"Temptation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unhesitatingly to try to find out. For some time he climbed the slope in silence, his violin, mute, under his arm; but the white road still lay in tantalizing mystery before him when a by-path offered the greater temptation, and lured him to explore ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... 'It was a sudden temptation, my lord, which I knew not how to resist, and was carried away thereby. Have pity upon me, dear my ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... them from the root forcibly, though the heart-strings crack, and the soul trembles, as with a spiritual earthquake. To nerve the mind firmly and resolutely, yet humbly withal, and contritely, and with prayer against temptation, prayer for support from on high—to resist the Evil One with the whole force of the intellect, the whole truth of the heart, and to stop the ears steadfastly against the voice of the charmer, charm ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... tossing, tumbling waves. Adair had left the deck for a few minutes to obtain some refreshment, for he saw that the night was likely to prove a boisterous one, and he intended, as every good commander will do under such circumstances, to remain on deck. He hurried over his meal; indeed, there was no temptation to spend any longer time over it, as even the puddings and fiddles could scarcely keep the articles on the table. He had rung for his steward to clear away, to avoid that operation being performed by the eccentric movements of the billows, and was going towards the door of the cabin, when ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... away, however, the mice will play. The temptation to make overtures to "the devil" was too great for the young ladies; and whenever they heard him in his room, while one kept a lookout at the door for the intrusions of "old humpback," there was a delicate "tat-tat-tat" at ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... long. More hurriedly than was her custom she glided, a glorified young creature, in and out amongst the shrubbery, until the envious chapel door hid her from my sight. No living thing was in view. The sound of no discordant voice broke the holy peace of God. Temptation came never to our first erring mother in ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... unanimity of opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy of keeping the slave in ignorance. There is, perhaps, another reason why the law against education is so seldom violated. The slave is too poor to be able to offer a temptation sufficiently strong to induce a white man to violate it; and it is not to be supposed that in a community where the moral and religious sentiment is in favor of slavery, many martyrs will be found sacrificing their liberty and lives by ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... under strong temptation, not to say under imperative necessity, I employed thieves and burglars, I was neither a robber nor a murderer in intention. I wanted to get my own money, withheld from me against my expressed desire—that was all. I do not say ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... except, and mig[h]t as well be left out, as in deceit, conceit, of t[h]e same sin, so empty temptation. ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... in some cases their steps actually are so carved. Polperro, part of which is in the parish of Talland and part in Lansallos, remains more lonely and primitive than Looe, for it is not touched by the railway, and its site offers little temptation to expansion. But it is becoming more and more sought after; artists have learned to love it and have introduced it to the art galleries; the inevitable sophistication must follow, just as Clovelly and Robin Hood's Bay have become ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... At every swinging stride his horse made he felt the skin being rubbed off of his legs where they rubbed against the saddle leather. His soft hands were cut by the reins, he was sore from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet. But as each fresh temptation assailed him a glance at Conniston, riding a few paces ahead, made him pull himself together. For some day the old man would relent, and then Roger Hapgood would see that for every agonized mile now he would be ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... there fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle with him; defiantly setting him at naught till he yield and fly. Name it as we choose: with or without visible Devil, whether in the natural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of selfishness and baseness,—to such Temptation are we all called. Unhappy if we are not! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendor; but quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders, in dull pain, in darkness, under earthly vapors!—Our Wilderness ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... of a seaman's life. Days of toil bring nights of drowsiness; and the repose of nature presents a constant temptation to imitate her example. The reaction of excitement destroys the disposition to indulge in the song, the jest, or the tale; and the mind, like the body, is disposed to rest from its labors. Even the murmuring wash of the water, as it rises and falls against the vessel's sides, sounds like ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the customs of initiation are those connected with the organs of generation, excluding, as is remarked above, complete excision, which belongs to conceptions of religious asceticism (consecration to a deity, preservation against temptation) in the higher cults, and is not found among savages.[302] Partial excision occurs in circumcision, for males, and ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... found the controversial temptation too strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument, with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no foothold in the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point, involving him in his own contradictions, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Whilst he condemned Babette, he also condemned himself. He thought of the wild, wicked feelings which had lately possessed him. Could he confess everything to Babette? Every thought, which in the hour of temptation might have become a reality? He had lost her ring and by this loss had she won him back. Could she confess to him? It seemed as if his heart would break when he thought of her; so many recollections passed ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... variously marked with brown, red, or black spots. The passion for dog's flesh is in these countries very strong, and no European can keep an animal of this kind many weeks. An officer arrived at Cape Coast Castle when I was there, accompanied by three, not imagining the temptation they would present to the appetite of the natives. One disappeared in the act of landing, and the two others were gone before three weeks had elapsed. My uncle fancied that his rank would secure a favourite sent to him from Europe. He one morning ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... was raised in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an' let out he'd got tight, an' been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin' him to come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of temptation an' where she'd love ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... was that as the box was there to hold biscuits and now held none, he had come to regard it as useless—as having lost its function, so to speak—also that its presence there was an insult to his intelligence, a constant temptation to make a fool of himself by visiting it half a dozen times a day only to find it empty as usual. Better, then, to get rid of it altogether, and no doubt when he did it he put a little temper into ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... themes is, not that they do not conform to this or that canon of art, but that it needs an exceptional amount of knowledge and dramaturgic skill to handle them successfully. It is far easier to tell a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. This has often been done upon deliberate theory, in the belief that no play can exist, or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting plot. Thus the late James A. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... fitting quotation. "The earth, the globular body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in the universe. There are, circling about our own sun, six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation to conjecture, that these globes, some of them much larger than our own, are not dead and barren: —that they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life, intelligence." [459] In a most eloquent passage, Dr. Chalmers, who will always be heard with admiration, exclaims: "Who ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... brother—Mr. Traill, and probably a lady," she said. She laid no stress on the last word, much as the temptation assailed her. "It's quite likely they may be down to lunch. When they come, there is no need to say that I am here, unless, of course, Mr. Traill asks you. You'd better go and ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... heart's core. I resolved to go no further in the matter, never again to put it to test. For a long time I stayed away from the Mission, occupying myself with my work, keeping it out of my mind. But the temptation was too strong. One night I found myself there again, under the black shadow of the pear trees calling for Angele, summoning her from out the dark, from out the night. This time the Answer was prompt, unmistakable. I cannot explain to you what it was, nor how it came to me, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Merlin standing for the intellect, the Lady of the Lake for religion, etc. Allegory was a favourite mediaeval mode, and the Grail legend contains an element of mysticism which invites an emblematic treatment. But the attraction of this fashion for minds of a Platonic cast is dangerous to art: the temptation to find a meaning in human life more esoteric than any afforded by the literal life itself. A delicate balance must be kept between that presentation of the concrete which makes it significant by making it representative and typical, and that ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... then you must pardon me, If I presume to mitigate the crime. Consider, strong allurements soften guilt; Long was his absence, ardent was his love, At midnight his return, the next day destin'd For his espousals—'twas a strong temptation. ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... I amongst them, where through the good providence of God, I did not wet my foot. I went along that day mourning and lamenting, leaving farther my own country, and traveling into a vast and howling wilderness, and I understood something of Lot's wife's temptation, when she looked back. We came that day to a great swamp, by the side of which we took up our lodging that night. When I came to the brow of the hill, that looked toward the swamp, I thought we had been come to a great Indian ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... their cruel enemy, till they are within his reach. The cat has the same power, and can by this art draw birds from the tops of trees within her reach. These little creatures seem unable to resist the temptation of approaching her, and, even when driven away, will return from a distance to the same spot, seeking, instead of shunning, the danger which is certain to prove fatal to them in the end. Some writers assert ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... frozen myself," retorted Ward Porton, and when he saw the man drinking he could not resist the temptation to take some ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... make me very happy, Albert," replied Mlle. d'Armilly, and her full red lips looked so luscious, ripe and alluring, that Joliette could not resist the temptation to bestow a ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs. Burton, and, later, when, in following the latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel, fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands, how she came to succumb to the temptation of endeavouring to ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... hard with the sight of human calamity, and becomes callous to the miseries its owner inflicts; especially where we act the wrongs on our own kith and kin, regardless who or how many that are dear to us suffer by our evil deeds. It is, besides, Colonel Howard, a dangerous temptation, to one little practiced in the great world, to find himself suddenly elevated into the seat of power; and if it does not lead to the commission of great crimes, it surely prepares the way to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Marya Dmitrievna's husband, he wanted to intrust the care of the house to Agafya. But she refused "on account of temptation;" he scolded her, but she bowed humbly and left the room. Kalitin was clever in understanding men; he understood Agafya and did not forget her. When he moved to the town, he gave her, with her consent, the place of nurse ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... innumerable army of tramps and travellers moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse, and were now in all places drawing near to the inn door and the night's rest. The pictures swarmed and vanished in his brain; a surge of temptation, a beat of all his blood, went over him, to set spur to the mare and to go on into the unknown for ever. And then it passed away; hunger and fatigue, and that habit of middling actions which we call common sense, resumed their ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... portions of the State, ignorant men, many of them without political rights, degraded in social position, and instinctive of revolt, all this is true. It is proved by the daily record of our police courts, and by the ineffective labors of those good men among us, who seek to detach want from temptation, passion from ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... been hurt, though one might say that the evening left her sense of humor rather sore. At that moment she was dallying with the temptation to describe the whole scene in a letter to a valued friend in Philadelphia, who would have appreciated it with mirth. In the end she did not write. It ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... next day in company with a young lawyer named Desgenais; we took pistols, another witness, and repaired to the woods of Vincennes. On the way I avoided speaking to my adversary or even approaching him; thus I resisted the temptation to insult or strike him, a useless form of violence at a time when the law recognized the code. But I could not remove my eyes from him. He was the companion of my childhood and we had lived in the closest intimacy for many years. He understood ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... an honest-minded Mingo,—one that you could put faith in, if he had a temptation to deceive you. Cheating seems to be their gift, and I sometimes think they ought to be pitied for ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... always is a vice; all that we can do is to excuse and cleanse it," hence it was made a sacrament of the Church. Origen declares: "Marriage is something unholy and unclean, a means for sensuality," and, in order to resist the temptation, he emasculated himself. Tertulian declares: "Celibacy is preferable, even if the human race goes to ground." Augustine teaches: "The celibates will shine in heaven like brilliant stars, while their parents (who brought them forth) are like dark stars." Eusebius and Hieronymus agree that the Biblical ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... he was easy and familiar. It was evident that he liked her, and he listened to her opinions; but I could never detect what seemed to me any signs of sentiment on his part in her regard. Miss Kingsley must have thought differently, for on one or two occasions she was unable to resist the temptation, as they went out of the door together, of looking back at me with an air of triumph. The more Mr. Spence seemed to avoid me, the kinder and more patronizing was her manner; and she so far evinced her friendship presently as to show me the manuscript of a novel which she had written, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... cheerless and miserable, for there was a thick fog outside, one which had been wafted over from the sea, so that there was no temptation to go out, and, in spite of my low spirits, I was hungry enough to make me long ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... check—the second this morning. Good address and an expensive tailor certainly did count: with them as capital, a man could take a profit at any time. Gray's fingers strayed to the small change in his trousers pocket and he turned longing eyes back toward the bank interior. Without doubt it was a temptation, especially inasmuch as at that moment his well-manicured right hand held in its grasp every cent that ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... I know those moments of temptation when virtue has failed to reward us and we regret having obeyed her! Who has not felt this weakness in hours of trial, and who has not uttered, at least once, the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of St. Bernard's order a small consecrated bag of musk, the perfume of which neither dead man nor devil could endure; with this he intended to arm himself against all assaults. Pitichinaccio could not resist the temptation of a promised box of candied grapes, but Signor Pasquale had besides expressly to give his consent that he might wear his new abbot's coat, instead of his petticoats, which he affirmed had proved an immediate source of attraction to ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... there is a Great War going on all the time on the purely mental plane; and I cannot help thinking your view is often a heresy; and I know only too well that when you lead it, it is likely to be a large heresy. I fear that being didactic means being disproportionate; and that the temptation to attack something I think I can correct leads to missing (in my writing, not in my reading) a thousand fine things that I could never imitate. It is lucky for me that you are not very often a book-reviewer, when I bring out my own ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... between morality as it has been, and morality as it ought to be. The enforcing of legal and moral enactments demands a power of coercion, to be lodged in the hands of certain persons; the possession of which is a temptation to exceed the strict exigencies of public safety, or the common welfare. Probably many of the whims, fancies, ceremonies, likings and antipathies, that have found their way into the moral codes of nations, have arisen from the arbitrary disposition of certain ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... the church as before in the state. I was, forsooth, the wise, the self-sufficient, the impeccable!—I was the counsellor of councils—I was the director of prelates. How should I stumble?—wherefore should I fear temptation? Alas! I became confessor to a sisterhood, and amongst that sisterhood I found the long-loved—the long-lost. Spare me further confession!—A fallen nun, whose guilt was avenged by self-murder, sleeps soundly in the vaults of Engaddi; while, above her very grave, gibbers, moans, and roars a ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... of Mr. Humiston is his strong will, and this is well exemplified in the fact that although born with a constitutional fierce thirst for liquor, he has been able to continue in right habits of temperance through all temptation, though at the cost of many powerful struggles with his inordinate cravings. He is a man of strong religions convictions, and has been so from his youth up. For many years he was connected with the Methodist church on ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... from grace, go down— And lost in fathomless gulfs of wickedness, Cry out with utter yearning to His love That it may save them, and repentant turn Their prodigal faces toward His doors again, Never to wander more. But some few souls, Who neither spurn temptation nor repent After their fall—these unregenerate It is mine office wholly to destroy And cleanse the universe for the praise of God. Thus does all evil serve His mighty throne, And ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... I managed to avoid giving in to the temptation to snatch Phyl's sumptuous chinchilla coat, Madge's perfectly adorable hat, Theo's bronze shoes, Dot's embroidered silk handbag, and Bess's ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... white people's. But there are some white men in our agencies, are good but only few of them, And there are most of all bad ones. Those bad ones who are try hard to pull us down. So hoping you will help and pray for us. We may stand against these bad temptation. And finally we shall be risen very slowly, from the lowest to the highest civilization. Some of the white man those who opposed the Indian they said—"The Indians can never be civilized are dead Indian not lives Indians but dead, them are unsuccessful and good for anything." It may be very ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... the bank discharging her cargo. It was the last link between him and the great outside world of civilization. In a few hours it would be gone, and for an instant there came to him the longing to go back and give up his foolish quest. He banished the temptation, however, and plodded steadily on his way. He had never turned back yet, and he was determined that this should not be the first time. He had the unaccountable conviction that the lap of the future held something in store for him, and that he would come into ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... operation, however, there is needed not only ships individually powerful, but numbers of such ships; and that the numbers of Sampson's fleet were maintained—not drawn off to other, though important, operations—even under such sore temptation as the dash of Camara's fleet from Cadiz towards the Philippines, was due to the Department's ability to hold fast the primary conception of concentration upon a single purpose, even though running ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... by a thick screen of trees. She lingered along the path looking at a few late roses which were still blooming in this sheltered spot against the wall of the house, when she was startled by the sound of her own name, and, looking up, she saw that there was an open window above her. The temptation was too great. She held ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... conviction that his influence on the men against the evils which were their especial snare was as the wind against the incoming tide, beating in from the North Sea. He could make a ripple, a certain amount of fussy noise, but the tide of temptation rolled steadily onward, unchecked in ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... pension, his wishes appear to have been bounded. Temptation to enter into orders in our church was thrice offered him, and as often rejected; once in the shape of a general promise of patronage from Dr. Drummond, Archbishop of York; next, of a small living in Dorsetshire, in the gift of Mr. John Pitt: ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... life, unwithdrawn to the end. The context implies that the confession is maintained in the face of opposition, and that the denial is a cowardly attempt to save one's skin at the cost of treason to Jesus. The temptation does not come in that sharpest form to us. Perhaps some cowards would be made brave if it did. It is perhaps easier to face the gibbet and the fire, and screw oneself up for once to a brief endurance, than to resist the more specious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the fellow's nature was actually so, this generosity on the part of the young explorer would not count for a row of pins when occasion arose whereby the temptation came to Stackpole to appropriate some of the expensive outfit his envious eyes had gloated over during his stay ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... from Hispaniola.[46] The supply never equalled the demand, however, and this explains why John Hawkins found it so profitable to carry ship-loads of blacks across from the Guinea coast, and why Spanish colonists could not resist the temptation to buy them, notwithstanding the stringent laws against ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... long breath of relief. He was safe for another week. Had a week before him in which to formulate his plans. And he would formulate them too, he promised himself, and would put the responsibility of this irresponsible young creature back upon the shoulders where it belonged. It was a great temptation not to return to the shipping office again and engage a berth on the next homeward bound liner, but on second thought, he determined not to do so. Above all things he prided himself on being just and ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... the Republic and a jealous Mother Society trust? In these times of temptation, of Preternatural Insight! For there are Factions of the Stranger, 'de l'etranger,' Factions of Moderates, of Enraged; all manner of Factions: we walk in a world of Plots; strings, universally spread, of deadly gins and falltraps, baited by the gold of Pitt! Clootz, Speaker of Mankind so-called, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of the way of the swiftly moving deck-hands. But Indians he could see any day by simply riding into his uncle's woods; but who were those long-legged, lank fellows who took just as much care of their rifles and knapsacks as the Indians did? They were hunters, and Tom could not resist the temptation to turn his eyes away from the fore-castle back to the main-deck to take a second survey of the motley group of men he had seen there. They were cowboys all of them, and their clothing, especially their hats and boots, were as nearly perfect as money could buy. They were all young fellows, ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... center of the stage before an audience of millions in the great theater of congress. Our leading citizen—the chief actor—has been crowned with immortal fame. We who watched the play were thrilled by the query: Will Uncle Sam yield to temptation or cling to honor? He has chosen the latter course and we may still hear the applause in distant galleries beyond the sea. He has decided that the public revenues must be ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... masters but a short time ago almost omnipotent on their domains, found themselves, after their defeat in the war, all at once face to face with their former slaves as a conquered and powerless class. Never was the temptation to indulge in acts of vengeance for wrongs suffered more strongly presented than to the colored people of the south; but no instance of such individual revenge was then on record, nor have I since heard of any case of violence ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... turned from the subject. And when, at last, after twenty years of almost unbroken silence as a poet, he once more let his organ voice be heard, it was not a man he spoke of, but Man. He told the story which Caedmon a thousand years before had told of the war in heaven, of the temptation and fall of man, and of how Adam and Eve were driven out of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the empty pockets, and sent the happy mothers to buy all the comforts they needed; others led the drunken men out of temptation, and took them home to find safer pleasures there. Fires were kindled on cold hearths, tables spread as if by magic, and warm clothes wrapped round shivering limbs. Flowers suddenly bloomed in the chambers of the sick; old people found ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... for the whole distance; on our starboard, I say, for experience had taught us that all channels running parallel with the coast and islands were uniformly boomed on the northern side. Anyone less confident than Davies would have succumbed to the temptation of slavishly relying on these marks, creeping from one to the other, and wasting precious time. But Davies knew our friend the 'boom' and his eccentricities too well; and preferred to trust to his sense of touch, which no fog in the world could impair. If we happened to sight ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... but the guttural protests died away before the temptation of the liquor. The braves drank, flung a few shots in bravado toward the wagons, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... full of high spirits that at the supper table he could not resist the temptation to play a joke. He saw Joe Nelson using his handkerchief and, on the sly, took up the pepper-shaker and dosed the ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... own, where the retired pirate kept a small pleasure yacht in which he and Maria used to go for fishing expeditions. One day, when they were out on one of these picnics, a West India brig lay becalmed near by, and Cobham and his crew went on board to visit the captain of the merchant ship. But the temptation proved too strong, and Cobham suddenly shooting the captain, Maria and the yacht's crew quickly despatched the rest. Carrying the prize to Bordeaux, he sold her for a good price. This was Cobham's last act of piracy, ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... back and deliver ourselves up, he would not call a guard to escort us; and we gave him our word, and bade him good night. There we were in the darkness, our limbs unfettered, our hearts longing for freedom, no Yankee eye upon us; and it is not strange that there flitted across our minds the temptation to steal away and strike out for Virginia; but though our bodies were for the moment free, our souls were bound by something stronger than manacles of steel,—our word of honor. We groped our way back, entered the circle of soldiers who were guarding our fellow-prisoners, and went to ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... naught, for my heart was hard, and my liver unyielding, and my bowels without mercy. And in the days of my youth I was jealous of Joseph, for our father loved him more than all the rest of us, and I resolved to kill him. For the prince of temptation sent the spirit of jealousy to take possession of me, and it blinded me so that I did not consider Joseph to be my brother, and I spared not even my father Jacob. But his God and the God of his fathers sent His angel and saved ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... would let us have pockets in our aprons and dresses. Said it was a temptation for us to learn to steal. She thought that was awful ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... de Gesvres, "Daval worked by my side. I trusted him. If he betrayed me, as the result of some temptation or other, I was, at least, unwilling, for the sake of the past, that his treachery ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... suit of clothes with the avowed purpose of being discharged for the offense. Here is the starting point of his criminal career. He did not reflect upon the consequences. He knew he must gratify his desire to get out of the Navy, must do it at any cost, and yielded to temptation. This yielding to temptation, this lack of power of resistance, characterized his entire life. He yielded to every vice that crossed his path; he stole, he drank, he became a morphine habitue, he sniffed cocaine, acquired gonorrhoea and syphilis in his promiscuous sexual ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... sound of voices or of life. It was very reposeful (when one felt one could get away for a little while), but I think the absolute calm and monotony would pall upon one, and the "Call of the World"—the struggling, living, joyous world outside the walls—would be an irresistible temptation. ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... down the receiver to make sure that temptation did not reappear in too luring a guise, and still another Gustave Feller was in ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Musicians was very well known to her, and that her kind Guardian was on the point of petitioning the Dey to release me from Servitude, when by accident she espied me from the Window, and could not resist the temptation of having ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... temptation Louis was not slow to respond; and in May, 1744, we find him, to the delight of his soldiers and all France, at the seat of war, reviewing his troops, speaking words of high courage to them, visiting hospitals and canteens, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... words to-day about a solemn subject, namely, Temptation. I do not mean the temptations of the flesh—the temptations which all men have to yield to the low animal nature in them, and behave like brutes. I mean those deeper and more terrible temptations, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... The temptation to accept Bob's invitation had been too great for Judd to refuse. He was mortally sick of his associations at Trumbull. Every place he went reminded him of some failure he had made. He was looked down upon by fellows his own age. Few ever taunted him openly. Judd felt that this was out ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... they knew how well it was defended. Captain Shirril was probably right in supposing they believed that he and his nephew were with the rest of the cowboys, watching the herd five miles away. Finding the couple in the cabin, they could not resist the temptation to bring down the head of the household, after which they must have supposed the rest would ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... consideration and of high promise; a quarrel which finally tended to this result—shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were certainly not enviable: like Southey's erring painter, who had yielded to the temptation ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... which shall be perfection. Whether the existence of evil is rightly explained in this creed or in that, by Typhon the Great Serpent, by Ahriman and his Armies of Wicked Spirits, by the Giants and Titans that war against Heaven, by the two co-existent Principles of Good and Evil, by Satan's temptation and the fall of Man, by Lok and the Serpent Fenris, it is beyond the domain of Masonry to decide, nor does it need to inquire. Nor is it within its Province to determine how the ultimate triumph of Light and Truth and Good, over Darkness and Error and Evil, is to be achieved; nor whether the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... unrest of rapidly breeding illness were upon him. His senses and his will had been in very active conflict. Desire had licked him, as with fiery tongues, driving him onward. Honour, self-contempt in face of temptation to sensual indulgence, an aspiration after somewhat stoic asceticism which had come to influence his action of late, held him back. But now, here and alone, the immediately provoking cause of passion removed, reaction against ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... parable? How often we have had an impulse or a plan which we knew to be of God, with a flash of intuition, or with a gathering certainty: and the temptation has come to carry it straight off by ourselves, without waiting His time—the very temptation that beset ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... lay an album in which his secretary had at last finished pasting his press-cuttings. He could not resist the temptation to glance at two or three of his favourite notices before opening the letters. The critics had treated him kindly, for he had been a critic himself and had not scrupled to secure a good press; but mere flattery never kept a bad play running. . . . He decided that he was ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... to town, found its unpleasant precincts more crowded than ever with matters of doubtful expediency and propriety. Not that he felt the strain of any temptation; he knew that he was fully capable of keeping himself unspotted from the world—the world of urban society—if only people would leave him alone. Two dangers stood out before all others: his impending call upon Mrs. Whyland ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... infinitely better for the fresh air and exercise. It was not so easy to follow Sir James's advice, and put the possible events of the evening out of her head. As she drew nearer and nearer to Hyde Park corner, the temptation to return to South Audley ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... used to life in the open knows how at sundown wild birds foregather for a last conclave. Ducks were winging in myriads and settling on the lake with noisy flacker. Unable to resist the temptation of one last shot, the boy was gliding noiselessly forward through the rushes, when suddenly he stopped as if rooted to the ground, with hands thrown up and eyes bulging from his head. At his feet lay the corpses of his morning comrades,—scalped, stripped, hacked almost piecemeal! ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... frequently, to break away, and had even succeeded for a month at a time in an endeavor to avoid writing a word; but inevitably there came a relapse and a more desperate debauch in literature. Try as he might he could not avoid the temptation. An incident, a trifle out of the ordinary in his commonplace life, a sudden thrill at the reading of another man's story, a night of insomnia, and resolution was in tatters, and shortly thereafter Calmar Bye's pencil would be coursing ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... on the other side, this part of the house was wrapped in darkness, and Aniela came down very slowly. There was a moment when my head was on a level with Aniela's feet. The temptation was too great; I put my hands gently around them and pressed my lips to them. I knew I should have to pay a heavy penalty for this minute of happiness, but I could not forego it. God knows with what reverence I touched her feet, and for how much pain this moment ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... him, and I don't suppose he had a thousand dollars in his treasury. I was a little surprised that he did not offer me half a dozen young ladies as wives; but had he done so, I should have resisted the temptation, as they would have been even more trouble ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... circles, for his resignation. He had become so addicted to drink that his resignation was required by his commanders, who held it for a time to afford him an opportunity to retrieve his good fame if he would; but he was unable. Through what temptation he fell into such disgrace is not clearly known. But garrison posts are given to indulgences which have proved too much for many an officer, no worse than his fellows, but constitutionally unable ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... should either of us bear it if we found ourselves suddenly rich. It would be a great temptation—a sore temptation. I fear, Mary, that when poor people talk disdainfully of money, they often are like your fox, born without a tail. If nature suddenly should give that beast a tail, would he not be prouder of it than all the other ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... steadily to confront dangers that can not be actively opposed, or against which one has no adequate defense; it takes courage to charge a battery, fortitude to stand still under an enemy's fire. Resolution is of the mind; endurance is partly physical; it requires resolution to resist temptation, endurance to resist hunger ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... don't remember having Sterne in the school library, no doubt because the works of that divine were not considered decent for young people. Ah! not against thy genius, O father of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say a word in disrespect. But I am thankful to live in times when men no longer have the temptation to write so as to call blushes on women's cheeks, and would shame to whisper wicked allusions to honest boys. Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the kindly, the generous, the pure — the companion of what countless delightful hours; the ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... even farther back than usual to look up. He was one of those good people who stop a dozen times in one street, and look at everything as they go along; whereby you may see three times as much of life as other folk, but it is a terrible temptation to spend money. It was so in this instance. The sailor looked till his kindly eye perceived that ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... changed; and he was once or twice on the point of asking the most sympathetic of the housemaids whether she had noticed it. On Wednesday his suspense ended. Lucian came, and had a long conversation with Lydia in the library. Bashville was too honorable to listen at the door; but he felt a strong temptation to do so, and almost hoped that the sympathetic housemaid might prove less scrupulous. But Miss Carew's influence extended farther than her bodily presence; and Lucian's revelation ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... painful for the court to have to animadvert upon such an offence in such a subject; and more painful to feel, that in the exercise of their duty they are bound to say, that the greater opportunity which a defendant had of knowing his duty, and the higher he felt in rank and in situation, and the less temptation he ought to have felt to have offended the laws of his country, in this respect the heavier falls the weight of guilt ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... inflexible." At the same time they had everything at stake. Their leaders Hancock and Warren still lived openly among them, in the face of the threat of arrest. The artisans, too, at this period put behind them a great temptation. For many months they had been idle; now within a few weeks the governor had commenced building barracks for the troops, upon which Boston workmen were engaged. For the first time since the Port Bill went into effect they were earning a comfortable ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... we had 25,000 instructed artillerists in the forts around Washington. Here was a temptation hard to be resisted. These men could do good service in the field as infantry; and, in an evil hour, it was decided to send them to Grant's army for ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... men were warring against nature. Their yielding to the temptation to obtain spiritual dominance by self-flagellation and fasting may be criticized in the light of modern Christianity. "Fanaticism defies nature," says F.W. Robertson, "Christianity refines it and respects it. Christianity does not denaturalize, but only sanctifies and refines ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... way: Again in folly's path might go astray; Again exalt the brute and sink the man; Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan? Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran? ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... blind man." A decision was first reached against an election by Congress, because it was thought that if the chief magistrate should prove himself thoroughly competent he ought to be reeligible; but if reeligible he would be exposed to the temptation of truckling to the most powerful party or cabal in Congress, in order to secure his reelection. It did not occur to any one to suggest that under ordinary circumstances the executive ought to follow the policy ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... resisting the temptation to touch the little hand that had been placed impulsively upon his arm. "May I ask one ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... on the Mona Lisa; in which he seeks to make her at once a mystery of good and a mystery of evil. The philosophy is false; even evidently false, for it bears no fruit to-day. There never was a woman, not Eve herself in the instant of temptation, who could smile the same smile as the mother of Helen and the mother of Mary. But it is the high-water mark of that vast attempt at an impartiality reached through art: and no other mere artist ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... pulses that she would find it exciting to have everyone know that a multimillionaire was in love with her. "As for the rest," she said to herself, "we'll see when the time comes," and knew not that one who goes to front his life's temptation with that resolution is a mariner who leaves the steering of his vessel ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... day of my initiation, while the professor was invoking the Divine blessing, the sight of a big dinner pail belonging to the fat boy in front of me, proved too much of a temptation, and I hurled it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. Of course I was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he rushed, and banged my head till I saw more stars ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... did these wise men take their luck. If ever they came from the fickle wave-bosom to the firm breast of land on a Saturday, with a fine catch of fish, and sold it well—and such was their sagacity that sooner would they keep it for cannibal temptation than sell it badly—did they rush into the waves again, before they had dried their breeches? Not they; nor did their wives, who were nearly all good women, stir them up to be off again. Especially at this time of year, with the days pulling out, and the season quickening, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the spirit, "haven't you? Just you wait till next Tuesday, my boy." Unconsciously we are crediting Fate with our own human weaknesses. If a man standing on the edge of a pond said aloud, "I have never fallen into a pond in my life," and we happened to be just behind him, the temptation to push him in would be irresistible. Irresistible, that is by us; but it is charitable to assume that Providence can control itself ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... few rods. She was lying quite quietly, taking her morning siesta in the sun; plunged in ruminative thoughts, I supposed, and the temptation was irresistible to ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... coward, and since leaving home had met with more than one adventure, but this was the most perilous of all. Despite every effort to keep firm, my limbs trembled, my head grew dizzy; I was seized by a strong temptation to launch myself into space. The fit passed as suddenly as it had come, but I felt the sweat trickling ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... therefore put forth his strength, and marched stoutly along at the head of his followers, eyeing our hero from time to time, as if he longed to enter into controversy with him. At length, unable to resist the temptation, he slackened his pace till he was alongside of his prisoner's horse, and after marching a few steps in silence abreast of him, he suddenly asked—'Can ye say wha the carle was wi' the black coat and the mousted head, that was ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... rusks and buns, the other with newly baked loaves of spiced bread. The housewife at once went over to the old woman and began to bargain. Ordinarily she kept a tight fist on the pennies, but she never could resist a temptation to indulge her weakness for sweets ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... where it had first exploded. A natural opportunity presented itself here of dealing firmly with the abettors of treason, while in another quarter strong resistance was opposed to the advocates of reaction. Moderation sometimes becomes impatient of its name, and yields to the temptation of ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the feverish avidity of avarice set free from all its old restrictions. North America, coquetting with philanthropy, and nominally abjuring the principle of slavery, suffered herself to undergo the corruption of the practice for the temptation of the lucre, and the Atlantic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... where she had found it, and walked slowly out of the shop. Her feet still lagged when she turned towards the tenement. What mattered it if Aunt Jane should return and find her absent? What mattered anything now? Then came a sudden daring temptation. The road was free—and she was there! Why not keep on to the hospital? She looked down—her skirts were inches above her knees! If only Aunt Jane had not insisted that she wear Sophia's petticoats, to match the length of the borrowed dress! Could she brave the crowded streets in such ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... dismay, was keenly conscious of the glances that sought him again and again in the effort to judge how he was taking it. Only Purdee himself was withdrawn from the interest that swayed them all. He had loitered at first, dallying with a temptation to slip silently from the party and retrace his way to the tables and ascertain, perchance, if some vestige of that mystic scripture might not reveal itself to him anew, or if it had been only some morbid fancy, some futile influence of solitude, some fevered condition of the blood ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) |
