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More "Temptation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... speak to Lieutenant Summers," answered Jack, grinning to himself at the other's bewilderment. Even at this crucial moment, he could not resist the temptation to mystify the other a little. "As to knowing you're offshore," he added, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... the day on which the rooms close for the season, an immense quantity of players throng to the Kursaal; for though they have withstood temptation for so long a time, they cannot possibly suffer the season to go past without making one trial. On the 1st of November, those birds of ill-omen, the croupiers, set out to hybernize in Paris, and the rooms are closed, not to be reopened ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... made an appointment with him for half-past eleven or so. Got there a bit late, found his master sitting at his desk with a wad of bank notes on the blotting-pad, a paper of pearls on one side of him, a lot of diamond ornaments at the other—big temptation to a chap, who, as it turns out, was hard up, and had got into the hands of money-lenders. And, oh, just the ordinary thing in such cases, happened to have on him a revolver that he'd bought abroad, yielded ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... lift this vast army of poverty-stricken women who now crowd our cities, above the temptation, the necessity, to sell themselves in marriage or out, for bread and shelter." "Women," she told them, "must be educated out of their unthinking acceptance of financial dependence on man into mental and economic independence. Girls like boys must ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... lips suddenly closed in a firm, straight line. He clutched the half-dollar tightly in one hand, the bottle in the other, and set out as fast as his legs would carry him. He did not dare waste a moment for fear the temptation to change his mind would prove ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... center of the stage before an audience of millions in the great theater of congress. Our leading citizen—the chief actor—has been crowned with immortal fame. We who watched the play were thrilled by the query: Will Uncle Sam yield to temptation or cling to honor? He has chosen the latter course and we may still hear the applause in distant galleries beyond the sea. He has decided that the public revenues must be paid in ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... almost every hour. They learned how to keep their heads when engaged in the passage of white water, how to avoid hidden rocks, as well as dangerous swells and eddies. It seemed to them quite astonishing what rough water could be taken in these little boats, and continually the temptation was, of course, to run a rapid rather than laboriously to disembark and line down alongshore. Thus, to make their story somewhat shorter, they passed on down slowly for parts of three days, until ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... never set foot in a police court. And yet, for one who knows anything of the conditions in which they live, how marvellous that is! Most educated people, after all, go through life, from cradle to grave, without once experiencing any really strong temptation to break the law of the land. The very poor are hardly ever free from such temptation; hardly ever free from it. I know. I, with all the advantages behind me of traditions, associations, memories, hopes, knowledge, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... and fife. So balmy did the breeze happen to be and the weather so fine that the strains of music came wafted across the arbours and over the stream, and, needless to say, conduced to exhilarate their spirits and to cheer their hearts. Unable to resist the temptation, Pao-yue was the first to snatch a decanter and to fill a cup for himself. He quaffed it with one breath. Then pouring another cup, he was about to drain it, when he noticed that Madame Wang too was anxious for a drink, and that she bade a servant bring a warm supply of wine. "With alacrity, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... corner, then to another. The room was light, there were no shadowy nooks in it, yet I felt an irresistible desire to peer into every place not directly under my eye. I knew it to be folly, and, after succumbing to the temptation of taking a sly look behind a certain tall screen, I resolutely set myself to curb my restlessness and to peruse in good earnest the article I had begun. To make sure of myself, I articulated each word ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... upon me. With one desperate resolution I uttered the word, 'No!' and then turning, ran away as fast as my feet would carry me. I cannot tell you how relieved I felt when I was far beyond the reach of temptation. ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... possess one of Cassowary's masterpieces arisen. He scorned barter by abandoning his property whenever the interferer appeared. When the camp was deserted while the boat was being brought to anchor there was a strong temptation to take the canoe, leaving some adequate reward. The self-denial is almost regretted, for the old man with the thin white tuft on his chin, his shyness, his hatred of strangers, and delusions of his decrepitude, are characteristic of an age soon to be of the irrecoverable past. A canoe from such ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... bear the slightest struggle; I am weakened like a man whose vital spark is gone, whose soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I should cause my mother, I would have flung myself before now into the sea; I have not returned to the rocks at Croisic since the day that temptation became almost irresistible. Do not speak of this to any ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... society agreeable. The Princesse Louis Bonaparte is particularly fond of her, more so than Napoleon, perhaps, desires. She has a fault common with most of our Court ladies: she cannot resist, when opportunity presents itself, the temptation of gambling, and she is far from being fortunate. Report says that more than once she has been reduced to acquit her gambling ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... for a cow. That Brahmana, O king, who eats on occasions of similar rites performed by persons belonging to the three higher orders, at a time when he is impure in consequence either of a birth or a death among his cognates, through temptation, knowing well that he is impure incurs the same sin.[225] He who lives upon wealth obtained under false pretences like that of sojourns to sacred places or who solicits the giver for wealth pretending that he would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to make Mrs. Byron my Treasurer is very kind, but does not meet with my approbation. Mrs. Byron has already made more free with my funds than suits my convenience & I do not chuse to expose her to the Danger of Temptation. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... that neither Madame Dort nor old Lorischen went out of the house more than they could help; and, as for Mouser, he lived and slept and miaow-wowed in close neighbourhood to the stove in the parlour, not even the temptation of cream inducing him to leave the protection of its enjoyable warmth. For him, the mice might ravage the cupboards below the staircase, his whilom happy hunting-ground, at their own sweet will; and the birds, rendered tame by their privations, invade ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... day, without returning to camp for dinner. It was getting hot, and in the afternoon fierce sunshine beat upon the long slope. The shadow of the pines looked inviting and Jim felt that half an hour might be occupied profitably by a quiet smoke and review of the undertaking, but resisted the temptation. The argument was false; he was a working boss and must set the pace for his men. His back began to ache, he tore his old blue shirt, and bruised his hands, while as the shadows lengthened he got disturbed. Rolling heavy stones was slow and expensive work. It kept him from getting ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... predicament, Nolan was forced to concentrate. Why in the world had he said, "Tempt him?" The temptation of Eveley had nothing whatever to do with father-in-laws and the adjustment of duty. But Eveley expected him to produce a ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... to inquire into his secrets, nor to effect an influence which he would not admit. He bade her avoid suffering the slightest suspicion to appear, since when suspicions are afloat men find the temptation to furnish them with a cause almost irresistible. Eily protested that she was joking, and his uneasy conscience threw him into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for respectability may lie in the mere absence of temptation. Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in the moral influence of the ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... House of Florentius, and rose up with the others in the morning to recite the Hours; and when the time for rising came, he awoke straightway and went forthwith to arouse the other Brothers, knocking and saying: "Arise, watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Of this thing Master Gerard maketh mention in the letter which he wrote to the priests at Amsterdam, what time he besought that John should be sent to him, for this alacrity did ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... congested, and the canal colonization schemes referred to in a later chapter were largely designed to relieve them. But there is a much subtler foe to whose insidious attacks small owners are liable, the temptation to abuse their credit till their acres are loaded with mortgages and finally lost. So threatening had this economic disease for years appeared that at last in 1900 the Panjab Alienation of Land Act was passed, which forbade sales by people ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... him with a moment's fixedness while he polished the palette; and for that moment he felt the temptation to reply: "There's a way you could do that, to a considerable extent—I think you guess it—which wouldn't be intrinsically disagreeable." But the impulse passed without expressing itself in speech, and he simply brought out; "You can make this all clear to Biddy ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... alongside of the bull, swings himself round in front of it, and makes his snatch. The bull at once goes at him, and he takes to his heels. When he is flying a second invariably runs across his path at right angles, and the bull can never resist the temptation of turning upon this second. If he also is hard pressed, a third crosses between him and the bull, and again diverts the angry beast. In one case a man's foot slipped as he was flying, and he fell. Then ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... clearly exhibited his true feeling. Yet there was that about her constrained manner which held him to respectful silence, so that for a moment the hesitation between them grew almost painful. Miss Norvell, realizing this new danger, struggled weakly against sudden temptation to throw herself unreservedly upon the mercy of this new friend, confide wholly in him, accept his proffered aid, and flee from possible coming trouble. But pride proved even stronger than fear, and her lips closed ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Charles, was of one religious faith, and his brother James, the next heir, was of the other. The death of Charles, which might at any time take place, would naturally lead to a religious revolution, and this kept the whole community in an exceedingly excitable and feverish state. There was a great temptation to form plots on the one hand, and a great eagerness to discover them on the other; and any man who could tell a story of treasonable schemes, whether his tale was true or fabricated, became immediately a personage of ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... not trust you," replied Anne. "I have yielded to temptation already, and am now paying ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sit where I can't see you," she said crossly. "Freud may have thought it was a good idea, but I think it's a lousy one." She clenched her hands and stared at nothing. The silence stretched thinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big, until the temptation to rupture it was too great to resist. "I didn't see the truck this morning. Nor hear it. There was no reason at all for me to slow ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavor to act towards it more in the spirit ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... Religion, by plain cathechesing, to urge lively faith in Christ, which faith Witches bestow otherwise; Also to presse holinesse of life, and fervent prayes in private, and in Families, and in publick, that they be not led into temptation; And to use the censures of the Kirk against profane persons, such as Cursers, Whoores, Drunkards, and such like, for over such like, he gets great advantage. Finally, it is requisite for preventing of this hainous sin, that people seek knowledge studie to beleeve, walk in holinesse, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... to that," he said grimly. "It doesn't look over cheerful as a way of spending the evening of one's days," and he was suddenly seized with the temptation to go home and take the first train in the morning for Camberley. He turned the plan over in his mind for a moment, and then swung away from it in self-disgust. He retained a general reverence for women, and to ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... is the rest, In that narrow house the sleep is calm; There, with rapture sorrow leaves the breast,— Man's afflictions there no longer harm. Slander now may wildly rave o'er thee, And temptation vomit poison fell, O'er the wrangle on the Pharisee, Murderous bigots banish thee to hell! Rogues beneath apostle-masks may leer, And the bastard child of justice play, As it were with dice, with mankind here, And so on, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wound? He had the strictest notions of duty and of honor: it was absolutely essential she never should realize: but, alas! the sympathetic widow was playing the most divinely romantic waltz. To complete the horrible temptation, Ellen looked suddenly at him with her tender eyes shining and her delicate ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... such things against you, whose beginnings are dreadful, and whose end in working of judgments is unsearchable. (Isa. 63:10; Acts 5:9) A man knows not whither he is going, nor where he shall stop, that is but entering into temptation; nor whether he shall ever turn back, or go out at the gap that is right before him. He that has begun to grieve the Holy Ghost, may be suffered to go on until he has sinned that sin which is called the sin against the Holy Ghost. And if God shall ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the temptation and vision had proved fatal to him. He was never himself again. He dreamed constantly of Lore. All ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... requirements of the moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal. Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the high school reflecting it in waves, the very pine knots in the sidewalks gummy and resinous with heat, and sending up a pungent smell that was of the woods, and yet stifling. She must have felt an almost irresistible temptation to sit for a moment on the cool, shady front porch, with its green-painted flower boxes, its hanging fern baskets and the catalpa tree ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... clear that the temptation to increase "distributable" property, if one may coin such, an expression, is very great, and accounts for the way in which many Roman gentlemen have rushed headlong into speculation, though possessing none of the qualities necessary for success, and only one of the requisites, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... that in new scenes, and under more favourable conditions, he may be able to recover the character he lost here. An event like this carries its own lesson. Do not be too ready to blame them, but let their example be humbly taken by each one of you as a warning against the first approach of temptation, from which none of us is free, and which by God's help only can any of us hope ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... watchman, whom he kept regularly in pay, used to lead him home before twelve o'clock, in order to save sixpence paid to the porter of the Heralds' office, by all those who came home after that time; sometimes, and not unfrequently, two were necessary. He could not resist the temptation of liquor, even when he was to officiate on solemn occasions; for at the burial of the Princess Caroline he was so intoxicated that he could scarcely walk, but reeled about with a crown 'coronet' on ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... took a turn at it. All had turned to fun and frolic, and now even Lady Harriet—or Martha—could not withstand the temptation to try her hand; so down she sat, and away she went spinning, and singing with the best of them. Suddenly Nancy upset her wheel, Plunkett gaily threatened her, and away she ran, with Plunkett chasing after her. In a minute they had ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... south-western counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. He already held the counties of Derby and Nottingham. Richard plainly intended that political rights should not go with these grants, but he shows very little knowledge of John's character or appreciation of the temptation which he put in his way in the possession of a great principality lacking only ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... who passed her life alternately on the Riviera and in Switzerland—informing her of his intended travels. He would have to see that a sufficient sum was left for Natalie's mother, and put into discreet hands. The money for the man Kirski would have to be properly tied up, lest it should prove a temptation. Why, those two pieces of Italian embroidery lying there, he had bought them months ago, intending to present them to Natalie, but from time to time the opportunity had been missed. And so forth, and ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... beginning. At last he knew what he wanted to do. With gusto he marked that Ellen too was conscious that the incident was not at its close, for she was still wringing her hands, though the taste of the wine must long have gone from her mouth, and was stammering miserably, "Well, if yon stuff's a temptation to any poor folk—!" Again he felt that their relationship was on a proper footing; he moved towards her, walking masterfully. Oh, it was going to be ecstasy.... There was a loud knocking at the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... taught anything. He has been turned loose in a city full of temptation. He had no real start to begin with, and no effort was ever made to repair ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... their friends were soon on the way. They felt in the best of spirits, and Powell could not resist the temptation to break out ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... was sent after the bottle. He was gone a good while—longer, Mr. Marble thought, than was necessary. The matter was examined, when it turned out that Billy had got into trouble with a nest of bumble-bees. He had discovered a nest of these wretches, it appears; and, the temptation to wage war against them being very strong, he had stopped a moment, just ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... accept this as an excuse. He had stolen. If I wanted to preserve discipline in my troop, the guilty one must be punished. If not, in the next village Dulcie would do the same, and then Capi would succumb to the temptation. I should have to punish Zerbino publicly. But in order to do that I should have to catch him, and that was not ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... if he's clothed in sin, what matter if he's wild, In foulest guilt? Remember, that, he is somebody's child. We cannot tell how hard he strove to shun temptation's snare; How often on his mother's breast he wept ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... believed they believed really, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon it, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they knew the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible temptation which confronts each new generation to believe that which is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out the true faith in words which no one could mistake. They have provided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... within, for the clever old padres that built it had more taste than their successors. About the whitewashed walls of the interior were poor copies of celebrated paintings—the Passion of Christ, and an extraordinary group of nude women and grinning men representing the temptation of St. Anthony. In a glass case a beautiful figure of the Saviour reclined on a stiff couch clumsily covered with costly stuffs. The Virgin was dressed much like the aristocratic ladies of Monterey, and the altar was a rainbow ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... continued. "And one might go further and say that no woman ever loved a man only because he was good. Too often goodness is but the lack of courage to do wrong or the absence of temptation. If a man has no qualities save goodness to recommend him, I fear he might go his whole life through not knowing a woman's real love. We are apt to turn from the nauseating innocuousness of the truly good and to thank God for a ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... on various grounds, and thus acquired the name of Remonstrants, by which they were soon generally distinguished. The most deplorable contests ensued. Serious riots occurred in several of the towns of Holland; and James I. of England could not resist the temptation of entering the polemical lists, as a champion of orthodoxy and a decided Gomarist. His hostility was chiefly directed against Vorstius, the successor and disciple of Arminius. He pretty strongly ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... hastily, the vivisecting spirit in him exorcised by her shaking voice; "I accuse you of nothing. Why do you not speak honestly to me when you are at your ease? If you confess your real thoughts only under torture, who can resist the temptation to torture you? One must charge you with homicide to make you speak of anything ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... up to the truth,—it was merely to amuse himself and to astonish other people. In civil as in military affairs, he loved ambuscades, surprises, night attacks. He now imagined that he had a glorious opportunity of making a sensation, of producing a great commotion; and the temptation was irresistible to a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... our most precious possessions. On the other hand, because the common tradition was very vague in its date he gave precision to the event which they had recorded by fixing the time of its occurrence.... In Matt, iv. 12 and Mark i. 14, the temptation, immediately following Christ's baptism, is immediately followed by the statement, 'When he heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he came and dwelt in Capernaum.' ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... then, and I'll not scold you any more," replied Clover, magisterially, and ignoring the last question. She marred the effect of her lecture by kissing Elsie as she spoke; but it was hard to resist the temptation, Elsie was so droll and ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... in levant of various colours in the rich purple levant binding. The illustrations within were a unique, collected set of the celebrated drawings made by various hands for this classic. The price, several hundred dollars. Mr. Gillette was torn with temptation here. And yet was it right for him to be so extravagant? Periodically he came in, impelled to inquire if the set had yet been sold. If somebody only would buy the set—why, then, of course—it would be ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... dogs were no sooner hauled out, and once more started, than the appearance of a flock of geese, in one of the open stretches of water, was too great a temptation to be resisted. The trains were halted, and Frank and Alec took their guns, and crept round to an icy hillock, from which they would be able to get a capital shot. In a few minutes the guns rang out their reports, and ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... says Shakespeare, and Corvin explains this in teasing fashion: "Women pray every day, 'Lead us not into temptation, for see, dear God, if you do so I can't resist it.' '' Even Kant[1] takes feminine weakness as a distinguishing criterion: "In order to understand the whole of mankind ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... into temptation;" That will angry thoughts remove, Make her calm and still and gentle, With ...
— Cousin Hatty's Hymns and Twilight Stories • Wm. Crosby And H.P. Nichols
... The fertility of his invention and the facility of his hand were wonderful; yet his prints are accurately designed. He frequently made several drawings for the same plate before he was satisfied. Watelet says that he saw four different drawings by him for the celebrated Temptation of St. Anthony. His drawings are also greatly admired and ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... has absolute immunity from all sorts of evil; and there are two regions in which that immunity, secured by being under the shadow of the Almighty, is exemplified here. The one is that of outward dangers, the other is that of temptation to sin and of what we may call spiritual foes. Now, these two regions and departments in which the Christian man does realise, in the measure of his faith, the divine protection, exhibit that protection as secured in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Possessed of a strong, comprehensive mind, he had made a providence of himself; confounded intelligence with integrity; used the moral principle not as a law of action but as a means of insight. The temptation so to do is strong in proportion as the mind is greatly gifted. But experience shows no good results from yielding to it. Blind moral instinct, if not safer, is ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... fail to be the duty of every parent to protect the child against the chance of making these fatal mistakes through ignorance? Young people cannot be kept wholly out of reach of temptation, nor would it be best for them if they could be. Far better is it so to strengthen the moral fibre that they ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... him—that, first, he would never see me again of his own accord and would reject both my entreaties and commands; secondly, that he would petition to be transferred to a distant garrison to be out of the path of temptation; thirdly, that he would burn ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Elias, for being zealous and fervent for the law, was taken up into heaven. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, by believing, were saved out of the flame. Daniel, for his innocence, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... little spaniel between the original diabolic avatar of the hideous camel's head and the subsequent incarnation of the beautiful Biondetto-Biondetta; especially as the later employment of another dog, to prevent Alvare's succumbing to temptation earlier than he did, is confusing. But this would be "seeking a knot in a reed." Perhaps the greatest merit of the story, next to the pure tale-telling charm above noted, is the singular taste and skill with which Biondetta, except for her repugnance to the marriage ceremony, is prevented from ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... resolutions o' amendment, which were broken maist as soon as made; an' it was during a longer season o' sobriety than was usual wi' him, that his wife thinkin' if he was once awa' frae the great city he would be less in the way o' temptation, persuaded him to leave Glasgow an' remove to the sma' village o' Mill-Burn, a little way frae the farm which ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... lifting my free eyes to the charming vagaries of old buildings, and again I made a vow although it had nothing to do with humor. On my dressing table rests a cushion of brocade and I shall carry it about as one who may yield to temptation carries a pledge, for the card which is attached chants out to me whenever my eyes rest upon it: "Soldat Pierre. Aveugle de la guerre. Bless Verdun." And as long as Soldier Pierre. Blind from the war. Wounded at Verdun can go on weaving his fabrics I pray ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... oxygen necessary to a fight. There is no period in a woman's life when she is more apt to fall into a rut than at this time. Every element, spiritual and physical, which is necessary to stagnation and indifference is present, and it will take a bold and brave effort to resist the temptation to failure ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... this occasion, when, perhaps, some little temptation might have been felt by some ladies, remembered her own prayer against coquetry—her manner towards Sir James was free from all possibility of reproach or misconstruction: and by simply and steadily adhering to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... not think now that, however great the pressure, we would touch those crusts; but there is no saying what we may do when we are gnawed by hunger. It is better, anyhow, to put ourselves out of the way of temptation." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the splendors of the palace and the luxuries heaped upon her by her passionate admirer she remains true to the Beloved, is ultimately restored to him, and returns to the vineyards of Sulam. The work is divided as follows: Prologue; Part I. Separation; II. Temptation; III. Victory; IV. Reunion; V. Epilogue. The motto of the oratorio is "Love is strong as death, and unconquerable as the grave." This motto has its musical theme as well as each of the three principal characters, and they are invariably used with great skill and ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... not permit young men to caress them, to hold their hands, or to stroke their bodies. It is very weakening. It causes a girl to yield to temptation because it induces passiveness to the ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... of novelty, the dislike of mental effort, the temptation to read merely for a mild sensation,—all these undoubtedly tend to keep down the level of literary taste. To many readers of good average ability, neither the esthetic nor the purely intellectual makes a strong appeal. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... they should do some good to the benighted, the most benighted, the fashionable benighted; they should perhaps make them furious—there was always some good in that. Lastly, Olive was conscious of a personal temptation in the matter; she was not insensible to the pleasure of appearing in a distinguished New York circle as a representative woman, an important Bostonian, the prompter, colleague, associate of one of the most original girls of the time. Basil Ransom was the person she had least expected to meet ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... supposed that governors should know more of this than the mass of the governed), to set it authoritatively before the community. But our whole scheme of government being representative, every one of our governors has all possible temptation, instead of setting up before the governed who elect him, and on whose favour he depends, a high standard of right reason, to accommodate himself as much as possible to their natural taste for the bathos; and even if he tries ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... us. I am in a little care through my at last putting a great deal of money out of my hands again into the King's upon tallies for Tangier, but the interest which I wholly lost while in my trunk is a temptation while things look safe, as they do in some measure for six months, I think, and I would ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. The next heir in blood was James of Scotland, and gravely as statesmen desired the union of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... as any child; but, being delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of my coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit again, through the temptation of the Devil, I made up that confession on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... faith, which would be violated in the very act of their emission. Under these circumstances, it required a degree of energy seldom found, to struggle with surrounding difficulties for the preservation of a general system, and to resist the temptation to throw the nation at the feet of the states, in whom the vital principle of power, the right to levy taxes, was exclusively vested. While the continental currency preserved its value, this essential defect of the constitution ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... hearts. Yet, time flying as it does, the wild fightings even in those hearts, the famishing, down-breaking sieges in them, must largely be left untold—Hilary's, Anna's, Flora's, all. Kincaid was in greater temptation than he knew. Many a battery boy, sick, sound or wounded—Charlie for one—saw it more plainly than he. Anna, supposed to be far away and away by choice, was still under the whole command's impeachment, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... over the sun-baked asphalt no longer concerned him. It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie, and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that interested him. The young man with white hair had been running away from temptation. At forty miles an hour he had been running away from the temptation to do a fellow mortal "a good turn." That morning, to the appeal of a drowning Caesar to "Help me, Cassius, or I sink," he had answered, "Sink!" That answer he had no wish to reconsider. That he ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... effect might have been too striking, but it exactly suited her; and as Malcolm noticed the exquisite colour of her face and the wonderful coils of black hair, he was obliged to acknowledge that Cedric's temptation had been strong, and that many an older man might have lost his heart to so ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ordinary course of military operations, ought not to have happened, and by which Hood was tempted to make at Franklin one of those furious assaults upon troops in position and ready to receive him which are almost always disastrous. It was just the kind of temptation to Hood's army that was necessary "to break it up," and it did so very effectually. The old "Army of Tennessee," which had been so formidable, ceased to be a formidable army on November 30. Its fighting days were nearly over. After that it never did any fighting at all worthy of its old record. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... not be of so much interest to the reader as it is to the writer of this article, but we cannot resist the temptation of recording a suggestion made to us years ago as to the origin of the word Glenartney, by Mr James Ferguson, the present keeper of the forest, and the worthy successor of old Drummond-Ernoch. It is this: Gleann-ard-an-fheidh—"the high glen of the deer." This would certainly ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... garden was the garden of the house, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round, and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,—by ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... have done so. But we were not men, we were simply boys, and thought only of the pleasant companionship. I frankly plead guilty to the charge of deplorable heedlessness. We were as heedless as lads of our age usually are; and, thinking no harm, we at once succumbed to the temptation to neglect the task on which we were employed and to devote ourselves to the society of Inez and her companion. The consequences were, almost as a matter of course, such as an older and more experienced head would at ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... time the business of lightening the schooner proceeded. Although Mulford earnestly wished that the man-of-war might get an accurate notion of the true character and objects of the brig, he could not prevail on himself to become an informer. In order to avoid the temptation so to do, he exerted himself in keeping the men at their tasks, and never before had pumping and bailing been carried on with more spirit. The schooner soon floated of herself, and the purchases which led to the Swash were removed. Near a hundred more barrels ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... through the lateral passes to their camps, and inflicting irritating if not very severe losses. Occasionally they thought proper to make nominal submission with tongue in cheek, breaking out again when opportunity or temptation presented itself. Detailed description of those raids and counter-raids would be very tedious reading. It was when starting to co-operate in one of those necessary but tantalising expeditions that a number of troopers of the 10th Hussars were ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... his remonstrances, on one occasion, Lord Byron returned a poetical answer, so remarkably prefiguring the splendid burst, with which his own volcanic genius opened upon the world, that as the volume containing the verses is in very few hands, I cannot resist the temptation of giving a few ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... I did so, I beg him to consider the matter. If then he cannot come to a conclusion concerning it, I doubt if any explanation of mine would greatly subserve his enlightenment. Meantime, I am forcibly restraining myself from yielding to the temptation to set forth my reasons, which would result in a half-hour's sermon on the Jewish dispensation, including the burnt offering, and the wave and heave offerings, with an application to the ignorant nurses and mothers of English babies, who do the best they can to make original sin an actual fact by ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... unbridled impulses of an Indian may urge him. When among this people danger is never so near as when you are unprepared for it, never so remote as when you are armed and on the alert to meet it any moment. Nothing offers so strong a temptation to their ferocious instincts as the appearance of timidity, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Before the temptation of a retort she had dropped her argument and encouraged personalities. In vain she tried to recover that thread of attention which, not her interrupter, but herself had snapped. She retired ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... then turned his head aside without noticing the salute. It may seem strange, but we must remember that to all who hear of any wrong act by report only, it presents itself as a mere naked fact—a bare result without preface or palliation. The subtle grades of temptation which led to it—the violent outburst of passion long pent-up which thus found its consummation—are unknown or forgotten, and the deed itself, isolated from all that rendered it possible, receives unmitigated ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... provision which is made for such members. In those unions, such as the Iron Molders and the Leather Workers on Horse Goods, which do not maintain an out-of-work benefit, the cost of the sick benefit is undoubtedly somewhat higher than it would be on account of the temptation of the ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... I ran into a boy carrying books, while I was thinking about eternity. His books were scattered over the pavement and I hurt my knee. I decided that my faint longing for what Mrs. Ascher would call "higher possibilities" is a temptation, something to be conquered. I finished my meditation with a "Retro Satanas" and returned to my hotel for luncheon, confident that I should come out victor in ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... governments be swept away, it might be that, in time of danger from without or of peril from internal dissensions, the country, under "a government of a monarchical nature," might drift back to its old allegiance. If those who feared, or said they feared, this were not quite sincere, the temptation was almost irresistible to use such arguments to arouse popular prejudice against political opponents. It is curious that Madison seemed quite unconscious of how much the frequent allusions in his articles ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... an honest face, and if thou art diligent in business, thou art sure to gain the competency which is all that a man need desire in this life, and albeit its wealth flows in on some, by God's providence; remember, shouldst thou ever possess it, that wealth may prove a snare and temptation to thee, even as great as want and poverty is to some men. Thou wilt have need of prayer for guidance, even as much as thou hast at present, for the devil is ever going about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... he, "you cannot give the lie to your own eyes; and a minute ago I saw a fire very different from the fire of love, which only some displeasing sight can have provoked. What may this be? Tell me, pray; for you promised to tell me of any sort of temptation ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the secret of the strange drama that had been acted before me. But, as I have told you, then I was honest and virtuous, and the meanness of such an act revolted all my instincts; and I should have overcome this temptation, had it not been for one of those trifling incidents which too often form the turning-point of a life. A draught from a suddenly opened door caught one of these morsels of paper, and wafted it to my feet. I stooped and picked it up, and read on it the ominous words, 'blow out my brains!' I had ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... it got rubbed out; and a fourth did not know what was to be done. The teacher stops to hear all these, and to talk about them; fretted himself, and fretting the delinquents by his impatient remarks. The rest of the class are waiting, and having nothing good to do, the temptation is almost irresistible to do something bad. One boy is drawing pictures on his slate, to make his neighbors laugh; another is whispering, and two more are at play. The disorder continues, while the teacher ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the chest to get out those things of husband's for Sally Slack, and I thought I wouldn't leave my pocket-book in my room, 'twould be putting temptation in her way, which isn't really right if a person is ever so honest; we're all frail as you may say when our time comes, and I didn't have my cloak on to put it in the pocket, and my under pocket was full, so I just slipped it under the clock case as I went ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... not difficult for him to divine what lay at the back of Davilof's bitter criticism. The man was in love—hopelessly in love with the Wielitzska. Probably she had turned him down, as she had turned down better men than he, but he had been unable to resist the bitter-sweet temptation of watching her dance, and throughout the evening had almost certainly been suffering the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Pauline, discretion is the last virtue I should expect to be accused of by you; but if valor consists in daring all things, I may lay claim to it without its 'better part,' for temptation is my delight—the stronger the better. Have no fears for me, my friend. I gladly accept Babie's decree and, ignoring the last ten years, intend to begin life anew, having discovered a sauce piquante which will give the ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... Gallinato for reprimanding what they did. But Gallinato—whose prudence and valor, which had been proved on the most perilous occasions in that Eastern land, and many years before in the wars of Flandes, would not allow him to be easily affected by popular applause—showing an honorable aversion to this temptation, sailed away, to return to Manila. He took in provisions at Cauchinchina. Blas Ruyz and Diego Veloso had also landed there before, and went alone overland to the kingdom of the Laos, which lies west of Cauchinchina, to find the deposed king Langara, to restore him to his ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... husband to false and delusive labor, which has but one object, that of using the labors of others; but she will bear herself with disgust and horror towards such an employment, which serves as a double temptation to her children. Such a woman will not choose a husband for her daughter on account of the whiteness of his hands and the refinement of manner; but, well aware that labor and deceit will exist always and everywhere, she will, beginning with her husband, respect ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... careful now! You have heard those soft words—you have drank in the glory of that smile. In all your life what temptation has ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... to speak to Lieutenant Summers," answered Jack, grinning to himself at the other's bewilderment. Even at this crucial moment, he could not resist the temptation to mystify the other a little. "As to knowing you're offshore," he ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... ran down to London, and Hogg took this opportunity to make love to the young wife. She repulsed him, and reported the fact to her husband when he got back. It seems a pity that Shelley did not copy this creditable conduct of hers some time or other when under temptation, so that we might have seen the author of his biography hang the miracle in the skies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... horse" who was nominated in that year, declared, in accepting the nomination, that "reform should be thorough, radical, and complete." He promised not to be a candidate for a second term, thus avoiding the temptation, to which almost every President has succumbed, of using the patronage to secure his reelection. The party managers pretended not to hear these promises. And when Hayes, after his inauguration, actually began to put them into force, they set the ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... themselves. What! do I love her, That I desire to hear her speak again And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on? O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet, With all her double vigour, art, and nature, Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite.—Ever till now, When men were fond, I smil'd ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... me if there was no reason in the world." And then the delight of rambling through the beautiful country and being for awhile in other company than that of her Aunt Fortune and the old grandmother! The temptation was ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... poison of those arrows that would have wrought thy death: stand for me, thy Friend, my Mansoul, against the Diabolonians, and I will stand for thee before my Father, and all his court. Love me against temptation, and I will love thee notwithstanding ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you can create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not? Do not ask me to say otherwise; because if you do, you will lead me into temptation. For I swore early in life never to utter a falsehood, and, above all, a sycophantic falsehood; and, in the false homage of the modern press towards women, there is horrible sycophancy. It is as hollow, most of it, and it is as fleeting as is the love that lurks in uxoriousness. Yet, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... inspector who was told off to examine me found that there was not sufficient time left for a serious hearing, and, to my great relief, I was allowed to go after replying to a few harmless questions concerning the intended length of my stay. Nevertheless, we thought it advisable not to yield to the temptation of playing any more pranks beneath the spread wings ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... think about the magic tobacco again; he went to sleep saying over to himself, "Yield not to temptation," and dreamed all night about the Chinaman's head, and thought about it all the ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... air is gracious; the slopes are terraced, and covered with vineyards; great sheets of silver sheen in the landscape mark the growth of the olive; the dark green orchards of oranges and lemons are starred with gold; the lusty fig, always a temptation as of old, leans invitingly over the stone wall; everywhere are bloom and color under the blue sky; there are shrines by the way-side, chapels on the hill; one hears the melodious bells, the call of the ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... suggestions to make. He continued to smoke reflectively while he warmed himself at the stove. He was wise enough to perceive that his must now be the secondary part. To possess power and to resist the temptation to use it, is the task of kings. To quietly relinquish the tiller of a younger life is a lesson that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... right glad, Edmund, that the temptation was not too strong for you. If we can find a spring we shall ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... on watch there, he had left his post. In a minute Starr saw him hurrying down the unused side street, toward the angry glow that told where the fire had started. Too much temptation, Starr interpreted the fellow's desertion of his post; or else no more men were expected at Las Nuevas, and the outpost was no longer needed. Taking it for granted that a meeting had been called here, Starr reasoned ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... to-day," whispered the constable. "He's hitting them fine." From which I judged that the constable had in his youth come from the north, where golf is cheap. It was a disappointment that I could not get in, but perhaps well for the reader. The temptation to record a genuine sermon by Dawson might have proved too much for me. Presently the voice ceased to boom, the congregation squeezed out hot and oily, like grease from a full barrel, and I waited for Dawson to appear. "Don't speak to him now," directed my guide. "Let him get up to his ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Carefully singled out, and richly dress'd, With grandeur mock'd, for sacrifice decreed, Only in greater pomp at last to bleed. Be warn'd in time, the threaten'd danger shun, To stay a moment is to be undone. 450 What though, temptation proof, thy virtue shine, Nor bribes can move, nor arts can undermine? All other methods failing, one resource Is still behind, and thou must yield to force. Paint to thyself the horrors of a rape, Most strongly paint, and, while thou canst, escape. Mind not his promises—they're made in ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... as I understand it, is not to take advantage of others or of one's better self. This is a young girl's definition. I cannot see—if one has yielded once to temptation, and truly repents—why ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... deer seemed suspicious, and lifted their graceful heads in a quick, nervous manner, glancing timidly around with their large, gentle eyes, and sniffing doubtfully. At that moment a third deer appeared close to Tranta, and the temptation was too great. With one swift spring Tranta landed on the deer's back, his teeth in its throat. It was a merciful death, for Tranta never let go until the deer ceased to struggle, and then he promptly proceeded to make ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... that old conundrum of the interdependence of matter and spirit, the conviction was forced upon us that long and exhausting hours of work are almost sure to be followed by lurid and exciting pleasures; that the power to overcome temptation reaches its limit almost automatically with that of physical resistance. The eight-hour clause in this first factory law met with much less opposition in the Legislature than was anticipated, and was enforced for a year before ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... undertake desperate adventures in those times than they are now. In this case the temptation was great, and the punishment, even in case of detection, was not likely to be very severe, as Will came of a loyal stock, and his uncle was in good repute, and a passable tale to account for his possession ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... satiat pecunia"—"the wealth of the miser satisfies not, but irritates." But more weighty and far-reaching is the word of revelation going far beyond the negation of the king. "They that desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... pedestal of black gneiss, capped with a slab of white marble deftly foliated, and on that a brazier of bronze holding a fire. Close by it, a woman, seeing him, waved a wand of willow, and as he passed called him, "Stay!" And the temptation in her smile ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... began, thirty days after the discovery of the offence, to expose him as a "gentleman," and kept forgiving and exposing him continuously through the whole four years, the eclat of such a relation to Beecher having evidently an irresistible temptation for him. Finally, when Dr. Bacon called him a "dog," he threw aside the Christian role altogether and began assailing his enemy with truly heathen virulence and vigor. A more curious blending of two conceptions of duty is not often seen, and it was doubtless due to the fact ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... corner-stone, 410 As I requested; and hereafter, Luke, When thou art gone away, should evil men Be thy companions, think of me, my Son, And of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts, And God will strengthen thee: amid all fear 415 And all temptation, Luke, I pray that thou May'st bear in mind the life thy Fathers lived, [44] Who, being innocent, did for that cause Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well— When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see 420 A work which is not here: a covenant 'Twill be ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Amen! Elsie! the words that thou hast said Are strange and new for us to hear, And fill our hearts with doubt and fear. Whether it be a dark temptation Of the Evil One, or God's inspiration, We in our blindness cannot say. We must think upon it, and pray; For evil and good in both resembles. If it be of God, his will be done! May he guard us from the Evil One! How hot thy hand is! how it trembles! ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... often heedless, son. In this loyalty, as the years passed, she had come to place her last hope that he would be deaf to the siren calls of the great city. Outdoor sports and wholesome friendships he had rejected, even while his solitary nature and high-strung temperament made some defense against temptation imperative. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... afraid to speak his mind, though to the displeasure of any man; and that I know well enough. But that when it is come (as it is now), that to speak the truth in behalf of the King plainly do no good but all things bore down by other measures than by what is best for the King, he hath no temptation to be perpetually fighting of battles, it being more easy to him on those terms to suffer things to go on without giving any man offence, than to have the same thing done, and he contract the displeasure ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... it from the point of view of postponement. If we waited until the fall and the negotiations stretched out through the winter, the temptation for making new drives in the spring, with the preparations made throughout the winter, would incline the militaristic element in the various countries involved to block peace negotiations. It seems, therefore, that the time ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... not have been more commendable," I asked, "if these men had remained in the community to which they belonged, withstanding temptation, and been employed in labour that was creditable to themselves and ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... Malays dashed out into the open, close on the heels of a dozen wild pigs. We could just see their black backs above the grass, as they broke down a little ravine in single file, led by a big, hoary boar with tusks. They were three hundred yards off, but I could not resist the temptation. I brought my rifle to my shoulder and fired twice in rapid succession. Two or three more shots were heard beyond. I threw out the shells as the herd lunged on me. It was so sudden that I was dazed, but fortunately so were the pigs, with ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... it possible?—I am shocked beyond measure at this news. I thought there was not an honester fellow in the world.——The temptation of such a sum was too great for him to withstand; for smaller matters have come safe to me through his hand. Indeed, my dear uncle, you must suffer me to call it weakness rather than ingratitude; for I am convinced the poor fellow ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... is a temptation, to record every detail, stamped as they all are on the memory after several visits at Farringford and at Aldworth; but the beautiful paper printed only a few years ago by Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, now given to the world in a volume, where Tennyson stands as one of "The Light-Bearers," ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... even moderate satisfaction. He had tried, frequently, to break away, and had even succeeded for a month at a time in an endeavor to avoid writing a word; but inevitably there came a relapse and a more desperate debauch in literature. Try as he might he could not avoid the temptation. An incident, a trifle out of the ordinary in his commonplace life, a sudden thrill at the reading of another man's story, a night of insomnia, and resolution was in tatters, and shortly thereafter Calmar Bye's pencil ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... causes & cases that are of greatest momente, by which others are to be judged of, as in y^e differance betwixte chanc medley, & willfull murder; so in y^e sins of uncleannes, it is one thing to doe an acte of uncleannes by sudden temptation, & another to lye in waite for it, yea, to make a co[m]une practise of it; this mightily augments & multiplies y^e sin. Againe, some si[n]es of this nature are simple, others compound, as y^t ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... when, though brethren, we strove together, may rankle in the minds of us, the defeated party; we should cherish the bonds of common nationality that still exist between us. We should remember, as the Athenians remembered of the Spartans at a season of jealousy and temptation, that our race is one, being of the same blood, speaking the same language, having an essential resemblance in our institutions and usages, and worshipping in the temples of the same God. [HERODOTUS, viii. 144.] All this may and should be borne in mind. And yet an Englishman ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... on the horse, she rode in the style of the men, a-straddle; and perhaps a more unwieldy mass never pressed upon the loins of an animal; had she, however, been somewhat younger, and less corpulent, there might have been some temptation to head her party, for she certainly had been a very handsome woman, and such as would have been thought a beauty in any ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... a life and death matter. In the mountains where we don't see one woman a year it might happen that any man expecting one young lady should mistake another for her. Miss Brock is full of mischief, and the temptation to her to let you deceive yourself was too great, that's all. If I could go without sacrificing the interests of all of us in the reorganization I shouldn't ask you ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... delicate colours, the dainty ruffling of lace. To the rich these things come as a matter of course, and the working classes are satisfied with garish imitations; it is the poor gentlewoman with the cultivated taste, the cultivated longing for beauty, to whom temptation comes in its keenest form. It had come to Delphine, and she had succumbed. I devoutly hoped and prayed that the shock of the coming bill would ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... do for the sake of wealth? It is true, we both felt sanguine about finding our treasure-island; and if the account we had received of it was true, there was more wealth there than we had the means of taking away with us; still, we could not resist the temptation to secure this, comparatively speaking, small windfall that had come in our way, so we persevered; and we certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... was cold and dreary, should look so much more virtuous and heroic than sitting up awhile at night when the house was warm and everything pleasant, is one of the mysteries to be solved only by the firm belief that the easy, comfortable moments were the seasons especially susceptible to temptation, and that sacrifice and austerity were the guide-posts on the narrow way ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... raptures at the cheapness of spirituous liquors among us, and in some of their drunken hours have been insolent to some of the inhabitants"; and he further remarks that "the officers are the most troublesome, who, many of them, are as intemperate as the men." Thus, while the temptation to excess was strong, the restraint of individual position was weak, and both privates and officers became subjects of legal proceedings as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... who was changing their plates, could not resist this temptation to show off the little English he knew. "Hes name is Hero, mademoiselle," he answered. "He vair smart dog. He know evair sing somebody say to him, ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and was delighted to find that his wardrobe competitor, with the temptation to save a few dollars, had ordered a second-rate type of glass wardrobe, with pull-out rods that swing inside the case, without a locking device to prevent them ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... resist the temptation, of letting Frau Schimmel inhale the elixir. Then he asked her why every one who was born was destined to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... it! We're out of the world,—out of rows, out of liquor, out of cards, out of bad company, out of temptation. Cussedness and foolishness hez got to follow us up here to find us, and there's too many ready to climb down to them things to tempt 'em to come up ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... strange drama that had been acted before me. But, as I have told you, then I was honest and virtuous, and the meanness of such an act revolted all my instincts; and I should have overcome this temptation, had it not been for one of those trifling incidents which too often form the turning-point of a life. A draught from a suddenly opened door caught one of these morsels of paper, and wafted it to my feet. I stooped and picked it up, and read on ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... if to make sure of his direction before resuming the chase. At that moment he was completely in the power of the pirate, for his broad back was not more than a few feet from the screen of roots and tendrils by which Rosco was partially hidden. The temptation was strong. The pirate drew the keen knife that always hung at his girdle, but a feeling of pity induced him to hesitate. The delay sufficed to save Zeppa's life. Next moment he seized an overhanging branch, drew himself out of the swamp, and sped on his way; but, having ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... into the heart of Chorasan, where they would be separated from their brethren of the River Oxus, and enclosed on all sides by the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an object of temptation rather than terror; and the vigor of government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Holy One; and when they have found, the possession only humbles all the more. Not that there is no danger or temptation of the flesh exalting itself in the possession, but, once knowing the danger, the humble soul seeks for grace to fear continually, with a fear that only clings more firmly to God alone. Never for a moment imagine that you attain a state in which self or the flesh are absolutely dead. ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... "A temptation to lie? I don't recommend you to do that, for when I'm misinformed I'm as dangerous as a poisoned rat. I don't mean ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... never leapt a gate; had attempted a bank now and then, but nothing serious. Her success at the water-jumps tempted her; and the mare, galloping with her second wind, seemed to feel the temptation every whit ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... paper. Not to answer might be to fasten suspicion upon her widow's weeds; and, for all her right to look mankind in the face, she shrank instinctively from immediate recognition. Then in a clap came the temptation to discuss her own case with the owner of a voice at once confident and courtly, and subtly reminiscent of her native colony, where it is no affront for stranger to speak to stranger without introduction ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... rare liberality was signalized by offering to take $1,000 for the lot, young and old. In this exceptional case, while opposed to buying slaves, in common with abolitionists generally, she was too tender-hearted to resist the temptation so long as "they could ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... boiled or baked, and whether certain vegetables served in the dining room were bought from a store or procured from our own farm. Human nature I find to be very much the same the world over, and it is sometimes not hard to yield to the temptation to go to a barrel of rice that has come from the store—with the grain all prepared to go in the pot—rather than to take the time and trouble to go to the field and dig and wash one's own sweet potatoes, which might be prepared in a manner to take the ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... create, by the help of superstition, and the delusive workings of the imagination, a variety of unearthly beings whose wrath he must appease, or whose favour he may conciliate; when I reflect how great is the temptation in unenlightened or fraudulent teachers to accommodate the dictates of truth to the prejudices and desires of those whom they instruct, my wonder is rather that Christianity was so long preserved pure and uncontaminated in this respect, than that corruptions should ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... Lascelles Abercrombie and John Drinkwater are also listed among the Georgian poets. When their first collection appeared in March, 1913, Henry Newbolt, a critic as well as poet, wrote: "These younger poets have no temptation to be false. They are not for making something 'pretty,' something up to the standard of professional patterns.... They write as grown men walk, each with his own unconscious stride and gesture.... In short, they express themselves and seem to steer ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... smaller still. It is dangerous to touch the leaves of these two plants because they bring about a severe irritation of the skin, covering it with pimples and little bladders, that itch intolerably, whilst the body becomes swollen. And yet the temptation to scratch must be resisted or ulceration follows with the probability of gangrene. When one is able to renounce the momentary relief procured by rubbing or scratching the inconvenience passes in a ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... suite of unfurnished rooms in the Via Maggio, now distinguished by the inscription known to all visitors to Florence, which were to be had for twenty-five guineas a year, and which, when furnished, might be let during any prolonged absence for a considerable sum. The temptation of a ground-floor in the Frescobaldi Palace, and a garden bright with camellias, to which Browning for a time inclined, was rejected. At Casa Guidi the double terrace where orange-trees and camellias also might find a place made amends ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... him only know what's in the wind; then ask Brooks, and he will be sure to force him to come. Say nothing of the boy; let him stay or come, as they think proper. To ask all might make them suspicious. They'll both come. They never yet resisted a spiritual temptation. When here, ply them well, and then we shall go on according to circumstances. Brooks carries the keys along with him: get him once in for it, and I'll take them from him. If he ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... greatly daring, who slyly made himself that party's mouthpiece. The suggestion startled Charles, voicing, as perhaps it did, the temptation by which he was secretly assailed. He ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... has obvious advantages; the chief of them being the adjustment to "beginning, middle, and end," though there is a corresponding disadvantage which soon developed itself—and in fact, finally, I have no doubt helped to ruin the form—the temptation to make the second volume a place of mere padding. But the actual popularity of "the old three-decker" continued for quite two generations, if not more, and was unmistakable. Library subscriptions were generally adjusted to it; and any circulating-library keeper would tell you that, putting ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... did the temptation linger. His mother had taught him that a lie was never justifiable under ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... slowly away, the stern motto is buried in quick flashes of the tempting call. These are mere visions; now comes the scene itself of temptation. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... able, or indeed willing, to preserve her virtue is what I don't understand. You confess that you are very fond of gold. Now, how is it that you don't barter your virtue for gold sometimes? I am a philosopher, Ursula, and like to know everything. You must be every now and then exposed to great temptation, Ursula: for you are of a beauty calculated to captivate all hearts. Come, sit down and tell me how you are enabled to resist such temptation as ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... how we should either of us bear it if we found ourselves suddenly rich. It would be a great temptation—a sore temptation. I fear, Mary, that when poor people talk disdainfully of money, they often are like your fox, born without a tail. If nature suddenly should give that beast a tail, would he not be prouder of it than all the other foxes ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... fallow-deer, and they were extremely fat and delicious venison; but their horns were still in velvet, and would not be clean until October. I could have shot several of these animals; but I was full of good resolutions to resist all temptation, and to restrict my shooting ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... where will he find protection and defense, to abide in his godly ways? We see daily how the pious are harassed and persecuted, and are trod on by the world. The Apostle says: "Ye Christians must endure temptation and adversity, want and need, both physical and spiritual, in the world, and your heart is oppressed with anxiety and cares, and ye think within yourselves: O, what will become of me? How shall ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Jules and then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have groused at Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier every day. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation in the girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were. And he told me to hop it. So ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... was just a temptation to jump; and she began to pull at choice clumps of clover with her long tongue. Then, feeling thirsty, she went to the brook, where it flowed into the mill pond, to get ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... familiarity with the details," rejoined Mr. Pye, "For my own part, I have no resource but to believe him so, I regard it as one of those anomalies which you cannot understand, or would believe in, but that it happens under your own eye; where the moment's yielding to temptation is at variance with the general character, with the whole past life. Of course, in these cases, the disgrace is reflected upon relatives and connections, and they have to suffer for it. I cannot help the ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... there is in them, latent, any propensity toward viciousness—any unawakened desire for that which has been my failing—hard work from dawn till dark is the antidote. An exhausted child is beyond temptation. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... utterly front this ensnaring sin. "Touch not; taste not; handle not." In ENTIRE ABSTINENCE is your only safety. This persevered in, you shall never fall. Wherever and however the temptation is presented, "avoid it—turn from it, and pass away." Turn also from every sin. "Commit your way unto the Lord," and he will "direct your paths." A glorious provision is made for your salvation, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... probably realize the desirability of making notes of certain characters while the plants are fresh, for future reference, or for use by those to whom the plants may be sent for determination. It is some trouble to do this, and when the different kinds are plentiful the temptation is strong to neglect it. When one has available books for determination of the species, as many as possible should be studied and determined while fresh. But it is not always possible to satisfactorily determine all. Some may be too difficult for ready recognition, others may not be described in ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... rushed away as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no excuse for myself—none. I should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I have done, if I had not been weak, selfish and hard—able to think of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all temptation. Oh. what is Lucy feeling now? She believed in me—she loved me—she was so good to me! Think ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... the impetuosity of his temperament, blameable undoubtedly from an artistic point of view. We shall be indulgent to him if we remember that no author of the time was entirely master of himself and faithful to his plot. Even Shakespeare rarely resists like temptation, and when a poetic image comes into his mind, little matters it to him what character is on the stage; he makes of him a dreamer, a poet, and lends to him the exquisite language of his own emotion. Let us ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, and the nuns could not resist the temptation to raise the corner of their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two men, Fauvent and another man, were visible as they dug side by side. An enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each other: "He is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... everything out of the common that comes in his sphere of duty, enter the particulars fully in his note-book, and be prepared to swear to the accuracy of his notes at any time. It would be easy for a man less carefully selected and trained to make a slip of judgment, to succumb to a temptation. ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... the buried treasure was at an end; and I began to feel as though I should be grateful if I escaped back to Ballarat with my life, minus the gold which was so great a temptation for us to undertake ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Beer-sheba that the temptation came to Abraham to sacrifice his first-born, his only son Isaac. The temptation was in accordance with the fierce ritual of Syria, and traces of the belief which had called it into existence are to be found in the early literature of Babylonia. Thus in an ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... be exasperating at times, as even her younger sister was forced to admit, and occasionally she was driven to the necessity of running away from her, rather than yield to the temptation of answering sharp words with sharper. Mrs. Adams could and did bear patiently with unasked advice in all matters but one; but in regard to the discipline of her little daughter she stood firm, for she and her husband had agreed that here Aunt Jane was not ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... numerous body of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been received into the protection and service of the empire. [73] They were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous temptation which might so easily be communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to the order of their march, might be considered as a proof ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Hall by another entrance. But the barrister, a man who, great as his forensic abilities were, was one of those people who have no private reputation to lose, and of whom it was well known that he could never withstand the temptation to a bottle of champagne, assented readily, and with great good humour. And he and Cotherstone, arm in arm, walked down the steps and across the Market Place—and behind them the crowd sneered and laughed ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... referring them to an ideal than an historical origin: and without falling into fanciful exegetics, there are parts of Scripture more usefully interpreted ideologically than in any other manner,—as for instance, the history of the Temptation of JESUS by Satan, and accounts of demoniacal possessions." (pp. 200-201.) "Some may consider the descent of all Mankind from Adam and Eve as an undoubted historical fact; others may rather perceive in that relation a form of narrative into which in early ages tradition would easily throw itself ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the commiseration they had for his condition; and had he complied with their desires, when they exhorted him not to go over the river to Herod, he had not perished: but the marriage of his granddaughter [to Herod] was his temptation; for as he relied upon him, and was over-fond of his own country, he came back to it. Herod's provocation was this,—not that Hyrcanus made any attempt to gain the kingdom, but that it was fitter for him to be their king than ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... liberate the body from the bondage of prescribed morality. Shall no distinction be recognised between my conduct and that of the common sot or debauchee whose soul lies in blind subjection to his lower instincts? I, who have laboured early and late to remove temptation from my people—who have punished offences against conduct as unsparingly as spiritual error—I, who have not scrupled to destroy every picture in my galleries that contained a nude figure or a wanton attitude—I, who have been blessed from ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to Newgate, preparatory to his removal to the colonies. In a fanciful passage in one of his early essays he had fancied himself 'lying in Horsemonger Gaol under sentence of death' for having been unable to resist the temptation of stealing some Marc Antonios from the British Museum in order to complete his collection. The sentence now passed on him was to a man of his culture a form of death. He complained bitterly of it to his friends, and pointed out, with a good deal of reason, some people ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... street-car, preoccupied, fatigued, nervous, hungry, demanding to be loved. And the young wife has to behave as though she had been lounging all the afternoon in a tea-gown on a soft sofa. Curious that, although she is afraid of her husband's wrath, the temptation to tell him grows stronger! Indeed, is it not a rather fine thing that she has done, and was not the salute of the admiring male flattering and sweet? Not many tiny wives would have had the pluck to ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... MASEFIELD other than proud of the part he has played in explaining and glorifying his country's cause and commending it to the hearts and minds of all good Americans. I confess that when I took up the book and read the first few lines I was afraid that Mr. MASEFIELD had yielded to the temptation of delivering his speech in poetical prose of a faintly Biblical character, as thus: "Friends, for a long time I did not know what to say to you in this my second speaking here. I could fill a speech with thanks and praise—thanks for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... the woods on Saturday afternoon had been taken just to enjoy the first real tramp of the season, and to get together to talk of plans for the coming Spring athletics. As boys can never resist the temptation to throw snowballs when the moist white covering seems just suited to such conditions, every little while one of them discovered some sort of target at which they could ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... one else the effect might have been too striking, but it exactly suited her; and as Malcolm noticed the exquisite colour of her face and the wonderful coils of black hair, he was obliged to acknowledge that Cedric's temptation had been strong, and that many an older man might have lost his heart ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... bad. "I could manage them very well, if it were not for Mary's interference," was what Anne often heard him say, and had a good deal of faith in; but when listening in turn to Mary's reproach of "Charles spoils the children so that I cannot get them into any order," she never had the smallest temptation to say, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... himself? And then the Koran enjoined true believers to succour the distressed who fell fainting in the desert; and this was an educated man, who read his Koran; and a religious man, according to his lights, who obeyed its precepts when he happened to remember them, and temptation to the contrary was not too strong. If he had known that the property before him belonged to a pig who did not believe the Prophet, it might have been different; but he could not tell that, and he turned Harry Forsyth over to give ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the boys'll quit shooting your water-tank. But Tubercle can't influence 'em.' 'Tubercle?' says the superintendent. 'What's that?' And when I told him it was the agent, he flapped his two hands down on the chair arms each side of him and went to rockin' up and down. I said the agent was just a temptation to the boys to be gay right along, and they'd keep a-shooting. 'You can choose between Tubercle and your tank,' I said; 'but you've got to move one of 'em from Separ if yu' went peace.' The sheriff backed me up good, too. He said a man couldn't do much ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... no denying that there is great temptation to violent admirations and attractions in school. In the first place, in school or college the girl is brought into contact with a large circle of people who are immensely interesting to her. The whole atmosphere is full of novelty, of the unusual. Some of the students and teachers ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... This temptation was too great for Lawroshka, and, as his rifle was at hand, he pushed off in the boat, and coming up close to the moose, shot him just as he was leaving the water. He offered to give me the head, and seemed greatly surprised when I refused it, and told him I did not wish ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... larger vision and deeper sensibility, these men have usually been conservative, careful leaders. They have seldom been agitators, have withstood the temptation to head the mob, and have worked steadily and faithfully in a thousand communities in the South. As teachers they have given the South a commendable system of city schools and large numbers of private normal schools and academies. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Paris and Adam Made mischief enough in their day:— God be praised that the fate of mankind, my dear Madam, Depends not on us, the same way. For, weak as I am with temptation to grapple, The world would ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... supersensible worlds, there will always be still higher stages which will enable us to perceive more and more of our "higher self." It can therefore only partially reveal itself to the student at any particular stage. Having once caught a glimpse of this higher self, man feels a tremendous temptation to look upon it in the same manner in which he is accustomed to regard the things of the physical sense-world. And yet this temptation is salutary; it is indeed necessary, if man's development is to proceed in the right manner. The student must here note what it is that appears ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... said to have been the vainest men of their time. At a dinner some years since, Dr. Parr, in ecstasies with the conversational powers of Lord Erskine, called out to him, though his junior, "My Lord, I mean to write your epitaph." "Dr. Parr," replied the noble lawyer, "it is a temptation to commit suicide." ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... beautiful, and she had experienced those innumerable perils to which such a gift exposes an unprotected girl, struggling for her bread, under the cruelest circumstances of oppressive labor. Every description of hardship, and every description of temptation belonging to perhaps the hardest and almost the most dangerous position of female life, Mrs. Fisher had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown into evil. If I were not—" Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange pathetic note in it. It ceased, and then ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... will put you beyond temptation's way. Go out and bring me back a whole lot of boughs. I ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... by an officer, that the English dragoon neglected his horse in the field, selling the provender for liquor, and that, as a consequence, the corps became inefficient; whereas the French dragoon, being usually a sober man, was less exposed to this temptation. This may, or may not, be true; but drunkenness is now quite common in the French army, though I think much less so in the cavalry than in the foot. The former are generally selected with some care, and the common regiments of the line, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... secretary to the newly appointed Governor-General of our Indian possessions. Besides the high salary, and the excellent opportunity of travelling to Java in such a comfortable way, my future prospects are so promising that I could not for a moment resist the temptation to go. It is much more agreeable to me than vegetating in a provincial town, on the look-out for ill-paid lawsuits or some legal appointment. I expatriate myself for a year or two, to return with all the importance of an Eastern nabob," continued ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... minds of his primitive readers a subject that has taxed to the utmost the resources of the world's greatest philosophers and theologians. The task was comparable to that which fell to the Master when he sought to make clear to his untutored disciples the real nature of the mighty tempest of temptation that raged in his soul at the beginning, and, indeed, later in his ministry. The method adopted was strikingly similar in each case. If the language of modern philosophy and psychology had been at the command of these great religious teachers, it would have but ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... declared to be the indispensable condition of every parliamentary regime, does not exist, and has never existed, in France. The reason why is simple. If the party of the Right, hostile to the Republic, should come into power, the temptation would be too strong for them to maintain themselves there by establishing an autocratic government, which would put an end to the parliamentary regime, as in 1851. The electors are conscious of this tendency ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... that the Court Godmother should have been content with this, but her anger and disgust were too much for her discretion. She could not resist the temptation to humiliate and confound these upstarts by a sensational stroke, whatever it ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. He already held the counties of Derby and Nottingham. Richard plainly intended that political rights should not go with these grants, but he shows very little knowledge of John's character or appreciation of the temptation which he put in his way in the possession of a great principality lacking only ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... might find herself desolate, cold, and wounded in her pride. She had been tricked into the visit, too, or rather had tricked herself into it. She had been sure that there had been a joint scheme between her cousin and Lady Midlothian, and could not resist the temptation of repudiating it in her letter to Lady Glencora. But there had been no such scheme; she had wronged Lady Glencora, and had therefore been unable to resist her second request. But she felt unhappy, fearing that she would be out of her element, and more than once half ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... simplicity of style suited at once to his salary and to the character of the country he represented. Loans to an indefinite amount were proffered to him by mercantile houses. These he uniformly declined, though under circumstances of great temptation to accept them. "The opportunities," he wrote, "of thus anticipating my regular income, it is difficult to resist. But I am determined to do it. The whole of my life has been one continued experience of the difficulty of a man's adhering to the principle of living within his income; ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... Rollo; "but this time I could not resist the temptation, she looked so piteously at her poor ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... it long ago. Your father was a forger! What do you suppose I care? He probably had some overpowering temptation and yielded, never dreaming but he would be able to make it right. You can't make me believe that any parent of yours was actually bad! And besides, if he ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... strong temptation, and for a moment the negro hesitated, but when his eye fell upon his master, who was just then entering the gate, his decision was taken, and he answered, "No, I'm bleeged to you. I'd rather ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... of truth; a true, a faithful, and—if I may so speak—an honest and honourable, and fair God: not a deceiving or unfair God, who lays snares for his creatures, or leads them into temptation. That would be a bad God, a cruel God, very unlike the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has put us into a good world, and not a wilderness, as some people call it. If any part of this world be a wilderness, it is because ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... have been an architect. His practical nature, his mastery of mathematics, his love of proportion, and his passion for music are the basic elements that make a Christopher Wren. But Virginia, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, offered no temptation to ambitions along that line; log houses with a goodly "crack" were quite good enough, and if the domicile proved too small the plan of the first was simply duplicated. Yet a career of some kind young Jefferson ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... bloody sweat wiped off from his brow presently to bleed again,—the Angel of Strength there with him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly kiss,—obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... this was Wilkinson's hour of self-examination. He looked backward on his deeds and inward on his motives. He mistrusted the future. If he were sure that Burr's rainbow dipped its gorgeous ends in gold, no accusing ghost of the past would deter him from chasing the yellow temptation over mountains or through bogs. He was not given to brooding over bygone failures, nor was he much afraid that his buried sins would arise to find him out. He began to think better of his friend's message. Burr was certainly a deep man and bold; he had genius; he had perseverance, enthusiasm, resource, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... central figure in each is unmistakably an Englishman, and quite as unmistakably a singular Englishman. Each bears witness to a fine eye for theatrical arrangement. But whereas Borrow stood for ever fortified by his wayward nature and atrocious English against the temptation of writing as he ought, Kinglake commenced author with a respect for "composition," ingrained perhaps by his Public School and University training. Borrow arrays his page by instinct, Kinglake by study. His irony (as in the interview with the Pasha) is ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he was alone, slowly opened the parcel. He could not resist the temptation of doing this, and of looking again at the things which she had sent back to him. And he was not without an idea—perhaps a hope—that there might be with them some short note—some scrap containing a few words for himself. If he ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... relief of the doctor's report in the early morning Pierson had gone through a hard struggle. What should he wire to Noel? He longed to get her back home, away from temptation to the burning indiscretion of this marriage. But ought he to suppress reference to George's progress? Would that be honest? At last he sent this telegram: "George out of danger but very weak. Come up." By the afternoon post, however, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of God grow in years, and the weaker in the world, they grow younger and stronger in grace. Secondly, they are called young, because of the strength that they have to resist temptations. Before they be renewed by grace and born again that way, they are like bairns, that every temptation prevails with them; but then they are as young men, who are able to resist temptations to sin, so that sin gets not liberty to exercise dominion over them. Thirdly, they are called young, because they will contend with all their power and might for the faith. I would have all of you ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... Divine law: if he were not quickly released, the respect hitherto shown for the Church by the Defender of the Faith would certainly vanish; while Wolsey himself, whose influence had hitherto kept his master loyal in the face of strong temptation, would no longer be able to restrain him. From Campeggio's letters, [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 296.] it is evident that the King had mastered his own case thoroughly, and knew the legal aspects better than any one else: also, that the intention was to declare Mary his heir ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... had read the Chariot Race, and if the whole story was as interesting as that, he must have it. He handed the volume to the salesman. Then his hand touched lovingly a number of other books, but he resisted the temptation, ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... nose reminded her of the prow of a ship of war, and his deep-set eyes were continually searching the horizon for an enemy. Such were her fancies. In the early morning when he donned his sleeveless bathing suit, she could never resist the temptation to follow him on deck to see him plunge into the cold ocean: it gave her a delightful little shiver—and he was made like one ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... permitted to depict to his utmost power a MAN. We must drape him, and give him a certain conventional simper. Society will not tolerate the Natural in our Art. Many ladies have remonstrated and subscribers left me, because, in the course of the story, I described a young man resisting and affected by temptation. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was calm and cold and, while outwardly scrupulous, capable of forgetting his honor as a physician under a sufficiently strong temptation. I had left him when new prospects opened, and in the years which had elapsed had contented myself with the knowledge that his shingle still hung out in Yonkers, though his practice was nothing to what it used to be when I was in his employ. Now ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... wrapped in his dressing-gown, soon appeared on the scene, while Aun' Suke's domain contributed its quota also of agitated, half-dressed forms. Chunk could not resist the temptation to be a witness to the scene and in a copse near by was grinning with silent ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the proclamation, he saw that it was another trick to catch him, but he was so daring and so fond of adventure that he could not resist the temptation to outdo the king in cunning once more. He determined actually to put his head in the lion's mouth—in other words, to go boldly to the temple and talk to the princess. He took with him under his cloak ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... regarded his counsellor. "If I be condemned to evil acts," he said, "there is still one door of freedom open—I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling disappointment, you shall ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... almost quailing beneath the fiery passion of that feeble woman, "I have sinned against thee and thine. But remember all my excuses!—early love—fatal obstacles—rash vow—irresistible temptation! Perhaps," he added, in a more haughty tone, "perhaps, yet, I may have the power to atone my error, and wring, with mailed hand, from the successor of St Peter, who hath power ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... interest; though it should always be remembered that hardly anything is known of his relations with the other sex save that he took a keen and lifelong interest in the Foundling Hospital. But so strong had the habit of making masterpieces become with him that he could not resist the temptation to create just one more, even when he had nothing better than "Susanna" to base it on; just as a confirmed drunkard cannot resist the temptation to get one drink more, even if he be accustomed to the gilded chambers of the West End, and ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... yet explained in any satisfactory manner. The blunder was great; yet in the end its consequences were disastrous, not to those who committed, but to him whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not resist the temptation which it presented, to make one warlike effort more. Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the despatch on the morning of the 9th; and having left Bourmont at Nogent, with a small force to defend the bridge over the Seine, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... at her. She saved me from myself; she will save you from yourself. Do you suppose that anything but purity, goodness, and truth ever came from out those lips? Do you think she would be satisfied with anything else in her boy? Be a man, my son! Strangle this temptation that threatens to stain your soul. No matter what comes—even if you beg your bread—put this thing under your feet. Look your God in ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it was a great moral lesson. He was honest by nature, but there is no one who cannot be strengthened against temptation. The sum taken by Sinclair was large, but it had not made him happy. Probably he had never been more miserable than in the interval that had elapsed since his theft. Judging between him and Bowman. Fred felt sure that it was Sinclair who had been weak, and Bowman who had been wicked. Now his ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... in Bintenne, whose chief stores consist of honey, live in dread of the bears, because, attracted by its perfume, they will not hesitate to attack their rude dwellings, when allured by this irresistible temptation. The Post-office runners, who always travel by night, are frequently exposed to danger from these animals, especially along the coast from Putlam to Aripo, where they are found in considerable numbers; and, to guard against surprise, they are accustomed ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... temptation, Nat," said my uncle, and the very next day we started back, intent now on the one thought of getting our ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... wondering how Chunky could resist the temptation of falling in here. He'll never have a better opportunity for making a clean job of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... of our intercourse. But there was intimacy enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... wandering Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek countenance, and the slender limbs of the gentle creature, with untiring curiosity; but he finally abandoned the prize, as useless in his predatory expeditions, and offering too little temptation to the appetite. As soon, however, as he found himself among the beasts of burden, his gratification was extreme, and it was with difficulty that he restrained the customary ejaculations of pleasure that were more than once on the point of bursting from his lips. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... resist anything but temptation," this warm-hearted Irishman would say; and that was ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... honest, industrious young man. During the time he had worked in town, he had done nothing to impeach that reputation which he brought up with him, and might possibly have lived very happily, if he had not fallen into the temptation of this unfortunate woman, who seems to have been born for her own undoing and for the destruction of others. Whatever knowledge he might have of that relation in which he stood to Mrs. Hayes, certain it is that she always ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... no one says, "Let him be worse wounded, for he is not yet healed." How much better then, had I been at once healed; and then, by my friends' and my own, my soul's recovered health had been kept safe in Thy keeping who gavest it. Better truly. But how many and great waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after my boyhood! These my mother foresaw; and preferred to expose to them the clay whence I might afterwards be moulded, than the very ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language, exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman had a great many old-time friends ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... suit any one reasonable, but I own up I was sore. Here I'd started out with the best intentions in the world, with my mind all made up not to be led into temptation or turned from a set purpose, an' what was the first result? I had simply given my entire stock in trade away to a worthless loafer, an' had seen him sell it for fifty dollars after he had made all manner of fun of me for offerin' one fourth of all he ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... our own doing, O Varuna, it was necessity (or temptation), an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young; ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... to be had for the taking, and an expedition of such kind under the leadership of two men like my captain, whom I still adored, and Mr. Meriwether Lewis, whom I greatly admired, was the strongest temptation that could be ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... metropolis even in the modern sense; not merely an emporium of commerce, but a focus where the intellectual and religious treasures of various countries were concentrated and worked up, and transmitted to all the nations that desired them. I have resisted the temptation to lay the scene of my story there, because in Alexandria the Egyptian element was too much overlaid by the Greek, and the too splendid and important scenery and decorations might easily have distracted the reader's attention from the dramatic ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... life subsides, the power of temptation becomes less. That conviction, which was at first strong, and gradually became fainter and less impressive, is made by incessant repetitions a part of my nature. I no more think of doubting its truth, than of my own existence. Practice has rendered the pursuits that engage me more easy, till ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... of a heap!" said Sir Chichester sadly. "Well he might be!" He looked up and caught Harry's eye. "They say, Luttrell, that breaking a habit is only distressing during the first few days. With each refusal of the mind to yield, the temptation diminishes in strength. I believe that to ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... cannot resist the temptation of contemplating this analogy, which I think he might have carried farther, very much to the advantage of his argument. He might have shown that these "hunters, whose game is man," have many sports analogous to our own. As we drown whelps or kittens, they amuse themselves now and then with sinking ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... support; she had even feared the contrary. And that night when she put the child to bed - "Now, my dear, ye see!" she said, "I told you what your faither would think of it, if he heard ye had fallen into this dreidful sin; and let you and me pray to God that ye may be keepit from the like temptation or ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights short with psalmody, every spare five minutes filled with reading, copying, gardening and the recitation of offices. All these the novice took with gusto, safe hidden from the flash of emerald eyes and the witchery of hypergeometrical noses. But temptation is not to be kept out by the diet of Adam and of Esau, by locked doors, spades, and inkpots. The key had hardly turned upon the poor refugee when he found he had locked in his enemies with him. His austerities redoubled, but as he says he "only beat ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... 31st brought the Derby, and with the Derby there came upon the Tory Benches one of those moments of temptation which the natural man is utterly unable to resist. The amendments followed each other in rapid succession; division came on top of division; and in them all the Liberals jumped back to their old superiority of numbers. In the earlier part of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... premature—as Sir George Clarke. A country with a past as glorious and laborious as that of Great Britain, unprepared as yet, as a whole, to take a single step forward toward reunion, is confronted suddenly—as though the temptation must be irresistible—with a picture of ultimate results which I will not undertake to call impossible (who can say what is impossible?), but which certainly deprives the nation of much, if not all, the hard-wrought achievement of centuries. Disunion, loss of national identity, changes of constitution ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... besides those of grief for its loss; and I have often since thought what a master—nay, destroyer—of the affections want is, and have learned from experience to be thankful for daily bread. That acknowledgment of weakness which we make in imploring to be relieved from hunger and from temptation, is surely wisely put in our daily prayer. Think of it you who are rich, and take heed how you turn a ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was less in love with Millicent Austin than he had been, he hardly realized it then. He was disappointed, and his forehead contracted as he struggled with as heavy a temptation as could have assailed the honor of any man. Millicent was very fair to look upon, as she turned to him with entreaty and anxiety ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... while she continued in correspondence with the Jew, that the easiness with which she could raise money would be a motive with her to continue the practice whenever she was softened by distress, or subdued by entreaty: but he hoped, by totally concluding the negociation, the temptation would be removed: and that the hazard and inconvenience of renewing it, would strengthen her aversion to such an expedient, till, between difficulties and disuse, that dangerous resource would be thought ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
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