"Unprovoked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the breast of natural parents, which peculiarly fit them to take care of their own children. No other persons can precisely take their place, and feel the same interest, the same unwearied concern—the same unprovoked temper and unchangeable love through good report and through evil report. In a word, no other persons, however good and worthy, can be natural parents. Guardians can be found, who will feel a warm interest ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... that Landson did it?" said Zen, who had an element of caution in her when her father was concerned. She had a vision of a fight, with Landson pleading entire ignorance of the whole cause of offence, and her father probably summoned by the police for unprovoked assault. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... desired by the king and of carrying out his own purpose in seeking an audience. Nothing save assassination suggested itself to the constable; a quarrel and a duel offered no security; and Sapt was not Black Michael, and had no band of ruffians to join him in an apparently unprovoked kidnapping of a ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... clearly identified as having perpetrated the unprovoked crime of assassinating the temporary occupant of the property, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... while acting in that capacity he killed his man. He was trying to arrest him, so he informed me, and the fellow showed fight, when he took out his gun and shot him. It was claimed by the authorities that the shooting was unprovoked, and that the man could have been arrested without killing him. Aside from the fact that he had killed his man, I must say that I never met a man for whom I had a higher regard. He was very kind to me, very patient, and made my work as easy for me as he possibly ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... you suspect? Be calm now, don't speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir—a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical—but whom do you suspect, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... March, 1854, Present, The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. Her Majesty having determined to afford active assistance to Her Ally, His Highness the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, for the protection of his dominions against the encroachments and unprovoked aggression of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias, Her Majesty, therefore, is pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to order, and it is hereby ordered, that general reprisals[211] be granted against the ships, vessels, and goods ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... chapter. Smollett, always irritable and combative, retorted by a needlessly coarse and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the name of "Habbakkuk Hilding, Justice, Dealer and Chapman," Fielding was attacked with indescribable brutality. Another, and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the Journal of the War brought upon him was Bonnel Thornton, afterwards joint-author with George Colman of the Connoisseur, who, in a production styled Have at you All; or, The Drury Lane Journal, lampooned Sir Alexander with remarkable rancour ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... coming it too strong for him, so he thought I had not heard and repeated his question. I said again as before, and he shut up. I sent him a copy of Erewhon immediately after we had completed. It was rather tall talk on my part, I admit, but he should not have challenged me unprovoked. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... with this decision. It was an age when quarter was but seldom given, and wholesale slaughters followed battles, so that they had, naturally, the ideas common to the time. Still, they both felt that this attack was wholly unprovoked and altogether beyond the scope of the expedition, and were well pleased that their leader would have naught to do with it. It was, however, a different matter when they heard that an army twelve thousand strong was ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... regiment was shot through the head and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... didn't have a fact to stand on, as you observe. I conjectured round pretty spry, too. Reckon it took me all of half a second—while them two warriors was giving me the evil eye. I'll tell you how it was." He related the story of the shooting match and the lost bet. "And to this unprovoked design against an inoffensive stranger I fitted the only possible meaning and shape that would make a lick of sense, dovetailin' in with the real honest-to-goodness ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... good enough to tell me the name of this hulking young blackguard who assaults quiet elderly gentlemen, taking constitutionals, in this most unprovoked and wanton fashion," said the higher mathematician in ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... first line and the last. I certainly should not take the trouble to wade all through such contemptible trash!" Which was an unprovoked insult to ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... literary career, and even in this "Defense," not to use the weapons that have been used against me during so many years of almost uninterrupted attacks. Much is allowed, however, in self-defense that would be blamable in an unprovoked attack, and if I have used here and there the cool steel, Itrust that clean wounds, inflicted by a sharp sword, will heal sooner than gashes made with rude stones and ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... sprang up the bank, and appeared about 20 paces in our front. Without a moment's hesitation she uttered several short roars, and upon the beautifully clean ground she bounded forward in full charge straight for Moolah Bux. I never saw a more grand but unprovoked attack. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... naughty boy. The colonel, I suppose, laughed too, whether he would or not, for I heard no answer. However, he took the chair, and finding me wholly unembarrassed by this polissonnerie, though not wholly unprovoked by it, he renewed his discourse, and kept his seat till the party, very late, broke up; but Colonel Manners, who knew not what to make of all this, exclaimed, "Why, ma'am, you cannot keep Mr. Turbulent in much ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... and destined to carry me to Cayenne, whither I repaired by Macapa, coasting along the left of the Amazons to its mouth, without, like you, making tour of the great island of Joanes, or Marajo. After similar courtesies, unprovoked by express recommendations, what had I not to expect, seeing his Most Faithful Majesty had condescended to issue precise orders to expedite a vessel to the very frontiers of his dominions, for the purpose of receiving my family on board, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... and the Chairman, on returning, said that this was a most brutal and unprovoked assault, made all the worse by the previous drinking habits of the defendant. If it had not been for the good character he bore generally speaking (here he looked towards the elder magistrate, who had evidently said a word in Smith's behalf), he would have had ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... nothing, our prince was guilty of incredible outrages upon various persons and, what was most striking these outrages were utterly unheard of, quite inconceivable, unlike anything commonly done, utterly silly and mischievous, quite unprovoked and objectless. One of the most respected of our club members, on our committee of management, Pyotr Pavlovitch Gaganov, an elderly man of high rank in the service, had formed the innocent habit of declaring vehemently on all sorts of occasions: "No, you can't lead me ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... could refuse, and his prayer presumed a favourable answer. Barbara listened in quiet; I could not tell whether fear alone bound her, or whether the soft courtly voice bred fascination also. I was half-mad that I could not hear, and had much ado not to rush out, unprovoked, and defy the man before whom my master had bowed almost to ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... help comparing these manifestations of ardent temper with what he had witnessed in Cecily? The resemblance was at moments more than he could endure; once or twice he astonished Elgar with a reply of unprovoked savageness. The emotions of the day, even more than its bodily exercise, had so wearied him that he went early to bed. They had a double-bedded room, and Elgar continued talking for hours. Even without this, Mallard felt that he would have been unable to sleep. To ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... friend, not to remind the Minister of his presence in France, as Bonaparte never pardoned a Septembrizer, and the English guineas he possessed might be claimed and seized as national property, to compensate some of the sufferers by the unprovoked war with England. In vain did he address himself to his fellow labourer in revolutionary plots, the Counsellor of State, Real, who had been the intermedium between him and Talleyrand, when he was first enlisted among the secret agents; instead of receiving money he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... nonsense the way in which croakers talk about the blacks. Some of our imperious settlers, by their own conduct, encourage them to commit depredations and to revenge wrongs; but, for my part, I never knew a black fellow make an unprovoked aggression, whereas Mr. Wigton merely speaks from what he has been ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... doorkeeper of a theatre could smilingly suggest that she was the property of a financier, and no one had a right to hit him between the eyes for saying so. Lushington had been strongly tempted to do that, but he had instantly foreseen the consequences; he would have been arrested for an unprovoked assault, the man would have told his story, the papers would have repeated it with lively comments, and Margaret's name would have been dragged through the mud of a newspaper scandal. So Lushington put his hands in his pockets and went away, which was by far ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... furiously angry, and sorely tempted to address some cutting words to the "Bohemienne" she had once so cruelly insulted; but Isabelle, who had a soul above such petty malice, and had long ago forgiven Yolande for her unprovoked insolence, felt how much her own triumph must wound the other's proud spirit, and with perfect dignity and grace bowed to Mlle. de Foix, who could not do less than respond by a slight inclination of her haughty head, though her heart was filled with rage, and she had much ado to control herself. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... reasons educated men then fell mainly into two classes. One class would be always thrusting themselves forward with unprovoked argumentation to cut to pieces all belief in God. Like the hunter whose hands itch, no sooner he spies a living creature on the top or at the foot of a tree, to kill it, whenever these came to learn of a harmless belief lurking ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... follows, as a matter of course, that which is usually the whole significance of the word, the meekness which is displayed in our attitude towards men. The truly meek heart remains unprovoked amidst all provocation. Most men are like dogs that answer bark for bark, and only make night hideous and themselves hoarse thereby. But it is our business to meet evil with good; and the more we are depreciated, the more we are harmed, the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... like the bawl and groan of a branded range-cow. At the same moment the gigantic green-draped figure exploded into sudden activity. He seemed to catapult out at the stooping dapper figure, bearing it to the sidewalk with the sheer weight of his unprovoked assault. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... of Ghuznee, his mother's brother. Strange to say, Hindoos as well as Mahommedans make offerings to this shrine, and implore the favours of this military ruffian, whose only recorded merit consists of having destroyed a great many Hindoos in a wanton and unprovoked invasion of their territory. They say, that he did what he did against Hindoos in the conscientious discharge of his duties, and could not have done it without God's permission—that God must then have been angry with them for their transgressions, and used this man, and all the other Mahommedan ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... urged on the inevitable war, for which the Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan, who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled, thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish their right to the disputed territory. Logan, Elenipsico, Red ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... From this place two roads lead to Katmandu. The whole of our week's stay in the Terai was rendered interesting to us from the recollection that in this province originated a war as disastrous to our troops as it was unprovoked by us. Never in our eastern experience have we commenced hostilities with a native power upon more justifiable grounds, and seldom have we paid more dearly for the satisfaction of at last dictating ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... apparently a much maligned race. They are exceedingly independent, and although along the frontier of their own territory in S'suchuan they wage a war of robbery and destruction it is not wholly unprovoked. No one can enter their country safely unless he is under the protection of a chief who acts as a sponsor and passes him along to others. Mr. Brooke, an Englishman, was killed by the Lolos, but he was not properly "chaperoned," and Major D'Ollone of the French expedition lived among them safely ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... the soldier's courage to defend The land of their adoption. This attack On Canada is foul and unprovoked; The hearts are vile, the hands are traitorous That will not help to hurl invasion back. Beware the lariat of the law! 'Tis thrown With aim so true in Canada it brings Sedition to the ground ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... And further, it has yet to be proved that De Quincey set down anything in malice. He called his literary idol, Wordsworth, "inhumanly arrogant." Does anybody—not being a Wordsworthian and therefore out of reach of reason—doubt that Wordsworth's arrogance was inhuman? He, not unprovoked by scant gratitude on Coleridge's part for very solid services, and by a doubtless sincere but rather unctuous protest of his brother in opium-eating against the Confessions, told some home truths against that magnificent genius but most unsatisfactory man. A sort of foolish folk ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... confirmed the fears that he had been trying to shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively controversial style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him, politically speaking, to his opponents, had risen in his place to make an unprovoked apology for having alluded in a recent speech to certain protesting taxpayers as "skulkers." He had realized on reflection that they were in all probability perfectly honest in their inability to understand certain legal technicalities of the new finance laws. The House ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... the future." This is the complaint of the Lords of Trade. Governor Fletcher writes bitterly: "Here every little government sets up for despotic power, and allows no appeal to the Crown, but, by a little juggling, defeats all commands and injunctions from the King." Fletcher's complaint was not unprovoked. The Queen had named him commander-in-chief, during the war, of the militia of several of the colonies, and empowered him to call on them for contingents of men, not above 350 from Massachusetts, 250 from ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... more excites our astonishment and gratitude than this, that not a man was killed on our part. We understand from good authority, the enemy had a number killed and several badly wounded,[17] in this unprovoked attack ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my country ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... of judging the Comparini by the morals of their class, and Count Guido by the peculiarities of his own nature; admits the punishment of the wife and parents to have been excessive, and cannot admit it to have been unprovoked; does not pretend to decide between the conflicting statements, and does not consider that Pompilia's dying confession throws much light upon them; seeing that it may be equally true, or false, or neutralized by another reserved for the priest's ear. Does not regard putting the Count to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... deference and acknowledgment to an established custom of our newest authors, by a long digression unsought for and a universal censure unprovoked, by forcing into the light, with much pains and dexterity, my own excellences and other men's defaults, with great justice to myself and candour to them, I now happily resume my subject, to the infinite satisfaction both of the reader and ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... of Aggression," I replied. "Its mottoes are, 'Stop trouble before it starts,' and, 'If we have to fight, let's do it on the other fellow's real estate.' But this situation is just a little too delicate for literal application of those principles. An unprovoked attack on the z'Srauff would set every other non-human race in the galaxy against us.... Would an attack by the z'Srauff on New Texas ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Blake, who had received secret orders from the council, gave chase; the whole squadron was captured, and the next day[c] Dunkirk opened its gates.[2] By the French court this action was pronounced an unprovoked and unjustifiable injury; but Mazarin coolly calculated the probable consequences of a war, and, after some time, sent[d] over Bordeaux, under the pretence of claiming the captured ships, but in reality to oppose the intrigues of the agents of Spain, of the prince of Conde, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... not say to every one that I always pronounce her name in German fashion because she occasionally shies, but that is the truth. I do not mind her shying, or a certain mysterious and apparently unprovoked jump, with which she sometimes indulges herself, and no one else rides her, so I think she does no harm, but I do not like the principle of allowing her to be wicked, unrebuked and unhindered, and some day I shall give my mind to admonishing this four-footed ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... stern voices uttered threats and the scourge resounded at their command. All these noises deepened and became substantial to the listener's ear, till she could distinguish every soft and dreamy accent of the love-songs that died causelessly into funeral-hymns. She shuddered at the unprovoked wrath which blazed up like the spontaneous kindling of flume, and she grew faint at the fearful merriment raging miserably around her. In the midst of this wild scene, where unbound passions jostled each other in a drunken career, there was one solemn voice of a man, and a manly and melodious ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... satisfied—that I was unutterably miserable; that my destiny was written in sable; that I was a man foredoomed to wo! Were my speculations strange or unnatural! Unnatural indeed! There is a class of surface-skimming persons, who pronounce all things unnatural which, to a cool, unprovoked, and perhaps unprovokable mind, appear unreasonable: as if a vexed nature and exacting passions were not the most unreasonable yet most natural of all moral agents. My woes may have been groundless, but it was surely not unnatural that ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... writer of the "Genealogy of the Macras" informs us that "the remains of a monument erected for him, in the place where he was killed, is still (1704) to be seen." Kintail was naturally much exasperated at this unprovoked raid upon his territory, as also for Macdonald's attack upon his friend and ally, Macleod of Dunvegan; and to punish Donald Gorm, he dispatched his son, Kenneth, with a force to Skye, who made ample reprisals in Macdonald's country, killing many of his followers, and at the same time ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... box on the ear to Hipponicus, the father of Callias, whose birth and wealth made him a person of great influence and repute. And this he did unprovoked by any passion or quarrel between them, but only because, in a frolic, he had agreed with his companions to do it. People were justly offended at this insolence, when it became known through the city; but early the next morning, Alcibiades went to his house and ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... magistrates gravely considering this a most serious charge of unprovoked attack upon an industrious individual, ordered the parties to find bail, in default of fully satisfying the inoffensive dealer in pastry, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Turk had walked for nearly a mile, and had just turned the corner of a street when, as they passed a butcher's shop upon the right hand, a large brindled mastiff rushed from the shop-door, and flew at Turk with unprovoked ferocity. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... snake in Asia that will attack human beings unprovoked; it's deadly poisonous, unlike all other big snakes, and they say it moves so fast that it can overtake a man on a pony. Benson, the Forest Officer of the district, tells me there are many of them in the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... sir," replied I warmly, "although your age prevents my taking notice of the unprovoked insults you have seen ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... she knew nothing of the claimants to either. She was a stranger, seeking only hospitality in Klosterheim, which apparently was violated by unprovoked exertions ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... desires to the want of sufficient rigor. Then they redouble the efforts of their impotent cruelty, which producing, as they must ever produce, new disappointments, they grow irritated against the objects of their rapacity; and then rage, fury, and malice, implacable because unprovoked, recruiting and reinforcing their avarice, their vices are no longer human. From cruel men they are transformed into savage beasts, with no other vestiges of reason left but what serves to furnish the inventions and refinements of ferocious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he knew, to let the boy have a fair trial against himself. Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's possession of his son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a measure to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... privacy about what I have promised the Government here. I have promised to propose to the Senate a supplement in which we shall agree, subject to the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to come immediately to the assistance of France in case of unprovoked attack by Germany, thus merely hastening the action to which we should be bound by the Government of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... alliances. "Notre but?" says Tardieu. "Sceller la garantie offerte, mais y ajouter l'occupation." Outside the Versailles Treaty the United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the provision that it ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... up before this clergyman charged with a violent and unprovoked assault on a man in a public-house. He was said to have gone into the room where the prosecutor was, and to have taken up his jug of ale and appropriated the contents to his own use without the owner's consent. The prosecutor, annoyed at the outrage, rose, and ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... became a different man. He grew noisy and in response to his yelped commands they swooped in unprovoked attack on our unhappy muleteers. Before we could interfere they had thrown each Turk face downward, our Zeitoonli helping, and were searching them with swift intruding fingers for knives, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... me, base poisoner!" answered Douglas, "wouldst thou have committed so horrible, so unprovoked a murder, and mentioned my ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... irresolutely at his chief mate, disclosed the gloomy and cynical conviction that more than half of them had been lost overboard, "if only the truth was known," and retired to the other end of the bridge. Jukes, exasperated by this unprovoked attack, broke the needle at the second stitch, and dropping his work got up and cursed the heat in a ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... him demanding some sort of expression found it in the swift stride that carried him blindly down the walk. He came almost at a run to his horse. Endymion, mindful of the unprovoked blows and tearing spurs of a week ago, distrustful, afraid, whirled, rearing and plunging, and broke the reins that had been tossed over the post. Hume, venting upon a trifle the wrath that seethed within him, shouted angrily, cursing the horse that ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... riding all the way, mostly by night, but Bennett was gone. He'd run down mighty fast after Merridy died, so I heard, growing sullen and uglier day by day—and I reckon I was the only one who knew why—till he had a killing in his place. It was unprovoked, and instead of stopping to face it out the yellow in him rose to the surface and he left before sunup, as I had left, making a clean getaway, too, for there was no such hullabaloo raised about killing a man as there was about—the other. So my ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... everywhere been dangerous and always will be. There's no security in any part of the world where people cannot think of a government without a king, and there never will be. You cannot conceive of a democracy that will unprovoked set out on a career of conquest. If all our religious missionary zeal and cash could be turned into convincing Europe of this simple and obvious fact, the longest step would be taken for human advancement that has been taken since 1776. If Carnegie, or, after he is gone, his Peace People ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... a cluster of twenty-three villages; in another, of eighteen. But alas for man! It would seem that the fallen children of Adam were determined that there should be no happiness in this world. The ferocious Iroquois would send their war parties, hundreds of miles through the wilderness, to make unprovoked attacks upon these unwarlike people. They would rob them of their harvests, wantonly burn their wigwams, kill and scalp men, women, and children, and carry off captives to torture and burn at the stake, ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... at length took place: a picket guard of eight men, provoked beyond endurance by words and blows, fired into a crowd, killed three persons and dangerously wounded five others." "The story of the 'Boston massacre,' for so it was called, exaggerated into a ferocious and unprovoked assault by brutal soldiers on a defenceless people, produced everywhere intense excitement. The officer and soldiers of the picket guard were indicted and tried for murder. They were defended, however, by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two young lawyers, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... forced back. I remained on the forecastle watching the vessel until the whistleing of six or seven bullets by my ears, warned me of my danger. At first I settled down on my knees, still anxious to ascertain the cause of this unprovoked outrage, until they approached within two or three hundred feet of us, when I prostrated myself on the deck, soon after which, the master fisherman arose, waved his hat at them, and the firing ceased. ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... about?" Mac snapped at the Boy as he came back with the fresh supply. This unprovoked attack was ample evidence that Mac was uneasy under the eyes of the camp, angry at his own weakness, and therefore the readier to dare anybody to find fault ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... it, while not a splinter of the missile could be found. Judge what would happen if they had fallen on a regiment or into a city. Thanks to the unremitting devotion of this son of France, his country can regard with complacency the monstrous preparations for unprovoked war which a rival ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... the other, flushing in his turn. 'What do you mean by these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me, unprovoked?' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... few words shall here satisfy the claims of a widely-stretching subject. Is there one order of spirits which, as the Baron Walckenaer has assured us, lavishes on chosen human heads love unattracted, and hate unprovoked? We must look well about us ere fixing the imputation. Spirits, upon the other hand, undoubtedly there are, and those of not a few orders, fairies of one or another description being amongst them, who exert, in the choice of their human favourites, a discrimination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... thought proper to fall foul of me (wholly unprovoked) in the Athenaeum of August 25, '88. I give his production ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... cost of two of its members killed outright and a third badly crippled. So soon as surgeons plugged up the holes in his hide which members of the vengeful posse shot into him after they had him surrounded and before his ammunition gave out, he was brought to bar to answer for the unprovoked murder of a postal clerk on a transcontinental limited. No time was wasted in hurrying his trial through to its conclusion; it was felt that there was crying need to make an example of this red-handed desperado. Having ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... parade of two hundred and fifty miners was attacked by guards armed with Winchester rifles, with the result that twenty-nine workers were killed and thirty others seriously injured. This was deliberate and unprovoked slaughter. Recently, in the Westmoreland mining district, no less than twenty striking miners have been murdered, while several hundred have been seriously injured. On one occasion deputies and strike-breakers ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... passed in a fit of servility or animosity, had, when fortune had changed, or when passion had cooled, been repealed and solemnly stigmatized as unjust. Thus, in old times, the Act which was passed against Roger Mortimer, in the paroxysm of a resentment not unprovoked, had been, at a calmer moment, rescinded on the ground that, however guilty he might have been, he had not had fair play for his life. Thus, within the memory of the existing generation, the law which attainted Strafford had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as a curse. I cannot and will not side with Russia, because Russia's arrogance and wickedness have caused this horrible trouble, and because duty and conscience and tradition forbid me to draw the sword against Old England. In the same degree duty and conscience forbid me to make unprovoked war against Russia, because Russia, so far, has done me no harm. So I thought, so I willed when I thought myself isolated. How then could I now suddenly abandon a steady policy, preserved in the face of many dangers, and incline to Russia at the moment when I have concluded with Austria ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... upon Belgian soil. Now, however, with the German army invading Belgium, the English statesmen had to decide their course. As heads of one of the nations to guarantee Belgium's freedom, they called on Germany to explain this unprovoked invasion. The Germans made no answer. They were busily attacking the city of Liege. Great Britain gave Germany twenty-four hours in which to withdraw her troops. At the end of this time, with Germany paying no attention still, England solemnly declared war and took her stand ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... at Richmond. The Rebel power, which our fleets and armies are steadily reducing day by day, is to be saved from overthrow, and its agents from the severe and just punishment which should be visited upon them for their great and unprovoked crime,—if they are to be saved therefrom,—through the action of the Democratic party, as it calls itself, and which purposes to go to the assistance of the slaveholders in war, as formerly it went to their assistance in peace, the meekest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... safer would it be for all the rest of us. Young's hat was a battered Derby, and about as unsuitable a hat for wear in Mexico as possibly could be found; but for some unknown reason he was very much attached to that hat, and he was so wroth over having a hole shot through it in that unprovoked sort of way that he manifested a decided coolness towards Fray Antonio for ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... children (for Caesar, though not positively cruel, was absolutely careless of suffering), and to leave the conqueror master of the Roman world. The coalition indeed was broken up, for Crassus had perished in the East, carrying on a foolish and unprovoked war with the Parthians, and Pompey had come to fear and hate his remaining rival. But Caesar was now strong enough to do without friends, and to crush enemies. The Senate vainly commanded him to ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... however, pointed out that, if either Government had grave reason to expect an unprovoked attack by a third power, it might become essential to know whether it could in that event depend upon the armed ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... There are days which, to imaginative minds, at least, possess strangely human qualities. Their atmospheres predispose people to crime or virtue, to the calm of good will, to sneaking vice, or fierce, unprovoked aggression. The day was of the last description. A beast, or a human being in whose veins coursed undisciplined blood, might, as involuntarily as the boughs of trees lash before storms, perform wild and wicked deeds after inhaling ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... dread of the Macedonian power induced the league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who, as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon. This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their engagements with the league. The Achaeans were now reduced ...
— The Federalist Papers
... destroy confidence, what followed that transaction must have had a much more powerful tendency to alienate the affection of the people, and produce those direful consequences which are now boldly said to have arisen unprovoked. When the Irish Catholics perceived, from the manner in which their petition for the elective franchise was treated, that in the Irish House of Commons they were not to look for friends, they resorted to the Throne. The supplications which had met only with contumely when addressed ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... Democrats, they were now held in detestation by all Gentiles of adjoining counties, irrespective of political affiliations. The announcement of the doctrine of polygamy by the Prophet Smith had been accompanied by acts of defiance and followed by depredations, which, while not altogether unprovoked, aroused the non-Mormons to a dangerous pitch of excitement. In the midst of general disorder in Hancock County, Joseph Smith was murdered. Every deed of violence was now attributed to the Danites, as the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... from one wink a breach would be In the full circle of eternity. Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased; Heaven, unprovoked, at length may be appeased. By war we cannot scape our wretched lot; And may, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... differences in the Supreme Council were by these means composed, and the calamities consequent thereon were avoided, the said Warren Hastings and Richard Barwell, Esquires, did once more endanger the public peace and security by other illegal, unwarrantable, and unprovoked acts of violence: having omitted to summon either the said General Clavering or the said Philip Francis, Esquire, to Council; and having, in a Council held thus privately and clandestinely and contrary to law, on the 22d day of June, come to the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... son of the Bonapartist General L—. General S— was Lord B—'s second, and the principals exchanged several shots without injury to either party. This duel, like the preceding, originated with the Frenchman, who insulted the Englishman at the Theatre Francais in the most unprovoked manner. At the present day our fiery neighbours are much more amenable to reason, and if you are but civil, they will be civil to you; duels consequently are of rare occurrence. Let us hope that the frequency and the animus displayed in these ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... all the time, and of late years England has been chipping at her whenever she got a chance, and flirting with France. What can a nation do but make herself strong enough to defend herself against unprovoked attack? Germany, of course, is full of the military spirit, but it is my opinion, Norgate, that it is a great deal fuller of the great commercial spirit. It isn't war with Germany that we have to fear. It's the ruin of our commerce by their great assiduity and more up-to-date methods. Now you've ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out over the cat and dog," he said. "Eileen was rather rude. Perhaps I was a little rough with Cleopatra, but she had scratched Shot's nose. You know what Shot is! It was an entirely unprovoked attack. I believe I did say that Cleopatra should be sent ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... his Life, Leave a Chast Bride and untouch'd Nuptial Bed For me base Man, nay worse than Savage Beast: The generous Lyon, never kills his kind They say, altho provoked to utmost rage; Yet I vile Monster, more ungrateful Man, Thus unprovoked, must kill my Brother Creature, And which is worse, my Dear and only Friend! All for the pleasure of a ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... fraught with suffering to millions.' But the Natives generally could not understand the necessity for the measure, or believe in the reasons which influenced us; many of them, therefore, considered it an unprovoked usurpation, and each Ruler of a Native State imagined that his ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... much the most stupid of all the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot I mortally wounded at a few rods' distance, and it charged with the utmost determination, whereat I and my companion both fired, and more by good luck than anything else brought it to the ground just thirteen paces from where we stood. Another rhinoceros may ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... are you. This is no fault in either; but it might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. R—-, my helps, as you call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should order ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Major Jamieson said. "There are many no older, both in the ranks and as officers. Men in Sweden of all ages and of all ranks are joining, for this unprovoked attack, on the part of Poland, has raised the national spirit to boiling heat. The chief difficulty is their and your ignorance of the language. Were it not for that, I could obtain, from the minister of war, commissions ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... this boast, as the case which procured us the honor of Mr. Jennings's acquaintance sufficiently proved. We were employed to bring an action against a wealthy gentleman of the vicinity of Watley for a brutal and unprovoked assault he had committed, when in a state of partial inebriety, upon a respectable London tradesman who had visited the place on business. On the day of trial our witnesses appeared to have become suddenly afflicted with an almost total loss of memory; and we were only saved from an adverse ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... looked tamely on from the heights of her quadrilateral, the French Emperor secretly expressed his approval of the Piedmontese attack on the Papal States, and at the same time publicly withdrew his ambassador at Turin, as a protest in the face of mankind against this unprovoked and unjustifiable attack. England, which could not be supposed to have much sympathy with the Holy See, notwithstanding the declarations of her best statesmen in support of the temporal sovereignty, openly pronounced in favor of the Piedmontese aggression on the Pope, who, in trying times, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... wilderness respected his position and these too should have their lesson. He would show them the savagery of which he was capable. Never again would he trust man; he was cruel and unfair. Two experiences had taught him that—first the poisoned bird and now the unprovoked attack. Hereafter he would match his cunning with the man-creatures and if necessary, it would be a battle to the bitter end. Vast as the wilderness was, it was too small to harbor both the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... by the Earl of Loudon with the governors of New England, in 1757, his lordship, in a moment of passion, had kicked over the chair with his military boot. By this unprovoked and unjustifiable act, our venerable friend had suffered a fracture of one ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... faintest wreath of vapour. Its projectile travelled faster than sound, so that the range could not have been great, but there was nothing by which our own batteries might have been directed to effective reply. We all abused "Long Tom" at first because of his unprovoked attack on a defenceless town, but by contrast with what is known among Devon men as the "Bulwaan Sneak," and among bluejackets as "Silent Susan," the big Creusot gun with its loud report, the low velocity of its projectiles, and the puff of white smoke giving ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... hounds, would gladly have scoured the Strand, with the charitable purpose, now he saw himself so well supported, of knocking the London knaves, who had insulted him, into twiggen bottles; but he was withheld by the prudence of Julian, who, though himself extremely irritated by the unprovoked ill-usage which they had received, saw himself in a situation in which it was necessary to exercise more caution than vengeance. He prayed and pressed his father to seek some temporary place of retreat from the fury of the populace, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the last link was broken between the Indian and the settler. Unprovoked wars of extermination were begun to dispossess these children of Nature of the very breasts of their mother, which had sustained them so long and so peacefully. For a century the Indian's name for Virginian was "Longknife." The very missionaries robbed him with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... a ring of pain in her voice, "I have always respected your opinions and feelings, and shall continue to do so, and try my best to please you. But it is hard that I should have to suffer these unprovoked attacks; and it seems strange that the girl's coming should be made the occasion for one, for I had hoped that her presence in the house would have made my ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... The viceroy was taken a prisoner to India, whence he never returned. As though ashamed to enter upon a second unprovoked and unjust war alone, she invited France, Russia, and America to join her. France was quite ready to do so in the hope of strengthening her position in Indo-China, and with nothing more than the murder of a missionary ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... This unprovoked slaughter irritated the common people to the last; and the state of grief and rage into which their minds were thrown, was visible in the high commotion that appeared in the multitude.... The sequel of this affair was, that ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... brother came along side of his head, with a force that knocked him across the room. At this instant Mr. Howland entered. He made no inquiry as to the cause of the blow he saw struck, but took it for granted that it was an unprovoked assault of Andrew upon his brother. Yielding to the impulse of the moment, he caught the former by the arm, in a fierce grip, and struck him with his open hand, as he had struck his brother, repeating the blow three ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... borne along by a mass of men, dusty, but unharmed, and having the convict between them. He sulkily raised a hand as he passed me, either to rectify the position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... gentleman, and no common assassin. How can you reconcile such an act as this with your honor, or with what sophistries quiet the stings of your conscience when time shall have shown you the sin of so unprovoked an onslaught?' ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... and a rat of the middle size. The hen, in an accidental perambulation round a spacious room, accompanied by an only chicken, the sole surviving offspring of a numerous brood, was roused to madness by an unprovoked attack made by a voracious cowardly rat on her unsuspecting chirping companion. The shrieks of the beloved captive, while being dragged away by the enemy, excited every maternal feeling in the affectionate bosom of the feathered dame; she flew at the corner whence the ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... We hope to be able to announce something definite in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this entirely unprovoked invasion." ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... now, the Roman under the unprovoked storm had the young Jew's sympathy; so that when he reached the corner of the house, the latter leaned yet farther over the parapet to see him go by, and in the act rested a hand upon a tile which had been a long time cracked and allowed to go unnoticed. The pressure was strong enough to displace ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... acted as he did. I saw it coming and tried to stop him. That he was drunk was Rutter's own fault, with his damned notions of drowning everybody in drink every minute of the day and night. I saw the whole affair and heard the insult, and it was wholly unprovoked. Harry did just what was right, and if he hadn't I'd either have made Willits apologize or I would have shot him myself the moment the affair could have been arranged, no matter where we were. I know perfectly well"—here ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you are personally known. Of some, indeed, you were, in years long past, the trusted guide, to whom they owe more than can be expressed in words; and all are conscious that the ingenuous fulness of your answer to a false and unprovoked accusation, has intensified their interest in the labours and trials of your life. While, then, we resent the indignity to which you have been exposed, and lament the pain and annoyance which the manifestation of yourself must have cost you, we cannot but rejoice that, in the fulfilment of ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Canada, unprovoked by Dissent, was altogether free from the stain of religious persecution: hopelessly fettered in the chains of metropolitan power, she was also undisturbed by political agitation. But this calm was more the stillness of stagnation than the tranquillity of content. Without a press, without ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... breasts demand the strife, And thirst of glory quells the love of life. No vulgar fears can British minds control: Heat of revenge and noble pride of soul O'erlook the foe, advantaged by his post, Lessen his numbers, and contract his host. Though fens and floods possessed the middle space, That unprovoked they would have feared to pass, 270 Nor fens nor floods can stop Britannia's bands, When her proud foe ranged on their borders stands. But, O my Muse, what numbers wilt thou find To sing the furious troops in battle joined! Methinks I hear the drum's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... its entire existence in the United States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion: the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination, in utter disregard and violation ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... in by many of the most competent judges both here and abroad. Such audacity (to call it by no coarser name) is in itself only calculated to excite laughter and contempt: coupled as it is with a most unprovoked and unwarrantable mention of the name of the Bishop of Lincoln, it excites indignation. We feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... had fallen out with Johnson, whom he had made what he was, but who now turned against him,—a seeming ingratitude not wholly unprovoked. Shirley had diverted the New Jersey regiment, destined originally for Crown Point, to his own expedition against Niagara. Naturally inclined to keep all the reins in his own hands, he had encroached on Johnson's new office of Indian ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... impetuous girl of Rieti, a town which rivals Tivoli as a hot-bed of homicide,—was constantly involved in disputes with a young Jewess, who occupied the floor above Madame Ossoli. On one occasion, this Jewess offered the maid a deliberate and unprovoked insult. The girl of Rieti, snatching up a knife, ran up stairs to revenge herself after her national fashion. The porter's little daughter followed her and, running into Madame Ossoli's rooms, besought her interference. Madame Ossoli reached the apartment of the Jewess, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... true onus of wrong and moral responsibility for all which might follow, rested upon that party who, giving way to mixed impulses of rash judgment and of morose temper, had allowed himself to make a most unprovoked assault upon the character of one whom he did not know; well aware that such words, uttered publicly by a person in authority, must, by some course or other, be washed out and cancelled; or, if not, that the party submitting to such ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... husband is the very best man in the world, this remark stirred the women up to a degree of wrath which no amount of abuse leveled against themselves would have aroused. On the other hand, the Atlanta people, even those who were not in favor of suffrage, felt mortified by this unprovoked insult to their guests, and many of them took occasion in private to express their regret. Several speakers at the convention criticised Dr. Hawthorne's utterances, and every such allusion was received with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... measure, to follow the workings of destiny in life. We have all known men who met with a prosperity or disaster entirely out of relation to any of their actions; men upon whom good or bad luck seemed suddenly, at a turn of the road, to spring from the ground or descend from the stars, undeserved, unprovoked, but complete and inevitable. One, we will say, who scarcely has given a thought to some appointment for which he knows his rival to be better equipped, will see this rival vanish at the decisive moment, another, who has counted upon the protection ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the purpose of disarming him; and just as I had nearly effected my purpose, the piece went off accidentally, and, to my regret then and since, inflicted upon the young gentleman a severer chastisement than I desired, though I am glad to understand it is like to prove no more than his unprovoked folly deserved." ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott |
