"Provoking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this of James. The only immediate course of action open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequency of war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization of a League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminish as much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, and to work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge which will eventually make possible the greater step, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... that Emerson's 'Essays' are the most valuable prose contributions to the literature of the century, his soul is indeed filled 'with an unutterable sense of lamentation and mourning and woe.' Mr. Arnold's silence was once felt to be provoking. Wordsworth's lines ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... peaceful life until our next door neighbor bought a large Shanghai rooster. I forgot now what particular breed our rooster was, {330} but he was small, not much larger than a bantam. The Shanghai rooster, which was a huge monster, had the most provoking crow, large, loud and aggressive. An alley intervened between the yard where he held forth and our yard. One day we came home from school and looked for our chicken. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... who, say they, have a right to the creatures, if not Christians, if not professors, if not church members? And, from this conclusion, let go the reins of their inordinate affections after pride, ambition, gluttony; pampering themselves without fear (Jude 12), daubing themselves with the lust-provoking fashions of the times; to walk with stretched out necks, naked breasts, frizzled fore-tops, wanton gestures, in gorgeous apparel, mixed with gold and pearl, and costly array.[6] I will not here make inspection into their lives, their carriages at home, in their corners and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all those associated in the administration of a library. Every one has faults and weaknesses; and those encountered in others will be viewed with the most charity by those who are duly conscious of their own. Every one makes mistakes, and these are often provoking or irritating to one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... boarding-school Miss, who came flying into the shop in defiance of her governess, and inquired, in a very pathetic tone, for The Constant Lover. "That, I am afraid," said Margin, "is not amongst our collection." 'Dear me,' lisped the young Lady, with an air of chagrin, 'that's very provoking, I thought that was what every one had.' "Give me leave to assure you, Ma'am, that you are quite mistaken. I fancy you will find that it is not to be ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... conversation was led away to the affairs of Sergeant and Mrs Baggett, to the ineffable distress of John Gordon. When we remember the kind of speeches which Gordon intended to utter, the sort of eloquence which he desired to use, it must be admitted that the interruption was provoking. Even if Mary would leave them together, it would be difficult to fall back upon the subject ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... disappointed?" asks Monica, mildly, with a provoking want of appreciation of this brilliant sally. "Are you fond of goatskins and beads? Do you wear them when 'your foot ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... a beach under the cliffs, a little to the eastward of Cape Teulada, when the small cable, now in course of being paid out, suddenly parted. The mishap occurred about a mile and a half from the shore, in forty fathoms water, with a sandy bottom. It was provoking enough to have our expectations baulked, when holding on for another half hour we should have succeeded in bringing the cable to land; but, for our comfort, the main difficulties of the enterprise were overcome. The African cable had been securely laid in the greatest depths of the Mediterranean, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... worked also at Assisi, Rome, and Padua. Sienna was covering the walls of her public palace with frescoes, some figures of which resemble the paintings at Pompeii.[475] An antique statue found within her territory was provoking universal admiration, and was erected on the Gaia fountain by the municipality; but the Middle Ages did not lose their rights, and, the republic having suffered reverses, the statue fell into disgrace. The god became nothing more than ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... in singing too, with the money which you sent me, you kind boy: and I can sing much better now: and I have learned to dance, though not so well as Blanche, and when you become a minister of state, Blanche shall present me:" and with this, and with a provoking good-humor, she performed for him ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... steal into designing obscurity under the shade of some overhanging bank. But none of these manoeuvres captivated the wary old trout on whose acquisition the Corporal had set his heart; and what was especially provoking, the angler could see distinctly the dark outline of the intended victim, as it lay at the bottom,—like some well-regulated bachelor who eyes from afar the charms he has discreetly ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blame him," she thought, "I don't blame him a bit; but, it is horridly disagreeable. I don't see how we're ever to get on; and it is so provoking, for, if he were anybody else, we'd be real good friends. He isn't in the least what I thought he was. I hope he won't come over before tea. It would be awkward enough. But then, he's got to take all his meals with us at 'The Runs.' Oh, dear!" and Hetty went about her preparations ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... think he did, this Red Murdo, when the Colonel's provoking blade had positively pinked him in the leg, above the garter and drawn blood? He picked up Jock Farquharson's pet dog, a wise and lively Scots terrier, and flung it, a protection against further pinking, on the sword-point, with the remark, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... night. The next morning she will certainly complain of my contempt and of my pride, to her mother the grand vizier's wife, which will rejoice my heart. Her mother will come to wait upon me, respectfully kiss my hands, and say to me, Sir' (for she will not dare to call me son-in-law, for fear of provoking me by such a familiar style), I entreat you not to disdain to look on my daughter, and refuse to come near her. I assure you that her chief delight is to please you, and that she loves you with all ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... will. I will only say one thing. To strain the meaning and the spirit of an exceptional law like the old Regulation of the year 1818 in such a fashion as this, what would it do? Such a strain, pressed upon us in the perverse imagination of headstrong men, is no better than a suggestion for provoking lawless and criminal reprisals. ("No.") You may not agree with me. You are kindly allowing me as your guest to say things with which perhaps you do not agree. (Cries of "Go on.") After all, we understand ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... once she had waved a greeting. She was a nice girl, he was sure of it. If she thought at all of the cripple next door he would like her to think of him in a kindly way, as a decent sort of hulk, so to speak. It was provoking to feel that she would next hear of him as a dissipated ruffian, friend and defender of another ruffian who howled ribald songs in the presence—or at least ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... exclaimed in a tone of vexation, 'what have you been doing to yourself? Do you see, Alie? Her skirt is torn from top to bottom—the stuff torn, not the seam. And so dirty. Your new frock too—really, child, you are too provoking.' ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... have to give it up," she thought; "I will go back to the station where I got off and wait until the next train for San Francisco comes along, which will be nobody knows when. How provoking it is, and how stupid I am! Professor Salazar will stay at home for me, and very likely Mrs. Salazar has made butter-cakes and coffee, and here am I floundering in the woods! I 'll sit down under these trees and do a bit of Spanish, while I 'm ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... But twisting her head to see the round clock, just above the entrance, with its great brass weights ponderously doling off the time, in plain view, she started with dismay, for its hands remorselessly pointed to fourteen minutes past five. One minute late. It was too provoking! She felt the tears close, and dashed on down the long steps leading to the passenger gates, at the risk of falling full length. She hoped against hope that some unprecedented event might have delayed the train. But as she sped along ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... which Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Swift was now so far alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to decency, and therefore treats him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes with abhorrence. In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms so provoking to that irritable nation, that resolving "not to be offended with impunity," the Scotch lords in a body demanded an audience of the queen, and solicited reparation. A proclamation was issued, in which three hundred pounds were offered for the discovery of the author. From this storm he was, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... so much magnitude, that longer to permit it, is to wink at sin, and to incur the righteous judgments of God. The late outrages and aggressions of the slave power to possess itself of new soil, and extend the influence of the hateful and God-provoking "Institution," is a practical commentary upon its benefits and the moral qualities of those who seek to sustain and extend it. The author is therefore the more willing—nay, anxious, to lay alongside of such arguments the history of his own life and experiences as a slave, that those who read ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... that their Design was not a War, but a Union upon just Conditions, that it was a plain Token that they design'd either to put some affront upon the Nolunarians, to deny them some just Claims, or to impose something very Provoking upon them more than they had yet done, that they were so exceeding fearful of an Invasion ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... exists." It is quite possible they may not be able to see the foulness, but if in the majority of railroad cars run in this country, they are not able to feel it in gritty, grimy accumulations on skin and linen, and smell it in suffocating stenches which serve, with sneeze-provoking dust, to stifle anything like comfort, their skin must be thicker, their linen more neglected, and their noses less sensitive than those of the majority of fellow travellers it has been our fortune to be cooped up with ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... goes through the audience as the distinguished visitors pass up the aisle to the front seats assigned, as the custom was, to dignitaries. Young people steal curious glances at them; children turn around in their seats to stare, provoking divers shakes of the head from their elders, and in one instance the boxing of an ear, at which the culprit sets up a smothered howl, is ignominiously shaken, and sits swelling and choking with indignant grief during the ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... opportunity to teach Jane the new dance. I wanted to go to her first, but was afraid, or for some reason did not, and took several other ladies as they came. After I had shown the step to them I sought out my sweetheart. Jane was not a prude, but I honestly believe she was the most provoking girl that ever lived. I never had succeeded in holding her hand even the smallest part of an instant, and yet I was sure she liked me very much; almost sure she loved me. She feared I might unhinge it and carry it away, or something of that sort, I suppose. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of the carriage broke, and they were forced to stop. The accident repaired, the coachman cracked his whip, and the horses started with such force that the new trace broke in three pieces. Six times this provoking piece of wood was replaced, and six times it broke anew, without drawing the carriage from the hole ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... "Fanny is very provoking, Mr. Furlong," said Mrs. Egan, who was obliged to say something with a smile, to avoid the laugh which continued silence would have ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... they separated at night for his reiterated allusions to the temptation of poor Ambrose Mallard's conclusive little weapon lying on the library table within reach of a man's arm-chair: in its case, and the case locked, yes, but easily opened, 'provoking every damnable sort of mortal curiosity!' The soundest men among us have their fits of the blues, Fleetwood was told. 'Not wholesome!' Chummy shook his head resolutely, and made himself comprehensibly mysterious. He meant well. He begged his old friend to promise ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from Judd! My father said, 'Twas conscience-money, and restored by Judd, Who had become a deacon in the Church. Why did you ask me whether I was sure The hundred thousand dollars came from Judd? What are you smiling at, provoking Linda?" "O, you're so quick, so clever, all you men! And women are so dull and credulous, So easily duped, when left to go alone! What you would prove is, that my daring step, In being first to make a declaration, Was needless, since priority in love Was ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... affectionately, and his senses were unable to support delight so exquisite. Such were the scenes, on which his thoughts were employed while sleeping: His unsatisfied Desires placed before him the most lustful and provoking Images, and he rioted in joys till then ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... that these men—ay, gather yourselves up, do; you ought to have known Gordon Harvey's blow, for you have often enough heard of it before now; there is no great mistake about that, you scoundrels—the truth is, Mr. Harman, that these fellows were primed with whiskey at M'Clutchy's and they gave me provoking language that I couldn't bear; it's well for them that I didn't take the butt end of that," said he, holding up the horse-pistol in his left hand, "but you'll find ten for one that would rather have a taste of it than of this;" shutting his ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... signs and sounds went the steady undertone of life in root and branch and unfurling leaf—provoking, inciting, making ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... up money at a fearful pace. To continue at that rate meant certain financial disaster in the near future. And yet the publishers of the rejuvenated sheet seemed never to count the cost of their experiment. Already they had begun the introduction of innovations that were startling and even mirth-provoking to staid, conservative publishers in the journalistic field. To survive the long period necessary for the education of the public taste to such things as the Express stood for demanded a source ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Provoking boy! why won't he know me? thought Lillian. And her tone was almost petulant as she refused to ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... in a profession, a life that is provoking to God; for that is the way to make him cast thee away ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pins with a jerk into the heavy white chenille that she was tying about her throat and hair, turned herself about before the glass with a last complacent look, and walked, in her deliberate, cool, provoking way, from the room. Gypsy got up, and—slammed the ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... office, fresh and buoyant after his long trip, his laugh as hearty and mirth-provoking as ever. After shaking hands with all, he threw himself into his ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... comes the husband, and clapping down by him took him by the hand, with an abundance of seeming courtesy, said, Pray, Mr. Dyer, don't let you and I fall out. I may, in my passion, have let fall some provoking words to your wife, but I can't help it, 'tis my way, and I really want money so that it almost makes me mad. I'll tell you what; your spouse, Mr. Dyer, owes me almost nine pounds, now if you'll give me five guineas, I'll give you a receipt in full. Upon which our cully of a robber, thinking ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... his arm round her). You are a provoking little witch, Louka. If you were in love with me, would you spy out of ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... genius of Hood seemed to hold a very festival of antics, oddity, and mirth; all his faculties seemed to rant and riot in the Saturnalia of comic incongruity. And it is difficult to say whether, in provoking laughter, his pen or his pencil is the more effective instrument. The mere illustrations of the subject-matter are in themselves irresistible. They reach at once and directly the instinctive sense of the ludicrous, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... not so much to pardon, - For why were your lips so red? The blond hair fell in a shower of gold From the proud, provoking head. And the beauty that flashed from the splendid eyes, And played round the tender mouth, Rushed over my soul like a warm sweet wind That ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Hogarth, who has been called the Father of English Painting, was a man of too much originality to be a mere imitator of foreign artists. He devoted his art to the representation of the follies of his time. As a satirist he was eminent, but his mirth-provoking pictures had a deeper purpose than that of amusing. Lord Orford wrote: "Mirth colored his pictures, but benevolence designed them. He smiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... reason for his acting so, I'm sure everybody would have changed their mind at once; but he will not. This was very nice of Jack,—he has some ways that really make me very fond of him; but he is also a very queer and provoking boy sometimes, as ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... dress if it differs from his own, and hunts you to the wall. Or if anything in your speech or manners pleases him, he laughs in your face. But in Paris, the Frenchman never is guilty of so ill-bred an action as to laugh at anybody in his presence, however provoking the occasion. If you are lost and inquire the way, he will run half a mile to show you, and will not even hear of thanks, I remember once in Liverpool asking in a barber's-shop the way to the Waterloo ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... to whom Nature and Berwickshire gave A humor endowed with effects so provoking, That when the whole House looks unusually grave You may always ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... certainly never have attained to any degree of intellectual eminence, to think that they were quite on a level with those who could and did: nay, that they had the advantage on their side because intellectual eminence was a snare rather than a help to Christianity. It is all the more provoking to find such passages as those which have been quoted from Milner in Evangelical writings (and they are not uncommon) because the Evangelical leaders themselves were very far indeed from being deficient either in abilities or ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... things. The paucity of statistical facts, however, plagued him, as it does every writer on Jamaica; and while the delinquencies of the planters are patent and palpable, he could not appreciate so well as a resident the difficulties arising from the provoking ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... It will come out this way: he will tell me that Kate has gone back on him and I shall have to teach the school, and I will say that is the ONLY solution and the BEST thing to do. Then I shall talk all evening about how provoking it is, and how I hate to change my plans, and say I am afraid I shall lose you if I have to put off our wedding to teach the school, and things like that," Nancy Ellen turned a flushed sparkling face to Robert, smiling quizzically, "and to-morrow I shall go early to see Serena Woodruff, who is ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... you afraid of me?" she asked, looking at him with her engaging little smile. In her eyes a bewitching brightness sparkled, partly veiled by the long lashes; and she laughed again, poised there in the sunshine, hands on her hips, delicately provoking his reply. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... does he reply to this cruel ridicule, these sharp, cutting, insolent words, that provoking laughter? ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... you have drawn, to all your influence, every hour, of every day of all your years. Is it not time you ended that controversy? He may do with you as He did with such people once before—swear in His wrath that you shall not enter into His rest. Are you not provoking Him as they provoked Him? Oh! my friend, be persuaded now to repent. Let your sin go away, and come to the feet of Jesus. For your own sake be persuaded. For the peace, the joy, the power, the glory, the gladness of living a life of consecration ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... married woman to the general public. But the application of it is that you must be careful not to contradict me, or cross me in anything, so that we can be like the Leonards very much sooner than they became so. The great object is not to have any hitchiness; and you know you ARE provoking—at times." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... English that in the end they had to break up their camp in the greatest haste, leaving their cooked provisions and tables ready spread for their foes to benefit by. They themselves hastened on to Abbeville, keeping slightly to the west of the town so as to avoid provoking attack, and be nearer to the coast, though as no English ships could be looked for in the river's mouth, the seacoast was ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... joy-provoking strains, Which, half forgotten, in my memory dwell; They send the life-blood bounding thro' my veins, And linger round me like a fairy spell. The songs of home are to the human heart Far dearer than the notes that song-birds pour, And of our very ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... steady refusal of William the Silent to sacrifice his faith was as unintelligible as the steady bigotry of Philip in demanding such a sacrifice. It was of more immediate consequence that Philip's anxiety to avoid provoking an intervention on the part of England left Elizabeth tranquil at home. The policy of Requesens after Alva's departure at the close of 1573 was a policy of pacification; and with the steady resistance of the Netherlands ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... well cut me throat, thinkin' she'd gone too. Becos' when I swore in for the Town Guard, it was with the idear—mind you rub that in!—of strikin' a blow for Beauty as well as for Britanniar, twig?" The thin elbow in the tweed sleeve nudged her, provoking a joyous giggle. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... door of the Chateau and across the court-yard to the Mazet—was processional. All the household went with us. The Vidame gallantly gave his arm to Mise Fougueiroun; I followed with her first officer—a sauce-box named Mouneto, so plumply provoking and charming in her Arlesian dress that I will not say what did or did not happen in the darkness as we passed the well! A little in our rear followed the house-servants, even to the least; and in the Mazet already were gathered, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... charts differed some fifteen miles in the longitude, and on all the charts a current of two miles an hour was indicated northward along the coast. At last land was made one morning, and here occurred one of those accidents so provoking after a long and tedious voyage. Macomb, the master and regular navigator, had made the correct observations, but Nicholson during the night, by an observation on the north star, put the ship some twenty miles farther south ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... hesitate long about procuring a copy of the catalogue of the library of so truly eminent a bibliographer.——MERIGOT. Catalogue des livres de M.J.G. Merigot, Libraire, par M. De Bure, 1800, 8vo. It is very seldom that this catalogue appears in our own country: which is the more provoking as the references to it, in foreign bibliographical works, render its possession necessary to the collector. Merigot was an eminent bookseller, and prepared a good catalogue of M. Lorry's library, which was sold in 1791, 8vo.——ST. MICHAEL. Bibliotheca Codicum Manuscriptorum Monasterij ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Up comes Heraclitus, proving that existence doesn't exist, and there is nothing in the world but becoming: that so far from change not existing, nothing exists but change. It was now about time to return to earth, and so Empedocles and Democritus came along with their Atoms; thereby provoking Anaxagoras into bringing in Soul to explain things. Things were going on thus satisfactorily when the Sophists appeared on the scene to say that we didn't really know anything, because all our knowledge was subjective, so Socrates insisted that it didn't matter, because conduct was ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... beckon," Elsie replied, with the most provoking indifference. "Run on by yourself if ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... forward with fresher spirit, and soon brought us to the low wooden huts of Kautokeino. We had travelled upwards of sixty miles since leaving Lippajarvi, breaking our own road through deep snow for a great part of the way. During this time our deers had not been changed. I cannot but respect the provoking animals after such ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... accomplished, there still remained the root of the evil engrafted in what we call the philosophical turn of mind of the Western nations—that is to say, in the disposition to call every thing in question, to seek out strange and novel difficulties, to start war-provoking theories in the midst of peace, to aim at founding a new school, or at least to stand forth as the brilliant and startling expounder of old doctrines in a new form, in fine to add a last name to the list, already over-long, of those who have disturbed the world ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... being non compos mentis,—and the petition would have been taken as representing the feeling of the men. But this could not be done: Bunce's friends were as firm as himself, and as yet only six crosses adorned the document. It was the more provoking, as Bunce himself could write his name legibly, and one of those three doubting souls had for years boasted of like power, and possessed, indeed, a Bible, in which he was proud to show his name written ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... about that man who is incessantly writing, and will look at nobody. He is almost as provoking ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... difficulties, deserted by the girl to whom he was engaged, Lester Ward would be an easy prey to the acute mind and provoking methods of the experienced detective. If jealousy can inspire hatred, then Ward must feel toward his successful rival all the ferocious hatred of a man resenting a great deprivation. And that vengeful passion must ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... brought the sandwiches and beer, yet he did not eat. In the middle distance certain figures began insistently to stand out,—figures of women sitting alone wherever he looked he met a provoking gaze. One woman, a little farther away than the rest, seemed determinedly bent on getting a nod of recognition, and it was gradually borne in upon Hodder's consciousness that her features were familiar. In ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that it might be looking its worst, but, as if in sheer contrariness, the fire was burning brightly, a shaft of sunlight lay across a rug, making the colours glow like jewels, and the whole room seemed to hold out welcoming hands. It was satisfactory (though somewhat provoking) that ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... wo-hon't! go away-hay!" and up went his heels, higher than ever. It must be very provoking to animals to have human beings pay absolutely no attention to their remarks. Really, it is so stupid sometimes. There was Jose, speaking quite distinctly for a donkey, and Brighteyes only clapped her ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... she was rather quiet,' said her companion with provoking indifference. 'She seemed to me ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... also an expedient employed by Essex, which, if possible, was more provoking to the queen than those sarcasms on her age and deformity; and that was, his secret applications to the king of Scots, her heir and successor. That prince had this year very narrowly escaped a dangerous, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... you don't give him your property," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, intentionally, as it seemed, provoking Levin. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... on her in his "Diary" in 1791: "On the 10th of December I went to see the opera of 'The Woodman' (by Shield). It was on the day when the provoking memoir of Mrs. Billington was published. She sang rather timidly, but yet well. She is a great genius. The tenor was Incledon. The common people in the gallery are very troublesome in every theatre, and take lead in uproar. The audience in the pit and ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... "This was terribly provoking, but we had nothing to do but follow him. This was easy enough, and we traced him to a detached patch of wood and jungle, two miles distant. This wood was four or five hundred yards across, and the exclamations of ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... come together to see the execution, to incite the mob to riot, overpower the little band of soldiers guarding me, release me, proclaim me far and wide as a hero, and use my name as the means of provoking a general rising. You can see, General, with what horror I so much as mention this affair, you can see that I have neither dreamt nor imagined it, but shudder at it, and for that very reason would hasten on my ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... wind? The cold, chilly feet, clinging clothes and wet skin? Or is there anything refreshingly humorous in the knowledge that Death groped about in the night for his own ... found them? Is there a mirth-provoking element in the ten to one chance that YOU ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... prosperity in England, he had that character which satirists, novelists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish adventurers. His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his undissembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his provoking indiscretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to the Tories. Nor did his enemies omit to compliment him, sometimes with more pleasantry than delicacy, on the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and his success in matrimonial ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... provoking," cried Lady Chatterton, with a tear in her eye, "to have such ingenious plans as Derwent and I had made lost from the want of necessity in putting them in force. Your demure niece has deceived us all handsomely; and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... coinage. I cannot express to you what I have felt in reading your history of yourself—how full of pity and concern, and admiration and amusement, I have been! You are the paragon of all that is silly and sensible, common-place and eccentric, sad and lively, provoking and interesting. Who can keep pace with the fluctuations of your fancy, the capprizios of your taste, the contradictions of your feelings? You are so odd, and all the time so perfectly natural!—so peculiar in yourself, and yet so ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... something of English literature in his grandfather's old books. Johnson was a fat black and white dog, who was obliged to keep his tongue out of his mouth to pant during the greater part of his days. He had fits of meditation, when Boswell galloped all over him without provoking a snap. Johnson was, indeed, a most amiable fellow, and had gained a reputation as a good watch dog, because on light nights he barked ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... not heed the irony of his speech, but presented him to Olga, who distantly acknowledged his bow. As Karl appeared to succumb to this strange influence, she felt herself growing indignant. Millar seemed bent on provoking an outburst, and his astonishing remarks in another would have seemed vulgar insolence, but in him they possessed a singular meaning that made ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... of that maxim, however, could not be made without sometimes provoking opposition among the handful of white settlers in India who, even when not connected with the administration, claimed a kind of class ascendancy which was not only in the conditions of the country but also in the nature of the case. It was perhaps natural that in a land of caste ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... the cheese and took it to his room. Alice tried to tease him into telling her what he wanted of it, but Bart maintained a provoking silence. ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... ability to lie a-sprawl in the spring grass and dream out an uncharted world,—a dream so vivid that, beside it, reality grew tenuous, and the actual world became one of childhood's shrug-provoking bugbears dimly remembered." ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... performance of religious ceremonies among these people. On all occasions, they cross themselves before eating or drinking, before entering a room, before putting on an article of clothing, etc. The hands have nothing else to do but to make crosses. But the most provoking thing of all is, that they stand still before every church they pass, bow half a dozen times, and cross themselves without end. When they are travelling, they stop their carriages to ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... worst of the matter is that Ulpian is not coming home. Mr. Manton wished him to act as guardian for his daughter, who is in Europe, and Ulpian will sail in the next steamer for England, to attend to some business connected with the estate. It is too provoking, isn't it? He says it is impossible to tell when we ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... probably, kept in the desk of our reverend instructor in the ways of syntax and the dismal paths of numbers. We have a lively recollection of the countless tables of foreign coins which we committed to memory, and of the provoking additions and subtractions we underwent to reduce to dollars and cents of the Federal denomination the fortunes of a score of Rothschilds. But when, under the shadow of the Drachenfels, we attempted to reimburse the Teutonic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the above form would wholly fall to pieces, in consequence of the privation of that love. Hence then it is that love, in order to resist assaults, hardens the substance of its form, and sets them erect, as it were in crests, like so many sharp prickles, that is, crisps itself; such is the provoking of love which is called zeal: wherefore if there is no opportunity of resistance, there arise anxiety and grief, because it foresees the extinction of interior life with its delights. But on the other hand, if the love is favored and ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... peril is as great as it seems, to you. Our people have ever shown themselves courageous, in great danger. They know the fate that awaits them, after provoking the anger of Rome. They know they are fighting for faith, for country, and their families, and will fight desperately. They greatly outnumber the Romans—at least, the army by which we shall first be attacked—and maybe, if we can resist that, we may make terms with Rome for, assuredly, ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... wise enough to abstain from provoking further the wrath of her amiable landlady, and continued to eat her soup in silence. But Mrs. Mudge neer forgot this interference, nor the cause of it, and henceforth with the malignity of a narrow-minded and spiteful woman, did what she could to make Paul uncomfortable. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... her. There was a light in his face that seemed to her to denote enthusiasm quite as much as love. To her wider experience in emotions this discovery of himself, which was involved in his discovery of her, was rather youthful, provoking a faint smile. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... sympathy for that cringing figure in there; but she felt a hot resentment toward that dapper, immaculately dressed and self-possessed young man, who stood there, silently now, tapping the papers with provoking coolness against the edge of the plain deal table in front of him. And somehow the resentment seemed to take a most peculiar phase. She resented the fact that she should feel resentment, no matter what the man did or said. It was as though, instead of anger, impersonal anger, at this low, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... anything wrong of Maggie, and no one dared to say anything wrong, how provoking was the girl! She did nothing like any one else, and fitted into no social groove. She did not like the lads to joke with her, she never joined the young lassies, who in pleasant weather sat upon the beach, mending the nets. In the days when Maggie had nets to mend, she mended ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... his rare powers solely to elucidate and convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... could not however preserve the royal theologian, now in her thirtieth year, from serious disturbance on account of certain ill-favored likenesses of her gracious countenance which had obtained a general circulation among her loving subjects. So provoking an abuse was thought to justify and require the special exertion of the royal prerogative for its correction, and Cecil was directed to draw up an ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... through suggestion. His success depends on his fashion of provoking this suggestion. Many experiments have shown to what point a collectivity may be subjected ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... and mortified at this discreet behaviour of the cuckoo, which, like happiness, was always on the wing, perseveringly followed the provoking bird—one walked, the other flew, the distance increased at every flight, and thus they got over a great deal of ground; the young man still believing his uncle's farm was close behind him—the cuckoo perfectly easy, knowing full well he could find his leafy home whenever he might please to return ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... conditions he would never have ventured to say a single word to any one of the four chums; or if he did, it would have probably been in the nature of an ugly growl, and some sarcastic comment on their personal appearance, with the sinister hope of provoking a dispute that might lead ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... once, provoking a general laugh: Julian, staring at him in heavy abstraction, said dreamily, "Ho—ho—hold your tongue," while the clerk, at "John the Baptist's" side, gently grasped between the shoulders a fold of his coat, mildly suggested, "Have ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... notwithstanding its great resistance to the lines of force. As passage from iron to air is equivalent to lengthening of the lines, it is readily seen that such lengthening may oppose more effect than a slight shortening due to leaving iron, for air or space may give in provoking a closure and disappearance of the lines. Looked at from another standpoint, the lines on the iron may actually require a small amount of initial energy to dislodge them therefrom, so that after being dislodged they may collapse and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... not really any thought among us of poking fun at Edmund; we respected and admired him far too much for that; nevertheless, catching the infection of banter from Jack, we united in demanding, in a manner which I can now see must have appeared most provoking: ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... you will have to know something, and know it to your cost, if you stay here. You don't know what a provoking, stupid, careless, unreasonable, childish, ungrateful set ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rare, how lonely in our literature is the beauty of your sentences! "I can't express the charm of them" (so you write of George Sand; so we may write of you): "they seem to me like the sound of country bells, provoking I don't know what vein of music and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear." Surely that style, so fresh, so rich, so full of surprises—that style which stamps as classical your fragments of slang, and perpetually astonishes and delights—would alone give ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... the time known. Among other matters, inoculation for the small pox was then warmly opposed as being highly improper. The character of the paper was spirited, and its tone that of religious scepticism. It was not long in attracting much of the public attention, and in provoking the resentment of the colonial Government and clergy. The Rev. Increase Mather having been claimed in the Courant as one of its supporters, came out with a long and wrathful contradiction of the assertion. 'I can well remember,' says that eminent and excellent divine, 'when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wish to leave them, (A wish her conscious heart well knew would grieve them), If in the ripening of her silent thought A still voice had not whispered that she ought To leave that world of love and mirth and beauty, To share man's burden in this world of duty. (There's anticlimax for you! Most provoking, Just when you thought that I was only joking, Or idly fingering the poet's laurel, To find my story threatens to be moral! But as for morals, though in verse we scout them, In life we somehow can't get on without them; So if I don't insert a moral distich ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... "How provoking!" said the oldest; "he will spoil it all with his rashness!" The Phoenix now recovered himself, and having finished his two broken sentences together, "degenerate—are a goose," for he never left anything undone, told Rosedrop to fly faster and carry the ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... from my brow. To my guide, however, the ascent appeared to be neither toilsome nor difficult. The heat of the day for him had no terrors, no moisture was wrung from his tanned countenance; he drew not one short breath; and hopped upon the stones and rocks with all the provoking agility of a mountain goat. Before we had accomplished one half of the ascent, I felt myself quite exhausted. I reeled and staggered. "Cheer up, master mine, be of good cheer, and have no care," said the guide. "Yonder I ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... images of men's genius and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... gifts and defects, with the same cool acumen, the same detachment, apparently, he might have given, say, to the Egyptian or the Balkan problem. Lady Tranmore was not invited to bow before a divinity; she was asked to accept a very gifted and lovely child, often troublesome and provoking, but full of a glorious promise which only persons of discernment, like herself and Ashe, could fully realize. He told her, with a laugh, that she could never have behaved even tolerably to a stupid daughter-in-law. Whereas, let London ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... king, hastily, "I will have no more provoking the foul fiend; conspirator or not, I have had enough of Master Warner. Pah! My poor placard is turned lampblack. Sweet mother-in-law, take him under thy protection; ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dinner was ended. It was a provoking conversation. Even the imperturbable Miss Harrison rose from her place rather sooner than usual. Rameyev went to his own room to get his hour's nap. The young people went into the garden. Misha and Elena ran downhill to the river. They had a keen desire to ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... halting and constrained, in spite of Ustenka's and Beletski's free and easy manner and their wish to enliven the company. Olenin faltered, and tried to think of something to say, feeling that he was exciting curiosity and perhaps provoking ridicule and infecting the others with his shyness. He blushed, and it seemed to him that Maryanka in particular was feeling uncomfortable. 'Most likely they are expecting us to give them some money,' ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... pillow. Many of them flew up by the force of the pillow; some desperately clung on or shot against my nose or head. I could not very well hit those on my head with the pillow; I grabbed such, and dashed them on the floor. What was more provoking was that no matter how hard I dashed them, they landed on the mosquito-net where they made a fluffy jerk and remained, far from being dead. At last, in about half an hour the slaughter of the grasshoppers was ended. I fetched a broom and swept them out. The ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... arrived at the church the mass was nearly over. The Indians, on entering, made quite a noise, and clatter. They would' not remove their hats or head-dresses, they Would not shut the door, nor remain silent, in fact, they did anything they considered provoking and ugly. The good priest, the ill-fated Father Fafard, turned upon the altar, and addressed them. He warned them of the danger of excitement and he also forbade them to do any harm. He told them to go quietly away to their camps and not disturb the happiness and peace of the community. ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... phases too hard to grasp, and to reduce some of the attendant difficulties. What happens? Those things which are most significant to the scientific man, and most valuable in the logic of actual inquiry and classification, drop out. The really thought-provoking character is obscured, and the organizing function disappears. Or, as we commonly say, the child's reasoning powers, the faculty of abstraction and generalization, are not adequately developed. So the subject-matter is evacuated of its logical ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... conversion or extinction; we have even survived the iron heels and ruthless sabres of Cromwell's sanctimonious troopers; and we can go back upon the history of those times calmly enough now. But this "sad misgiving" of Mr. Dickens; this patronizing condescension; this contemptuous pity, is more than provoking. It is probable he had not the time or inclination to read deeply into Irish history, but he must have had a general knowledge of it more than sufficient to inform him, that there were causes in superabundance ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... difference betwixt any two portions of existence, as between that in which the artist, if an enthusiast, collects the subjects of his drawings, and that which must necessarily he dedicated to turning over his portfolio, and exhibiting them to the provoking indifference, or more provoking criticism, of fashionable amateurs. 'During the summer of my year,' says Dudley, 'I am as free as a wild Indian, enjoying myself at liberty amid the grandest scenes of nature; ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Saturday morning. Beth was up bright and early, therefore, on Saturday. She was all impatience to be through breakfast that she might learn her fate, but she found that she might as well possess her soul in patience, as Maggie proved provoking, and would not hurry in ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... morning after their provoking delay, when the travellers again appeared at the boat landing, impatient to resume their voyage, Aaron Burr was in a mood not to be trifled with. It scarcely mollified his anger to discover on the deck of the boat the slippery ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... cronies. He was not good tempered—nor am I—but with a little tact his temper was manageable, and I thought him so superior a man, that I was willing to sacrifice something to his humours, which were often, at the same time, amusing and provoking. What became of his papers (and he certainly had many), at the time of his death, was never known. I mention this by the way, fearing to skip it over, and as he wrote remarkably well, both in Latin and English. We went down to Newstead together, [6] where I had got ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... the edge of the water. Camille, irritated at the incessant attentions of his mother, at times broke out in open revolt. He wished to run about and make himself ill, to escape the fondling that disgusted him. He would then drag Therese along with him, provoking her to wrestle, to roll in the grass. One day, having pushed his cousin down, the young girl bounded to her feet with all the savageness of a wild beast, and, with flaming face and bloodshot eyes, fell ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... with a conscience is often provoking, sometimes impossible. Persuasion is lost upon him. He will not get angry, and he looks at one with such a far-away expression in his face that in striving to persuade him one feels earthly and even fiendish. At least this was my experience with Craig. He spent a week with me just before ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... fascinations of calenture, brooded over me as the moon over the tides—forcing me day and night into speculations upon great intellectual problems, many times beyond my strength, as indeed often beyond all human strength, but not the less provoking me to pursue them. As a prophet in days of old had no power to resist the voice which, from hidden worlds, called him to a mission, sometimes, perhaps, revolting to his human sensibilities, as he must deliver, was under a coercion to deliver the burning word that spoke ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... a period of decline. The very existence of the empire was threatened, both from within and from without. The armies on the frontiers often set up their favorite leaders as contestants for the throne, thus provoking civil war. Ambitious governors of distant provinces sometimes revolted against a weak or unpopular emperor and tried to establish independent states. The Germans took advantage of the unsettled condition of affairs to make constant inroads. About the middle of the third century ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... replied the other: 'she's not the style of woman you soon tire of. But be that as it may, it's devilish provoking now that we can't be jolly, because he chooses to be on his ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... happy, she'd like to know what could. And no one—not one of those odious people in London whom she secretly hated—would have a single word of censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law with her in the happy mood she had been ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... returned either word or blow, even when pain or vexation brought the tears to their eyes. When its caprices became intolerable most of its companions withdrew; one, however, always remaining on the watch, even if driven from the immediate neighbourhood by its intolerably provoking temper, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... "How provoking!" exclaimed Major Sandars. "One of my best men too, doctor. Really, Bolter, I must put a stop to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... figure was admirable; from the crest of her gracefully poised head to the tip of her well-chosen boot she was, in line and structure, the type of mature woman. Her face, if it did not indicate a mind to match her frame, was at the least sweet-featured and provoking; characterless somewhat, but void of danger-signals; doubtless too good to be merely played with; in any case, very capable of sending a ray, in one moment or another, to the shadowy dreaming-place of graver thoughts. Alice Maud Mutimer ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... have taken the spinster's old tales of Adele's regard for him and devotion to him at their highest truth, (which he never did, because of the girl's provoking familiarity and indifference,) he would have felt a great charm in his life cut off. Yet now he wanders in search of her with his heart upon his lip and a great fire in his brain. Not a little pride in affronting opinion may have kindled the glow of his sudden resolve. There was an audacity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best subject for cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and his worst in the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his will, had to feel as conscious of the young man's imaginative ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were to Pasha one long, ugly dream. Not that he minded the hard riding by day and night. In time he became used to all that. He could even endure the irregular feeding, the sleeping in the open during all kinds of weather, and the lack of proper grooming. But the vicious jerks on the torture-provoking cavalry bit, the flat sabre blows on the flank which he not infrequently got from his ill-tempered master, and, above all, the cruel digs of the spur-wheels—these things he could not understand. Such treatment he was sure he did not merit. "Mars" Clayton he came ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... enemy assaulted me afresh, setting before me the danger I should run myself into of provoking my father to use severity towards me; and perhaps to be casting me utterly off. But over this temptation the Lord, who I cried unto, supported me, and gave me faith to believe that He would bear me through whatever might ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... special care and management of the wife, daughters, and younger lads of the husbandman. Rebecca Nurse was an efficient helpmeet; contributing her whole share to the success of the great enterprise of clearing the estate, as well as in bringing up and educating a large family. It was, no doubt, very provoking to her, as it would be to any one, to have vegetable and flower beds devastated by the ravages of a neighbor's stray pigs. To what extent her "railing and scolding" went, she was not allowed to contribute her ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... neighboring tables, hearing so much laughter and seeing that Westby was provoking it, would stop eating and twist round and tilt back their chairs and strain their ears eagerly for some fragment of the fun. At last at the head table Mr. Randolph took cognizance of this daily boisterousness, spoke to Irving about it, and asked him to curb it. Irving thereupon suggested ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... I said he didn't understand, and now I see that I must have had rather a provoking way of saying it—like as if I wanted to put him down. I saw his face look vexed, and he answered ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... impossible to affirm that each of the great characters is thoroughly consistent or offers a strictly accurate motivation. Rather, they are magnificent portraits—like the Mona Lisa—crowded with a penetrating but question-provoking psychology. Into such parts and situations as the drama could afford are impressed every possible revelation of our motives; but his model was always reality and he never yielded ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Statute or the disputed election of a College officer were already in the air. The only dissension of any interest was one which led to an appeal to the Visitor: the Visitor was Laud, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who showed great gentleness and patience in dealing with a person even more provoking than he found ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... single chance carried the day! The proclamation was perfect in all its parts, well constructed, well written, well sealed, and well published; all that was wanting to insure its effect was, that the Yankees should stand in awe of it; but, provoking to relate, they treated it with the most absolute contempt, applied it to an unseemly purpose, and thus did the first warlike proclamation come to a shameful end—a fate which I am credibly informed has befallen but too ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Emperor, was far from such as flattered either his vanity or views. For the first days, some few solitary voices alone accompanied the "Vive l'Empereur!" of his generals, and of his aides-de-camp. This indifference, or, as he called it, mutinous spirit, was so much the more provoking as it was unexpected. He did not, as usual, ascribe it to the emissaries or gold of England, but to the secret adherents of Pichegru and Moreau amongst the brigades or divisions that had served under these unfortunate generals. He ordered, in consequence, his Minister Berthier ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... she spent half an hour that morning braiding her auntie's ringlets down her back, and tying the cue with a pink ribbon like her own. But for all the little barber could do the flaxen cue would not lie flat. It was an old story, but very provoking. ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... of mirth-provoking difficulty with b and g, the man meekly explained that he did know the butt end of a gad from the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... subject of the influence of the West upon the East has been recently raised in the very interesting and thought-provoking book on "Asia and Europe" by the English writer, Meredith Townsend. He stiffly maintains that the West never has, and, probably, never will, seriously and permanently influence the East in thought and life. While there is a semblance, yea an element, of truth in his contention, so far as the past ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... submarine commander wasn't much worried about Eph's deliberately provoking any fistic encounter with a fellow much smaller than himself. In the first place, the carroty-haired boy wasn't quarrelsome, unless actually driven into a fight. At all times Somers was too manly to take out wrath on anyone merely up ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... consented to give Brilliant Blossom. He sent with her a plentiful dower—many "tables"* of merchandise—but he sent also her elder sister, Enduring-as-Rock, a maiden so ill favoured that Ninigi dismissed her with disgust, thus provoking the curse of the Kami of mountains, who declared that had his elder daughter been welcomed, the lives of the heavenly sovereigns** would have been as long as her name suggested, but that since she ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... lie a piece more uphill and you'll lie more natural,' said Mr Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press your face down and smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, 'twill cure anything except broken necks, or hearts. I ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... afraid of overpraising it, but probe and probe for words to hint its surprising virtues. We may well celebrate it with festivals and music. It has that indescribable quality of all first things,—that shy, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. It is eager and sanguine as youth. It is born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... man; "now you really have betrayed yourself. If you were not in love, you would have laughed instead of getting angry. Still I won't go on provoking you—tell me what you have just been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would "double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;" and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... the prisoner was not placed in one of the cells in the floor below may have been owing to the fact that the law recognized his detention as only temporary, and while providing the two guards as a preventive against the egress of crime within, discreetly removed all unnecessary and provoking obstacles to the ingress ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... The violent Sabbath-round is no more the one only dance of the evening. Thereto are now added the Moorish dances, lively or languishing, but always amorous and obscene, in which girls dressed up for the purpose, like La Murgui or La Lisalda, feigned and showed off the most provoking characters. Among the Basques these dances formed, we are told, the invincible charm which sent the whole world of women, wives, daughters, widows—the last in great ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... But this provoking fellow Has a very curious way Of feeling rather hurt at tricks That other people play,— Just like some older jokers, Who laugh at fun they make, But never can enjoy the fun Of jokes they have ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... confirmed by Ayrton. But by continuing in this direction she must soon disappear behind Claw Cape, as the wind was from the southwest, and to watch her it would be then necessary to ascend the height of Washington Bay, near Port Balloon—a provoking circumstance, for it was already five o'clock in the evening, and the twilight would soon make any observation ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... about the peaches, which were all in a dreadful mess, and quite mixed up with the bran and scarcely fit to touch, though Aunt Susan did take out one or two to see the extent of the decay. How very provoking for you both when you heard of the detention at Havre, particularly when P. G. had taken such precautions with regard to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... give up his idea of provoking a quarrel; it was so much the simplest way! He bent his eyes on her upturned face, with the darkest frown he could achieve. "You are not discreet. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... coal except an empty bag, to see a man who permits himself to own two or three hundred thousand sacks letting wild beasts loose to guard his coal mountain, and then going to bed after having written on the gate: "Watch-dogs unfastened at dusk"? Is not that very provoking ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Austrian "Rotbuch," Nos. 28, 31, 44; Brit. White Paper, Nos. 91-97, 161. J'accuse (III. A) goes too far in accusing Austria of consciously provoking a European War; for, as I have shown, she wished on August 1 to continue negotiations with Russia. The retort that she did so only when she knew that Germany was about to throw down the gauntlet, seems to me far-fetched. Besides, Austria was ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Annixter, perplexed and troubled. No other man of his acquaintance could have so contradicted Annixter without provoking a quarrel upon the instant. Why the young rancher, irascible, obstinate, belligerent, should invariably defer to the poet, was an inconsistency never to be explained. It was with great surprise that ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
