was that the car had some peculiarly soporific tendency, or whether it was merely the sudden swift rush through the upper air, a torpor had already fallen on the whole Stimpson family. It was even questionable if they remained long enough ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... of the unfortunate man whose connubial rights seemed to stand in his way. Full of impatience for the consummation of the diabolical project when once he had determined on its execution, and having given to his victim a strong soporific, which threw him into a heavy sleep, he proceeds to urge on the faithless wife to the act of stabbing her unconscious husband. This tragedy she performed with one of the unhappy man's own instruments of trade, under the guidance of ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... Dick, in reply to Nort's obvious statement that he intended to administer some of the soporific ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... was snoring softly in deep slumber. Casey listened suspiciously, knowing too well how misleading a snore could be. But his own eyelids were growing exceeding heavy, and the soporific sound acted hypnotically upon his sleep-hungry brain. He caught himself yawning, and suddenly threw ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower |
