"Provocative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stimulate the fetus to movements that may be seen by the eye, but an excess of iced water may prove injurious, even to the causing of abortion. Cold water dashed on the belly has a similar effect on the fetus and is equally provocative of abortion. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... it. We may not safely argue that lower animals prove the value of preparedness for war as a preventive measure! Among them, as among human groups, the only justification of militarism is protection and aggression. Preparedness for strife is provocative rather than ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... was disappointed for a long time because Julia was the belle of the town. Her dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be the centre of the gathering. Women envied her and studied her frocks, which were easily the most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and guffawed at her elfin stabs of humour. Her program ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... charm; the suggestion of life, form, colour and movement never less than evanescent, mysterious,—no reality. It is the language of mystic signs and portents—the inspiration of the gods—wholly spiritual—divine signalling. Remindful of superstition, provocative of imagination. Might not the inhabitants of some other world (Mars) controlling mighty forces thus surround our globe with fiery symbols, a golden writing which we have ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Perry were in the midst of some form of lover's quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying considerable attention to Patty at Sabbath School and prayer-meeting, occasions, it must be confessed, only provocative of very indirect and long-distance advances. Cephas Cole, to the amazement of every one but his (constitutionally) exasperated mother, was "toning down" the ell of the family mansion, mitigating the lively yellow, and putting another fresh ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and of what he had done in Canada, would be a governor-general working out fairly the Dictator's views of government. Although he had definitely made up his mind what course of action to follow, he was never betrayed into committing himself before the proper time. Deputations waited on him with provocative addresses; but none was cunning enough to snare him in his speech. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... walls were pushed aside and left to stand crooked and awry, the very mockery of their former dignity. Here and there a roll of parchment, an ink-stained pen, a cast-off cloak littered the hall and looked curiously provocative and out of place—an insult to the majesty of the dead and mighty Caesar, who had caused the stately columns to be reared, and the massive walls to raise their pure lines upwards to ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which take a certain course of human European and English history for granted. How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn from when it is ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... this difference—Grace will know the exact value of what I shall have done. Not that she thinks me a Le Notre"—Alison laughed—"What I mean is, she sees behind, she sees why it is fashionable to have a garden, since she has worked out the values of that existence. But there!" Alison added, with a provocative touch that did not escape him, "I am picking ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... into a desert, a disposition which Johnson checked by one of his habitual gibes at the quantity of easily accessible desert in Scotland. Boswell is equally frank in describing himself in situations more provocative of contempt than even drunkenness in a drawing-room. He tells us how dreadfully frightened he was by a storm at sea in the Hebrides, and how one of his companions, "with a happy readiness," made him lay hold of a rope ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... herself. She dared not look up lest she should see laughter in his eyes. So she looked down; and as her lashes were very long and dark and her lids very thick and creamy, the effect was quite charming and provocative, and Kenneth reflected that Rilla Blythe was going to be the beauty of the Ingleside girls after all. He wanted to make her look up—to catch again that little, demure, questioning glance. She was the prettiest thing at the party, there was no doubt ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not the slightest idea of mercy, pity, or compassion for suffering. A fellow-creature, or animal, writhing in pain or torture, is to him a sight highly provocative of merriment and enjoyment. I have seen a number of blacks at Loanda, men, women, and children, stand round, roaring with laughter, at seeing a poor mongrel dog that had been run over by a cart, twist and roll about in ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with a provocative air as she came nearer and took Pons' hand in hers. "Do you not know what it is to love a woman that will do anything for her lover? Is it possible? If I were in your place, I should not wish to leave this world for another ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... men were of course arranged so as not to coincide; yet somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such occasions, as often as not under the planton's very stupid nose, a kiss or an embrace would be stolen—provocative of much fierce laughter and some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le Gestionnaire, or even were ascending ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... at him was delightfully provocative. It served to point the figure she borrowed from Gwen. "So you think I'm a ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... the abstinence it involves, then it is surely an unworthy ideal. If it is a feeble submission to an external conventional law which there is no courage to break, then it is not an ideal at all. If it is a rule of morality imposed by one sex on the opposite sex, then it is an injustice and provocative of revolt. If it is an abstinence from the usual forms of sexuality, replaced by more abnormal or more secret forms, then it is simply an unreality based on misconception. And if it is merely an ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... only recently. He apparently has an insatiable appetite for Indian children, though no damage has been done as yet. It must have been a Unitarian spirit since he is evidently a one idea wolf," he pursued with a provocative grimace at the stolid Manson who ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... spaces of the seat unfilled, was to think rapturously to one's self: This is a woman. Her fluffy head was such a dot against the back of the chair, the curve of her chubby ringed hand above the head was so adorable, her black eyes were so provocative, her slippered feet so wee—yes, and there was something so mysteriously thrilling about the fall of her skirt that you knew instantly her name was Clara, her temper both fiery and obstinate, and her personality distracting. You knew that she was one of those women ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the boat. Back on the land, in my house, I took no before breakfast eye-opener, no bed-going nightcap. And I haven't drunk hot toddies since, and that was many a year ago. But the point is, I LIKED those toddies. The geniality of which they were provocative was marvellous. They were eloquent proselyters for John Barleycorn in their own small insidious way. They were tickles of the something destined to grow into daily and deadly desire. And I didn't know, never dreamed—I, who had lived with John Barleycorn for so many years and laughed at all ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... exchanging blows with each other, but always with the same slow seriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Yukoners, who smoked pipes and black cigars and chewed tobacco on Frederick's broad verandas until he felt like an intruder in his own house. There was no touch with them. They regarded him as a stranger to be tolerated. They came to see Tom. And their manner of seeing him was provocative of innocent envy pangs to Frederick. Day after day he watched them. He would see the Yukoners meet, perhaps one just leaving the sick room and one just going in. They would clasp hands, solemnly and silently, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... non-Parliamentarian. Mr. Balfour was arguing that it was impossible to properly discuss the amendment of Lord Wolmer until the House knew whether or not the Irish members were going to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. I do not know whether it was because there was something provocative in the manner in which Mr. Balfour referred to this subject, but it had the effect of rousing the once vulnerable, but now admirably controlled temper, which has played such a part in Mr. Gladstone's career. Rising with a certain deepened pallor, and with ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... his house is all walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs really ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... gates of the river-mouth are the Stepper Point, with its white day-mark, and Pentire Point; the Doom Bar lies well within these, almost blocking the passage, which, with vessels of any draught, must be made on the Stepper side. The name Doom Bar is, of course, provocative of legend, and an appropriate one has been found. It is said that Padstow had once a safe and commodious harbour, whose mouth was haunted by a beautiful mermaid. The harbour was under her special protection, and she was consequently ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the verge of coarseness, and he did not admire her pessimism, which was probably a pose; but there was a vein of elfish mischief in her that appealed to him. Sitting among the heather, small, lithe, and felinely graceful, watching him with a provocative smile in her rather narrow eyes, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... sort:—"A friend in need is a friend indeed"; "Many a little makes a mickle"; "Anger is a brief madness"; "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good." Such affirmations are too general and obvious to be provocative awakeners of original reflection, sentiment, or will. Maxims, on the other hand, instead of being general descriptions or condensed common-places, are usually definite directions, discriminative exhortations. Notice such specimens as these:—"Take care of the pence, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... supporters of the young girl were equally effusive and enthusiastic in their devotion. As usual in such cases, the real contest was between the partisans themselves; each successive demonstration on either side was provocative or retaliatory, and when they were apparently rendering homage to their idols they were really distracted by and listening to each other. At last, Hathaway's party being reinforced by fresh visitors, a tall brunette of the opposition remarked in a professedly confidential ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... absorbed in contemplation of a tiny lace-edged pocket-handkerchief. He spread it out upon his knee, and laughed. He crumpled it up in his palm, and pressed it to his face, and drank deep of its faint perfume,—faint, but powerfully provocative of visions and emotions. He had found it during the night on the floor of the sick-room, and had captured and borne it away like a treasure. He spread it out on his knee again, and was again about to laugh at its small size and gauzy texture, when his eye was caught by something in its ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... be asserted that the drug system of treating disease would be destroyed if it were to be critically examined; in fact, to defend it is provocative of unmistakable damage to it. If it is once subjected to the analysis of calm reason its defects become palpable to ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... and prayed, saying: "O Thou That hauntest dark Dodona, hear me now, Since that the shadowing arm of Time is flung Far over me, but cloudeth me full young. Scatheless I vow them. Let one Trojan cast His spear and loose my spirit. Rage is past Though I go forth my most provocative Adventure: 'tis not I that seek. Receive My prayer Thou as I have earned it—lo, Dying I stand, and hail Thee as I go Lord of the AEgis, wonderful, most great!" Which done, he took his stand, and bid his mate Urge on the steeds; and all the Achaian host Followed ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... of this was to make Gulden appear less of a fool than Kells supposed him. The ruffians nodded to one another. They stirred restlessly. They were animated by a strange and provocative influence. Even Red Pearce and the others caught its subtlety. It was evil predominating in evil hearts. Blood and death loomed like a shadow here. The keen Kells saw the change working toward a transformation and he seemed craftily fighting something within him that opposed this ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... with a flash of white teeth, his eyes shifting unobtrusively toward Annie-Many-Ponies, who wore a secret, half-smiling air of provocative interest in him. "Not spik much English, my brother. Always stay too much at home. Me, I travel all over—Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco. I ride in all contests—Pueblo, San Antonio—all over. Tomas, he go not so often. His head, all for business—making money—get rich some day. Me, I spend. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... own showing, when brought before the bishops, the "marytrs" frequently twitted their judges, gave them homethrusts and "privy nips," and behaved themselves generally in a very provocative and irritating manner. It is surprising, nevertheless, to find how very seldom the examiners lost their tempers, bearing with a considerable amount of insolence in a singularly good-humoured spirit, doing ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... shrank away, regretting her provocative glances now that she saw the kind of men she had ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... you say No?" There was a lazy challenge in the question, a provocative gleam in Sir Eustace's ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... you stupid person. Monseigneur assumed, somehow, that I would have a lover or two. You perceive that he at least is not a stupid person." And Nelchen tossed her head, with a touch of the provocative. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... arena were loudly cheered by their respective adherents, but the expected duel did not come off. Mr. ASQUITH'S questions were searching enough, but not provocative. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S reply was comprehensive and conciliatory, and ended with the promise of a day for discussion. Instead of a fight there was only an armistice, usually a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... we approach the once far-famed ATTICUS: the once illustrious RICHARD HEBER, Esq., the self-ejected member of the University of Oxford. Even yet I scarcely know how to handle this subject, or to expatiate upon a theme so extraordinary, and so provocative of the most contradictory feelings. But it were better to be brief; as, in fact, a very long account of Mr. Heber's later life will be found in my Reminiscences, and there is little to add to what those pages contain. It may be here only necessary to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... he knew began to look up at Scott out of the leaping flames—a face that was laughing and provocative one moment, wistful and tear-stained ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Mr. Haim a little annoyed with his daughter, and was Marguerite exquisitely defiant? Time hung. The situation was slightly awkward, he thought. And it was obscure, alluring.... He stood there, below the level of the street, shut in with those beings unknown, provocative, and full of half-divined implications. And all Chelsea was around him and all London ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... England to take up his post as professor of mathematics in the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Alfred Bray Kempe, a young barrister who pursued mathematics as a hobby, delivered at London's South Kensington Museum a lecture with the provocative title "How to Draw a ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... in passing, whether Shakespeare would ever have put by the mouth of any but a farcical mask a query so provocative of response from an Irish ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Pawnees spoke so little English, and spoke that little so badly, that General Duncan insisted upon their repeating the English call, which would be something like this: "Post Number One. Nine o'clock. All's well." The Pawnee effort to obey was so ludicrous, and provocative of such profanity (which they could express passing well), that the order ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... squaring their infantine stomachers at the spectator with an innocence, a dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice before pinching their cheeks—provocative as they are of this tribute of admiration—and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal gallantry with which the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the smallest belief in the woman's power to destroy my cattle by any alleged occult virtue pertaining to her wonderful ring, the sight of it flashed before my eyes in so provocative a manner reminded me of my almost forgotten promise to Siluce to take the jewel from Bimbane, if I could; and, exasperated at last beyond endurance by her abuse and threats, I sprang to my feet, seized ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... members of this committee,[38] and as they represented different schools of thought, there were lively passages between the two. It is customary to lay at Castro's door all the blame for the sequel. Nothing is likelier than that Leon de Castro was incoherent in his recriminations and provocative in tone: it is further alleged that his commentaries on Isaiah contained gratuitous digs at the views on Scriptural interpretation ascribed to Luis de Leon. It may well be that Luis de Leon, who had in him something of the irritability of a poet, took umbrage at these indirect attacks, ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... by almost hating him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'—'a lure of Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.' He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... his hankering for any sort of information that would help his affairs, the young man was tempted to follow the provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of shrewd sanity in the fanatic's mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... neat-handed; though her features were irregular, they were pleasing; her fresh complexion, her thick flaxen hair, her lively grey eyes, her little round nose, her rosy lips and above all her half-mocking, half-provocative expression—were all rather charming in their way. At the same time, in spite of her forlorn position, she was strict, almost haughty in her deportment. She came of a long line of house serfs. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... smiled—waiting perhaps for him to take his leave. As he did not speak she shook out her frock and then pulled down her bodice at the waist and drew herself up, thus throwing into relief the willowy outlines of her girlish form. The provocative grace, unconscious or intentional, of the attitude was not lost on her admirer. For an instant he stood irresolute, but when she stepped forward to pass him, he seemed to lose his self-control, and, putting his arms round her, tried to kiss her. With serpent ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... active service and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation, rousing the ancient gallantry of the British people."* (* Alison, History of Europe, 1839 2 128.) French military operations in the Netherlands, running counter to traditional British policy, were provocative, and the feeling aroused by the execution of Louis immediately led Pitt's ministry to order the French Ambassador, Chauvelin, to leave London within eight days. He left at once. On February 1st, acting on Chauvelin's report of the disposition and preparations of Great Britain, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... expense, to inform Matt Peasley just why the Blue Star Navigation Company couldn't possibly hand over its fine barkentine to a stranger, that he had only reopened the controversy; that his unfortunate reference to "meager maritime experience" had flicked Matt Peasley on a raw spot and been provocative of this reply, received the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... very red, and Mrs. Ferris refused to meet her eye, while the children were in a flutter of pleased expectancy. They felt the wholly contemporary interest of Yancy's story; he was dealing with forms of speech which prevailed and were usually provocative of consequences more or less serious. He gave ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... at last reached. It is about three miles from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... a pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar." The gravity of the Reader's countenance at these moments, with, now and then, but very rarely, a lurking twinkle in the eye, was of itself irresistibly provocative of laughter. Even upon the Serjeant's mention of the written placard hung up in the parlour window of Goswell Street, bearing this inscription, "Apartments furnished for single gentlemen: inquire within," the sustained seriousness with which he added, that there ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... on such principles of law and equity, but which might be quite as irritating and provocative of war, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... white and silvery, and they had staring black eyes. They were not so large as the California flying-fish, nor did they have any blue color. They resembled the California species, however, in that same strange, hunted look which always struck me. To see these flying-fish this way was provocative of thought. They had been pursued by some hungry devil of a fish, and with a birdlike swiftness with which nature had marvelously endowed them they had escaped the enemy. Here I had at once the wonder and beauty ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... attempt to move the shacks of the later contestants off their claims. Though they hated the sight of them and of the owners who bore themselves with such provocative assurance, they grudged the time the moving would take. Besides that the Honorable Blake had told them that moving the shacks would accomplish no real, permanent good. Within thirty days they must appear before ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... gunwale, heaving up and sliding astern as it caught the shine of the lantern. The lantern shone also against the knees of Archelaus, and lit up the check-board pattern of the eleemosynary trousers. It was a provocative pattern, but ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... uncharitable to class him among them. He appears, like Swift, to have chiefly regarded the Christian religion as an institution of service to the stability of the State. Of the Miscellaneous Works which were published after his death in five volumes, the most elaborate and the most provocative of disputation is A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church through several successive centuries (1749). Middleton was educated at Trinity College, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... rights of belligerents. Without them their privateers were useless, as they could have gone into no ports and sold their prizes nowhere. Mr. Seward was in touch with the New England school. It clamored for war with any friend to the revolting States. But Lincoln corrected what was provocative in the original advice to our minister, Adams, at St. James'. The English were no longer held to have issued a proclamation without due grounds in usage or the law of nations. It became by the modification no more a proceeding about which we could warrantably ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... condition, when Austria proposed in 1913 that the Triple Alliance should combine to crush Serbia, victorious but exhausted after the Balkan Wars, Italy at once rejected the proposal. And, under the second condition, as German naval expansion became more and more provocative and threatening to Britain, we were able to transfer nearly all our Mediterranean Fleet to the North Sea, secure in the knowledge that, whatever might befall, we should never find ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... talked of, and it occurred to her now that if she could stimulate a friendly rivalry among her pupils, in an effort to obtain funds for the purchase of a flag, it might divert their minds from thoughts of hostility to each other, into channels where a laudable competition would be provocative of harmony. So she decided, after consultation with the two grade teachers, to prepare two subscription blanks, each with its proper heading, and place them respectively in the hands of Penfield Butler captain of the Hilltops, and Alexander Sands commander of the Riverbeds. The other pupils would ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the Malay Peninsula and Borneo is the only real man-eater I ever met. Except under the most provocative circumstances, all the others I have met are practically harmless to man. This includes the Florida species, the Orinoco crocodile, the little one from Cuba, the alligator, the Indian gavial and the Indian crocodile ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... became a bitter critic of successive Administrations. His complaints of our blockade policy were frigidly acknowledged by Lord MILNER and hotly resented by Lord LANSDOWNE, upon whom Lord PORTSMOUTH'S ruddy beard always has a provocative effect. It is all very well to talk of being ruthless to neutrals, but if we had adopted the noble lord's policy early in the War would the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes be to-day floating side by ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... pretty little face was indeed a good deal swelled and inflamed about the eyes and cheeks. She again took refuge in silence, but this made no difference to Freydissa, or rather it acted, if anything, as a provocative of wrath. "Speak, you hussy!" was usually her irate manner of driving the helpless little ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... love and another. Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but "Beware of fear"? Was not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be gratified? As rapidly these thoughts passed over him, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a double process of rhythmic differentiation, intensively into stronger and weaker beats, and temporally into longer and shorter intervals. The accentuation of alternate elements has an objective provocative in the qualitative unlikeness of the ticks given by the swing and return of the pendulum. This phase is, however, neither so clearly marked nor so constant as the temporal grouping of the reactions. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... and last essential of the ideal game is that it must provoke laughter. You cannot laugh at Tiddleywinks, nor at Ludo (as I hear, but I have never yet discovered what Ludo is), nor at Happy Families. But the ideal game is provocative of that best kind of laughter— laughter at the undeserved misfortunes of others, seasoned by the knowledge that at any moment a similar misfortune ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... some were delighted. As usual, modesty was but another name for conformity. Mamise had to face the glares of the conventional wives and daughters in their bodices that followed every contour, their light skirts that blew above the knees, and their provocative hats and ribbons. They made it plain to her that they were outraged by this shapeless passer-by in the bifurcated potato-sack, with her hair tucked up under a vizored cap and her hands ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the sink-spout to Miss Grieve. While our landlady was on the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical, and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... future marriages were given to many a pretty girl, and to nudges and pinches were returned small screams suggestive of additional assault—and inviting denials of "Indeed I won't," and that crowning provocative to ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... provocative in his tone, and Robert looked closely at the speaker. He saw a tall man of at least forty-five, thin but obviously very powerful and agile. Robert noticed that his wrists were thick like his own and that his fingers were long ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... of J. Marjoram conceals, but it is certainly a pseudonym. Some time ago J. Marjoram published a volume of verse entitled "Repose" (Alston Rivers), and now Duckworth has published his "New Poems." The volume is agreeable and provocative. It contains a poem called "Afternoon Tea," which readers of the English Review will remember. I do not particularly care for "Afternoon Tea." I find the contrast between the outcry of a deep passion and the chatter of the tea merely melodramatic, instead of impressive. And I object to the idiom ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... mystical western problems and dreams which were very distant from his mind, an element which clings to all his career and gives it an unconscious poetry. He had many qualities of the epic hero, and especially this—that he was the last man in the world to be the epic poet. There is something almost provocative to superstition in the way in which he stands at every turn as the symbol of the special trials and the modern transfiguration of England; from this moment when he was born among the peasants of Ireland to the moment when ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... to the enemy. England and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm solely for "peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent on loot and glory. "Peace" in military mouths to-day is a synonym for "war expected." The word has become a pure provocative, and no government wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that "peace" and "war" mean the same thing, now in posse, now in actu. It may even reasonably ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... upon the older girl. He took in her sensuous shoulders, the rounded contour of her bust, her glossy coiffure, the small, fine hairs at the back of her neck. And he thought, "Yes, she has been loved pretty well." She was talking, and he could just hear her voice, soft and provocative, like the little gloved hand on her chair. By her eyes, which were of a violet hue, he saw she was aware of his gaze. Something gleamed in them that sent a thrill far down into ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... nature urges behind; but the prostitute uses this power without rest, she lives, not indeed sacrificed by men's lust, but kept alive by it. Always there is the invitation—"Come and find me." To be provocative is the one fixed simple rule of her life. Men's lust is a necessity to her very existence. Starving nations do not so eagerly await the coming of the food-laden ships which will keep them alive as the prostitute ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... assault. To him Dea was encompassed by a cloud. Cleaving that cloud, he shuddered, as though he were raising her chemise. It was in April. The spine has its dreams. He rambled at random with the uncertain step caused by solitude. To have no one by is a provocative to wander. Whither flew his thoughts? He would not have dared to own it to himself. To heaven? No. To a bed. You were looking down upon him, O ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him that for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze she ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... peculiar to himself. Never was there so great a master of what is called persiflage—of that boisterous, droll and pungent banter which, if not the most elevated species of wit, is certainly that which is most exhilarating and provocative of laughter. In this he was unrivalled, and it was heightened by the adjuncts of a voice, face, and manner irresistibly comical. As the most opposite characters owned the fascination of this exciting talent, he was enabled to gratify his inclination for every variety ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... into which he was ushered was a parlor. Absently he seated himself. The maid tittered. He looked at her—or rather the tipped-up nose, an attractive bit of anatomy. Saucy, provocative! Mr. Heatherbloom's head tilted a little; he surveyed the detail with the look of a connoisseur. She colored, went; but remained in the hall to peer. There were many articles of virtu lying around—on tables or in cabinets—and the caller's appearance was against him. He would bear watching; ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... said, looking up at him with a semi-nervous, semi-provocative glance, "now what? You'll just have to ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... sometimes admired, sometimes criticised, made her portrait always recognized, whether simpering as a chocolate-box classicality, smiling sadly from the flowery circle of the Purgatorio, or breaking out of some rough mass of paint with the provocative leer of a cocotte of the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... (on an average) two or three hundred lines at most—there are fabliaux of a thousand lines, and fabliaux of thirty or forty, but the average is as just stated. The incidents had to be adjusted for best effect, neither too many nor too few. The treatment had to be mainly provocative—an appeal in some cases by very coarse means indeed to very coarse nerves, in others by finer devices addressed to senses more tickle o' the sere. And so grew up that unsurpassed and hardly matched product the French short story, where, if it is in perfection, hardly a word is ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... ever allowed a share in the command may be denied peremptorily; but it is more than likely that he expressed himself in an excited manner and with a highly inflammatory effect upon his hearers. He was, at least, severely punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and to be carried almost by stealth out of the island; and what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and came across to me. She was wearing a charming morning gown of some light blue material, with large buttons, tight- fitting, alluring; and there was a little quiver of her lips, a provocative gleam in her eyes, which ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lusts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity—a mighty stone structure of great height and massivity, with tier upon tier ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... sent forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to fall to. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... to hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... there, and began measuring the walls once more, to arrive at the exact length of piping required, when he became conscious of a shadow cast from the open door; and, looking up, there stood Bruff, with a grin upon his face—a look so provocative that Vane turned ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... shown that what Darwin calls "sexual selection" plays no part. Woman wishes to excite the passion of love. She has an instinct for motherhood; the perpetuity of the species is at the bottom of it all. Woman knows how to make her dress alluring, how to make it provocative, how much to reveal, how much to conceal. A certain voluptuousness is the ambition of all women; anything but to be skinny and raw-boned. She does not want to be muscular and flat-chested, nor, on the other hand, to be over-stout, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... south beyond Mount Ord. Where were Knell and Poggin? Apparently they were not at present with the leader on the mountain. After the messenger left Fletcher grew silent and surly. He had presented a variety of moods to Duane's observation, and this latest one was provocative of thought. Fletcher was dangerous. It became clear now that the other outlaws of the camp feared him, kept out of his way. Duane let him alone, yet closely ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... had seen Elsie Maddison, and he had begged an afternoon to go on an expedition with them, Daphne had become intolerable. She had shown her English friend and his acquaintances a manner so insulting and provocative, that the young ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the will's natural appetite, namely corruptive or distressing evils, the contrary of which man desires naturally, wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that "pity is sorrow for a visible evil, whether corruptive or distressing." Secondly, such like evils are yet more provocative of pity if they are contrary to deliberate choice, wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that evil excites our pity "when it is the result of an accident, as when something turns out ill, whereas we hoped well of it." Thirdly, they cause yet greater pity, if they are entirely contrary ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... rank of those who promulgate them, and an archbishop owes it to himself to blaspheme against reason and freedom in superlatives of malignant unction. Rousseau's reply (Nov. 18, 1762) is a masterpiece of dignity and uprightness. Turning to it from the mandate which was its provocative, we seem to grasp the hand of a man, after being chased by a nightmare of masked figures. Rousseau never showed the substantial quality of his character more surely and unmistakably than in controversy. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... stir in us before the old one is quite extinct. So, as the sun sets, we gladly behold the moon rise on the opposite horizon, and rejoice in the double splendour of the two heavenly lights." Be it said that the atmosphere of the household was provocative of relaxed feelings. Goethe was not the only guest. Besides Merck there was a youth named Leuchsenring whose special line of activity had endeared him to a wide circle. Leuchsenring made it his business to enter into correspondence with susceptible souls whose effusions ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... these we must look to the Greek part of the empire. At Rome they appeared tame, for the mind of the Roman populace was naturally coarse in grain; what it delighted in was something sensationally acrobatic, or provocative of a rather gross laughter, or else involving a thrilling anticipation of danger and bloodshed. In taste the Romans were in fact similar to those modern spectators who love to see a man plunge from a lofty trapeze into a narrow tank, with a reasonable chance of breaking his neck. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... the scene before him with the apathetic interest of the large and mystified. The long room was crowded with jumbled atoms of colour, like a damaged kaleidoscope; with talk and laughter; with the whisper of sweeping skirts, and the clink of spurs. Then the first provocative bars set every foot in motion; and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to the Revolution, it was begun by good men, on good principles, and I have ever believed it would have gone on so, had not the provocative interference of foreign powers distracted it into madness, and sown jealousies among the leaders. The people of England have now two Revolutions, the American and the French before them. Their own wisdom will direct them what to choose and what to avoid, and ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... hard saying and a provocative. The entire course of democratic theory, of humanitarian thought and of the popular type of scientific speculation stands against it, and the Christian religion as well, unless the statement itself is guarded by exact definitions. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... raised wistfully to his. Her oval face was a little flushed by her recent exertions. She wore a very short skirt, and her hair hung about her shoulders in a tangled mass. Her little foreign mannerisms, half inciting, half provocative, were forgotten. His heart was full of pity ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the book bad, it is unsuited to the parlor table. Be the book good—too good, or be it great, then it is equally unsuited. Controversy has no place in parlors, hence no controversial literature. Pleasant if possible, or sweetly sad, and not provocative of argument—this is the demeanor of the parlor table, and to this the editor conforms. To the editorial dictum the "reader" must submit; to the "readers" decisions the writer must submit; to the menu furnished by the magazines, the public must submit, and so grows up among us a canon ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... well they agreed with the spirit of the age, were galling to such keen traders. And the mere difference between colonies and motherland had produced misunderstandings on both sides. But the main provocative cause was Imperial taxation for local defence. The Thirteen Colonies could not have held their own by land or sea, much less could they have conquered their French rivals, without the Imperial forces, which, indeed, had done by far the greater part of the fighting. How was the ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... which the Cambridge Platform had not definitely settled? The discussion of the first two questions precipitated into the foreground the still unanswered third. The turmoil in the Hartford church continued for years and was provocative of disturbances throughout the colony. Accordingly, in May, 1656, a petition was presented to the General Court by persons unknown, asking for broader baptismal privileges. Moved by the appeal, the Court appointed a committee, consisting of the governor, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... the bright green grass on the hillside. The Square was almost deserted at this hour, except for the old men on the benches and the squirrels that were preparing to return to their nests in the trees. The breath of spring was over all, roving, fragrant, provocative. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... taking it much too quietly; he would have seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... an English circle, that does not resort to the fist for a reply to him, may almost satiate the excessive fury roused in his mind by an illogical people of a provocative prosperity, mainly tongueless or of leaden tongue above the pressure of their necessities, as he takes them to be. They give him so many opportunities. They are angry and helpless as the log hissing to the saw. Their instinct to make use of the downright in retort, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down the Grand' Rue at Montricheux, flickering against the panes of the shop-windows and calling forth a hundred provocative points of light from the silver and jewels, the shining silks and embroidery, with which the shrewd Swiss shopkeeper seeks to open the purse of the foreigner. It seemed to chase the gaily blue-painted trams as they sped up and down the centre of the town, bestowing upon them ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... The Pot Boils (CONSTABLE) a "provocative" book, and certainly the title at least deserves this epithet. But I decline to be drawn into the obvious retort. Besides, with all its faults, the story exhibits an almost flaunting disregard of those qualities that make the best seller. About the author I am prepared ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... This game is provocative of fun and merriment as well as dexterity of hand and quickness of vision. It also presents a very pretty spectacle. It is greatly enjoyed by Indian men, women and children. It has also found favor with merrymakers ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... its evil mood, aims at petrifying and rendering immobile that helpless youthfulness in its offspring which the possessive passion finds so provocative and exciting. Thus the lover in his evil mood, desires that the object of his love should remain in everlasting immobility, an odalisque of eternal reciprocity. That this evil desire takes the form of a longing that the object of his love should eternally escape and eternally be ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... Colonial developments of this country. It has been written hurriedly and upon his own responsibility entirely. Inquiries have shown that his Ministers know nothing of the matter. At the same time it is couched in so unfortunate a manner, and certain phrases in it are of so provocative a character, that its publication would undoubtedly lead to a most dangerous state of feeling in this country. There would be such a ferment, sir, that I do not hesitate to say that within a week of the publication of that letter this ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dinner, should consist of some gentle provocative; and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition, and again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and abetted by Mrs. Chopper. After supper, it is ten to one but the last-named old lady becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... seemed spiritless, and the charming face held a gravity that was quite foreign to it. In the searching winter sunlight he could even discern one or two faint lines about the violet-blue eyes, while the curving mouth, with its provocative short upper lip, drooped ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... There is no writer with whom it is easier to find fault, or the limits of whose power may be more distinctly defined; but within his own sphere he goes forward, as he went through life, with a kind of grand confidence in himself and his cause, which is attractive, and at times even provocative of sympathetic enthusiasm. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... elegant, some obvious and some obscure, some humorous, some religious. Yet they have this in common, that each seems to be the bearer of some deep harmony, whose vibrations we feel and whose truth we recognize. From the very beginning they seem to have had a provocative and stimulating effect upon others; ever since they were written, cultivated people have been writing essays about them. One of them has been the subject of repeated academical disquisition. They absorb and reflect ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... flames, keeps its crest in an everlasting blaze. This thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs, then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a roar ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... without offending good taste. Nizami (Layla u Majnn) describes a lover as "thin as a toothpick." The "elegant" Hariri (Ass. of Barkaid) describes a toothpick with feminine attributes, "shapely of shape, attractive, provocative of appetite, delicate as the leanest of lovers, polished as a poinard and bending as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... central figure, which, when all is said, remains a caricature, and caricature uncompensated for by any great or noble characteristic of the play, whose primal quality is but cleverness. Effective as its satire is, and provocative of laughter as it always is on the stage, it is altogether cheaper in its quality than "The ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... without a change of garments. Steeled knights of the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen Elizabeth, and high-ruffled ladies of her court, were mingled with characters of comedy, such as a party-colored Merry Andrew, jingling his cap and bells; a Falstaff, almost as provocative of laughter as his prototype; and a Don Quixote, with a bean pole for a lance, and a pot lid ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson |
