Both Uses

cease
in
A Curtain of Green
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Only by ceaseless activity could she cope with the rich blackness of this soil.†
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ceaseless = never-ending

standard suffix: The suffix "-less" in ceaseless means without and reverses the meaning of cease. This is the same pattern you see in words like harmless, fearless, and powerless.
Such a head she could strike off, intentionally, so deeply did she know, from the effect of a man's danger and death, its cause in oblivion; and so helpless was she, too helpless to defy the workings of accident, of life and death, of unaccountability.... Life and death, she thought, gripping the heavy hoe, life and death, which now meant nothing to her but which she was compelled continually to wield with both her hands, ceaselessly asking, Was it not possible to compensate?†

ceaselessly = in a manner that does not stop

standard suffix: The suffix "-less" in ceaselessly means without. This is the same pattern you see in words like fearless, homeless, and endless.

Definitions:

(1) (cease)
to stop or discontinue
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
Note that the expression, cease fire means to stop doing battle such as firing funs at each other. Similarly, the noun, cease-fire, is a state of having stopped doing battle.