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More "Provocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not perfected. Then unfortunately I had a quick temper, which I found justification had not destroyed. It was materially repressed and generally held under control, but it was there and needed only the provocation to assert its presence; and sometimes, I am sorry to say, it brought me under condemnation and I had cause to repent and regain the ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... common-weal below their arm. One who bears with him an umbrella— such a complicated structure of whalebone, of silk, and of cane, that it becomes a very microcosm of modern industry—is necessarily a man of peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an offender's head on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty shilling silk is a possession too precious to be adventured in the shock ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... better of you, you will soon get the better of your temper. There is no such efficient discipline for a hasty temper as determined, self-imposed silence. Then, too, there is a dignity about silence under provocation that is impressive and effective. The greatest disadvantage at which any person can be placed in the eyes of companions and friends is that of losing control of one's tongue as well as of one's temper. In nearly every case where we receive provocation or affront, speech ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... company with a selection of his less offensive stories, and found ready applause. The gayety was loud and forced. Every one attempted to keep it at fever-heat. Jest followed jest with increasing rapidity. Laughter rang out on the smallest provocation. It was a competition in hilarity. And the gayest of all were Christine ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... mean?" asked the doctor, in rather a cold tone. "Master Poole says you attacked him and shook him without provocation." ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... angered. But like all men of character, his face became stern under provocation, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... baffled, but the land is bettered. A field of corn is planted, and Nature does not set herself to protect it, but sends a flock of crows to devour it; the farmers grumble, but the crows are saved alive. Freezing water contracts awhile, and then without any provocation turns right about face and expands; if your pitcher stands in the way, so much the worse for your pitcher, but the little fishes are grateful; and with all her whims and inconsequences, Nature gets on from year to year without once failing of seed-time and harvest, cold or heat. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... impossible. Nor is that beautiful precision less in passages of description, such as the landscape lines in Amelia and elsewhere. The words are used to the uttermost yet with composure. And a certain justness of utterance increases the provocation of what we take leave to call unjust thought in the few poems that proclaim an intemperate scorn—political, social, literary. The poems are but two or three; they are to be known by their subjects—we might as well do something to ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... at the idea of your calling the book "word-painting." My dearest Susie, it is the chief provocation of my life to be called a "word-painter" instead of a thinker. I hope you haven't filled your book with descriptions. I thought it was the thoughts you ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... the great astonishment of the Professor, burst into tears. Now, no one ever had higher principles than Professor Merriman, but no man ever had a greater horror of tears. He could not bear what Rosamund had told him; he could not understand how, under any provocation, a girl could act as Rosamund had done; and yet, at the same time, her tears so maddened him that he would have done anything to ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... been said that he walked until he could ride, and lived humbly until his wealth would more than warrant his living on Fifth Avenue. He carried the hod until he found better work, and never left one position until he had found a better one, no matter what his real or supposed provocation might be. He lived to return home, as did the boy of whom he early read, and established his father comfortably on a farm which ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... appoint that priest on the list of English correspondents. Hitherto he had received some dozen letters, and not one of them had been without its grain of gold. Especially he had noticed that one warning ran through them all, namely, that sooner or later there would be some overt act of provocation on the part of English Catholics; and it was the memory of this that had inspired his vehement entreaties to the Pope this morning. As in the Roman and African persecutions of the first three centuries, ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... that it should!" exclaimed Percy, flying into one of the rare passions to which his amiable, easy-going nature would occasionally lapse under great provocation, "nobody asked that it should; and you are"—and here he launched into some most uncomplimentary remarks, and then dashed from the room, leaving Harley to feel that he had made a great mistake, and ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... stationed by that Prince to secrete her, confirming his suspicions, he made no reply, but discharging a blow with his sabre at Theodore, would soon have removed all obstruction, if Theodore, who took him for one of Manfred's captains, and who had no sooner given the provocation than prepared to support it, had not received the stroke on his shield. The valour that had so long been smothered in his breast broke forth at once; he rushed impetuously on the Knight, whose pride and wrath were not less powerful incentives to hardy deeds. The combat was furious, but ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... necessarily a sign of poetry, and that, as a prophet of his own had laid it down, poetry should "transport" not "fix." At any rate, it is clear to any one who reads the book that the author was in a mood of deliberate provocation and exaggeration—not a favourable mood for art. The quiet grace of Sophocles is perhaps impossible to reproduce in English, but Mr Arnold's verse is more than quiet, it is positively tame. The dreary tirades of Polyphontes and Merope, and their snip-snap stichomythia, read ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... lay in the swift and easy formation of an opposition whose strength and temper would be concealed except from the President, and whose action would be impressive, consistent, and dramatic. The press was to know only what it wished to know, without provocation. The main effort should convince the President of the unfitness of one candidate and the fitness of the other. There were to be no public meetings or loud denunciations. What cared the officials for mere cries of rage? Arthur found his task delightful, and he worked like a smith at the forge, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... wild vengeance is a crime you are doing, however great the provocation. We cannot continue to love one another if you do this. Listen: I love you better than father, mother, life, or career—all my dreams I've lost in you. I've lived through ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... critic, and still more a friend, at his word, and never to doubt that I have been writing cursed nonsense, if they say so. There was a mental reservation in my pact with the public[25], in behalf of anonymes; and, even had there not, the provocation was such as to make it physically impossible to pass over this damnable epoch of triumphant tameness. 'Tis a cursed business; and, after all, I shall think higher of rhyme and reason, and very humbly of your heroic people, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... been perfectly justifiable. In fact this is unquestionably what he intended to do, but he suddenly found himself in such a position, that in the even of hostilities, his ship would be the captured one, and he owed his escape purely to Porter's over-forbearance, under great provocation Then he gave his word to Potter that he would not infringe on the neutrality; and he never dared to break it, until he saw Porter was disabled and almost helpless! This may seem strong language to use about a British officer, but it is justly strong. Exactly as any outsider ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... reconciled. By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence. The cruel invasion of their country by Porter has alone furnished them with ample provocation; and I can sympathize in the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... sending reenforcements to Major Anderson, who commanded the forts in Charleston Harbor, until an absolute necessity for doing so should make itself apparent, lest it might unjustly be regarded as a menace of military coercion, and thus furnish, if not a provocation, at least a pretext for an outbreak on the part of South Carolina. No necessity for these reenforcements seemed to exist. I was assured by distinguished and upright gentlemen of South Carolina that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... which we hear of took place at Oxford in 1209, but when we do hear of it we find the other University mentioned by the historian in close connection with the event recorded. The townsmen under great provocation had seized three of the gownsmen in hospitio suo and threw them into the gaol. King John came down to make inquiry, and he hung those three, guiltless though they were, as Matthew Paris assures us. Hereupon there was ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... promised, Fanny descended with Redbud,—her arm laced around the slender waist of that young lady, as is the wont with damsels,—and ready to give battle to our friend Verty, upon any additional provocation, with even greater ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... sent so many memorials and petitions for my liberty, that his Majesty at length mentioned the matter first in the cabinet, and then in a full council; where it was opposed by none, except Skyresh Bolgolam, who was pleased, without any provocation, to be my mortal enemy. But it was carried against him by the whole board, and confirmed by the emperor. That minister was galbet, or admiral of the realm, very much in his master's confidence, and ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... fifteen thousand troops along the line of route, and fifty thousand more of all arms quartered near at hand. Why there should have been any necessity for the collection of such a force, or for the provocation of a possible riot under the conditions, it was difficult to see. The crowd groaned and cheered with tremendous enthusiasm, and when at last somebody waved a tri-colour flag from an upper window, it went roaring mad with cries of Vive Rochefort! Vive ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... sailed from Holland about the same time as he had departed from England. Several English ships were expected on the Gambia and for fear of their capture by the "Golden Lyon," Holmes sailed at once for Cape Verde where, according to his statement, without any provocation he was fired upon by the Dutch. Holmes returned the fire, and after suffering some damage withdrew from the attack. On the following morning he was surprised, he declared, to see that the Dutch had hung out a white flag and were sending a boat to him offering to surrender ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... allow himself to act toward his slave, and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example's sake, or for the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a defenseless slave-woman. When he drives her from his presence without redress, or the hope of redress, he acts, generally, from motives of policy, rather than from a hardened nature, or from innate brutality. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... made a lunge at the other in jest. Observing the natives looking on with amazement, and fancying that the men were engaged in deadly fray, it drew our attention to the scene. They no doubt came to the conclusion that we must be a desperate set of fellows, and killed one another upon the slightest provocation. At all events, this little incident appeared to have a very good effect, as the natives, who had continually been interfering with our observations, now left us, not wishing to be so near to people who were ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... finally came to discharge him every evening in order that he might be sure to find him at his post in the morning. Regularly, he would call Sago into the den, very red in the face over some wholly imaginary provocation. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... we all have ours, and he was suffering, as we all do in our turns, from an impudent tongue. Little did he think that a fellow-creature, looking at him at that moment, was reminded, by his meekness under insult, of Him, our example, who, under such provocation, opened not his mouth, and that I was made to remember, as I stood there and received instruction from him, that the best alleviation and cure of anguished sensibility under ill-treatment is in this same silence, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... of which had now culminated in the disasters of the Black Week. Flame only shows the brighter for a sombre background. And Poppy, during this ill-starred period, had been as a flame to her admirers and associates—a fitful, prankish flame, full of provocation and bedevilment, the light of it inciting to all manner of wild doings and, in the end, not infrequently scorching those pretty shrewdly who were over-bold in warming themselves at the heat of it. For fires of the sort lighted ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... present situation continue, it will bring grievous evils upon Poland. Proclamations have already been spread broadcast over the country, saying that the king has no quarrel with the people of Poland, but, as their sovereign has, without the slightest provocation, embarked on a war, he must fight against him and his Saxon troops, until they are driven from the country. This you will repeat, and will urge that it will be infinitely better that Poland herself should cast out the man who has embroiled her with Sweden, than that the country should ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... quotation in which the touch-hole of a pistol is called the sere: the sere, then, of the lungs would mean the opening of the lungs—the part with which we laugh: those 'whose lungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the least provocation: tickled—irritable, ticklish—ready to laugh, as another might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase, signifying, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... highwayman, "Galloping Hermit," the notorious wearer of the brown mask, the man upon whose head a price was set, and who would surely perish miserably at Tyburn if he fell into the hands of his enemies. Great provocation might have made him a knight of the road, romance had succeeded in setting him apart from his brethren, but was she justified in loving such a man, could she give herself into his keeping? And she dared not tell him all that was in her heart, for she knew instinctively how he would answer her. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... field,' is not in keeping with the relation of Vritra to Indra, or Ahriman to Ormuzd, who face each other almost as equals. In later books, such as 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, where Satan is mentioned as provoking David to number Israel (the very same provocation which in 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 is ascribed to the anger of the Lord moving David to number Israel and Judah), and in all the passages of the New Testament where the power of evil is spoken of as a person, we may admit ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... brown hair streaked with grey, a bold, short nose, firm yet full mouth, and what gave a peculiar air of animation to his face, with two youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought, so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a certain ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... repeatedly that she had naturally a better voice than Nilsson, and that, if she could dry up for ever her fountain of tears, she might become a great artiste. For Ilka had the deplorable habit of crying on very slight provocation. The maestro, with his wild hair, his long, polished nails, and his frantic gesticulations, frightened and distressed her; she thought and spoke of him as a kind of curious animal, and nothing could persuade her that he and she belonged ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of the world is awakened, such as these will go on, without admonition, and without provocation, to every extremity. Those who have made the exhibition of the fourteenth of July are capable of every evil. They do not commit crimes for their designs; but they form designs that they may commit crimes. It is not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was vested with all the powers which the board of elected trustees had the statutory right and the duty to administer. You can imagine, gentlemen, how efficiently these schools could be conducted under such conditions and with such a commission. You can imagine the provocation it was to the French-Canadian population of Ottawa. I should add that one of the commissioners—they are all respectable men—but one was in the unfortunate position of being a license holder under the Government which appointed him. Mr. Charbonneau, or the firm to which he ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt
... the word. I would as soon call a thunderstorm insignificant. The man is a volcano, and may explode at any provocation." ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... What was the provocation? Even in Caligula's days slaves were not thrown over cliffs ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and some of the rioters were slightly wounded or rather grazed by snipe shot, but not so seriously as to stop their daily avocations. The Catholic party allege that the Orangemen assaulted the village in general, firing without provocation. The Protestant party say that this is absurd, and that it is not yet known who fired the shots. A second case, less serious, is also on the carpet. A solitary Orangeman returning from the same celebration is said to have been waylaid, beaten, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... scandal. No tale was too wild or too monstrous for vulgar belief. Like his successor the poet, he was accused of all kinds of vagaries and wickedness. It was said that he always went armed, as if prepared to commit murder on the least provocation. At one time, when a gentleman of his neighborhood was to dine tete a tete with him, it is said a brace of pistols were gravely laid with the knives and forks upon the table, as part of the regular table furniture, and implements that might be needed in the course of the repast. Another rumor ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... "But why?" he protested. "The young fellow behaved like a cub, but no one offered him any provocation. I should think by this time he is probably heartily ashamed of himself. May I ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must claim any moral superiority in the negotiations. Both were engaged for years in a race for armaments. Both indulged and still indulge in literary and oratorical provocation. Both claimed to be "an Imperial race" ruling other races by divine right. Both shewed high social and political consideration to parties and individuals who openly said that the war had to come. Both formed alliances ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... did not look like obliging Mr. Soper with anything. The provocation was certainly immense. Mr. Soper's voice inspired him with a fury of disgust. The muscles of his mouth twitched; the blood rushed visibly to his forehead; he stood looming over the table like ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Constituent Assembly ended. The Socialist-Revolutionist fraction maintained an attitude of surprising calm and respectful bearing, not allowing itself to be disturbed by any provocation. The correspondents of foreign newspapers congratulated the members and said to them that in this session to which the Bolsheviki had wished to give the character of "any-old-kind-of-a-meeting" all the fractions maintained ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... Cleopatra in a ticklish place, and the bow of the saddle was dipping into another ticklish place, whilst Willoughby's swinging feet provided for the ticklish places on the horse's thighs and flanks. Cleopatra mistook all this for deliberate provocation, and responded to the very best of his splendid ability. Early in the entertainment, Willoughby's hat was bucked off his head; presently the wellington boot was bucked off one foot, and the blucher off the other, the prince-alberts following in due course. Then ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... a man; cano,—and a dog.'' There was a roar, and Mr. Hoyt, though evidently saddened, kept his temper. He did not, like the great and good Arnold of Rugby, under similar provocation, knock the offender down with ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... less than seven years Egypt passed successively through the hands of six different governors. These changes were instigated by the mistrustful disposition of the caliph, who saw in every man a traitor and conspirator, dismissing on the slightest provocation his most devoted adherents, some of whom were even put to death by his orders. His last choice, Yazid ibn Hatim, governed Egypt for eight years, and the caliph bestowed the title of Prince of Egypt (Emir Misri) upon him, which title was also ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... dropping on his stool, and taking his stone upon his lap and stroking it, as if it had been some quadrupedal pet. Full of rough but real politeness to women when in good humour, he lost all his manners along with his temper upon the slightest provocation, and her tone ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... My princely Uncle! you are too much moved;— I grant it was a gross offence, and grossly Left without fitting punishment: but still This fury doth exceed the provocation, Or any provocation: if we are wronged, We will ask justice; if it be denied, We'll take it; but may do all this in calmness— Deep Vengeance is the daughter of deep Silence. 140 I have yet scarce a third part of your years, I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... occasional rattlesnake to be shot up, and so, all in all, a cowboy without a gun would not fit in the picture at all. Though I don't want you to get the idea that the boy ranchers were desperate characters, willing to "pull a gun" on the slightest provocation. The guns were for service, ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... that one should lead a life carefully exact, and act with discretion in regard to outward things, as food and things of that sort,—that one should not act in these things unreasonably, and that he should give his neighbor no provocation. ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... the cells for urging his congregation to pray pour nos ames. Nowhere outside the Fatherland, I should imagine, would prisoners be forbidden to pray even pour nos armes, and the stupidity of the misunderstanding is typical enough. The cheerful dignity shown by prisoners under provocation makes a fine contrast to such pitiful smallness, and of that this little book is a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... such inhuman taskmasters as is sometimes supposed. When a case did occur, the Administration always made a strict investigation—punishing the guilty with exemplary severity, and taking no account of the provocation to which they had been subjected. The peasantry, on the contrary—at least, when the act was not the result of mere personal vengeance—secretly sympathised with "the unfortunates," and long cherished their memory as that of men who had suffered for ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... precept of the Gospel and not of the Koran. Yet it is a sad fact that the nominal Christians of this dark land are not much better in this respect than their Moslem neighbors. The Greeks, Maronites and Papal Greeks beat their wives on the slightest provocation. In the more enlightened towns and cities this custom is "going out of fashion," though still often resorted to in fits of passion. Sometimes the male relatives of the wife retaliate in case a husband beats her. In the village of ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... "justifiable," the second "excusable," and the third "felonious." Felonious homicide is subdivided into two branches; the first is murder, which is killing with malice aforethought; the second is manslaughter, which is killing a man on a sudden provocation. Here, gentlemen, are four sorts of homicide; and you are to consider whether all the evidence amounts to the first, second, third or fourth of these heads. The fact was the slaying five unhappy persons that night. You are to consider whether it was justifiable, excusable, or felonious; and if felonious, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... gazing at her face in profile, at her crown of gold-brown hair, at her singing throat, felt the old ache at the heart, the hunger and the yearning. The nearness of her was a provocation. The sight of her, in her fawn-colored silk corduroy, tormented him with a rush of visions of that form of hers—swimming Mountain Lad, swan- diving through forty feet of air, moving down the long room in the dull-blue dress of medieval ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... qualities of body Socrates added the highest and noblest qualities of mind. Naturally he had a violent temper, but he held it under severe control, though he could not always avoid a display of anger under circumstances of great provocation. But his depth of thought, his remarkable powers of argument, his earnest desire for human amendment, his incessant moral lessons to the Athenians, place him in the very first rank of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the minutes of that sad and lonely watch. Although a Mexican, he could feel; although an avowed foe of this good republic of ours, he had his principles, his affections, and his sense of right. Whatever may be the merits of the quarrel, and we are not disposed to deny that our provocation has been great, a sense of right should teach every man that what may be patriotic in an American, would not be exactly the same thing in a Mexican, and that we ought to respect in others sentiments that are so much ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Absalom comes upon the page a few chapters back, and gathers upon his name quickly the dark stain of murder. It is true he has received most awful provocation, and the victim of that crime has little of our sympathy. But there is no sign of penitence or of sorrow in the mind of Absalom for this deep offence, by which he has violated God's most holy law. His ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... power of movements and of actions, as also the cause which directs them, should be entirely internal, it is not well, as has been done,[186] to limit to internal impressions the primary cause or provocation of these acts, with the intention to restrict to external impressions that which provokes intelligent acts; for, from what few facts are known bearing on these considerations, we are convinced that, either way, the causes which arouse and provoke ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... The provocation must be strong indeed that can rouse me to do this, even with an enemy. And if you can forgive an unintended offence as heartily as I do the way in which you have resented it, there will be nothing to prevent our meeting ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... were training a host of incomparable seamen destined to harry the commerce of England under the new-born Stars and Stripes, and now, in 1775, on the brink of actual war, Parliament flung a final provocation and aroused the furious enmity of the fishermen who thronged the Grand Bank. Lord North proposed to forbid the colonies to export fish to those foreign markets in which every seacoast village was vitally concerned, and he also contemplated ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... he said. "Jolly old Ali, my secretary—goes off in a regular trance on the slightest provocation. Fact, dear ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... to the late Emperor Hsien Feng, and she was very sad and morose during this period. We all had to be very careful indeed not to upset her in any way, as she would find fault on the slightest provocation. She hardly had a word to say to any of us, and cried almost incessantly. I could hardly understand the reason for such grief, seeing that the Emperor had died so many years previously. None of the Court ladies were allowed to dress in light-coloured gowns during the ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... the war commenced, as you gentlemen believe, without provocation; we believe otherwise. This war so commenced, costing a million of lives and countless millions of treasure, has not been expiated by one drop of retributive blood. [Applause.] You must further remember, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that at the formation of the Constitution ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... serving his Majesty again. I had expected death, and his powerful friends did their utmost to procure a sentence, but the Admiral was a just though a rigid man, and well knew the character of my accuser,—the provocation was taken into consideration, and the services I had rendered during eleven years in storm and battle. I was dismissed. Mr. Elliott, the planter, offered me a home. I had saved considerable prize money. I was disgusted with ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... anything for her. In a few words she gave him to understand that her husband was of a very excitable nature at intervals, took to drink and continued it until he fell sick. She begged Alfred to have Jake apologize and not to quarrel or cross the man, no matter what provocation he gave them, all of which Alfred promised her. Jake readily agreed to do ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... two armed Austrian officers, receiving the most 'unmerited and brutal treatment,' as your lordship has expressed it; that he was cut down by one of them, left in his own blood, his life in danger for a length of time, and his health perhaps for ever injured; and all this without any provocation, any offence, as it has been proved by evidence not to be controverted, of the most respectable witnesses,—people the subjects of the state whose officers had so acted,—yet for all this no real redress has been obtained; that officer is still ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bethink you, you know naught of this man your father desires you to wed. Is it not possible that he, too, may love—or may learn to love you, on provocation? You are very fair, madonna. Yours is a beauty that may draw a man to Heaven or unclose the gates of Hell, at will; indeed, even I, in my poor dreams, have seen your face as bright and glorious as ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... in question here is very pious, she loves her husband very much, her husband asserts that she loves him too much, even: but this is a piece of marital conceit, if, indeed, it is not a provocation, as he only complains to his ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... but the speaker moistened his lips and proceeded firmly. "It was that of a professional gambler, utterly devoid of mercy toward his victims; a reckless fighter, who shot to kill upon the least provocation; a man without moral character, and from whom any good action was impossible. That was what was said about you. Is the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... sitting upon a crystal bench beside the fountain, talking with Stevens, who, dressed in his bulging space-suit, stood near an airlock of the Forlorn Hope. "It seems a shame that you should face again those unknown, monstrous creatures who so inexcusably attacked us both without provocation." ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... yet, it was evident, the young poet had not found his theme. This came with the outbreak of the Mexican War, which was unpopular in New England, and which the Free Soil party regarded as a slaveholders' war waged without provocation against a sister republic, and simply for the purpose of extending the area ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... so bitter and a terror so over-mastering that the mildness which has resulted has made me feel indifferent and even amiable to mine enemies. Whether this intimate knowledge of myself will save me, God knows; but when some maddening provocation comes, after reaction has run its course, I rage more hotly than ever, and only a sense of personal dignity keeps me from using my fists. I am two-thirds passion, and I am afraid that in the end it will consume me. I live so intensely, in my best and my worst! I would ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... conduct an armed squadron and soldiery to a mine on the banks of the Orinoko conveyed no right to break a hostile Spanish blockade of the river. According to him, though in defiance of contemporary testimony, Ralegh alone employed violence; the San Thome garrison 'offered no provocation whatever, except an attitude of self-defence.' On these principles, while he laments the tardiness of its appearance, he necessarily considers the Declaration straightforward, honest, and convincing. National opinion ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... could be readily understood, that the victor would seek to indemnify himself for his losses, on terms the most exacting and relentless if you will; but in the case under consideration, no animosity existed between the two nations until the ruler of one, without even a shadow of provocation on the part of the inhabitants of the other, made a deliberate descent upon them, and ignoring the benefits conferred gratuitously by them, previously, on his own ungrateful land, subjected them to every barbarity and wrong known to the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Sherman," he greeted, "glad to see you." Then his brow knit in a kind of puzzled provocation. "What's that Vigilante Committee ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Lord—behold! I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity. And I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... the spot from which I had been watching the birds, but they did not return again. I had frightened them away. Individual birds of the same species sometimes differ considerably in their behaviour at the nesting season. Some will desert the nest on the slightest provocation, while others will cling to it in the most quixotic manner. It is never safe to dogmatise regarding the behaviour of birds. No sooner does an ornithologist lay down a law than some ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... meaning of the interruption came over them, with sensations as divergent as their various individual minds. There was no need to tell them who looked at that towering, intruding figure that tragedy lurked in the air, that death on the slightest provocation, at the twitch of a trigger finger, dwelt in those big twin Colts lying menacingly across the folded arms. A lunatic escaped was a pleasant companion, a child, to deal with, compared with Pete Sweeney at this time. Malevolent, irresponsible, dare god—bull mastery ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... them;" that is, although I had chosen them for my spouse, and married myself unto them with an everlasting covenant of mercy, and entailed heaven unto them, yet they have broken my covenant. This was a great provocation. Thus, "When thou wast in thy blood, and no eye pitied thee, to have compassion upon thee, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live: Yea, I said unto thee, Live." It is twice repeated. As if God should say, "Mark it, O Israel, when ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... flag by the Sultan of Aden," requests permission "to take possession of Cape Aden." [42] The Governor-general, however, in his reply, (Oct. 16,) appears scarcely of opinion that so strong a measure is warranted by the provocation, and suggests "that satisfaction should, in the first instance, be demanded of the Sultan. If it be granted, some amicable arrangement may be made with him for the occupation of this port as a depot for coals, and harbour for shelter. If it be refused, then further ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... arrangements that were to be made for Dick's benefit. Very few men who had the honour of her acquaintance cared to disregard Madame's advice. That sort of contempt might end in being knifed by a stranger in a gambling hell upon surprisingly short provocation. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... three men. In retaliation for the loss of Sergt McNeal, who was shot and scalped, the English shot and scalped an Indian prisoner on the spot where McNeal had fallen, an action which, however great the provocation, is to be lamented as unworthy of ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... also a lawsuit. But no court could settle the differences between the United States and Germany. The nation squarely faced the fact that the two countries were officially not on speaking terms; they were on the dangerous ground of open enmity, when the least provocation would be as a spark to a powder magazine. Sparks there were in plenty; but the explosion waited. President Wilson guarded the magazine. He waited an "overt act" before giving up his vigil and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... every consideration, that had made her reluctant to speak of him, and she enquired of Madame Montoni, whether this consolation had been refused. Her aunt informed her that it had, adding, that, after the provocation she had herself received from Valancourt, in their last interview, and the persecution, which the Signor had suffered from his letters, no entreaties ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat! He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the Daily Post-Bag, the Pictorial Pie, and the Illustrated Invoice, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... daytime, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," Miss Slowboy choked—she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation—and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... doubt one of the fundamental provisions of the treaty. The obligation of Austria-Hungary to come to a previous understanding with Italy was the greater because her obstinate policy against Serbia gave rise to a situation which directly tended to the provocation of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... might do more than Princess Anne's. Moreover, a message came from old Mr. Cromwell, begging to see Sir Edmund. It was on behalf of Major Oakshott, who entreated that Sir Philip might be assured of his own great regret at the prosecution and the result, and his entire belief that the provocation came from his unhappy son. Both he and Richard Cromwell were having a petition for pardon drawn up, which Sir Henry Mildmay and almost all the leading gentlemen of Hampshire of both parties were sure ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rested. If he recognized Peter Moore, he gave no indication of it. He studied Peter's countenance with the look of one whose interest may be distracted on the slightest provocation. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... excessive walking and boating, the evening damps. There was coming to be a look about Laura such as her mother had, who died at thirty. As for Marian,—but here the complaint suddenly stopped; it would have required far stronger provocation to extract from the faithful soul one word that might seem to reflect ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... provocation," the foreman admitted. "But provocation is not an excuse, judged by the rules of discipline. The prisoner challenged the officer on duty to fight a duel, at the first opportunity, on shore; and, receiving ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... indeed with this disadvantage, that he who argueth on the side of power may speak securely the utmost his malice can invent; while the other lieth every moment at the mercy of an informer; and the law, in these cases, will give no allowance at all for passion, inadvertency, or the highest provocation. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... he found that it would consume slowly, but pertinaciously. While into yet others, such as dry turf and punk, it would eat its way and hide, maintaining therein for a long time a retired but potent existence, ready to leap into radiant life under certain provocation. His invention stimulated by these experiments, he had made himself several hollow tubes of a thick green bark whipped about with thongs, and had stuffed them with that mixture of turf and punk which he found best calculated to hold the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Frederick R. Woods had been before her marriage one of the beautiful Anstruther sisters, who, as certain New Yorkers still remember—those grizzled, portly, rosy-gilled fellows who prattle on provocation of Jenny Lind and Castle Garden, and remember everything—created a pronounced furor at their debut in the days of crinoline and the Grecian bend; and Margaret Anstruther, as they will tell you, was married to Thomas Hugonin, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... wide those eyes, which seemed to stare and yet not to stare, while her peach-like cheeks bore an angry look and on her thin-skinned face lurked displeasure, she pointed at Pao-yue and exclaimed: "You do deserve death, for the rubbish you talk! without any provocation you bring up these licentious expressions and wanton ballads to give vent to all this insolent rot, in order to insult me; but I'll go and tell uncle ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that he discovered a shade of coquetry under this treatment; and this provocation, vague as it was, coming from this beautiful, cold, and inscrutable creature, seemed to him a game fearfully mysterious, that at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... died in a most opportune season, yet the peaceable entrance of your Majesty's father was effected by a continual series of miracles. The truth of this appears by that unnatural rebellion which the Yortes raised, without the least provocation, in the first year of the late emperor's reign, which may be sufficient to convince your Majesty, that every soul of that denomination was, is, and will be for ever, a favourer of the Pretender, a mortal enemy to your illustrious family, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... into an actual provocation, Monseigneur dared to say to his young brother that, were it not for his affection for the Princess, he would make him ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Coleridge and his wife. De Quincey's testimony to its existence at the time (a month or so later) when he made Coleridge's acquaintance may, subject to the usual deductions, be accepted as trustworthy; and, of course, for aught we know, it may then have been already of some years' standing. That the provocation to it on the husband's part may be so far antedated is at least a reasonable conjecture. There may be nothing—in all likelihood there is nothing—worth attention in De Quincey's gossip about the young lady, "intellectually ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... how that your Highness had given me express and strait commandment to intimate unto him how that your Grace had solemnly provoked and appealed unto the general council; submitting yourself to the tuition and defence thereof; which provocation and appeal I had under authentic writings then with me, to show for that purpose. And herewithal I drew out the said writing, showing his said Holiness that I brought the same in proof of the premises, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... but to maintain, that civilization would be materially aided and abetted by the offer of a liberal reward for the scalps of Young Persons with the ears attached. Your regular Young Person is a living nuisance, whose every act is a provocation to exterminate her. We say "her," not because, physically considered, the Y. P. is necesarily of the she sex; more commonly is it an irreclaimable male; but morally and intellectually it is an unmixed female. Her virtues are merely ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... much, though they hold various opinions as to your discretion. Only the other day Jane, you know my married sister, and I were talking about you. She was extremely distressed. I assured her that you must be very far away or very deeply buried somewhere not to have given a sign of life under this provocation." ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... take Mme. Dauvray as we find her—rich, ostentatious, easily taken by a new face, generous, and foolishly superstitious—and you have in her a living provocation to every rogue. By a hundred instances she proclaimed herself a dupe. She threw down a challenge to every criminal to come and rob her. For seven years Helene Vauquier stands at her elbow and protects her from serious ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... old wrongs was the mental background of this new type of man. Life in the bush had strengthened his arm, his will and his courage. His words fell as forcefully as his ax under provocation. He was deliberate as became one whose scalp was often in danger; trained to think of the common welfare of his neighborhood and rather careless about the look of ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... blind and deaf on this side to be ignorant of European persuasion of America's triviality. I would not like to be an American travelling in Europe now, and those I meet here and there have some of the air of men who at any moment may be dunned for a debt. They explode without provocation ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... mercy might be meted out to her, she addressed a petition to the court setting forth with unconscious pathos some of the wrongs and sufferings she had endured in person and estate; and one may well understand why under such great provocation she told Michael Griswold that he would hang her though he damned a thousand souls, and as for his own soul it was damned long ago. Vigorous and emphatic words, for which perhaps Katherine was punished ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... exceed four, and frequently are only three, in number, and the female does not commence sitting till the full number is laid. She deserts the nest on the slightest provocation; and if a nest with only one or two eggs is found, and the fingers inserted, it is useless to leave the eggs in hopes of getting more. She will lay no more. I have tested this in ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... must not think that I am any longer the soft cheese you squeezed the water away from when I sat watching you dance. I have laid on many shelves to dry since that time. Neither am I like those long-haired dogs who drop their ears at the least provocation and take flight from people, as in former days. I can stand fire now. Your letter was very playful, but it jested where it should not have jested at all, for you understood me very well, and you could see that I did not ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... possesses further qualities which render his character eminently fitting for stage representation: he unites the virtues of Lovelace and Lacenaire; he blasphemes upon all occasions; he murders, at the slightest provocation, and without the most trifling remorse; he overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies of easy virtue, and ladies of no virtue at all; and the poet, inspired by the contemplation of such a character, has depicted his hero's adventures and conversation ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imagine that he was any nearer to his desires regarding the knoll. Full well did he understand and appreciate the unalterable nature of Sam Ravenshaw's resolutions, but he was pleased again to be at peace, for, to say truth, he was not fond of war, though ready to fight on the smallest provocation. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Nature, there were given to Maltboy a light and cheerful heart, a tendency to laugh on the smallest provocation, and a nice susceptibility to the beautiful. Not the beautiful in rivers, forests, skies, and other inanimate things, but the beautiful in woman. And as Overtop was gifted to discover charms in material objects ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... letter to Lloyd George. The British Prime Minister replied on May 6 in the clearest terms. In his eyes, forcing Germany to submit to the occupation of the Rhine and the Rhine Provinces for an unlimited period, was a provocation to renew the war ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... seemed a sort of suppressed excitement in the air. People of average spirits appeared unusually happy; the very highly strung seemed just a little wild; their eyes dancing, their tread lighter, and laughs were heard on the smallest provocation. Certainly the vision that met Felicity in the mirror was exhilarating enough. Dressed in the softest of blues, with a large brown hat on her golden hair, she looked like a pastel—a combination of the vagueness, remoteness, and ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... say that I felt indignant at this conduct of my mother's, as, so far from provocation, she had hardly received the reward of previous treachery. I believe, however, that, like most people, I was actuated by my own feelings toward my mother, who had treated me so unkindly. I thought for a little while—what would my mother do? She would hardly remain in ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... morbid states of the constitution which lead to local inflammation, subsequent upon slight injury; or, in some cases, without any such provocation, as in gout, rheumatism, and scrofula. One of the first results of the inflammation, in such cases, is a weakening of the forces which distribute the blood to the surface and extremities of the body. It is generally admitted that in scrofulous persons the vascular system ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... withdrawing his pipe from his mouth. This insolence flung the fiery little mate into a mighty rage; but Beauty said nothing, puffing away with all the tranquillity imaginable. Here it must be remembered that, never mind what may be the provocation, no prudent officer ever dreams of entering a ship's forecastle on a hostile visit. If he wants to see anybody who happens to be there, and refuses to come up, why he must wait patiently until the sailor is willing. The reason is this. The place is ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... my opinion that he always has been. Teddy can stir up more trouble, and with less provocation, than anyone I ever knew. But, you had something you wished to say to ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of american liberty, be it known, that this morning before break of day, a Brigade, consisting of about 1,000 or 1,200 Men, landed at Phipp's Farm at Cambridge and marched to Lexington, where they found a Company of our Militia in Arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed 6 Men & wounded 4 others—By an express from Boston we find another Brigade are now upon their march from Boston, supposed to be about 1,000—The bearer Israel Bissel is charged to alarm the Country quite to Connecticut; and all Persons are desired to furnish him with fresh ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "pricked," or laid back. These, though of far less utility and importance than they obviously were at one time, still earn their salt, and, though all capable of causing us considerable annoyance on slight provocation, seldom give rise to serious trouble or inconvenience. There are, however, a few of these "oversights" which are of little or no known utility, and yet which, either by their structure or situation, may become the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... less unscrupulously inconstant, there is, however, no doubt that Marie de Medicis, from the strict propriety of her conduct to the last, and under every provocation, would ultimately have become an attached and devoted wife. Her ambition was satisfied, and her heart interested, in her maternal duties; but the open and unblushing licentiousness with which Henry ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... courage. That you have shown great fortitude is not to be doubted, and will make a very great and good impression. I see that the general feeling is excellent, but what a melancholy thing to see a young man, without provocation, capable of such a diabolical act! That attempts of that sort took place against George III., and even George IV., one can comprehend; but you have not only been extremely liberal, but in no instance have you hitherto come into contact with any popular feeling or ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... free from perturbation [Greek: atarachos], is not impelled by passion, but guided by reason; is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission. Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their resentment. It is not easy to define the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... realising as far as any but an author could realise the frightful thing that had happened, I looked in Derrick's face. Its white fury appalled me. What he had borne hitherto from the Major, God only knows, but this was the last drop in the cup. Daily insults, ceaseless provocation, even the humiliations of personal violence he had borne with superhuman patience; but this last injury, this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate destruction of an amount of thought, and labour, ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures, and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents. 'Better people, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she sometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty persons have borne?' On the very occasion ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... it," interrupted Martin. "You had sufficient provocation for all your actions. And really, believe me, I am very glad I fell in with you. I am glad to be here. I have wanted to go to sea all my life. We are going to Fire Mountain now, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... dried up so many golden sources from the grasp of the priesthood, torn so many frocks, crushed so many theories—do you believe that such a Revolution will absolve you? No—no!—this Revolution will have a denouement, and I say—and with no intention of provocation—that we must advance boldly towards this denouement. The more you delay, the more difficult and blood-stained will be ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... lives ever after a law-abiding life. The two types of the single offender are the criminal by passion and the accidental criminal. The criminal by passion is a moral, and oftentimes a conscientious, person who commits a crime through some sudden stress of passion, under great provocation. The accidental criminal, on the other hand, is the weak type of moral person who yields once through some sudden temptation, but who regrets it ever afterward. It is estimated that single offenders constitute from 40 ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... shipment, though extremely perilous, was, therefore indispensable; and four short hours of daylight alone remained to complete it. I saw the risk, yet, taking counsel with the head Kroo and Fishmen, I persuaded them, under the provocation of triple reward, to attempt the enterprise with the smallest skiffs and stoutest rowers, while a band of lusty youths stood by to plunge in whenever ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... endowed with a poetical temperament, or a keen sense of beauty, or a great love of order, or very large ideality, will be pained by the want or the opposites of these qualities, where one less amply endowed would suffer no provocation whatever. What would grate most harshly on the ear of an eminent musician, might not be noticed at all by one whose musical faculties were unusually small. The same holds true in regard to some other, besides musical deficiencies ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... knit and yet not to knit, and opening wide those eyes, which seemed to stare and yet not to stare, while her peach-like cheeks bore an angry look and on her thin-skinned face lurked displeasure, she pointed at Pao-y and exclaimed: "You do deserve death, for the rubbish you talk! without any provocation you bring up these licentious expressions and wanton ballads to give vent to all this insolent rot, in order to insult me; but I'll go and tell uncle ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely—it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction but provocation that I can receive from another soul." To make one's self so much more interesting would help to make life interesting, and life was probably, to many of this aspiring congregation, a dream of freedom and fortitude. There were faulty parts in the Emersonian ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... the possible exception of freehand drawing, which is not all that a fastidious taste might desire. Her disposition is winnin' and unaffected, but I think it my duty to mention that, on what might appear to others as slight provocation, Miss Keeves is apt to give way to sudden fits of passion, which, however, are of short duration. Doubtless, this is a fault of youth which years and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... after the liquorish cookery that they gave themselves good smart punctures in lip and tongue; inasmuch as the mischievous dwarfs, as soon as any in his haste forked up a piece of meat, incontinently had it down their own throats. With such provocation, the blows, on all sides, came down in showers; more ears were peppered, backs thumped, ribs punched, than the prize-ring of England had ever seen. And, as if it were not enough for the men to be sparring, the women, seeing their husbands covered with blood and bruises, must needs take ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the contest with great enthusiasm, and also industriously pursued her vocal studies, but for her was exceptionally subdued and inclined to be cross on the smallest provocation. She had become so engrossed in political meetings that "Dora" Eweword, who was continually at Clay's since the retreat of Ernest, one day remonstrated with her. She had made a political meeting the excuse for ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... there been a better rule of prognosticating what he would do, than to examine what he ought not to do? When I review his dispositions, and review his conduct, I have little hope of his permitting our neutrality. He will find subjects of provocation in various articles of our treaty with France, which will now come into view, in all their consequences, and in consequences very advantageous to the one, and injurious to the other country. I suggest these doubts, on a supposition that our magazines are not ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... severity in the beautiful woman whose affection had once been his, and who, but now, had flung his flowers into the water, had not come from her heart; it was deliberately planned to make him feel her anger. What had withheld her, under such great provocation, from betraying that she had detected him in the theft of the emerald? All was not yet lost; and he breathed more freely as he went back to the house where duty, and his anxiety for his father, required his presence. There were his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... everything, spreading afar her wide wing and applying after all but her supposed grand gift of the secret of salvation. We kept on and on into the great dim rather sordidly papal streets that approach the quarter of St. Peter's; to the accompaniment, finally, of that markedly felt provocation of fond wonder which had never failed to lie in wait for me under any question of a renewed glimpse of the huge unvisited rear of the basilica. There was no renewed glimpse just then, in the gloaming; but the region I speak of had been for me, in fact, during the previous weeks, less ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... mastered this piece of intelligence after six readings, but he refrained from comment, beyond thanking God, in thought, that he could mind his own business under excessive provocation to do otherwise. He considered it no meddling, however, to remember that Mrs. Daniel J. Bines, widow of his late employer, could appear neither young nor beautiful to the most sanguine of newsgatherers; nor to remember that he happened to ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... girl who seeks her destiny. She also has her "wooing moods," during which, on small provocation, she "hastily pens a few lines"—of verse such as no young lady's diary should be without. She has, moreover, her intervals of sternness, when she boxes ears; now in case of her father, unfilially, and anon in more righteous conflict with her step-mother's wicked lover. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... what Aggie said. I admit that the provocation was great. But Tish was not one to make allowances, and she turned and went on, leaving us alone. She is not without feeling, however, for from the top of the pass she sent Bill down with a rope, and we dragged poor Aggie to the trail again. Her nerves were shaken ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with his brother had hastily joined the throng, could prevent it, he had raised his arm and felled his insulting opponent to the ground. A wild uproar ensued, the civil officers appeared, and young Myrvin was committed, under the charge of wilfully, and without provocation, attacking the person of the right honourable ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... they gave the desired permission, though accompanying it with an intimation that the privilege might be suspended at any time. The bonds that unite Mongolia to the great empire are not very strong, the natives being somewhat indifferent to their rulers and ready at any decent provocation to throw off their yoke. Though engaged in the peaceful pursuits of sheep-tending, and transporting freight between Russia and China, they possess a warlike spirit and are capable of being roused into violent action. They are proud of tracing ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... develops astonishingly. What a head,—what a foot,—what a voice! And he is so quiet withal,—never known to cry, except under such provocation as would draw tears from a heart of adamant; in short, for the first six months he is never anything but gentle, patient, earnest, loving, intellectual, and magnanimous. You are half afraid that some of the physicians ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... still, and still adhering; Spiteful, peevish, rude, untoward, Fierce in tongue, in heart a coward; When his friends he most is hard on, Cringing comes to beg their pardon; Reputation ever tearing, Ever dearest friendship swearing; Judgment weak, and passion strong, Always various, always wrong; Provocation never waits, Where he loves, or where he hates; Talks whate'er comes in his head; Wishes it were all unsaid. Let me now the vices trace, From the father's scoundrel race. Who could give the looby such airs? Were they masons, were they butchers? ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... looked gravely at Robert Boulger, waiting for him to say what she knew was in his mind, so that she might express at once her utter disbelief in the charges that were brought against Alec. But he did not speak, and she was obliged to utter her defiant words without provocation. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... temple yonder, back of the evergreens, with a triangular stove-funnel revolving at its top; and next door a Dutch-built stable, with a Turk's turban for a cupola; and just beyond that, a chalet-roof, sprouting without any provocation whatever out of an engine-house. I do not think they are caricatures of some characters. I knew a politician once, very low down in even that scale; Quilp they nicknamed him; the cruelest husband; quarter-dollarish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... far as I could judge of her appearance, she seemed to be rather delicately built and slim, with a fine Roman nose. Still, I was not in the humour to be agreeably impressed by a face convulsed with laughter, and bandaged up as if she had the toothache. Her laugh sounded to my ears like a provocation, and rendered me little inclined to be courteous to a woman who had so evidently forgotten ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... just as our landlady and her daughter came in. I'm afraid they heard language from Mac not fit for any woman's ears, but ye'll admit the man was not wi'oot provocation! ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... Marble, much in the tone of one who is ready to quarrel on the slightest provocation; "how should there be any resemblance, after the life I've led. In the first place, I was carried out of my mother's sight in less than ten days after I was born. Then I was placed on a tombstone, by way of encouragement; after which, they ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... clear to her and could be grasped at sight, hardly repaid the trouble of reading, since it afforded no sense of adventure, no excitement of challenge or of pursuit, no mirage of wonder, no delightful provocation of matters outside her experience and not understood. About these latter she abstained from asking questions, having much faith in the illuminating power of the future. Given patience, all in good time she would understand everything worth understanding.—That there are things in ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... dignified nor profitable; that purism is almost always over-hasty, and apt to ignore both the history and the psychology of language; and, finally, that nothing is gained by introducing acerbity (though I have admitted the frequent provocation) into a discussion which a little exercise of temper should render no less agreeable than instructive to both parties. "The speech of the lower orders of our people," says Mr. Tucker, "... differs from what all admit to be standard correctness in a much smaller degree[R] than we have every reason ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... hope from the Romans. Statues of the ambassadors, who were slain at Fidenae, were set up in the rostra at the public expense. A desperate struggle was coming on with the Veientians and Fidenatians, who, besides that they were neighbouring states, had commenced the war with so heinous a provocation. Therefore, the commons and their tribunes being now quiet, so as to attend to the general welfare, there was no dispute with respect to the electing of Marcus Geganius Macerinus a third time, and Lucius Sergius Fidenas, as consuls; so called, I suppose, from the war which he afterwards conducted. ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... for her. In a few words she gave him to understand that her husband was of a very excitable nature at intervals, took to drink and continued it until he fell sick. She begged Alfred to have Jake apologize and not to quarrel or cross the man, no matter what provocation he gave them, all of which Alfred promised her. Jake readily agreed ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... pile of crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back, and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he had got better news from home; whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his provocation, the absence of irritation ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... Citizenship differing in certain respects from the normal masculine citizenship. Its conditions remain to be worked out. We have indeed to work out an entire new system of relations between men and women, that will be free from servitude, aggression, provocation, or parasitism. The public Endowment of Motherhood as such may perhaps be the first broad suggestion of the quality of this new status. A new type of family, a mutual alliance in the place of a subjugation, is perhaps the most startling of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... letters and other records I find that I dined at the Browne's on the slightest provocation. I suspect I did so without any invitation at all, for while Miss Taft did not betray keen interest in me she did not precisely discourage me. I sought her company as often as possible without calling ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... eldest girl was equally characteristic in another way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her, alike in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her bonne and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... songs), and Cassio's tongue ran over in praise of the Lady Desdemona, whom he again and again toasted, affirming that she was a most exquisite lady: until at last the enemy which he put into his mouth stole away his brains; and upon some provocation given him by a fellow whom Iago had set on, swords were drawn, and Montano, a worthy officer, who interfered to appease the dispute, was wounded in the scuffle. The riot now began to be general, and Iago, who had set on foot the mischief, was foremost ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Jean had affected to ignore the performance of his colleague. But under this supreme provocation he yielded to the Aristophanic impulse, and—exit Max in the approved ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... "I only want your arms and I'll protect your lives." The reply was a murderous volley poured on the gathering outside. Some half drunken person in the crowd it appears had flung a stone at one of the windows, and the police needed no further provocation. The fire was returned by the insurgents, and O'Brien seeing that his efforts to preserve peace were futile, quitted the window and rejoined his companions. For nearly two hours the firing continued; the police well sheltered from the possibility ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Mrs. Brown, sir—Fanny Sophonisba Brown, sir, who has left my bed and board without provocation, sir,—vide the Providence papers, sir,—left me, sir, because I didn't approve of her strong-minded goings on, sir, her woman's-rights meetings, sir, and her nigger colonizations, sir, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... to order you out do not leave your posts, happen what may, but exercise prudence and be prepared leaving them to give the provocation. Answer them that you have no instructions given you with regard to what they ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... France the people were less easily curbed, and the indiscretion or treachery of their enemies often furnished provocation for acts which the sober judgment of their pastors refused to sanction. The chapter of the cathedral of Montpellier, with the view of overawing the city, had, in October, introduced a garrison into the commanding Fort St. Pierre. On a Sunday (the nineteenth of October) ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession mainly on the ground that the admission of the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... is, young gentlemen, that you don't get yourselves embroiled in any way with the native folks here any more. The Mussulmen are fierce and fanatical, and the least provocation may make them burst out ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... drunk more deeply than usual, Lieutenant Crawford, after the colonel had retired from the circle round the fire and to his tent, recommenced his provocation to Ronald, and pushed matters so far that the latter felt that he could no longer treat it as ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... receiving far greater provocation than we received, have behaved much better. They have not tarred and feathered Englishmen as we did or ridden them on rails, or suffocated them with smoke, or burnt their houses or hazed or tortured them in any way. Their conduct in the whole war ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... twice. Arguing against what he calls "extravagant stocks," he says: "Formerly (even since Popery) it was thought no ill policy to be well with the parson, but now the case is quite altered, for if he gives him [sic] the least provocation, I'll immediately stock one part of my land with bullocks and the other with potatoes ... so farewell tithes."[8] The fact of potatoes not being titheable at this period seems to have encouraged their cultivation. The next passage goes to show that they were becoming ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... of 1889 (when 28 years of age) he observed that at certain times he had an itching feeling about the testicles; that he felt slightly irritable; that the penis erected with the slightest provocation, and that this peculiar feeling usually passed away with a nightly emission. Indeed, so regular was the matter that he usually wore a loin garment at these times, to prevent the semen getting on the bedding. This peculiar feeling ordinarily ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... long no function will be complete without the presence of four or five correctly dressed National Prohibition Enforcement Officers, ready and eager to arrest the host and hostess and all the guests on the slightest provocation. ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... Henley declared that a codicil to his will, depriving his daughter absolutely of all interest in his property, had been legally executed that day. For a time, Mountjoy's self-control had resisted the most merciless provocation. All that it was possible to effect, by patient entreaty and respectful remonstrance, he had tried again and again, and invariably in vain. At last, Mr. Henley's unbridled insolence triumphed. Hugh lost his temper—and, in leaving ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... ignorance, malice," and so forth. Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead. It is a generous rage which interposes between our ashes and their disturbers. There appears also to have been some slight personal provocation. Mr. Gilchrist, with a chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of Pope, and consequently of an attack upon Mr. Bowles. Mr. Bowles appears to be angry with Mr. Gilchrist for four reasons:—firstly, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Cervantes set himself, and that he had ample provocation to urge him to it, will be sufficiently clear to those who look into the evidence; as it will be also that it was not chivalry itself that he attacked and swept away. Of all the absurdities that, thanks to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... might have consoled him with the assurance that even the beastliest sort of father might hesitate to risk his neck on such slight provocation, but he himself was overwrought with three days of peril, of desperate subterfuge and feverish alternations between joy and anguish. Now, in the mysterious twilight, the most terrible, as the most wonderful things seemed not merely possible ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... from them, and always looked on by them as their children, our turning now and fighting against them, must appear, in their sight, a very great provocation; as great perhaps as that of children fighting against their parents. And again, our shaking off what they glory in, as the wisest, and freest, and happiest government on earth, must make us seem to them as no better ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... prosperity for the planters, and money and comfort for the Bogobos—and it will keep them out of the hills: we want the Bogobos near the coast, under civilizing influences. They are newly won to us and apt to fade away into the foothills on the least provocation." ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... contact. This primitive disdain of "barbarians" is common among the school children and tends to make the foreign children more delinquent and anti-social than they would otherwise be. A very recent case sums up the situation. A gang of five Polish boys "beat up" a messenger boy, apparently without provocation. A Juvenile Protective officer visited the home of one of these young thugs for the purpose of talking with the mother and getting such information as would aid in keeping the boy from ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... week of the garden party. Miss Pew was grimmer of aspect and louder of voice than usual, and it was felt that, at the slightest provocation, she might send forth an edict revoking all her invitations, and the party might be relegated to the limbo of unrealized hopes. Never had the conduct of Miss Pew's pupils been so irreproachable, never had lessons been learned, and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... as the Holy Spirit says, To-day if you will hear his voice, [3:8]harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of the trial in the wilderness, [3:9]where your fathers fully proved and saw my works forty years. [3:10]Wherefore I was displeased with that generation and said, They always err in mind, and they did not know my ways, [3:11]so I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my ...
— The New Testament • Various
... that this band of thieves and murderers, who, without the slightest excuse or provocation, were invading the territory of the peaceful natives, carrying to their homes death and woe, that they might acquire fame for military exploits and return laden with plunder, could have looked to God for his blessing upon their ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... the interior have made frequent attacks on the stations of the settlers I have no doubt; very likely, in some instances, they have done so without any direct provocation, but we must not forget their position or the consequences of the extension of boundaries of location to the aborigines themselves. The more ground our flocks and herds occupy, the more circumscribed become the haunts ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... so; and therefore the election passed without a contest. But contest would only have added to its glory; unless, indeed, the people, over-zealous in their expression of sympathy for their representative, had been provoked thereby to violent exhibition of their temper. Even without such provocation the turmoil of the re-election day, the 16th of July, was great; angry crowds assembled in the streets, and menacing words against the Government and its myrmidons were loudly uttered. The wisdom of Sir Francis Burdett and other leaders of the popular party, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... victim to gangrene? The procreative function seems to be, in a sense, one of the main cares of nature in its relation to the animal as well as the vegetable kingdom; but here is a useless bit of skin, adipose tissue, mucous membrane, and some connective tissue, that on the least provocation is liable to go off into a gangrene and drag one of the main generative, or even all the procreative, apparatus into the general wreck. Nature certainly never intended anything of the kind. To be generous, and ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... in the third place promise finality; it must be in the nature of a final settlement of the demands made on behalf of Ireland, and not be a mere provocation to ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... drubbing as long as flesh-and-blood would stand it, and then retaliated in good earnest. It was discovered at length, that Wendell Phillips had a sharp tongue, as well as a silver one, and could use it also with some temper. Of course he was blamed for this, and very few considered what provocation he had, or gave him credit for his previous forbearance. The habit increased rather than abated in him with age, and finally acquired the nature of a familiar demon that would appear unexpectedly in the midst of a brilliant discourse and sadly mar ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... much loved by all who were brought into contact with him was his great amiability, thorough kindness of heart: his care was always not to hurt or wound another's feelings; and even in the heat of debate, and under great provocation, I never heard him utter an unkind word, or put a harsh construction on the conduct of ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... endeavour to apply the maxims of natural justice to the solution of difficult questions, we find that some cases may be supposed, and actually happen, where oppositions take place, and are lawful, prior to any provocation, or act of injustice; that where the safety and preservation of numbers are mutually inconsistent, one party may employ his right of defence, before the other has begun an attack. And when we join with such examples, the instances of mistake, and misunderstanding, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... right of "private war" and attacked each other upon every conceivable provocation, whether it were the disputed succession to some vast estate or the ravage spread by a reckless cow in a foreign field. Indeed, it is not always easy to distinguish these private wars from mere robberies or plundering expeditions; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... habits. The legend which represents him as an exceptionally wicked man, cruel for cruelty's sake and devoid of natural affection, receives some color from the facts. Yet these alone are not sufficient to justify its darker hues, while they amply prove that Francesco's children gave him grievous provocation. The discontents of this ill-governed family matured into rebellion; and in 1598 it was decided on removing the old Cenci by murder. His second wife Lucrezia, his eldest son Giacomo, his daughter Beatrice, and the youngest son Bernardo, were implicated in the crime. It was ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... heart was burning, only stooped down and closed her sister's pretty mouth with a kiss. Her tongue was impatient to speak for the father, and grandmother, and the friends, so dear to her; but she possessed great discretion, and also a large share of that rarest of all womanly graces, the power under provocation, of "putting ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have appeared to her as cutting insinuations or taunts, referring to some former painful circumstance, forgotten or unknown by you, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... strong for resistance and, indeed, intelligence was already coming to them, that "the people of Kintail, being a judicious opulent people, would not expose themselves to the punishments of law," and that the Camerons were absolutely determined to give no further provocation to the Government. Thus assured, they set out in cheerful mood along the valley of Strathglass, and, soon after passing a place called Knockfin, they were reinforced by Lieutenant Brymer with the expected fifty men from Bernera. There were now ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... something! Always start something!"), have the plain sense which enables them to recognize that with principles accepted and observed, conditions change. The union leaders have never seen that. They wish conditions to remain as they are, conditions of injustice, provocation, strikes, bad feeling, and crippled national life. Else where would be the need for union officers? Every strike is a new argument for them; they point to it and say, "You see! ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... he was or was not something more than the tyrannical husband and father, and the ill-mannered specimen of the lesser nobility, that it pleased Saint-Preux or Rousseau to represent him as being. He had provocation enough, even in the case of his otherwise hardly pardonable insolence ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... all the evil influences of the world combined. "Do you really think," said the Senator calmly, "that a man should be hanged for killing a fox?" John Runce, who was not very ready, turned round and stared at him. "I haven't heard of any other harm that he has done, and perhaps he had some provocation for that." Words were wanting to Mr. Runce, but not indignation. He collected together his plate and knife and fork and his two glasses and his lump of bread, and, looking the Senator full in the face, slowly pushed back his chair and, carrying his provisions with him, toddled off ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... quick-witted Bartley took the alarm, and literally collared him. "My good friend," said he, "you don't know the provocation. It is the affront to her that has made me forget myself. Affronts to myself from the same quarter I have borne with patience. But now this insolent man has forbidden his son to court her, and ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... stigmatized as arrant cowards, who run away at the slightest provocation, their first thought being for the safety of their own skins. No doubt Chinese soldiers do run away—sometimes; at other times they fight to the death, as has been amply proved over and over again. It is the old story of marking ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... constitutes a heritage not soon to be given up. The tales of victory and defeat are held even more dear to a united people than life itself. Rightly will any nation jealously defy him who dares advance to plunder its possessions. And it is well that men do not wish to surrender it upon slight provocation. That has been a good diplomacy that sought to protect the nation by war. By the extension of political unity peoples gain moral and physical strength. Thrift becomes more common and moral courage greater when a people ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... something reasonable in his argument. She really had given him little chance; impulse and instinct had worked upon her, causing her to jump at conclusions which, however well founded in fact, were without excuse in act. If he had kissed her, it wasn't without provocation, nor against her will; she had got no more than she asked for. The trouble was, she no longer wanted it. She had been the dupe of her own folly, by her own romantic bent and the magnetism of the ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... protested. "The young fellow behaved like a cub, but no one offered him any provocation. I should think by this time he is probably heartily ashamed of himself. May I come ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... prudently attached a thin wire to the foot of the blanket cocoon, had passed the wire through a knot hole in a cupboard set into the partition, and to a sheep bell which she no doubt expected to ring upon provocation—such as a prisoner struggling to release his feet from a gray blanket fastened with many ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... be far less savage than his father, but quite as bibulous, a rotund hail-fellow-well-met, oily as an Esquimau, with round, twinkling eyes and a reservoir of questionable stories which he tapped on the slightest provocation. The guidebook called him "the innkeeper," which has a romantic connotation not altogether true to the hard facts of Frank's hostelry, and spoke of him as "a jolly, fat, rosy-cheeked young man, brimming over with animal ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... facts in which a long inward struggle ends, is in reality a prime agent in bringing such scandals about; and those whose voices are loudest in condemnation of the alleged misconduct of some slandered woman never give a thought to the immediate provocation of the overt step. That step many a woman only takes after she has been unjustly accused and condemned, and Mme. de Bargeton was now on the verge of this ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the mulatto did not accompany him, and at the moment when Henri put his head out of the window to look once more at the gardens of the hotel, he encountered the white eyes of Cristemio, with whom he exchanged a glance. On either side there was a provocation, a challenge, the declaration of a savage war, of a duel in which ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and treachery were admitted means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn Paquita's death. Henri knew that Cristemio would like to kill him before he killed Paquita. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... I fancy, did old Dietrich turn to bay, and did deeds which have blackened his name for ever. Heaven forgive him! for surely he had provocation enough and ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... and Aden, and other suitable localities a quarter of a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into existence, the members of which alluded to each other as Brother Ghurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, criticisms, and requests for information, which naturally poured in on the discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, the Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations forbade any disclosures which might ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... texture and color range of the adornments and artifacts. I venture that these items will prove popular among you who can well afford such rare treasures. However, subtlety in acquiring them is suggested. While common clamor for Public ownership is under control, overt provocation is not recommended. Here is ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... him the commission to conduct an armed squadron and soldiery to a mine on the banks of the Orinoko conveyed no right to break a hostile Spanish blockade of the river. According to him, though in defiance of contemporary testimony, Ralegh alone employed violence; the San Thome garrison 'offered no provocation whatever, except an attitude of self-defence.' On these principles, while he laments the tardiness of its appearance, he necessarily considers the Declaration straightforward, honest, and convincing. National opinion judged differently. It treated the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of the other side. Each was waiting for a sheep; both caught a wildcat. If the men in the ambushes had had any eyes or any sense, no fight would have occurred. As it was they got no more than they deserved. Hedulio was set on without provocation and merely defended himself and his associates as any self- respecting free man would. I have no fault to find with Hedulio. I take ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... him by marriage, and possessed an estate of 25,000 koku, as well as holding the position of junior minister of State. It is extremely unlikely that a man in such a position would have resorted to such a desperate act without great provocation or ample sanction. The question is, was the shogun himself privy to the deed? It is recorded that there was found on Masayasu's person a document expressing deep gratitude for the favours he had received at the hands of the shogun, and declaring that only by taking the life of Masatoshi ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... have always got along, haven't we? I've no desire to crowd any man to the wall that is a man. Now I am going to tell you the simple truth. Du Sang has got you scared to death. That man is a faker, Rebstock. Because he kills men right and left without any provocation, you think he is dangerous. He isn't; there are a dozen men in the Cache just as good with a gun as Du Sang is. Don't shake your head. I know what I'm talking about. He is a jay with a gun, and you may ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody else's business in which we become interested, and which we feel bound to rectify, and before we know, we are absorbed in a lot of distracting cares ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... my revenge," she thought. "I would tear my heart out if it were capable of cowardly weakness under such provocation!" ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... tame domestic English landscape. There was something prehistoric about the scene, and everywhere lurked that sense of dangerous primeval passions held in enforced check which might burst forth on the very slightest provocation. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... its rights in Korea, acquired by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, all but absolutely annexing the country. After the Boxer revolt Admiral Alexieff, who was governor of the Russian possessions in the Far East, embarked on a dangerous policy of provocation towards Japan. He had an ill-informed contempt for the hardy islanders. He underrated their power of resistance, and felt sure that the mere fact that the Russian fleet outnumbered theirs would secure the command of the sea for Russia, and have a decisive effect in the event of a conflict. He believed ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... are a couple of men to watch the house and stables—" He broke out, bitterly, "It's a scoundrelly bit of work they've done!—" and instantly had himself under control again. "Better go at once, Rolfe, and caution the men to remain quiet under provocation if any trespassers ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Wulf. — The immediate provocation for Eofor in killing "the hoary Scylfing," Ongentheow, is that the latter has just struck Wulf down; but the king, Haethcyn, is also avenged by the blow. ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable;—on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate ...
— The Republic • Plato
... compact of Government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... regards punishment than when committed against those who are not kinsmen, at least in the eyes of men of sense. Now the example is before you and you may see what sort of an outcome such actions have. But as for you, it is your duty to avoid laying violent hands upon anyone without provocation, or carrying off the possessions of others; for I shall not overlook it, be assured, and I shall not consider anyone of you a fellow-soldier of mine, no matter how terrible he is reputed to be to the foe, who is not able to use clean hands against the enemy. For bravery ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... picture showed the head and bust of a beautiful woman in evening dress. She was a brunette, young and very attractive. The line of head, throat, and shoulder was perfect. The delicate, disdainful poise and the gay provocation in the dark, slanting eyes were enough to tell that she was no novice in the game of sex. He judged her an expensive orchid produced in the civilization of our twentieth-century hothouse. Across the bottom of the picture was scrawled an inscription in a fashionably ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... is narrated of Hillel's patience, unfailing courtesy and tact, tolerance and humility, even under the greatest provocation. The man who bet 400 Zuz that he would break Hillel's patience by silly and far-fetched questions lost his own temper at the consideration with which he was treated. And so the proverb became current, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Moorish auctioneer observed, "Such is the way with the Touaricks." However, I am persuaded neither Jabour, nor Khanouhen, would have stooped to such a shabby dirty manœuvre. It seems besides, Haj Ibrahim is giving great provocation to the chiefs who are appointed his protectors at the Souk. They complain that, whilst he brings as many goods as twenty ordinary merchants, he gives less than any one. So we must hear both sides of the question. Saw to-day the Moorish ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... altering my position too much, to keep my eye on the window-sill, and, sure enough, in a second or two a small round head came into sight. I went on with my game. At first I could see that the watcher was ready to duck down at the slightest provocation, but as I took no sort of notice, he gained confidence, leant his elbows on the sill, and then actually pulled himself up and sat down on it. He bent over and whispered to the others below, and it was not long before I saw a whole row of heads filling up the window-sill from end to ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... respected freedom, authority, and law. It resembled no other constitution, for it was contained in half a dozen intelligible articles. Ancient Europe opened its mind to two new ideas—that Revolution with very little provocation may be just; and that democracy in very large dimensions may ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Doctor's noddy, opened the gate, and mounted to the driving-seat. The Doctor followed, arrayed from top to toe in spotless linen, armed with an immense flesh-coloured umbrella, and girt with a botanical case on a baldric; and the equipage drove off smartly in a breeze of its own provocation. They were bound for Franchard, to collect plants, with an eye ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for something that might suggest a motive for joining in the conspiracy. There was no evidence that you had any dealing or transaction with the unfortunate murdered man. There was no connexion between you in any way, and not the slightest ground for resentment or provocation that could be traced. As for you, Hayes, (the other prisoner,) your case is much the same. You were a tenant of Mr Clarke's; there is evidence that he expressed some wish that you or your mother should give up a house; and he offered you every facility to build a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the conciliators. But no doubt a certain number of violent things have been said, and a certain amount of unnecessary heat generated. I do not think, however, that those [the loyalists] who have held these meetings, under extraordinary provocation, are greatly to blame if this has ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... blessing.' (Rev 5:12) 'And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his Father's house, and offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.' (Isa 22:24) Oh! the work of our redemption by Christ is such as wanteth not provocation to us to bless, and praise, and glorify Jesus Christ. Saints, set to the work and glorify him in your body and in your souls; him who has bought us with a price, and glorify God and the Father by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... now raised the crowbar once more, standing where he could aim at the fellow's head. Tom was both too generous and too tender hearted to have struck a human being over the head with such an implement, even had Fits given provocation. ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... and stimulating charm in making love to a tender- hearted, credulous little creature who seemed truly "of such stuff as dreams are made of"—and to a man of his particular type and temperament there was an irresistible provocation to his vanity in the possibility of being able to lure her gradually and insidiously down from the high ground of intellectual ambition and power to the low level of that pitiful sex-submission which is responsible ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... something threatening in her question. Foma felt intimidated and said, this time without provocation ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... pleased, I thought—at least his face (sad enough when I went in, I assure ye) brightened a little; but he said he had nothing to say, no defence to make. I asked him if he was guilty, then; and, by way of opening his heart, I said I understood he had had provocation enough, inasmuch as I heard that the girl was very lovely and had jilted him to fall desperately in love with that handsome young Carson (poor fellow!). But James Wilson did not speak one way or another. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... admission. I myself—the little, easy, cheerful man you know, who, of his own accord, would hardly lift up his handkerchief to strike down the fly that buzzes about his face—I, in my younger time, under provocation so dreadful that I will not tell you of it, entered the Brotherhood by an impulse, as I might have killed myself by an impulse. I must remain in it now—it has got me, whatever I may think of it in my better circumstances and my cooler manhood, to my dying day. While I was still in Italy I was ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... against John Kincaid was true it does not seem that he valued his lovely wife as he ought to have done. The striking her "divers times'' may have been an exaggeration. It probably was. Jean and her women would want to show there had been provocation. (In a ballad he is accused of having thrown a plate at dinner in her face.) But there is a naivete, a circumstantial air, about the "biting of her in the arm'' which gives it a sort of genuine ring. How one would like to come upon a contemporary writing which would throw light on the character ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... dress. Her hat was hung over her arm, and the low evening sunlight shone redly over her smooth glossy head. She carried herself with a pretty dignity, but when her eyes met Pauline's, she looked as if she would smile on the slightest provocation. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is what I am," said the cabman. "You know I've been in trouble, and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year now, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is curious and difficult. There is one fairly constant first-nighter whose loud laughter upon insufficient provocation sometimes irritates the house, to the prejudice of the play; not long ago one of our young actresses laughed so immoderately, as a spectator, at trifles during a performance that some of the audience actually uttered inarticulate sounds, intended ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... reports of insurrections and plots, but it is now well known that the most of them are got up by the Ultras to entrap the unwary. The French people seem sunk in apathy and to wish for peace at any rate; nothing but the most extreme provocation will induce them to take up arms; but then, if they once do so, woe to the Chambre Introuvable, as the present Chamber of Deputies is called; certainly such a set of venal, merciless and ignorant bigots and blockheads never were collected in any assembly. There ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... woman's pocket, Mr. Trent. I can imagine you killing a man, you know ... if the man deserved it and had an equal chance of killing you. I could kill a person myself in some circumstances. But Mr. Marlowe was incapable of doing it. I don't care what the provocation might be. He had a temper that nothing could shake, and he looked upon human nature with a sort of cold magnanimity that would find excuses for absolutely anything. It wasn't a pose; you could see it was a part of him. He never ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... would like me to ask Verena to spend a month with me—it might be a way of attracting you to the house," Adeline went on, in the tone of exuberant provocation. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... his temper and his physical inadequacy, for he had invited the punishment; but when they all learned that his fighting spirit had weakened, that they could whip him easily, that they need not wait for provocation, and that he would never tell, they bullied and hounded and beat him until he had come to know a craven, sordid fear, which spread from the boys to the whole terrible world in which the masculine entity must fight ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... none of the elements present which may, and often do, justify a jury in reducing the charge of murder to that of manslaughter. There is no question, so far as I have been able to discover, of sudden provocation, of accident, or anything of that sort. Whoever committed this crime must, if you believe the evidence, have done so knowingly, designedly, and with premeditation, and therefore your finding, if you find against the prisoner must be one ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... incidents in the streets here, occasionally, which could not be seen in an American city. For instance, a week or two since, I was passing a quiet-looking, elderly gentleman, when, all of a sudden, without any apparent provocation, he uplifted his stick, and struck a black-gowned boy a smart blow on the shoulders. The boy looked at him wofully and resentfully, but said nothing, nor can I imagine why the thing was done. In Tythebarne Street to-day I saw a woman suddenly assault a man, clutch at his hair, and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Phips began by stating that the war between France and England would have amply warranted this expedition even 'without the destruction made by the French and Indians, under your command and encouragement, upon the persons and estates of their Majesties' subjects of New England, without provocation on their part.' Indeed, 'the cruelties and barbarities used against them by the French and Indians might, upon the present opportunity, prompt unto a severe revenge.' But seeking to avoid all inhumane and unchristian-like actions, Phips announces ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... myself to the authorities and answer for my action. I do not suppose," he continued, in answer to the expression of consternation that suddenly leapt into her eyes, "that they will be very hard upon me; Purchas and the whole of the crew can of course testify that I acted under extreme provocation and in self-defence; so that probably, if I have to stand a trial at all, the verdict ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... rest herself, however fatigued from carrying a heavy bundle for a mile or two in a hot day. And even had there been such grateful conveniences, we should not have been invited to sit down; and unless invited, no sewing-woman would risk a provocation of the wrath of an ill-mannered shopman by presuming to occupy one. Few employers bestow even a thought upon the comfort of their sewing-women. They seldom think how tired they become with overwork at home, before leaving it with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... turned suddenly, one of those harsh oaths upon her lips which even more than any action betray the fallen woman, and hissed out a malediction on his brutal carelessness. The man, probably one who literally knew no better, instead of remembering the provocation, apologizing for the injury he had done and offering to make any reparation in his power, replied by an oath still more shocking than that of the lost girl, hurled at her the most opprobrious epithet which man bestows ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... abandoned attempts, of answers delayed longer than decency permitted, of letters begun with infinite reluctance, and put off suddenly till next day—till next week, as like as not! The neglected, uncared-for pen, flung away at the slightest provocation, and under the stress of dire necessity hunted for without enthusiasm, in a perfunctory, grumpy worry, in the "Where the devil is the beastly thing gone to?" ungracious spirit. Where, indeed! It might have been reposing ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... than the men, and were almost always disputing. For thirty years past they had all shared the same character and represented almost the same type: foul, unkempt, termagacious, they—shrieked and grew desperate upon the slightest provocation. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... and dishes, cups and saucers, yea, even the pudding basons, not as so much china and delf, but as troublesome imps, possessed with an insane desire to dash themselves madly on the kitchen floor upon the least provocation. Every woman knows what a slippery thing to hold is a baby in its tub. I am in a position to pronounce that wet plates and dishes are far more difficult to keep hold of. They have a way of leaping out of your fingers, which must be felt to be believed. After my first week in my kitchen ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... no sooner commenced than I perceived from the top of the hill which I ascended some of the blacks, who appeared to be a very numerous tribe, swimming across the Murray. I was not then aware what accidental provocation had brought on this attack without my orders, but it was not the time to inquire; for the men who were with me, as soon as they heard the shots of their comrades and saw me ascend the hill, ran furiously down the steep bank to the river, not a man remaining with the carts. The hill behind which ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... introduced discoursing on the civilization of the country in a way that would speedily (p. 155) empty any of the parlors of her native land. Indeed, throughout the work the characters converse as no rational beings ever conversed under any sort of provocation. But it is in the speeches of the heroine that the language reaches its highest development. She can emphatically be said to talk like a book. She does not guess, she hazards conjectures. She playfully addresses her father as "thoughtless, precipitate parent." When she is asked what ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... nine, will not be persuaded to form a harmonious whole. Our lieutenant, for instance, who, in the first days of the cruise, appeared a compound of all the Christian graces, and a 'pattern of a gentleman,' develops a pleasant little tendency to swear viciously on slight provocation, and, though, rather afraid to indulge his propensities to the full, lest the rules of naval service be violated, and disgrace follow, still recreates himself privately, by pinching the little messenger boys till they dance, and gritting his teeth, as if he longed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... holy father," Archie replied, "and can testify that the occurrence was wholly unpremeditated; but Bruce had received sufficient provocation from the Comyn to afford him fair reason for slaying him wheresoever they might meet. But none can regret more than he does that that place of meeting was in a sanctuary. The Comyn and Bruce had made an agreement together whereby the former relinquished his own claims ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... of the straits. The wind was ahead for several days, and the heavy squalls coming off the land in quick succession made us fear the wind would drop and leave us banging around in the fog that usually accompanies a calm spell, so we kept close to harbors and dodged in on the first provocation. ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... the waist and went strutting down the long hall, hips and shoulders swinging, pretty feet prancing, laughing back over her shoulder with unconscious provocation, until a delighted old negro voice at the window cried, "Dat's de style, Miss Jack! Dat's de way to git ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... unfortunate than guilty. I was upon the spot where the murder was committed, and I was arrested with those who gave the fatal blow. Believe me, I knew nothing of their designs. I do not deny that in a contest or quarrel I spare no one; but up to this moment my dagger has never shed blood without provocation." ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... hatred. I did not at all relish the sound beating which they had it in contemplation to inflict upon me; and, at the same time, I groaned under the necessity of keeping to myself that stream of abuse which was ready to flow against them upon the smallest provocation. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... of peace and war at large is a question of peace and war among the Powers, which are of two contrasted kinds: those which may safely be counted on spontaneously to take the offensive and those which will fight on provocation, 79. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... indignation as the Martian mind of that era was capable of experiencing. So we had here the opportunity of observing how a member of this highly civilized race, one endowed with such lofty attributes, would act under severe provocation. The exhibition was instructive. Thorwald certainly resented with all the force of his pure and upright nature all that was evil in the doctor's attitude. Such doubt was entirely new to his experience. He had no place for it; and he could do no less than cry out against it as he ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... business if the House sanctioned such an encroachment, and much irritation was exhibited for a short time. Both parties, however, got calm, and a compromise was the result. The Government offered Stanley certain days, which he immediately accepted, acknowledging that nothing but an extreme provocation would justify the course he had threatened to adopt, and so the storm blew over; and this question was nearly the only one which produced any violent debates and close divisions. Besides the usual light skirmishing and the taunts, accusations, and ...
— 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
... and declared incapable of serving his Majesty again. I had expected death, and his powerful friends did their utmost to procure a sentence, but the Admiral was a just though a rigid man, and well knew the character of my accuser,—the provocation was taken into consideration, and the services I had rendered during eleven years in storm and battle. I was dismissed. Mr. Elliott, the planter, offered me a home. I had saved considerable prize money. I was disgusted ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... be attributed entirely to the social ostracism, to the contempt felt by a "superior" for an "inferior" race, a contempt deeply rooted in some members of the Anglo-Indian society and displayed at the least provocation. This question of racial "superiority" and "inferiority" plays a more important part than is generally believed, even in England. Nevertheless, the natives (Mussulmans included) do not deserve contempt, and so the gulf between the rulers and the ruled widens with every year, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to state that Miss Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money again and again, and accompanied these applications with threats of worse pen-pricks if the requests were not acceded ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... God, and to advance his glory. He chiefly resorted to cottages, and country villages, instructing an infinity of poor people. His piety, his charity to the poor, his disinterestedness, his care of the sick and those in prison, endeared him to all: but nothing was so moving as his meekness, which no provocation was ever capable of disturbing. He conversed among all as their father, with a fellow-feeling of all their wants, being all to all. He was indeed naturally of a hasty and passionate temper, as he himself confesses; and we find in his writings ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... they certainly never were. Much the same may be said of the Indians of the Argentine and Uruguayan plains. The aggressive tactics here were by no means confined to the Spaniards. On the first landing of the conquistadores, these found themselves, after having given provocation in the first instance, cooped up within the flimsy walls of their new settlements, surrounded by fierce and vindictive enemies, who charged on them from time to time with bewildering fury, choosing as often as not for the purpose ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... knotted our sheets and blankets together to fashion a rough main-sail would be a tedious recital, for it was slow work. Our combined efforts made, I should say, about eight knots an hour but half of them pulled out at the least provocation. We persevered, however, and finally completed our task. Nor were we an instant too soon, for just as we had succeeded in getting the oars to stand upright and were anxiously watching our well-worn army blankets belly out with the steady trade wind, the sun, which for the last hour had hung ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... daughters. Gen. Ben Butler would have sent these young women to Ship Island, five times of a day. They were very bad-mannered and always sat apart at one end of the cloth, talking against the "Yankees." As there was no direct provocation to do so, this boldness was gratuitous, and detracted rather than added to my estimate of the heroism of Southern women. I have known them to burst into the office, crowded with blue-coats, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of another eminent writer, it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A serious translation of the same lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's "History of Music." Here are ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... eye. When a man of Ward's crew came down from the woods marked in that manner, it was not necessary for him to say that he had been discharged by the choleric tyrant who ruled the forest forces from Chamberlain to Seguntiway. The only inquiry was as to method and provocation. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... cried the attorney, in a tone rather ferocious from fright, and stamping on the path. But his summons and the provocation died away together in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... their lives in remote adventures, each perished at last near home in enterprises not suited to the splendor of their former exploits. Both died childless. And both, by the neglect of their affairs and the severity of their government, gave their subjects provocation and encouragement to revive their freedom. In all these respects the two characters were alike; but Richard fell as much short of the Swedish hero in temperance, chastity, and equality of mind as he exceeded him in wit and eloquence. Some of his sayings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... up. The deputation were to negotiate with the Government for a peaceful settlement on the basis of the Manifesto, accepting what they might consider to be a reasonable instalment of the reforms demanded. They were to deal with the Government in a conciliatory spirit and to avoid all provocation to civil strife, but at the same time to insist upon the recognition of rights and the redress of the grievances, to avow the association with Dr. Jameson's forces so far as it had existed, and to include him in any settlement that might be made. It was impossible ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... among these was Giles Taunton, the armorer He was a swarthy ruffian, who hid, beneath the guise of a jovial bonhomie, a cruel and unfeeling nature. He was ever ready to cuff and beat the boys, on the smallest provocation. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... preserved and stuffed skin there ought to be no fat to ooze out." Quite true, there ought not to be, but as skins are usually dressed with arsenical soap, the fat, instead of being dried up, is beautifully conserved, ready to run out at the slightest provocation, or be drawn out by the capillary attraction of the threads used in sewing up—another hard ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... it was the same. As soon as he mentioned the prison, doors of opportunity closed to him. Nobody wanted to employ a man tarred with that pitch. It did not matter why he had gone, under what provocation he had erred. The thing that damned him was that he had been there. It was ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... two great hostile groups was the more sincere in its championship of peace principles, must remain one of the riddles of the age. Bismarck had certainly given much provocation to France in the Schnaebele affair; but in the year 1888 the chief danger to the cause of peace came from Boulanger and the Slavophils of Russia. The Chancellor, having carried through his army proposals, posed as a peacemaker; and Germany for some weeks bent all her thoughts on ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... doubted that the proposal will be bitterly opposed, possibly (as happened in Mill's case with less provocation) with the raking up of past histories, about which the opinion even of those who have least the desire or the right to be pharisaical is strongly divided, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... been due merely to its incorruptibility. Hardly any Athenian tribunal was corruptible. But the Areopagus in very ancient times seems to have superseded the early systems of "blood-feud" or "blood-debt" by a humane and rational system of law, taking account of intention, provocation, and the varying degrees of guilt. The Erinyes, being the old Pelasgian avengers of blood, now superseded, have their dwelling in ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... whether her aunt was more composed; but Mrs Lascelles remained on deck. She was much pleased with Pickersgill; and they continued their conversation. Pickersgill entered into a defence of his conduct to Lord B—-; and Mrs Lascelles could not but admit the provocation. After a long conversation she hinted at his profession, and how superior he appeared to be to such a ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
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