He stretched out an arm and placed a log upon the fire, constraining himself to fit it carefully into the frail red scaffolding, and also to limit his thoughts to this one room.
"Night and Day"
Virginia Woolf
As the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth.
"The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus"
G. A. Chadwick
She tortures me, by half constraining me to revere the virtues in favour of which she harangues so divinely.
"Anna St. Ives"
Thomas Holcroft