"Tempting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... criticism on our recent military history; for through such criticism, perhaps, our faults may be amended, and so our cause finally be vindicated. The spectacle of soldiers running from a field of battle is a tempting one to the enemies of the country to whom such soldiers may belong, and few critics are able to speak of it in any other than a contemptuous tone. Would Americans have spoken with more justice of Englishmen than Englishmen have spoken of Americans, had the English army failed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... make, for genius is a sort of possession. The individual is pervaded, dominated for a time by an angel or an imp, and he seldom, of himself, is able to discriminate between his controls. A literary imp was always lying in wait for Mark Twain; the imp of the burlesque, tempting him to do the 'outre', the outlandish, the shocking thing. It was this that Olivia Clemens had to labor hardest against: the cheapening of his own high purpose with an extravagant false note, at which sincerity, conviction, and artistic harmony took wings and fled away. Notably he did a good burlesque ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... she have prevail'd? Ay me! but yet thou might'st my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth; Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine by thy beauty being ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... tempting at a distance on contrary sides, it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and, when we have determined ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... basket, lined with a white cloth, at the bottom of which lay nine bread-pills. Nine boys looked down at them in rueful disgust, and then across the school-room to where a larger group stood chuckling mischievously, their hands and mouths filled with tempting, crusty hunches, carved from ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... and chromatographed, or done in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite note from Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at their Physiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired to that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... stony as many a road is, but just dull and level and monotonous and dusty, as are so many excellent highways. But now she stood at two crossroads, and saw stretching before her one in no wise different from that she had traversed so long, and the other a glittering tempting path springing joyously up a high hill, on the top of which, in the shade of laurel trees, sat at ease the whole goodly company of great authors. She fancied they were beckoning to her; she heard sweet voices from them throughout ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Arctic and the silence can be felt. The whole thing is a Louisiana lottery. The very next trap may hold a silver-fox that spells kudos for a year round the winter camp-fires and a trade valuation of one hundred dollars from the tempting stores of Mr. Harris. As long as the red fox brings forth her cubs to play in the starlight and marten and musquash increase after their kind, just so long will there be trappers and sons of trappers setting out from Fond du Lac. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... commercial enterprise of the Jews soon discovered that ten cents would buy a pound of cotton behind our army; that four cents would take it to Boston, where they could receive thirty cents in gold. The bait was too tempting, and it spread like fire, when here they discovered that salt, bacon, powder, fire-arms, percussion-caps, etc., etc., were worth as much as gold; and, strange to say, this traffic was not only permitted, but encouraged. Before ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... something was displayed, it was found to be a gorgeous meat-pudding of the most tempting character—round and heavy like a cannon-ball. Of course it did not flourish alone. Old Moll had been mysteriously engaged the greater part of that day over the fire, and the result was a feast worthy, as her husband said, "of the King ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... ornaments; their round laughing faces, in which shine rows of teeth as white perhaps as alabaster; the jaunty men folks; the world of birds and beasts, all on the best of terms with themselves, especially the former, arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow; the world of fruit, tempting in shape, in beauty, and in odour; the world of fish, some of them beautiful enough to have dwelt in the coral caves of fairyland beneath the glittering sea—some ugly, even hideous enough to be ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... me, far as pole from pole; Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll! 290 Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me, Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee! Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign; Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine. Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view) Long loved, adored ideas, all adieu! O Grace serene! O Virtue heavenly fair! Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care! Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the sky! 300 And Faith, our early immortality! Enter, each mild, each amicable guest; Receive, and wrap ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... his perfectly made black coffee, Sir John would idly turn over the invitation cards on the mantelpiece—the carriage was always in readiness—but of late the invitations had not proved very tempting. There was no doubt that society was not what it used to be. The summer was not what it used to be, either. The evenings were so confoundedly cold. So he often stayed at home and read ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the intervention of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, on payment of seven hundred marks. He was a man, it would seem, of infamous character, for his brethren accused him of coining, and offered one thousand marks rather than that he should be released from prison. Richard refused the tempting bribe, because Abraham was "his Jew." Abraham revenged himself by laying information of plots and conspiracies entered into by the whole people, and the more probable charge of concealment of their wealth from the rapacious hands of the King. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... success of his first attempts in the drama, we find politics this year renewing its claims upon his attention, and tempting him to enter into the lists with no less an antagonist than Dr. Johnson. That eminent man had just published his pamphlet on the American question, entitled "Taxation no Tyranny;"—a work whose pompous sarcasms on the Congress of Philadelphia, when compared with what has happened ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... it reached the pitch of genius! Oh, you are not one of those who linger on the brink. You fly head foremost. You married from a passion for martyrdom, from a craving for remorse, through moral sensuality. It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common sense was too tempting. Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled beggar! When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure? Did you? You idle, loafing, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... firmer ground than that with which they were surrounded, otherwise the horizon was as clear as that of the ocean. The whole country had a raw, cold, damp, and agueish look about it. It was any thing but tempting. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... evening was holding in store for her. Confronted with the final decision, she was at a loss which course to take. Should she close her eyes to the plague-spot which might one day spread and spread until it tainted her whole life? The present was very tempting. Why not take it, and ignore the future? Most girls would wink at the suspicion which, during the past week, had been clouding her dream of perfect content. How far was ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... were forgotten in the delight he experienced in feasting his eyes on some paintings in the window. "I really will try to draw that old man and his dog," said he to himself; "but then I have no paper; ah yes, the sixpence the lady gave me!" and with the welcome recollection he turned away from the tempting sight, purchased some paper and ran home, which ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of Strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most tempting and pleasant Seats in the Nation, and most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse to render it conspicuous. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance. The distance from London (is) little more than 20 miles, and yet (it is) ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... pictures, radiant with sunlight and fresh as morning dew. In this new story the fruits of her fine genius are of Colorado growth, and though without the antique flavor of her recollections of Rome and Venice, are as delicious to the taste as they are tempting to the eye, and afford a natural feast of exquisite ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... thoughtful little Girl, she would have waited till the Bears came home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast; for they were good Bears—a little rough or so, as the manner of Bears is, but for all that very good-natured and hospitable. But the porridge looked tempting, and she set about ...
— The Golden Goose Book • L. Leslie Brooke
... a trap worth walking into," answered Abbot, "if it's baited with something as tempting as a bicycle. The only trouble is that it will take so long to find a motto. The Bible is so full of them that a fellow'd feel like he ought to read it clear through, for fear of skipping the very one that might take the prize, and we have only a week to ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... salesmen to cover it so great that merchants now do much of their selling from mail-order catalogues. Many of these books are very attractive, too. A careful reproduction of the object for sale is made and the photograph sent broadcast to speak for itself. Jewelry firms issue tempting lists of their wares; china and glass dealers try to secure buyers by offering alluring pages of pictures, many of them in color; dry goods houses send out photographs of suits, hats, and clothing of all sorts. You have seen scores of such books and know how they are indexed and ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... to blame them. For beyond the main facts about the doom of the impenitent there are here and there through the Bible many tantalizing hints perplexing and difficult to reconcile with each other, but very tempting to follow out. By emphasizing certain of these and ignoring or dwelling more lightly on certain others which seem to contradict them, men have formulated definite doctrines about Hell, differing widely ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... press cannot be understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods of earth. This does not ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... and that's dry enough," muttered the stranger. "That isn't very tempting. I can't say much for my uncle's fare, unless he has ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... smiled through her tears and telegraphed him a fragrant kiss, by means of her fair fingers. Naturally astounded, he paused, and gazed upon the pair. The younger female was the loveliest maid he had ever looked upon. She had the smallest eyes in the world, the most tempting, large, full, pouting lips, the blackest and most abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought her a paragon. The old woman, on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... God be thanked he was in no necessity of going anywhere, but that he had a tempting invitation ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... line to say whom you would like to have besides. Bring friends if you choose, but the weather is hot, and we must not overcrowd the rooms." It all sounds delightful, except perhaps the mess of greens; but a good Italian cook can make vegetables tempting down to the present day. I think we should all have loved to be there, as at the neat repast of Attic taste with wine, which tempted virtuous Laurence to sup with Milton. So should we like to know what called forth this pretty piece of moralizing, addressed to the poet Tibullus (Ep. I, iv). He was ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... any other woman of a condition to which he might reasonably aspire. Notwithstanding these doubts and misgivings, Mabel looked so prettily, blushed so charmingly, smiled so sweetly, and altogether presented so winning a picture of youth, spirit, modesty, and beauty, that he found it exceedingly tempting to be kept so prominently before her imagination, and to be able to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... and goat's milk; while the bottle of sour wine I had seen in the morning graced the table. I had not expected such a tempting meal, and I was hungry, as Franz said. Taking his seat Franz raised his eyes to mine. There was no mistaking its upward, grateful glance. Bowing our heads, we asked a blessing, and then picking up the broken thread, Franz went on to tell me ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... like this your drake can hardly be too large or too rough; in brighter and stiller weather the fish often prefer a fly half the size of the natural one. Only bear in mind that the most tempting form among these millions of drakes is that one whose wings are very little coloured at all, of a pale greenish yellow; whose body is straw-coloured, and his head, thorax, and legs, spotted with dark brown—best represented by a ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... bright and gay, and in truth noisy. The festa natalizie, as it is called in Naples, is celebrated by fairs and bonfires and fireworks. In the Toledo, that famous street known to all the world, booths are erected beside the shops, flaming in colour, and filled with all sorts of tempting wares. Throughout Christmas Eve an immense crowd of men, women, and children throng this street, nearly a mile in length. The vendors shriek at the top of their voice, praising themselves and their goods, and then, with merry peals of laughter, exhibit with Neapolitan drollery all ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... certainly not! but loitering hansoms, and cabby's sharp eye is quick to spot a person hesitating where to go (and able to pay for a ride), as the trained rapacious eye of the hawk is to spy out a wounded or sickly bird. Then the swift wheels would be drawn up in tempting proximity to the kerb, and after a moment's hesitation Fan would say "Dawson Place," and step inside, and in less than twenty minutes she would be in ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... not tempt her. They had been out to dinner the night before. Her head ached; she was nervous and feverish. Always full of good spirits and laughter, ever the soul and life of the house, it was unusual to find her in this mood, and if her husband, now voraciously devouring the tempting array of ham and eggs spread before him, had not been so absorbed in the news of the day, he would have quickly noticed it, and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... took the precaution of removing them from my despatch-box. After we left the Frontier station I noticed that our train had lost half its length, and that I was in the last carriage. I didn't like it. It is never healthy for a despatch-box to travel in an end compartment. That is tempting of Fate.' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... never hesitate to risk his life where a feast of honey is in view, and the odd arrangement of timbers has no fears for him after that tempting bait has once been discovered. Passing beneath the suspended log, his heavy paw encounters the broad board on the treadle-piece, which immediately sinks with his weight. The upright pole at the back of the treadle is thus raised, forcing ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... private life, enjoying without any mixture of hate the respect of his fellow citizens, venerated by the people and loved by his friends. This singular and happy man had no enemies. Bolivar accepted the tempting command that came to harass his spirit for the third time, and this time from an impure source, he died rejected, persecuted, insulted by many of his contemporaries. Death has erased this small blemish and we see only the light which surrounds the greatest of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... festooned with cobwebs. In the middle of the room, the supper table was standing, but there was nothing homelike in the arrangement of the many colored dishes and broken knives and forks, neither was there any thing tempting to one's appetite in the coarse brown bread and white-looking butter. Mary was very tired with holding Alice so long, and sinking into a chair near the window, she would have cried; but there was a tightness in her throat, and a pressure about ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... now Heddle's Farm, was called Mount Oriel (Oriole?) by Mrs. Melville, the wife of a pensioned judge of the Mixed Customs Court, who lived here seven years. Her sketch of a sojourn upon the Lioness Range is not tempting: young gentlemen who intend leading brides to the deadly peninsula should hide the book from their fair intendeds. I cannot, however, but admire the 'word-painting' of the scenery and the fidelity of those descriptions concerning ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... things in general. But I have found this to be the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Battalion had learnt when at Khartum, as Matron. Thence I went to No. 10 Convalescent Hospital at Ibra-himieh, once the stately house of an interned German called Lindemann but now converted into a comfortable home under the care of Mr and Mrs Scott. British leniency still reserved its tempting orangery for the use of local Huns. It ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... as regret to leave Quebec, or the natural impatience of travellers to be off, overcame them. Isabel spent part of it in shopping, for she had found some small sums of money and certain odd corners in her trunks still unappropriated, and the handsome stores on the Rue Fabrique were very tempting. She said she would just go in and look; and the wise reader imagines the result. As she knelt over her boxes, trying so to distribute her purchases as to make them look as if they were old,—old things of hers, which she had brought all the way round from Boston with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... beg them to say nothing. If it be jammed among the rocks (as it might be, heavy as it is), talking about it will only set people looking for it; and I suppose there is a man or two, even in Aberalva, who would find fifteen hundred pounds a tempting bait. If, again, some one finds it, and makes away with it, he will only be the more careful to hide it if he knows that I am on the look-out. So just tell Miss Harvey and her mother that I think it must have been ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... preparations in a very business-like manner. She was evidently well acquainted with the resources of the household, for she bustled about, opening cupboards, and setting tea-things on a tray, as though she were quite at home. In a wonderfully short time she had prepared a tempting meal, and carried it into the sitting-room, so that, when the Professor came back from changing his boots, he found everything quite ready. His little round table, cleared of the litter of manuscripts and music-books, was drawn up to the open window, and covered with a ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... blacks—not in sectional estrangement—not in the hope of political dominion—but in a deep and abiding necessity. Here is this vast ignorant and purchasable vote—clannish, credulous, impulsive and passionate—tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of the statesman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an outside ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... bitten by a spirit of enterprise. We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other. "Good!" we cried to each other; "good!" and Cavor made three steps and went off to a tempting slope of snow a good twenty yards and more beyond. I stood for a moment struck by the grotesque effect of his soaring figure—his dirty cricket cap, and spiky hair, his little round body, his arms and his knicker-bockered legs tucked up tightly—against the weird spaciousness ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... to 1859, he had been official reporter for the Court of Appeals, and in 1860 served in the Assembly. Later, he entered Congress, finally reaching the United States Senate. But in 1861 prudence prompted him to decline the tempting offer of a nomination for attorney-general, and although entreated to reconsider his determination, he stubbornly resisted, and at last forced the nomination of Lyman Tremaine of Albany, who had ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... only a tress or two half shading her flushed face and round, heaving bosom that would not be quiet. There was just a little mocking smile on her lips, just a little gleam of laughing eyes under her drooping lashes, for she could not help watching my face for admiration. In such an attitude the tempting little witch might have made the tepid ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... berries are supplied by native men and women with wild-looking, swarthy faces, who hand them to the travelers in neat, plain baskets which hold nearly two quarts each. Basket and strawberries together are sold for twenty-five cents. The top layer of the fruit is carefully selected, and most tempting to look upon, the berries being shrewdly "deaconed,"—a fact of which the purchaser becomes aware when he has consumed the first portion. However, all are eatable and most grateful to the taste. Human nature is very much the same in trade, whether exhibited in ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... also followed. While Denis went on one side, Lionel took the other, accompanied by the young Englishman. Fortunately the horses stopped to graze at a tempting spot of grass which they found on their way. This, after a long run, enabled the lads to get to the south of them. They then crept up slowly, and Denis, who was the most active of the party, caught one which had a long halter trailing from its head. Instead ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... heels (despite scuffling protests from the gendarme without) limped a black, untidy dog. The tramp bowed and began at once to speak in the slow correct French of a well-educated foreigner. He told of a dusty road along which he had toiled; of a coppice and its tempting shade; of the drowsiness of afternoon; of dream voices that were not, after all, of dream; of a mound with a mysterious grating; of a subterranean cavern and its two unusual and impatient prisoners. M. Lesueur listened in silence. ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... mistletoes, growing close together on the same branch, may more truly be said to struggle with each other. As the mistletoe is disseminated by birds, its existence depends on them; and it may metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruit-bearing plants, in tempting the birds to devour and thus disseminate its seeds. In these several senses, which pass into each other, I use for convenience sake the general term ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Count was a kind man, but he was not a Christian, and God was not honoured in his household. James knew that if he took the place in his house, he might be asked to do things which as a Christian he believed to be wrong; and so he decided to refuse the offer, tempting as it was, and to remain in the humble position in which he had been born. The Count was not offended with James for his decision; and to show his respect for him he gave him an easy lease of a little property, consisting of a cottage, a well-stocked ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... before she could consent to marry him. From this decision she could not, she would not, recede. She had the fortitude to persist in this resolution. She wrote to Lady Mary Vivian in the kindest, but, at the same time, in the most decided terms, declining the tempting invitation. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... in this unenviable condition, a lump of ice offered so tempting a seat that we simultaneously proposed to sit down. This was very foolish. Resting without a fire is bad at all times; and the exhausted condition we were then in made it far worse, as I soon found ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... always offered tempting spaces for decoration. Our ancestors hung their walls with trophies. Our pioneer of to-day may live in an adobe hut, but he hangs his walls with things that suggest beauty and color to him, calendars, and trophies and gaudy chromos. The rest of his hut he uses for the hard ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... some scruples. It was so queer, she thought it must be wrong. It was like tempting Providence to take for granted issues in his hands, and masquerade with uncreated things like their own yet unborn selves. But Frank reminded her that the same objection would apply to any arrangement as to what they should ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... The plan may be tempting, but has its disadvantages. There are injustices, if we call all inequality injustice, which we can only attribute to nature or to the unknown power which makes men and monkeys, Shakespeares and Stephens. And one result is that the character and conduct ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of Carolina equal weight in the government with 40,000 inhabitants of Massachusetts, provided they are rich enough to hold 50,000 slaves:—and accordingly confers on a slaveholding community additional political power for every slave held among them, thus tempting them to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... see." The ground on the opposite side of the creek was lower than ours, and was open, except a growth of rank grass and weeds. And I could plainly see the skirmishers of the enemy, in butternut clothing, skulking in the grass and weeds, and occasionally firing in our direction. They looked real tempting, so I hurried back to the regiment, and going to Capt. Keeley, told him that the Confederate skirmishers were just across the creek, in plain sight, and asked him if I couldn't slip down the brow of the ridge and take a few shots at them. He looked at me kind ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... tempting offer could not be made to a person of his enterprising character: but the objections to that measure, upon deliberation, appeared to him unsurmountable. The king, he observed, had incurred the hatred ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... side, searching for an easy descent, she had already slid a long way, when the voice from above recalled her! She covered her face with her hands and wept—ashamed before God, ashamed before her husband. It was a shame unutterable that the thing should even have looked tempting! She cried for forgiveness, rose, and sought ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... happy time to come he had learned to do other things, among them to throw stones. It was necessary, however, to be careful what was aimed at. The birds made tempting marks; but song-birds were sacred things, and temptation ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... their minds, for when had they seen such gorgeous flowers, such wonderful ferns? The sanctuary was massed with them, the little altar standing out in vivid relief against their greenness. And then there was that wonderful strip of white canvas down the center aisle, that white strip that was so tempting to little feet, but which must not be stepped upon. And what were those kneeling benches for—the two draped in white—one on each side of the open gateway, just inside the communion railing? And over on the left was a platform bearing a ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... then "moved an amendment, fixing the 43d parallel as the northern boundary." This was a tempting proposition. But Mr. Dodge stood firmly for the parallel of forty-three degrees and thirty minutes, and closed his remarks with these words: "I admonish the majority of this House that if the amendment of the gentleman from Ohio is to prevail, ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... cried Flamarens. "I know well that the proposition is tempting, but at present it ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... coolies. And so, for the sake of the employers, it was proposed to ask the native laborer to agree to be indentured for twelve months at the same miserable wages of eighteen pence or 36 cents a day, with the addition of a tempting (?) bonus of two pounds or $9.60 at the end of the term. And this paternal suggestion was made in order "to improve the local sources of labor supply that were available" at a time when Cuba was offering from one dollar to one dollar ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... from the red Currant at Bas-le-duc; and a well-known nursery rhyme tells of the tempting qualities of "cherry pie, and currant wine." A rob of black Currant jam is taken in Scotland with whiskey toddy. Shakespeare in the Winter's Tale makes Antolycus, the shrewd "picker-up of unconsidered [141] ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... in an instant with a large silver tray, holding twelve covered silver dishes filled with tempting viands, six large white bread cakes on two plates, two flagons of wine, and two silver cups. All these he placed upon a carpet, and disappeared before Aladdin's mother had come out ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... upon her southern neighbour, which in more modern times she has carried out with complete success. The fertile plains of Northern Italy, the convenient ports on the Adriatic, the rich commerce with the Levant, were tempting baits to what was then the most ambitious power in Europe; and with an undeviating steadiness did she follow up the policy which promised to place such desirable acquisitions within her grasp. Venice, whose power and importance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... and ends in a small family; a tiny plate of pieces, far too small to make an appearance on the table, and which, if special directions are not given, will seem to Bridget not worth saving, will, with each piece dipped into the batter a la Careme, and fried in hot fat, make a tempting dish for breakfast, or an entree for dinner or luncheon. Two tablespoonfuls only of chopped meat of any kind will make croquettes for two or three people; hence, 'save the pieces.' But to return to our bills of fare: I have given the two roasts of lamb for consecutive days, because the ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... monstrous eagle terrifies her. And now Max, scarcely come, announces that he must go; he had shot, he says, a stag deep in the woods near the Wolf's Glen, indeed, and must bring it in lest the peasants steal it. In a trio Aennchen recalls the uncanny nature of the spot, Agathe warns against the sin of tempting Providence and begs him to stay; but Max protests his fearlessness and the call of duty, and hurries away to meet Caspar, at the appointed time in the appointed place. We see him again in the Wolf's Glen, but Caspar is there before him. The glen lies deep in the mountains. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... and 1829, severe engagements took place between Spanish slavers and this class of contrabandists. Spaniards would assail Portuguese when the occasion was tempting and propitious. Many a vessel has been fitted in Cuba for these adventures, and returned to port with a living cargo, purchased by cannon-balls and ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... "Are you tempting your old minister, Jean? I've lived for sixty-five years without seeing a play, and I think I can go on to the end. It's not that it's wrong or that I think myself more virtuous than the rest of the world because I stay away. It's prejudice if you like, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... The punishment of the serpent for tempting Eve was this: (1) Michael was commanded to cut off its legs; and (2) the serpent was doomed to feed on ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a city of Vanity Fair for two weeks, every day crowded with a motley throng. Booths, and even structures of some solidity, rose on it as if by magic. The lottery-houses were set up early, and, to the last, attracted crowds, who could not resist the tempting display of goods and trinkets, which might be won by investing six kreuzers in a bit of paper, which might, when unrolled, contain a number. These lotteries are all authorized: some of them were for the benefit of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... all adulterations are found in these savoury morsels. Horseflesh, diseased animals, and odds and ends of every description appear in the tempting guise of "sausages." To escape this evil, make your own sausages by the aid of the sausage machine, which will enable you to add many savoury morsels to the attractions of your table. The same machine may be used for chopping ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... trooper, whose duty it was to attend on Captain Singleton; and, as if apportioning his appetite to the feeble state of his master, he had contented himself with conveying a pair of ducks, roasted, until their tempting fragrance began to make him repent his having so lately demolished a breakfast that had been provided for his master's sister, with another ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... empty to the dregs. Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, And memory thy vulture; thou wilt find Oblivion far lonelier than this peak. Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it much That I should brave thee, miserable god! But I have braved a mightier than thou, Even the sharp tempting of this soaring heart, Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, A god among my brethren weak and blind, 210 Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing To be down-trodden into darkness soon. But now I am above thee, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sun was shining brightly, tempting the healthful to enjoy his cheerful beams. It was not long therefore before our traveller was seen taking the direction to the old abbey-church. The sight of such ancient buildings was always keenly relished by him, by reason of his antiquarian ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... took to be a Shool (synagogue), as there were Hebrew posters stuck outside. I approached it. An old Jew with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began to speak with me. I understood soon what sort of a person he was, and turned away. This Meshummad (converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with offers of food and drink for the family, and further help. I said: 'I want nothing of you, nor do I desire ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was a natural instinct with them—like taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving with hunger and it was before us—and if a woman did succumb to some new passion I should blame ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the shoals and rocks of the coast waters, to be readily caught, and the lack of pilots familiar with this difficult navigation prevented any close approach to their haunts. In this dilemma Tacon tried the expedient of offering a large and tempting reward to any one who would desert the fraternity and agree to pilot the government vessels through the perilous channels which they frequented. Double this reward, an almost princely prize, was offered for the person of one Marti, dead ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... wonderful glory of the moon. Her hand was on the bar at first, and his beside it. After a moment he glanced at the tempting nearness, and put his in the pocket of his jacket. Then he turned his back upon the moon, and leaned on the railing by her, facing the lesser splendor that was to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... had only read a part of the letter when she made her statement, for, on a closer perusal, she found she was mistaken. If the writer had ever dreamed of tempting her with the lure of proffered luxury he admitted his change of opinion ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... silence; but soon the passions of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... kill you, should I not be ready to follow? No; thank you for the thought, but I do not want the letter. Should I not begin to dread that you were faithful to me through fear? And if a man knows that he must risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not seem more tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... points which Mrs. Melmoth deemed most important. The nicer departments of cookery, after sufficient proof of her skill, were committed to her care; and the doctor's table was now covered with delicacies, simple indeed, but as tempting on account of their intrinsic excellence as of the small white hands that made them. By such arts as these,—which in her were no arts, but the dictates of an affectionate disposition,—by making herself useful where it was possible, ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Anacreon plead, 'Sir, Flaccus knew to live as well as write, And kept, like me, two boys array'd in white;' Worthy to feel that appetence of fame Which rivals Horace only in his shame! Let Isis[9] wail in murmurs as she runs, Her tempting fathers, and her yielding sons; 110 While dulness screens the failings of the Church, Nor leaves one sliding Rabbi in the lurch: Far other raptures let the breast contain, Where ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... instruments or matter of temptations; inasmuch as one can know what sort of man someone is, according as he follows or resists the desires of the flesh, and according as he despises worldly advantages and adversity: of which things the devil also makes use in tempting. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... traveller elsewhere has no terrors in Chicago. "This Packing-Town odor," we are told by a zealot, "has been unjustly criticised. To any one accustomed to it there is only a pleasant suggestion of rich, ruddy blood and long rows of tempting 'sides' hung up to cool." I prefer not to be tempted. I can only bow before the ingenuity of this eulogy. And if, more seriously, you reproach the cynicism of the Pit, which on this side or that may ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... and spat into the fire, to assure himself that he was not going. All the same...the terribly tempting smell made him more and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... no kind return of love, No tempting charm to please; Far from the heart those gifts remove, That ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... edge, and almost to the bottom of the Chine; and here, amid laurel and rhododendron, broom and gorse, the garden merges into a network of paths and stairways, with tempting seats and unexpected arbors at every turn. This seductive little labyrinth is of Mrs. Stevenson's own designing. She makes the whole garden her special charge and delight, but this particular corner of it is as a kingdom conquered, where to reign. Mrs. Stevenson, the tutelary genius ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... drinking from a clear stream, troops of nilgae springing out from the long grass and dwarf growth of polas and jujube trees which covered the sites of abandoned villages and fields,—all these revealed themselves to us in the most tempting situations. But although I had been an ardent devotee of the double-barrel, the large and manly tenderness which Bhima Gandharva invariably displayed toward all animals, whether wild or tame, had wrought marvels upon me, and I had grown fairly ashamed—nay, horrified—at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... hunting, and the Marchioness de Bonaletta has the most tempting bit of woods that ever made a hunter's heart ache to call it his. Now if you marry Laura, you become her guardian, and have absolute ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... keen remorse Gnawed at my heart. O false and fatal pride That blinded me, else I had seen the plot Ere all was lost—else I had saved a life To me most precious of all lives on earth— Yea, dearer then than any soul in heaven! False pride—the ruin of unnumbered souls— Thou art the serpent ever tempting me; God, chastening me, has bruised thy serpent head. O faithful heart in silence suffering— True unto death to one she could but count A perjured villain, cheated as she was! Captain, I prayed—'twas all that I could ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... a terrible place for a man to be," he muttered with a shudder. "If man were meant to fly he would have been given wings. It is tempting the wrath of ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... childhood and my family tree, but there is something in the air of this part of the world that enchants me. It is a certain "Why not?" that leads me into all sorts of delightful experiences. Conventionality does not hold us as tightly as it does in the East, and a certain tempting feeling of unlimited possibilities in life makes waking up in the morning a small adventure in itself. It isn't necessary to point out the dangers of an unlimited "Why not?" cult—they are too obvious. "Why not?" is a question that one's imagination ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... broken by the dropping of angel's tears. How much noise is made by angel's tears? Is it a sound of emptied buckets, or of garden hose, or of mountain cataracts? That is the sort of question which Elizabeth Barrett's extreme love of the extreme was always tempting people to ask. Yet the question, as asked, does her a heavy historical injustice; we remember all the lines in her work which were weak enough to be called "womanly," we forget the multitude of strong lines that are strong enough to be called "manly"; lines ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... oxen of Apollo, and Battus having perceived the theft, he engages him, by a present, to keep the matter secret. Mistrusting, however, his fidelity, he assumes another shape, and tempting him with presents, he succeeds in corrupting him. To punish his treachery, the God changes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... cautious how you take an ice Whenever you're overwarm. A merchant who from India came, And Shiverand Shakey was his name, A pastrycook's did once entice To take a cooling, luscious ice, The weather, hot enough to kill, Kept tempting him to eat, until It gave his corpus such a chill He never again felt warm. Shiverand Shakey O, O, O, Criminy Crikey! Isn't it cold, Woo, woo, woo, oo, oo, Behold the man that couldn't ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... endurance reached its limits. As she lay still, a thought had taken possession of her—at first rejected again and again, but always returning, and with more tempting persistency. She could not begin another night without having spoken to some one. She seemed to have been foresaken for days; there was no knowing how long she might live here in solitude. When it was nearly five o'clock, she went to her bedroom ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... has been the inspiration, the lesson, and the model to all the obstructives of later years. The rules and the practices of the House of Commons offered in those times, and, {160} indeed, for long after, the most tempting opportunities to any body of members who were anxious to prolong debate for the mere purpose of preventing legislation. For example, it was understood until quite lately that any motion made in the House, even the most formal ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Railleux. It is a tall and narrow house, somewhat dirty and entirely undistinguished; there is nothing to recommend it save perhaps an air of privacy, a certain insignificance that wedges it between the surrounding buildings in a manner tempting to one anxious ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... much harm to their subjects, by tempting them to buy brandy. There is nothing which the Ostyaks are so eager to obtain, as this dangerous drink. On one occasion, a traveller was surrounded by a troop of Ostyaks, all begging for brandy, and when they ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... we had to cease our conversation, for we were conducted into a room where we found a most tempting looking repast ready for our delectation, and the attendants showed us to our ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... going back to Ohio, to the little history prof, and hating all men—one and all! That sounds exceedingly tempting! . . . I won't do it, though—because if I do, it means I'm beaten here—and I'd lose Susette and the baby!—. . . Quiet, now. . . . And then there's Dwight. He will probably call up soon and ask how Sally and I got on. I could go to him this very night! How perfectly disgusting! ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... Arbours were formed of luxuriant and wide-spreading branches, interwoven with fragrant flowers and shrubs that diffused a delicious perfume through the air. A banquet was provided, teeming with viands prepared in the style of the Peruvian cookery, and with fruits and vegetables of tempting hue and luscious to the taste, though their names and nature were unknown to the Spaniards. After the collation was ended, the guests were entertained with music and dancing by a troop of young men and maidens simply attired, who exhibited ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... A tempting repast, combining the attractions of dinner and tea, was ready to be placed upon the table just as soon as the gentlemen should have made their toilets after their ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... cappen," he said. "She not so bad ole woman, me tink, and p'raps tings go better dan we suppose. At all events, she make berry good fricassee." And he pointed to the dish of fowl prepared as he had described, which looked very tempting. ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... demand monopolies and lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as the number of governors is increased the evil is diminished. There are fewer to contribute, and more to receive. The dividend which each can obtain of the public plunder becomes less and less tempting. But the interests of the subjects and the rulers never absolutely coincide till the subjects themselves become the rulers, that is, till the government be either immediately ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this," I said, putting upon the centre-table, under the light of the lamp, Miss Nightingale's good book,—and I looked around at a library, tempting to me even, as it spread over two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... invited to interrogate Kit and Stephen, and her grief and anxiety found vent in fierce scolding at the misrule which had permitted such a villain as Fulford to be haunting and tempting poor fatherless lads. Master Headley had reproached poor Kit for the same thing, but he could only represent that Giles, being a freeman, was no longer under his authority. However, she stormed on, being absolutely convinced that her son's evasion was every one's ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Paul Veronese, Perugino, Poussin, and a number of works of the French school; and to the Museum of Antiquities, containing Roman remains, vases, coins, &c., discovered in the neighbourhood of Dives. There are also excursions to Bayeux, Honfleur, and Trouville for the day; and many tempting opportunities of visiting the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... he said joyfully. "No, no; I'm not going to break down like that. Don't say any more about it. It's like tempting a man. Here, I say," he whispered eagerly, "how quiet they are! You don't think they're going to make ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship. By the irony of fate, and the curious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street—a thing she had never done before in her life—and on turning the corner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a low-pitched roof—the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... sight. Presently he found the veil all rent and bloody. "Oh, hapless girl," said he, "I have been the cause of thy death! Thou, more worthy of life than I, hast fallen the first victim. I will follow. I am the guilty cause, in tempting thee forth to a place of such peril, and not being myself on the spot to guard thee. Come forth, ye lions, from the rocks, and tear this guilty body with your teeth" He took up the veil, carried it with him to the appointed tree, and covered it with kisses and with tears. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... foot of the table, and the meal began. The guests brought wonderful appetites to the feast. The conversation was subdued, for in Mrs. Stanhope's presence the children's liveliness was somewhat checked. Elsli spoke least, and also partook least of the tempting viands. Her abstinence attracted the attention of Fred, who sat next her, and, in spite of a warning shove which she gave him under the table, to show him that she wished to avoid observation, he exclaimed in ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... third document, the aspect of which to a native of Brum was like rivers of water in a thirsty land, was said to have been summarily set aside by reason of the comparative antiquity of the excellent weapon offered, notwithstanding the tempting lowness ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... window, as if they half meditated rushing violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... might rank as the tenth child, and would be so reckoned by the biometricians. One does not need to be a biologist to perceive that conclusions based upon assumptions so uncritical are worth nothing at all, and it is tempting to suggest that the biometricians are so called, on a principle long famous, because they ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... answered, understanding the question she had not fully asked. "It drives me almost mad to sit still and see those boys. Gaspare's like a merry devil tempting one." ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and at that moment Grace also laughed. The strong current of her purpose, the sense of escape from the bitter servitude of the past week, and the wild hope of final expiation through the chances she was tempting gave her a buoyancy long unfelt. She laughed in gayety of heart as she helped the young man draw his dory down the sand, and then took her place at one end while he gave it the last push and then leaped in at the other. He pulled out to where the boat lay tilting at ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great money-order which the triumph of her singing had won from Antonio-Pericles. In spite of Angelo's appeals to her to hurry on to the end of her journey without tempting chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio. Lorenzo privately assured her that there were bankers in Bormio. Many bankers, he said, came there from Milan, and that fact she thought sufficient for her purpose. The wanderers parted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Amy. Why had Amy missed all this! How had she been able to keep away from this adorable child of hers! Ethel saw in the windows of shops the most tempting garments for small girls. And Amy had had money to spend! Susette's wardrobe was "simply pathetic!" And often, sitting in the Park and watching on the road nearby the endless procession of automobiles and the women like Amy so daintily clad, and puzzling and remembering innumerable little things ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... Miss Lacey, "I don't see how anybody could be more free. I should feel that I was tempting Providence to expect everything was coming my way, the way he does. I should expect a thunderbolt instead of prosperity. I told him so once, and he smiled and said then I'd probably get the thunderbolt. He says it's all a matter of what you expect and why you expect it. He asked me ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... unhealthy as Missolonghi; and Mr. Muir, a very able medical officer, on whose talents he had much dependence, endeavoured most earnestly to dissuade him from such an imprudent step. His mind, however, was made up,—the proximity of that port, in some degree, tempting him,—and having hired, for himself and suite, a light, fast-sailing vessel, called the Mistico, with a boat for part of his baggage, and a larger vessel for the remainder, the horses, &c. he was, on the 26th of December, ready to sail. The wind, however, being ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker, or the like, may make men give way to a present appetite; but let any one see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the transgression, a fire ready to punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty visibly held up and prepared to take vengeance, (for this must be the case where any duty is imprinted on the mind,) and then tell me whether it be possible for people with such a prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without scruple, to offend ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... sensibility to this external stimulus brings with it, when men have it to excess, an unusual access of moral difficulty. Everything acts on them, and everything has a chance of turning them aside; the most tempting things act upon them very deeply and their influence, in consequence, is extreme. Naturally, therefore, the errors of such men are great. We need ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... marked the politics of Slavery. The maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or dissent as to the Constitution held over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... in its germ anterior to the supposed cause, and immediate temptation! Before he can cool, the confirmation of the tempting half of the prophecy arrives, and the concatenating tendency of the imagination is fostered ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... man wait on you like that! It's such fun to be hungry and to sit down to a jolly little table just big enough for two, with carnations nodding in the tall slim vase, with a fat, soft-footed, quick-handed waiter dancing behind you, and something tempting in every ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... deliciously scented. I am acquainted with no flower that excites such enthusiasm among ladies who fancy Messrs. Liberty's style of toilette; sad experience tells me that ten commandments or twenty will not restrain them from appropriating it. L. cruenta is almost as tempting. As for L. leucanthe, an exquisite combination of pale green and snow white, it ranks with L. Skinneri alba as a thing too beautiful for words. This species has not been long introduced, and at the moment it is dear ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... care, reflect! I call that tempting a man pretty strongly when you hand over to him fifty thousand dollars the day before you start on ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... great astonishment of travellers who have passed through Mexico), near the Quatro Villas, at small heights above the level of the ocean, though in general it is very limited. The flour is fine; but colonial productions are more tempting, and the plains of the United States—that Crimea of the New World—yield harvests too abundant for the commerce of native cereals to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive system of the custom-house, in an island near the mouth of the Mississippi and the Delaware. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... mouth as if to make some retort, when suddenly Oku re-appeared carrying a tray in which was a tempting spread of cocktails, cigarettes ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Lyon dashed this letter on the floor. "Mad girl!" he said; "did I not warn her fully of the consequences? Write to her father? What shall I write? Tell him that I have deceived him! That when he thought me far away I was sitting beside his daughter, and tempting her to act towards him with concealment, if ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... Margarita patache failed to meet the galleons at Cartagena, it was given its clearance and allowed to sail alone to Havana—a tempting prey to ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... stealing your silver spoons and have me locked up," said Lucian, laughing. "Make yourself easy, Miss Greeb. I have no intention of tempting Providence. All the same, I don't believe for one minute that No. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... be patient with the delay which then occurred, probably on account of the divination being unfavorable: "They could not find Shinte." When I returned to bed, another message was received, "Shinte wished to say all he had to tell me at once." This was too tempting an offer, so we went, and he had a fowl ready in his hand to present, also a basket of manioc-meal, and a calabash of mead. Referring to the constantly-recurring attacks of fever, he remarked that it was the only thing which would prevent a successful ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... kind of literature. To see him unwrapping the packages which his English mail had brought was to see a happy man. For in addition to books by post, there would be bundles of sale-catalogues. Then might you behold his eyes sparkle as he spread out the tempting lists; the humorous lines about the corners of his mouth deepened, and he would take on what a little girl who watched him called his 'pussy-cat look.' Then with an indelible pencil in his huge and pudgy ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... our will; Five days and a half shall men, and women, too, Attend their bus'ness and their mirth pursue, But after that no man without a fine Shall walk the streets or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest From toilsome labor and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none on peril of their lives Attempt a journey or embrace their wives; No barber, foreign or domestic bred, Shall e'er presume to dress a lady's head; No shop shall spare (half the preceding day) A yard of riband or an ounce ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... slender provocation would you seek to glow again! She sighed and shook her head, realizing the inutility of Hope—yet the tempting bait dangled ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... close. The vendor of Delhi jewellery will be there and the Sind-work-box-walla, with his small, compressed white turban and spotless robes, and the Cashmere shawl merchant and many more, pressing on the gentleman's notice for the last time their most tempting wares and preparing for the long bout of fence which will decide at what point between "asking price" and "selling price" each article shall change ownership. The distance between these two points is wide and variable, depending upon the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... elderly folk idling about these premises, and youngsters with rods tempting the fish out of the water; day after day the game goes on, the foolish creatures nibble at the bait and are drawn up on high; their fellows see the beginning of the tragedy, but never the end, where, floundering in the street, the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... even though their erect position offered a tempting target to any prowling enemies who might succeed in ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... I, Lieutenant Baldwin, and Lieutenant Alden dined with Doctor and Mrs. Wilder. It was a beautiful little dinner, very delicious, and served in the daintiest manner possible. But out here one is never quite sure of what one is eating, for sometimes the most tempting dishes are made of almost nothing. At holiday time, however, it seems that the post trader sends to St. Louis for turkeys, celery, canned oysters, and other things. We have no fresh vegetables here, except potatoes, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... while the Indians had been born to an unending struggle with the waters. All of them had times and times again looked the King of Terrors squarely in the face. What was as much to the purpose, they had been promised a tempting bonus if the Selache came ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion—for he was a French Romanist—he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, the immense faggots of which would have sufficed to roast ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... by an argument, urged with some plausibility, that the design with which the college had originally been founded had not been realized; that, in fact, it had not proved a benefit to the country, but rather the reverse, by tempting into the service of the Roman Catholic Church a humbler and poorer class of students than could devote themselves to it when the preliminary education involved the expense of a protracted residence in a foreign country. But the obvious advantages of the change prevailed over these considerations, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... to White Hall, to chapel; where preached Dr. Pierce, the famous man that preached the sermon so much cried up, before the King against the Papists. His matter was the Devil tempting our Saviour, being carried into the Wilderness by the spirit. And he hath as much of natural eloquence as most men that ever I heard in my life, mixed with so much learning. After sermon I went up and saw the ceremony ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys |
