"Provoke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fulsome Cretan lass; By the old man on the ass; By thy cousins in mixed shapes; By the flower of fairest grapes; By thy bisks famed far and wide; By thy store of neats'-tongues dried; By thy incense, Indian smoke; By the joys thou dost provoke; By this salt Westphalia gammon; By these sausages that inflame one; By thy tall majestic flagons; By mass, tope, and thy flapdragons; By this olive's unctuous savour; By this orange, the wine's flavour; By this ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... come out from thence, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things; laying wait for him, to catch something out of ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... so. There had never been in the de Wissant family any of those ugly scandals which stain other clans, and which are remembered over generations in French provincial towns. Those scandals which, if they provoke a laugh and cruel sneer when discussed by the indifferent, are recalled with long faces and anxious whisperings when a young girl's future is being discussed, and which make the honourable marriage of daughters ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... international law. Tampering with diplomatic correspondence was usually considered a sufficient cause for war; on this occasion war did not suit Charles's purpose, but it was no fault of Wolsey's that his fury at an alleged personal slight did not provoke hostilities with the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... blue-coat could be seen. They had fallen back in the darkness, and prudently abstaining from breakfast, I galloped northward, as if the whole Confederate army was at my heels. These old turnpike roads were now marked by daily chases and rencontres. A few Virginians, fleetly mounted, would provoke pursuit from a squad of Federals, and the latter would be led into ambuscades. A quaint incident happened in this ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... pursued Tyke, "if he did that deliberately, expecting you'd rake him fore and aft for it, it shows that he wants you to start something, don't it? An' my principle in a fight is to find out what the other feller wants and then not do it. He wants to provoke you. Don't let yourself be provoked or you'll play right ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... for those who make nourishment the chief end of eating,[17-*] and do not desire to provoke appetite beyond the powers and necessities of nature; proceeding, however, on the purest epicurean principles of indulging the palate as far as it can be done without injury or offence to the stomach, and forbidding[18-*] nothing ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... deprived him of his coolness and presence of mind. He steadily confronted them with an unblenching eye, grasping the club of which he had possessed himself, in readiness to meet the attack, which he at the same time did nothing, by look or gesture, to provoke. His calm intrepidity, while it seemed temporarily to restrain our enemies, served also to reassure and steady Barton and myself; and endeavouring to emulate his self-possession, we stood ready to act as circumstances should indicate, looking ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "You'll provoke me to break your neck some day, you vagabond! Ride back for your life, and pay whatever he asks, and get me ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... republic, nor as a rule neglectful of old historical buildings; and the sight of this magnificent old place, mouldering away with no apparent aid forthcoming—except such as the liberality of occasional visitors provides, and that, for such a work, is practically nil—did not provoke any wish to change our nationality. It is not as if the French said, "We are becoming a Protestant people, and therefore wish to destroy all signs of our having once followed the faith of Rome;" for in that case censure would be utterly misplaced; but surely if the national religion remains ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... seen the hurried burials at the Campo Santo, in Havana, was highly edifying. A man was training a game-cock in the pit; he was giving it lessons in the virtue of perseverance. He held another cock before it, which he was teaching it to pursue, and striking it occasionally over the head to provoke it, with the wing of the bird in his hand, he made it run after him about the area for ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... he married the notorious princess Jezebel, the daughter of the king of that city State. He also became a worshipper of the Phoenician god Baal, to whom a temple had been erected in Samaria. "And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him."[447] Obadiah, who "feared the Lord greatly", was the governor of Ahab's house, but the outspoken prophet Elijah, whose arch enemy was the notorious Queen Jezebel, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... resist me, Julia? why will you provoke your mother to this degree? You have only to consent willingly, and you know how ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... undertook the care of you socially, and I object very much to lecturing you. You are nearly as old as I am, and you have had a great deal more experience of life than I have." Mrs. Maynard sighed deeply in assent. "But it does n't seem to have taught you that if you will provoke people to talk of you, you must expect criticism. One after another you've told nearly every woman in the house your affairs, and they have all sympathized with you and pitied you. I shall have to be plain, and tell you that I can't have them sneering and laughing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... looked uncertainly now and then at Prescott, as if he believed him to be the traitorous officer and would provoke him into reply; but Prescott's face was a perfect mask, and his manner careless and indifferent. The suspicions of the others were not aroused, and Harley was not well enough informed to go further; but his look whenever it fell ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... continually repeated threat: "If the law passes, if the measure is adopted, if the election takes place, if you do not do all I want, if you do not yield to all my caprices, I leave you, I constitute myself an independent State, I provoke the formation of a rival Confederacy." The worst causes are the readiest to threaten in this style; having nothing reasonable to say in their own favor, they willingly proceed to violence, and the saying of Themistocles would find here a legitimate application: ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... But," and he drew Rienzi aside, "you know we must be politic as well as just. Nephew to two Cardinals, what enmity will not this provoke at Avignon?" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... apostate, an accursed antichrist. They pronounced him a tyrannical usurper of the popedom, a wolf that had stolen into the fold. They called upon him to descend at once from the throne which he occupied without canonical title; if repentant, he might find mercy; if he persisted he would provoke the indignation of God, of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and all of the saints, for his violation of the Spouse of Christ, the common Mother of the Faithful. It was signed by thirteen cardinals. The more pious and devout were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... south. They have taken their time. Hours over San Francisco and the bay district. Repeating same tactics; fall with terrific speed to cushion against their blast of gas. Trying to draw us out, provoke an attack, make us show our strength. Well, we shall beat them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... thy heels repentance follows fast. To you, ye marble gods (If ye in Phlegethon reside, or dwell Above the clouds), a mockery and scorn Is the unhappy race, Of whom you temples ask, And fraudulent the law that you impose. Say, then, does earthly piety provoke The anger of the gods? O Jove, dost thou protect the impious? And when the storm-cloud rushes through the air, And thou thy thunderbolts dost aim, Against the just dost thou impel the sacred flame? Unconquered Fate and stern necessity Oppress the ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... roused woman: especially if she add to all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair; which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss Nancy's rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a glance, half imploring and half cowardly, at Sikes: as if to hint that he was the fittest ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... is willing to pull in a yoke, We live like two lambs, nor each other provoke; We both of us strive, like the labouring ant, And do our endeavours to keep ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... with Nigra, with Rancez, until, in September, 1889, Bismarck's frank admissions settled the matter in my mind for good, has been one of the most disputed points in modern history. My opinion that Bismarck had prepared the war, and had brought about the Hohenzollern candidature in order to provoke it, was only strengthened by an article entitled "Who is responsible for the War?" by "Scrutator"—probably from the pen of Congreve, the Comtist, who I know was in correspondence with the Duc de Gramont. At Easter, 1872, I ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... uttermost edges of the civilized earth, thus to lift themselves against her sovereign will, and dare dispute her high decrees! It was not to be borne: she would humble them for this presumption, chastise them for their disobedience, and show them what a terrible thing it was to provoke her wrath. Her heart thus steeled to mercy, she stayed not her hand, but sent her hosts of armed men in her fleets of armed ships, to lay her heavy yoke, and fit it firm and fast on the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... sad and miserable examples all my friends afford me! Not I, Euan, unless——" She smiled at me with pretty malice. "——you enter the lists. Do you then enter?" I reddened and laughed, and she, always enchanted to plague and provoke me, began her art forthwith, first innocently slipping her arm through mine, as though to support her flagging steps, then, as if by accident, letting one light finger slip along my sleeve to touch ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... filthiness, which is characteristic of the place, the marchioness was for returning, remarking to her friend that she had as yet heard none of that singular broad humour for which these nymphs of the fish-market were so celebrated. "Then you shall have a specimen directly," said Lady C——, "if I can provoke it; only prepare your ethics and your ears for a slight shock; "and immediately approaching an old fresh-water dragon, who sat behind an adjoining stall, with a countenance spirited in the 303extreme, and glowing with all the beautiful varieties of the ultra-marine ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... enormous sacrifices of blood and property from the German people, but we should show our enemies what it means to provoke Germany. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... stupid faces devoid of any trace of intelligence or expression, listening to the speakers whose words convey no meaning to their stultified minds, and others with their eyes gleaming with savage hatred of their fellow men, watching eagerly for an opportunity to provoke a quarrel that they may gratify their brutal natures by striking someone—their eyes are hungry for the sight of blood! Can't you see that these people, whom you are trying to make understand your plan ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... how loving, nay, passionate, was her nature—vehement, demonstrative—oh! how could he stir her once more into expression, even if the first show or speech she made was of anger? Then he tried being angry with her himself; he was sometimes unjust to her consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness. He only seemed to drive her love away ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... he is provoked. But more things provoke an Irish terrier than one might imagine. The postman provoked my old one so much that it bit the letters out of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... be illustrative of the force of habit. In this allegory Arthur is supposed to be met by a sprite, who appears at first in a small and indistinct form, but who, on approaching nearer, increases in size, and, assuming the semblance of half a man, endeavors to provoke the king to wrestle. Despising his weakness, and considering that he should gain no credit by the encounter, Arthur refuses to do so, and delays the contest until at length the half man (Habit) becomes so strong that it requires his utmost efforts to overcome ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Addressing Lord Orville with great respect, he said, "I beg pardon, my Lord,-if I was-as I fear might be the case-rather too severe in my censure of the lady who is honoured with your protection-but, my Lord, ill-breeding is apt to provoke a man." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... slightly shrugged her shoulders. "You are behaving like a child of six, and really, if you go on, you will provoke me into treating you as such. The attitude you have chosen to adopt is neither sensible nor dignified, let me tell you. You resent my presence here. Very well; but you cannot prevent it. Would it not be much wiser of you either to submit to my ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... the house for a medicine-bottle, such as he had seen plenty of at the parsonage, and found two. He chose the smaller, lest size should provoke disinclination. Then he woke Tommy, and said ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... perseverance, patience, fortitude. Those who regard the world as God-emanated and God-guided, must inevitably realise that the relation of man—susceptible to pleasure and pain by contact with his environment—to his environment—filled with pleasure and pain-giving objects—must be intended to provoke in man the desire to possess the pleasure-giving, to avoid the pain-giving. In fact, God's lures to exertion are pleasures; His warnings are pains and the interplay between man and environment causes evolution. The man who does not believe in God has only to substitute the word "Nature" for "God" ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant
... hospitalities, was to separate, and with a hostile expression of feeling. That would be to throw hindrances in the way of Christianity: the religion could not spread rapidly under such repulsive prejudices; and dangers, that it became un-Christian to provoke, would thus multiply against the infant faith. This being so, and as the gods were really the only parties invited who got nothing at all of the banquet, it becomes a question of some interest,—what did they get? They were merely mocked, if ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... little in thine eyes that our King doth offer thee mercy, and that after so many provocations? Yea, he still holdeth out his golden sceptre to thee, and will not yet suffer his gate to be shut against thee: wilt thou provoke him to do it? If so, consider of what I say; to thee it is opened no more for ever. If thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him. Yea, because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke; then a great ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... lest, perchance, he may presumptuously think that by his own diligence, his own memory, his own strength, he is provoking God to forgive his sins. Nay, rather it is God Himself Who, with ready forgiveness, will anticipate his confession, and allure and provoke him, by the goodness of His sweet promise, to accept ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... his questioner exclaimed. "You may be of service to us, Everard. You may, indeed! Now tell me, isn't it true that they have secret agents out there, trying to provoke unsettlement and disquiet amongst the Boers? Isn't it true that they apprehend a war with England before very long and are determined to stir up the Colony ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are proving their right to assist in coercing others to obey the laws, by disobeying the laws themselves. By pouring vitriol on golf-greens, by pinning their defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. Pray, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... were to carry on a propaganda in favor of a gold standard and of the demonetization of silver, the Indian Government would be obliged to reconsider its position, and might be forced by events to take measures similar to those taken elsewhere. In that case the scramble to get rid of silver might provoke one of the gravest crises ever undergone ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... a pall-bearer, indicates some enemy will provoke your ill feeling, by constant attacks on your integrity. If you see a pall-bearer, you will antagonize worthy institutions, and make ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... threw them at the apes on the trees. I did the same; and the apes, out of revenge, threw coconuts at us so fast, and with such gestures, as sufficiently testified their anger and resentment. We gathered up the cocoanuts, and from time to time threw stones to provoke the apes; so that by this stratagem we filled our bags with cocoanuts. I thus gradually collected as many cocoanuts as produced me ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... constitute the justa causa of dissembling or misleading, whether it be extreme as the defence of life, or a duty as the custody of a secret, or of a personal nature as to repel an impertinent inquirer, or a matter too trivial to provoke question, as in dealing with children or madmen, there seem to be ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... desirous of testing the strength of our godling; we persistently proved to one another that our godling was a strong godling, and that Tanya would come out the victor in this combat. Then, finally, it appeared to us that we did not provoke the soldier enough, that he might forget about the dispute, and that we ought to irritate his self-love the more. Since that day we began to live a particular, intensely nervous life—a life we had never ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... cumulative consequences of defeats are also realized, and as no country is apt to assume that the morale and skill of its forces are measurably greater than those of a probable antagonist, no country and no alliance is apt to provoke war with a nation whose armed forces are superior in number of units of personnel and material; unless, of course, the nation is markedly inferior in morale and skill, as the Persians were to the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... poison; it meets the children of Ephraim, as Amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in the wood.' Of himself he adds: 'I cannot deny that I am more violent than I ought to be; they know it, and therefore should not provoke the dog. How hard it is to moderate one's heat and one's pen you can learn for yourself. That is the reason why I was always unwilling to be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am, the more I am drawn into the contest; that this happens so is due to those scandalous ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... most lecherous and salacious of men, in all ranks of life from prince to peasant take a pride in respecting the maiden for a few nights after the wedding-feast extending, perhaps to a whole week and sometimes more. A brutal haste is looked upon as "low"; and, as sensible men, they provoke by fondling and toying Nature to speak ere proceeding to the final and critical act. In England it is very different. I have heard of brides over thirty years old who had not the slightest suspicion concerning what complaisance was expected of them: out of mauvaise honte, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... me, now that she's gone, to think that I never broke the promise I made her that night; for as I tould you, except in regard to the duck-egg, a bitther word never passed between us. I was in a passion then, for a wonder, and bent upon showing her that I was a dangerous man to provoke; so just to give her a spice of what I could do, I made Larry feel it—and may God forgive me for raising my hand even then to her. But sure he would be a brute that would beat such a woman except by proxy. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... diligently sewing together skins of beasts into coats for Adam and Eve. Such representations presented no difficulties to the docile minds of the Middle Ages and the Reformation period; and in the same spirit, when the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declared to be "models of his works approved or rejected by the great Artificer," "outlines of future creations," "sports of Nature," or "objects placed in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity"; and this kind ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... nor secure his unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest, and seizing the possessions of the English. In order to have a pretext for this violence, he endeavoured, without discovering his intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which, he thought, could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the principal nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was quartered in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any tumult or rebellion. But as ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... to our further astonishment his rich Irish voice could be heard upraised in picturesque malediction. What was Rigden doing to them inside the tank to provoke such profanity from them both? The rest of us scrambled to ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... which "stone fruits," especially plums, are generally regarded owes its being to the fact that they are too often eaten when unripe. When ripe, they are as wholesome as any other fruit. Unripe they provoke choleraic diarrhoea. ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... there were treason. Nobody of the least sagacity, much less the 'master of wiles,' such as contemporaries accounted Ralegh, if he had been concerned in a plot, and if his implication in it had been known to a single person, would have been so foolish as to provoke his one accomplice ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... (the people) what have they done?" We may ask the same of the rank and file of our army. What have they done? It was not they who ordained the war, and so far as personal influence may have gone to provoke war, many of those who sit at home at ease are more to blame than the men who believe that they are obeying the call of duty when they offer themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds, sickness, and lingering ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... and digs her small fists into her eyes, in silent indignation and despair. Then comes a howl impossible to smother, and at last such bitter bursts of woe as nothing short of dire necessity can force you to provoke. This is Sarala, one of the most affectionate, most wilful, most winsome of all the babies. She is truthful. She has just this moment pulled a drawing-pin out of its place, which happened to be within reach, and her solemn "Aiyo!" (Alas!) "Look, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the observance of the household religion. The fact will not seem strange if we remember that the underlying idea in either cult was the same,—the idea that the welfare of the living depended upon the welfare of the dead. Neglect of the household rite would provoke, it was believed, the malevolence of the spirits; and their malevolence might bring about some public misfortune. The ghosts of the ancestors controlled nature;—fire and flood, pestilence and famine were at their disposal as means of vengeance. One act of impiety in a village ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... three were sunk. The pirate lieutenant would have dealt mercifully with him, but the fierce old man suddenly seized him by the hair on the crown of his head, and grinned at him, so that he might provoke him to slay him. But even then Paou spoke kindly to him. Upon this he committed suicide, being seventy years ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... this fact. He was less disquieted at this, because he was resolved to keep them entirely safe. As a result of his reflections during the night, he had determined to break off forever his intrigue with Madame de Campvallon. For this rupture, which he had made it a point of honor not to provoke, Madame de Campvallon had herself furnished ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ebenezer, Silas and Jonathan, who settled Wheeling, [95] were also men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west of them. He was accompanied in that excursion by Isaac Williams, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... hardly ever get back the reins he has yielded up; unless she, by carrying too far the power of which she seems at present too sensible, should, when she has no favours to confer which he has not a right to demand, provoke him to throw off the too-heavy yoke. And should he do so, and then treat her with negligence, Miss Howe, of all the women I know, will be the least able to support herself under it. She will then be more unhappy than she ever made ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... spoonfuls of the liquor, while all the members of the family stand around and murmur approvingly, "Thank you, thank you." Occasionally tesvino is exclusively used for curing, with the aid of two small crosses, one of red Brazil wood, the other of white pine. If he chooses, a shaman may provoke illness as well as cure it, but he cannot cure ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... excite, stimulate, or provoke; or as it is vulgarly called, to egg a man on. Fall back, fall edge; i.e. let what will happen. Some derive to egg on, from the Latin ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... These things would provoke a smile, did they not bring with them the memory of the anguished struggle to fight off want that the wives and children of the soldier martyrs made. I have gone into detail further than space, or the reader's patience may warrant; and still, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... is the meaning of all this trash?" said Nigel; "or has it no other end than to provoke my patience? You know well enough, that, had I twenty serving-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood by me in my distress the most valued of them all. But it is totally out of reason to plague me ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... of reason, and best rules of wisdom; as producing very mischievous effects to ourselves, bereaving us of the chief goods, and exposing us to the worst evils. What can be more egregiously absurd than to dissent in our opinion and discord in our choice from infinite wisdom; to provoke by our actions sovereign justice, and immutable severity: to oppose almighty power, and offend immense goodness; to render ourselves unlike and contrary in our doings, our disposition, our state, to absolute perfection and ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... say it will only provoke a smile of amusement in readers of literary taste when I confess that Bloomfield's memory is dear to me; that only because of this feeling for the forgotten rustic who wrote rhymes I am now here, strolling about in the shade of the venerable trees in ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... B.C., "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy."—1 Macc. i. 17. Frequent allusions to the use of elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated that "to provoke the elephants to fight they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries." The term showed, "[Greek: edeixan]," might be thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine and its colour, but in the Third Book ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Ismael, I at once found, considered it his policy to provoke a conflict with any new consul, and either break him in or buy him over; and the occasion for a trial of strength was not long coming. The night patrol attempted to arrest the son of the vice-consul in his house, in which ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... divert, then it occupies a wholly different ground from the Bible. If it merely gratifies curiosity or enlivens pastime, if it awakens emotion without directing it to useful ends, if it rallies the infirmities of human nature with no other design than to provoke our derision or increase our conceit, it shoots very, very wide of the object which the sacred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... was enough to provoke laughter even on the Sabbath and under Aunt Margaret's nose. He was the robin whose chief shouting-place was the hawthorn bush in the lane. John and Elizabeth had so named him because he always made such a noise, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... writers is hard; for if they tell the truth they provoke man, and if they write what is false they offend ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... (as I then firmly believed) dead. My suspicions of poisoning pointed to the poisoner. Madame Fontaine's wonderful cure of Mr. Keller, by means of her own mysterious remedy, made me suspect Madame Fontaine. My motive, in refusing to give the burial certificate, was to provoke the legal inquiry, which I knew that Mr. Keller would institute, on the mere expression of a doubt, on my part, whether your aunt had died a natural death. At that time, I had not the slightest anticipation of the event that has actually occurred. Before, however, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... had become low in spirits, unhappy in temperament, and self-diffident to a painful degree. Alaric, to give him his due, did everything in his power to persuade him to see the task out to the last. But the assurance and composure of Alaric's manner did more than anything else to provoke and increase Norman's discomfiture. He had been schooling himself to bear a beating with a good grace, and he began to find that he could only bear it as a disgrace. On the morning of the third day, instead of taking his place ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to blame her. A devil—to provoke men to such a pitch of madness! Well, he was done with her. Anyhow, he had seen her now in her true colours. She was no good! There could be no further argument about that. If he ever had anything to do with her let him ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... business, Uncle," retorted the younger man, rather abruptly. "I can't afford to provoke the illwill of the Greys. If Holner comes to me, I dare say I shall ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... one take precautions against spies and foreign agents, who will try to gather information or provoke manifestations. ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... it had not been difficult, because Jasmine had, not ostentatiously, avoided being often with Stafford. It seemed to Jasmine that she must not see much of him alone. Still there was some new cause to provoke his interest and draw him to herself. The Jigger episode had done much, had altered the latitudes of their association, but the perihelion of their natures was still far off; and she was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... reflections about this period. I might go on prosing more and more, I might dive much deeper, and disclose other thoughts, propose questions the reader might be puzzled to answer, and deduce arguments that might startle his prejudices, or, perhaps, provoke his ridicule, because he could not comprehend ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Established church, and to take an oath against transubstantiation within six months after their entrance into office. The repeal immediately placed Dissenters and Catholics upon the same footing with members of the Established church, and was in itself sufficient to provoke opposition on the part of all who had not united in the evangelical movement. But the antagonism became still more decided when Parliament passed the Irish Church Property Act, in 1833, in spite of the determined remonstrances ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... act of violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... "You do provoke me beyond anythin', Copernicus Droop! Ef I'd a-knowed the kind o' way we'd had to live—why, there! It's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Cesare Borgia thus in a plain straightforward tale at this time of day, would be to provoke the scorn and derision of those who have made his acquaintance in the pages of that eminent German scholar, Ferdinand Gregorovius, and of some other writers not quite so eminent yet eminent enough to serve serious consideration. Hence has it been necessary ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... of flowery ease in the dreamy Orient to which we are led. No doubt these first glimpses of the task that lies before us, as well as the warfare with distant tribes into which we have been unexpectedly plunged, will provoke for the time a certain discontent with our new possessions. But on a far-reaching question of national policy the wise public man is not so greatly disturbed by what people say in momentary discouragement under the first temporary ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... out at different times from 1500 to 1525, and which, resulting in their defeat, rendered their lot harder than before. The cause of the Reformation, held answerable for the movement, suffered damage as well, but indeed the excesses of the insurgents were calculated to provoke the retribution that was meted ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... struck with sickness, and died cursing. Another such scene he probably witnessed himself,[1] and never forgot. An alehouse-keeper in the neighbourhood of Elstow had a son who was half-witted. The favourite amusement, when a party was collected drinking, was for the father to provoke the lad's temper, and for the lad to curse his father and wish the devil had him. The devil at last did have the alehouse-keeper, and rent and tore him till he died. 'I,' says Bunyan, 'was eye and ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... anything in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke." Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the Lord, as to the wife, representing the people. So early as in Deut. xxxii. 21, we read: "They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation," After all that had, in the Song of Solomon, been predicted regarding the reception of the Gentile nations into the kingdom of God and Christ, and about the receiving again into it of Israel, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... of Croghan had given me food, Even from her lips, though all of good That the heart can wish or wealth can give Were offered to me, there does not live A king or queen on the earth for whom I would do thee ill or provoke ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... shrill voice of the loneliness of the place and the damp of the climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He was paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta. He seemed for once to be unsure of his ground—both to expect attack, even to provoke it—and to shrink from it. His eyes were fixed upon Lady Tatham, and ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a statement of the function of a Second Chamber, not directly elected, may provoke a histrionic smile among extreme advocates of so-called popular rights, but has never evoked an argument which can displace it as based on sound reason and common sense. There are some changes, too, which ought not to be made without a specific appeal to the people on ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... also declined, leaving Sponsilier to drink alone. During the night, whenever conversation lagged, some one was certain to make reference to the remarks which are said to have passed between the governors of the Carolinas, or if that failed to provoke a rise, ask direct if no one had something to ward off the chilly air. After being refused several times, Dave had thrown the bottle away, meeting these jests with the reply that he had a private flask, but its quality was such that he was afraid ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... three hours,—nobody keeps accurate account of time while he speaks,—but two or three hours without venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered judgment to go against him by default. We, on this side of the House, did our best to provoke him to the conflict. We called on him to maintain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility unworthy of his parts and eloquence. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers—satisfied by their trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The searcher might have turned and caught me; there ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had been often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure the inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made a truce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At length it came out, viz. that an old woman, who had come to sell us some milk, had brought it within our poles, with a young woman with her, who also brought some roots or herbs; and while the old woman (whether she was mother to the young woman or no ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... instance of the random blows of a noble spirit, striking at what, if better understood, it would eagerly have revered— Wordsworth seems never to have read. Nor did the violent attacks of the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews provoke him to any rejoinder. To "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"—leagued against him as their common prey—he opposed a dignified silence; and the only moral injury which he derived from their assaults lay in that sense of the absence ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... are not going away?" asked Helen, with an illogical sense of dismay, which was not, however, in the least apparent. She knew that any sign of feeling would provoke the crisis from which ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... suffrage, would not dare a month to deny it. For when a nation's foundations are on a class of men that do not vote, and its throne stands on forces that are coiled up and liable at any time to break forth to its overthrow, it is a question whether it is safe to provoke the exertion of those forces or not. With us, where all men vote, government is safe; because, if a thing is once settled by a fair vote, we will go to war rather than give it up. As when Lincoln was elected, if an election is valid, it must ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... charming, looked at Cleggett with a grin; a grin that assumed that there was some kind of an understanding between them concerning this delightful pastime. It was too much. Cleggett, with an oath—and never stopping to reflect that it was perhaps just the sort of action which Pierre hoped to provoke—grasped his cane with the intention of laying it across the fellow's shoulders half a dozen times, come what might, and ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to provoke from the plaisant some further expression of self-content in his plans for the future, but the other had ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... may we never dare provoke That high Almighty Power, Which once awaked against our sins, Could blast us in ...
— The Flood • Anonymous
... thou, a mortal man, Could'st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... opinion than we shall fall if more notes are sent to Austria or to Germany. The only way to keep any shred of English respect is the immediate dismissal without more parleying of every German and Austrian official at Washington. Nobody here believes that such an act would provoke war. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and place May assume a kind of grace. It must have some reason in it, And not last beyond a minute. If to further lengths it go, It does into malice grow. 'Tis the difference that we see 'Twixt the Serpent and the Bee. If the latter you provoke, It inflicts a hasty stroke, Puts you to some little pain, But it never stings again. Close in tufted bush or brake Lurks the poison-swelled snake, Nursing up his cherish'd wrath. In the purlieus of his path, In the cold, or in the warm, Mean ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... don't at all. They were imposed upon you by circumstances, by unfortunate associations, and you accepted them as you would have accepted any other burden, on account of the sweetness of your nature. You always want to please some one, and now you go lecturing about the country, and trying to provoke demonstrations, in order to please Miss Chancellor, just as you did it before to please your father and mother. It isn't you, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too) whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind it, to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... must be done for several months; with most children for two or three years; with some, throughout childhood, for with them the slightest deviation from established rules is sure to provoke a relapse. ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... transgression of which Dhritarashtra alludes is the slaughter by Bhishma from his car, of Sweta who was then a combatant on foot. Or, it may be the very slaughter of Sweta, who was dear to the Pandavas and which act would, the king thought, provoke them more. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dares to provoke her, by reviling the absent Posthumus, her indignation heightens her scorn, and her scorn sets a keener ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... should confer with him respecting their new institutions. His Minister at Milan thereupon proposed that they should cross the Alps for that purpose, assembling, not at Paris, where their dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... before or follow it, because it affords one of the most serious instances of mistranslation that are to be met with in the whole New Testament. For the true translation of the words is this: "For who were they who, when they had heard, did provoke? nay, were they not all who came out of Egypt through Moses?" And then it goes on—"And with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... not provoke me. I never loved you! Look at the precipice which you have opened before me—count the sleepless nights during which I tore my breast with grief—count the days on which I called to you as from a cross—look at this thin face, at these trembling hands, and repeat once more that I never ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... excellent, the admiration of the many was confined to subjects either gross or puerile, and commonly to the meanest efforts of intellect; whereas at this time (1819) the whole train of subjects most popular in the earlier exhibitions have disappeared. The loaf and cheese that could provoke hunger, the cat and canary bird, and the dead mackerel on a deal board, have long ceased to produce astonishment and delight; while truth of imitation now finds innumerable admirers though combined with the highest qualities ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... saw where this would lead too. She saw, too, that Fanning was anxious to provoke Roy into a race. Presumably he was anxious to humiliate the boy in ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... immense talk, with plenty of laughter and no thought of mischief, among the crowd. The habitans of en haut and the habitans of en bas commingled, as they rarely did, in a friendly way. Nor was anything to provoke a quarrel said even to the Acadians, whose rude patois was a source of merry jest to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... my godly instructions. An ox knoweth its lord, an ass its master's duty, But Israel will not know me, nor my conditions. Oh, froward people, given all to superstitions, Unnatural children, expert in blasphemies, Provoke me into hate, by their idolatries. Take heed to my words, ye tyrants of Sodoma, In vain ye offer your sacrifice to me. Discontent I am with you beasts of Gomorrah And have no pleasure when I your offerings see. I abhor your fasts ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... became. I expected at least some resistance to my command; but he offered none; for without attempting to stir or even look me in the face, he smiled a ghastly smile, and muttered, 'It has done its work then—well, I am glad! Look in your horse-saddle, and never provoke me more.' I hesitated for a moment whether to loosen my hold upon the man, and to believe so improbable a story; but on the whole I deemed it better to do so. He had fulfilled his threat of revenge, and had ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... are not easy for the many to accomplish. But I desired rather to find a way to keep strictly the commandments of God, and not swerve from them, and, after his pardoning of my past misdeeds, never again to provoke that most ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus |
