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More "Provoke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blue-coat could be seen. They had fallen back in the darkness, and prudently abstaining from breakfast, I galloped northward, as if the whole Confederate army was at my heels. These old turnpike roads were now marked by daily chases and rencontres. A few Virginians, fleetly mounted, would provoke pursuit from a squad of Federals, and the latter would be led into ambuscades. A quaint incident happened in this ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... pursued Tyke, "if he did that deliberately, expecting you'd rake him fore and aft for it, it shows that he wants you to start something, don't it? An' my principle in a fight is to find out what the other feller wants and then not do it. He wants to provoke you. Don't let yourself be provoked or you'll play right ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... for those who make nourishment the chief end of eating,[17-*] and do not desire to provoke appetite beyond the powers and necessities of nature; proceeding, however, on the purest epicurean principles of indulging the palate as far as it can be done without injury or offence to the stomach, and forbidding[18-*] nothing ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... deprived him of his coolness and presence of mind. He steadily confronted them with an unblenching eye, grasping the club of which he had possessed himself, in readiness to meet the attack, which he at the same time did nothing, by look or gesture, to provoke. His calm intrepidity, while it seemed temporarily to restrain our enemies, served also to reassure and steady Barton and myself; and endeavouring to emulate his self-possession, we stood ready to act as circumstances should indicate, looking ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "You'll provoke me to break your neck some day, you vagabond! Ride back for your life, and pay whatever he asks, and get me ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... republic, nor as a rule neglectful of old historical buildings; and the sight of this magnificent old place, mouldering away with no apparent aid forthcoming—except such as the liberality of occasional visitors provides, and that, for such a work, is practically nil—did not provoke any wish to change our nationality. It is not as if the French said, "We are becoming a Protestant people, and therefore wish to destroy all signs of our having once followed the faith of Rome;" for in that case censure would be utterly misplaced; but surely if the national religion remains ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... seen the hurried burials at the Campo Santo, in Havana, was highly edifying. A man was training a game-cock in the pit; he was giving it lessons in the virtue of perseverance. He held another cock before it, which he was teaching it to pursue, and striking it occasionally over the head to provoke it, with the wing of the bird in his hand, he made it run after him about the area for ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... he married the notorious princess Jezebel, the daughter of the king of that city State. He also became a worshipper of the Phoenician god Baal, to whom a temple had been erected in Samaria. "And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him."[447] Obadiah, who "feared the Lord greatly", was the governor of Ahab's house, but the outspoken prophet Elijah, whose arch enemy was the notorious Queen Jezebel, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... resist me, Julia? why will you provoke your mother to this degree? You have only to consent willingly, and you know how ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... undertook the care of you socially, and I object very much to lecturing you. You are nearly as old as I am, and you have had a great deal more experience of life than I have." Mrs. Maynard sighed deeply in assent. "But it does n't seem to have taught you that if you will provoke people to talk of you, you must expect criticism. One after another you've told nearly every woman in the house your affairs, and they have all sympathized with you and pitied you. I shall have to be plain, and tell you that I can't have them sneering and laughing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... looked uncertainly now and then at Prescott, as if he believed him to be the traitorous officer and would provoke him into reply; but Prescott's face was a perfect mask, and his manner careless and indifferent. The suspicions of the others were not aroused, and Harley was not well enough informed to go further; but his look whenever it fell ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... continually repeated threat: "If the law passes, if the measure is adopted, if the election takes place, if you do not do all I want, if you do not yield to all my caprices, I leave you, I constitute myself an independent State, I provoke the formation of a rival Confederacy." The worst causes are the readiest to threaten in this style; having nothing reasonable to say in their own favor, they willingly proceed to violence, and the saying of Themistocles would find here a legitimate application: ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... But," and he drew Rienzi aside, "you know we must be politic as well as just. Nephew to two Cardinals, what enmity will not this provoke at Avignon?" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... apostate, an accursed antichrist. They pronounced him a tyrannical usurper of the popedom, a wolf that had stolen into the fold. They called upon him to descend at once from the throne which he occupied without canonical title; if repentant, he might find mercy; if he persisted he would provoke the indignation of God, of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and all of the saints, for his violation of the Spouse of Christ, the common Mother of the Faithful. It was signed by thirteen cardinals. The more pious and devout were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... south. They have taken their time. Hours over San Francisco and the bay district. Repeating same tactics; fall with terrific speed to cushion against their blast of gas. Trying to draw us out, provoke an attack, make us show our strength. Well, we shall beat them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... thy heels repentance follows fast. To you, ye marble gods (If ye in Phlegethon reside, or dwell Above the clouds), a mockery and scorn Is the unhappy race, Of whom you temples ask, And fraudulent the law that you impose. Say, then, does earthly piety provoke The anger of the gods? O Jove, dost thou protect the impious? And when the storm-cloud rushes through the air, And thou thy thunderbolts dost aim, Against the just dost thou impel the sacred flame? Unconquered Fate and stern necessity Oppress the ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... roused woman: especially if she add to all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair; which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss Nancy's rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a glance, half imploring and half cowardly, at Sikes: as if to hint that he was the fittest ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... is willing to pull in a yoke, We live like two lambs, nor each other provoke; We both of us strive, like the labouring ant, And do our endeavours to keep ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... with Nigra, with Rancez, until, in September, 1889, Bismarck's frank admissions settled the matter in my mind for good, has been one of the most disputed points in modern history. My opinion that Bismarck had prepared the war, and had brought about the Hohenzollern candidature in order to provoke it, was only strengthened by an article entitled "Who is responsible for the War?" by "Scrutator"—probably from the pen of Congreve, the Comtist, who I know was in correspondence with the Duc de Gramont. At Easter, 1872, I ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... uttermost edges of the civilized earth, thus to lift themselves against her sovereign will, and dare dispute her high decrees! It was not to be borne: she would humble them for this presumption, chastise them for their disobedience, and show them what a terrible thing it was to provoke her wrath. Her heart thus steeled to mercy, she stayed not her hand, but sent her hosts of armed men in her fleets of armed ships, to lay her heavy yoke, and fit it firm and fast on the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... sad and miserable examples all my friends afford me! Not I, Euan, unless——" She smiled at me with pretty malice. "——you enter the lists. Do you then enter?" I reddened and laughed, and she, always enchanted to plague and provoke me, began her art forthwith, first innocently slipping her arm through mine, as though to support her flagging steps, then, as if by accident, letting one light finger slip along my sleeve to touch ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... filthiness, which is characteristic of the place, the marchioness was for returning, remarking to her friend that she had as yet heard none of that singular broad humour for which these nymphs of the fish-market were so celebrated. "Then you shall have a specimen directly," said Lady C——, "if I can provoke it; only prepare your ethics and your ears for a slight shock; "and immediately approaching an old fresh-water dragon, who sat behind an adjoining stall, with a countenance spirited in the 303extreme, and glowing with all the beautiful varieties of the ultra-marine ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... enormous sacrifices of blood and property from the German people, but we should show our enemies what it means to provoke Germany. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... stupid faces devoid of any trace of intelligence or expression, listening to the speakers whose words convey no meaning to their stultified minds, and others with their eyes gleaming with savage hatred of their fellow men, watching eagerly for an opportunity to provoke a quarrel that they may gratify their brutal natures by striking someone—their eyes are hungry for the sight of blood! Can't you see that these people, whom you are trying to make understand your plan ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... how loving, nay, passionate, was her nature—vehement, demonstrative—oh! how could he stir her once more into expression, even if the first show or speech she made was of anger? Then he tried being angry with her himself; he was sometimes unjust to her consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness. He only seemed to drive her love away ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... he is provoked. But more things provoke an Irish terrier than one might imagine. The postman provoked my old one so much that it bit the letters out of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... be illustrative of the force of habit. In this allegory Arthur is supposed to be met by a sprite, who appears at first in a small and indistinct form, but who, on approaching nearer, increases in size, and, assuming the semblance of half a man, endeavors to provoke the king to wrestle. Despising his weakness, and considering that he should gain no credit by the encounter, Arthur refuses to do so, and delays the contest until at length the half man (Habit) becomes so strong that it requires his utmost efforts to overcome ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Addressing Lord Orville with great respect, he said, "I beg pardon, my Lord,-if I was-as I fear might be the case-rather too severe in my censure of the lady who is honoured with your protection-but, my Lord, ill-breeding is apt to provoke a man." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... slightly shrugged her shoulders. "You are behaving like a child of six, and really, if you go on, you will provoke me into treating you as such. The attitude you have chosen to adopt is neither sensible nor dignified, let me tell you. You resent my presence here. Very well; but you cannot prevent it. Would it not be much wiser of you either to submit to my ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... the house for a medicine-bottle, such as he had seen plenty of at the parsonage, and found two. He chose the smaller, lest size should provoke disinclination. Then he woke Tommy, and said ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... perseverance, patience, fortitude. Those who regard the world as God-emanated and God-guided, must inevitably realise that the relation of man—susceptible to pleasure and pain by contact with his environment—to his environment—filled with pleasure and pain-giving objects—must be intended to provoke in man the desire to possess the pleasure-giving, to avoid the pain-giving. In fact, God's lures to exertion are pleasures; His warnings are pains and the interplay between man and environment causes evolution. The man who does not believe in God has only to substitute the word "Nature" for "God" ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant
... hospitalities, was to separate, and with a hostile expression of feeling. That would be to throw hindrances in the way of Christianity: the religion could not spread rapidly under such repulsive prejudices; and dangers, that it became un-Christian to provoke, would thus multiply against the infant faith. This being so, and as the gods were really the only parties invited who got nothing at all of the banquet, it becomes a question of some interest,—what did they get? They were merely mocked, if ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... little in thine eyes that our King doth offer thee mercy, and that after so many provocations? Yea, he still holdeth out his golden sceptre to thee, and will not yet suffer his gate to be shut against thee: wilt thou provoke him to do it? If so, consider of what I say; to thee it is opened no more for ever. If thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him. Yea, because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke; then a great ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... lest, perchance, he may presumptuously think that by his own diligence, his own memory, his own strength, he is provoking God to forgive his sins. Nay, rather it is God Himself Who, with ready forgiveness, will anticipate his confession, and allure and provoke him, by the goodness of His sweet promise, to accept ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... his questioner exclaimed. "You may be of service to us, Everard. You may, indeed! Now tell me, isn't it true that they have secret agents out there, trying to provoke unsettlement and disquiet amongst the Boers? Isn't it true that they apprehend a war with England before very long and are determined to stir up the Colony ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are proving their right to assist in coercing others to obey the laws, by disobeying the laws themselves. By pouring vitriol on golf-greens, by pinning their defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. Pray, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... were to carry on a propaganda in favor of a gold standard and of the demonetization of silver, the Indian Government would be obliged to reconsider its position, and might be forced by events to take measures similar to those taken elsewhere. In that case the scramble to get rid of silver might provoke one of the gravest crises ever undergone ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... a pall-bearer, indicates some enemy will provoke your ill feeling, by constant attacks on your integrity. If you see a pall-bearer, you will antagonize worthy institutions, and make ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... threw them at the apes on the trees. I did the same; and the apes, out of revenge, threw coconuts at us so fast, and with such gestures, as sufficiently testified their anger and resentment. We gathered up the cocoanuts, and from time to time threw stones to provoke the apes; so that by this stratagem we filled our bags with cocoanuts. I thus gradually collected as many cocoanuts as produced me ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... constitute the justa causa of dissembling or misleading, whether it be extreme as the defence of life, or a duty as the custody of a secret, or of a personal nature as to repel an impertinent inquirer, or a matter too trivial to provoke question, as in dealing with children or madmen, there seem to be ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... desirous of testing the strength of our godling; we persistently proved to one another that our godling was a strong godling, and that Tanya would come out the victor in this combat. Then, finally, it appeared to us that we did not provoke the soldier enough, that he might forget about the dispute, and that we ought to irritate his self-love the more. Since that day we began to live a particular, intensely nervous life—a life we had never ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... cumulative consequences of defeats are also realized, and as no country is apt to assume that the morale and skill of its forces are measurably greater than those of a probable antagonist, no country and no alliance is apt to provoke war with a nation whose armed forces are superior in number of units of personnel and material; unless, of course, the nation is markedly inferior in morale and skill, as the Persians were to the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... poison; it meets the children of Ephraim, as Amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in the wood.' Of himself he adds: 'I cannot deny that I am more violent than I ought to be; they know it, and therefore should not provoke the dog. How hard it is to moderate one's heat and one's pen you can learn for yourself. That is the reason why I was always unwilling to be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am, the more I am drawn into the contest; that this happens so is due to those scandalous ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... most lecherous and salacious of men, in all ranks of life from prince to peasant take a pride in respecting the maiden for a few nights after the wedding-feast extending, perhaps to a whole week and sometimes more. A brutal haste is looked upon as "low"; and, as sensible men, they provoke by fondling and toying Nature to speak ere proceeding to the final and critical act. In England it is very different. I have heard of brides over thirty years old who had not the slightest suspicion concerning what complaisance was expected of them: out of mauvaise honte, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... me, now that she's gone, to think that I never broke the promise I made her that night; for as I tould you, except in regard to the duck-egg, a bitther word never passed between us. I was in a passion then, for a wonder, and bent upon showing her that I was a dangerous man to provoke; so just to give her a spice of what I could do, I made Larry feel it—and may God forgive me for raising my hand even then to her. But sure he would be a brute that would beat such a woman except by proxy. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... diligently sewing together skins of beasts into coats for Adam and Eve. Such representations presented no difficulties to the docile minds of the Middle Ages and the Reformation period; and in the same spirit, when the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declared to be "models of his works approved or rejected by the great Artificer," "outlines of future creations," "sports of Nature," or "objects placed in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity"; and this kind ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... nor secure his unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest, and seizing the possessions of the English. In order to have a pretext for this violence, he endeavoured, without discovering his intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which, he thought, could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the principal nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was quartered in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any tumult or rebellion. But as ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... to our further astonishment his rich Irish voice could be heard upraised in picturesque malediction. What was Rigden doing to them inside the tank to provoke such profanity from them both? The rest of us scrambled to ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... which "stone fruits," especially plums, are generally regarded owes its being to the fact that they are too often eaten when unripe. When ripe, they are as wholesome as any other fruit. Unripe they provoke choleraic diarrhoea. ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... there were treason. Nobody of the least sagacity, much less the 'master of wiles,' such as contemporaries accounted Ralegh, if he had been concerned in a plot, and if his implication in it had been known to a single person, would have been so foolish as to provoke his one accomplice ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... (the people) what have they done?" We may ask the same of the rank and file of our army. What have they done? It was not they who ordained the war, and so far as personal influence may have gone to provoke war, many of those who sit at home at ease are more to blame than the men who believe that they are obeying the call of duty when they offer themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds, sickness, and lingering ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... and digs her small fists into her eyes, in silent indignation and despair. Then comes a howl impossible to smother, and at last such bitter bursts of woe as nothing short of dire necessity can force you to provoke. This is Sarala, one of the most affectionate, most wilful, most winsome of all the babies. She is truthful. She has just this moment pulled a drawing-pin out of its place, which happened to be within reach, and her solemn "Aiyo!" (Alas!) "Look, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the observance of the household religion. The fact will not seem strange if we remember that the underlying idea in either cult was the same,—the idea that the welfare of the living depended upon the welfare of the dead. Neglect of the household rite would provoke, it was believed, the malevolence of the spirits; and their malevolence might bring about some public misfortune. The ghosts of the ancestors controlled nature;—fire and flood, pestilence and famine were at their disposal as means of vengeance. One act of impiety in a village ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... three were sunk. The pirate lieutenant would have dealt mercifully with him, but the fierce old man suddenly seized him by the hair on the crown of his head, and grinned at him, so that he might provoke him to slay him. But even then Paou spoke kindly to him. Upon this he committed suicide, being seventy years ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... this fact. He was less disquieted at this, because he was resolved to keep them entirely safe. As a result of his reflections during the night, he had determined to break off forever his intrigue with Madame de Campvallon. For this rupture, which he had made it a point of honor not to provoke, Madame de Campvallon had herself furnished ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ebenezer, Silas and Jonathan, who settled Wheeling, [95] were also men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west of them. He was accompanied in that excursion by Isaac Williams, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... hardly ever get back the reins he has yielded up; unless she, by carrying too far the power of which she seems at present too sensible, should, when she has no favours to confer which he has not a right to demand, provoke him to throw off the too-heavy yoke. And should he do so, and then treat her with negligence, Miss Howe, of all the women I know, will be the least able to support herself under it. She will then be more unhappy than she ever made ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... spoonfuls of the liquor, while all the members of the family stand around and murmur approvingly, "Thank you, thank you." Occasionally tesvino is exclusively used for curing, with the aid of two small crosses, one of red Brazil wood, the other of white pine. If he chooses, a shaman may provoke illness as well as cure it, but he cannot cure ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e. let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the Latin ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... These things would provoke a smile, did they not bring with them the memory of the anguished struggle to fight off want that the wives and children of the soldier martyrs made. I have gone into detail further than space, or the reader's patience may warrant; and still, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... is the meaning of all this trash?" said Nigel; "or has it no other end than to provoke my patience? You know well enough, that, had I twenty serving-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood by me in my distress the most valued of them all. But it is totally out of reason to plague me ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... of reason, and best rules of wisdom; as producing very mischievous effects to ourselves, bereaving us of the chief goods, and exposing us to the worst evils. What can be more egregiously absurd than to dissent in our opinion and discord in our choice from infinite wisdom; to provoke by our actions sovereign justice, and immutable severity: to oppose almighty power, and offend immense goodness; to render ourselves unlike and contrary in our doings, our disposition, our state, to absolute perfection and ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; that only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I am now here, strolling about in the shade of the venerable trees in ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... B.C., "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy."—1 Macc. i. 17. Frequent allusions to the use of elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated that "to provoke the elephants to fight they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries." The term showed, "[Greek: edeixan]," might be thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine and its colour, but in the Third Book ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Ismael, I at once found, considered it his policy to provoke a conflict with any new consul, and either break him in or buy him over; and the occasion for a trial of strength was not long coming. The night patrol attempted to arrest the son of the vice-consul in his house, in which ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... divert, then it occupies a wholly different ground from the Bible. If it merely gratifies curiosity or enlivens pastime, if it awakens emotion without directing it to useful ends, if it rallies the infirmities of human nature with no other design than to provoke our derision or increase our conceit, it shoots very, very wide of the object which the sacred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... was enough to provoke laughter even on the Sabbath and under Aunt Margaret's nose. He was the robin whose chief shouting-place was the hawthorn bush in the lane. John and Elizabeth had so named him because he always made such a noise, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... writers is hard; for if they tell the truth they provoke man, and if they write what is false they offend ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... (as I then firmly believed) dead. My suspicions of poisoning pointed to the poisoner. Madame Fontaine's wonderful cure of Mr. Keller, by means of her own mysterious remedy, made me suspect Madame Fontaine. My motive, in refusing to give the burial certificate, was to provoke the legal inquiry, which I knew that Mr. Keller would institute, on the mere expression of a doubt, on my part, whether your aunt had died a natural death. At that time, I had not the slightest anticipation of the event that has actually occurred. Before, however, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... had become low in spirits, unhappy in temperament, and self-diffident to a painful degree. Alaric, to give him his due, did everything in his power to persuade him to see the task out to the last. But the assurance and composure of Alaric's manner did more than anything else to provoke and increase Norman's discomfiture. He had been schooling himself to bear a beating with a good grace, and he began to find that he could only bear it as a disgrace. On the morning of the third day, instead of taking his place ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to blame her. A devil—to provoke men to such a pitch of madness! Well, he was done with her. Anyhow, he had seen her now in her true colours. She was no good! There could be no further argument about that. If he ever had anything to do with her let him ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... business, Uncle," retorted the younger man, rather abruptly. "I can't afford to provoke the illwill of the Greys. If Holner comes to me, I dare say I shall ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... one take precautions against spies and foreign agents, who will try to gather information or provoke manifestations. ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... it had not been difficult, because Jasmine had, not ostentatiously, avoided being often with Stafford. It seemed to Jasmine that she must not see much of him alone. Still there was some new cause to provoke his interest and draw him to herself. The Jigger episode had done much, had altered the latitudes of their association, but the perihelion of their natures was still far off; and she was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... reflections about this period. I might go on prosing more and more, I might dive much deeper, and disclose other thoughts, propose questions the reader might be puzzled to answer, and deduce arguments that might startle his prejudices, or, perhaps, provoke his ridicule, because he could not comprehend ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Established church, and to take an oath against transubstantiation within six months after their entrance into office. The repeal immediately placed Dissenters and Catholics upon the same footing with members of the Established church, and was in itself sufficient to provoke opposition on the part of all who had not united in the evangelical movement. But the antagonism became still more decided when Parliament passed the Irish Church Property Act, in 1833, in spite of the determined remonstrances ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... act of violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... "You do provoke me beyond anythin', Copernicus Droop! Ef I'd a-knowed the kind o' way we'd had to live—why, there! It's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Cesare Borgia thus in a plain straightforward tale at this time of day, would be to provoke the scorn and derision of those who have made his acquaintance in the pages of that eminent German scholar, Ferdinand Gregorovius, and of some other writers not quite so eminent yet eminent enough to serve serious consideration. Hence has it been necessary ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... of flowery ease in the dreamy Orient to which we are led. No doubt these first glimpses of the task that lies before us, as well as the warfare with distant tribes into which we have been unexpectedly plunged, will provoke for the time a certain discontent with our new possessions. But on a far-reaching question of national policy the wise public man is not so greatly disturbed by what people say in momentary discouragement under the first temporary ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... out at different times from 1500 to 1525, and which, resulting in their defeat, rendered their lot harder than before. The cause of the Reformation, held answerable for the movement, suffered damage as well, but indeed the excesses of the insurgents were calculated to provoke the retribution that was meted ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... struck with sickness, and died cursing. Another such scene he probably witnessed himself,[1] and never forgot. An alehouse-keeper in the neighbourhood of Elstow had a son who was half-witted. The favourite amusement, when a party was collected drinking, was for the father to provoke the lad's temper, and for the lad to curse his father and wish the devil had him. The devil at last did have the alehouse-keeper, and rent and tore him till he died. 'I,' says Bunyan, 'was eye and ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... anything in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke." Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the Lord, as to the wife, representing the people. So early as in Deut. xxxii. 21, we read: "They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation," After all that had, in the Song of Solomon, been predicted regarding the reception of the Gentile nations into the kingdom of God and Christ, and about the receiving again into it of Israel, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... of Croghan had given me food, Even from her lips, though all of good That the heart can wish or wealth can give Were offered to me, there does not live A king or queen on the earth for whom I would do thee ill or provoke ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... shrill voice of the loneliness of the place and the damp of the climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He was paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta. He seemed for once to be unsure of his ground—both to expect attack, even to provoke it—and to shrink from it. His eyes were fixed upon Lady Tatham, and ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a statement of the function of a Second Chamber, not directly elected, may provoke a histrionic smile among extreme advocates of so-called popular rights, but has never evoked an argument which can displace it as based on sound reason and common sense. There are some changes, too, which ought not to be made without a specific appeal to the people on ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... also declined, leaving Sponsilier to drink alone. During the night, whenever conversation lagged, some one was certain to make reference to the remarks which are said to have passed between the governors of the Carolinas, or if that failed to provoke a rise, ask direct if no one had something to ward off the chilly air. After being refused several times, Dave had thrown the bottle away, meeting these jests with the reply that he had a private flask, but its quality was such that he was afraid ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... three hours,—nobody keeps accurate account of time while he speaks,—but two or three hours without venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered judgment to go against him by default. We, on this side of the House, did our best to provoke him to the conflict. We called on him to maintain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility unworthy of his parts and eloquence. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers—satisfied by their trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The searcher might have turned and caught me; there ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had been often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure the inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made a truce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At length it came out, viz. that an old woman, who had come to sell us some milk, had brought it within our poles, with a young woman with her, who also brought some roots or herbs; and while the old woman (whether she was mother to the young woman or no ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... instance of the random blows of a noble spirit, striking at what, if better understood, it would eagerly have revered— Wordsworth seems never to have read. Nor did the violent attacks of the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews provoke him to any rejoinder. To "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"—leagued against him as their common prey—he opposed a dignified silence; and the only moral injury which he derived from their assaults lay in that sense of the absence ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... are not going away?" asked Helen, with an illogical sense of dismay, which was not, however, in the least apparent. She knew that any sign of feeling would provoke the crisis from which ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... suffrage, would not dare a month to deny it. For when a nation's foundations are on a class of men that do not vote, and its throne stands on forces that are coiled up and liable at any time to break forth to its overthrow, it is a question whether it is safe to provoke the exertion of those forces or not. With us, where all men vote, government is safe; because, if a thing is once settled by a fair vote, we will go to war rather than give it up. As when Lincoln was elected, if an election is valid, it must ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... charming, looked at Cleggett with a grin; a grin that assumed that there was some kind of an understanding between them concerning this delightful pastime. It was too much. Cleggett, with an oath—and never stopping to reflect that it was perhaps just the sort of action which Pierre hoped to provoke—grasped his cane with the intention of laying it across the fellow's shoulders half a dozen times, come what might, and ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to provoke from the plaisant some further expression of self-content in his plans for the future, but the other had ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... may we never dare provoke That high Almighty Power, Which once awaked against our sins, Could blast us in ...
— The Flood • Anonymous
... thou, a mortal man, Could'st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... opinion than we shall fall if more notes are sent to Austria or to Germany. The only way to keep any shred of English respect is the immediate dismissal without more parleying of every German and Austrian official at Washington. Nobody here believes that such an act would provoke war. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and place May assume a kind of grace. It must have some reason in it, And not last beyond a minute. If to further lengths it go, It does into malice grow. 'Tis the difference that we see 'Twixt the Serpent and the Bee. If the latter you provoke, It inflicts a hasty stroke, Puts you to some little pain, But it never stings again. Close in tufted bush or brake Lurks the poison-swelled snake, Nursing up his cherish'd wrath. In the purlieus of his path, In the cold, or in the warm, Mean ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... don't at all. They were imposed upon you by circumstances, by unfortunate associations, and you accepted them as you would have accepted any other burden, on account of the sweetness of your nature. You always want to please some one, and now you go lecturing about the country, and trying to provoke demonstrations, in order to please Miss Chancellor, just as you did it before to please your father and mother. It isn't you, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too) whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind it, to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... must be done for several months; with most children for two or three years; with some, throughout childhood, for with them the slightest deviation from established rules is sure to provoke a relapse. ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... transgression of which Dhritarashtra alludes is the slaughter by Bhishma from his car, of Sweta who was then a combatant on foot. Or, it may be the very slaughter of Sweta, who was dear to the Pandavas and which act would, the king thought, provoke them more. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dares to provoke her, by reviling the absent Posthumus, her indignation heightens her scorn, and her scorn sets a keener ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... should confer with him respecting their new institutions. His Minister at Milan thereupon proposed that they should cross the Alps for that purpose, assembling, not at Paris, where their dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... before or follow it, because it affords one of the most serious instances of mistranslation that are to be met with in the whole New Testament. For the true translation of the words is this: "For who were they who, when they had heard, did provoke? nay, were they not all who came out of Egypt through Moses?" And then it goes on—"And with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... not provoke me. I never loved you! Look at the precipice which you have opened before me—count the sleepless nights during which I tore my breast with grief—count the days on which I called to you as from a cross—look at this thin face, at these trembling hands, and repeat once more that I never ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... excellent, the admiration of the many was confined to subjects either gross or puerile, and commonly to the meanest efforts of intellect; whereas at this time (1819) the whole train of subjects most popular in the earlier exhibitions have disappeared. The loaf and cheese that could provoke hunger, the cat and canary bird, and the dead mackerel on a deal board, have long ceased to produce astonishment and delight; while truth of imitation now finds innumerable admirers though combined with the highest qualities ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... saw where this would lead too. She saw, too, that Fanning was anxious to provoke Roy into a race. Presumably he was anxious to humiliate the boy in ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... immense talk, with plenty of laughter and no thought of mischief, among the crowd. The habitans of en haut and the habitans of en bas commingled, as they rarely did, in a friendly way. Nor was anything to provoke a quarrel said even to the Acadians, whose rude patois was a source of merry jest to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... my godly instructions. An ox knoweth its lord, an ass its master's duty, But Israel will not know me, nor my conditions. Oh, froward people, given all to superstitions, Unnatural children, expert in blasphemies, Provoke me into hate, by their idolatries. Take heed to my words, ye tyrants of Sodoma, In vain ye offer your sacrifice to me. Discontent I am with you beasts of Gomorrah And have no pleasure when I your offerings see. I abhor your fasts ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... became. I expected at least some resistance to my command; but he offered none; for without attempting to stir or even look me in the face, he smiled a ghastly smile, and muttered, 'It has done its work then—well, I am glad! Look in your horse-saddle, and never provoke me more.' I hesitated for a moment whether to loosen my hold upon the man, and to believe so improbable a story; but on the whole I deemed it better to do so. He had fulfilled his threat of revenge, and had ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... are not easy for the many to accomplish. But I desired rather to find a way to keep strictly the commandments of God, and not swerve from them, and, after his pardoning of my past misdeeds, never again to provoke that most ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... this one's 'DOXY is; and how dangerous he, not a mere mute man of quality, but a talking spirit with winged words, may be;—and they much annoy and terrify him, by their roaring in the distance. Which roaring cannot, of course, convince; and since it is not permitted to kill, can only provoke a talking spirit into still deeper strains of heterodoxy for his own private behoof. These are the Lions on his path: beasts conscious to themselves of good intentions; but manifesting from Voltaire's point of view, it must be owned, a physiognomy unlovely to a degree. 'Light is ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... a country-house (who can say how soon?) you may look for grottoes, and cascades, and fountains; nay if you vex me by contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a temple—so provoke me not, for you see of what ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... had awoke, and the vapour had penetrated the mineral layer heaped up at the bottom of the crater. But would the subterranean fires provoke any violent eruption? This was an event which could not be foreseen. However, even while admitting the possibility of an eruption, it was not probable that the whole of Lincoln Island would suffer from it. The flow of volcanic matter ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... the Tsar and his Boyars rose in their places simultaneously, and their tissue vests made so strange, loud, and unexpected a noise as to provoke the ever too easily moved risibility of the Englishmen.[109:1] When Marvell and the rest of them had ceased from giggling, the Tsar inquired after the health of the king, but the distance between his Imperial Majesty and Lord Carlisle being too ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... lacking; and there was no tie of habitual, even though half-hostile, intercourse to unite the two parties. In consequence the ill-will often showed itself by acts of violence. The backwoods bullies were prone to browbeat and insult the officers if they found them alone, trying to provoke them to rough-and-tumble fighting; and in such a combat, carried on with the revolting brutality necessarily attendant upon a contest where gouging and biting were considered legitimate, the officers, who were accustomed only to use their fists, generally had the worst of it; so that at last ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... me. "Not so hot, my friend. What the devil have I said to provoke resentment? I advise ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... shot herself; the other drowned herself in the canal. And both of them left letters addressed to Pilleux—enough to damn him in the eyes of authority. He was told that he might leave France, or take the consequences—a mild enough warning, but it worked. He dared not provoke an inquiry into his past. So he shipped on board a small Mediterranean steamer as fireman, and disappeared, no ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... carries, and also attains its full length when the sporule appears. The form of the latter is at first globular, then ellipsoid, and more or less curved. All these phases of vegetation are accomplished in less than twelve hours, and if the spore is mature and ready for germination, it is sufficient to provoke it by keeping the pseudospores in a humid atmosphere. During this process the two cells do not separate, nor does one commence germination before the other, but both simultaneously. When the sporules are produced, ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... At the theater the house was very good, and the audience very pleasant. The play was "The Provoked Husband," and I'm sure I play his provoking wife badly enough to provoke anybody; but she's not a person to my mind, which is an ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... number of members, among whom were the Archbishop, many bishops and abbots and nobles. These dramatic productions belonged to the religious and social sides of the guilds. The plays, however, did not always provoke pleasure, for sometimes members of some of the guilds complained of the financial burden they were forced to bear in order to produce the plays ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... there. I dare to dirty your worship's helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith, sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed, they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master's good sense to see that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort; and that if I had, it is in my stomach ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he was, Peter succumbed. It was better that she should indulge her astounding caprice under his roof than elsewhere. It would not do for the sister of an Atherly to provoke scandal. He gave entertainments, picnics, and parties, and "Jinny" Atherly plunged into these mild festivities with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl. She not only could dance with feverish energy all night, but next day could mount a ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... this statement. It is related that "One day while showing goods to two or three women in Offutt's store, a bully came in and began to talk in an offensive manner, using much profanity and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln leaned over the counter and begged him, as ladies were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully retorted that the opportunity had come for which he had long sought, and he would like to see the man who could hinder him from saying anything he might ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Ossaroo explained how he had chanced to provoke the attack of the bees. On hearing the report of Caspar's gun, and the noise of the conflict between Fritz and the bears, he had started in great haste to get up to the spot, and give assistance. In running forward, he scarce looked before him; and ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... asked yesterday, who is Black-hawk? Why does he sit among the chiefs? I will tell you who I am. I am a Sac, my father was a Sac—I am a warrior and so was my father. Ask these young men, who have followed me to battle, and they will tell you who Black-hawk is. Provoke our people to war, and you ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... sweet tooth had never been filled. She loved food, and her appetite demanded quantity as well as quality. Of peculiar significance was the fact that throughout the years she had never had a spell when physically and mentally comfortable, but, as the years passed, the amount of discomfort which could provoke a nervous disturbance became less and less. She was a well-informed woman, quite interesting on many subjects, outside of herself, and had done much excellent reading. Unafflicted, she would mentally have been more ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... not what power I am of. I will therefore, early in the morning, appear unto them so glorious, and will show such power among them, and with such vigour I will terrify them that neither they nor theirs shall dare henceforth to provoke me to wrath." Lancaster soon found that his brother was stronger than he. The Commons obtained a new Council, in which Wykeham was included and from which Lancaster was shut out. They then proceeded to accuse before the House of Lords Richard Lyons and Lord Latimer of embezzling the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... and Cabinet Ministers in heavy succession, and his daughter understood. There was an element of insubordination in her father, which she knew better than to provoke. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we seldom hear of the grievous wrongs which provoke the vengeance of the slave; I will tell an anecdote, which I know to be true, as a proof in point. Within the last two years, a gentleman residing in Boston, was summoned to the West Indies in consequence of troubles on his plantation. His overseer had been killed by the slaves. This fact ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... you, Bessie?" asked Dolly suddenly, as they reached the house. She was plainly concerned and surprised, and Eleanor, rather startled, since she had seen nothing in Bessie to provoke such a question, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... we dislike and scorn such representations, which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. So that what either in the words or sense of an author, or in the language and actions of men, is awry or depraved, does strongly stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather, unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... magistrate severely, as he contemplated the lachrymose delinquent. "An estaminet is a public place within the meaning of Section 444 of the Code Penal. Vous avez mechamment impute a une personne un fait precis qui est de nature a porter atteinte a son honneur." "And calculated to provoke a breach of the peace," he added. "It is punishable with a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year." The face of the accused grew long. "Or a fine of 200 francs," he pursued. The lips of the accused quivered. "You may have to go to a maison de correction," ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... to be known that Grant had inherited a most unfortunate family failing, a terrible temper, which, when uncontrolled, was liable to lead him into extreme acts of violence; and it was this temper he feared, instead of the fellows he had shunned whenever they sought to provoke him. Even now, although baseball was a gentle game in comparison with football, he was not absolutely sure he could always deport himself as a gentleman and a ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... hence." In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such philosophy, but now it seemed inadequate and superficial, and Maggie had begun to fear the violence of the storm she had brewed. She did not mind stimulating ill-feeling, but she did not wish Sally to provoke her father recklessly. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... his own men hotly pursuing him, and not knowing him in his disguise. It is no wonder that his uncle is in despair and fear, when he sees the head he is carrying off. So all the host pursue him fast, while Cliges leads them on to provoke a fight, until the Saxons see him drawing near. But they, too, are quite misled by the arms with which he has armed and equipped himself. He succeeds in deceiving and mocking them; for the duke and all the rest, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... of peace to the consul Norbanus, which were as hypocritical as was his abstinence from ravaging the country. He meant to deal with these Samnites through whose country he was marching at some other time. At present it was most politic not to provoke them. According to Appian, he met the consul at Canusium, on the Aufidus. [Sidenote: Battle of Mount Tifata. Defeat of Norbanus.] But it is probable that this is a mistake, and that the first battle was fought at Mount Tifata, a spur of the Apennines, near Capua. Norbanus had seized Sulla's envoys, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... must be very careful. He was overcharged with gout, and he must not provoke an attack, till the waters of Buxton should do that office for him, ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... command you to overhang the night with a thick fog, and lead these quarrelsome lovers so astray in' the dark that they shall not be able to find each other. Counterfeit each of their voices to the other, and with bitter taunts provoke them to follow you, while they think it is their rival's tongue they hear. See you do this, till they are so weary they can go no farther; and when you find they are asleep, drop the juice of this other flower into Lysander's eyes, and when he awakes he will forget ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... There was, as has been already stated, a very strong party at Carthage opposed to Hannibal, who would, of course, resist any measures tending to a war with Rome, for they would consider such a war as opening a vast field for gratifying Hannibal's ambition. The only way, therefore, was to provoke a war by aggressions on the Roman allies, to be justified by the best pretexts ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... But sure I am, three years They did provoke me with their petulant styles, On every stage. And I at last, unwilling, But weary, I confess, of so much trouble, Thought I would try if ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... authorized by a belligerent to enter into talks with the authorities of the other side and coming under a white flag; also his trumpeter, his standard bearer, and his interpreter. He loses his inviolability if it is proven that he has profited by his privilege to provoke or ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... existence. He is "The Answerer;" he is to find some way of speaking about life that shall satisfy, if only for the moment, man's enduring astonishment at his own position. And besides having an answer ready, it is he who shall provoke the question. He must shake people out of their indifference, and force them to make some election in this world, instead of sliding dully forward in a dream. Life is a business we are all apt to mismanage; either living recklessly from day to ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... army, and the indefinite prospect of its continuance, raised a natural apprehension in many of the officers, that, if it did not provoke some open act of mutiny, would in all probability break down the spirits and constitution of the soldiers. Several of them, therefore, among the rest Mendoza and the two Colonnas, waited on the commander-in-chief, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... solely upon his own account; and, should it meet with success, it leaves by far the greater number at the mercy of an enraged and injured people. But should there be any amongst the Negroes weak enough to believe that Lord Dunmore intends to do them a kindness, and wicked enough to provoke the fury of the Americans against their defenceless fathers and mothers, their wives, their women and children, let them only consider the difficulty of effecting their escape, and what they must expect to suffer if they fall into the hands of the Americans. Let them further consider what must be ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... changed by chance. The matter, then, of his turning off a course out of his way for no apparent reason, and of his having overheard a plot singularly involving a young girl, was indeed an adventure to provoke thought. It provoked more, for Dale grew conscious of an unfamiliar smoldering heat along his veins. He who had little to do with the strife of men, and nothing to do with anger, felt his blood grow hot at the cowardly trap laid ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... and immoral to maintain, that a father, whose right and duty it is to correct his children (and indeed on this occasion correction was abundantly deserved by the insolent demeanour of Luigi) could be considered to provoke his son by a slight personal chastisement." The son, by the way, was over one and twenty, a fact to which no allusion is made. As "a forlorn hope," in the words of the sentence, the counsel for the defence asserted, that whatever the crime of the prisoner might be, it was not parricide, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; that only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I am now here, strolling about in the shade of ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... should be challenger. This would give him the choice of weapons, which, as he well knew, would ensure to him both safety and success. Without the certainty of this, Carlos Santander would have been the last man to provoke such an encounter; for, with all his air of bravache, he ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... and though it was finally beaten by superior forces, it taught its aristocracy and the government a lesson not easily forgotten—a lesson that popular anger could strike hard as well as sigh deeply; and that it was better to conciliate than provoke those who even for an hour had felt their strength. The red rain made Wexford's harvest grow. Theirs was no treacherous assassination—theirs no stupid riot—theirs no pale mutiny. They rose in mass and swept the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... shed in the city during these days—many imprecations uttered, but only secretly and in a low voice, for the people could not venture to provoke the anger of the victor, but had to bear whatever burdens he imposed on them. The odds were too heavy; the army was defeated; the king with his court had fled; the higher functionaries had either concealed themselves or loudly declared their willingness to take ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Pretense! Falsehood and foul Deception! None but a Christian could devise such Lies! Did I not fear it might provoke your Gods, Your Tongue should never frame Deceit again. If there are Gods, and such as you have told us, They must abhor all Baseness and Deceit, And will not fail to punish Crimes like yours. To them I leave you—But avoid my Presence, Nor let me ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... himself moving toward the open door. He did not want to do this, he wanted to shoot King, or at least to provoke a quarrel, but he was for the moment overcome by a stronger personality. At the door he gathered ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... deriving some inkling of the voyage from the wails which at the first moment had greeted him, yet of the details no clear understanding had been had. The best account would, doubtless, be given by the captain. Yet at first the visitor was loth to ask it, unwilling to provoke some distant rebuff. But plucking up courage, he at last accosted Don Benito, renewing the expression of his benevolent interest, adding, that did he (Captain Delano) but know the particulars of the ship's misfortunes, he would, perhaps, be better able in the end to relieve them. Would Don Benito ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... enough to provoke a saint," exclaimed Gerald, who was accustomed to express himself somewhat vehemently; "if it hadn't been for that fellow out there we should have been half across the Bay of Biscay by this time or to-morrow. ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... girl has a profound respect for the Doctor; his calmness, his equanimity, his persistent zeal in his work, would alone provoke it. But she sees, furthermore,—what she does not see always in "Aunt Eliza,"—a dignity of character that is proof against all irritating humors; then, too, he has appeared to Adele a very pattern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... God's sake have a little sense and stand by your word; this crowd has had all it can endure, and if you do any more to provoke it, the consequences will be on you. And while you're about it, see that the saloons are closed and kept closed until this trouble is settled. And keep your people out of the way—don't let them go about showing their guns and ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... so proud of, one would think I'd married a monkey—a hourang-howtang, instead of a man. There—now you're vexed! One can't open one's mouth." My mother knew where to strike; and this attack upon his pigtail was certain to provoke my father, who would retort in no measured language, till she, in her turn, lost her temper, and then out she would sing, in a sort ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... cords? Dost thou not understand that thou art hanging on the edge of a precipice? Dost thou not know that being a deer thou provokest so many tigers to rage? Snakes of deadly venom, provoked to ire, are on thy head! Wretch, do not further provoke them lest thou goest to the region of Yama. In my judgement, slavery does not attach to Krishna, in as much as she was staked by the King after he had lost himself and ceased to be his own master. Like the bamboo that beareth fruit only when it is about to die, the son of Dhritarashtra ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... provoke to ironic laughter that very nemesis which presides over the destinies of nations, if the most autocratic government yet remaining in civilization should succeed in utilizing for its own autocratic methods the youngest and most ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... murmured, oblivious of the fact that no one was telling her anything. "You needn't tell me!" Then, with rare self-reproach, "Perhaps I hadn't ought to have said so much, but such blindness is enough to provoke a saint. If he'd any eyes—couldn't he see Esther?" Mrs. Sykes sighed as she ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... verses untouched on the shop counter, till they were turned over for waste paper, and not a soul have ever known of their contents. The Association, therefore, by their insidious and plotted purchase for the sole object of prosecution, have provoked the act of publication, and they, who provoke crimes are the criminals, and ought to be the culprits; and those, who would punish the crimes that they have provoked, are devils, and not men; "the tempters ere the accusers." When I contemplate such conduct—but I will not waste another word, or another moment of your time upon this miserable ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... lives. It is true, the colony since that period has received little molestation, and has succeeded, moreover, in making some amicable treaties with the natives; but in proportion to its means of defence and numerical force will be its liability to encroach upon the rights of the Africans, and thus to provoke hostilities. If this prophecy should not be fulfilled, history will have spoken in vain, and human nature ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... been calumniated," continued Fouquet, warmly, "and I feel called upon to provoke the justice of the king to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... of his father's situation made the son forget the inequality of the contest which he was about to provoke. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... incarnation. encarnado red; m. flesh-color. encender to kindle, light. encerrar to shut up, lock up, contain. encierro confinement, prison. encima above, over, at the top. encina evergreen oak. encoger to contract, shrug. encolerizar to provoke, anger. encomendar to recommend. encontrar to encounter, meet; vr. find. encorvar to bend. encuentro encounter, meeting. endemoniado devilish, confounded. enderezar to direct, set right, address. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... As stated above (Q. 46, A. 6), anger is the desire to hurt another for the purpose of just vengeance. Now unless some injury has been done, there is no question of vengeance: nor does any injury provoke one to vengeance, but only that which is done to the person who seeks vengeance: for just as everything naturally seeks its own good, so does it naturally repel its own evil. But injury done by anyone does not affect a man unless in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... you can unreservedly approve of; I know you don't begin to approve of me; and I was so vexed that you really had no chance to talk with her that night you met her here; it seemed to me as if she ran away early just to provoke me; and, to tell you the truth, I thought she had taken a dislike to you. I wish I could tell you just what sort of a person she is, but it would be perfectly hopeless, for you haven't got the documents, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... again hereafter, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee naught. And her will I not set free; nay, ere that shall old age come on her in our house, in Argos, far from her native land, where she shall ply the loom and serve my couch. But depart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the rather ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... prey. The presbyter, puff'd up with spiritual pride, Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride: His brethren damn, the civil power defy; 300 And parcel out republic prelacy. But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke And tyrant power will puny sects provoke; And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train, Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane. The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown shall jar, In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war: Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... dimples, aided by dancing eyes, length of lashes, and curve of lips, quite took the place of conversation. The dimples tempted, assented, denied, corroborated, deplored, protested, sympathized, while the intoxicated beholder cudgeled his brain for words or deeds which should provoke and evoke more and ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... centre, that the least irregularity on his part may set up a tremor which shall shake the earth to its foundations. And if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act of the king, it is easy to conceive the convulsion which his death might provoke. The natural death of the Chitom, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of all things. Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own safety, which might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and still more by his death, the people will exact of their king ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... another brace of qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to provoke him to combat. Lamon,—whose biography is a treasury of good stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable realistic picture,—relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and when his victory in the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... HAD taken the Diamond) if I presumed to tell you that I had found it out. I had gone as near to it as I dared when I spoke to you in the library. You had not turned your back on me then. You had not started away from me as if I had got the plague. I tried to provoke myself into feeling angry with you, and to rouse up my courage in that way. No! I couldn't feel anything but the misery and the mortification of it. You're a plain girl; you have got a crooked shoulder; ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... pryde. Girthe saide, with looke adigne; my lord, I doe. But what oure foemen are, quod Girth, I'll shewe; 155 By Gods hie hallidome they preestes are. Do not, quod Harolde, Girthe, mystell them so, For theie are everich one brave men at warre. Quod Girthe; why will ye then provoke theyr hate? Quod Harolde; great the foe, so is the glorie ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... of pluck and mettle like a thoroughbred horse!" said old General von Bergen, who, with his daughter and his adjutant, had come up from the barracks on a visit. "It is a pleasure to provoke her; her eyes light up so. Pohlen," he said, turning to the adjutant, "you seemed to be unfortunate in your remarks to her during dinner; those lovely lips curled as scornfully as if you had seriously offended her, and ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... of Nijni-Novgorod, which at this time of year contained a population of such diverse elements. Perhaps among the Persians, Armenians, or Kalmucks, who flocked to the great market, he had agents, instructed to provoke a rising in the interior. All this was possible, especially in such a country as Russia. In fact, this vast empire, 4,000,000 square miles in extent, does not possess the homogeneousness of the states of Western Europe. The Russian territory in Europe ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... and for social recognition. A man of few words and self-engrossed, he seldom spoke of his aspirations except where speech might favor them, preferring to seek his ends by secret "deals" and combinations rather than to challenge criticism and provoke rivalry by ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... of the thing you write of, that is the true poetic way. The "arrowy odours" of those first white violets he makes us feel, darting forth from among the dead leaves, do they leave us content with the art of their description? They provoke us with their fine essence. They trouble us with a fatality we have to share. The passing from its "caverns of rain" of the newborn cloud—we do not only follow it, obedient to the spell of rhetoric; we are whirled forward with it, laughing at its "cenotaph" and our own, into unimagined ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... was intended. Some of the characters may have been thought to have been drawn from life; but the personages mentioned are mostly composites, like Mr. Galton's compound photographic likenesses, and are not calculated to provoke scandal or ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of blood, should be persuaded that this sentence is true, they would not so furiously come to their own destruction; for what man can be so enraged, that he would willingly do even before the eyes of God that which might provoke his Majesty to anger, yea, provoke him to become his enemy for ever, if he understood how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... of the business of the Hungarian Government in the Lower Chamber at Pesth, made no secret of his hostility to the central powers. While his colleagues sought to avoid a breach with the other half of the Monarchy, it seemed to be Kossuth's object rather to provoke it. In calling for a levy of two hundred thousand men to crash the Slavic rebellion, he openly denounced the Viennese Ministry and the Court as its promoters. In leading the debate upon the Italian ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... event is fear'd; should we again provoke Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find." —Milton, P. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... at any moment, one give umbrage to persons of this status, why, not only office, but I fear even one's life, it would be difficult to preserve. That's why these lists are called office-philacteries. This Hsueeh family, just a while back spoken of, how could your worship presume to provoke? This case in question affords no difficulties whatever in the way of a settlement; but the prefects, who have held office before you, have all, by doing violence to the feelings and good name of these people, come to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Lennox, till recalled by Lady Maclaughlan's letter. But she had been silent on the subject to Mary; for she could not conceal from herself that her husband had been to blame—that the heat and violence of his temper had often led him to provoke and exasperate where mildness and forbearance would have soothed and conciliated, without detracting from his dignity; but her gentle heart shrank from the task of unnecessarily disclosing the faults of the man she ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruff, cloak, or hatband; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which he fell into, the others ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... and let him go about his business in peace. The other, a man named Wright, who had killed small bears, but knew nothing about the Grizzly, insisted on attacking, and prepared to shoot. The others assured him that a bullet from a Kentucky rifle at that distance would only provoke the bear to rush them, and begged him not to fire. But Wright laughed at them and pulled trigger with a bead on the bear's side, where even a heavy ball would ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... out over the landscape in contemplative mood, a tuft of bushes leaning back with a jaunty air from the top of his weatherbeaten hat, and downy mosses about his massive lips. But no rudeness or grotesqueness that may appear, however combined with the decorations that nature has added, may possibly provoke mirth. The whole work is serious in aspect and brave ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... love! To say to oneself: "The loved one exists, far from me, without me; she is young, smiling, lovely—to others; my despair is only an annoyance to her, I am necessary to her in nothing; my absence leaves no void in her life; my death would only provoke from her an expression of careless pity; my good and noble qualities have made no impression upon her; my verses, the delight of other young hearts, she has never read; my talents are as destructive to me as if they were crimes; why seek a hell ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... Government. "We may do with, but cannot do without him," appears to have been the general feeling in reference to him; and it was only by the most skilful management that Mr. Pitt averted those dissensions in the Cabinet which his strange line of conduct had so palpable a tendency to provoke. At last the Chancellor committed himself openly to a hostile vote upon a vital measure, and left it no longer possible for the Minister to palliate their differences by private negotiations. The character and dignity ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... in Sicily, where in the servile war much blood was shed, and many carcasses rotted on the ground, whole swarms of locusts were produced, and spoiled the corn over the whole isle. Such spring from and are nourished by the earth; and seed being formed in them, pleasure and titillation provoke them to mix, upon which some lay eggs, and some bring forth their young alive; and this evidently proves that animals first sprang from earth, and afterwards by copulation, after different ways, propagated their several kinds. In short, it is the same ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... seemed, what in fact it was, exceptionally point-blank; though she guessed that her father had some hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of utilizing her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith's manner was too frank to provoke criticism, and his age too little to inspire fear, she was ready—not to say pleased—to accede. Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down to the pianoforte, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... too fond of her to say more of Lord Harry, for that day. He was careful to lead the talk to a topic which might be trusted to provoke no agitating thoughts. Finding Iris to all appearance established in the doctor's house, he was naturally anxious to know something of the person who must have invited her—the ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... these seeds, and the Almonds together, in a stone morter, with so much Sugar, and Rose-water as is fit, and strayne them through a cleane cloath into the liquor, and drink thereof at night going to bed, and in the night, if this doth not sufficiently provoke sleep, then make some more of the same liquor, and boyle in the same the beads, or a ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous
... frenzy, it is impossible to imagine. Indeed the theory of madness is almost unavoidable. Mr. Wicksteed was a man of forty-five or forty-six, steward to Lord Burdock, of inoffensive habits and appearance, the very last person in the world to provoke such a terrible antagonist. Against him it would seem the Invisible Man used an iron rod dragged from a broken piece of fence. He stopped this quiet man, going quietly home to his midday meal, attacked him, beat down his feeble defences, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... I ought to say my deep feeling born from personal experience, that it is not the sea but the ships of the sea that guide and command that spirit of adventure which some say is the second nature of British men. I don't want to provoke a controversy (for intellectually I am rather a Quietist) but I venture to affirm that the main characteristic of the British men spread all over the world, is not the spirit of adventure so much as the spirit of service. I think that this could ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... of his type, was always anticipating an insult, possibly because his general attitude toward humanity was deliberately intended to provoke argument and recrimination. He was naturally quarrelsome—and a bully because of his unquestioned physical courage. He was popular in a way with those of his fellows who looked upon a gunman—a killer—as a kind of hero. The foreman of the T-Bar-T found him valuable as a sort of animate ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... discover any unwary expression of their master; or thrusting themselves into company, and then using the most indecent scurrilous language; fastening a thousand falsehoods and scandals upon a whole party, on purpose to provoke such an answer as they may turn to an accusation. And truly this ungodly race is said to be grown so numerous, that men of different parties can hardly converse together with any security. Even the pulpit hath not been free from the misrepresentation ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... gear but their lives were ours if we could take them, and so were ours theirs an' they approved themselves the better men. But here it is not so; we have no quarrel as yet with the salvages, nor is it wise to provoke one. We are but a handful, and they in their own country of unknown strength. Besides, why should we harm those who have done us no wrong? Is it not wiser to make friends and allies if we may? So Master Jones you must e'en rank me with the gentle maids who speak ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... allusion to politics, so as to throw her completely off her guard, I took care to introduce such subjects as should provoke comparisons on other points, between France and America; or rather, between the latter and Europe generally. As our discussions had a tinge of philosophy, neither being very bigoted, and both preserving perfect good ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that old reality meant a world without God. God had come and had turned the world into a nightmare . . . or was it only his rebellion against God that had so made it? But the nightmare was there, the awful uncertainty of every word, of every step, because with the slightest movement he might provoke the shadow to new action, if anything so grave, so stern, so silent as that Pursuit could be termed action, and . . . it was odd how certainly he knew it . . . so kind. Bunning's face brought him to the sudden necessity of treating the nightmare ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... said, "My father, you inquired yesterday, "who is Black Hawk? why does he sit among the chiefs?" I will tell you who I am. I am a Sac, my father was a Sac—I am a warrior and so was my father. Ask those young men, who have followed me to battle, and they will tell you who Black Hawk is—provoke our people to war, and you will learn who Black Hawk is." He then sat down, and nothing more was said on the subject. The result of this conference was, that Black Hawk refused to leave his village, and that General Gaines informed him and his party, if they were not on the West side ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... is ridiculous to suspect where nothing appears to provoke suspicion, and I am very far from imagining that the dangers of innovation, however artfully magnified, or the apprehensions of the soldiers, however rhetorically represented, will be thought of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... not keep the prowling, growling, howling wolf at bay! But, with my valiant bottle and my frouzy brevet-bride, And my score of loyal cut-throats standing guard for me outside, What worry of the morrow would provoke a casual sigh If I were Francois Villon and Francois ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... say (and the threat is indeed alarming) that by calling him to account they may provoke him—to what? "To appropriate," he says, "to my own use the sums which I have already passed to your credit, by the unworthy and, pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which you have passed upon me for the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of course; but if help were really so near, he felt it would be suicidal to provoke a conflict at this moment. Apparently they intended the dog no harm. He assumed to be contented ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... carry a princess than to wash a goddess. The ceremony of carrying may indeed be the relic of a solemn procession, or of a sacred drama. The words of blessing following on a sneeze need no explanation; and the omission to return at the promised time a borrowed kettle would be more likely to provoke the anger of a god than to retard the deliverance of a mortal. This is implied by the statement that the devil fetched the kettle himself; and we need have little doubt that in an earlier form the story so described it. I am unable to explain the unknown word which would ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... was firm. He had no desire to go counter to her instincts, or induce her to do anything that might provoke adverse comment. Miss Laura had all the fine glow of courage, but was secretly relieved at being excused ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... quantities. For the first time such tracts were read aloud at workmen's meetings and applauded by the audience. The Union encouraged the workmen in their resistance, but advised them to refrain from violence, so as not to provoke the intervention of the police and the military, as they had imprudently done on some previous occasions. When the police did intervene and expelled some of the strike-leaders from St. Petersburg, the agitators had an excellent opportunity of explaining ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... old pal," the miserable coward stammered, while at the same time his eyes followed the yegg's arm down to where he saw his hand gripping a large caliber revolver, and although perceiving his danger should he further provoke the anger of his pal, he was unwilling to give up the youngsters without at least a struggle, "what is the use of two such chums as we have been until this moment, to quarrel about a couple of good-for-nothing ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... hundred and fifty of the English baronies for his information. But all this royal patronage has left little mark on his work. "The case," as Matthew says, "of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God." With all the fulness of the school of court historians, such as Benedict and Hoveden, to which in form he belonged, Matthew Paris combines an independence ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... his brown hair was neither fair nor dark, his dress suggested neither poverty nor opulence, and his features were of the type known as ordinary. In a word, he was not one whose appearance would provoke a second glance or who would be credited with taking an important part in anything that might be ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... lived in simple obedience, they walked in love and patience; and thus they waxed strong in spirit, and obtained great favour before God. To all religious men they were given as an example, and they ought more to provoke us unto good livings than the number of the lukewarm ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... be wiser to do so than to provoke the animal by firing," said Mr Rogers, smiling. "What do you ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... part of the last eight years described above, an ordinary observer would have said that the Manchus had already sufficient troubles on hand, and would be slow to provoke further causes of anxiety. It is none the less true, however, that at one of the most critical periods of the rebellion, China was actually at war with the very power which ultimately came to the rescue. In 1856 the Viceroy of Canton, known to foreigners as Governor Yeh, a man who had gained favour ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... each body under their particular ensigns, insisted that the Signory should immediately descend and consider new means for advancing their well-being and security. Michael, observing their arrogance, was unwilling to provoke them, but without further yielding to their request, blamed the manner in which it was made, advised them to lay down their arms, and promised that then would be conceded to them, what otherwise, for the dignity of the state, must of necessity be withheld. The multitude, enraged ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... manufactures, others acquire a taste for what they make, and imitate them. If they excel in the art of war, they teach their enemies to fight as well as themselves. If their territories are large, the unprotected and far distant parts provoke attack and plunder. They become more difficult and expensive to govern. If they owe their superiority to climate and soil, they generally preserve it but a short time. Necessity acts so much more powerfully on those who do not enjoy the same advantages, that ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... persisted in the idolatry established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more to provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him." He pursued the path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married, and he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind, by the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... your personal dislikes, Rupert, to provoke you to speak of a fellow-scholar in that way—and a young lady, too," ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... little attic, remembering with anguish the stream of nonsense and folly he had poured forth, and thought of the laughter he had provoked as so much deserved rebuke; and he determined never to utter another word that should provoke a smile. He would feed and sleep, and grow stupid and stolid, heavy and dull, and bring forth emptiness and nothings with solemn ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... exhausted as to jump at the opportunity to lie down. But the planks were hard, and being somewhat slender in build my thighs speedily became sore. My brain from the fiendish exercise refused to stop spinning. I was like a drunken man and to lie down was to provoke a feeling of nausea which was worse than pacing. Then as the night wore on I began to shiver with the cold because I was denied any covering. How I passed the first night I cannot recall, but I am certain that a greater part of the time passed in delirium, and I almost cried with delight when I ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... it was incumbent on them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large society, his followers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Julio impressed that for a little while he forgot the purpose which had brought him thither. . . . If those who provoke war from diplomatic chambers or from the tables of the Military Staff could but see it—not in the field of battle fired with the enthusiasm which prejudices judgments—but in cold blood, as it is seen in the hospitals and cemeteries, in the wrecks left ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... find myself here, be the safest line."[16] Stanley, then, limited his {145} choice of men, and in the event of a crisis, was prepared that he should risk a defeat and the violent imposition of an alien ministry, on the chance that such a reverse might provoke a loyalist uprising to defend the British connection. Baldwin dreamed of a consistently Radical cabinet. MacNab, with his eyes shut to the consequences, seems to have considered a leap in the dark—a coalition between his men and ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... walls of night Until sequestered skulls and bones Are made to hear the moaning sighs That some mad Titan, rayed in gold, Wrests from Damnation's siffling tomb. And labyrinths of Horror's Home, 'Mid vapours green and aisles unsunned, Provoke each cursing mattoid's fold Until the night is changed to noon By cowled magicians on a dome. Then wizardry, strange, unsummed, Reveals each varlet, Figgum's might: A hemless rabble from the South That some wild Trojan flayed and curs'd, Skirr thro' the Cauldron's broken lane And ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... Such an end as this to the evening that had begun so well! "My God, what am I to do!" And, turning impulsively, he was about to fling himself at her feet, beseeching of her to confide her trouble, but something in her appearance prevented him, and in dismay he wondered what he had said to provoke such a change. What had been said could not be unsaid, the essential was that the ugly thought upon her like some nightmare should be forgotten. Now what could he say to win her out of this dreadful gloom? If he were ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... and encouraged his patrons to show off. Poor heedless, witty, charming Shakespeare! One threat which he used again and again, discovers all his world-blindness to me. Gravely, in sonnet 140, he warns Mary Fitton that she had better not provoke him or he will write the truth about her—just as if the maid of honour who could bear bastard after bastard, while living at court, cared one straw what poor Shakespeare might say or write or sing of ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... ways the danger of failure is less, for our opponent is certainly less well-organized. But beyond that—beyond these limits—we shall not attain. We shall enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not provoke public action, for the methods and instincts of ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... all so pitifully childish that it failed to provoke me. I marched down the path with a smile on my face, which succeeded in angering them. One young fool, a Norton from Malreward, would have hustled me, but I saw Mr. Grey hold him back. "No brawling here, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... see what you want of the key," added Dory, whose sober second thought was, that he had better not provoke such a dangerous man. "This boat has a bad reputation, and I have to be very careful ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... man who cannot hear displeasing things, without visible marks of anger or uneasiness; or pleasing ones, without a sudden burst of joy, a cheerful eye, or an expanded face, is at the mercy of every knave: for either they will designedly please or provoke you themselves, to catch your unguarded looks; or they will seize the opportunity thus to read your very heart, when any other shall do it. You may possibly tell me, that this coolness must be natural, for if not, you ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... all violent shocks, which might derange the old diplomatic mechanism, whose workings he so well knew. Louis XVI. sent the Count de Fersen secretly to him, in order to disclose his real motives in accepting the constitution, and to entreat him not to provoke, by any preparation of arms, the bad feelings of the Revolution, which seemed to be quieted ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... what dishonour we doe unto the Name of God before men, who have their eyes upon us, and how great judgements we bring upon our selves, upon these and the like considerations, The Assembly doth finde it most necessary to stirre up themselves, and to provoke all others both Ministers and people of all degrees, not only to the religious exercises of publike worship in the Congregation, and of private worship in their families, and of every one by themselves apart, but also to the duteies of mutual edification, by instruction, admonition, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... between America and Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views? Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... singular instance of the random blows of a noble spirit, striking at what, if better understood, it would eagerly have revered— Wordsworth seems never to have read. Nor did the violent attacks of the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews provoke him to any rejoinder. To "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"—leagued against him as their common prey—he opposed a dignified silence; and the only moral injury which he derived from their assaults lay in that sense of the absence of trustworthy external criticism which led him ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... Mr. Thorn's favour. As to the rest, I forgive him!—except indeed he provoke me to measures for which I never ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Irish were for a long time renowned for their love of duelling. The slightest offence which it is possible to imagine that one man could offer to another, was sufficient to provoke a challenge. Sir Jonah Barrington relates, in his Memoirs, that, previous to the Union, during the time of a disputed election in Dublin, it was no unusual thing for three-and-twenty duels to be fought in a day. Even in times of less excitement, they were so common as to be deemed unworthy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... uncertainly now and then at Prescott, as if he believed him to be the traitorous officer and would provoke him into reply; but Prescott's face was a perfect mask, and his manner careless and indifferent. The suspicions of the others were not aroused, and Harley was not well enough informed to go further; but his look whenever it fell on Robert ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... replied, "should not like a man who assumed airs of authority, for that would only provoke me to resist. But I am sure that I could never love a husband whom it was necessary for me to govern. I should be ashamed ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... animal is very numerous here, and is consequently easily met with by a hunting-party. The usually timid Kamtschatkan attacks them with the greatest courage. Often armed only with a lance and a knife, he endeavours to provoke the bear to the combat; and when it rises on its hind legs for defence or attack, the hunter rushes forward, and, resting one end of the lance on the ground, plunges the other into its breast, finally dispatching it with his knife. Sometimes, however, he fails in the attempt, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... fires of their barn-like hall, moody, sullen, and quarrelsome. Discord was here in the black robe of the Jesuit and the brown capote of the rival trader. The position of the wretched little colony may well provoke reflection. Here lay the shaggy continent, from Florida to the Pole, outstretched in savage slumber along the sea, the stern domain of Nature,—or, to adopt the ready solution of the Jesuits, a realm of the powers of night, blasted beneath the sceptre of hell. On the banks ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... but a quarrel happening they shall encounter one another ... but the courage of the beast shall prevail. Then shall one come with a drum, and appease the rage of the lion. Therefore shall the people of the kingdom be at peace, and provoke the lion to a dose ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke," Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke; "No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face: One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead,— And—Betty—give this cheek ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... much to provoke the laughter of the boys, and when at the same moment the bell rang to announce that the school-hour was over, the class broke up in confusion, and the master hastened, fuming with rage, to complain ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... him provoke me." Presently the Tamil boy, who was Nelson's head servant, came in with the lights. She addressed him at once with voluble directions where to put the lamps, told him to bring the tray with the gin and bitters, and to send Antonia ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... South Africa or for England. It would have left matters in almost the same condition as they had been before, and the millionaires, who were the real masters on the Rand, would have found a dozen pretexts to provoke a new quarrel with the Transvaal Government. Had the Boer Executive attempted to do away with the power of the concerns which ruled the gold mines and diamond fields, it would have courted a resistance with which it ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... pity your state is wasting such excellent material on the mere job of Governor, Lana. What a perfectly wonderful warden he would make for your state prison," suggested Mrs. Stanton, sweetly. But she did not provoke a reply from the girl and noted that Lana was frankly interested in somebody else than the Governor. It was a new arrival; his busy exchange ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of untam'd pleasures, on thy Being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The Years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, 130 Heavy as frost, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... difficulty overcame an impulse to speak on and disclose all her mind, the same kind of impulse she had known several times of late. Sheer dread this time prevailed. The eyes that were upon her concealed fire; what madness tempted her to provoke its outburst? ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... applauded this speech, as the spirited expression of just resentment; but the more cool and judicious regretted that it had been uttered. The fortunes of the heir of Ravenswood were too low to brave the farther hostility which they imagined these open expressions of resentment must necessarily provoke. Their apprehensions, however, proved groundless, at least in the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... few steps, not too cautiously, for he did not wish to provoke suspicion, when suddenly a hand was placed upon his chest. There was nobody in front of him, but there was the hand, and a very big one it was, and very black. Like a flash Banker turned, and beheld himself face to face with the man Mok, the same chimpanzee-like negro who had been ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... this case shows what was at first a typical partial stupor, but soon became complicated by a tendency for questioning to provoke rather a free flow of ideas and a distressed perplexity. This symptom of perplexity soon grew to dominate the clinical picture, so that the psychosis was really a perplexity ushered in by a brief stupor reaction ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... hands and heaving bosom, watchful of the happy idlers she could see afar off in the broad green Prato. Under the shimmering trees there walked mothers, whose children dragged at their skirts to make them look; handfasted lovers were there; a lad teased a lass; a girl hunched her shoulder to provoke more teasing. An old priest paused with a finger in his breviary to smile upon a heap of ragged urchins tumbling in the dust. The air breathed benevolence, the peace of afternoon, the end of toil. Round about, so still and easeful after the day's ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... on the screen of the car-window is exciting in its mystery. These vast arid bottomlands of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, girded by mountain groups and ranges as arid as the sands from which they lift their tawny sides, provoke suggestive questions of ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment, It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, Were he to teach the world riot anew. My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, perfumed With gums of ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... unfortunately, was composed of much the same materials. The consequences were sometimes explosive. It might have profited the son much had he studied the Scripture lesson, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord." Not less might it have benefited the father to have pondered the words, "Fathers, provoke not your children ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... sacks of cement to the amount of more than six hundred pounds per square foot, without suffering any injury, although, after the load was on, a workman hammered with a pick on the concrete, close to the loaded portion, so as to provoke the cracking of the arch if there had been any tendency to rupture. In the other cases, the concrete arches being turned between iron beams, the strength of the floor was limited by that of the beams, so the extreme load could not be put on; but the curious fact was ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply to provoke a continuation of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... submerged bodies, supporting himself close to the fire in a semi-erect posture, with gentle friction, self-applied, to each several limb, and copious recourse to certain steaming stimulants which my compassionate hands prepared for him,—stretches himself and says feebly, "In short, then, not to provoke further discussion, you would go to war in defence of your country. Stop, sir, stop, for Heaven's sake! I agree with you, I agree with you! But, fortunately, there is little chance now that any new Boney will build boats at ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... allies and ministers of every clasping and consolidating force in it; fellow-workers they are with God in the creation of the family; they help him to get it to his mind, to perfect his father-idea. Ever radiating peace, they welcome love, but do not seek it; they provoke no jealousy. They are the children of God, for like him they would be one with his creatures. His eldest son, his very likeness, was the first of the family-peace-makers. Preaching peace to them that were afar off and them that were nigh, he stood undefended ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... the burdens which are heaped upon it. The people are not safe from prying inquiry at bed or board. Their every action is watched, their slightest words noted and perhaps distorted. They can sing no song of liberty, and even to hum an air wedded to republican verse is to provoke suspicion. The press is muzzled by the iron hand of power. Two hours before a daily paper is distributed on the streets of Havana, a copy must be sent to the government censor. When it is returned with his ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... listening to the voluble words of the somewhat elderly dame who claimed his attention. Nan began to rebel against that woman from the bottom of her heart. What was she to do? Here was his card. In response she had come down to receive him. She meant to be very cool from the first moment; to provoke him to inquiry as to the cause of such unusual conduct, and then to upbraid him for his disloyalty to her brother. She certainly meant that he should feel the weight of her displeasure; but then—then—after he had been made to suffer, if he was properly contrite, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... help I may, which is thoroughly fair. It imposes, however, a great responsibility. I was not presumptuous enough to dream of following Sheil; not that his speech is formidable, but the impression it leaves on the House is. I meant to provoke him. A mean man may fire at a tiger, but it requires a strong and bold one to stand his charge; and the longer I live, the more I feel my own (intrinsically) utter powerlessness in the House of Commons. But my principle is this—not ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... yet willing," said the prince, "to suppose, that happiness is so parsimoniously distributed to mortals; nor can believe but that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to fill every day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment: I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise, and my wife among the virtuous; and, therefore, should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... he whom even our joys provoke, The fiend of nature join'd his yoke, 15 And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey; Thy form, from out thy sweet abode, O'ertook him on his blasted road, And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away. I see recoil his sable steeds, 20 That bore him swift to salvage ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... Velasquez; as a poet, a thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for masses of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters, Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... a cadet. I do not want to provoke them. I simply want to graduate. I am satisfied if they do not strike or harm me; though if I had a kind word now and then I should be happier, and I could study better,' Then the colored boy drew ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... first impulse was to hail them, and try to make friends of them by offering some small present; but he checked himself as the thought flashed upon him that a movement on his part might startle them and provoke a discharge of their tiny arrows, which were probably poisoned. He could not doubt they had seen him long before he had seen them, and had been for some time playing the part of silent spectators, being kept ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... justly incurred the wrath of the Church I know—and I can readily understand that Innocent has revoked the pardon which the intrigues of the Archbishop purchased from Clement VI. But I do not see clearly why Montreal should willingly provoke so dark ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... they merited; but Bonaparte merely detained them as hostages. The aga in the service of Bonaparte was astonished that sentence of death was not pronounced upon them; and he said, shrugging his shoulders, and with a gesture apparently intended to provoke severity, "You see ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... get out of this?" he said, "for I'm in dread but I might raise my hand to you if you stand there talking to me any more. You'd provoke the patience of a saint; but I wouldn't like to have it cast up to me after that ever I ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... were for a long time renowned for their love of duelling. The slightest offence which it is possible to imagine that one man could offer to another, was sufficient to provoke a challenge. Sir Jonah Barrington relates, in his Memoirs, that, previous to the Union, during the time of a disputed election in Dublin, it was no unusual thing for three-and-twenty duels to be fought in a day. Even in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... that Illuminism, unable to provoke a blaze in the home of its birth, spread, as before the French Revolution, to a more inflammable Latin race—this time the Italians. Six years after his interrogatory at Beyreuth, Witt Doehring published his book on the secret societies of France and Italy, in which he now realized he had ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... esteem is quite independent of other people's resolutions; and as for what regards myself, I am not indifferent, I own, and I shall wish to know how I may be treated by those to whose power I am delivered up, but I have never asked one question concerning it. I shall provoke no man's anger unnecessarily; it is my only solicitude to let people see that if they oblige me by good treatment, they oblige one whom they do not despise, and who has acted 'in all circumstances ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... that apple tree," said Anne. "Why, the thing is human. It is reaching out long arms to pick its own pink skirts daintily up and provoke us ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had been left at my door. I was tired of my enforced idleness, eager to discover the fair unknown (she was again fair, to my fancy!), and I determined to go down, believing that a cane and a crimson velvet slipper on the left foot would provoke a glance of sympathy from certain eyes, and thus enable ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... Concord grape which he developed from a native wild grape planted as long ago as 1843. Another "sport" of great value was the nectarine, which was seized upon as it made its appearance on a peach bough. Throughout America are scattered experiment stations, part of whose business it is to provoke fresh varieties of wheat, or corn, or other useful plant, and make permanent such of them as show special richness of yield; earliness in ripening; stoutness of resistance to Jack Frost, or blight, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... furious at such treatment, for had he not been spoiled and petted all his life? He soon saw, however, that this man was a new and terrible creature to be obeyed instantly, and one whose wrath it was not well to provoke by pulling ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... better acquaintance with our neighbour's woes and our own egoism. Such an attitude of mind is only possible to an absolutely frank, even Arcadian, nature. She did what she wished to do: she said what she had to say, not because she wanted to provoke excitement or astonish the multitude, but because she had succeeded eminently in leading her own life according to her own lights. The terror of appearing inconsistent excited her scorn. Appearances never troubled that unashamed soul. This is the magic, the peculiar fascination of her books. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... fun is fine and delicate, full of quaint surprises; guaranteed to provoke cheerfulness in the dullest. He is a master-humorist, and this book is one of the cleverest examples of honest humour and witty satire ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... with his owne tillage, Hee's tough, and can manure it. Bri. Y'are a queane, A scoffing jeering quean. Lil. It may be so, but I'me sure, Ile nere be yours. Bri. Doe not provoke me, If thou do'st, Ile have my Farm againe, and turne Thee out a begging. Lil. Though you have the will, And want of honestie to deny your Deed, Sir, Yet I hope Andrew has got so much learning From my young Master, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... society, console themselves and one another under the consciousness of debility, by the sense of their safety, and by the fashionable custom of dealing out wise reflections on those more enterprising minds, whose eccentricities or ardour, provoke their admiration.—E.] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... origin and their date.[1323] Through their habitual or frequent residence near the court, through their alliances or mutual visits, through their habits and their luxuries, through the influence which they exercise and the enmities which they provoke, they form a group apart, and are those who possess the most extensive estates, the leading suzerainties, and the most complete and comprehensive jurisdictions. Of the court nobility and of the higher clergy, they number perhaps, a thousand in each order, while their small ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... exceptionally point-blank; though she guessed that her father had some hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of utilizing her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith's manner was too frank to provoke criticism, and his age too little to inspire fear, she was ready—not to say pleased—to accede. Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been played and sung by her mother, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... remarked: "If you had offered this affront to the Dog, you could not have endured his barking." But the Crow {thus answered} the Sheep: "I never sit on the neck of one so strong, as I know whom I may provoke; my years having taught me cunning, I am civil to the robust, but insolent to the defenceless. Of such a nature have the Gods thought fit to ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... cunning As she, to hear his tale, left off her running. Maids are not won by brutish force and might, But speeches full of pleasure, and delight. And, knowing Hermes courted her, was glad That she such loveliness and beauty had As could provoke his liking, yet was mute And neither would deny nor grant his suit. Still vowed he love. She, wanting no excuse To feed him with delays, as women use, Or thirsting after immortality,— All women are ambitious naturally— Imposed upon her lover such a task As he ought not perform nor yet ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... cheek flushed a little as I spoke, with more of earnestness or passion than any incident, however exciting, is wont to provoke among his ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... motto is "Thorough",' he said, 'and he knows very well what he is about. We have officially requested him to leave, and he sails from Newcastle on Monday. He will be shadowed wherever he goes, and we hope to provoke more outbreaks. He is a very ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... and by, near one of the gates, I encountered a group of young men who reminded me not a little of the bad giants. They came about me staring, and presently began to push and hustle me, then to throw things at me. I bore it as well as I could, wishing not to provoke enmity where wanted to remain for a while. Oftener than once or twice I appealed to passers-by whom I fancied more benevolent-looking, but none would halt a moment to listen to me. I looked poor, and that was enough: ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... that fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from Fate, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to provoke him to combat. Lamon,—whose biography is a treasury of good stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable realistic picture,—relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... that Marcus was bent upon appearing like a man, and he only tried to make him a sensible, accurate little man, instead of putting him down in a way likely to provoke him. ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... It tends to provoke a smile to read on in this letter and find It suddenly turning from such ecstasies to a straightforward confession that the writer is embarrassed for lack of ready cash. He had met with disappointments. The Mannheim people had not treated him handsomely, the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... 'Or shall I provoke Mr. Preston,' said Cynthia, 'to begin upon you? It is like turning a tap, such a stream of pretty speeches flow out at the moment.' Her lip ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... they deal savagelie with the Pigeon Pie afterwards. They have as wild Spiritts as our Dick and Harry, but withal a most wonderfull Reverence for my Husband, whom they courte to read and recite, and provoke to pleasant Argument, never prolonged to Wearinesse, and seasoned with Frolic Jest and Witt. Olde Mr. Milton joyns not these Parties. I leave him alwaies to Dolly's Care, firste providing for him a Sweetbread or some smalle Relish, such as he loves. He is ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... steady pressure maintained through the two national parties will ensure the recognition of all just demands; such extreme and ill-considered demands as that for the initiative and national referendum can only provoke opposition and cause reaction. Even those who sympathize with the ultimate objects of the Labour unions must see the folly of their ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... self, of making a figure and a fortune in the world. Some years ago a drygoods salesman in a London shop had acquired such a reputation for courtesy and exhaustless patience, that it was said to be impossible to provoke from him any expression of irritability, or the smallest symptom of vexation. A lady of rank learning of his wonderful equanimity, determined to put it to the test by all the annoyances with which a veteran shop-visitor knows how to tease a shopman. She failed in her attempt ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... believe, and I'm for Chelsea. Fact is"—I ventured it on an impulse—"I'm going to call on that friend of mine, Professor Foe, who so unhappily interrupted you to-night, and tell him that he made a fool of himself." I watched his eyes. They were merely dull— heavy. "You did provoke him, you know, Mr. Farrell," I went on: "I'm morally certain he is guiltless of the practices alleged in that document of yours; and, if I can persuade him to receive you in his laboratory and show you ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views? Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... and such happy hits—to use a homely but expressive phrase—as have a magical effect upon a popular assembly, and that he clothes them in the choicest language, arranges them in the most perfect order, and captivates the ear with a music that is fitted, at his will, to provoke or to soothe, and even to charm the sense," he regards all this as better suited to great popular assemblies than to a more refined, and a more select audience—such as one composed of learned senators and judges. But this is admitting that he adapted himself, with admirable tact and judgment, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... in her manners. She is said to have treated her husband with some contempt, adopting the airs of an antiquated beauty, which he returned by elaborate deference. Garrick used his wonderful powers of mimicry to make fun of the uncouth caresses of the husband, and the courtly Beauclerc used to provoke the smiles of his audience by repeating Johnson's assertion that "it was a love-match on both sides." One incident of the wedding-day was ominous. As the newly-married couple rode back from church, Mrs. Johnson showed her ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... that morning from young Stanton of Greenfield's interest in the young sculptor; adding a hint or two of the use to be made of this information. Rangely, just behind her, was chatting with Miss Frances in that half amorous badinage which some girls always provoke, perhaps because they expect and keenly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... of Prometheus, and why it pretends that the most metaphysical passage of your most metaphysical poem is a specimen of the clearness of your general style. The wretched priest-like cunning and undertoned malignity of that review of Prometheus is indeed a homage paid to qualities which can so provoke it. The Quarterly pretends now, that it never meddles with you personally,—of course it never did! For this, Blackwood cries out upon it, contrasting its behaviour in those delicate matters with its own! This is better and better, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... sense the representative of the distant diocesan at Lincoln, was even in the earliest times the head of the scholars, and no mere delegate of the bishop. Five years earlier the Oxford schools were sufficiently vigorous to provoke a secession, from which the first faint beginnings of a university at Cambridge arose. A generation later there were other secessions to Salisbury and Northampton, but neither of these schools succeeded in maintaining themselves. Cambridge ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... irreparable, and with a single blow demolish the entire fabric which in his absence had been laboriously and skilfully raised by his opponent. No impetuosity or irritability, on the part of others, could provoke him to retaliate, or sufficed to disturb that marvellous equanimity of his, which enabled him the rather good-naturedly to convert impetuosity and loss of temper in others, into an instrument of victory for himself. When others, not similarly blessed, would, in like manner, essay to rush to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... each other to good works. "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works." Heb. 10:24. We know of no better way to provoke others to good works than by setting a good example before them. All their good works should be done in wisdom and meekness or humility. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... and very dirty-looking white chokers, were drumming upon her fat back with their fists, exclaiming—'Here's glory! here's glory, my friends! Satan is departing out of this woman. Hallelujah!' This spectacle was too shocking to provoke ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... not condescend to make any reply to the rebellious prince. Seizing his embassadors, he sent them as captives to Vlademer, a fortress some hundred miles east of Moscow. He hoped thus to provoke Sviatoslaf to attempt the passage of the stream. But Sviatoslaf was not to be thus entrapped. Breaking up his camp, he retired to Novgorod, where he was received with rejoicings by the inhabitants. Here he established himself as a monarch, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... should be allowed to go on for a moment longer, with unconfessed and unjudged wrongs clouding their peace, and hindering the testimony which they might give. Let us therefore watch for each other's souls: let us consider one another to provoke to love and good works; let us in all sincerity do as Christ has done, washing each other's feet in all humility and tender love. But this spirit is impossible save through fellowship with the Lamb of God, and the reception ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... requires full explanation, because the demand immediately comes for an explanation of that elusive quality in news which makes it interesting. In other words, what constitutes interest? Any item of news, it may be defined, that will present a new problem, a new situation, that will provoke thought in the minds of a considerable number of readers, is interesting, and that story is most interesting which presents a new problem to the greatest number of people. It is a psychological truth that all men think only when they must. Yet they enjoy being made ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... frivolous girl Fanny, how she has come out. And you know, Zoe, if you get sick of it in a day or two, you have only to write to me, and I will send for you directly. A short absence, with so reasonable a motive as visiting a sick aunt, will provoke no comments. It is all ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... off." "Stay here," said he, "I'll be back in a minute or two." As he was leaving the room he stopped at the door—looked back at me again—pulled up his small clothes, and jeeringly tittered at me in a manner that was enough to provoke a saint, if it were not for the man's well known character. "It will do I see," said my friend, "depend upon it, it will do—dont mind his sayings; but when you come to business, be plain, downright and firm, and you'll have his heart." When W. returned, he again surveyed ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... servant or master; enter the houses of those hearers or parishioners in town or country, from the labourer to the proprietor;—is there the intelligence, the heart, the principle, the common sense—any one element which could unite those members into a body for any high or noble end? They provoke each other to love and good works, or help to convert the world! Would it were so! but it ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... strange effect upon the boy's ear, when he read them aloud, as he loved to do whenever he was left alone for a time. When his aunt was in the room his instinct kept him from doing this, for the mere mention of the name of Aaron, he feared, might sadden his aunt and provoke in her that dangerous vein of reminiscence ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and delivered, the Tsar and his Boyars rose in their places simultaneously, and their tissue vests made so strange, loud, and unexpected a noise as to provoke the ever too easily moved risibility of the Englishmen.[109:1] When Marvell and the rest of them had ceased from giggling, the Tsar inquired after the health of the king, but the distance between his Imperial Majesty and Lord Carlisle ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... cocoa-nut gratings are kneaded with a little water, while the girls sweep the earth off the cooking-place and uncover the stones; an appetizing smell spreads, and the master of the house watches the preparations with a sharp eye and a silent tongue. One feels that the least carelessness will provoke an outburst, and, indeed, a solemn silence has fallen on the company, only the wife ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... may threaten Serbia, but she doesn't want to provoke a conflict with Russia. It would be going too near the powder magazine. But it's all ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Talk Weisspriess down. He is for seizing her at all hazards. It 's madness to provoke a conflict. Just listen to the house! I may be broken, but save her I will. De Pyrmont, on my honour, I will stand by you for ever if you will help me to get ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heathens? To refuse their hospitalities, was to separate, and with a hostile expression of feeling. That would be to throw hindrances in the way of Christianity: the religion could not spread rapidly under such repulsive prejudices; and dangers, that it became un-Christian to provoke, would thus multiply against the infant faith. This being so, and as the gods were really the only parties invited who got nothing at all of the banquet, it becomes a question of some interest,—what did they get? They were merely mocked, if they ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... Tsung-li Yamen, may be a little late and that consequently the Ch'ien Men, or the Middle Gate, should be kept open a couple of hours longer, the chief guardian may become nervous and irate and incontinently shut the gates. This alone might provoke an outbreak. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... subjects on the island of San Juan." To prevent this the governor was instructed "that the officers of the Territory should abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds which are calculated to provoke any conflicts, so far as it can be done without implying the concession to the authorities of Great Britain of an exclusive right over the premises. The title ought to be settled before either party should attempt to exclude ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... In woolen? 'Twould a saint provoke!" Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. "No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face; One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead! And, Betty, give this cheek ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... formed it, but that she would very agreeably and readily have acquiesced in the matter. Reader, we are half inclined to keep her ladyship's—no, we will not say plan—fond dream—a secret. Supposing that many of you are not considered temper-proof we dare not provoke the multiplied assaults of hitherto amiable and patient friends, therefore we will treat you fairly by taking you into our entire confidence at present. Lady Trevelyan had soon learned to love Mary Douglas with a feeling akin to her nature. She fondly watched every effort ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... September, being Michaelmas Day, an elaborate service was held in the King's Chapel, the two Melvilles being present by the King's command. The younger suspected, rightly as it proved, that the King's object was to try their patience and provoke his uncle to an outburst of indignation which might bring him into trouble. The service was so high that a German visitor at the English Court declared it was not a whit behind the solemnity of the Mass but for the absence of the adoration of the Host. The snare set for Melville ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... cards adroitly, and did not mar his chances by the precipitancy that had once gone near to losing him. His purpose gathered strength from a message that came that evening from Gian Maria, who was by then assured that Gonzaga's plan had failed. He sent word that, being unwilling to provoke the bloodshed threatened by the reckless madman who called himself Monna Valentina's Provost, he would delay the bombardment, hoping that in the meantime hunger would beget in that rebellious ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... "merit" system in the various public offices, the results of the reform have not equaled the promises of its advocates. While it is still an important part of the programme of reform from the point of view of many reformers, it has recently been over-shadowed by other issues. It does not provoke either as much interest as it did or as much opposition. Municipal reform has, of course, almost as many centers of agitation as there are centers of corruption—that is, large municipalities in the United States. It began as a series of local non-partisan movements for the enforcement of the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... thee then Not only for thy body packed with sweet Of all this world, that cup of brimming June, That jar of violet wine set in the air, That palest rose sweet in the night of life; Nor for that stirring bosom, all besieged By drowsing lovers, or thy perilous hair; Nor for that face that might indeed provoke Invasion of old cities; no, nor all Thy freshness stealing on me ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... impulse of vice and sin is a short cut to happiness. It promises pleasure without earning it. And this pleasure is always an illusion. Its final legacy is weakness and pain. Pain is not a punishment, but a warning of harm done to the body. The unearned pleasures provoke this warning. They leave a "dark brown taste in the mouth." Their recollection is "different in the morning." Such pleasures, Robert Burns who had tried many of them says, are "like poppies spread," or "like ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... as much more, to turn it to its use; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife. 'T is more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed; Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; 85 The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse, Shows most true mettle ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... a turning away from forces that had played such a part in the civilisation of the world was certain to provoke a reaction. Scholasticism could not hold the field for ever to the exclusion of other branches of study, especially, since in the less competent hands of its later expounders it had degenerated into an empty ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... unfortunate associations, and you accepted them as you would have accepted any other burden, on account of the sweetness of your nature. You always want to please some one, and now you go lecturing about the country, and trying to provoke demonstrations, in order to please Miss Chancellor, just as you did it before to please your father and mother. It isn't you, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too) whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke." Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... a kiss and begone; Life is precious; away, little fly! Should your rudeness provoke her to scorn, You'll meet death from the glance ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... important as it is paradoxical that thinking is impaired in its efficiency by the instincts and habits in whose service it arises, and whose conflicts and maladjustments it helps to resolve. The situations of conflict or perplexity which provoke thinking are determined by the particular tendencies which, by nature or training, are brought into play in any given situation. If we are committed by tradition or habitual allegiance to a protective tariff, we will be concerned in our thinking with details, what articles need protection ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... brain just enough of her husband's creed had glimmered to make her say, "that class of people," in the tone with which Abraham would NOT have spoken of Dives over the gulf) went tranquilly back to her knitting, wondering why Dr. Knowles should come ten times now where he used to come once, to provoke Samuel into these wearisome arguments. Ever since their misfortune came on them, he had been there every night, always at it. She should think he might be a little more considerate. Mr. Howth surely had enough to think of, what with his—his misfortune, and the starvation waiting ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... mirth,—here I stand—as errant a trembling Thisbe, as ever sighed or mourned for her Pyramus,—and, sir, aw my extravagant levity and ridiculous behaviour in your presence now, and ever since your father prevailed upon mine to consent till this match, has been a premeditated scheme to provoke your gravity and guid sense intill a cordial disgust, and a ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... reappear from heaven in triumph, to judge his foes and save his disciples, was a fundamental article in the primitive Church scheme of the last things. There are unmistakable evidences of such a belief in our author. "For yet a little while, and the coming one will come, and will not delay." "Provoke one another unto love and good works, . . . so much the more as ye see the day drawing near." There is another reference to this approaching advent, which, though obscure, affords important testimony. Jesus, when he had ascended, "sat down at the right hand of God, henceforward ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... man, Could'st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... mourning; things which, methinks, are not easy for the many to accomplish. But I desired rather to find a way to keep strictly the commandments of God, and not swerve from them, and, after his pardoning of my past misdeeds, never again to provoke that most sweet God ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... merriment with which it is spiced is decidedly ghastly. Miss WINIFRED EMERY is exceedingly clever, but her death-scene is painfully protracted. Mr. THALBERG, as Lovelace, is a sad dog in every sense—a very sad dog, indeed. The only incident in the piece ever likely to provoke a smile, is the appearance of some comic bearers of grotesque sedan-chairs. When Clarissa is carried out a la GUY FAUX at the end of the Second Act, there is certainly a moment's hesitation whether the audience should cry or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... profound reflection of the young moth hovering about the flame, let the satirist dip his pen in acid, and the pessimist in gall! There is enough folly and stupidity in the operations of the human mind to provoke the one to contempt and the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... they proceeded to settle it for the next, insisting that "for a man to infect a family in the morning with smallpox and to pray to God in the evening against the disease is blasphemy"; that the smallpox is "a judgment of God on the sins of the people," and that "to avert it is but to provoke him more"; that inoculation is "an encroachment on the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it is to wound and smite." Among the mass of scriptural texts most remote from any possible bearing on the subject one was employed which was equally cogent against any use of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and all the surroundings in keeping, were lively and bright, and added a glow to the toil that made all the difficult surroundings easier to bear. The affair acted over to-day in sober earnest would hardly provoke a smile, but there most trivial incidents were worked up and the result was an ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... a profound respect for the Doctor; his calmness, his equanimity, his persistent zeal in his work, would alone provoke it. But she sees, furthermore,—what she does not see always in "Aunt Eliza,"—a dignity of character that is proof against all irritating humors; then, too, he has appeared to Adele a very pattern of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... tone of it is anything but complimentary to the lady it mentions," I remarked. "He must have had, or imagined he had, some desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in regard to one he can still characterize as tender, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... the most suitable time; with other allusions to the meanness of his figure and smallness of stature. All this was addressed to the bride, who sat near him, but spoken out on purpose that he might hear it. My brother, perceiving this was purposely said to provoke an answer and occasion his giving offence to the King, removed from his seat full of resentment; and, consulting with M. de la Chastre, he came to the resolution of leaving the Court in a few days on a hunting party. He still thought his absence might stay their malice, and afford ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... I'll string my chips with Cherokee. The more ready since throughout my own checkered c'reer—an' I've done most everything 'cept sing in the choir,—luck has ever happened bunched like he asserts. Which I gets notice of these pecooliarities of fortune early. While I'm simply doin' nothin' to provoke it, a gust of bad luck prounces on me an' thwarts me in a noble ambition, rooins my social standin' an busts two of my nigh ribs ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... have not yet begun! An you must have a quarrel, right fully will I provoke thee, since fight with thee I must, it ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... (inaugurated in 1408 and incorporated in 1459), and the city council. The guild had a very large number of members, among whom were the Archbishop, many bishops and abbots and nobles. These dramatic productions belonged to the religious and social sides of the guilds. The plays, however, did not always provoke pleasure, for sometimes members of some of the guilds complained of the financial burden they were forced to bear in order to produce ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... tell me I may well be cautious about my manuscript and yet advise me to print it?—No-I shall not provoke nests of hornets, till I am dust, as ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... This was not an exhibition the success of which depended on the vicious wildness of the horse to be conquered. This was work, and it was not Phil's business to provoke the black to extremes in order to exhibit his own prowess as a rider for the pleasure of spectators who had paid to see the show. The rider was employed to win the confidence of the unbroken horse entrusted to him; to force obedience, if necessary; to ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... They had fallen back in the darkness, and prudently abstaining from breakfast, I galloped northward, as if the whole Confederate army was at my heels. These old turnpike roads were now marked by daily chases and rencontres. A few Virginians, fleetly mounted, would provoke pursuit from a squad of Federals, and the latter would be led into ambuscades. A quaint incident happened in ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... worshipping of God; that we despise all good deeds; that we use no discipline of virtue, no laws, no customs; that we esteem neither right, nor order, nor equity, nor justice; that we give the bridle to all naughtiness, and provoke the people to all licentiousness and lust; that we labour and seek to overthrow the state of monarchies and kingdoms, and to bring all things under the rule of the rash inconstant people and unlearned multitude; that we have seditiously fallen from the Catholic Church, ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... had never been any real electric sympathy, and who was now coldly indifferent to all matters. For hours she would sit with her hands dropped nerveless in her lap, glancing over the wide sea out to the farther horizon. What thoughts were in her mind, Sylvie wondered? She could not even provoke her to the wordy combats of old. The flashes of temper and imperiousness had alike died out. She was courteously polite, and acknowledged all favors with a punctiliousness that built the wall around her still more firmly. "If one could only rouse her," Dr. Maverick said; but that seemed ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Peter succumbed. It was better that she should indulge her astounding caprice under his roof than elsewhere. It would not do for the sister of an Atherly to provoke scandal. He gave entertainments, picnics, and parties, and "Jinny" Atherly plunged into these mild festivities with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl. She not only could dance with feverish energy all night, but next day could mount a ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... field, ready to march at once to victory, without the necessity of 'camps of instruction' and twelve months' delays. And when that day does come, woe to that potentate who shall have the temerity to provoke a war with our race of soldiers: his legions will be swept away like chaff before the whirlwind, and only defeat and disgrace will settle upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... separate camp, but were living in the native town, the men quartered in detached huts, and accordingly at the mercy of the natives if surprised. The brutality of the Turks was so inseparable from their nature, that they continually insulted the native women to such an extent that I felt sure they would provoke hostilities in the present warlike humour of the Latookas. The stream being nearly a mile distant, there was a difficulty in procuring water. The Turks being far too lazy to carry it for themselves, seized ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... he was lucky enough to provoke a laugh, a little light gay trill, sudden and brief like ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... time for the public to hoard money or to provoke a panic. The government, knowing precisely what was before it, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Staring upon the hunter: and this Rome Will crush you if you wrestle with her; then Save for some slight report in her own Senate Scarce know what she has done. (Aside.) Would I could move him, Provoke him any way! (Aloud.) The Lady Camma, Wise I am sure as she is beautiful, Will close with me that to submit at once Is better than a wholly-hopeless war, Our gallant citizens murder'd all in vain, Son, husband, brother gash'd to death in vain, And the small state more cruelly trampled ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... suspecting," answered Jupiter, "but now it will avail you nothing. Even though I have done what you say, such is my sovereign pleasure. Be silent, and sit down in peace, and take care not to provoke my anger." ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... I'm angry to no purpose; certainly to no purpose, in one sense, I am, inasmuch as I know not who this anonymous person is. But stay, let me be cautious—is there such a person? May this communication not be a false one—written to mislead or provoke me? Lucy knows that I am determined she shall marry Lord Dunroe, and I am not aware that she entertains any peculiar objection to him. In the mean time, I will have some conversation with her, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... reflected on by him with regret; and that, since these incidents were carefully concealed, and even that regret which flowed from them laboriously stifled, they had not been merely disastrous. The secrecy that was observed appeared not designed to provoke or baffle the inquisitive, but was prompted by the shame or ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... went in to lunch thoughtful and dispirited, wondering why there were so many absurdities in life that he could neither elucidate nor controvert. He decided not to say anything to Aunt Charlotte about Lubin's magpie sciolisms, lest he should provoke a further outburst of the discussion they had held in the morning; he had had the best of that, anyhow, and did not care to compromise his victory by dragging in extraneous considerations in which he did not feel sure of his ground. Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was inclined to be talkative, taking ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... intellectual elements that are present in all good literature is practised by those whose single aim is to provoke laughter. In much of our so-called comic writing a superabundance of boisterous animal spirits, restrained from more practical expression by the ordinances of civil society, finds outlet and relief. The grimaces and caperings ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... Ollivier regarding his political views and position. He still believed in the Republic which would come to stay after the inevitable overthrow of the Napoleonic rule. He and his friends did not intend to provoke a revolution, but they held themselves in readiness for the moment when it should come, as it necessarily must, and fully resolved this time not to give it up again to the plunder of base conspirators. ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... easily forget any one whom I have seen or conversed with. Do what you can, good people, to keep the peace; you stand in bad repute enough already. Provoke not the king still farther. The power, after all, is in his hands. An honest burgher, who maintains himself industriously, has everywhere as much freedom as ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... she said, "you air shorely enough to provoke a saint, bein' a man. But, Miz Mayfield, this has all come about so ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... as arms are weak abroad, if there be not counsel at home, so is that study vain and counsel unprofitable which in a due and convenient time is not by virtue executed and put in effect. My deliberation is not to provoke, but to appease—not to assault, but to defend—not to conquer, but to preserve my faithful subjects and hereditary dominions, into which Picrochole is entered in a hostile manner without any ground or cause, and from day to day pursueth his furious enterprise with that height ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... public duty, in view of a hostile invasion, kept him at his post. So far from the truth are those who, without knowledge of the inner motives of statesmen, accuse them of delight in cruelty and of intriguing to provoke a revolt. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... together with everything they could lay their hands on, but had had neither means nor leisure to put the finishing touch to their work, and they were prone to exaggerate their natural coarseness and their rather bitter tone fitting to rough contadini. They wished to provoke active hostility. Anything rather than indifference. In order to rouse the energy of their race they would gladly have consented to be among the first victims ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... in front of his young masters, and with flashing eyes and bristling back plainly intimated that he was there to protect them, whilst the gleaming rows of shining teeth which he displayed when he curled up his lips in a threatening snarl seemed to convince all parties that it was better not to provoke him to anger. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was from an inward conviction of necessity which clearly presented itself to me, and I consequently made the best of it. But Balsamides grew merry as we proceeded. His spirits rose at the mere thought of a fight, until I almost fancied that he would provoke an unnecessary struggle rather than forego the pleasure of dealing a few blows. It was a new phase of his character, and I watched him, or rather listened ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... with true savage dissimulation began to laugh, and pretended the whole affair was intended only as a joke. Mr. Stuart did not relish this kind of joking, but it would not do to provoke a quarrel; so he joined the chief in his laugh with the best grace he could affect, and to pacify the savage for his failure to procure the horse, gave him some powder, and they parted professedly ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... longer. This officer has proved that we were wrong in our predictions before he came. If now we continue to treat him as outside the pale of courtesy, we lose her sympathy utterly and do our utmost to provoke him and his men. Merciful heaven! if my son were a bleeding corpse or dying in agony, what would the world be to me? I shall apologize to him and treat him with politeness as long as ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... French and English, and many of whose words stand for ideas we have not got. I had no room for good-fellowship. I could not sit at tables and expand the air with terrible stories of adventure, nor ask about their politics, nor provoke them to laughter or sadness by my tales. It seemed a poor pilgrimage ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather glad to provoke it. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... in peace, but a lion in war, The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew: Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,— "Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue!" With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn; But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort, Her darling amusement, the hounds ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... briefly responded Cockayne; and then he rapidly continued, in order to ward off the fire he knew his smart rejoinder would provoke— ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... with impunity in my den. If you press me too hard, remember, I'll ruin all. I can cut you off with a shilling, sir, if I choose—cut you off with a shilling. Yes, and do justice to others I've wronged for your sake. Don't provoke me too far, I say, If ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... addressing el enlutado indicate his change of manner from politeness to insolence. He begins with the polite third person singular form. Then, enraged by the answer, he is intentionally insulting in verse 1126, wishing to provoke a duel. As the other puts up a brave front, he next addresses him as an equal (verse 1127) by using the second person plural. This was the usual form of address between gentlemen of equal standing during the Renaissance period. But, again losing his temper, he ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... perfect ignorance. By a word, the mistress, if she could not have prevented the follies of which Serge was guilty, could, at least, have spared herself and her daughter. It would have only been necessary to reveal his behavior and betrayal to Micheline, and to provoke a separation. If the house of Desvarennes were no longer security for Panine, his credit would fall. Disowned by his mother-in-law, and publicly given up by her, he would be of no use to Herzog, and would be promptly thrown over by him. The mistress did ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love, and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... said, shaking her finger at him, menacingly, "do not provoke me—don't go a step farther, or I will prove how far you are untrammeled. Another word and there will be no medium between my ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... harsh words thou art tying thyself with cords? Dost thou not understand that thou art hanging on the edge of a precipice? Dost thou not know that being a deer thou provokest so many tigers to rage? Snakes of deadly venom, provoked to ire, are on thy head! Wretch, do not further provoke them lest thou goest to the region of Yama. In my judgement, slavery does not attach to Krishna, in as much as she was staked by the King after he had lost himself and ceased to be his own master. Like the bamboo that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... herself: "If I want Kelly to lean on, he'll surely appear, god-like, impersonally nice, and kindly as ever; if I want Louis to torment and provoke and flirt with—a little—a very little—I'm quite sure he'll come, too. Whatever else is contained in Mr. Neville I don't know; but I like him separately and compositely, and I'm happy ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... experienced. Dimitry is disposed to show you favour, Courtiers, boyars, state-servants, soldiers, strangers, Merchants—and every honest man. Will ye Be stubborn without reason, and in pride Flee from his kindness? But he himself is coming To his ancestral throne with dreadful escort. Provoke not ye the tsar to wrath, fear God, And swear allegiance to the lawful ruler; Humble yourselves; forthwith send to Dimitry The Metropolitan, deacons, boyars, And chosen men, that they may homage do To their ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... said it. Should we, to show our sorrow for her sickness, Provoke our easy souls to careless mirth, As if our drunken revels were designed For joy of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
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