"Tempter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Yellowhammers, Buntings and Ortolans—sharp-eared creatures which, on perceiving the distant passage of a flock of their own kind, forthwith utter a short calling note. One of them, the Sambe, an irresistible tempter, hops about and flaps his wings in apparent freedom. A bit of twine fastens him to his convict's stake. When, worn with fatigue and driven desperate by his vain attempts to get away, the sufferer lies down flat and refuses ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Zarah's instincts, now he attempted to dazzle and pervert her reason. With subtle sophistry he brought forward arguments with which his mind was but too familiar. Pollux spoke of necessity, that artful plea of the tempter, who would try to make the Deity Himself answerable for the sin of His creatures, as having placed them under circumstances where such sin could not be avoided; as if strength of temptation were excuse sufficient for yielding ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... If by your attitude and behaviour you cause it to be felt that sin is hateful to you, and that you are sincere when you pray that God may keep you from all evil, a great many of the temptations that would otherwise make your life difficult and dangerous will shrink away abashed; or if the tempter ventures to assail you, he will do it half-heartedly when he sees that you repel him with a whole-hearted repugnance. It is this attitude even more than individual acts which fixes the tone of ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... tempter's art, And teach the race its duty, By keeping on its wicked heart Their eyes of light ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... not necessary to suppose great horror and indignation on the part of Lady Byron. She may have regarded her sister as the victim of a most singularly powerful tempter. Lord Byron, as she knew, had tried to corrupt her own morals and faith. He had obtained a power over some women, even in the highest circles in England, which had led them to forego the usual decorums of their sex, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the room where mother and son were closeted. For one moment he was tempted to place his ear to the keyhole! But a blush covered his fat cheeks at the very thought of acting such a disgraceful part. Like a wise fellow, he did not give the tempter a second opportunity, but, seizing the hand ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... Elias spent seventy years in solitude on the borders of the Arabian desert near Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith near Achoris; he was tempted by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, but he scorched the tempter's face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus, who though a Theban had settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by trying to live without sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor indeed ever slept till the weakness of the body sunk under the efforts of the spirit. Paul, who dwelt at Pherma, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... mysterious conference Catharine and Alva, who accompanied his master's wife, concocted the plan of that famous massacre whose execution was delayed by various circumstances for seven years. Alva was the tempter, and the words with which he recommended his favorite method of dealing with heresy, by destroying its chief upholders, were embodied in the ignoble sentence, "Better a salmon's head than ten ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... was born,—"I sought not to be born"—the answer, that toil is a good, being precluded by its authoritative representation as a punishment; in which mood he is confirmed by the entrance and reasonings of the Tempter, who identifies the Deity with Seva the Destroyer, hints at the dreadful visitation of the yet untasted death; when Adah, entering, takes him at first for an angel, and then recognizes him as a fiend. Her invocation to Eve, and comparison of the "heedless, harmless, wantonness ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... this decision on Edwin's part, the tempter, who was Satan, the enemy of all who will do right, was forced to flee. Had Edwin listened to the suggestions longer or given the wicked one any encouragement to stay, there would have been no end to his arguments; for it is the business ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... it has a mind to, was the year I got to learn something of the Paris suburbs. The joyous expedition which ended our every day that year was so in the spirit of Harland that I should be inclined to look upon him as the tempter, had we not, with the usual amiability of the tempted, met him more than half way. Still, he excelled us all in the knack of collecting us from our work, no matter how it had scattered us or in what quarter of the town we might be, and carrying us off suddenly ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... the institution of six vestals; [94] but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex, who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. [95] A few of these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the most prudent to disarm the tempter. [96] Some were insensible and some were invincible against the assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engagement; they permitted priests ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... all, restrain love!" Orpheus retraces his steps, and, contrary to his promise, looks behind and stretches his hand towards the beloved shadow, and the shadow fades away. Moral—for with Alfred everything has a moral—when going to Christ, never look behind, for fear of being beguiled by the tempter: a practical conclusion not to be found ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the tempter whispered. "You may as well read it and know the worst. Nobody will suspect it," and so, led on step by step, she was about to take the folded letter from the envelope, intending fully to replace it after it was read, when a rapid step ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... went down to the shore, Louis Laplante was sitting in the midst of empty drinking-flasks, and the wily, old Nor'-Wester was tempting the silly boy to take more by drinking his health with fresh bottles. But while Louis Laplante gulped down his rum, becoming drunker and more communicative, the tempter threw glass after glass over his shoulder and remained sober. The Nor'-Wester motioned me to keep behind the Frenchman and I heard his drunken lips ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... on her bosom, and all the view waned before her eyes with the waning moon. She saw no sea, no sky. Death, the Tempter, was busy at her heart. Death, the Tempter, pointed homeward, to the grave of her dead parents ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... I answered, 'since the Sea of Reeds is far away, and such tidings cannot travel thence in an hour. Get you gone, false tempter.' ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... Liberals achieve occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike to that of Santa ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... things as that hideous 'Last Judgment' of Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, which you once showed me in a portfolio of engravings. Oh, Dr. Grey! you ought to be merciful to me; for indeed God gave me a fearfully wicked and cunning spirit for a perpetual companion and tempter. Even Christ had Lucifer ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... inexperienced in the ways of the world. She knew how to take care of herself. Why not destroy the letter and just keep silence? She had really no responsibility in this matter. Beryl was only an acquaintance who had tried to harm her happiness. And then the tempter suggested to her that by taking any action she must inevitably injure her own life. He brought to her mind thoughts of Craven. If she let Beryl alone the fascination of Arabian might work upon the girl so effectually that Craven would mean nothing to her any more; but if she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... he would try with Savonarola the ordeal of fire. He knew, he said, that he must perish, but at least he should perish avenging the cause of religion, since he was certain to involve in his destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls beside ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... TEMPTER (coming forward and touching the STRANGER with his foot). The worm! You can make him believe whatever you like. That comes from his unbelievable pride. Does he think he's the mainspring of the universe, the originator of ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... Samson was weak as water, he had no strength of soul; a woman's pretty face, a woman's coaxing word, was quite sufficient to overthrow all the strength of soul he possessed. He could resist no temptation that came across his path; he was an easy prey to the tempter. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... from the West!" —Wherefore? Ah yes, you frolic it to-day! To-morrow, and the pageant moved away Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you Part company: no other may pursue Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate Intends, if triumph or decline await The tempter of the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Paul's mother. 'It's anything but kind. You could waste time enough in such doings, Paul, without getting a tempter into the house. What do you want of tools? Do you get along with your books so fast you don't know what to do with your time? August Scheffer is just like his father, he never, as long as he lived, found out the use of money; if ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... about his thousands!" trying to persuade himself that there had been bragging, and almost hating Meredith for the wrong he was about to do him. "He would not do it! Let the worst come to the worst—he would not!" springing to his feet again, and fiercely shaking his fist as against some unseen tempter. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... head-dress was not displeasing to him. And the folds of her dress, as they fell across his knee, were welcome to his feelings. He knew that he was as one under temptation, but he was not strong enough to bid the tempter avaunt. "Say that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... at whose elbow the Devil during prayer Sate familiarly, side by side, Declared that, if the Tempter were there, 35 His presence he would not abide. Ah! ah! thought Old Nick, that's a very stale trick, For without the Devil, O favourite of Evil, In your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Not as an Emperour, A man that first should rule himself, then others; As a poor hungry Souldier, I might bite, Sir, Yet that's a weakness too: hear me, thou Tempter: And hear thou Caesar too, for it concerns thee, And if thy flesh be deaf, yet let thine honour, The soul of a commander, give ear to me, Thou wanton bane of war, thou guilded Lethargy, In whose embraces, ease ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the blood of another's soul upon his head. It must needs be that occasions of stumbling come, but woe, woe to that man by whom they come, when he and the slain soul's Saviour shall stand face to face! Oh, if there be one among us who is playing the tempter, and doing the devil's work, let him get to his knees, and cry with the conscience-smitten Psalmist, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation"; and peradventure even yet He ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... ever pronounced on any scripture was pronounced by Christ himself, when he said "on these words hang all the law and the prophets," and it is also well to remember that when tempted in the wilderness he repelled each suggestion of the Tempter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... man at His first creation. Adam believed God and was obedient and happy, and the first thing that the wily tempter attacked, and, alas, with too much success, was man's faith. "Yea," hath God said, and "Ye shall not surely die." First, a question. Then, a doubt of God's truth; then, a doubt of His love, and the rest was easy. Man stood so long as he ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone." Do any of you suppose that Jesus meant to inform the devil that man needs other kinds of food in addition, such as meats, and fruits, and vegetables? He had no such thought. He did not mean to inform or instruct the devil ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... to Canaan flee, To dwell, my blessed Lord, with Thee In thine eternal rest:[4] Beyond the tempter's roar and dart, And every foe to cause me smart, Thy constant, ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... to a Sunday School class of his childhood and his infantile horror for the tale of a tempter on a high mountain offering the possession of all the world ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... gypsy, aged seventeen, had got three months, it being assumed that he was the tempter: the reverse was the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... valde venenatus by Persoon, an expert on the subject. It is even the mushroom most frequently made use of, because of its being so plentiful, especially at the foot of the mulberry trees. I find the Satanic bolete, that dangerous tempter; the belted milk mushroom (Lactarius zonarius, BULL.), whose burning flavor rivals the pepper of its woolly kinsman; the smooth-headed amanita (Amanita leiocophala, D. C.), a magnificent white dome rising out of an ample volva and fringed at the edges with floury ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... land of Japan the symptoms of forthcoming disorder have not been wanting. I had to succumb occasionally, but rallied in time to preserve a tolerably clean bill of health. But if I have one weakness more than another, it is for the harmony of sweet sounds, and this the tempter knew right well. I met my fate in the famous Temple of Hoonan, in which is the most celebrated "gong" in China. I struck it, and listened. For more than one full minute, I believe, that bowl was a quivering mass of delicious sound. I thought it would never cease to ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... with the children three Didst walk the piercing flame; Help, in those trial hours which, save to Thee, I dare not name; Nor let these quivering eyes and sickening heart Crumble to dust beneath the tempter's dart. ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... clearly that the old man understood nothing of the words. There was no one to understand; no one he could take into the confidence of Decoud's fate, of his own, into the secret of the silver. That doctor was an enemy of the people—a tempter. . . . ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... throne; Then smilling thus: "To this divine abode, "The seat of saints, of seraphs, and of God, "Thrice welcome thou." The raptur'd babe replies, "Thanks to my God, who snatch'd me to the skies, "E'er vice triumphant had possess'd my heart, "E'er yet the tempter had beguil d my heart, "E'er yet on sin's base actions I was bent, "E'er yet I knew temptation's dire intent; "E'er yet the lash for horrid crimes I felt, "E'er vanity had led my way to guilt, "But, soon arriv'd at my celestial goal, "Full glories rush on my expanding soul." Joyful he spoke: ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... nought to do, Was pleased to let the magnet wheedle, Till closer still the tempter drew, And off at length eloped ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood; that I was not alone. And the love of the faithful little beast thawed the icicles in my heart. I picked it up in my arms and fled from the tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared less for me than I for them—anywhere so that I saw and heard the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... unclouded years, and, more than all, He had an interest in the world above. The big "Old Bible" lay upon the stand, And he was wont to read its sacred page And then to pray: "Our Father, bless the poor And save the tempted from the tempter's art, Save us from sin, and let us ever be United in Thy love, and may we meet, When life's last scenes are o'er, around the throne." Thus prayed he—thus lived he—years passed, And o'er the sunshine of that happy home, A cloud came from the pit; the fatal bolt Fell from ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... to others, I am by no means anxious to be held up as a moral scarecrow. Rather let me take warning myself, amend my life, abandon intemperance, which leads to all manner of wickedness, and suffer myself no more to be ensnared by the wiles and delusions of the tempter in the form of a fair woman. No—no—I will ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... our new world he goes, and there, by no fault of mine, will pervert man, whom I have placed therein, with a free will; so to remain until he enthralls himself. Man will fall as did Satan, but as Satan was self-tempted, and man will be deceived by another, the latter shall find grace where his tempter ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... large cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth."—Proclamation of April 26, 1796:—"Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!"—Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... frequently costs nothing. It is generally a pleasant step to take. Many have taken that step; but few have persevered in their onward march. The step which costs the sacrifice is that which crosses the threshold when the door has been arrived at. For on one side stands that powerful tempter, human respect, whose baneful influence has sent back hundreds, perhaps thousands, into the dreary waste. On the other side stands ambition, with noble and captivating mien. I need not speculate ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... and betrumpeted man of genius cannot read the A B ab of the human emotions. 'Here!' says the subtle tempter, 'I'll give you twopence if you'll put your baby on the fire!' The god-like hero thunders: 'No! He is my flesh and blood. He is the sacred trust of Heaven. He is innocent, he is helpless. I'll show you to the door!' Oh! what emotions stir within the heart when a master's ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... frequently intermingled with groans, and accompanied with weeping. Sometimes he seemed to be holding conferences with some one who was making him considerable offers on condition of his performing some dangerous service. What he said in his own person, and in answer to his imaginary tempter, testified the utmost reluctance. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of GOD is contained in Scripture; whence it does not follow that it is co-extensive with it." (p. 170.) "Under the terms of the Sixth Article one may accept literally, or allegorically, or as parable, or poetry, or legend, the story of a serpent-tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, of an arresting the earth's motion, of a reversal of its motion[90], of waters standing in a solid heap, of witches, and a variety of apparitions. So under the terms of the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... to very unpoetical glimpses from the river, in passing and repassing. The chimneys are twisted in the most approved style of the Dutch Brabant, and, although wanting the stork's nests on their summits, it seems as if there might be that woman's tempter, comfort, around the hearths beneath. The offices, too, have an enticing air, for a ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... my good angel, Mary, for your hand it was which saved me from violating a solemn oath; but I now feel an assurance that I have broken the tempter's chains forever." I am happy to add that from this hour he gained a complete victory over the evil habit which well-nigh had proved his ruin; and in after years, when peace and prosperity again ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... years behind these frowning prison walls, shut up the greatest portion of the time in these small cells that I have described in this chapter. If you do not wish a life of this nature, shun the company of wicked and vicious associates, and strive with all your power to resist the tempter in whatever form he may approach you. It is not force he employs to drag you down to the plane of the convict, but he causes the sweet song of the syren to ring in your ear, and in this manner allures you away from the ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... tree-tops visible over it, must surround a kitchen garden or orchard; and from this we feared we had come too nigh the house. We had not gone much further before a branch, projecting over the wall, from whose tip, as if the tempter had gone back to his old tricks, hung a rosy-cheeked apple, drew our eyes and arrested our steps. There are grown people who cannot, without an effort of the imagination, figure to themselves the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... through the ages, that forbids the use of spiritual powers for the creation of wealth or even of daily bread. Jesus was subject to the same spiritual law, and was tempted exactly in the same way as we. The tempter said: "Command this stone that it be made bread." If Christ had turned the stone into bread, He would have failed in His great mission, but He knew the law. There are thousands of people to-day who are trying, not only to turn, by the mis-use of their spiritual powers, ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... particular. The same Spirit within us pleads to the Spirit as without us; and in like manner is every evil mind in communion with the evil spirit. But, O comfort! the good alone is the actual, the evil essentially potential. Hence the devil is most appropriately named the 'tempter,' and the evil hath its essence in the will: it cannot pass out of it. Deeds are called evil in reference to the individual will expressed in them; but in the great scheme of Providence they are, only as far as they are good, coerced under the conditions ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... wife. You shall not read unnecessarily an episode of sin and bitter sorrow, and of shame that was not less heavy to bear because the eyes of the world were blinded and saw it not. It is enough to say that the blood of Emily Carlyle was as certainly on her tempter's head as that of any one of those whom he had slain in open fight with shot or steel. This is what she answered when he asked her to forgive him: "My own, I have forgiven you long ago! I could not help it if I would. I can not reproach you either, for though I have tried hard to ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... "Ayaunt, tempter!" cried Ananda, hurling the phial indignantly away. "I defy thee! and will have recourse to my old ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... that at that moment my heart absolutely stood still. The tempter stood at my elbow and whispered, and I deliberately smothered the call of my conscience. I did what Joseph's brethren did, what brought Judas Iscariot to hopeless remorse. There was no doubt that the hue and cry was after the two elegantly dressed gentlemen whom I had ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... beaker, they held it with tempting smiles toward Marion. She was very pale, though more composed, and her hand shook not, as smiling back, she gratefully accepted the crystal tempter and raised it to her lips. But scarcely had she done so when every hand was arrested by her piercing exclamation of "Oh, how terrible!" "What is it?" cried one and all, thronging together, for she had slowly carried the glass at arm's length, and was fixedly regarding ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... chief good which must for ever please Exalt our thought and fix our happiness. This world as some gay flowery field is spread, Which hides a serpent in its painted bed, And most it wounds when most it charms our eyes, At once the tempter and the paradise. And would you, then, sweet peace of mind restore, And in fair calm expect your parting hour, Leave the mad train, and court the happy few. Well may it be replied, "O friend, you show Others ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... not made for each other. He was thriftless, idle, dissolute—the small roue of the neighbourhood: she was careful, industrious, virtuous. He was good-looking—of a dark, saturnine beauty, insidiously impressive, like the dangerous charms of a tempter; she was radiant and lustrous with the sweet graces of modesty, innocence, and intelligence. Julia, however, young and susceptible, was for a time pleased with his attentions. Persuasive powers of considerable potency, and personal attractions ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... drew in his legs and leaned toward his tempter. "Monsieur, if you are not jesting, then you are a madman. Who are you? What do I know about you? I never saw you before, and for two seasons I have driven mademoiselle in Paris. She wears beautiful jewels to-night. How do I know that you are not ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... open, its tongue protruding, looks at its enemy over its shoulder. Blood is seen oozing from its tongue and face. This picture forcibly recalls to the mind the myth of the garden of Eden. For here we have the garden, the fruit, the woman, the tempter. ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd, That the unexperienc'd gave the tempter place, Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd? Ay me! I fell, and yet do question make What I should do again ...
— A Lover's Complaint • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of our country's prowess; but more enduring than marble, more lasting than brass, should be the monument reared to him who, in the fierce contest with the powers of evil, shall rescue the soul of the child from the grasp of the tempter, and change the brutalized and degraded offspring of crime and lust into a youth of generous, active, and noble impulses. But though earthly fame may be denied to such a benefactor of his race, his record shall be on high; and at that grand assize where all human actions shall be weighed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... they are sensual we are indulging in sexual abuse, and are almost sure, when temptation is presented, to commit the overt acts of sin. If we cannot succeed within, we may pray in vain for help to resist the tempter outwardly. A young man who will indulge in obscene language will be guilty of a worse deed if opportunity ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... sparkling currents lav'd with wandering tides Their velvet avenues, and flowery sides; On sun-bright lawns unclad the Graces stray'd, And guiltless Cupids haunted every glade; 40 Till the fair Bride, forbidden shades among, Heard unalarm'd the Tempter's serpent-tongue; Eyed the sweet fruit, the mandate disobey'd, And her fond Lord with sweeter smiles betray'd. Conscious awhile with throbbing heart he strove, Spread his wide arms, and barter'd life for love!— Now rocks on rocks, in savage grandeur roll'd, Steep above steep, the blasted ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... overwhelming if John Bull is obliged to confess it." Another newspaper asks him whether, considering the circumstances, he does not consider it a duty to violate his promise to Count Bismarck, and to hand over his newspapers to the Government. In this way, thinks this tempter, the debt which America owes to France for aiding her during her revolution will be repaid. "We gave you Lafayette and Rochambeau, in return we only ask for one copy of an English paper." The anxiety for news is weighing heavier on the population ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... contemplation of a pair of calipers at the centre of one of the little courts! But, whether from past experience or innate philosophy in the insect I know not, the pronged hooks, though coming together with a click once or twice at the near proximity of the tempter, failed in their opportunity, and the trap was soon seen carefully set again, flush with the ground at the mouth ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... you say so, but it shows your inexperience nevertheless. Money is the great tempter nowadays. Consider how many defalcations and breaches of trust we read of daily in confidential positions, and we are forced to conclude that honesty is a rarer virtue than we like to think it. I have every reason to believe that my assistant last winter ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... I had ceased to care who and what was my tempter. To me his whole being was resolved into one problem: had he a secret by which death could ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... life a tempter prowls malignant, The cruel Nidhug from the world below. He hates that asa-light whose rays benignant On th' hero's brow and glitt'ring ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Provinces were nearly lost already. Bruges seconded Parma's efforts to induce its sister-city Ghent to imitate its own baseness in surrendering without a struggle; and that powerful, turbulent, but most anarchical little commonwealth was but too ready to listen to the voice of the tempter. "The ducats of Spain, Madam, are trotting about in such fashion," wrote envoy Des Pruneaux to Catherine de Medici, "that they have vanquished a great quantity of courages. Your Majesties, too, must employ money if you wish ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the boy argued with himself and coquetted with the tempter. Before the afternoon was over he felt (as he imagined) quite comfortable in his own mind over the affair. The rod was tied up again in its bag exactly as it had been before, and only wanted an opportunity to be returned to ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... him to beware of the seven tempter spirits, which are the spirit of fornication, gluttony, strife, love of admiration, arrogance, falsehood, and injustice. He cautioned them especially against unchastity, saying: "Pay no heed to the glances of a woman, and remain not ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... human life is teeming,— The cruel tempter from the land of shade, He hates the asa-light with glory beaming On hero's brow and on his shining blade; Each coward deed, each act of wrathful scenting, Is his, a tribute unto darkness paid; He wins when temples burn and gods ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... thought that strives within her breast, In that one glance is shown! Say, can that heart of marble be at rest, Since spirit warms the stone? Will not those limbs, of so divine a mould, Move, when her thought is o'er— When she has yielded to the tempter's hold And Eden ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... buy," rejoined the tempter, holding the spirits a little nearer to his victim's nose. "Joost take von leetle glass ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... back in our college days, I had had a peep at this gambling tempter of Bob's. Once in a poker game in our rooms, when a crowd of New York classmates tried to run him out of a hand by the sheer weight of coin. And again at the Pequot House at New London on the eve of a varsity boat-race, when a Yale crowd shook a big wad of money and taunts ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... desecration of him? O my God!" he would say, looking up, "if I know your temper rightly, Sir, you are incapable of it;—you would have trampled upon the offer;—you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head with abhorrence. Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous contempt of money, which you show me in the whole transaction, is really noble;—and what renders it more so, is the principle of it;—the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... into the temptation of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life if it had not been forbidden her so to do. And that you may give the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelous and wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an antecedent to his enthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it, else thou ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... made, and which brought our intimacy to a sudden close. The result, however, was to let me into secrets I should probably have never learned in any other manner. Still, I had read and heard too much to be easily duped; and I kept myself not only out of the power of my tempter, but out of the power of all that could injure me, remaining simply a curious observer of what was placed before my eyes. Good Mr. Hardinge's lessons were not wholly forgotten; I could run away from him, much ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... was at length satisfied that he had no call to the ministry. His father was not displeased at the thought of having him at the shop; but his mother was for some moments speechless with angry tribulation. Recovering herself, with scornful bitterness she requested to know to what tempter he had been giving ear—for tempted he must have been ere son of hers would have been guilty of backsliding from the cause; of taking his hand from the plough and looking behind him. The youth returned such answers as, while they satisfied his father he was right, served ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... it was obviously her duty to do, sat with her book open before her, wondering how she could immediately enter upon a course of conduct that would give her a more enlarged and prominent religious influence. Never once suspecting that this was a way the tempter was taking to lead her from the true self-abnegation which is so vital to a growing Christian ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... man any right to sport with the affections of a young woman, though he stop short of positive promises. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women: a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and deportment has that meaning; ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... work. My brain was this day wonderfully prolific, and my pen never before or since glided so rapidly over the paper; towards night I began to feel strangely about the back part of my head, and my whole system was extraordinarily affected. I likewise occasionally saw double—a tempter now seemed to be ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is that no reason rather for a deeper loathing? since he who uses violence (42) at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a villain, while the tempter corrupts the soul of him who yields to ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... for Fritz's happiness," said Wilhelm. "Does that face look as if it belonged to a happy man? I am afraid of Paris; I should like to see him do as I am doing. The old tempter may awake again. Of our two heads, his carries the less ballast. His dress, and the opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious. He keeps looking at the lorettes in the house. Oh! if you only knew ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the grievous evil thou hast wrought. The woman shall loathe and hate thee under heaven. Her foot shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel anew. There shall be strife between your seed for ever, while the world standeth under heaven. Now thou knowest clearly, thou foul tempter, what thy ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... been singularly free from snakes; nothing have I seen of the dreaded cobra, and about the only reminder of Eve's guileful tempter I encounter is on the road this morning. He is only a two-foot specimen of his species, and is basking in a streak of sunshine that penetrates the green arcade above. Remembering the judgment pronounced upon him in the Garden of Eden, I attempt to acquit myself of the duty of bruising his head, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... order to remain sole master of its prey. If one tries to repeat the accustomed prayer, and invoke the aid of the Virgin, or the good angel who watches at the foot of young girls' beds, in order to keep away the charms of the tempter, the prayer is only on the lips, the Virgin is deaf, the angel sleeps! The breath of passion against which one struggles runs through every fibre of the heart, like a storm over the chords of an Tolian harp, and extorts from it those ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... saved. Would Gowan think of it?... Of course he would think of it. But he would not do it. He would leave the deed to be done by the man to whom he had relinquished Miss Chuckie. It was for that man to save her—to destroy the tempter and break the spell of fascination that was drawing her over the brink of a pit far deeper than any earthly canyon. He, Lafayette Ashton—not Gowan—was the man. He must save her—down there in the depths, where no eye ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... scorn, and indignant anger flashed from his countenance. "Back from me, tempter!" cried he, proudly. "It is true you possess the wisdom of the world, but one thing is wanting in your wisdom—the spirit of honor. I know that this does not trouble you much, but to me it is every thing. You are right: I will be a ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... Confederate envoy, Mr. Mason, to seek what he deems a more hospitable shore. The inducement of cotton for our idle looms and our famishing people has been a strong one to our statesmen as well as to our people, and the Tempter has been at their side. Despotism, like Slavery, is necessarily propagandist. It cannot bear the contagion, it cannot bear the moral rebuke, of neighboring freedom. The new French satrapy in Mexico needs some more congenial and some weaker neighbor than the United Republic, and we have had more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of expansion blocked by the powerful Dual Monarchy to north and west and by a big Bulgaria to east and south, Serbia would have found herself in a worse position than before the war. The Bulgarians, intoxicated by their victories over the Turks and seduced by the promptings of the Austrian tempter, turned a deaf ear to the arguments of their Serbian allies, and insisted upon their pound of flesh. They failed to realise that the most effective way of inducing the Serbs to evacuate Macedonia was to give them adequate backing in their demand for ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... way to win these comforts the strangers began their tempting, and represented the case to be gained by the sale of men's souls. One man, bolder than the rest, made a bargain with the demons and gave them his soul for three hundred crowns of gold, and from that time he in his turn became a tempter. He boasted of his wealth, of the rich food the merchants gave him at times, of the potent wine he drank from their generously opened bottles, and, best of all, he vaunted his freedom from ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... still resisting the tempter, but more faintly than yesterday, when Little came in, and spoke to him. Both he and Dan were amazed at his appearance on the scene at that particular moment. They ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... face of the hunchback with an expression of gaping terror, as if he stood in the presence of the Arch Tempter himself. Then he caught him by the throat, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and his eyes were angry as he met those of the other man in brown. "Stow it!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, stopping and facing the tempter. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... in the same tone, half to Sarah and half to herself: "See, the tempter has again prepared his snares; be watchful, and pray for guidance, that you fall not into them. Sinful affection lies in wait behind brotherly love, just as the serpent concealed itself among the pleasant fruits of the tree of knowledge. See, then, that you love in the spirit, and not in the flesh. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart; Fop at the hostel, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a Lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed, A cherub's face—a reptile all the rest. Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... blame me that my heart grew cold The tempted, tempter turned; When he was feted and caressed ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... seemed to be in the Holy City upon a tower of the Temple that stood over a deep valley, and the tempter speaking ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... a natural law of sin and sickness, and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the trend of circumstances we shall go down and sink under the power of the tempter. But there is another law of spiritual life and of physical life in Christ Jesus to which we can rise and through which we can counterpoise and overcome the other law that bears us down. But to do this requires real spiritual ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... bereaved, mourned in wild and bitter grief, but woman's pride, at times her guardian angel, at others her destroyer, took up its stronghold in her heart. The tempter Conrad awoke its tones—with specious wile he recalled De Clairville's lofty ideas of name and birth—how proudly he spoke of his lady mother and the castled state of his father's hall. Was it not likely that, ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the host.—I am afraid the poet wants his usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... replenish it now," observed Hugh, stepping to the door of the room, and giving orders accordingly. "A meeting between old friends should never be dry. But for the partnership, it is a matter in which you must excuse me. Heaven knows I find it hard enough to be honest, with no tempter but the Devil and my own thoughts; and, if I have you also to contend with, there is little hope ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not tasted food. Her child was sick. She had begged a few crumbs for him, but even he had eaten nothing all day. Then the tempter came, and—why need I say it?—she sinned. Turn not away from her, O you, her sister, who have never known a want or felt a woe! Turn not away. It was not for herself; she would have died—gladly have died! It was for her sick, starving child ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... true is this! And when too Satan, the tempter, becomes Satan the accuser, saying in thy heart:—"This sickness is the consequence of sin, or sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought thyself into a fearful dilemma; thou canst not hope for salvation as long as thou continuest in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not abandon thy daily dose ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... might and the deification of the imperium, the Christian had to choose between the world and the Master. The battle was fierce and cruel. Gone now was the consciousness of strength, the dignity of the patrician! Here was but a lonely wretched human creature fighting the tempter for his ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mind was hardly clear at the time, still Bertrand assured me he had repelled the offer with indignation, and even threatened to beat up his tempter unless he took himself off. The man hurried away, and then in the excitement of the order for his battalion to go over the top, Bertrand Hale forgot ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... own self do nothing," He said. John 5:30. Tempted and tried, He found His defense in the Holy Scriptures. When Satan came to tempt Him to sin, the Saviour said, "It is written." He clung to the sure defense. Again the tempter came. He was met with the word, "It is written again." The third time it was the same weapon of defense, "It is written." ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... would no longer be the unconscious purity of youthful innocence, but the conscious purity of mature age, i.e., of the soul that has known both good and evil in the course of its experiences, has overcome the serpent of matter, the tempter, and voluntarily chosen the life ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... grace to the fact that the victory of Mary's infant son over the rest is treated as if it were the victory of one pagan god over another—the final triumph being to him who is the most "gentle" and "beautiful" of all the gods. In the famous argument between the Lady and her Tempter, in Comus, we have an exquisite example of the sweet, grave refinement of virginal taste which shuns grossness as "a false note." The doctrine of Comus—if so airy a thing can be supposed to have a doctrine—is not very different ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... fought with Giant Tempter, Giant Discourager, Giant Covetousness, Giant Liar, Giant Lust, Giant Pride, Giant Doubt, Giant Fear, Giant Worldliness, and many others. Thank our God for the weapons of warfare, the shield and ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... cynicism and false shame have not entirely driven out of youth. Their hearts were full; and Jock, the stronger, abler, and more enterprising had always exercised a fascination over his friend, who was absolutely enchanted to find him become an ally instead of a tempter, and to be no longer pulled ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her chariot, Away to the market-place, With her own proud eyes beholding The beautiful tempter's face. ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... The sin is not lessened that the tempter is so near to thee. Like the sparkle of the red wine to the inebriate are the seductive influences of the ballroom. Thy foot will fall upon roses, but they will be roses of this world, not those that bloom for eternity. Thou wilt lose the fervor and purity ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... indeed resented the proceeding, as she had expected; but his family were at first more inclined to look upon Donna Tullia as a good angel who had carried off the tempter at the right moment to an unapproachable distance. It was not to be believed that Orsino could do anything so monstrous as to enter Del Ferice's house or ask a place in Del Ferice's circle, and it was accordingly a relief to find that Madame d'Aranjuez ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... The tempter was there before him, and in an unguarded moment he fell. The newly-made grave, the narrow coffin, the pale, dead sister, and the solemn vow were all forgotten, and a debauch of three weeks was followed by a violent fever, which in a few days cut short his mortal ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... was any thing in which the soul of Tony delighted, it was an apple pasty of any shape or dimensions; and the tempter had unwittingly chosen ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... proper warrant in Government affairs, an unscrupulous dealer in threats and promises amongst public men, a constant menace to sworn servants of the people in their offices of trust, a tempter of the corrupt and a terror to the timid who are delegated to power a remorseless enemy to wholesome legislation, a constant friend to conspirators against the common welfare for private gain—if such a compound of dangerous and insolent qualities merged ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... priests invariably make God the author of sin. It was God who tempted Lucifer before the creation of the world; Lucifer, in his turn, became the tempter of man and the cause of all the evil our race suffers. It appears, therefore, that God created both angels and men to give them ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... tempter with his most winning air, 'has had, I am told, your lovely daughter's aid, and your ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... rounded form Of bright Kharim-tu, her voluptuous charm Drew him to her, and at her feet he sate With wistful face, resigned to any fate. Kharim-tu, smiling sweetly, bent her head, Enticing him the tempter coyly said, "Heabani, like a famous god thou art, Why with these creeping things doth sleep thy heart? Come thou with me to Erech Su-bu-ri[2] To Anu's temple Elli-tar-du-si, And Ishtar's city where great Izdubar Doth reign, the glorious giant king of war; Whose mighty strength ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... obstinacy in not yielding to what seemed an overwhelming necessity, and giving the Basilica to the Arians. Yet he felt that to do so would be to peril his soul; so that the request was but the voice of the tempter, as he spoke in Job's wife, to make him "say a word against God, and die," to betray his trust, and incur ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... Thus Goodall's tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a certain ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Christ in the wilderness, angels came and brought him food.[26] The demon tempter said to Jesus Christ that God had commanded his angels to lead him, and to prevent him from stumbling against a stone; which is taken from the 92d Psalm, and proves the belief of the Jews on the article of guardian angels. The Saviour ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... bearing the name of gentleman: for it is in the name of King Charles II. that an emissary, whom I took for an honest man, came and laid an infamous snare for me. I have fallen into that snare; so much the worse for me. Now, you the tempter," said he to the king, "you the executor," said he to D'Artagnan; "remember what I am about to say to you; you have my body, you may kill it, and I advise you to do so, for you shall never have my mind or my will. And now, ask ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ready and send them to him and you stay on with your work?" whispered the tempter, and the suggestion sounded good to Austin. Again came the vision of his mother and her desire that he keep the children together. He pitied the poor little things to be left to the mercies of their careless father. He was fast losing ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... rebel and being expell'd, he was cast down, down, down, GOD and the Devil himself only knows where; for indeed we cannot say that any man on Earth knows it; and wherever it is, he has ever since man's creation been a plague to him, been a tempter, a deluder, a calumniator, an enemy and the object of man's horror ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... own part," remarked the tempter, "I do not care about doing things by halves. If I want to enjoy myself that way, I should prefer to go in my carriage, sit in my own box, and do the thing comfortably. Everything or ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... her husband, "that man, passing one night under our roof, was able to deprive us of your love, to destroy with a phrase, a word, the happiness of a family! Oh, my dear Balthazar, did he make the sign of the cross? did you examine him? The Tempter alone could have had that flaming eye which sent forth the fire of Prometheus. Yes, none but the devil could have torn you from me. From that day you have been neither husband, nor father, nor master of ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... since understood that Donald Bean Lean played the part of tempter on this occasion. His motives were shortly these. Of an active and intriguing spirit, he had been long employed as a subaltern agent and spy by those in the confidence of the Chevalier, to an extent beyond what was suspected even by ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... place enlarge upon the danger ever attendant upon the use of those stimulants, nor will we now stop long to dwell upon the solemn fact, that whoever, at the demand of appetite, drinks even the sweet cider, weakens his own moral strength, becomes a tempter to the weak, and casts away the pure influence of an unsullied example. Reckless and guilty indeed is that man who, in the light of this day, dares to insult humanity and defy heaven by publicly putting the glass ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of beauty and almost too good to keep company with her lame little sister Nelly. Pride did not fail also to try to put evil into Nelly's heart, but she never would let him converse with her; she remembered the words of her mother, and shunned the dark tempter who leads so ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to bed," and he gave her a look that meant obedience for her. She went out of the door, and left him with his tempter. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... over, took the glass, threw its contents on the floor and grasped Owen by the shoulder. His gaze met the tempter's, coldly. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... agitated by this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in the world but Coronado. Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her tempter. Still she could not or would not answer; though she ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... weaker or stronger He blames the most, The tempter or tempted a tithe of His tender compassion claims, Whether the selfish or too unselfish, those who through love or lust are lost, He in His infinite wisdom and mercy ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... And homes of wealth and beauty, wit and mirth, By taste refined, by eloquence and worth, Taught and diffused the intellect's high joy, And gladly welcomed e'en a rustic boy; Or when ambition's lip of flame and fear Burned like the tempter's to my listening ear, And a proud spirit, hidden deep and long, Rose up for strife, stern, resolute, and strong, Eager for toil, and proudly looking up To higher levels for ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... subtlety and daring under long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be increased to the unconditioned Will to Power—we believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind,—that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite—we do not even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and in any case we find ourselves here, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... entrance into the world of sin and death. Our Lord Himself places the whole argument of His teaching on marriage and the permissibility of divorce on Genesis ii. 24 (cf. St. Matt. xix. and St. Mark x.). In St. John viii. 44 our Lord clearly alludes to the Edenic narrative when He speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([Greek: anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." Still more remarkable is the argument of St. Paul in Romans v.; altogether based as it is on the historical verity of the account of the Fall; and other allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... was beginning to pour out smelt so refreshing, and her hand and figure looked so pretty in the operation, that, with a sigh of departing resolution, he gave in, put his hat on the floor, and sat down opposite to the tempter. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... desired to know The ways of sin, seductive, The hellish tempter, to our woe, Became a power destructive; He cursed our earth and ruin brought on all, Yea, very nature felt the bane - Its blighted walls now totter to their fall, And soon disorder rules again. This earthly palace then at ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... from thy vertue. What's this? what's this? is this her fault, or mine? The Tempter, or the Tempted, who sins most? ha? Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I, That, lying by the Violet in the Sunne, Doe as the Carrion do's, not as the flowre, Corrupt with vertuous season: Can it be, That Modesty may more betray our Sence Then womans lightnesse? hauing waste ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... which he continued to assert, or to name the victorious name in which he trusted. But his faith did not abandon him, though he lacked for a time the power of expressing it. "Say what you will," was his answer to the Tempter; "I know there is as much betwixt the two boards of this Book as can insure me forgiveness for my transgressions, and safety for my soul." As he spoke, the clock, which announced the lapse of the fatal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... you have caused him; or, by remaining here, commence a life of infamy which will end sooner or later in a miserable death." He paused; then, as she made no reply, but sat with her face buried in her hands, sobbing as if her heart would break, he continued, "You tell me, the vile tempter who has lured you from your duty promised to meet you here to-day, and, bringing a clergyman with him, to marry you privately; now if this ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... echoed the wily tempter; "I will prove myself the true friend of the Atheling, if he will only give consent to the deed by which I will make him this very day the ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... wish to do what is fair. The tempter's advice is to get even now for the injury that has been done. But a nobler voice bids me to rise above such a feeling and do nothing in the spirit of revenge, but merely for the ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... thee Mara, tempter, Evil One, Prince of this world, I know thy voice, thy meaning. The gifts thou offerest are transient treasures, And thy dominion is mere vanity. I go to found a kingdom in the realm Of the immortal state which lasts for aye. Thou hinderest and dost ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... he waver. The tempter, whispering in his ear, told him that he could conceal his knowledge, advise Sloan to sell, take his chance with Joan, and let the sleeping dog lie, forever undiscovered. It told him that Sloan was ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... firm step, to the border of the woods, struck directly for the house, and, with assumed unconcern, marched up to the door,—where he was met, not by the young lady he expected first to see, but by her father. But who was that father? To his utter surprise, it was his father's old tempter and ruiner, the dark and ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... toleration, and satisfy all parties. He either had no deep religious convictions, like Coligny and Dandelot, or he preferred an undisturbed crown to the ascendency of the religion for which he had so bravely fought. What matter, the tempter said, whether he reigned as a Catholic or Protestant monarch, so long as religious liberty was given to his subjects? Could he have reigned forever, could he have been assured of the toleration of his successors, this plea might have had some force; but it was the dictate of expediency, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... woman ever stained with redder sins. Had greater grace than mine. Praise God for Jesus! Praise God for blood that washes sins away! I was a woman fallen till Lord Jesus Forgave me, helped me up and made me clean. My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell you How music was my tempter. Oh, you girls, If there be one before me who can sing Beware the devil and beware your voice That it be used ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... seemed that he would go. Stung by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the edge of the shuttering as if ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... think Blanche would make a good wife for a petty country gentleman? Do you think I should become the character very well, Laura?" Pen asked. "Remember temptation walks about the hedgerows as well as the city streets: and idleness is the greatest tempter ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... home, yet his mother sometimes felt as if her heart was contracting with a spasm of agony, when she remembered that it was through that same geniality of disposition and wonderful fascination of manner, the tempter had woven his meshes for her husband, and that the qualities that made him so desirable at home, made him equally so to his jovial, careless, inexperienced companions. Fearful that the appetite for strong drink might have been ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Bishopsbridge.' Sir James proceeded to tell his hearer, briefly and clearly, the facts that he had communicated to Mr. Figgis. 'What do you think of it?' he ended. A considering grunt was the only answer. 'Come now,' urged Sir James. 'Tempter!' ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... listening to the eloquent imp. Once to nearly every man comes an hour when he stands on a high mount and is shown the kingdom of his desire, to be his if he will—at a price. There David stood that evening. And he fell. He listened and looked too long. He did not haggle with his tempter over the price but agreed to pay, if only he might have his ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... need of something better than I had got. Business had gone wrong ever since I opened shop, and my mind was quite unsettled. Satan tried very hard at me, but it wouldn't do. Sometimes, when my boy had gone home, and shop was shut up, the Tempter would whisper in my ears words like these—'Jehu, you're insured, over and over again, for your stock; let a spark fall on the shavings, and your fortune's made.' Well, sir, once or twice—will you believe it?—the Devil had nearly got it all his own way; but grace prevented, and I was saved. I owe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... footing be innocent, and they will work night and day till their wishes are accomplished. Trust not, therefore, to yourself alone, nor suffer your heart to plead in their favour, lest it become as much your enemy as the tempter, man. Place your security in flight, and avoid every evil, lest it lead you into danger, for hard it is to turn the head and look backward when a beautiful or agreeable object is before you. Remember my instructions, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he Had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto him: If thou art the son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said: It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him into the holy ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles |
